by Tim Dorsey
Serge whistled. “If we armed all the windshield guys in Miami, you got an apocalyptic wasteland. Or more so.”
“They have no choice but to arm the rebels.”
“Why?”
“Because any regime bankrupt of even the slightest intelligent ideology needs to see enemies where there aren’t any.”
Serge nodded. “Glenn Beck.”
“These are volatile times for my country,” said Felicia. “It’s no secret that for decades, our government—make that the generals—has been on the take. First it was letting drug smugglers pass through. And now guns. Except the volume of the traffic is far more than the junta and rebels could use in ten lifetimes. It’s obvious that Costa Gorda has become a weapons pipeline and money-laundering haven for every tinhorn south of Mexico—and brings great shame to me and my homeland.”
“Shades of Noriega.” Serge placed a consoling hand on her shoulder. “But isn’t it good that at least the guns are moving on and not staying in your country.”
“No. It means more millions to skim for the generals, which means more power, which means they’re able to override any legitimate democratic vote of the people. That’s why the election of President Guzman worries so many.”
“He’s a good man,” said Serge.
“Incorruptible,” replied Felicia. “But he didn’t get elected without also being an expert politician. Everyone’s holding their breath over just how long his finesse can juggle the generals. Especially the generals.”
“And I thought our politics was rough.”
“I’m betting the military will eventually get too nervous and do something stupid, like a coup. Or a bullet.” Felicia dropped the cigar and crushed it out with her foot. “My country’s biggest hope is to expose the generals’ financial network to the world. Except that seemed impossible until now. We’ve got to follow this trail wherever it leads.”
“So you’re a patriot,” said Serge. “Even shorter life expectancy.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“You’re the one who mentioned a bullet.”
“But we’re way up here in Miami. What can happen?”
Suddenly a crash through a side window of the warehouse. Serge knocked Felicia to the ground and shielded her with his body. “Stay down!”
He pulled a .45 pistol from behind his back and twisted toward the window.
Someone was crawling through the small opening.
“Coleman!” yelled Serge. “What the hell are you doing in the window?”
“I think I’m stuck.” A grunt.
“You were supposed to stand lookout by the car.”
“I got lonely.”
Serge pointed the gun toward sunlight. “But the door’s wide open.”
A pause. “Serge?”
“Yes?”
“What am I doing in the window?”
“Talking to me.”
“Does Felicia have any weed?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m going to wiggle back out now,” said Coleman.
“Hope it works out for you.”
A grunting sound. Then Coleman thudded to the ground outside. “Ow.”
Felicia got up and brushed off. “We probably need to get moving.”
“What was that?” asked Scooter.
“What was what?” said Serge.
“Thought I heard voices.”
“I hear them, too,” said Savage. “Does Coleman talk to himself?”
“Yes,” said Serge. “But it’s the language of children raised in the forest by animals.”
From the rear of the warehouse: three knocks on a metal wall.
From the front: “Who left the door open?”
“Shit.” Felicia spun. “The back door! Hurry!”
They raced outside. Serge quietly eased the exit shut, just as the first backlit silhouettes slid the front doors the rest of the way open for a motorcade of white vans.
Felicia crouched behind the Plymouth. She looked up at the ventilation fan. Voices again: “We don’t have all day. Get busy with those crates.”
“The planes are waiting. It’s a tight window.”
Serge whispered sideways. “Recognize them?”
“The first sounds like Victor,” said Felicia. “The second’s familiar, but I can’t place it . . . Where are you going?”
“Follow me.” Serge crawled on hands and knees to the corner of the building. He flattened himself and peeked around the side.
“See anything?” Felicia slithered forward in the dirt for her own look.
“No, just the back end of a white van . . . Get down!”
“What is it?”
A trail of dust coming up the gravel road. Five black SUVs. Serge aimed a small digital camera. Click, click, click. The dark vehicles pulled around the front of the warehouse and disappeared. From the ventilation fan: the sound of car doors slamming.
“You’re late! . . .”
“I know the second voice now,” said Felicia. “It’s that Lugar character. His Miami station must be the one supplying Evangelista.”
“I’m new to this business, but I think this is a good time to split.”
“Unless we want to follow them . . .”
Building 25
A dozen tables pushed together. Agents breaking stuff open with pliers and hammers and razor blades.
“Where’s Bamberg?” asked Oxnart.
The sound of a car outside. “There he is now,” said an agent twisting the head off a dashboard hula girl.
Bamberg came through the door and dumped a box on an empty table.
“That the last of it?” said Oxnart.
“Except for what Lugar got to first.”
Another agent cracked open a snow globe with a leaping dolphin. “What are we looking for anyway?”
“Maps, account numbers, microfilm. Who knows?” said the station chief. “Just keep looking.”
An ashtray shattered. “But we’re running out of time.”
Oxnart checked his watch. “Damn. We’re just going to have to pack it up and take it with us in the vehicles . . .”
Meanwhile:
“Step on it!” said Felicia. “You’re going to lose them!”
“I’m doing my best,” said Serge.
“How hard can it be to follow five black SUVs?”
Serge leaned over the steering wheel. “Except we’re in Miami.”
“So?”
“Miami drivers are a breed unto their own. Always distracted.” He uncapped a coffee thermos and chugged. “Quick on the gas and the horn. No separation between vehicles, every lane change a new adventure. The worst of both worlds: They race around as if they are really good, but they’re really bad, like if you taught a driver’s-ed class with NASCAR films.” He watched the first few droplets hit the windshield. “Oh, and worst of all, most of them have never seen snow.”
“But it’s not snow,” said Felicia. “It’s rain. And just a tiny shower.”
“That’s right.” Serge hit the wipers and took another slug from the thermos. “Rain is the last thing you want when you’re chasing someone in Miami. They drive shitty enough as it is, but on top of that, snow is a foreign concept, which means they never got the crash course in traction judgment for when pavement slickness turns less than ideal. And because of the land-sea temperature differential, Florida has regular afternoon rain showers. Nothing big, over in a jiff. But minutes later, all major intersections in Miami-Dade are clogged with debris from spectacular smash-ups. In Northern states, snow teaches drivers real fast about the Newtonian physics of large moving objects. I haven’t seen snow either, but I drink coffee, so the calculus of tire-grip ratio is intuitive to my body. It feels like mild electricity. Sometimes it’s pleasant, but mostly I’m ambivalent. Then you’re chasing someone in the rain through Miami, and your pursuit becomes this harrowing slalom through wrecked traffic like a disaster movie where everyone’s fleeing the city from an alien invasion, or a ridicu
lous change in weather that the scientist played by Dennis Quaid warned about but nobody paid attention.” Serge held the mouth of the thermos to his mouth. “Empty. Fuck it—”
Felicia grabbed the dashboard. “Serge!”
He slammed the brakes with both feet. Then deftly tapped the gas, steering into the skid and narrowly threading the intersection.
The centrifugal force threw Felicia against the passenger door. “Did you see that moron slide into the bus stop? He almost got us killed!”
Serge floored it and stuck his head out the window. “See some snow, motherfucker!”
They continued south as the sun began baking rain off the streets with a familiar smell. Serge skidded through another accident-littered intersection, head out the window again. “Traction, pussy!”
“Serge, pay attention.”
“To what?”
Bam.
Slightly crumpled hood. Radiator steam. Felicia glared at Serge.
“Hey, he stopped short. This is what I’m talking about.”
“Thanks.” She stared out the window. “You lost them.”
“Not yet,” said Serge. “Back at the warehouse they mentioned airplanes, and from where we are, that narrows it considerably.”
Felicia pointed at increased steam blowing over the windshield. “But our car.”
“Just a paint scratch.” Serge threw it in reverse and looked over his shoulder. “Miami residents don’t know how to drive after accidents . . .”
A rotund man in a custom Tommy Bahama shirt gazed skyward from the runway. A Coast Guard rescue helicopter took off for a rescue. Another idiot trying to cross the sixty miles to Bimini in a single-engine fishing boat.
A damaged Plymouth sat outside a fence with the hood up. Serge refilled the radiator with a gallon jug. Coleman, Scooter, and Ted lay on their backs in the weeds, passing a joint and staring at clouds.
“Far out.”
Felicia stood next to Serge with binoculars, panning the Opa-locka Airport. “There’s Evangelista and the white vans. But I don’t see Lugar’s guys or their vehicles.”
“Don’t look now,” said Serge. He grabbed her for a deep, hard kiss as five black SUVs raced by and sped across the tarmac.
She pushed him away and raised the binoculars again. “A plane’s landing.”
“Lugar’s crew must have gotten tied up in traffic, too,” said Serge. “Told you we’d make it in time to see the shipment depart.”
Felicia watched the Beechcraft taxi to a stop and the stairs flip down. Men from the vans went to the plane. Doors opened on the SUVs.
“That’s weird,” said Felicia.
“What’s going on?”
She handed him the binoculars. “Take a look.”
“That is weird,” said Serge. “They’re unloading the plane. And they’re putting the crates back in the same SUVs.”
Felicia grabbed the binocular’s back. “Those aren’t the same SUVs.”
“Of course they are.”
She shook her head. “The others didn’t have the same window tinting. And I don’t see Lugar anywhere.”
“Tinting?” Serge clicked away with his digital camera. “Nobody’s eyesight is that good from this range.”
“Mine is and . . . wait, someone’s got a briefcase. He’s handing it to Evangelista.” She adjusted the focus. “I know that guy. It’s Oxnart, from the other CIA station.”
“I remember him from Building Twenty-five,” said Serge. “Lugar’s rival.”
“What the hell’s going on?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Three a.m.
Washington Avenue. South Beach scene in full swing.
Crowds hopped behind velvet ropes. Limos arrived.
Felicia and Serge strolled up the sidewalk, trailed by the bumbling trio. Scooter wore a hospital bandage on his left paw.
“I’m having trouble getting my head around this,” said Felicia. “Arms coming and going.”
“What’s the plan?”
“I’ll tell you when we get inside . . .”
The gang reached a corner and zigzagged into a dark alley. Four hard knocks on a steel door. A metal slit opened.
SPY.
Scooter Escobar raced for the back of the club and ordered drinks. Ted and Coleman joined him behind the laser gun. Felicia and Serge grabbed their regular table. The DJ waved down at her from his Blofeld perch and cued up a techo-dance version of the Johnny Rivers espionage classic.
Serge glanced at the Three Musketeers in the rear. “Let’s hope it goes better this time.”
“I think it will,” said Felicia. “They had that fear-of-God look.”
“Never stopped Coleman. He once broke arms on consecutive nights.”
“At least Escobar doesn’t think you’re a foe anymore,” said Felicia. “And they gave him a meaningless promotion for summit security to keep his uncle happy.”
“Is Scooter really necessary?” Serge uncapped a bottle of water. “He’s bad chemistry. Coleman and Ted don’t need any more encouragement.”
In the back of the club: “Check it out!” Scooter revealed an eight ball of cocaine under the table.
“Scooter’s part of the plan,” Felicia told Serge. “He’s our entrée with some of the people on the other side that I need in order to fill in the missing pieces. They’ve started meeting him on park benches trying to get intel on us.”
“And they trust him because he’s untrustworthy?” said Serge.
“That’s the picture.”
“. . . Secret agent man! Secret agent man! . . .”
Serge leaned forward on elbows. “So what’s next?”
Felicia unfolded a summit schedule on the table. “First order is protect Guzman. He’s heavily guarded and impossible to reach except for two openings. The grand summit ball, and the final big speech onstage at Bayfront Park. We cover those two events, and otherwise we’re free to continue tracking the arms.”
Serge sat back in his chair. “Uh-oh.”
“What is it?” Felicia looked around. “What’s wrong?”
He pointed toward the laser. “They going in the restroom together again. Let the show begin.”
“Serge.” She reached and held his wrist. “There’s something else important I have to tell you.”
“You can’t quit me, baby?”
“This part is really serious.” She squeezed his wrist tighter. “You might be in grave danger. I want you to think hard before continuing on with me.”
“. . . Odds are he won’t live to see tomorrow . . .”
“What’s to think about?”
“Some stuff Escobar forgot to mention after the last time they mined him for information. They were asking about you in the same breath as the Guzman plot. I’ve seen the pattern before. Honduras, Bolivia. Here’s how it happens: If a plot succeeds, the shooter will be dead within the hour. That might be you.”
“Except I’m not going to shoot anyone,” said Serge. “So I’m safe.”
She shook her head. “Doesn’t have to be the real shooter. Just a scapegoat. The proverbial lone gunman they’ve set up. With your criminal record and out-of-the-blue coziness with Guzman after the carjacking, you came to them on a platter.”
“That’s sounds too random.”
“Because it is,” said Felicia. “At first I thought the scapegoat was Savage—and probably he was. But you became a much better fit.”
“You knew Savage was in town?”
“The entire intelligence community knew. The guy’s a total screwup. That’s his specialty: the all-purpose patsy, taking the fall for shit across the hemisphere for so long we can’t remember. He thinks they burned him, but they’re just keeping him on ice until the next blame-trip.” Felicia signaled for another drink. “When he hit town last week, everyone was like, ‘Okay here it comes. Something big’s going down and the windshield’s hitting Ted again.’ Except it’s never been anything so big that he’d be eliminated. You may have just picked the worst
possible time to fill his shoes.”
“But I’m all about timing.”
Meantime:
In the restroom, a rolled-up twenty vacuumed a mondo line of Colombian Idiot Dust. Ted Savage snapped upright and grabbed his nose. “Fuck me!”
“My turn!” said Coleman. His face went down.
Escobar tugged Savage’s arm. “Check this mother out.”
“Holy cow! That’s a freaking cannon!”
“You like it?” Escobar turned the black, nine-millimeter pistol over in his hand. “New military model only issued to special forces. Even fires in mud and shit.” He ejected the clip and popped the top cartridge. “See the star formation on the tip of the bullet? Got an explosive charge, illegal everywhere. The bullet fragments like a tiny grenade, and what would normally be a tiny flesh wound to the shoulder will take an arm clean off.”
“How’d you get it?”
“Received a huge promotion.” Escobar held the gun to his face and stared down the barrel with his right eye. “Security for the summit. Guess they wanted the best.”
Back in the lounge, the DJ cranked Paul McCartney.
Felicia knocked back another shot. “. . . And you’ll need to be fitted for a tux.”
“What for?”
“The big Diplomats’ Ball at the summit tomorrow night.”
“You’re asking me out on a date?”
“. . . Live and let die! . . .”
“This part’s business,” said Felicia. “For Guzman’s safety.”
“But I don’t have any credentials. How will you get me in?”
“I can put us on the list. We’ll make a great couple.”
Serge pumped his eyebrows. “Then after that a real date?”
“If nothing goes wrong between now and the end of the ball.”
“What could possibly go wrong?”
“. . . Said live and let die! . . .”
Bang.
The restroom door crashed open. Two men came screaming through the lounge. Savage and Coleman ran up to the couple, crying and flapping their arms.
“Calm down,” said Serge. “What did you go and do now?” He looked around. “Where’s Escobar?”