The Mordida Man by Ross Thomas Page B

the island’s citizens, nearly twenty thousand of them, lived in the capital of the republic, which was situated on its southern tip. At the northern tip was the old Mecarro coffee plantation consisting of nearly 640 acres. The landing strip was located on the plantation, which the Democratic People’s Republic had leased for five years to the American for a million dollars, all of which went into the public coffers, plus another $200,000 in cash, which had gone into the pockets of the Prime Minister, the Minister of the Interior, and the Minister of National Security.
    No coffee grew on the old Mecarro plantation. No coffee had ever grown there. A rich Colombian called Mecarro had leased the land in 1936 and built himself a fine house. The next year he had planted coffee. The year after that, 1938, the great hurricane had roared by and wiped out the coffee, miraculously sparing the fine house, which had been taken over by an order of nuns. The last member of the order had died just three years before. The Mecarro plantation had stood vacant until it had been leased by the American, who was immensely rich. He was also wanted by the police of seven countries, which is the principal reason he had come to settle in the island Democratic People’s Republic. The republic had no extradition agreements or treaties. None at all. The American had already applied for citizenship.
    The sixty-three-year-old pilot and the sixty-five-year-old copilot of the 727 helped the man called Arnold carry the doctor off the plane and dump him into the rear of the jeep that was driven by Jack Spiceman, the ex-FBI agent. The doctor was dead drunk.
    Arnold climbed into the seat next to Jack Spiceman. When the jeep didn’t move, Arnold said, “Let’s go.”
    â€œWhat about Felix?” Spiceman said.
    Arnold made his right hand go out and then down in a steep plunging motion.
    â€œNo shit?” Spiceman said.
    â€œNo shit.”
    Arnold wasn’t his real name, of course. His real name was Franklin Keeling, and he once had been a highly valued, highly trained, totally trusted employee of the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1975 he had been fired with rancor after $200,000 in gold disappeared in Angola. Keeling had been entrusted to deliver the gold to a right-wing Angolan revolutionary called João Machado. Nothing was ever heard of Machado or the gold again except for a signed receipt, which Keeling produced in his own defense. The validity of the receipt bitterly divided seven CIA documentation experts. Four thought it was genuine; three insisted it was a fake. Nonetheless, Keeling was fired. Nine months later, after he had spent the $200,000, Keeling went to work for the immensely rich American who now sat across from him in the main drawing room of the old Mecarro mansion and listened to his explanation about why Felix had forgotten how to breathe.
    After finishing his explanation, Keeling lit a cigarette and waited to see what the rich American would say. He was fairly confident it would have nothing at all to do with Felix’s death. The rich American’s mind didn’t work that way.
    â€œHow’s the book coming?” the rich American asked.
    To while away his spare hours on the island republic, Keeling sporadically worked on a manuscript which was a steamy, implausible account of his fifteen years with the CIA. Keeling thus far had managed the difficult feat of making the manuscript both dull and libelous.
    â€œPage 218,” he said.
    â€œRansom, I think, don’t you?” the rich American said. “Ten million at least.”
    Constant extrapolation was needed to carry on a conversation with the rich American, whose mind roamed unknown planes. The rich American’s name was Leland Timble and at nineteen he had been graduated summa cum laude from Cal Tech into the waiting arms of a Hughes think tank with headquarters in Malibu. Timble had spent five years with the Hughes firm