by Tim Dorsey
“Where are they?” said Coleman.
“We lost ’em.”
A dozen blocks ahead, a limo drove slowly down a deserted access road. The visiting president reclined in the back, pouring brandy from a Swarovski crystal decanter. “Are you sure you know where you’re going?”
“Yes, sir,” said the driver, glancing back through the open partition. “Biscayne Boulevard should be coming up soon.”
They stopped at a red light.
“But I thought Biscayne was downtown, on the other side of the skyline.” The president looked out the window. “There aren’t even any streetlights. It’s totally dark—”
Bam.
The president pitched forward. A flying brandy glass conked his food-taster in the forehead.
“What the hell was that?”
The chauffeur looked in his side mirror. “I think someone rear-ended us.”
“Great.” The president’s head fell back against the top of his seat. “Just take care of it.”
The driver grabbed his door handle. “Be right back . . .”
. . . A Plymouth Road Runner rolled quietly along the access road.
“Still don’t see them,” said Coleman.
Serge pointed at a distant intersection. “There they are.”
“The light turned green, but they’re not moving,” said Coleman. “And there’s another car behind them.”
Under Serge’s breath: “Please don’t get out of the car. Please don’t get out of the car. Please don’t—”
“Look,” said Coleman. “The driver’s getting out of the car.”
Serge cut his headlights.
Ahead, the chauffeur walked to the rear of the limo. He glanced at the crumpled bumper, then over at the other vehicle’s two occupants walking toward him, almost featureless in the absence of light, except for respective silhouettes of dreadlocks and a shaved head. The chauffeur opened his wallet and fished for a foreign license. “You guys got ID?” He looked up. The answer came in the muzzle of a MAC-10 between his ribs . . .
Two blocks back: Coleman hit a joint and strained to see ahead in the darkness. “Doesn’t look like things are going so well for the chauffeur. What do you think will happen?”
“Someone’s probably going to die.”
“How do you know?”
“I just have this uncanny feeling.” Serge shook his head. “It’s such a tragedy.”
“Do you have this feeling because you’re the one who’s going to kill them?”
“That’s why it’s such a tragedy. I’m trying to eliminate negative energy from my life.”
“Look,” said Coleman. “There’s two bad guys this time.”
“At least that’ll make it more interesting.”
“How?”
“Because one will get to see the other go first.” Serge parked on the side of the road. “That’s always a conversation starter.”
Part I
A Spy Comes in from the Heat
Chapter One
Three Days Earlier
A field of tall, dry grass. Brown, hip level.
The grass rippled through the middle. Could have been wind, but it continued in a narrow, straight line.
Then serious rustling.
Whispers.
“Coleman, stop thrashing around.”
“I’m trying to, but I can’t see anything.” He crawled on hands and knees. “The grass is too high.”
“That’s the point.” Serge slid forward with expert stealth. “We’re hunting.”
“What are we hunting?”
“I already told you.”
“Was I fucked up?”
“You still are.”
“The streak continues.”
“Shhhhh! We have to approach downwind in complete silence.” Serge inched ahead. “Coyotes have acute senses.”
“Coyotes!” Coleman’s head popped up through the grass like a groundhog.
Serge jerked him back down by the hair.
“Ow!”
“Stay low or they’ll see you.”
“But I hear they bite. I don’t want that.”
“Not to worry.” Serge resumed his crawl, dragging a zippered bag. “I speak with the animals.”
“That’s why I don’t understand this hunting business.” Coleman marched on his elbows. “You’re usually so gentle with critters.”
“Still am.” Serge reached back in the sack. “That’s why I only hunt with a camera.”
“Now it makes sense,” said Coleman. “Except I wouldn’t think coyotes came within fifty miles of this place.”
“Neither would most people.” Serge dug through the bag again and removed an airtight foil pouch. “New migratory phenomenon from the state’s exploding development encroaching on their natural habitat—”
Serge froze with laser focus.
Coleman peered through the blades of grass. “What is it?”
“There they are.” He silently raised his camera. “Looks like three or four families. Which is good because in order to survive, they must rip their prey to pieces with coordinated ambushes from swarms of their adults.” Click, click, click.
Coleman’s head swiveled sideways. “Ambush.”
“It’s really something to watch.” Click, click, click.
“Do they have it on TV?”
“And miss it in person? Do you realize how fortunate we are to have this rare opportunity?” Serge stowed the camera. “Come on. We have to change direction and head that way.”
“Why?”
“To get upwind.” Serge crept forward. “So they can detect our scent.”
Coleman grabbed Serge’s ankle from behind. “You’re deliberately trying to get them to attack?”
“Of course. Otherwise what’s the point? . . . We’re upwind now.” Serge broke open the foil and removed a pump bottle.
“What’s that?” asked Coleman.
“Coyote bait.” He heavily sprayed the ground and grass. “In case they don’t like our smell, this stuff has the scent of their favorite food. And makes them more aggressive.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“I know what you’re thinking: Baiting a field is illegal. But only if you’re hunting with rifles.” Serge looked back. “The bigger ones are getting restless and beginning to circle. Means they’ve picked up our trail. We’ll need to move fast.”
Coleman scrambled over the top of Serge.
Serge continued spraying as he crawled. “Now to launch phase two of my—”
He was drowned out as a large jet flew low overhead and cleared a fence.
Coleman looked up. “I can’t believe all these coyotes live around the Tampa airport.”
“National Geographic sails down the Amazon and climbs the Matterhorn. Anyone can do that.” Serge dismissed the idea with a flick of his wrist. “But tracking wild predators in the middle of a major American city is the real adventure.”
“But how did they pick this place?”
“World-class litterbugs. The bastards attract coyotes to the city’s west side, where they’ve begun straying onto runways, imperiling both themselves and frequent fliers. Serge cannot allow that. Airport workers are firing blank guns to scare them off, but I have a better plan.”
“One of your secret master plans?”
“Actually an impromptu mini-master plan, not to be confused with the fleeting notion, half-baked idea, or emergency room spin-story for a masturbation mishap.”
“You had one of those, too?”
“No.” Serge pocketed his spray bottle. “My current plan simultaneously draws the packs away from Tampa International and discourages littering.”
“But who’s doing the littering?”
“Those guys we walked past on the way out to this field.”
“The ones in red jerseys by those pickup trucks with the gun racks?”
“That’s them,” said Serge. “And you know how I hate litterers. No circle of hell is too low.”
&nb
sp; Another roar in the sky.
“Whoa!” said Coleman. “That was really loud. Must be landing on a closer runway.”
Serge shook his head. “It’s the military flyover for the national anthem before the football game. Planes take off from the MacDill base in south Tampa and follow Dale Mabry Highway north. One of my favorite local traditions. I love to stand in the middle of the highway and salute as they fly above. We can get up now.”
They stood at attention and watched a quartet of F-16 Falcons blaze over the filling stadium.
“At ease.” Serge looked at his watch. “It’s almost kickoff.”
The pair reached the edge of the grassy field. Serge leaned down and extended the telescoping handle on his zippered bag, which was a suitcase.
“Look,” said Coleman. “There are those guys in the jerseys again.”
“So they are.” Serge rolled his luggage onto a dirt parking lot. “This is the new overflow parking area, which is how the whole coyote thing got started.”
Coleman followed with his own bag. “Jesus, look at all the trash! There was just a little when we arrived.”
Serge’s face turned redder than the jerseys ahead: guys whooping it up, faces and chests painted team colors, flipping burgers, chugging beers, rummaging fifty-gallon coolers on the tailgates of pickup trucks with Marlin hunting rifles in the window racks—“Buccaneers Number One!”—throwing garbage over their shoulders.
Serge and Coleman were noticed.
A fan in a red-and-silver Afro wig elbowed his pal. “Hey Ralph, get a load of the goofy guys with the luggage.” He cupped hands around his mouth. “What’s the matter? Get lost on your way to the airport? Ha ha ha ha ha . . .”
“Ha ha ha ha ha.” Serge laughed. “Actually we’re sales reps.”
“Sales reps?”
Serge nodded. “You know how companies are always dispatching employees to give away free samples outside stadiums?”
“You got free samples of some shit?”
Serge grinned. “Are the Bucs number one?”
“Fuckin’ A!”
Serge reached in his suitcase and pulled out an armload of foil pouches. “Bugs will eat you up something fierce in Florida, especially this side of the stadium with all the marshes.”
The Afro scratched his painted belly. “They’ve been biting all morning.”
“And what have you been doing about it?” asked Serge.
A plastic mug rose in the air. “Drink beer!” The Afro high-fived a man wearing a construction helmet with cup holders.
Serge rapidly flung foil pouches to the gang, left to right, like dealing cards. “Apply liberally to chest and arms, and your scratching days will be reserved for instant lottery tickets.”
They began spraying. “You say this stuff really works?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Gee, thanks, mister.”
The pair rolled suitcases until they reached a sidewalk along Dale Mabry.
“Serge, where’s the airport entrance?”
“Around the right, five miles.”
“Five freakin’ miles! That’s a long way to walk in this heat!”
“Won’t have to. Tampa is the strip-club capital of America. You’re never more than spitting distance.”
“What’s that got to do with walking?”
“Every time we land a national convention or Super Bowl, TV pundits mock us for our titty bars, but you never have to worry about where to find a cab in this city.” Serge gestured at a nearby building with a giant silver disk on the roof, where people paid extra for lap dances inside a flying saucer. “There’s the closest taxi stand.”
Coleman stared at a fleet of yellow cars on the other side of the road. “But why couldn’t we have just gotten a cab in the first place?”
“Because we’re about to take a great vacation to Miami for the fabulous Summit of the Americas.” There was a break in traffic, and Serge trotted halfway across the highway to the concrete median. “Except everyone else just goes to the airport. I like to take the path less traveled.”
An ambulance raced toward shrill screams from an overflow parking lot, and Serge and Coleman dashed across the street to a flying saucer.
Washington, D.C.
Office of Homeland Security.
Glass doors, card readers, metal detectors. Bright walls and shiny floors. The lobby displayed the department’s official seal of a bald eagle in a fiercely protective pose, giving citizens increased peace of mind on the approximate level of a smoke detector.
Malcolm Glide navigated a maze of hallways toward the center of the building, passing cordially through ascending security-level checkpoints. Even though he had no official identification.
Because Malcolm had no official title in Washington. And total access.
Because he was a puppet master. And no one was better.
In the last midterms alone, Malcolm was the brains behind the election of six senators and fifteen congressmen, despite voter registration heavily favoring their opponents. Malcolm was the ultimate political partisan. To money. Eleven of his candidates were Republican, ten Democrat.
Footsteps echoed through waxed halls. Glide dressed like his clients: tailored black suit, red or blue tie, banker’s haircut, and teeth-whitening treatments requiring ultraviolet beams and eye protection. At six one, his dark-haired pretty-boy looks had gotten him the pick at any sorority. In three decades since, they’d matured to nonthreatening leading-man standards, like Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart. He could have done TV commercials, but he did this.
Malcolm took another left down another hall. He had actually done one TV ad for aftershave.
Glide made a final turn in the last hall and entered the department’s inner sanctum. He cheerfully waved at a personal secretary and strolled into the director’s office without knocking. The aftershave was Hai Karate.
The director was on the phone. “I gotta go.” He hung up and smiled. “Malcolm!”—practically running around his desk to shake hands.
“Mr. Tide!”
“How many times have I told you to call me Rip.”
Rip detested Malcolm, but Glide held the strings to key votes that controlled his budget, so he loved him.
“Rip,” said Glide. “Hate to ask since you’re so busy guarding the safety of every man, woman, and child in America, but I need a big favor.”
“Name it.”
“I want you to raise the threat level.”
“What? Did you hear some overseas chatter? Is it the ports? Airlines?”
“No. Three of my candidates just dipped below forty in the polls. They’ve unfairly been linked to the latest oil spill in the Gulf.”
“Are they linked?”
“Yes. I need something to take over the news cycle.”
“No problem.” Rip reached behind his desk for the big vinyl threat thermometer. “Uh-oh.”
“What’s the matter?”
“We’re already at the highest threat level.” Rip pointed at the top of the thermometer. “Remember? You asked me to raise it last week when one of your candidates apologized to the oil company because they were the real victim.”
“So make up a new color.”
“I can’t. The colors are set.”
“You’re the director of Homeland Security. You can do anything you want.”
“Malcolm, don’t get me wrong,” said Rip. “I’d do anything for you. But my hands are tied. Red’s the top color. There’s nothing scarier.”
Malcolm opened his briefcase. “What about a darker red? I brought some color swatches.”
“You might have something there.” Rip grabbed a sample and held it up for comparison. “This one seems more upsetting.”
“Then it’s done.”
“I still don’t know,” said the director. “Two reds. They’re pretty close in shade. Won’t people get confused?”
Glide snapped his briefcase shut. “Confusion’s scarier.”
“You’re the exp
ert.”
Indeed, Glide was.
His motto: All politics is marketing. And in marketing, there are but two variables: product and salesmanship. Malcolm had the best of both worlds.
He’d cornered the market on fear.
And when it came to sales, Glide could package utter terror like a tit to a baby. During campaigns, it was his hottest seller.
It hadn’t always been that way.
Just a few short years earlier, the firm Glide founded, Nuance Management Group, was renowned throughout the nation’s capital for thorough policy research, unflagging accuracy, strident ethics—and losing a record volume of elections.
It changed overnight.
It was a Tuesday.
Four A.M.
Malcolm Glide sprang up from his pillow in a cold sweat. Heart pounding like a conga drum. Another nightmare about zombies. Except now they’d learned to walk faster.
Malcolm grabbed his chest. “Holy Mother! I’d vote for anybody who could stop that!”
The next morning, Malcolm charged confidently into the boardroom. “Throw away everything.” He walked to an easel and ripped down a chart of international exchange rates. “It’s all fresh.”
Murmurs around the conference table.
“We’ve been going at this completely wrong.” Glide crumpled the chart into a ball and threw it at a secretary’s head. “You know how we excruciatingly track swing voters, the base, independents?”
Various levels of nodding.
“Fuck that margin of error!” Glide grabbed a marker and scribbled rapidly on the washable easel. “Behold, our new business model.”
They stared in blank thought:
IT’S THE STUPID VOTE, STUPID!
Furtive glances across the room.
An intern dared raise his hand. Veterans gasped. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Malcolm pounded his fist on the table. “Everyone tries to get elected by leading. Instead we follow.”
“Follow what?”
“The emotions of the people.” Malcolm stood and began pacing. “They’re a massive disenfranchised class out there who feel abandoned.”
“That’s awful!”
“Tell me about it,” said Malcolm, spinning at the wall and heading back. “Millions of people across our great land who want nothing more than to be left alone and pursue their own happiness of believing mean-spirited bullshit. Except society has evolved away from ignorance. And that’s where we come in.”
