Tim Dorsey - Pineapple grenade

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.”

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.

Serge banged the glass. “Yo! Captain!”

The desk manager noticed Serge, stood, and wiped hands on his shirt. He leaned toward the round metal grate in the middle of the glass. “What?”

“I want in the pipeline.”

“Pipeline?”

Serge pointed back at the people taping boxes.

“Oh, that,” said the manager. He shook his head. “Don’t think they’re hiring. All of them work for stores in the islands, and most are family operations.”

“Know all about it,” said Serge. “They fly them up for sleepless, three-day shopping binges. But I’m already here. They’ll save air fare. And when I put my mind to shopping, I can trample Joan Collins.”

“Sorry,” said the manager. “Can’t help you.”

Serge reached in his wallet and snapped a crisp hundred-dollar bill between his hands. He slid it through the key slot.

The manager held it to the light and stuck it in his pocket. “I’ll make some calls.”

“And I’ll do advance recon so I’m totally prepared for my spree. What do they need?”

“Mostly luggage and electronics. But others take cabs to Walmart and Costco.”

“What do they buy?”

“Everything. Paper plates, toothpaste, double-A batteries.”

“That’s actually profitable?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe. They can’t get normal distribution for American-brand goods, and a single can of Coke sells for five clams.”

“Five dollars!” Serge whistled. “Even Starbucks doesn’t have that kind of balls.”

“There’s this one guy who calls every month and pays me fifty to buy a laptop, but I’m not giving up that name.”

“Understandable. We’ll take a room. This is the perfect place to build up my immune system.”

“Thirty dollars.”

Serge fed currency through the slot, took a brass key, and got in an elevator. He slid the accordion metal cage closed.

Room 321.

A single queen bed with a six-inch depression in the mattress. The toilet seat lay on tiles under the dripping sink. The air conditioner was missing the front cover, displaying dust-caked condenser blades. Shouting and violent wall thumps from a fight in the next room involving five people and an ironing board.

“Serge, this is by far the dumpiest place we’ve ever stayed.”