Surfing the CIA
by Nicholas Ware
Category: Fiction

Gus, a young surfer from California, finishes his training with the C.I.A. just before the United States enters war with Iraq under the first President Bush. He is sent to Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in the world and a center for radical Islam. Fair enough, thinks Gus, the surfing is supposed to be the best in the world. While Gus sinks comfortably into the surfing and the bar scene in Jakarta (with a Bukowskian appetite for womanizing, minus the sinister aspect), he is a fish out of water at work?a surfer among golfers, a rocker in a crowd of Lawrence Welk country clubbers. But he is determined to complete a successful first tour?even if he has to wear a stupid disguise or pass himself off as ?Biu from Braziu,? a Brazilian playboy. Gus?s first significant assignment is to recruit an Iraqi diplomat to become an American spy. What he learns as he follows (and doesn?t follow) orders is a lesson for all of us: the common grounds we share regardless of religion or nationality, the potential shortsightedness of political conflict, and the deep value of friendship.