Tampa Burn

by Randy Wayne White

  If people believe that I am the brother of a lanky, buxom, coconut-brown woman who casts spells, wears voodoo beads braided into her hair, and who makes blood offerings at midnight, that’s O.K. with me. It’s flattering. Flattering because I’ve come to care for Ransom like she really is my sister. She is smart and perceptive, with a bawdy sense of comedy. She’s also as tough as they come, and a raging independent.

  “I know you don’t believe in my power, man. But it’s real. You tell me about the men who took our boy, I’ll make it happen.”

  When the woman talks, it’s more like she’s singing, so I heard: Ah-no-ya doan ba-leeve en me-paawh-er, mon!

  I kissed her a second time, then told her, “You make your magic, and I’ll make mine. Yeah, the bastards will regret it before we’re done.”

  I took my address book from the little teak secretary next to the reading chair, found the number I needed. As I dialed, I watched Ransom moving gracefully around the kitchen. She was wearing pink satiny shorts and a black tank top that showed her breast implants, of which she is so proud.

  Tucker Gatrell had been a tropical bum and a Caribbean junkie. It was illustrative of Tucker’s life that Ransom, one of the few good things produced by his wanderings, had been accidental. She’d grown up poor, fatherless, and carried her poverty into adulthood, along with a severe weight problem.

  Sometimes good things come out of tragedy, and for Ransom, it was her decision to fight back against what seemed inevitable. She decided to change; to prepare her body and outlook for what she calls her “Womanly Life.” The implants, she says, were symbolic.

  As I dialed, she looked at me severely and said, “Man, who you callin’ this late at night?”

  I told her it wasn’t nearly so late in Scottsdale, Arizona, where a certain friend lived. I did not mention that I’d dialed a Virginia area code to reach my friend’s Arizona desert adobe, nor that the friend was intelligence wizard Bernie Yeager.

  She swung her head away, irked at my secrecy, and the Obeah beads braided into her hair added a clattering rebuke. She also wore strings of beads around her neck, I noticed: strands of red and white beads, as well as strands of white and yellow.

  Ransom is a believer and a practitioner.

  Obeah is a complex religious stew of voodoo, Catholicism, and old African lore. It uses complicated symbols referencing many gods. The red and white beads she wore honored the god of destiny.

  I’d often seen men wear them in Cuba and the Bahamas.

  But only women wore white and yellow beads. They celebrated Ochun, the goddess of rivers and love and female sensuality. I found that combination—river, love, sensuality—charming, and I never looked at Ransom without thinking of that word.

  Ochun.

  I looked at her now as the phone began to ring. Watched her turn to me and pantomime eating with a spoon: Did I want my soup now?

  I shook my head quickly and touched finger to lips because Bernie Yeager had just answered.

  IN any phone conversation with Bernie, you have to first go through the ceremonies of security, and then through the social pleasantries.

  I had to wait for him to return my call from his office—could picture him in a space crowded with computers, satellite dishes, electronic maps—then we chatted for a time while he recorded then matched my voiceprint to confirm I was who I said I was.

  “Marion,” he said apologetically, “in a world so crazy as this? Even with an old friend like you, Bernie doesn’t take chances.”

  I would have been shocked if he had.

  Bernie is a legend among the world’s elite intelligence community—the few members familiar with the man’s work, anyway. It was Bernie who’d consistently intercepted radio and Internet communications between the Taliban in Afghanistan and terrorist cells during the Iraqi war. It was Bernie who’d invaded and compromised computer communications between Managua and Havana during the Sandinista wars in Nicaragua.

  A year or so ago, I read that he was given a lifetime achievement award by an esoteric organization called the Association of Old Crows. The AOC has thousands of members, all engaged in the science and practice of electronic warfare information operations. Because his accomplishments could not be listed, Bernie’s introduction was short, but the ovation was long.

  Years ago, I did the man a favor. He’s repaid me many times over. Yet now, after inquiring about my health, and then about a couple of mutual friends, Bernie said to me, “When you call such an old man as me, and at an hour such as this, I know it’s serious. I know it’s because you need something special. With you, Marion, the answer is yes. It is always yes. If it’s an arm you need, a leg you need—God forbid. The answer is still yes.”

  I said, “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important,” and then told him what I wanted.

  When I’d finished, Bernie allowed a space of silence to communicate to me that he was taken aback, before he deadpanned, “A password. A simple password. You are asking me, Bernie Yeager, for a lady’s password. The kind that gets her into a civilian Internet server so she can trade stock tips and recipes and gossip with old sorority pals. Marion”—he scolded me—“that’s like asking a concert pianist for ‘Chop-sticks. ’”

  I said, “It may be more than that. But there’s not a lot else I can tell you.”

  “It’s something you can’t tell me? Your friend who has every level of government security clearance outside maybe a certain Oval Office in a certain building that I’ll let you guess the color of, thanks very much. It’s personal, that’s what you’re saying.”

  “That’s right. It’s personal.”

  “Marion . . .” He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “Marion, I shouldn’t even ask someone like you such an offensive question. But in such a business—” He shrugged his shoulders with vocal inflection. “Offending people is part of the job. I want you to tell me that you don’t want this lady’s password because you think she’s cheating. Because you think she’s writing love letters to another man.

  “All around the world,” he said, “people are trying to steal the passwords of their unfaithful lovers. So sad. This may sound strange coming from someone who does what I do, but I still believe that a man and woman’s privacy is sacred.”

  I said softly, “If I told you, departmental statutes would require that you pass the information along to other offices. It has to do with my family, Bernie. If I don’t get the password soon, someone might die.”

  He said slowly, “But the only family you have is the son down in . . . Masagua . . . oh my God, Marion!” He said the last horrified and heartbroken. “Oh, my dear friend! Jiffa, that’s what I am. Such a putz. I make jokes while you’re dying inside. Of course you can’t give me the details. But what you can do, right this instant, is go get on your antique computer and send me the e-mail addresses you want hacked. Everything you have. Do it now.

  “So I stay up past midnight. I turn into a pumpkin, what’s the worst that can happen?” He’d shrugged his shoulders again with a sharp upswing in pitch. “Such terrible things go on in this crazy world of ours. I’ll call you the moment I have anything.”

  EIGHTEEN

  WHEN the phone rang forty-five minutes later, I came rushing out of the lab to answer. Got to it on the third ring, picked it up, and said, “What’d you find, Bernie? Did you get the information?”

  After what turned out to be momentary surprise, a woman’s voice replied, “This isn’t Bernie, but I do have some news. Dr. Ford? You are Marion Ford.”

  I realized I was speaking to Detective Tamara Gartone. After I’d identified myself, she apologized for calling so late, but said she was required by law to contact the victim.

  I said, “Huh?”

  “You,” she said. “You, the victim. Normally, someone at the county jail would have made the notification. But I told you I’d call personally, so I am.”

  What was she talking about? I was still flustered by my blunder answering the phone.

 
; “The man who assaulted you is going to be released from jail within the next few hours,” she said. “Don Jorge Balserio. That’s what we’re required to let you know. Personally, Dr. Ford, I think it’s a hell of a mistake, and I can’t believe we’re doing it. Turns out, though, we’ve got no choice. Balserio—it’s General Balserio—holds a diplomatic passport. Nicaragua.”

  Finally, I’d caught on. “You’re letting Balserio out of jail tonight?”

  “Later on this morning. I know, it feels like the same day. I’m not certain of the exact time he’ll be released. It’s because of his diplomatic status. Are you aware of what that means?”

  I told her I was. Diplomatic immunity has allowed rapists, thieves, and DUI killers to leave U.S. soil and live happily ever after without trial or punishment. It’s well documented that a serial rapist, the son of a Ghanaian attaché to the United Nations, waved and laughed at police from his Newark departure gate, while his last victim lay near death in a Yorkville hospital. Because of an archaic treaty, neither our county, state, nor even the federal government can detain or prosecute a foreign official who holds a diplomatic passport.

  She seemed impressed that I was so well informed. “It’s been that way since the Vienna Convention of 1961,” she said. “Because we’re so close to Miami, we deal with it occasionally. Just like this guy Balserio, they’re always pompous jerks, and they never cooperate, because they know they’re going to walk no matter what.”

  “What about the other two? The ones with the Nicaraguan driver’s licenses.”

  “No, they don’t have diplomatic status. But the charges against them aren’t nearly as serious. They’ll be out soon anyway. General Balserio, though. I make him as the bad one.”

  Her agency had followed procedure. They’d contacted the U.S. Department of State, which had contacted the Nicaraguan embassy, formally requesting that Balserio’s immunity be waived. The request had been denied, so the man would soon be free.

  I could hear the beep-beep of my telephone’s call-waiting alert as she added, “On the bright side, he has to leave the country. They’re flying him out, probably this afternoon. So he shouldn’t give you any more trouble.”

  I thought: Unless he decides to return illegally.

  She paused, listening. “Are you getting another call?”

  I said, “Yeah, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to take it. Can we talk another time?”

  The lady sounded professional, even chilly when she said, “You’re a busy man, Dr. Ford. Such unusual business hours. Give Bernie my best.”

  IT wasn’t Bernie.

  I touched the flash button, answered with a more restrained, “Hello?” and heard the voice of Merlin T. Starkey say, “Ford? Tell me you don’t know why I’m callin’.”

  I said, “Detective Gartone just hung up. I know how disappointed you must be. So why don’t you have a glass of warm milk and crawl back into bed?”

  The old man didn’t sound the least bit sleepy for 2:20 in the morning. “Not before I’m finished tellin’ you what I got to say. The guy you framed so he’d get jailed? Turns out he’s some big, important foreign diplomat. Someone like him, he ain’t gonna let it slide. You really hung Miz Tamara out there on a limb all by her lonesome, didn’t you, sonny boy?”

  Ransom was sitting in the reading chair, the marina’s black cat, Crunch & Des, curled in her lap. With a mortar and pestle she’d been grinding bits of blue rock, powder, leaves, occasionally pausing to add a few drops of turpentine. But she now stopped. She seemed to know that someone hostile was on the other end of the line. Her intuition was good that way.

  Ransom was watching me closely as I said, “He’s not going to blame her, so stop worrying. And she’s not going to hear any more about what happened on the Loop Road.”

  “That’s what you keep sayin.’ But here’s what I want you to know. I think something real dirty’s goin’ on between you and them foreigners. And it ain’t done yet. So what I’m thinkin’ is, someone needs to keep a real tight eye on you, Ford. I still got a few connections in Tallahassee. I can get Florida Department of Law Enforcement to assign me temporary duty. They’ll let me roam all over the state with my nose on your butt. In fact, I think I will do that. You and those Latinos, I got the feeling something real bad’s gonna happen soon.”

  I said quickly, “Starkey, don’t do that. Believe me, you don’t understand the situation.”

  My sudden eagerness pleased him—he was back in control. “See there, I knew I was right. I’m gonna call my friends tomorrow and get me assigned TDY.”

  One nasty old bastard.

  Because I could tell he was ready to hang up, and because I was too pissed off to think it out, I said in a rush, “Hey, Merlin? That story you told me about how Tucker Gatrell ruined your career. I thought it was funny as hell.”

  The man who never used foul language said, “Fuck you, sonny boy,” and slammed the phone in my ear.

  I was in the midst of explaining to Ransom how and why the old man had infuriated me, when the phone rang again.

  She returned to mixing her powders, saying, “I’ll put that ol’ fool on my juju list, too,” as I picked up the phone and said carefully, “Hello . . . ?”

  BERNIE had Pilar’s password, said it was no problem. Passwords, actually. She had two Internet accounts. Her personal account was through Hotmail.com, which was free and the most commonly used server in Central America. Her other account was used mostly for business and more formal correspondence. It was through the Masaguan government and a thing called ISTMO Communication Group.

  “It’s an Internet presence provider,” he explained, adding that it offered hosting services and domain registration, with headquarters in Panama, and offices in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Miami.

  Bernie told me the big international accounts were the easiest for someone like him to hack. “At AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, even stuff that’s deleted—passwords, name it—is stored on the archived Internet service provider’s hard drive. That’s in case the FBI or someone like me wants to come looking.”

  This early in the morning, I wasn’t certain I wanted to hear all the details, but did my best to sound interested. Like most great artists, the man took joy in the intricacies of his craft.

  “I downloaded all her files and sent them to you as an attachment. I don’t know if you’re worried about being caught spending time online by the real subscriber or not. They gonna send the Internet police up from Central America to slap you on the wrist? I know, I know—so why should we care?”

  The note Pilar had received telling us to meet the tattooed giant in Miami was from xyxq37@nicarado.org. Bernie referred to that person as “X.” Retrieving X’s password wasn’t so easy, he said.

  “Nicarado’s the server used by libraries and schools in Nicaragua and Masagua,” he said. “All the accounts are free, and there’s an unlimited number of accounts a person can set up. If this person’s smart, doesn’t want to be tracked, doesn’t want his e-mails hacked, he can just keep changing names and accounts, traveling all over Central America. Sure, I can get you passwords. But that’s not going to help if the account address keeps changing.”

  I said, “You couldn’t get his password?”

  Bernie sounded hurt. “He asks me such a question. A man I’ve known so many years, he asks a question like that. Yes, Marion, I do have X’s password. Yes, it took me all of twenty minutes, but I got it. It’s a strange one, too. It doesn’t sound Spanish, but you speak the language so well, you maybe know it. The password is Bozark.”

  I said, “Bozark? No . . . not Spanish. Maybe Tlaxclen Maya, but nothing I know in Spanish. It sounds American. Regional.”

  Which made sense. Lourdes spoke with an American accent, plus a hint of something else.

  Bernie said, “I did a web search on it. Ran it backward, rearranged the letters. Bozark’s a common family name. Nothing else came up. Same thing I found in X’s files. Nothing. Which is what I was telling you. The
password may be worthless because X left nothing to read. Nothing that I can access without physically going to the main computer, anyway. There’s a history of one transmission to her address, and that’s it. So I think we’re dealing with someone who knows the system, who keeps changing accounts to hide his tracks.”

  I asked, “Bernie, is there any way you can narrow down where in Central America the e-mails are originating?”

  What I’d been considering was grabbing a plane to Masagua and hunting for Prax Lourdes while Pilar and Tomlinson took care of the ransom demands here in Florida. I liked the thought of that; moving in on him while he thought I was still back in the States, hustling drugs for some wounded revolutionary.

  In a singsong voice, Bernie answered, “Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe. Which I was just about to tell you if you’d show a little patience. Every e-mail has a routing code. How it reads depends on the server, but internationally, it’s a mess. It’s not like zip codes or telephone routing numbers. It varies with the place and the server. Take . . . well, for instance, if you send me something over the Internet, I can tell it’s from Florida in the United States. But Nicarado, it’s a mess with a capital M.”

  Even so, he explained, there was still enough routing information for him to have a pretty good idea, geographically, where it came from. I listened closely as he added, “But I noticed something very fishy in the coding,” he said. “A little time delay indicator almost no one in the world would have caught but me—excuse me for bragging, but true. The person who sent this e-mail? I’d bet he or she was in the country of Masagua. Almost definitely on a public computer. A library; a school. But the person who wrote the e-mail, the place where the e-mail originated, I’d say he’s probably not in Masagua. Maybe not even in Central America.”

  I said, “What?”

  “I think he sent the e-mail to a confederate in Masagua who then forwarded it on under the Nicarado address. Maybe the confederate copied it, maybe retyped it. I can’t say; I’m going simply on an anomaly in the routing code.”