Randy White: Tampa Burn

From her reaction, though, I got the strong impression that it disturbed her to linger on the subject of Lake’s abductor. It scared me, her reaction. Gave me a chill.

The three of us were outside, sitting in cane-backed bar stools on the northeastern side of my porch. It’s the portion of porch that hangs over my shark pen and looks out over the bay.

On the teak table between Pilar and myself were Ball jars filled with iced tea. Tomlinson held a tumbler of dark Guyana rum cloaked in his big bony hands, as if trying to warm it. Unseen below us, beneath dark water, two bull sharks and a smaller, 70-pound hammerhead shark circled. Like ocean currents, sharks are always moving.

It was a little before eight P.M. on a Tuesday night so humid that the air had a steam-bath weight. I could feel water molecules settling upon my skin. It was ten minutes or so until sunset, and a couple hours past low tide, so the tidal lake that is Dinkin’s Bay was refilling.

I rose from my chair and began to pace.

Pilar said, “It happened Wednesday night or early Thursday morning. We live in a place you’ll remember-the Claustro la Concepcion. The old nunnery right across from the presidential palace.”

Yes, I remembered. Stone walls, high ceilings, lots of wood and shadow. It smelled of canvas and heavy furniture, like a museum. In the city, it had been the only safe meeting place for Pilar and me, our one refuge. A convent where lovers rendezvoused. Ironic.

“Safety,” she said. “That’s why Laken and I lived there. When I was involved with the government, Masagua had a period of stability. Brief stability- I’m not taking credit, understand. The first in its history, but that’s changed. It’s become a political nightmare again.”

From news reports on my shortwave radio, that was true. I knew generalities, not the details.

Masagua is the smallest country in Central America. It’s on the Pacific Coast, between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. It’s made up of rural islands, mountains, active volcanoes, and rainforest. It’s also the poorest country in the region. Unemployment and infant mortality rates are high, the median income low.

Nothing catalyzes political unrest like a failed economy. I knew there were two rebel armies vying to take control. Jorge Balserio was the head of the most powerful rebel force-the F.L.N., or National Liberation Front. I’d heard he’d formed a government in exile based somewhere in Florida. Miami, probably.

The fact that he’d faked his assassination-killing some of his own men in the process-just to save his own skin had apparently been forgotten.

“Our rooms,” Pilar said, “are on the second floor of the convent. Laken’s room is down the hall from mine. Because I still work as a government consultant, the military provides armed guards. See? I thought we were safe.”

I interrupted. “Is General Rivera still the head of the military?”

Juan Rivera was an old political enemy but also my old friend. He’s a baseball freak-a left-handed pitcher who carried his fantasy of playing pro ball into middle age. Picture Fidel Castro: the fatigues, the beard, but bigger and without the psychosis.

“No, the general’s been gone for more than a year. After he lost his command, he disappeared-to avoid a firing squad, some say. Which was a terrible loss for me. Juan was one of the few people in the government I could still trust.

“That’s something you need to know. Our government’s close to collapse. There are so many traitors and rebel insiders now, there’s almost no one-I’m not exaggerating- no one that I can speak to in confidence. I trusted Juan, but almost no one else. No longer. That’s why I couldn’t speak openly on the telephone.

“The armed guards I mentioned? I thought our son’s personal guard, Gilberto, was devoted. But the night of the kidnapping, Gilberto went home, saying he was sick. I’ve been told he’s joined the rebels.”

Because I hoped it would nudge her into telling us more about the kidnapper, I asked, “What makes you think Balserio’s involved?”

“Because they delivered a video and he’s mentioned in a way that implicates him. I brought it so you can see for yourself. The man who abducted Laken”-she stopped, visibly pained-“I can’t call him a man. I won’t. Jorge Balserio, he’s responsible for what’s happened, and he’ll burn in hell for what he’s done. Bringing that terrible person into Masagua.”

It took Tomlinson’s gentle questioning to get the story out of her. Less than three years before, Balserio’s rebel army had been so ineffective that it had become the butt of jokes. No respect from the general population meant no support. Desperate for power, Balserio had taken desperate military risks-one was a stab at psychological warfare.

Using political connections and bribes, he bought the freedom of a hundred or so of the most dangerous criminals in Nicaragua and Colombia. In exchange for their freedom and other perks, the criminals agreed to fight for Balserio as mercenaries.

I was explaining to Tomlinson that such bartering wasn’t uncommon among guerrilla armies, when Pilar interrupted. “Letting men out of prison, that’s one thing. I’ve heard of that. But Jorge, he took inmates from asylums, too. Insane asylums. And animals who should have been in insane asylums. He wanted the sickest kind of men. Men who’d do things so brutal that people would support him out of fear.

“It worked,” she added. “He’s winning the war. People are afraid to leave their homes at night. They’re flying his flag, and they’ll vote for his party because they don’t want one of his monsters to come knocking on their door.”

I clubbed my thigh with my fist again as I listened to her describe how frantic she’d been when she found the door to the boy’s room forced open, his bed empty, plus this odd discovery: All the fish in his main aquarium were dead.

I said, “Dead? How?”

She shrugged. “It was as if they’d exploded.”

That made no sense. My brain started to consider the possibilities, but then swung back to task. I had to ask again, “What makes you think they hurt Lake?”

Pilar had brought a simple straw purse. It was the type they sell in the open markets of Central America, and that are used by peasant women. From the purse she took a CD.

“Judge for yourself. On Thursday morning, a brown paper package was found outside the compound gate. It makes me nauseous to watch it. Do you have a computer that plays DVDs?”

I didn’t, but Tomlinson did.

“My laptop’s in the marina office,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

Aside from exchanging e-mail photos, I hadn’t seen my son in nearly four years. Now here he was on a computer screen, his pale eyes staring out into mine, looking so lost and alone that his fear seemed directly proportional to the dread I now felt.

He was lying on a bare mattress in a poorly lighted room. They’d used duct tape. His wrists and mouth were taped, and a section of rope tied around his waist suggested they’d used it to pull him along, leading him to this dingy-looking place.

There was a window, Venetian blinds drawn, pale light leaking through, and a floor lamp. A moth was beating itself against the lamp’s nicotine shade. It could have been a cheap motel. It could have been a cabin in the woods.

The video began with a close-up of the boy’s face, his eyes blinking into the lens. There is something heartbreakingly vulnerable about people who have been bound and gagged. The physical debasement is implicit. It is something that might be done to animals before they are thrown over the hoods of hunting vehicles.

Looking at my son’s face, I wondered how long he would be scarred by this violation. I wondered if he would live long enough to suffer through it and heal.