Downward Dog in Miami

by Larry David Allman

  We gave our names to the closest deputy, who called Ross on his comm unit. The deputy waved us through after he made a notation on his clipboard. Carlos drove into the lot, but there was nowhere to park, so he stopped off to the side and put the car in Park.

  “We need you to help us tonight,” I said to him.

  “You know I’m your guy. An hour, all night, what?”

  “All night. A thousand bucks,” I offered, straining to stay in the moment and not think about Lauren.

  “Done,” he said without hesitation.

  “Okay. Wait here. We’re going in. Anybody bothers you, tell them your passengers are with FBI Agent Howard Ross, inside.” I handed him five hundred dollars and told him the balance would be later.

  “I’m your guy,” was all he said. My latest associate.

  “Take care of our stuff in the back,” I said as Lenny and I got out and walked toward the entrance. I didn’t know what to expect. Ross’ statement that Lauren was okay and that she was a hero—that kept me from sheer terror.

  There was activity around two cars parked at the pathway from the lot to the entrance. We could see a dead guy in one of them, with bullet holes through the car’s windshield. Two bodies were lying on the ground at the entrance doors. Lots of blood was on the ground, together with shards of broken glass and a door frame with no glass. It was obvious what had happened: it had been a military-style firefight. I suspected that Avram had been involved in this result.

  Lenny and I had seen this kind of human carnage before, fortunately not too often, so neither of us was overcome with a revulsion like you see in movies when characters experience an immediate need to vomit. But it was jarring on the emotions, the psyche, and the spirit. This would require some serious attention later. What about Lauren? I thought. She had been involved in this horrible violence.

  We asked the deputy at the entrance for Ross. He opened the other door, which still had glass, and pointed within. We entered to a hailstorm of activity. People moving around and static electronic communications in the air crowded what I had thought before was a fairly large entrance space. A steady stream of photo flashes in the lobby cut through the charged atmosphere.

  Ross saw us from near the reception desk and waved us over. We walked past the couch, and I saw the young guard Ed had assigned earlier that day, with two gaping bullet holes in his bloodied chest. What a sad sight, a young man cut down… So young.

  “She’s upstairs, in her office. We’re taking her statement. See that guy,” he said, pointing at the massive giant lying at the bottom of the steps—the same guy who had accompanied Lev to court that morning and who had tried his best to scare the shit out of us with stares and growls and grunts. He was all red… and very dead. “She killed him,” Ross said matter-of-factly. “Who would have thought?”

  “Lauren did that?” I said. It was incongruous, made no sense.

  “She had a gun. Good thing she knew how to use it.”

  My heart was up in my throat. I didn’t know what to say… even what to think. I went into a kind of numbness, seeing the giant lying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs with his side ripped open from gunshots.

  “I’ll let you know when she’s done. Just stay out of the way,” Ross said in special agent mode.

  “We need to speak to you,” Lenny said.

  “I’ll be with you shortly. Go outside and wait.”

  * * *

  Lenny and I walked to a position outside the building to the side of the pathway. There was a steady stream of people going in and out, dressed differently for different purposes, working for the common purpose of securing the site, gathering information, and returning the premises so that business could resume at the earliest possible time. These were taxpayer-funded first responders doing their jobs.

  We waited about five minutes, then Lenny’s phone chimed. It was Ross, telling us we could come in: Lauren was finished with her statement. Before we got to the door to go in, my phone chimed. It was Ed Sapperstein.

  “I’m at the entrance, they won’t let me in,” he yelled with anger, fear, sadness… Whatever it was, it was not the Ed that I had come to know.

  “Ed, just hang for a minute. We’ll get you in. We’re just going to see the FBI guy in charge. Hang on,” I responded, keeping the line open and the cell in my hand.

  We walked through the door, and I saw Ross leading Lauren down the stairs. My heart exploded with emotion. Her face was puffy on the right side. Her eyes had a far-off look, like someone who had seen a nightmare and was not sure of anything but was just putting one foot in front of the other to move forward. Patches of blood stained her blouse, and her hair was seriously disheveled. She looked up and saw us walking toward her; her face lit up, and her eyes changed.

  When she got to the bottom of the stairs, she bolted for us and grabbed me and held me… and I held her. Words failed me, but the feelings were overwhelming and unmistakable. She had come through a bad experience and was safe. I flowed all the energy I had through my heart and chest. She released me, looked up, and reached for my face. The smell of explosives on her hand was staggering. I took her hand in my free hand and said, “You fired a gun?”

  “It’s Miami,” she said. She was a heck of a lot stronger than I understood.

  Just then Ed yelled on my cell, “Derek… what’s going on?”

  I told Ross, who was standing just behind Lauren, the first thing that came to mind, that the young man’s father was outside and wanted to come in. Ross asked his name, then called on his comm unit to give the instruction. I wanted to give more to Lauren, but the commotion and events and energy surrounding us were smothering. Fortunately, Lenny was there, and he was good at being in control. I was just a computer nerd warrior—he was the real thing.

  “Lauren, we need to speak to Agent Ross,” Lenny said to Lauren. He looked at Ross. “She needs to stay with us,” he said to Ross, who was starting to shake his head no. Lenny moved his face closer to Ross’, and that issue got resolved.

  “Let’s go back upstairs,” Ross said, “back in her office.” We had started toward the steps when I saw Ed Sapperstein enter the building with Ronnie. Ed’s face was ravaged with pain. It was some other Ed, not the guy I had come to know.

  I asked Lenny to go with Lauren and Ross and told them I would be right up. They climbed the steps. I noticed Lenny taking Lauren by the elbow in big-brother fashion—that made me feel better.

  When Ed saw young Arthur on the couch, he burst out with a moaning wail and fell to his knees, crying and gasping for breath. Ronnie immediately went down on his knees and smothered Ed with his arms and chest. The dead kid was Ed’s grandson. How brutal was that to see?

  Ronnie got Ed to stand up after a minute or so.

  Ed’s face was covered in tears. “This is all my fault. He was too young for this kind of work,” he said between gasps for air. Avram joined us from somewhere.

  “I’m so sorry, Ed. I don’t have the right words for this,” I said, not very good at these emotional challenges.

  “It’s not your fault. This is my fault, and whoever did this, they will pay for it.” His eyes steeled as he said it.

  “That’s been taken care of,” Avram said, pointing to the two bodies at the entrance. “This is my fault.” Avram’s faced contorted. Ed reached for him. That was my cue to let them start their own healing process.

  “I have to talk to the FBI agent. I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I said.

  Ed looked at me, nodded for me to go, and reached out for both Ronnie and Avram. They had a kind of group hug, fortifying each other and being the family that they were, irrespective of direct blood relationships. No question that Ed was the head of that family… and that he was loved.

  I turned away from Ed and Avram and Ronnie and walked to the steps leading up to Lauren’s office. I took in the scene in the lobby as I asce
nded the steps; it became more gruesome as I got the bigger picture: a beehive of law enforcement and first-responder activity in full motion; one young man dead on the couch, his chest bloody and ripped open with two massive bullet holes; one huge man dead at the bottom of the stairs, his upper torso shredded and bloody; two men just outside the entrance doors, ripped with bullet holes. It was a nightmare scene for sure, one which Lauren had gone through in real time. My heart ached for her as I saw this human carnage.

  I stopped at the midpoint of the steps to contemplate for a moment as the EMTs started to cover and then place the bodies in body bags. It was a war zone.

  I am a computer security consultant, a kind of tech geek, maybe with some other minor skills, but mainly, I am a computer guy. My work with Sabra was technically finished. I had resolved the hack to Ed’s systems, and I had recovered his money with a little extra for him. That I had been able to steal back a lot of extra to pay myself and those who helped me—well, that happened sometimes. Did I have an obligation to reveal that to Ed? I wasn’t sure, but I would not be doing that unless there was some good reason, which I did not see in that moment. I could walk away from the case now, having completed it successfully. My contract for this case was fulfilled.

  The whole situation was complicated by one huge factor: Lauren.

  Lauren and I had found something special. I knew it, and she seemed to have gotten it even more than I did. I’ve always been sort of unskilled in my romantic relationships. They came easy to me, at least the initial getting-together part. But my relationships generally did not last for long periods. Lauren was different. We had something together that was much more than the sum of us individually, as they say. She had good relationship skills, communicated easily, and was able to ask for what she needed. But me, I needed work in that area. I needed to up my game, to come up to her level. Lauren was worth it, worth upping my game and making her needs and wants my wants, my objectives.

  That I had been very successful in my business life meant that I could afford to be selfish. Here, now, I could selfishly walk away from the Sabra case, go back to my romantically-challenged, single-guy lifestyle… and then what? Regret that for the rest of my life? That needed to change—I saw it so clearly on those steps observing the war zone below.

  No way… I’m in! I resolved it all in that moment, seeing those bodies being covered, knowing what Lauren had gone through, knowing what might come down the road from these same evil actors. I will stay and I will fight, I decided. I will take care of Lauren with all that I have. And whatever comes after that, it will be whatever it is supposed to be… no, that’s crap thinking. It will be wonderful, and I will make it so.

  I walked to the top of the steps and headed to Lauren’s office where I knew she was waiting. I also knew that Lenny, my best friend, was there with her. And I knew that FBI Agent Ross would want the information we had collected.

  I reached her office and stood at the doorway. The first thing I saw was Lauren. My heart fluttered. When she saw me, her face lit up, and I am sure mine did too. Everything I had thought about the case, about Miami, about Lauren, was right… It was confirmed in her face and in the emotions I physically felt all the way across my chest. It was joy she radiated, writ large, large enough for even me to get it. I’m in!

  “Let’s go,” I said as I walked into the room and closed the door.

  18

  I closed the door and took in Lauren’s office. Lauren and Lenny were sitting on her couch. He stood up as soon as he saw me and offered me his seat next to Lauren, which I took. I touched her on the shoulder, a kind of love tap. After seeing her handiwork with the big man, I had a whole new perception of Lauren; that perception was bigger and much more powerful. What a woman. I had never shot and killed another human being—she had!

  Lenny took the empty client chair. Ross was behind Lauren’s desk; he had visually placed himself to be in charge of the meeting. Another man was seated in the other client chair, opposite Lenny, a smaller guy with a military buzz cut and ice-blue eyes—unlike Lauren’s soft-blue, luscious ones.

  “This is Colonel Billings, from DHS. He’s Deputy Director for Counterterrorism, and he works out of the Liberty Crossing facility up in DC,” Ross said.

  We all nodded.

  Ross looked at Lauren. “Everything in this room is top secret and must remain confidential. Do you understand?” he said, focusing even more on her.

  “She understands. Let’s move on,” Lenny said.

  Ross stopped and gave Lenny an attempted stare-down.

  “We all get it, Howie: it’s all confidential. We agree.”

  Ross did not like being interrupted; it was clearly his meeting, at least in his mind. Ross finally picked up an iPad sitting on the desk in front of him.

  “We’re going to show you what happened today at Siroco. You were the ones who brought us in on this case. You gave meaningful intel, something we used. This happened earlier today,” he said, pausing to boot it up and get the photos he wanted to show. “I want to know what you did today. I’m guessing you were in Cayman.”

  “Let’s see what you got first,” Lenny said. “Don’t worry, we’ll share. You’ll want to know what we know. Move on with your show.”

  Ross turned the iPad to face us, presented his photos in a slideshow fashion, and offered his narration. The photos were all stills. They showed the forty-third floor at Palmetto Plaza, empty except for the makeshift room.

  The next photos showed inside the room: two boxes with Chinese writing, a viscously liquid on the floor, and a dead man in the corner, which caused Lauren to gasp and look away. Maybe Lenny and I were hardened; it affected us not at all. It was just evidence of a crime.

  I asked Ross to enlarge on the dead man. Something about his face—or, at least, what what I deciphered to be his face—was familiar. Could it be? That guy was Junior, the guy from the night at the yoga center. He and Senior had come into my class, stalking Lauren and her friends. I was certain. It made perfect sense: Junior lived by the Siroco sword, and now clearly had died by it.

  “That viscous material on the floor… It’s ricin,” Colonel Billings said. “One of the strongest lethal agents around. It was part of some kind of a security binder around the boxes, but it was defective, or it broke, or someone messed with it. The dead guy probably died in less than one minute.”

  “The boxes contained fentanyl, a ten-pound block in each,” Ross continued. “That’s ten million dollars on the street… each box!”

  “The fentanyl is dangerous, no question. But the ricin, that’s WMD stuff. That makes this a DHS Cat-1 priority,” Billings said, adjusting in his seat. “Every resource and asset we have is on the table, every available modality… and most of that is already operational. We will take these guys down.” He looked at Lenny, then me, then glanced at Lauren.

  “We have the outlines of this Siroco thing and some of the details—the infrastructure, the players, the plan,” I offered, eager to provide useful information.

  Ross waved me off. “Let me finish, then we’ll see what you’ve come up with.”

  He looked at me, and I nodded. What else would I do?

  “We have enhanced arrest warrants being delivered tonight for Lev Lavorosky and Richard Adams,” Ross continued. “We know where they are; this should be easy stuff.”

  “Where are they?” Lenny asked before I could verbalize the question.

  “I planted a beacon on each. They were arrested and booked, but bailed by some shyster lawyer from down here. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Beacons,” I said. “How’d you do that?”

  “In their jackets, when they were in custody at the FBI building.”

  “And they’re broadcasting?”

  “Yes,” Colonel Billings said, pulling his own iPad out of a bag on the floor beside his chair. He flicked it on, and a map came on the sc
reen. “Let’s check on Adams,” he said. I saw a blinking red dot on the map of Florida, moving north on the Florida turnpike.

  “You’re not going to arrest him?” Lenny asked.

  “Not yet,” Billings replied. “We’ve got two cars following behind and several more coming in up ahead. Sometimes it’s better to allow these guys to get where they’re going, you know—see their accomplices, if possible.” It sounded like some DHS talking point he had memorized.

  “What about Lavorosky?” I asked.

  “Sure,” Billings said, tapping his iPad. He tapped again, then again. A storm came over his face. “His beacon is not on.” He tapped some more. “Shit, we lost him. I had him on here before.”

  “I put that device in the lining,” Ross said. “No way he knew it; I did it in a different room.”

  “Is that an encrypted channel?” I asked.

  “No, it’s just a like a cell phone. Just requires a password.”

  “Give me the number and the passcode. Maybe there’s more that we can do,” I said.

  Ross and Billings looked at each other like I had asked for the DHS family jewels.

  “We can reach places that you can’t,” I asserted. I’m sure it sounded like pumped-up ego, but it was true. My company, and James at the Stanford Lab, had some tricks that not even the NSA had. I would not share anything about our tricks; either they wanted our help or they didn’t.

  “Okay,” Ross said to Billings, “give it to him.”

  I wrote the information down. “Now, you ready for what we have?” I asked.

  Ross and Billings looked at each other again. They were in strange territory, working directly with civilians and sharing top-secret information… except they were safe because they had so little of it to give us.

  I realized I needed my laptop. I stood up, looked to Ross and Billings, and told them I had to go to the car and retrieve my briefcase and my laptop. They both nodded, and I exited the room, closing the door gently behind me, and walked down the stairs. All of the dead bodies had been removed. There were only a few people still working in the lobby. I exited the building and walked toward Carlos, whom I saw in his car, face lighted by his cell phone. Somehow, he sensed me, opened his door and got out, and said over the top of the car, “You guys ready?”