The Spy's Little Zonbi by Cole Alpaugh Page A

impressive structure that drove his sense of apprehension even deeper. The complex could have been lifted right up out of Washington, D.C., and planted here among the earthquake-condemned cathedrals and abandoned office buildings. Sixteen massive columns held up the front of the square structure, lights reflecting on the low clouds from what was probably a central courtyard. Dozens of bats soared and swooped, dancing for food. Silent beggars lined the street in front, their reaching hands waiving like a cluster of sea anemones. Chase paid the driver in blue and red money and followed an elegant couple through a wrought-iron gate and into the arched entryway. After a quick security search Chase was directed down a wide marble hallway toward the dinner hall.
    President Daniel Ortega had been all over the news in recent weeks, his army mired in an ongoing war against the U.S. funded Contras in the north. Most media accounts held that Ronald Reagan wanted military bases built within the strategically located Central American country to keep an eye on Cuba. And the U.S. President had been accused by many political pundits of employing the CIA in an assassination campaign.
    Ortega was fresh off a trip to New York. He’d stood in front of the U.N. General Assembly and given a rambling, personal account of his twin brother’s death at the hands of the CIA. He claimed to have proof that the American spy agency had recruited a prostitute because of her uncanny resemblance to a much younger version of his wife, Nicaragua’s First Lady. The prostitute had been purposely infected with syphilis and put in place at an exclusive brothel a CIA informant claimed Ortega frequented on a weekly basis.
    The plan went off perfectly, except for the fact that it was Ortega’s brother with the taste for whores and expensive Champagne. And it wasn’t even the syphilis he’d contracted from the hooker that had killed him. It had been the man’s wife, the president’s sister-in-law, who had caused the untimely death when she’d hacked off her sleeping husband’s afflicted member with a steak knife.
    The president’s brother had bled to death in his own coffee fields trying to chase her down and recover his penis. But it had been easy to outrun a man with such recently inflicted damage. The ultimate revenge had been clenched tightly in her right fist. Mrs. Ortega danced into the night, screaming and laughing, sometimes pausing to talk to the penis in a mocking tone.
    â€œ Look at me!” she commanded the penis in Spanish, holding it firmly in front of her as if admonishing a naughty puppy who’d soiled the carpet. “You were bad, very bad. Bad, bad penis!”
    Mrs. Ortega then held it high over her head, making the sounds of a revving engine. According to the peasant workers’ statements to investigators, she had eventually skipped off into the darkness like a child pretending to fly a toy airplane. Ortega’s speech writers had a field day when preparing El Presidente for his pleas in front of the U.N. for help defending against America.
    The dinner at the Palacio Nacional was a morale booster for the upper crust, the industry leaders and spiritual advisors of the masses. Journalists were invited and encouraged to spread the word.
    The sound of a single violin mingled with the polite chatter as Chase approached the banquet hall. An armed guard nodded at the open double doors and Chase was led to his seat by a waitress. He nudged his camera bag under his chair and surveyed the vast room. There were maybe a dozen guards and an army of servants in crisp black and white, wearing linen gloves.
    â€œ The main course will be corvine from the Tipi Tapa River,” the waitress serving Chase’s section announced in English. The sixty people surrounding the long table were assigned by occupation. Chase recognized News Core commentator Hugh McManny and ABC’s Geraldo Lopez. Two women on