Pineapple grenade

Chapter Nine

The Royal Poinciana Hotel

Room 318.

Florida sunlight blazed through broken blinds.

The bed hadn’t been turned down.

A fully clothed man lay on top of the covers with limbs twisted in various directions as if he’d fallen off a roof.

Eyelids fluttered in the harsh light.

The man pushed himself up with a groan. Blood on the front of his shirt. Where’d that come from? He went to get off the bed and fell to the terrazzo floor. He stood up and staggered toward the bathroom for a routine vomit to get a fresh start on the day. Then three aspirin and a chase of what was left at the bottom of the Jack Daniel’s.

He coughed and felt a pain in his right side. The man raised his shirt and found a stack of bruised ribs. That’s weird.

He walked to the window and shielded his eyes for a view of banks, a monorail, and the ocean.

“Where the hell am I?”

A look around the room. No remote control. His right hand turned the volume knob, clicking the TV on. A commercial for restructuring consumer debt. He went to the dresser for clues. A taxi receipt, gum, room key, airline boarding pass. A wallet with no ID, no credit cards, and fifty-six dollars. Three passports, all the same face. Chad Utley, Ireland; Roland Dance, Bahamas; and the real one issued by the United States.

The TV: “… Dignitaries continue arriving as the Summit of the Americas returns to Miami…”

A whapping sound from the unbalanced ceiling fan. It morphed into a louder whapping outside from a news helicopter on its way to a seven-car pileup on the Don Shula.

The man walked to the window and peeked out the blinds again.

“Miami… Shit… I’m still only in Miami.”

He noticed a brown paper bag in a familiar shape, opened another bottle of Jack, and took it back to bed with him. Along with the authentic passport.

He took a slug, opened the passport, and examined the photo of a younger self:

Ted Savage, international persona non grata.

Ted had worked as a data analyst in the U.S. embassy in Costa Gorda. His CIA cover.

Costa Gorda was a success story of democracy.

Too much for some people.

The volcanic soil was rich down there, and the Caribbean nation exported impressive amounts of tropical fruit, coffee, and, of course, bananas. All of it shipped by American corporations with long-term land leases.

Fernando Guzman became president three years ago after a spotless election. Church bells rang. Firecrackers.

It was the kind of freedom certain people in Washington love to celebrate, except when it happens. Guzman had gotten the notion he was independent.

“As my first official act, I’m announcing wage reforms. Minimum two dollars a day.”

Hit the export companies where it hurt. Phone calls. Campaign donations.

The companies needed to bend Guzman to their will. Which meant a CIA boot print in the country. And payments to the generals in case a coup was required. And in that case, the generals would need an enemy, real or imagined, against which to rally the populace.

Which meant rebels.

They actually existed. All fifteen of them. Camped in the mountains wearing Che Guevara T-shirts, smoking potent dope, and holding Marxist poetry slams.

The government knew where they were and left them alone because they were harmless and unworthy of the trouble, like Deadheads who remain in the field six months after the concert.

“Pepe, I’m hungry.”

“So get some food.”

“I think we’re out.”

“Did you check the ammo boxes?”

“Just crumbs… pass that spliff.”

“Guess we have to go back down to the village”-where they posed for novelty photos with the tourists, in trade for chickens and vegetables.

“ Viva la revolucion!.. More beans please.”

Meanwhile, President Guzman remained unyielding.

Time for hardball. And overnight, the ragtag mountain band of clowns became a full-fledged insurrection. At least on the local news.

Deep in the sanctum of CIA headquarters: “Are they really a threat?”

“No.”

“Then do something.”

They activated Savage. They picked him because he knew the terrain.

In the bars: “Senor Ted! What will you have?”

“Whiskey. Dos.”

In the brothels: “Senor Ted!”

“Is Conchita on tonight?”

In the alleys: “Special for Senor Ted. Forty dollars.”

“Forty an ounce! When did prices go up?”

In the gutters: “Senor Ted. This is the policia. Time to wake up and let us take you back to the embassy.”

“Wha-? Oh, thanks, Paco. Here’s twenty for each of you.”

They told Ted to write a report: Investigate the impending Communist takeover by a massive rebel force in the mountains.

So up the mountains Ted went, as he had done so many times.

A rustle in the brush.

Pepe jumped up, aiming an empty gun. “Who goes there?”

“Don’t shoot. It’s me.” He stepped into the rebel camp.

“Senor Ted!”

Savage held up one hand. “I brought rum.” Then the other. “And weed.”

“Arriba!”

He came back and wrote the report. He fucked up. He told the truth: The country’s soccer celebrations were a bigger threat.

Even worse, he leaked it to the press, just like he’d been told.

Disaster.

More phone calls. Discredit the messenger.

Two days later, all the networks went big with background dirt on the data analyst who had authored the “erroneous” report. Surveillance photos from the brothels and gutters. Almost as an afterthought, one cable commentator dropped what he pretended to be an idle comment. The report’s author was CIA.

Outed.

They reeled him home.

No place to go, so he went places. Kentucky Derby, New Year’s in Times Square, Mardi Gras. He didn’t remember flying to Miami.

But now here he was. Savage lay back in his bed at the Royal Poinciana with a wet washcloth on his forehead and a bottle on the nightstand. “At least I won’t get mixed up in any more trouble at this fleabag joint.”

Two floors below, Serge led Coleman into the lobby. “Here’s our hotel!”

Biscayne Bay

Key Largo is commonly thought to be the beginning of the Florida Keys. But that’s just the ones with the bridges.

Unconnected to land, stringing northward from Largo like little beads, are a scattering of small, mostly uninhabited islands that reach almost to Miami. Soldier Key, Sands Key, the Ragged Keys, Boca Chita, Elliott, Rubicon.

A forty-foot cigarette boat confiscated by the DEA departed Convoy Point and raced south across the bay. A giant rooster tail of salt water and foam sprayed behind the stern, its bow crashing over the swells.

Malcolm Glide held on to anything he could. “You’ve driven these things before?”

“Million times,” said Station Chief Duke Lugar. “I just hope we don’t have any leaks.”

Malcolm looked around the deck.

“Not the boat,” said Lugar. “Our operation. I’ve got my neck way out.”

“Don’t sweat it,” said Malcolm. “We’re airtight. How are the men coming?”

“Hungry for action.”

A dotted line of mangroves came into view on the horizon. Lugar cut the wheel starboard, running parallel to the islands. “Fifteen minutes,” said the agent. “I need to ask you something. Pretty sensitive.”

“What is it?” asked Malcolm.

“We got a loose end in surveillance chatter that I can’t seem to figure out,” said Lugar. “Was hoping you could help.”

The boat crashed down hard over a larger-than-usual wave rising from a shoal, knocking both men forward. Which meant shallower water, which meant they were getting close.

“So what’s this loose end?”

“Could be a code name. Know anything about a Florida operative named Serge?”

“Serge?” said Glide. “Doesn’t ring any bells. Why? What have you heard?”

“Picked him up on routine detail near the airport.” Lugar pulled back on the throttle and threaded a coral channel. “At first we thought he was freelance, but it’s beginning to look like he’s working for Oxnart.”

“Oxnart?” Glide knew all about the jealous rivalry between the station chiefs, because he’d personally nurtured it for leverage. He grabbed a railing as the boat took another jarring bounce. “In what capacity is this Serge?”

“Attached to the Costa Gordan consulate. Extra security for the summit,” said Lugar. “But something’s not right. I don’t trust him.”

Glide smiled to himself: You mean you don’t trust Oxnart. “So what about him’s not kosher?”

“Just this feeling I have. He suddenly shows up out of nowhere and foils an assassination against President Guzman.” Lugar eased the throttle down to idle speed. He turned to Glide. “Did you have anything to do with hooking up Serge and Oxnart?”

“Me?” said Glide. He wished he did, the way it was under Lugar’s skin. “Probably someone higher in the Company. You know Oxnart’s talented and moving up fast.”

Lugar clenched his teeth, edging the speedboat’s bow into soft sand twenty yards from the shore of a small, unnamed island. He threw out the anchor. “This is as far as we go. It’s not the kind of place that’s got a pier.”

“What kind of place is it?”

“A spot we use from time to time.” The agent took off his shoes and hopped over the side in a foot of water. Malcolm followed as they splashed toward a break through the mangroves. In the distance, faint yelling and gunfire.

“You sure everything’s airtight?” said Lugar. “Congress made these arms deals explicitly illegal. Not to mention if they found out what we’re doing out here.”

“I’ve taken care of everything,” said Malcolm. “You just do your part.”

Lugar splashed ahead in the shallowing water. “And it will really hit the fan if that geology report gets out-”

Glide grabbed him by the arm. “Where’d you hear about a geology report?”

“I just…” Lugar read the telegraph in Malcolm’s eyes and caught himself. “What geology report?”

Malcolm released his arm. “That’s better.”

They reached the shore. A trail opened up, and the pair hiked through light brush until they found an open field.

All manner of menacing activity: guys with olive face-paint firing at silhouette targets, bayoneting straw bags hanging from trees, crawling through the live-fire obstacle course.

Malcolm looked around. “Did we bulldoze this land?”

“No,” said Lugar. “About a century ago it used to be a pineapple farm. Most people don’t know it, but back then America got almost all its pineapples from these islands.”

A trainee in a foxhole lobbed something.

No sound.

“The grenade didn’t go off,” said Malcolm.

“About half don’t because they’re leftover army surplus from the Second World War,” said Lugar. “We took what we could get.”

“You mean the so-called pineapple grenades because of how the casings were scored?”

Lugar smiled. “Ironic.”

“So when does the party begin?”

“They’re flying out tonight,” said Lugar.

Glide began walking toward the obstacle course. “Where’d you find these guys anyway?”

“Most worked out of front companies in warehouses around the airport. The rest were at the dog track.”