by Tim Dorsey
“But we still have to park.”
“I hate to do this.” Serge cut the wheel. “Hold on to something.”
The Road Runner broke out of traffic, jumped the curb, and crashed through a chain-link fence. Serge downshifted and drove sideways along a forty-five-degree embankment beneath the overpass.
The police saw him, but with the traffic chaos, only the motorcycle unit could get to him, and they were tied up on escort duty. Bums and bottles scattered ahead of Serge’s front grille. He cascaded down a grass berm and skidded to a stop in the mushy edge of a retention pond. Driver’s door against a tree. Tires spun, spraying mud.
Serge removed the keys. “That’s as far as this train goes.”
1433 military time.
Bayfront Park.
Amphitheater.
Festive. Standing room only. A crushing sea of people in light clothing filled every inch and spilled down the esplanade. Disposable cameras raised in the air above heads. TV trucks. Balloons. Schoolchildren in native costumes, waving flags on little sticks.
On the opposite side of the street, in small, constitutionally roped-off squares, tiny groups of protesters quarreled with one another and thrust homemade signs at passersby: “IMMIGRATION NOW! ” “STOP IMMIGRATION! ” “FREE CUBA!” “NEED CONCERT TICKETS!”
A band played a national anthem that included flamenco guitars and bongos. A president approached the podium. He led a vibrant little country with no armed forces that Americans couldn’t find on a map. The president raised his hands to acknowledge the applause, then introduced the national soccer team that had just defeated Zimbabwe. Louder cheers . . .
Two people urgently pushed their way through the crowd without great success.
“How are we going to find the shooter with this mob?” Felicia checked the official schedule. “Guzman’s the sixth speaker.”
“I need to get someplace high and scope angles.” Serge looked around. “Over there. The roof at Bayside Market.”
“Hooters?”
“See that rifle barrel?”
“A sniper!”
“Yes, but one of ours,” said Serge. “Stay close and grab the back of my shirt. This’ll be rough going.”
The pair began plowing ahead. “Excuse me, excuse me . . .”
“Hey, watch it, fella!”
“What’s your deal?”
“Coming through. Excuse me . . .”
1438.
On the fifteenth floor of a downtown high-rise hotel, a room-service tray sat in the hall.
The guest hadn’t left the room since Tuesday. Lying on the bed, staring with patience at a textured pattern on the ceiling, and wondering about the tool that had been used to create it.
No complaints from his neighbors. No TV or sound of any kind. One of the few people who could go a week without speaking a word—not on the phone, not to the hotel guy delivering his food, not even to himself. He liked it.
The room remained dim with curtains pulled.
A cell phone vibrated on the nightstand.
He checked the text message.
“#.”
Thin leather gloves slipped over hands. The hands checked the tightness of the mounting bolts on a five-leg titanium stand that held a Galil 7.62mm Israeli sniper rifle. The cap came off the scope.
1441.
Serge and Felicia finally broke free from the suffocating mob and ran up an escalator.
A woman in tight orange shorts smiled. “Table for two?”
Serge flashed the credentials Glide had given him. “Which way to the roof?”
“That employee door to the kitchen and up the stairs.”
They took off again, jumping two and three steps at a time, reaching the roof with clothes that smelled like buffalo wings.
A two-man tactical team heard the access door crash open. The one not manning the rifle swung and aimed a pistol. “Freeze! Both of you!”
Serge held his badge high and ran toward them. “Government agent.”
“Stop right there. Let me see that.”
The one with the rifle glanced over. “Who are they with?”
The spotter studied the laminated photo ID with a bar code. “OCI.”
“OCI?” said the marksman. “I’ve never met one of them before. What the hell are they doing here?”
The other handed back the badge. “What are you doing here?”
“Got an intel intercept. Thirteen hundred hours. Assassination plot on President Guzman.”
“We haven’t heard anything.”
“Just came in,” said Serge. “Looks like freelance flew into town. I’m guessing one of those windows across Biscayne.”
“You mean one of those thousand?”
“Got an extra pair of binoculars?” asked Serge.
They began scanning facades of bright, reflecting glass.
The spotter finished one bank tower and went to another. “When’s Guzman speak?”
Serge worked his way down an office building. “Sixth.”
“I think it’s too early to find him,” said the spotter. “If this guy’s any good, he’s not going to open the window until Guzman’s at the podium.”
“What can it hurt?”
Down on the street, motorcycles revved, lights flashed. Police on foot opened the gates for more limos, including one with the national seal of Costa Gorda.
The dignitaries were met backstage at the amphitheater in a large, open-air tent. Handshakes, champagne, caterers circulating with shiny trays. Stereo speakers piped in the live program from the stage, a joke about sugarcane export policy.
Across the street, in a fifteenth-floor hotel room, a cell phone vibrated.
A hand in a leather glove flipped it open to a text message:
“!”
The cell flipped closed. The room’s guest walked over to the window.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
1503
Binoculars made another sweep from the roof of a building full of chicken, beer, and breasts.
“This isn’t good,” said Serge.
“We still have at least an hour,” said the spotter. “Three more speakers before Guzman.”
Serge took a full breath and lowered his binoculars. Thinking. Eyes wandered the teeming summit grounds. Families, faces, food carts. The stage and the next marching band assembling below the side steps.
Serge’s eyes stopped. “Uh, what’s that tent?”
“Where?” asked the spotter.
“Down behind the stage.”
“Oh, that’s the secure greeting area.”
“Shit!”
“What’s the matter?”
Serge quickly raised the binoculars and shortened focus. “It’s open-air. I can see everybody. Including Guzman. And if I can see him . . .” His binoculars swung back across the street.
The spotter followed suit. “The shooter’s not going to wait for the speech?”
“The podium shot is Hollywood stuff,” said Serge. “Would you wait?”
They started again with the nearest line of buildings, entire hotel windows filled their fields of vision. A curtain opened.
“Think I got something,” said the spotter
“What is it?”
“That one, fifteenth floor, third from the south.”
Serge locked in with his own binoculars and watched a couple rip off each other’s clothes and put on costumes from the Napoleonic Wars.
“Sorry,” said the spotter.
More panning. More open curtains. More personal choices. Binoculars reached the end of the floor and paused again. In a circular, high-magnification view, another pair of curtains, but these were barely parted. The window behind them opened six inches.
“This looks interesting,” said the spotter.
“Where?” asked Serge.
“Third room from the end.”
“That’s him,” said Serge. “Looks like an Israeli Galil seven-point-six-two. When did the window open?”
“Just
a few seconds ago.”
“He’s going for the shot now! Take him out!”
Serge kept his binoculars trained on the window. “What are you waiting for? Take him out!”
The spotter and Serge simultaneously looked over at their own sniper, slumped with an entry wound between the eyes.
“What the—!”
A tiny explosion with a fine mist of blood. Then the spotter toppled over from a bullet through his forehead.
Serge glanced quickly at the hotel, then grabbed Felicia by the arm and pulled her down flat below the lip of the roof. Another tactical round flew through the space where they had just been and pierced the coils of a rooftop air-conditioning unit.
“Downstairs!” Serge led her scrambling on hands and knees across roof pebbles to the access door. He reached up for the knob just as another slug punctured the metal a few inches from his hand. They tumbled into the stairwell and ran down to the street.
“What now?” said Felicia.
“To the hotel!”
“That’ll take too long.”
“Anything else will take longer. And Guzman’s still exposed in the tent.”
They sprinted through the marketplace, hurdling police barricades and darting between limos on Biscayne Boulevard. Into the hotel lobby and onto the elevator.
Serge’s hands shook impatiently as he stared up at slowly ascending numbers. Ten, eleven, twelve. “Come on!” . . . finally . . . fifteen. They jumped out and dashed down the hall.
A maid stuffed soiled towels in her cart.
“Federal agent!” Serge flashed his badge. “Open this room! Now!”
“No inglés.”
Serge saw her universal magnetic door key hanging from a string on the side of the cart. He snatched it and pulled his pistol.
The maid screamed and ran off in a manic duck waddle.
Serge held the card over the slot. His other hand gripped the gun. Hearts pounding. He turned to Felicia, already poised with her own weapon. “Ready?”
She nodded fast, eyes boring through the door.
Serge slipped the card down. Green light. They burst in.
“Don’t move!” yelled Serge.
Silence.
Empty, like it had never been slept in.
Felicia swung her gun in the bathroom. Nothing. “Sure we got the right room?”
“Positive. Window and curtains open a half foot.” Serge knelt on the carpet. “And look: rug indentations from the feet of the rifle stand. He was here all right.”
“Now he’s gone.” She ran to the window. “And Guzman’s still out there.”
She bolted from the room, and Serge chased her onto the elevator.
Doors opened in the lobby. She started running for the entrance, but Serge grabbed her from behind. “He would have gone out the back.”
They ran around the pool and through a gate to the parking lot.
“What are you stopping for?” asked Felicia.
“Look.”
A stream of thick red blood dripped from the corner of a Dumpster. Serge pushed the lid open. “This shortens our search considerably.”
“You sure that’s him?”
“Recognize his face from the binoculars across the street. And those are shooting gloves.”
Felicia looked inside. “Hey, that’s the same guy who killed the reporter by the river—and tried to kill me. What the hell’s going on? Why’s he dead?”
“The penalty for failure. He followed standard procedure by clearing out once the sniper nest was compromised. And his bosses followed procedure by cutting ties.”
“But what about Guzman?”
“Safe,” said Serge. “Standard procedure also calls for canceling the mission after the first miss. Until next time, when they try again somewhere else.”
“We better get over there anyway,” said Felicia. “Still haven’t reported the two men we lost on the roof. Since we still don’t know the full picture, it’s probably best I pass it through my own country’s security detail.”
“Hold up,” said Serge. “I haven’t had a chance to ask. Since there’s a break in the action.”
“What?”
Serge dropped to a knee. “Will you marry me?”
“Serge! This is a crazy time!”
“Doesn’t that mean no?”
“No, it means it’s a crazy time.” She pointed. “There’s blood streaming from a Dumpster behind you. Whatever happened to a quiet dinner?”
Serge stood and shrugged at the growing red puddle. “It’s our culture. This whole go-go lifestyle.”
1517
A SWAT team swarmed a rooftop at Bayside Market. A walkie-talkie: “Team three is down! Repeat, team three is down!”
The bulletin came over the radio in a black SUV as it screeched up to a barricade on Flagler. “We’ve already lost men,” said Agent Lugar. “He could be anywhere, so fan out. And don’t trust Oxnart. We don’t know what side of the play he’s on.”
Four doors opened. Agents took off running in six directions.
Three blocks the other way, another black SUV. Doors opened. “Move out!” yelled Oxnart. “And keep an eye for Lugar’s team . . .”
A Volkswagen Beetle pulled up behind the SUV. Twelve men got out wearing red berets.
1522
Serge and Felicia walked back across Biscayne Boulevard at a more leisurely pace, waving credentials at checkpoints. This time they avoided the impassable crowd by walking up the VIP drive next to slow-rolling limos and entering the rear of the tent.
A smiling caterer. “Champagne?”
Felicia shook her head and looked around. “I don’t see the president.”
“Relax.” Serge aimed an index finger. “He’s up there. Back of the stage. Must be on next.”
The current speaker gave a commendation medal to his minister of coffee.
“I see our head of security,” said Felicia. “Wait here . . .”
Another caterer with a bow tie. “Hors d’oeuvre?”
“Oooooo!” said Serge. “Do I see water chestnuts in there? That’s always a fearless statement!”
The caterer glanced back dubiously and walked away empty-handed.
Serge munched snacks from a full silver tray resting on his left arm. He strained for a peek at some kind of loud commotion back at the security checkpoint.
“Whoops. Losing a little balance again . . .” Someone fell over, taking down one of the potted palms flanking the entrance. Then a tent pole. The corner of the vinyl roof collapsed on minor cabinet members from Paraguay.
Serge finished chewing. “Coleman?”
Someone else at the checkpoint. “It’s okay, fellas. He’s with me.”
“He’s stinking drunk,” said one of the guards, replanting the tent pole. He sniffed the air. “And your breath doesn’t smell so good either.”
Ted Savage flashed a smile and his freshly laminated badge.
A second guard checked it. “Go on in.”
“Ted!”
“Serge!” He ran over. “What are you doing here?”
“Was about to ask you the same question.”
Ted held up the badge again. “Just got reinstated. Someone canceled my burn notice.”
Coleman grabbed two glasses of champagne from a passing tray.
Another water-chestnut delight went in Serge’s mouth. “But why are you at the summit?” Munch, munch, munch.
Ted leaned to whisper. “My first comeback mission.” Wink. “It’s a secret. I’m on backup security.”
“It’s safe with me . . . I need to find Felicia. Will she be surprised to see you.”
He walked off.
“Don’t be long,” Ted called after him. “Coleman’s about to become a two-man job.”
“I usually just roll him under a table,” said Serge. “These have the long tablecloths that reach the ground, so he won’t be bothered.”
A tap on Ted’s shoulder. He turned. “Can I help you?”
One of the g
uards from the checkpoint. “Did your badge say ‘OCI’?”
Ted smiled again and held it up.
The guard handed him a half-dozen pages. “These just printed out in the mobile command post. Flash bulletin. Color cartridge was low, but I think the threat level’s a new red.”
Two blocks away, a powder-blue ’54 Skylark pulled up in the alley. Mahoney looked over his shoulder at his office mates. “Do your thing.”
1538
Serge returned with Felicia. He looked at Ted’s hands. “What’s that?”
A rare sober expression from Savage. “You need to see these.”
Serge gave him a look, then grabbed the pages and began reading.
17 DEC—1518—MIAMI SECTOR
URGENT
Echo: Team Bravo neutralized
Assets: Two, location Zulu
Echo: Unknown Mark. Unknown Flag. Delivery: Israeli Galil 7.62. Neutralized.
Assets: Same
Protocol: Whiskey Tango
Germination: Immediate
ALL SECTIONS: TOP PRIORITY
Serge rapidly flipped through the rest of the bulletin. He raised his head with a blank stare. “This is the two-man team we lost on the roof of Hooters.”
“Yeah,” said Felicia, pointing behind her. “I reported it in.”
“Look at the time stamp on the bulletin,” said Serge. “It’s before we even got back across the street.”
“So someone else found them before I could report. So what?”
Serge turned to the third page. “Here’s a suspect photo-grab from the surveillance cameras in the restaurant. My head’s turned, but it’s a pretty good likeness of you.”
“It would make sense that they got that out,” said Felicia. “Of course we’d be suspects before they knew who we really were. But I’m sure it’ll all get cleared now that I filled in my people.”
“How do we clear this up?” Serge turned to another page. Details on the body of a would-be assassin found in a fifteenth-floor hotel room with his rifle still in its stand.
“That must be a mistake.” Felicia looked at Serge in confusion. “His body was in the Dumpster. And the rifle was gone. You were there. Am I losing my mind?”
Serge didn’t answer—simply turned to the final page and another photo.
“Hey, it’s me. And you’re in the background,” said Felicia. “Remember? When I was standing in the assassin’s hotel room window and looked down to see if Guzman was still safe in the tent? But that’s a really long-range shot. Who could have taken it? . . .” She took a step back. “What the fuck’s happening?”