Downward Dog in Miami

by Larry David Allman

  “They had two guys arrested earlier this week. Gun charges. No permits, carrying automatic weapons. I went to their headquarters to ask about the arrests. The bastards threw me out. The arrest sheets will be available this afternoon.”

  “Do you know anything about Richard Adams?”

  “He’s new. They brought him in six months ago. He’s got a criminal record in Louisiana—stock fraud. Also a spousal abuse case. What else can you expect from these criminals other than beating up on the wife when they come home from a hard day stealing and looting?”

  “What about Lavorosky?”

  “Okay, you do know something about them. I think he’s the cancer in the system. Bad dude. I think he’s the connection to the drugs—you know, the Albanian drug gangs that you hear about in Europe. You can’t get close to him. I mean physically; there are always guards around him, big guys with weapons and evil eyes. Weird thing, though, they all wear suits like it’s some kind of uniform. They’re all a bunch of shits.” She paused to catch her breath. She seemed to run on high emotional energy. “Okay, give me yours.”

  “I do cyber security work. I’m also a yoga teacher, if you want to de-stress.”

  “Jeez… I’m not here for yoga! I can get that on TV. Give me something real, or I’m out of here!”

  “I’m here in Miami for a client who’s having a problem with them. Everything you’ve said matches up with what I’ve learned. I also know that they tried to intimidate a mortgage company into massive loans for the Glade Preserves project, strong-arm–type stuff, but only verbal at this point. They’re definitely desperate on that one. This other situation I know about, it was cybercrime, and very sophisticated, not your run-of-the-mill street gang or high-school–hacker stuff. High-level attack, real organized. I’m just getting into that one.”

  “Which mortgage company?”

  “I can’t tell you that at this point.”

  “Who got hacked?”

  “I can’t divulge that at this point, either. When the time is right, I will give you everything, an exclusive. You’ll win a Pulitzer with what I can share with you… but not right now. Can we work together?”

  “You gave me nothing. I need names, dates, facts. What is this? You probably read that in the newspaper.”

  Just then my phone vibrated. I saw it was Lauren. “I need to take this; excuse me for a moment.”

  She picked up her own phone and dove into it, knifing me with her eyes.

  “Hi Lauren,” I answered. She cut right in.

  “Cathy’s been in an accident. I’m at the hospital.” The usual confidence I associated with Lauren was not present, more like fear.

  “Oh man, sorry to hear that.”

  “It was a hit and run. Her car was totaled. And the guy just took off. Police are here, but she’s medicated. Broken bones and maybe a coma. She’s my best friend.” Now she was sobbing.

  “What hospital?”

  “UM.”

  “I’m coming right over. Wait there for me.” I clicked off so that she wouldn’t be able to say no. Olivia was watching me, holding her phone.

  “I know, you’ve got to go. How convenient.”

  “It’s not that. This was a friend; someone’s been hurt. It might involve your target. Listen,” I said, standing up, “we can work together, trust me.” I laid two one-hundred-dollar bills on the table and gave her my business card. “I’ll be back to you soon.” The lunch had cost me four hundred dollars. I was starting to understand Miami style.

  I left Joe’s quickly. As I exited the restaurant, I clicked off the record button on my phone. In my car driving to the hospital, I called Ed and informed him that I could not be there at four as we had planned. I said an emergency had arisen, and that I’d call him as soon as the situation was stable. He understood, graciously asked if there was anything he could do. “Thanks. Not yet,” I responded, and clicked off.

  6

  The drive from Joe’s Stone Crabs to the University of Miami Hospital was not too far; fortunately, the midafternoon traffic was uncongested. I got there around three-fifteen. Unfortunately, the place was huge, and it was congested, as you would expect for a major medical facility in one of America’s largest cities. There was no valet parking. I slipped into one of its short-term lots and ran into the building. I only had Cathy’s first name; the receptionist could not help me.

  I clicked Lauren’s number on my cell. She answered on the first ring. She was in bad shape, sobbing and gasping for breath. “ICU Number Two,” she managed to say. The receptionist was able to help me with that, at least: “Second floor, elevators over there to the right.” I sprinted.

  When the elevator doors opened on two, the arrow on the wall indicated that ICU Two was to the right: a long corridor of rooms and people and medical equipment, medical noise, patients and doctors, and what would be considered normal in the heart of a large hospital. I spotted Lauren at the very end, seated in a row of folding chairs against a wall, a man next to her. I moved quickly.

  “Hey,” I said to Lauren, who looked up with red eyes, a puffy face, and vibrations of sadness and vulnerability. She jumped up, walked the three steps toward me, and wrapped her arms around me.

  We had just met this week, and she felt comfortable enough with me to reach out for help, physically reach out. I offered every ounce of psychic strength I could. Friends help each other.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said out to the side, her left cheek pressing against my chest. “This is bad.”

  “What’s her status?” I asked.

  “She’s in surgery. She has a concussion and some broken bones.”

  “Oh man,” I said, not being an expert in these emotional situations—mainly not knowing what to say. Just be in the moment and give support, I thought. Lauren started to regain control. Her composure and confidence eased back.

  “Derek, this is our manager, Jerry,” she introduced us as she released me and rubbed her eyes. The man seated next to her rose and offered his hand. He was in his fifties, I estimated, had a polished look, was darker-complected in a Latino way, and dressed in a sharp gray suit and tie.

  “Hi. Jerry Rodriguez. I work with Lauren.” We shook hands firmly. His eye contact was also what you would expect from a high-level professional—he probably had responsibility for a couple of billion dollars of loans a year. He offered his card, and I did the same with mine.

  “I thought you were a yoga teacher or something,” he said, looking from my business card to Lauren.

  “I also do cyber security work. You’ve got to be nimble in today’s world,” I said. “I’m doing a job for a client here in Miami while I’m teaching a class at night at the yoga center. You know it? Over at South Beach.” The incongruity of it was bouncing off his face. “Tomorrow night is the last class. Maybe you want to come by and check it out?”

  “Another time,” he said, pocketing my card and returning to his seat, zero interest.

  I put my arm around Lauren’s shoulders and guided her away, down the hall just a bit. “You’re going to stay here?” I asked, pulling her into me.

  “Cathy’s my best friend,” she said as the pain of the situation welled again. I was about to give her another full, comforting hug when my cell phone chimed. I took it out and saw it was Linda.

  “I have to take this,” I said to Lauren, who looked as if a new batch of tears was coming on. She nodded, turned away, and walked back toward the chairs.

  “Hey,” I answered.

  “James said he needs to talk to you—something he found in the Siroco dive.”

  “What is it?”

  “He said it’s really strange, and he only wants to explain it once. He said only on the sat phone. It’s weird, Derek… I have no idea. He acted like he’s dealing with bubonic plague or something.”

  This was, in fact, really weird. The Stanford Compu
ter Lab was one of the world’s most important computer operations, meaning they’ve seen everything. For him to be that touchy? Very strange.

  I glanced at my watch. It was just after four. I had the yoga class tonight at six, which I would not be missing, no matter what. “Okay, arrange a conference call at five my time. I’ll call in from the Center.”

  I walked back to Lauren and Jerry, and we shared some small talk, mainly about Cathy, who, like Lauren, was a single, divorced woman. Jerry was a family man. He related that he had three kids, two in college and one in high school, and had been married for twenty-eight years—same woman, no divorce; how unusual lately. At four-thirty, I needed to leave; it was twenty minutes to get over to the yoga center at South Beach.

  “I have to go. I have something and then class tonight,” I informed them. I looked to Lauren, who was back in control. “The class would be good for you tonight… I can keep a place for you,” I offered.

  “I don’t know. We’ll see what happens with Cathy.”

  I shifted over to Jerry. “Listen, Jerry, my work here, it involves the company that Cathy had the bad meeting with, Siroco. They’re also giving my client a hard time. I’m just getting into it. I might be able to help you guys with what I find?”

  “We’d appreciate that,” he said. He reached into his inside suit pocket, removed another card and a pen, and wrote on the back of the card. “That’s my private cell phone. You can call me any time.” He handed me the card, stood up, and offered his hand. “We have friends. Maybe we can help you too,” he offered in Miami style.

  Left unsaid between us was the possibility that this accident was somehow connected to the Siroco problem. It was too soon for me to have a solid opinion, although I was definitely leaning in one direction.

  * * *

  I arrived at the yoga center at four-fifty and parked in the center’s lot. I didn’t have time for security precautions. Maybe it was an operational mistake, but that was the way things were rolling now: fast. I walked in with my briefcase, the irony not lost on me of bringing a gun, discreetly hidden in my briefcase, into the yoga center. Had to be that way now that things were accelerating here in Miami.

  The Center had allocated to me a room that was considered a guest room-office combination, where I could leave clothes, do work, prepare for class, and whatever else I needed to be comfortable while teaching that week. It had a fold-out couch and a desk, and was in the back of the Center, so there was some amount of privacy. I appreciated more than ever my own private space. I passed Stephen, who was in the entrance office handling registration for my class, and told him I’d be in my room until class time at six. I entered the room, surveyed for anything unusual, closed and locked the door, and set up at the desk—laptop, phones, legal pad, and pen ready for the call with Linda and James. I got Linda on the sat phone.

  “Hey there,” she answered.

  “Hey girl.”

  “It’s all good. How about you. How’s it going?”

  “It’s getting more interesting. Tell me what you’ve got before we hook in James.”

  “Okay. The woman in the photo, from the club, her name is Katarina Truska. She flew out the next day, Miami to Frankfurt to Kiev. Get this: she works at the Ministry of the Interior of Ukraine… She’s got Diplomatic Status! I’d say she’s a spy,” she reported with enthusiasm.

  “Yeah, I’d say so too. Is she there now?”

  “She is. I’ll send you her specs, car, apartment, cell phones. We’ve got her totally covered,” she paused. I heard her clicking, and a soft chime indicated that I had received the information. It was eight past five, and I wanted to get to James, who was standing by with his side of this.

  “What about the two guys?” I asked.

  “Nothing came back on either one. I guess they didn’t fly into the country, or maybe they’re home-grown and lived under rocks. I asked our friend at DIA to check them out. He said tomorrow.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Nothing now, but I can’t wait to hear what James is going to tell us.”

  “Me too; connect him now.” I heard her clicking some different sounds, and then James came on the line. Smooth, crystal clear.

  “Hey James,” I greeted him. I’d known him for almost ten years, since I’d worked at Google. He’d helped me, and I’d helped him—because of the seriousness of the matters we worked on, we shared total trust and confidence. Or so I thought as he came on the call.

  “What have you gotten yourself into, Derek?”

  “Hi James, how are you?”

  “I was fine until this thing you guys handed me. What are you doing with this kind of stuff?” He was acting out of character; James was one of the most controlled nerds I’d ever known.

  “It’s just another business matter, just another client. Why? What’s going on?”

  “This is not normal encryption! This is not normal business!” He was breathing shallowly and tightly.

  “Okay, so what is it?”

  “This company, this Siroco, their security set-up—it’s a Chinese configuration, deep Chinese.” He paused, waiting for my reaction.

  “Like what, like Huawei?”

  “No, man… Like the Chinese government!”

  “What?”

  “You need to get this, Derek. This is not normal, and there are consequences here for what I’ve done. I could get fired for this, and that would be the least of my problems. The university is pretty lax about things, but it has an obligation to report stuff like this to the Department of Homeland Security. It’s in the Patriot Act not too many people know about. This is dangerous stuff you’ve gotten me involved in!”

  “Don’t worry about a job, James, you’ll always have a home with us.”

  “You’re not hearing me. This is the kind of stuff where you get a knock on the door some night, and you open it, and some Asian fellows are standing there... and they didn’t come to talk.”

  “Okay, calm down. Tell us what you found.”

  James took a few deep breaths. He told us that the encryption system used by Siroco for its computers, its online connections, and its cell phones was a 512-bit algorithm that no other country used, not even the infamous Russian IRA. It was unique to the Chinese government. The lab had seen it once before, but that had been a direct DOD matter, so there was no reporting requirement. Because this new one was a private matter, it would activate the automatic awareness/reporting mechanism that the lab had created. This was now a national security matter, and James would be questioned by management. Today, tomorrow, it would come. He would have to reveal my involvement and his freelancing on this matter for a friend.

  The good news was that Stanford’s massive computing power had crushed the Chinese government’s security—the access code was known, but it was tricky because it was what is known as a “plus-one” setup. An additional number or letter or symbol went with the code, and if that was not included at the time, the system would open up for a minute or two or three while it reversed the hack and identified the hacker into its system—a built-in counter-attack mechanism. The plus one element changed about every hour; if you weren’t currently authorized with the element, they would know. Very sophisticated, because they would be able to identify and find who had hacked them.

  By now, they may or may not know that the lab had cracked their access code, but when we actually hacked in, they would know that it was us—maybe who we were, or even worse, maybe where we were. We would have a minute or two to suction up everything we could before it closed us out. What would happen after that, when and if they knew who we were, that was a different matter.

  James said that he would send the access codes to Linda, and I heard from her side that the delivery had arrived. I thanked James, told him I’d be in touch tomorrow, and emphasized that he needed to be careful—situational-awareness careful. He muttered some d
ispleasures with us and dropped off the call.

  “Wow,” I said to Linda.

  “Yeah,” she responded.

  “I have to go; time for class. Give me whatever you get from DIA. Take twenty-five thousand in cash out of the safe, go over there, meet with James and tell him we appreciate what he does for us and that he always has a home with us, and give him the cash. Do that as soon as possible. I’ll be back to you after class. Handle James, and then be in the office. I’ll call around five-thirty, six your time.”

  It was five forty-five; I had a class to teach. I changed into my teaching clothes, did some yogic breathing, meditated for five minutes, did some postures to loosen up, and headed to the yoga room for my class. It was not an easy transition to make, from business target and cyber consultant to yoga teacher. I had done it before, though, so it was not unfamiliar to me. I made the transition just before I walked into class and found fifty-three students waiting. Nothing pleased me more than helping people who were seeking to improve their health and achieve wellness. What a privilege, and what a great way to create balance in my otherwise disparate life.

  * * *

  Lauren glanced at her watch: six o’ clock. She wouldn’t be making the yoga class, which she knew she needed tonight more than ever. What with Cathy’s accident, being in a hospital, and feeling helpless and sad, a good yoga class was exactly what she needed. Fortunately, she thought, Jerry is still here with me.

  A nurse approached them from the ICU doors. “Are you here for Ms. McAvoy?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Lauren and Jerry said together.

  “She’s out of surgery. The doctor will be out to explain.” She turned and walked back toward the doors without giving any further details.

  Lauren looked to Jerry and was about to say something about how she hoped Cathy would be okay, when a man approached, wearing a suit and tie and carrying a clipboard.

  “Are you with McAvoy?” he asked with the slightest hint of an accent.

  “Yes,” Lauren answered tentatively. She knew Cathy’s family and friends intimately; this guy was not one of them. “You are?”