Coffee (48 page)

The
girl stepped onto the dirt, and received terse instructions from the
man to come to him and assume a particular pose. “I can
remove her top, if you please. She won’t care.” The
girl blushed and looked down.

“No
no, none of that. They won’t print it. No, let’s do a
few just like that.” The man draped the girl over his arm,
with a Don Juan grin.

They
tried other poses while Warren reviewed his options. He checked the
camera, and faked like it needed more film. He reached into the
front cab and bolted shut the small access door that led to the back
of the truck. He pulled out the pistol from where he had shoved it
under his seat, and stuffed it in his pants, beneath the untucked
shirt. Then he walked around to the rear of the truck. He climbed
in and yelled out to the two. “Hey! Come around here for a
moment, I want to check your skin tones.”

The
guard, fully engaged in fantasies of stardom, trotted over, leaving
his rifle leaning against the building. Warren found a light meter
device on one of the shelves. Although he had no idea how it
worked, he held it up to their faces like it was testing something.
“Please, step in here out of the direct sunlight.” They
stepped in, Warren stepped out. He turned with the meter, but then
slammed the metal doors shut. He latched them tightly down, and
locked them with the truck keys.

Immediately,
the guard began yelling and pounding on the doors. Warren looked up
the road, hoping the banging could not be heard elsewhere. “Just
a minute! I have to go to the bathroom and I’m a little
modest.” Now savvy, the guard continued his violent protests.

Warren
found the lock on the storage door broken and easily opened it. The
morning sun had already heated the air outside to the high eighties,
so the still cooler air inside felt good. He walked among the large
machines, and looked for a way to the lower level Etty had
described. The musty smell reminded him of a barn he knew as a
child.

He
found the stairs at the far end, and followed them down. He still
heard muffled pounding from the truck. He flicked on a light, and
easily spotted the huge freezer door, left wide open. Droplets of
water collected on the outside of the plastic cover over the
President’s body. Warren pulled it back, a bit horrified at
the ashen color and unnatural gaping of his jaw. He turned the
wheeled table to get maximum light from the hallway, and began
shooting - close-ups of the face, his many medals, and even a shot
of his open wallet propped on his chest with ID showing.

Next
he moved to the container room. He found the heavy switch, and
waited for the florescent lights to shudder on. Rows of cans filled
the room, stacked to the ceiling. He had to take multiple pictures
so he could later build a panorama of the impressive collection. He
closed into the wording on one can,
AL5 Program
.

He
still had the film case in his pocket. “For my specimen,”
he decided. The tops of the green fertilizer canisters were crimped
tightly shut, unopenable with human hands. Warren couldn’t
find a worthy tool, so he settled on the gun. He checked the clip
of the nine-millimeter Baretta - it was loaded with hollow tip
bullets. ‘That guy was serious!’ He hid behind the door,
and shot a bullet around the corner into the cans. The report
echoed a loud dull thud. It made a small hole leading into one of
the cans, and a large hole on the other side, now draining
fertilizer like sand. He filled the little plastic container,
trying not to touch the tainted mix, and sealed the top. “Mission
accomplished!”

He
checked his watch, 8:00am! “Shit!” He bolted up the
stairs and through the room of machines. He propelled the door open
without stopping. He reached into the cab of the truck and took the
bedspread. The banging and yelling in the back re-ignited with his
arrival.

He
found a few good sized rocks and put them in the bedspread and
draped it over his shoulder like a sack. The roof access stairs
were more like a ladder, making it difficult to negotiate with the
bedspread, the gun in his pants, and the camera around his neck. On
top, the sun had brought the black tar to a near bubbling hot. He
laid out the bedspread, bright colors up, and weighed it down.

He
snapped a few area shots, but noticed some new sounds as he finished
up, below him near the truck - voices and trampling of feet. He
crawled on hands and knees to the edge, and lay down on his chest to
sneak a look down. A cadre of five guards had arrived, and
surrounded the truck. The man inside barked orders to the men. “Get
us out later, first find the photographer! Two of you stay here
while the others search the building!”

Warren
made a mental note to laugh some future day at this odd vision of
five officers, standing stiffly, saluting a driver-less magazine
truck with a crisp, “Yes Sir!”

A
military ambulance drove up with more Clorice Coffee employees.
‘Great. There coming for the President,’ Warren
realized. But one of the guards motioned it away, with instructions
to return in fifteen minutes.

The
heat from the roof stung through his thin shirt. He watched three
guards enter the building, and the other two take up sentry near the
door. He listened, and wondered if the sounds around him were
leaves or a distant jet. He considered removing the bedspread so
Bryce wouldn’t drop a bomb on his head.

- Chapter Twenty Seven -

Bryce
hailed a cab at the front of the
Recife Palace
and asked to
be taken to the airport. He chuckled to see Warren inspecting the
sleeping patrons in the lobby - obviously looking for cameras.
Doubts gnawed at his confidence. Had he made the right decision?
Was he threatening the lives of his friends, his wards? He caught
himself hoping Warren would fail so they could abort the mission.

He
had the cab drop him a block from the gates of the airport,
allegedly to walk around to kill time before his flight. The
military installation occupied the southern third of the airport.
Two rows of barbed wire created a twenty foot moat of grass, bathed
in powerful floodlights. Heavily armed guards watched from towers
every hundred feet. He casually strolled along the opposite side of
the street, studying the activity. At the main gate, he reviewed
the impressive security - two separate electronically controlled
gates, programmed so only one could be opened at a time. He watched
an official car passing through, and all four individuals extending
their hands to lay them on a pad device, presumably for
identification.

The
scene brought mixed feelings to Bryce, one of frustration as he
realized the facility would not be easily compromised, but also some
subdued relief - this might not happen, and that wasn’t all
bad. He crossed the road and squeezed between some bushes to
observe.



By
6:00am, he had the routine figured out. On the half hour, five F-18
Hornets took off, and five landed. By tracking registration
numbers, he could tell they were on two hour tours - not uncommon
for drills. The cab driver had spoken of trouble in Rio De Janeiro -
center of Presidential opposition. Some suspected the army base
outside of Rio might secede, which would explain the flight patterns
of the Hornets - a quick jaunt down the coast to show their southern
friends that someone was watching.

The
Harrier class jets, capable of vertical take off and landing, headed
straight east, over the ocean. Some did not come back the whole
time Bryce observed, others returned quickly. He concluded a naval
carrier was anchored off shore, a sure sign of the country’s
tightly strung state.

Whirling
lights and a booming megaphone startled him enough to throw him off
balance. Although he didn’t understand the language, the
intention of the police that had discovered his hiding place was
clear. He raised his arms and walked into their light.

“I’m
American!” he shouted back, as if it would provide immunity.

Two
of the police looked at a third, who stepped up. In thickly
accented yet intelligible English, he addressed Bryce. “What
are you doing here? You are in a restricted area.”

He
spoke boldly to feign innocence. “I’m taking a walk, so
what?” Bryce could not let himself be taken in or even allow
them to see his identification. His diplomatic passport would
create suspicions and could lead to trouble. Plus, he did not want
his real name in any police reports.

“Please
give us your passport.” The policeman reached out his
uniformed sleeve.

“Hey,
I left my stuff back at the hotel. There’s no law against
walking around without your wallet, is there? I mean I hear it’s
not safe to carry one anyway.”

“You
have no identification? Then we will take you to headquarters for
more speaking.”

“Take
me in? Me? I like planes, O.K.? What’s the big deal, I was
watching the planes. Do you think I can break into this place?”
He pointed at the double gates. “Check me, I have no
weapons! I just needed some air, and wanted to watch. Anything
wrong with that?”

“It’s
a strange time in the morning to be taking a walk. You must come.”

Bryce
poured on the frantic American act, talking fast, gesturing wildly,
to appear as non-threatening as possible. “Go ahead, take me
away! What else can happen, why not! I swear. I finally take the
wife out of town. She’s going nuts locked into the house all
day, so I says, ‘how about a tropical paradise, baby?’
and she says, ‘sure hunny.’ So I get her down here, and
what’s she do? She tells the whole Goddamn world about my
problem! That’s what she does! Hell, she tells people she
doesn’t even know - just walks up to them,” now rocking
his head back and forth and speaking in a high squeaky woman’s
voice, “ ‘Hi, this is my husband. We’re down here
on a vacation, came to get away from it all. Everything is great,
except of course for Henry here. He’s, you know, impotent?
Can’t get the little fireman to stand up? You’d think
with all this beach air and all it would be easy, but oh no, not
Henry.’ There, now you know too! Why don’t you just
drive around with that megaphone out the window and tell everyone, I
don’t care. Jesus. I just wanted to get some Goddamn air!”

Bryce
approached the car with his wrists turned up to give himself in. The
English speaking one smirked and shook his head to the others, and
after a few words in Portuguese, he addressed Bryce. “We’ll
let you go, but leave this area immediately. If we see you here
again, you will be taken in.”

Bryce
continued to stand with his arms out, looking almost disappointed.
“That’s it? Not locking me up?” he shrugged.

One
leaned out the window as they drove off. “Get going. Now.
Move on.” Bryce heard bellowing laughter as the car pulled
away, and among the Portuguese words, he distinctly heard repetition
of the phrase, ‘little fireman.’



Bryce
took a last look back at the brilliantly lit fortress. No way he
was getting in. Etty would have to understand. Back in the States,
he thought, there would have to be a friendly ear to her wild story.
Now he worried about Warren - what had he risked? If by chance he
got the pictures and evidence, they’d have a good case. But
now he wished he’d abandoned the crazy bombing idea, and left
Etty and Warren in the hotel while he got the pictures himself.

He
strolled along a boulevard away from the airport, aiming toward a
busier part of town where he might catch a cab back to Boa Viagem.
In his concerned and melancholic reflection, he realized how much
he admired this new friend, Warren Sherman. The Marines and the
Bureau were filled with strong ego cases like himself. But under
that macho exterior, there’s not one of them who doesn’t
admire the successful Wall Street types like Warren. With the
strength of their minds alone, they manage to gain respect from
highest levels, and make loads of money. Who wouldn’t be
jealous? To reconcile their own profession, Bryce and his friends
stereotyped them into money grubbing manipulators working over the
edge of the law, with expensive lawyers in tow keeping them out of
trouble. But Warren didn’t fit that at all. He’d not
once put himself first, traveling literally across the globe for the
benefit of someone else. Sure he had the fine suits and expensive
car, but wads of money meant no more to Warren than a pocket of
loose change. If this episode drained him of every penny, Bryce had
no doubt he’d be back with a brimming bank account in no time
- an admirable trait from any perspective. And here he was, trying
to break into a heavily guarded multi-national corporation to take
pictures.

A
passing helicopter made him look skyward. It flew low over the
trees, heading away from the airport toward the center of town. He
climbed up a tree to track it’s flight. The blinking green
and red lights slowly shrank, then lowered onto the roof of a
building in the downtown area.

“Huey
Gunship. Transporting officers?”

He
hailed a cab. He trained his eyes on the point it had descended,
and directed the driver as best he could into the vicinity. They
stopped at the
Parque 13 de Maio
, a quaint park near one of
the many canals. His quarry easily stood out with all the military
activity in the area, the
Hotel Suica
. From a safe distance
in the park, he could see the building was protected from unwanted
intrusion. Plastic police tape prevented parking anywhere against
its four walls. Bright lights, probably mounted just for the
occasion, created a brilliant block scene, odd in contrast to the
darker ones nearby.

Military
Police with their white helmets and colorful uniforms stood every
few yards. The front and rear doors had even more guards.