Pineapple grenade

Chapter Twenty-Two

Downtown Miami

A sheer, post-modern office building sat in the Brickell financial district.

Across the street:

Coleman repeatedly flicked a lighter for his joint.

“What’s the problem?” asked Savage.

“I think it’s dead.” Coleman kept flicking. “Serge, what are we doing here?”

“Just keep your head down or they’ll see us-before we want them to see us.”

“Are we spying?”

“Yes.”

“So this is part of your mission?”

“A different mission.” Serge kept a keen eye on the building. “I have an itch I need to scratch.”

“Itch?”

“I need sex,” said Serge. “If I go too long, I become irritable.”

“And this is why we’re hiding in these bushes?” Coleman looked down at Serge’s hands. “You’re going to do it right here?”

“Not that, ” said Serge. “It would be creepy. Just keep crouching down and looking for women.”

“But there are no women.”

Serge pointed. “There.”

The front doors of the building opened. A chatty group of attractive females spilled out, car keys in hand.

Coleman pocketed his empty lighter. “Who are they?”

“The meeting just finished.”

Serge leaped from shrubbery and strolled across the street. “Excuse me?” he asked a redhead. “What turns you on?”

“Dendrophilia.”

“What a coincidence,” said Serge. “Me, too!”

They left arm-in-arm.

“Excuse me?” Coleman asked a brunette.

“Get lost.”

“Will that turn you on?”

A half hour later, Coleman and Ted rummaged through a trash can, finding a book of matches with one left. Serge suddenly emerged from a landscaped park across the street. He ran back through traffic, pulling up his zipper.

Coleman struck a match that immediately went out. “Damn.” He looked up. “So what was she into?”

“Trees,” said Serge. “Luckily there was that park.”

“Trees?” said Coleman. “How does that work?”

“I think I need an ointment.”

Serge led them back to their hotel, scratching. “I remember a drugstore up the block.”

They turned left on Flagler.

“There’s a Walgreens,” said Coleman.

They were in and out in a flash.

A tall woman with jet-black hair exited a luggage shop. Putting away her checkbook, not paying attention. And crashed into Serge.

He reached down and picked up his small drugstore bag.

“Oh! I’m so sorry!” said the woman. “That was all my fault. Hope I didn’t break anything.”

“Just rash cream,” said Serge. “And it was definitely my fault. I always say that, even if it was your fault, because that’s the kind of gentleman I am. Not like the other guys who bump into women and, regardless of liability, try to cop a feel.”

“Serge.” Coleman tugged his arm. “Harold, right?”

“Shhhh! Can’t you see I’m talking to a beautiful woman who crashed into me and I’m turning it to my advantage with paralyzing charm, guilt manipulation, and previously applied deodorant?”

“Ask her what she’s into,” said Coleman.

“She’s not from the meeting! And she can’t know about that because most women consider waiting outside meetings a red flag, then go cold on you and spend the night at home with their cats eating ice cream and watching Meg Ryan movies.”

“Gee, Serge, you sure know a lot about women.”

“And they especially can’t know that you know a lot about them.” Serge turned back around with a nervous smile. “You didn’t hear any of that, did you? If you did, I was talking about this great Meg Ryan movie where she bumps into a guy on the street who she mistakenly thinks waits outside the meetings, but in a heartwarming twist turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to her. So where were we?”

“You have to let me make it up to you.” She adjusted a purse strap on her shoulder. “Can I at least buy you a drink?”

“No objection.”

“Wait a minute…” She stepped slightly forward and looked him over. “Do I know you?”

“I’m not yet a household name-”

Her eyes widened. “You’re Serge!”

“Or maybe I’m wrong.”

“Serge, don’t you remember me?” She tapped her chest. “Felicia, from the consulate. I’m the receptionist you asked to deliver that note. Sorry if I was aloof, but you wouldn’t believe all the crazy people who walk in off the street. I had no idea you were working with us.”

“I get it now.” Serge nodded with a knowing grin. “The old pretend-accidental bump-and-greet in the street. You’re the honey trap, sent to romance me and drop my guard. The next thing I know, we’re in bed and you secretly inject my butt with a lethal isotope.” He stopped and smiled again. “Okay, I’m game. Let’s play spy.”

She laughed and flirtatiously touched his arm. “I love a man with a sense of humor.”

“Women always say that so they don’t appear superficial,” said Serge. “But it’s only true if Brad Pitt is telling knock-knock jokes. Don Rickles eats alone.”

“There’s a place up the street I like,” said Felicia.

They walked three blocks to a newly opened bistro. The maitre d’ appeared with hands folded in front of his stomach. “Will it be dinner or the bar?”

“The bar,” said Serge. “We’re playing spy.”

The man gestured with an upturned palm. “That way. Enjoy.”

They entered the lounge, and Felicia hopped on a stool like it was a horse she’d ridden her whole life. “Serge, what’ll you have?”

“Water. Stirred, not shaken.”

Felicia never had to wait for a bartender. He stood before her at the ready.

“Perrier for my friend,” said Felicia. She ordered a fruity umbrella drink.

“What about me?” asked Coleman.

“And me?” said Ted.

“She didn’t bump into you,” said Serge.

“That’s fine,” said Felicia. “Whatever they want.”

Two hours later:

“Oh, Serge!..”

“Oh, Felicia!..”

“Faster! Harder! Faster!..”

Serge thrust like a stallion in a ritzy hotel room across from Bayfront Park.

“Oh, Serge! Whatever you do, don’t stop!”

“I think I can handle that.”

“Oh, yes! Faster! I’m almost there!..”

Serge went even faster.

“Oh God! Oh God! Say something horny!..”

“Knock-knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Brad Pitt. I brought my cock.”

“Oh God!..”

Behind his back, a hand with ruby nail polish clawed his shoulder blades. A second hand rose in the air, gripping a syringe with a glistening needle.

Miami International

An eight-seater prop jet took off from a short runway on a little-used corner of the airport. The all-white plane had no markings except a small tail number registered to a PO box in Key Biscayne. But it belonged to the U.S. government.

Binoculars followed the aircraft as it ascended into the clouds toward Florida Bay. The binoculars swung back to the foot of the runway as another pair of engines revved until the tower gave the go sign. The plane accelerated down the tarmac and lifted off in the same direction. Then another plane. And another, all banking south, with six more stacked up on the taxiway and others still arriving.

The binoculars lowered and hung by a cord around Oxnart’s neck. He rubbed his head. “Are all these planes ours?”

“No,” said Mandrake. “Maybe half, tops.” The agent held an intercepted shipping manifest out of Miami. As each plane departed, he checked off another destination.

“The congestion’s delaying our mission. I’ve never seen this part of the airport so busy.” Oxnart raised the binoculars again and panned the distance across an open expanse of runway, heat lines wavering up from pavement. Mirage puddles. Weeds through concrete cracks. A lone, lost jackrabbit. Twin tanks of jet fuel anchored next to a small, rusty hangar. A departing plane filled his field of vision.

“Where can all these other flights be coming from?”

Another takeoff. Then a high-decibel shock wave. The jackrabbit stood on its hind legs in the middle of the runway and looked around, hundreds of yards from safety in every direction. In rabbit thought: Fuck me.

Oxnart’s binoculars backed up.

“See something?” asked Mandrake.

He focused on the hangar at a thousand feet. “Uh-oh.”

“What’s the matter?”

Through high magnification, Oxnart watched another pair of binoculars staring back at him. “It’s Lugar. That son of a bitch must have intercepted our intercepted manifest.”

Across the runways, Lugar lowered his binoculars. “Oxnart. Shit. Must have gotten the manifest.” He turned to a case agent: “Priority dispatch, all operatives. We have company. Code red…”

The agent took notes. “Which red? The darker one?”

“Shut up. Just tell ’em to be careful.” Another jet roar. “Hit the ground fast and cover tracks.”

From opposite sides of the runway, Oxnart and Lugar aimed binoculars skyward as the last of the planes flew off in a loose pelican-like formation toward the sunset.

Meanwhile…

A shout in a ritzy hotel room across from Bayfront Park.

Serge jumped out of bed and grabbed his ass with both hands.

“What the hell just bit me?”

Then he noticed the dripping syringe in Felicia’s fist.

“I knew it!” Serge went for his pants bunched on a chair. And the gun in the pocket.

Felicia monitored her wristwatch.

Serge reached the chair. Then stumbled backward a couple steps. Stumbled forward. “Whoa, a little dizzy here…”

Felicia took him by the arm. “Why don’t you lie down in bed before you hurt yourself.”

“What did you stick in me?”

“That’s not important. It’s time to rest.”

“But I’m not tired.”

He fell facedown on the mattress.

Time passed.

Serge lay on his back. Eyelids finally cracked open a slit. Felicia dragged a chair to the bed: “That was just a little harmless truth serum. It’ll wear off soon, and you’ll be good as new. So let’s start with the basics. What’s your real name?”

He slowly licked dry lips. In dream-state slur: “Serge… Serge Storms.”

“Who do you work for?”

“People in need, future generations, endangered species, lost tourists, the disenfranchised underclass, strippers with hearts of gold trying to support a child on a single income…”

“What is your mission?”

“To save the republic, cheer on the home team, stay ahead of the curve, read the warning signs, respect my elders, support the troops, spend more time thinking about landfills, harness the untapped power of avoiding all your relatives, try not to fart around women…”

Felicia looked toward the syringe on the dresser. “Maybe I gave him too much.”

“Souvenirs, sunblock, sesquicentennial…”

Felicia sighed and looked at her watch again. Waiting for his gibberish to subside. “… Fancy fucking bathroom guest towels

…” Finally the drug fell within parameters. She turned back to the bed: “What do you know about the plot?”

“Plot? Let’s see, erratic time line, disjointed geography, arrive from Tampa, save Guzman, sink-or-float, blah blah blah, establish Scooter as the undependable wild card, introduce burned agent Savage as possible scapegoat, escalate CIA rivalry between Oxnart and Lugar as tension builds toward assassination at the Miami summit, some kinky stuff with a tree, bump into you, knock-knock…”

“Okay, that’s enough…”