No Sunscreen for the Dead

by Tim Dorsey

  “Worked like a charm,” said Judy. “Some young guys with beards befriended us at a coffeehouse after a march. They asked how we felt about Cuba and Che Guevara and Karl Marx. We must have given all the right answers because they took us out to another protest that night. And then came the hardest part. The test. They gave us a Zippo lighter and told us to burn the American flag. Isn’t that the entire mixed-up sixties in a nutshell? We had to burn the flag to stand up for the flag? Anyway, after we did that, they were convinced and recruited us.”

  “But here’s where it gets really complicated,” said Ike. “You think your head hurt before?”

  “I’m already at the Complicated Party,” said Serge. “Hit me!”

  “The Soviets thought we were doing such a great job that they called us in and offered us a plum assignment: counter-intelligence.”

  “What’s that mean?” asked Serge.

  “They knew that the FBI was also infiltrating the war movement, so they asked us if we could infiltrate them,” said Judy. “We became triple agents.”

  “Is that even a thing?” asked Serge.

  “That’s the spy world for you. Nobody trusting each other until it gets so convoluted you spend half your energy chasing your own tail. It became so ridiculous that I swear I thought there were no protesters at the meetings at all, just FBI and KGB reading bad poetry.”

  “I don’t see the problem,” said Serge. “You performed a noble service for your government.”

  “The problem is, it’s a world of secrecy and wholesale lack of trust,” said Ike. “If the Bureau asks you to go undercover, you become the subject of routine security checks. The Soviets were even worse. If they think you’re really loyal, they’ll ask you to infiltrate. Then, because you’re infiltrating, they flag you as a loyalty risk because you might turn sides.”

  “It all came to a head the day we were walking down Flagler Drive in Miami. Broad daylight,” said Judy. “A van pulled up, and these guys in ski masks snatched us off the street and sped away.”

  “Holy shit!” said Coleman. “Did they kill you?”

  “Will you shut up?” Serge turned back to the couple. “Sorry about that. What happened?”

  “It was our guys,” said Ike. “They’d just received an imminent threat warning that we might be marked for assassination.”

  “The Soviets?”

  Ike nodded. “Either they thought we’d defected to the Bureau or, just as bad, that we were about to be arrested, which they couldn’t allow because by then we knew too much about their operation over here.”

  “Jesus.” Serge leaned back in his chair. “At first glance, nobody would ever guess you were capable of leading such a life. Didn’t mean anything bad by that.”

  “No offense taken,” said Judy. “That’s when they set us up with new identities. Our real name is Mulroney. We worked in a hardware store in Topeka, fish packers in Big Sur, a syrup bottler in Burlington, and too many others to mention, until we dropped anchor here. Nobody realizes how many Americans have to be hidden within their own country because foreign bad guys don’t stop at our borders.”

  Ike nodded. “Just look across the lake.”

  Chapter 31

  The Next Morning

  A Nissan Versa remained under the speed limit as it zigzagged west across Tampa. Eyes darting from mirror to mirror.

  Panic time.

  Benmont Pinch had spent the last week holed up in a sub-dive motel with dirty linens, eating delivery pizza and jumping at every sound. He felt the walls closing in. Time to eject and put some distance between himself and whatever was happening.

  White fingers strangled the steering wheel, and all the mirrors were checked again.

  “I’m not cut out for this,” Benmont Pinch told himself.

  Benmont didn’t realize it, but he was uniquely cut out. His job had provided the skill set. Benmont disabled his phone’s GPS locator, and made no calls that could ping off towers. He avoided toll roads and only paid with cash. He wore baseball caps pulled down low to thwart facial-recognition programs. He detoured through neighborhoods to avoid traffic cameras. Not the ones that catch people running red lights. The other ones, unobtrusive in white boxes, on tall poles sitting farther back from the traffic lights, which digitally recorded license plates, matching them to lists of stolen cars, fugitives, and anyone else the government felt like chatting with.

  The big trick now was getting across Tampa Bay. The bridges were all watched, so he looped over the top by land, into the rural cow and horse pastures of central Pasco County, then back south into the beach communities along the Gulf of Mexico.

  Another tense check of the mirrors. So far so good.

  But what was going on? A murdered boss and lawyer, plus federal agents trying to both protect him and kill him. That last part meant if he trusted the wrong person, he could end up dead, so he didn’t trust anyone. Why did he have to come up with that stupid theory? Even Benmont had thought it was half-baked at first. Not anymore. Benmont didn’t have a plan, but he had a destination, which was plan enough for now.

  First things first.

  Benmont crossed over a strip of water and turned south onto Gulf Boulevard. He suddenly snapped his fingers. The Nissan pulled into an independent convenience store, parking around the side to shield his license plate from the surveillance cameras. He went inside and bought a disposable cell phone for fifty bucks. He dialed from his car.

  “Sonic? It’s me, Benmont.”

  “Benmont! You should see the chaos over here! Where are you?”

  “I can’t say on this line.”

  “The FBI has been asking all kinds of questions.”

  “I need you to trust me,” said Benmont. “And you can’t trust the FBI.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to need your help soon. I have nobody else I feel safe talking to. And you can’t tell anyone I’ve contacted you. I’ll call again soon.”

  “Benmont—!”

  Click.

  The Nissan pulled up to a series of three mom-and-pop motels. The first two needed ID and a credit card to register, so he quickly left. This third happily took cash without questions. He backed into a parking space. Again, the license plate.

  Benmont lay down on top of the bedspread and stared up at a ceiling that was textured in 1956. No sound except the rattling air conditioner. Okay, relaxing was not an option. He got up and parted the curtains, looking across the wide beach on Treasure Island. The sun still had an hour left. Think, think!

  He decided to turn on the old tube TV.

  Benmont jumped.

  His face filled the local news. “Authorities are still searching tonight for this man, believed to have passed along classified intelligence information to unknown foreign agents. A recent FBI shootout at his workplace left one dead, and he is to be considered armed and dangerous. Do not approach . . .”

  He quickly turned the TV off, taking fast breaths until he calmed. Then something else made Benmont jump again.

  His disposable phone was ringing. Only one person knew the number. He checked the caller ID. Not Sonic. He didn’t dare answer, or authorities could triangulate his location.

  Benmont got back in his Nissan and drove. A few miles south, he found a much larger hotel with a spacious lobby below two hundred rooms. If they came looking, good luck here. He took a seat near the reception desk, pulled out his phone and stared at the last incoming number. A deep inhale. “Here goes nothing.”

  He dialed. But didn’t speak.

  “Hello? . . . Hello? . . . Is this Benmont? . . .”

  Silence.

  “Benmont, I know you’re scared.”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Thank God you’re safe! This is Agent Carlson with the FBI.”

  Benmont winced. “What do you want?”

  “Right now I want you to remain calm and listen. You’re in danger.”

  “I know that. Two of your agents tried
to kill me.”

  “Only one, and he was an imposter.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better? And what was that nonsense on the news about me passing along classified information?”

  “Assets we were supposed to be protecting have been eliminated. Careers are in jeopardy, and the wagons are circled. It was your computer project, so you’re a convenient patsy.”

  “What are you saying? That I could go to prison?”

  “Since you’re a patsy, it’s neater if you aren’t apprehended alive. This thing is already gathering momentum.”

  “But I’m innocent.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Who knows where you are?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Stay put.”

  “I thought this was the part where you ask me to come in to your headquarters.”

  “No, whatever you do, don’t do that,” said Carlson. “It’s not safe. The Bureau is currently searching for a mole who is supposedly your contact. I’m sorry to say this, but until they uncover him, you’ll be on your own out there.”

  “This isn’t keeping me calm,” said Benmont.

  “But I can help with that,” said Carlson. “I’d like to meet in a remote location.”

  “That sounds like something an imposter would say to lure me to my death.”

  “An understandable conclusion,” said Carlson. “But it’s an unusual circumstance. I dug into the files, and your boss sent up a theory about a list of our protectees. I also read a bunch of his old e-mails about how you had a knack for thinking outside the box and solving crimes for the local police. Everyone thinks it was your boss’s theory, but it was yours, wasn’t it?”

  “Keep talking.”

  “I need your cooperation, so I’ll tell you what’s going on. At least what I can on this line. Are you sitting?”

  “I’m ready.”

  “We’ve identified the fake agent who was killed in the parking lot. Turns out to be former special forces, now civilian military. A cutout.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means that he works for the highest bidder, and that’s often one of our intelligence services. Or theirs. Greed knows no allegiance. Guys like him come in handy when things might go wrong . . . I can’t say any more over the phone.”

  “Call back when you have more.”

  “Don’t hang up!” said Carlson. “All I can say is that I’m the only person in the government right now who’s absolutely sure you’re innocent and knows the danger you’re in. But until I can put more evidence together to convince others, I have to help you stay safe out in the field for now. We really need to meet.”

  “I still think this is a trick.”

  “How about if I bring someone along that you know and trust?”

  “Who?”

  “Where do you think I got this number? Sonic.”

  “Dammit!” said Benmont. “I told him not to.”

  “He’s worried sick about you,” said Carlson. “If I bring him, will you agree to meet with me?”

  “Did you watch a spy movie or something?”

  “Yes. Two hours enough time? You name the place,” said Carlson. “Got somewhere in mind?”

  “As a matter of fact I do. Don’t bother to dress up.”

  Chapter 32

  Two Hours Later

  A Crown Vic with blackwall tires and law enforcement antennae cruised slowly along the Gulf of Mexico, down through Madeira Beach and Indian Shores. The driver checked addresses.

  He reached the number in his notepad and pulled over. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  At 19201 Gulf Boulevard sat a small, low-roofed yellow-and-green building. Out front, an abandoned Cadillac with missing doors, painted red, purple, orange and lime. For some reason there was a stool next to the car, also in wild colors. Dirt, weeds, broken cinder blocks. A neon Heineken sign hung in the window, and another wooden one hung out front:

  Mahuffer

  (Wurst Place on the Beach!)

  “Wow, he wasn’t kidding,” said Agent Carlson, leaning over the steering wheel as he pulled around back to more visual confusion: striped multicolored crab-trap floats, channel-marker buoys, and a derelict boat splashed with paint like the car in front. Nautical ropes, stray dogs, surfboards. Inside, the clutter only cranked up, as if it were a reality show about hoarding intervention where they finally said, “Screw it. Just paint everything and get a liquor license.”

  Carlson led Sonic inside, past a pool table with its green felt covered in graffiti. Bras, panties, newspaper clippings, street signs, and drooping strands of Christmas lights in the near darkness. The agent digested it all and thought: Benmont should be a spy. This is one of the hardest bars to maintain surveillance because of all the obstruction and noise. Or even find a target. He continued winding through the Indiana Jones catacomb of dive-ness. Scribbled-on Naugahyde chairs, photo collages, hubcaps and a row of astrology drawings depicting positions from the Kama Sutra for each birth sign. Gemini was doggie style. A live dog lay beneath.

  “Over here.” A waving arm.

  “There you are.” Carlson looked over next to a warehouse exhaust fan. “I’ll have to remember this place. For business.”

  “Hey, Sonic!” said Benmont, hugging his pal. “Sorry I got you into this. All good?”

  “You didn’t get me into nothin’ I can’t handle. We’re always good.”

  Benmont turned to the agent. “What’s the word?”

  “The good news is I’m here meeting with you.”

  “That means there’s bad news.”

  “It’s the folly of group mentality. Once the train started down the tracks with the wrong idea about you, everyone got on board and it’s only picking up steam,” said Carlson. “Right now all we have is that the trail starts and ends with you compiling that list, so you’re left holding the bag.”

  “But what about the company that hired us?” asked Benmont.

  “Traced back to an abandoned private mailbox in Fort Lauderdale at one of those parcel shipping offices,” said Carlson. “Registered under a fictitious company name. Standard spycraft, which only turns up the heat on you even more. There’s a nationwide alert that you’re assumed to have a stockpile of weapons and possibly wearing a suicide vest.”

  “That puts me in sort of a pickle,” said Benmont.

  “You could say that.”

  “You said you wanted a pickle?” asked the bartender.

  “Maybe later.”

  The bartender exited behind collections of pool cues and signed undergarments.

  “So what do you think?” asked Carlson. “Do you trust me now that I brought Sonic?”

  “Más o menos.”

  “Fair enough,” said Carlson. “Let me buy you a drink.”

  “I’m not in the mood.”

  “That’s the point. You need a drink. You both do.” Carlson turned. “Bartender, three shots of Jack. And Cokes on the side.”

  “You got it.”

  The bartender walked away, and Benmont’s index finger idly made a circle in bar-top dust. “I’m not feeling so good.”

  “Hold that thought . . .”

  The building itself might have been atrophied, but the drinks came lickety-split.

  Carlson raised his shot glass. “On three! . . .” He wasn’t an afternoon drinker, just going by the training manual.

  A trio of glasses slammed back down on the maritime counter.

  A chorus: “Ahhhhhh!”

  Then the esophagus burn, glassy expressions and a lunge for the Coke chasers.

  “This is too much to take in,” said Benmont. “I just had a farfetched hunch when I came up with that theory. So you’re saying that it really was a list of people in the witness protection program?”

  “Almost right,” said the agent. “People watch TV and movies, and they mainly think of mob informants in our programs, but there are many others. For instance, we’ve got a lot of foreign nationals in South America working for the CIA
. They occasionally get compromised and we have to get them out. For some reason they request Orlando. You wouldn’t believe how many death squad informants from the Pinochet regime are now selling time-shares near Disney.”

  “That’s what I uncovered?”

  “Actually, your list dates back to the Cold War.”

  “Didn’t that end decades ago?”

  “Yes, but we’ve seen an unmistakable resurgence in espionage activity that coincides with Putin taking power. Back in the day, spies were living among us in numbers the public never suspected. We were able to turn more KGB agents than we anticipated. We thought it would require painstaking psychological ops or blackmail leverage, but some of them lived here a few months and simply dug it. Then there were the Americans that the Soviets approached, who in turn informed us and volunteered to play along.”

  Another round of shots arrived. Benmont and Sonic did theirs. Carlson pretended to, then furtively dumped it out under his stool.

  “Once one of our agents’ tenure got a little long in the tooth—Russian or American—the risks rose exponentially. It wasn’t exactly Stockholm syndrome, but humans have a habit of establishing emotional bonds with those they deal with over periods of time, even hardened spies. The Soviets boiled this down to a science and were notorious for randomly reassessing agents at various milestones. Lie detectors, counter-surveillance. We started having to get people out in a hurry. Many of them ended up scattered all over this state, hunkered down in small towns, peeking out windows and driving home making four right turns in a row. Then the Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of failed ideas, and everyone relaxed. Most of those we protected have now reached an age where they’re proud members of our retirement communities, living out in the open, carefree in their golden years.”

  “Not so carefree anymore?” asked Benmont.

  Carlson’s look became grim. “The Cold War’s heating up again, and you tripped over something. Or rather you were assigned to. Computers have progressed faster than our imaginations, and nobody saw it coming.”