“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.”
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.