Tampa Burn

THIRTY-TWO

I touched a button on my plastic watch and saw that it was 9:40 P.M.

I also saw that my hands were trembling.

I’m supposed to be the icy one. The cold professional. I’ve been in so many tight spots, in so many places and circumstances in which my life or someone else’s life was at risk, that I should know by now how my brain and body will react.

I’ve come to expect this response: The pressure to think and perform seems to banish emotion, and a kind of predatory chill moves in to fill that emotional void. My concentration becomes intense, as does my sensory awareness, although, oddly, color perception diminishes-as if color is an unnecessary frill.

This time, however, that’s not how I reacted. Maybe it was because my son was involved. But I certainly didn’t stay cool and collected. In fact, never in my life had I felt so frightened, so panic-stricken.

As I stood at the wheel of my skiff, steering at fast idle down Bullfrog Creek, I had to fight to keep from hyperventilating. My body trembled uncontrollably each time I exhaled. My hands shook when I took the cell phone and dialed Harris Lilly’s number.

I’ve seldom used a cellular phone, but I discovered that, thanks to the little headphone unit, even while running a boat at speed, I could hear pretty well if I turned the ear containing the receiver into the wind.

When my friend answered, that’s what I did.

Harris was alone, in his own vehicle now, he told me. Then he listened in stunned silence as I told him that I had reason to believe that Prax Lourdes, my son, and the abducted surgeon were aboard a commercial vessel somewhere in or around Tampa Bay.

When I was finished, he made a sneezing sound, then sputtered, “Jesus Christ, you’re shittin’ me! You think Dr. Santos is being held captive aboard a ship that checked out of our port? In that case, our agreement is off, Doc. Sorry, but I’ve got to call in the cops. It’s not a private matter anymore.”

I told him that I’d expected exactly that reaction. I understood that he had to do his duty, but added, “What scares the hell out of me is that local law enforcement is going to figure out which ship they’re on, and then try to go storming in with choppers and SWAT teams and a fleet of boats. This guy Lourdes is a freak. He’ll kill my son before they take him. That doctor, too. He’ll set them both on fire just to watch them burn before they cart him off to the insane asylum. I know, because he’s done it before.”

“Then what do you want me to do, Doc?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I understand your position. I don’t see any other alternatives. But you’re right, we have to notify the professionals and get a search started.”

I felt like sobbing.

Harris said, “O.K., O.K., we will. In the meantime, though, there’s no reason you and I can’t be sniffing around on our own. I can call our Tampa pilot dispatcher. There may not be a long list of night transits, and I can get the list of vessels that have been cleared to leave. We’re figuring our bad guy’s on a ship scheduled to spook out soon, right? I can get those names to you in five or ten minutes. But, Doc, we’re not going to have a lot of time before the big search sweeps start. This woman is an internationally respected surgeon. She’s international news.”

If Harris could narrow the list of ships, then I might have a shot at finding my son. For the first time, I felt a slight surge of optimism. “We’ll work with what we’ve got,” I said. “I’m under way now-”

As I spoke, my phone began to make an odd chiming sound. It took me a moment to figure out that it was the Call Waiting option. I had another call coming in.

I said, “Hold it a second,” and looked at the phone. The little face plate was flashing, showing caller I.D. information. I read: Elmase Baretto.

It was Jorge Balserio’s thug, the husky little Nicaraguan, calling from the Miami area code.

I said, “Hey, this could be important. Do you mind checking on the names of those ships while I answer this? I’ll call you right back.”

I touched the Talk button, then said in Spanish, “You’d better not be calling to talk about clothes.”

Elmase said, “Even when you not tryin’ to be funny, you sound so very funny. I could teach you something about clothes. Somebody needs to.”

Then he said, “Hey… what’s all that noise, dude? You sound like you in a hurricane that’s going on.”

Trying to talk on the phone and navigate an unfamiliar creek, I was still traveling at fast idle. Because the boat was quieter on plane, traveling at much faster speed, I considered punching the throttle, but decided it was too risky while I was preoccupied.

I told him, “I’m in a boat, so you’ve got to speak loud. I don’t have time to explain.”

He said, “In a boat, man? That’s perfect, man. ’Cause that’s what I’m calling to tell you. General Balserio, he wants that crazy bastard stopped so bad. We want to help you, just like we say. The General, he’s going to lose the Revolution ’cause of that crazy goat-fucker if he hurts your boy. So here’s what we found out-you got something to write with?”

What Elmase told me, I didn’t have to write down. Balserio, or his people, had discovered that Lourdes had some kind of connection with a tramp freighter that made regular runs from Nicaragua and Masagua to Havana, then on to Tampa and back. It often carried fertilizer, although the ship was such a wreck that the company was known to be willing to haul just about anything.

Balserio’s people had it from a reliable source that Lourdes had made a cash deal with the captain and crew of this phosphate freighter to give him safe passage out of Florida, and that the boat would be leaving for Central America soon.

Elmase told me, “Here’s the part you gotta write, dude, so you don’t forget. If you find this boat, you gonna find the crazy Man-Burner aboard her. Maybe your son, too.”

The name of the freighter was Repatriate, and it was registered out of Monrovia, Liberia.

It was the same decrepit ship, covered with rust and fertilizer dust, that I’d seen headed to sea, probably an hour or so outbound from the phosphate plant at Gibsonton as I was headed inbound.

I told Elmase, “I’m not going to forget.”

I dialed Harris immediately, but before I could speak, he said, “Hey, ol’ buddy, I just noticed there’s some old bastard in a cowboy hat tailing me in a white unmarked Ford. It’s a damn old cop! If he was driving a Jag and wearing a beret, I’d still know he’s a cop just because of the way he looks. What’s the deal? Do you know anything about this?”

I told Harris to calm down, there was something I needed to ask him before I answered. I said, “Did you call your dispatcher and get the list of ships that are transiting tonight?”

“I haven’t had time. When I figured out this was the third or fourth time I’ve seen Dick Tracy, I started a game of bumper tag just to make sure. The guy can drive for an old fart, I’ll give him that much.”

“Did you notify anyone that Dr. Santos, and my son, might be out here somewhere being held aboard a ship?”

“I told you I was. That’s the first thing I did. I called Port Authority Security, and I told them to alert Coast Guard and the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department. There should be an army of people scrambling right now.”

“O.K., good. In that case, how far are you from the Sunshine Skyway Bridge? I need your help again. If you’re willing. Or is there a better place to stop and pick you up?”

Harris said he was more than willing, and that he liked Blackthorn Park on the south end because of what it meant to him. But the little park on the St. Pete side of the Skyway was closer, so that would be better. Said he’d flash his car lights when he thought he saw me approaching.

I wrestled over the decision if I should tell him now or later about the tramp freighter, Repatriate. I finally decided to wait until he was aboard my skiff-but only after I’d asked him how long it took a freighter to steam from the bay into international waters.

I wanted to know because, if notified immediately, I wondered if it was possible for any of the state law enforcement agencies to intercept the Liberian freighter before it reached international waters. If not, they were powerless, because the ship would be out of their jurisdiction, and so the information would do them no good.

Only the U.S. Coast Guard, because of treaties with a variety of countries-usually related to anti-drug-trafficking agreements-has the legal right to stop and detain vessels on the high seas, and also to make arrests. No other law enforcement in the State of Florida does.

There wasn’t time to stop them before they made it out of territorial waters. Not a chance, by my calculations. And the idea of a Coast Guard helicopter trying to intercept the vessel gave me the chills.

So instead of telling him about my conversation with Elmase, I asked him to call his dispatcher and get information on all ships transiting Tampa Bay that night. Repatriate’ s data would be included.

I wanted a private, personal shot at the vessel before anyone in law enforcement did something stupid-like tip them off by contacting the Repatriate’ s skipper by radio and demanding that he turn back to port.

If the ship’s captain and crew were being paid by Lourdes, that would only put them on their guard and make it more dangerous for me, my son, and the surgeon-if they were both still alive.

Before hanging up, Harris asked me again, “But what about the old guy? The cop in the unmarked car. What should I do about him?”

I told my friend that once he got to our rendezvous point, pull over, stop, and introduce himself to Detective Merlin Starkey, who was probably now attached to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

“Let him know about Dr. Santos and my son. Tell him he’s probably the first cop to know, and ask him to help. As a personal favor to me.”

Harris said, “The way you’re talking, it’s like you’re old friends or something.”

I said, “He and my late uncle, they knew each other. But they weren’t exactly friends.”

I put the phone in my pocket, jumped the skiff onto plane, and concentrated on getting to the Sunshine Skyway as fast as I could. Because it was night, and because I didn’t know the water, that didn’t mean going as fast as my boat could go, unfortunately.

Not in the winding creek anyway.

I made myself take it easy. Run it safe.

There was a time when I seldom used the running lights required by law when boating at night. On a small boat, “running lights” consist of a red port light and green starboard light on the front of the vessel, and a white light on the back. All of the lights are bright enough to be seen one to two miles away.

On my Maverick, the bow lights are positioned so as not to be bothersome, but a white stern light can’t help but impair night vision slightly. Which is why I once often made a practice of operating my vessels (illegally) blacked out.

Not anymore, and not on this night. There are nearly a million boats registered in Florida. It’s starting to get busy, even after sunset. From what I witness daily around the marina, maybe a third of all boaters are competent during daylight, and the rest are a menace to themselves and everyone else day or night.

Which is why I now almost always use running lights. No telling what brand of idiot is out there, flying through the darkness.

So I had my lights on, running the serpentine river course as fast, but as safely, as I could. As my skiff’s stern pivoted, the moon swung behind me as if on a pendulum with a kind of easy, skiing rhythm, and so my wake seemed to partition away as ridges of ice might, in rolling, congealed waves of silver.

I had a spotlight out, too-2 million candlepower handheld with a pistol grip switch, the unit plugged to the console, and lying on the bow seat, ready when I needed it. Which wasn’t often. But when I did pick it up and touch the trigger, the little river seemed at once to explode with light but squeeze in closer, ablaze in a column of yellow-mangroves, roosting birds, oyster bars, and raccoons all frozen in the harsh beam.

At the mouth of the creek, I came around the final bend, and the horizon changed as if a curtain had dropped; changed from a black tree-wall to open sky, stars above, navigation markers flashing miles away, lights blinking as random as fireflies, and the night skylines of St. Pete and Tampa dimmed the moonlit clouds beyond.

The narrow creek seemed to hold less oxygen then the vast bay, and air came into my lungs easier. It seemed cooler, too, as I powered out onto the dark water, toward the four-second flashers that line the main channel.

When I was safely away from the creek’s shoals, I increased my speed to a little over forty, banking southwest toward the high, carnival-bright lights of the Skyway Bridge. As I did, the phone in my pocket began to vibrate. I’d never owned one before, and now I was suddenly besieged by calls.

I took it out of my pocket, checked, and saw that the caller I.D. was blocked.

Dewey?

I couldn’t seem to press the Talk button and answer fast enough.

I didn’t reduce speed; was still flying across Tampa Bay at 45 mph or so. Even so, because I was wearing the little headphone, I heard Dewey’s voice just fine when she said, “Am I catching you at a bad time? I guess you were too busy to talk before.”

I said, “Dew, are you O.K.? Is everything all right?”

“I’m doing better and better since I dumped a certain nerdy biologist. Why the hell did you hang up on me earlier?”

Had I? I thought I’d waited until it quit ringing, and then switched it off.

I said, “Sweetie, there’s no person in the world I’d rather talk to. I can’t wait to see you, and be together again. But there’s a lot happening right now. Listen -I think I know where my son is. I’m in my boat. I’m in Tampa Bay. I’m going after him right now.”

I explained the situation as briefly as I could, then listened to her say in a different tone, very concerned and serious now, “Oh my God, Doc, please be careful. Bring him home safe. And call me the instant you can, because I’m not going to sleep a wink tonight until I hear from you.”

It was awkward having to remind her: “I don’t have your number, Dew. You always block it. You don’t want me to know where you are, remember?”

I felt a delicious surge of relief when she replied, “Hang up right now. I’ll call back with the block off, then you can save my number. That way, you’ll have it in your phone. Don’t answer-concentrate on what you’re doing. And stay safe, you big moron!”

I stared at the phone when the I.D. plate began to flash.

Where was area code 563?