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.”
Chapter Ten
Downtown Miami
A dingy 1930s hotel sat squashed between high-rise bank towers that lit up the night skyline. One of those old-style joints connected to the rest of the buildings on the block. Aqua with faded peach trim. Circular, nautical windows in a line under the edge of the roof. Its name displayed on a vertical neon sign
sticking out from the corner of the third floor: THE ROYAL POINCIANA
The sign was dark.
Inside the lobby: “I love these old hotels!”
“Serge, I think they’re closed for repairs or something.”
“Why do you say that?”
“All these huge boxes piled to the ceiling. They fill most of the lobby,” said Coleman. “Broken plaster, rusty pipes, all those construction workers putting more stuff in boxes.”
Serge looked toward an industrious squad of people wrapping the boxes with reinforced packing tape. “They’re not renovating-they’re shipping.”
“Shipping?”
“Remember the professional shoppers I told you about?”
“Yeah,” said Coleman. “You never finished explaining.”
“Watch and learn.”
Serge approached the front desk with bulletproof glass and a pass-through key slot. The man behind it looked twenty years older than his birth certificate. Stained Miami Heat T-shirt, stubble, and that hollow, gaunt type of face that reminded people of carnival booths. He watched a black-and-white TV with rabbit ears. A Spanish game show. Contestants wearing scuba suits in a vat of salsa.
“Excuse me?” said Serge.
Nothing.
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
The man laughed at the TV and choked briefly on his burrito.
