Tsunami Connection

by Michael James Gallagher

  The road back to Calle Florida and the Borges Center for the Performing Arts zipped by as driving gave Kefira an adrenalin rush. Parking in the center of town, where police protected tourists' interests, was relatively safe. Still, Kefira wanted to be able to see her bike from the dance studio windows. She went upstairs, passed the ticket office, and followed the signs for Escuela Nacional del Tango. Her short, light summer dress rode up with every step, hinting at the frilly tops of her footless leotard stockings.

  As she got closer, passing through modern art exhibitions, a cacophony ranging from the breezy sound of a tango waltz was replaced by the syncopated punch of a 'tres pieds' milonga. Fripo had said room 203. She found it easily. Kefira knocked and then squeaked the door open. A young woman in her late twenties swooned when she saw Kefira in the mirror. Fripo had his arms around her and was instructing a hiro, or turn, while the dancer's back was to him. The music was a quiet, melodious tango waltz, Lagrimas y Sonorisas, originally composed by Eduardo Arolas, but popularized by Rodolfo Biagi in 1941.

  "Fripo, hold me up. My knees feel weak. I wouldn't have believed it if you hadn't told me. She's back from the dead," said Fripo's partner in rapid Spanish. She turned to Kefira and slowed down her Spanish. "Forgive me. My manners are terrible. I am Katerina. Fripo and I are working on a number we will be performing later this month. I can't believe it."

  "I hope it's not troublesome to see a ghost. I am Kefira. Pleased to meet you."

  "Believe me, the pleasure is all mine, or should I say, ours," said Katerina as she sashayed to the left and bowed slightly in deference to Fripo. "I'll leave you two to your lunch."

  Katerina stepped forward and kissed Kefira warmly, while taking her into her arms and embracing her strongly. She leaned into the helmet-carrying dancer, whispering gently in Kefira's ear:

  "He's more fragile than he lets on."

  Katerina ran from the room and Kefira noticed that Fripo was fussing with a table that he had pulled out of a closet. There was half a bottle of Argentinian red, already breathing, a plate of antipasto, some crusty but very plain white bread, and two plates with utensils. Lastly, a yellow rose decorated the center of the placemats. With an easy flourish, Fripo snapped open the two folding chairs, a white cloth folded over his arm.

  "Signorina, our humblest welcome. Please be seated," he continued as he slid her chair under her, bending forward, hoping for a whiff of the same perfume from last evening.

  Her scent was not fresh, but the sensuousness of her perfume created a surge in his feelings as he caught a hint of the same fragrance that had rejuvenated him at their last meeting.

  "What were you looking for outside?"

  "I need to be able see my motorcycle because it might disappear, even here in this neighborhood."

  "I have a moped, too. We should do some sightseeing together."

  "Sounds great," she said, "but my Streetfighter has a special attachment for a second seat. I can't abide letting someone else drive and a moped is too slow for my character."

  "Streetfighter?"

  "It's a Ducati."

  "Wonders never cease. A Ducati Streetfighter. Forgive me if I say you don't look strong enough to hold up a large motorcycle."

  "As many people have found out in the past, looks can be deceiving."

  "Anyway," said Fripo, "here's to looking at you, kid."

  "That's from a movie, isn't it?"

  "I dated myself, but yes, it is. It is from my favorite American film, Casablanca."

  "I didn't think Argentinians liked things American," said Kefira, testing the waters.

  "Let's keep the politics at bay. I am an incurable romantic and Ingrid Bergman was my first childhood crush."

  "I do know that one. I remember my parents talking about it. Doesn't it happen in occupied Vichy France and North Africa?"

  "That's pretty good for someone your age. Ingrid Bergman makes me think of you."

  "You take your compliments too far, Fripo. We look nothing alike."

  "No, but you give off the same kind of energy."

  Kefira stood up impulsively and walked around the small table, taking his hand up as she moved. Her tongue caressed his inner wrist, and then she rolled her left leg between the table and Fripo, ending up on his lap. After placing her arms delicately around his neck, she then kicked her right leg straight up into the air and placed it down carefully between the legs of the folding table under the white tablecloth. Kefira shifted her weight over his knees and brought her left leg in closer, to end up sitting cabaret style, with her back now stretched over his chest, her head lolled over his right shoulder. The effort warmed her unwashed skin, letting the smell of her oil rise to his nostrils. Fripo sighed deeply.

  "I'm speechless," said Fripo.

  She stood, spun around between his legs, flexed her knees, used his shoulders as a springboard, and landed weightlessly in his lap again. Their lips met and tongues hungrily explored each other. She could feel his manhood pressing against her thong. Just as abruptly as she had started, feeling a slight pang for teasing him, she sprang to her feet and was all business again.

  "That's the kind of energy I want to be able to project from the technical expertise you will demonstrate for me of tango. How long will it take?"

  "Let's get started."

  They worked on the basics and quickly advanced as Kefira demonstrated exceptional ability. The two-hour period passed pleasantly. Fripo noticed that Kefira did not even break a sweat in almost two hours. He was still strong, but tired as they stopped, having been interrupted by the polite knock of the next teacher using room 203. Fripo gathered his music and quickly straightened up the lunch stuff, saying he would get it from the closet later, while thirty people of all ages and nationalities filed into the room. Some acknowledged Fripo with discreet nods. Most occupied themselves with getting into dance practice shoes.

  "Dinner," he said as he stood beside the Ducati, shaking his head somewhat.

  "I am busy tonight, but tomorrow is fine."

  "You really expect me to sit on the back seat of that."

  "I ride like I dance. I gave myself to you in the dance. Pay me the same respect. You won't regret it."

  "I guess you're right. Regret is a waste of energy. Pick me up at the address on the back of the card I gave you. I can give you directions."

  "I have great GPS, and anyway, I've never gotten lost in any city in the world," she said, slipping her short, jet-black hair into the helmet.

  Fripo watched as she sped into traffic, wondering what he had gotten himself into. He double clicked his heels together and then strolled down the street and to the right, onto Calle Florida. He had parked his moped near the branch of Bank of America, in front of the Galerías Pacífico, a large and trendy indoor shopping mall.

  Kefira showed up at Fripo's dance studio again the next day, in the early afternoon. She watched Fripo going through the motions in his class through the small square window in the door, until Katerina poked her ribs from behind and laughed when Kefira turned, looking hostile.

  "Take it easy there, girl. I just couldn't resist interrupting your little spying game," said Katerina, harmlessly referring to Kefira's line of work without knowing.

  "Sorry. I've just been beating off a lot of Argentinian men recently."

  "I can't say I'm surprised, looking at you."

  "It's really nice to see you. Do you have time for an espresso?"

  "Why not? Fripo is busy for the next half hour, anyway. Where should we go?"

  "I'm mad about alfajores," said Kefira, talking about the Argentinian chocolate covered sandwich made with cake and dulce de leche filling inside, sold at Havanna Café, a coffee shop and franchised chain, with outlets all over Buenos Aires and Argentina. There was one Havanna Café just outside the Borges Centre for the Performing Arts, on Calle Florida.

  "I know. Those cookies are amazing. I remember when I lived in the States in the '90s, I was so disappointed that you couldn't buy them anywhere."


  The two of them walked, arm in arm, through the temporary art exhibits on the second floor and down the long, wide spiral staircase towards the ticket office, and out on to Viamonte. It was just a short walk to Calle Florida. On Florida, a trendy, pedestrian-only shopping street, they turned right and walked a short distance to Havanna Café. On the way, Kefira stopped beside an elderly couple playing classical music on the street. The two women listened intently until the music stopped and the gentleman musician in his mid-seventies nodded to them. Kefira dropped some pesos into the hat in front of the two violinists, but could not resist asking some questions.

  "Con respecto, señor," started Kefira, "your Vivaldi is very impressive. My father always played that piece for us near Christmas. Thank you for refreshing such a lovely memory."

  A Cheshire smile filled his face as he reached out and bent forward to kiss Kefira's hand. He went on to say that an audience as attentive and beautiful as Kefira and her young lady friend made the effort worthwhile.

  "I hope I will have the energy to perform as long as you have," continued Kefira, this time in unison with Katerina.

  "Lastima, qué lastima!" said the older gentleman.

  "I'm sorry. I don't understand. What is a shame?" asked Kefira.

  "I do play from love of music, but as our government has been playing with our pensions, I also play out of necessity. My pension is practically worthless, but alas, hasta la vista. It has given me great pleasure to feel your energy as you listened to our music. Now, we really must get back to playing."

  The gentleman clicked his heels together, bent slightly at the hip and glanced downward towards the right. He then nodded to his partner and placed his violin against a cloth on his shoulder. The two violins broke into a mournful rendition of Adios Nonino, by Astor Piazzolla. Kefira and Katerina walked silently, listening as the music faded away. They entered Havanna Café feeling subdued by the reality presented to them by the retired musicians. Kefira struggled to keep her compassion from turning to pity. They both ordered double espressos and alfajores sweets. Katerina spoke first.

  "Politics is dirty, but I want to know about you."

  "Not much to say, really. I'm on vacation here in Buenos Aires, learning the tango because I want to start teaching it at my school in LA."

  "I'd be honoured to come and give some workshops sometime," said Katerina.

  "That sounds amazing, especially if you could talk the maestro into coming with you."

  "His eyes sparkle when he looks at you. I don't think there would be any problem there."

  "No disrespect intended, but Fripo's eyes twinkle for whatever woman is in front of him. He's charming, but I am too busy for serious relationships," continued Kefira.

  "From experience several years ago, he's very attentive, not only when dancing," said Katerina with a wink of the eye and a nudge of the elbow.

  They both laughed, changing from the somber mood of their arrival in the coffee shop. A tall, handsome waiter brought their sweets and espressos. He seemed unable to decide which beautiful woman to compliment and blushed as a result. Katerina and Kefira burst into delight again, only deepening this sensitive macho's indecision. Exaggerating some undisclosed, inside joke, the women brought a throaty sigh to the waiter's lips.

  "You make my day. The smiles and laughter of two exceptionally beautiful women will inspire me," said the waiter as he turned snappily on the ball of one foot.

  As they sipped their coffee and munched the cakes, Fripo came into the cafeteria. He embraced Katerina first, then Kefira, with a long hug. Stealing the last bite of Kefira's alfajor, he offered to give her a lesson right away as he had an hour and a half of free time. They said their goodbyes and the maestro led his student back to the dance school.

  "We're going to work on teaching you how to listen today," said Fripo.

  "I think I listen well to the music and I don't have a lot of time to learn figures. Maybe we should practice some complex sequences," interjected Kefira.

  "Tango is different than other dances. The connection between partners, expressed by the manipulation of the chest as an indicator of future movements, is essential for the woman to master. We are like a single four-legged animal, and like a Siamese twin glued together in the upper body, we must learn how to respond to the needs of our other half," explained Fripo.

  The instruction continued, using just plain walking as the medium of communication. As they walked around the room, torsos together and legs free to disassociate and respond to any direction intimated by the leader, Fripo explained how the tango had evolved over hundreds of years of history.

  In the beginning, tango grew from an interweaving of the movements of freed African slaves who had escaped from North America or the plantations of Brazil. Later, European immigrants, principally though not exclusively from Italy and Eastern Europe, contributed their folkloric dances and the bandoneon, altering the flow of the dance. Early on in tango's history, pairs of men, in Montevideo and Argentina, tested their abilities to attract the one woman in a sea of a thousand men, across the blades of two extended knives, without any bodily connections.

  Later, all of these influences suffused as the bourgeoisie of Argentina adopted the dance. At that time, in the grand ballrooms outside the city, the dance evolved into the formalized militaristic tango salon movement, while inner-city dancers strutted around tiny dance halls, obliging them to use the close embrace Apilado, coming from 'piled up' in Spanish, or Milonguero style. The Tango Nuevo began at the turn of this century. The maestro's historical lesson deepened Kefira's understanding of the progression of tango music and movements. At the end of the lesson, Fripo congratulated her.

  "Now you are listening. You are ready to respond to the directions of any leader. Tomorrow we will work on some figures that require a special kind of attentiveness from you."

  "It was a wonderful lesson. I never would've imagined that just walking around a room could be so appealing to do. Thank you."

  "What about dinner? I'll pick you up at your hotel around 10 p.m. How does that sound?" asked Fripo.

  "I have some things I have to do this evening. Could we meet at the restaurant around ten thirty?"

  "Whatever pleases you. Adios."

  "Kalispera."

  "You speak Greek as well," said Fripo, a surprised expression on his face.

  "I was brought up in the Greek Islands, but that's a long story. Until later."

  After leaving Fripo, Kefira made her way, via her hotel where she armed herself and pocketed her lock picks, to the Armenian section of Buenos Aires. She took her Ducati to an indoor parking lot with security for her motorcycle and went onto the street to flag a taxi about two blocks from Shafiq's home. For a small bribe, she negotiated the use of the cab without the driver. She borrowed the driver's cap as well. On the street, with a clear view of Shafiq's balcony and front door, Kefira scrunched down and waited. One hour and a half later, she was rewarded for her tedium. The Middle Eastern gentleman's lights went off in his apartment windows and he left by the street level door on Calle Armenia. She made herself as invisible as possible and watched him leaving, all the while formulating a plan.

  Kefira pressed the buzzer for an apartment on the floor above Shafiq's home. Using her recently acquired, Argentinian-accented Spanish, she intimated a recent assignation with the ex-GIS man to his neighbor. Luckily, the woman who answered was trusting and rather unexpectedly at ease about potential robberies. The neighbor buzzed the entrance door open for Kefira. The Mossad agent had concocted a story about wanting to leave a note for Shafiq directly under his door. Likely due to everyone in the building knowing all about Shafiq's line of work, the account seemed plausible. Just in case the upstairs tenant appeared to confirm the looks of the person who had rung the bell, Kefira donned a blond wig that she had in her purse. Discretion being the better part of valor, especially in matters between men and women in Argentina, the upstairs neighbor did not come out to check up on Kefira.

 
Once inside his home, after a thirty second bout of lock picking, having noticed the clear tape across the top right of the door, Kefira proceeded directly to Shafiq's computer on a table facing the wall just to her right. It was password protected, which the agent bypassed by rebooting and opening the computer in set-up mode. She then scrolled around until she found 'enable password', disabled it and then left set-up mode to reboot the computer.

  When the computer opened this time, the password demand was repeated, but Kefira simply pressed the spacebar and the computer operating system opened. Entering Shafiq's email was as simple as typing a short macro made by Mossad that accessed a cookie inside Shafiq's browser, which in turn hacked directly into all email accounts on the machine. There were two accounts listed. The first account dealt with Shafiq's customers on Gmail. The other one was encrypted. The agent attached a small USB key, containing a decryption key. The program started churning through the possibilities.

  Kefira got up and started searching for other clues to unmask her control's ex-Egyptian double. After a few minutes, the program pinged and Kefira turned her head towards the noise, but was distracted by something shiny protruding from under a bowl beside the computer. Her penlight guided her eyes. It was a cell phone, sitting on pile of phone bills. As she removed a copy of all of Shafiq's encrypted email, as well as a duplicate of everything on his computer now transferred to the 64GB key, she took pictures of Shafiq's most recent phone bills and checked his messages on the Nokia phone.

  There was one call to Boston. The number was the same as the number that Zak had found in Scotland. "Bingo!" she said under her breath. Kefira let herself out, making sure to use a piece of sticky tape that she found also on Shafiq's desk, over the top right side of the door. She made her way back to the rented taxi and left it at the pre-arranged drop off. Leaving two hundred dollars under the floor mat would reinforce the driver's promise of silence. After all, she had pledged to use his cab for cash on several more occasions in the coming weeks.