“That’s where I live.”
Malcolm turned his neck. “See how absolutely everyone in the store is staring over here like there’s something deeply wrong with you?”
“I’ve gotten used to the popularity.”
“It’s perfect! Surveillance teams are trained to avert their gaze. But when you create this kind of public spectacle that’s so weird and embarrassing, it would be abnormal not to look. Then anyone who isn’t paying attention stands out like a sore thumb, and you’ve nailed your tail.” He turned again. “As you can see by the crowd’s universal disgust, we haven’t been followed.”
“You mentioned solid proof.”
“Obviously I can’t let you keep this.” Glide handed him a large brown envelope with a bulge in the side, then turned toward a row of white doors. “You can check it out in there. And these are your credentials.”
Serge grabbed a shirt off a table and went inside the nearest dressing room.
Two p.m.
Biscayne Boulevard. North of the Herald Building. Beemers, Saabs, city bus with a vodka ad. A crew in safety vests worked jackhammers. Salsa music echoed from alleys.
An attractive woman in a pantsuit sat on a bench along the 2100 block. Pedestrians walked by. Another rude suggestion. She checked her watch, just like the minute before.
2:02.
A screech of tires.
Serge hopped out and took a seat on the bench like he didn’t know her.
“You’re late,” said Felicia.
“Got caught in traffic… taking pictures.”
“At least nobody’s following us-” Felicia cut herself off. “Check that. We have company.”
“Where?”
“High noon across the street. That guy with the telephoto camera taking pictures this way.”
“He’s not following us,” said Serge. “He’s following the building.”
“Building?”
Serge arched his neck back over the bench and aimed a small digital camera straight up. “ That building.” Click, click, click …
Towering behind them stood a vertical glass rectangle perched on a pedestal. Running up the side, blue-and-white patterns of leaves like a giant ceramic kitchen tile. One of those buildings that looks old and new at the same time: designed to be futuristic when it was christened in a bygone era.
“What so special about that?” asked Felicia.
“The Bacardi Building, crown jewel of the recently embraced MiMo architecture movement during the fifties and sixties.”
“MiMo?”
“Contraction of Miami Modernism. Buffs are constantly coming out to take photos. And spies always meet in culture.”
“To hell with the building. What did you find out at Dadeland?”
“Shit’s on. It’s going down this afternoon during the big outdoor summit gathering at Bayfront Park.”
“So Glide’s really on the level?”
“As level as they come. He showed me the files. All the bank records, photos of Evangelista meeting the generals and an assassin called the Viper. Plus taped phone conversations with same. Most of the stuff exactly matched what you’ve developed-and more.”
Felicia jumped up. “We better get moving.”
“I’m ahead of you.”
They dove in the Road Runner and raced south. “Have a plan?” asked Felicia.
“I scouted the area around the summit. Too many high-rises within eight hundred yards of the amphitheater. Even an average shooter…”
“Then what are we going to do?”
“People picture snipers’ nests like Oswald resting a rifle on a window ledge of the School Book Depository. That was amateur hour. True pros set up way back in the room for concealment, with highly calibrated rifles on stands in steady vise grips. Then they fire the kill-shot through an open office or hotel window ten feet in front of them.”
“So we just look for an open window,” said Felicia. “In this heat, there shouldn’t be a lot.”
“Except the window only has to be open a few inches for the shot. And like I said, there are a lot of buildings.” Serge reached into his pocket. “Here are the credentials Glide gave us.”
“What are you doing now?”
Serge had a cell phone to his head and waved for her to be quiet. “Mahoney? Serge here. Remember the backup plan?… Time to back it up. Bring all you got… Yeah, and call the Volkswagen Boys.”
Serge hung up and hit the gas. “Things are going to start happening fast from here on out.”
Things did.
Other phones rang in Miami.
Building 25. “Agent Oxnart… What?… When?… Right.” He hung up. “Everyone, code black. Bayfront. Move!”
A former safe house in Coral Gables. “This is Lugar… Where?
… We’re on it.” He hung up. “Bayfront. Directive Omega…”
A cell phone buried deep in a pants pocket: “Evangelista here
… Change in plans?… Who?…”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Mass confusion.
Ten times worse than when the arena lets out after a Heat play-off game.
Flashing lights, police cars everywhere in the middle of streets, sealing the entire grid. Motorcycle cops zipped down the middle of the evacuated roads ahead of limos with bulletproof glass and flapping flags on fenders.
The Road Runner got stacked up twenty deep under the I-95 interchange. Police with batons waved drivers back in the direction they’d come.
“We won’t be able to get anywhere near the place,” said Serge.
Felicia stuck her head out the window. “We’re not even moving.”
“You look like the running type,” said Serge.
“But we still have to park.”
“I hate to do this.” Serge cut the wheel. “Hold on to something.”
The Road Runner broke out of traffic, jumped the curb, and crashed through a chain-link fence. Serge downshifted and drove sideways along a forty-five-degree embankment beneath the overpass.
The police saw him, but with the traffic chaos, only the motorcycle unit could get to him, and they were tied up on escort duty. Bums and bottles scattered ahead of Serge’s front grille. He cascaded down a grass berm and skidded to a stop in the mushy edge of a retention pond. Driver’s door against a tree. Tires spun, spraying mud.
Serge removed the keys. “That’s as far as this train goes.”
1433 military time.
Bayfront Park.
Amphitheater.
Festive. Standing room only. A crushing sea of people in light clothing filled every inch and spilled down the esplanade. Disposable cameras raised in the air above heads. TV trucks. Balloons. Schoolchildren in native costumes, waving flags on little sticks.
On the opposite side of the street, in small, constitutionally roped-off squares, tiny groups of protesters quarreled with one another and thrust homemade signs at passersby: “I MMIGRATION N OW! ” “ S TOP I MMIGRATION! ” “ F REE C UBA!” “ N EED C ONCERT T ICKETS!”
A band played a national anthem that included flamenco guitars and bongos. A president approached the podium. He led a vibrant little country with no armed forces that Americans couldn’t find on a map. The president raised his hands to acknowledge the applause, then introduced the national soccer team that had just defeated Zimbabwe. Louder cheers…
Two people urgently pushed their way through the crowd without great success.
“How are we going to find the shooter with this mob?” Felicia checked the official schedule. “Guzman’s the sixth speaker.”
“I need to get someplace high and scope angles.” Serge looked around. “Over there. The roof at Bayside Market.”
“Hooters?”
“See that rifle barrel?”
“A sniper!”
“Yes, but one of ours,” said Serge. “Stay close and grab the back of my shirt. This’ll be rough going.”
The pair began plowing ahead. “Excuse me, excuse me…”
“Hey, watch it, fella!”
“What’s your deal?”
“Coming through. Excuse me…”
14:38.
On the fifteenth floor of a downtown high-rise hotel, a room-service tray sat in the hall.
The guest hadn’t left the room since Tuesday. Lying on the bed, staring with patience at a textured pattern on the ceiling, and wondering about the tool that had been used to create it.