Mid Ocean

by T Rafael Cimino

  “I’m already on it,” Greico answered.

  “Keep a close eye on him Gus, and let me know if anything develops.”

  Linez ran the engines up while the plane sat with its brakes locking the tires to the black asphalt runway. It took a few minutes but eventually all systems on the nearly new plane checked out. After a brief request to the tower, the plane proceeded down the seven thousand foot strip gaining speed with every yard it traveled until it lifted off the pavement, its nose high, aiming skyward.

  * * * * *

  Genius

  “How has business been?” Gordo asked Gene Latrell who was standing behind the glass-encased counter at the L and L Electronics shop.

  “It could be better. What’s this you have brought me?”

  “That’s it, I really don’t know. It came off a Customs boat. I guess it has something to do with the communications system. It has this coaxial hookup on the back of it. Roberto wanted you to look at it if you don’t mind.”

  “Gordo, your brother has been very good to me. You two know that if there is anything I can ever do, all you have to do is ask.”

  “You’re a good man, Gene.”

  Latrell knew that Gordo was probably right since the black box also had a blue and white Motocom label affixed on its bottom side. The metal backed decal had the unit’s serial number etched into the face for easy identification. Motocom was one of the oldest electronics companies in America manufacturing commercial and governmental communications systems. Unlike their numerous competitors, Motocom had never diversified into computers or other telemetric equipment. They believed in doing one thing and doing it right. Latrell himself had applied for a Motocom distributorship but was denied approval because of his decreasing sales volume.

  “These things look like they’ve been to hell and back. Were they securely mounted in the boat?”

  “You got me, man. They were already removed when we found them.”

  “I’ll need to keep them for a couple of days. It will take some digging but I think I can figure it out.”

  “You have my beeper number, call me.”

  “Sounds good. Hey look before you go I have something to show you. Some divers found it off Key Largo.”

  Gordo was puzzled as he followed him to the store’s back workshop. Latrell put the box containing the Motocom system on the bench and pulled a rusty, salt-filled radio from the top shelf. Gordo recognized it immediately because he had one just like it mounted on the 38-foot Stiletto Black Duck.

  “Where did you say these divers found it?”

  “Off Key Largo, by the Elbow,” he answered. “I was curious. I’m the only dealer for Icom in the area so I looked up the serial numbers. This one was bought here my friend. It was your nephew Bobby’s.”

  “I knew it! When that fucking Customs boat hit him shit went everywhere. That Blue Thunder boat really hauls ass. He must have been doing seventy. Bobby didn’t have a chance. The Island Girl went down like a rock.”

  “Jesus Christ! Did they even stop to help?”

  “Fuck no, they saw that there wasn’t anyone around. They couldn’t see me so they hauled ass. That Blue Thunder is built like a tank. Hitting Bobby’s boat did very little damage.”

  “Those bastards!”

  “Yeah, listen, let’s leave what the divers found between us. If Roberto finds out it will really upset him.”

  “Sure man. Whatever you say.”

  •

  Several hours later, Latrell’s back ached as he slumped over the elevated electronics bench. His work area was well organized with all of the most modern diagnostic and mechanical equipment at his disposal like oscilloscopes and high-tech electronic soldering irons. He was very meticulous, like a coroner performing an autopsy.

  The local weatherman had predicted a massive thunderstorm in the Miami area and his prediction was correct. It could have been a scene out of an early Frankenstein movie, the diabolical mad man restructuring his creation with flashes of lightning blazing through the rain-spotted windows, illuminating the overstocked shelves of L and L Electronics. This was something so complicated that his twenty year career as an electrical engineer did not prepare him for what he was exploring. The storm brewed outside with another flash of lightning and more thunder as Latrell worried that he might have to reboot his new computer if the power surged again.

  The first step was simple. He had to access the inside workings of the device without harming any of the circuits. Considering the failsafe devices commonly installed on government devices, he could easily damage the inner workings by not taking the proper precautions. After identifying the internal components, he could cross-reference them against his sources. His reference library in the shop had been limited at best. Since his unsuccessful attempt at becoming a Motocom dealer eighteen months before, he didn’t have access to their shop reference manuals until he came across a microfiche machine at a competitor’s bankruptcy auction. Inside the box was the entire Motocom product line on microfiche in six three-by-five card boxes. The small sheets of transparent plastic contained every circuit board schematic, parts inventory and wiring diagram for every product the company had made in the last twenty years.

  The first black radio box fit nicely into the vice below the shop’s drill press. Latrell pulled on the handle, extending a spinning high-speed carbide drill down against the keyed lock on the side of the case. Then he applied a drop of penetrating oil and some carbon graphite dust to the lock chamber as he watched the sharp drill bite into the stainless steel mechanism. Tiny shavings of metal formed at the base of the hole that had been created as he kept applying gentle, gradual pressure to the handle at the side of the press. In a few seconds, the task was completed and the chamber cracked, spinning around with the bit as he released the lever and the drill retracted from the new hole.

  A few minutes later, the smell of solder filled the tiny room as Latrell worked under the light from a tiny desk-style florescent lamp. This project intrigued him, revitalizing his desire for a challenge like the ones he faced as a University of Florida electrical engineering student in Gainesville. He remembered the nights he would stay up until 3:00 a.m. experimenting with complex algorithmic theories. While others were simply trying to make the grade, Gene Latrell was developing ideas that came to him in his sleep.

  His most significant project was a device designed for emergency vehicles like those used by police and fire departments. He developed it after reading about an accident involving an ambulance and a passenger car. The ambulance was rushing a woman in labor to the hospital with an imminent breach birth. A cesarean section was needed and time was the only thing that separated the soon-to-be infant from birth. In minutes the fetus would expire from a lack of oxygen. The ambulance raced through his home city of Gainesville, en route to the Shands teaching hospital, one of the more renowned birthing centers in the country. While crossing an intersection, a second year university student ran a red light and impacted the side of the speeding ambulance, killing all on board. A Florida Highway Patrol homicide investigation revealed that the student was going for a test ride after installing a new high wattage stereo system in his custom 1974 Camaro. The loud, blaring music distracted him and filled the car’s passenger compartment with so much noise that he didn’t hear the sounds of the approaching sirens or the blaring air horns.

  Latrell sat in his dorm room, touched by the story and perplexed with a possible solution. Weeks later, he ventured into a project that would last him four months. The result was a new type of emergency vehicle warning device, one that did not use any speakers and ran in conjunction with a conventional siren that did. It was a sophisticated FM transmitter that was designed for installation on the front grills of fire trucks, police cars, and ambulances. It broadcasted a close range FM signal from 88 to 108 megahertz, covering the entire FM broadcast band, sending the shrill of a siren over the airwaves to be received by every base-busting, tweeter-popping stereo in a fifty-yard radius, masking ove
r the regular programming. The device also broke into the car’s equalizer and power amplifier so it could also interrupt those playing cassettes and the traditional eight-track tape players. The project was a success and stood to make Latrell a very wealthy man and put the University of Florida’s electrical engineering department on the national map. He received the University President’s Award for science development that year and a favorable write-up in the new age Omni Magazine, a publication dedicated to intellectual futurists. A patent was issued and everything looked good for Latrell’s future until the Federal Communications Commission ruled in a unanimous vote by its science and technology committee that this device was an infringement on the nation’s Clear Transmission Doctrine and while a very good idea, left a potential door open for abuse. Stunned and dismantled, Latrell changed his major to business administration and three years later graduated with an MBA from the university.

  Latrell fluxed his solder tip again as he loosened the diodes that completed a series of circuits which amplified the receiver portion of the device. The Motocom T-1010, also called Ten-Ten, was a sophisticated device. It had to be because it was the frontline communications system for the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, Border Patrol, IRS, Secret Service, and U. S. Customs. The device gave agents a multitude of abilities, more so than just communications. Each radio was embedded with a user-specific code, or patch word, that was assigned to each individual agent. When someone spoke, legibly or not, the receiving station knew who it was. When hooked into the boat’s main system, the radio automatically transmitted information from the vessel’s LORAN-C system giving an exact location of the agent at all times. Even agents who worked inland had the newer global positioning systems installed in their vehicles. These systems relayed radio signals back to local repeaters that, in turn, relayed the signal regionally for everyone to hear. Globally, the same transmissions were fed to a French satellite that eventually made their way to Sector, also known as C3I. Sector, using the same French satellite, received data beamed up from numerous radar installations like the airborne balloon that was tethered to Cudjoe Key. Information to and from EPIC, the El Paso Information Center, that housed the narcotics portion of NCIC, the National Crime Information Center, used the same routes and the same French satellite. All this information fed through one fragile link, spinning in a geosynchronous orbit, twenty-four miles above the earth.

  It didn’t take Latrell long to identify the circuits and their corresponding duties within the device. With a pad of graph paper and a mechanical pencil, he began to draw the design for his next electronic masterpiece.

  * * * * *

  Fury

  State Trooper Lester Mander sat behind the wheel of his intimidating black and tan Florida Highway Patrol cruiser. While parked at the Snapper Creek service plaza, the twelve-year veteran needed to use the gas station’s air pump to even out the tire pressure on his car. Mander took a lot of pride in the upkeep of his state-issued car. Two years in a row, he won the vehicle maintenance award for the cruiser with the least amount of downtime. At the end of every shift he meticulously checked the oil and other fluid levels, surveyed the car for other conditions that might warrant attention and gave it a quick wash, being sure the paint was protected by at least one coat of wax.

  Back in his car, Mander watched as an older lady walked around the minivan in front of him. The boxy vehicle had simulated wood-paneling sides, a large chrome luggage rack and a custom spare tire holder mounted on the back door. The lady, he judged to be about sixty, bent over each wheel fender, checking the tire pressure with the station’s commercial gauge. The timid, fragile woman used both hands to grasp the device as she pressed it against the rubber valve projecting from the wheel’s hubcap. Air escaped as she took the reading and added some more that came from the hose lying at her feet. It was a cool night, the type of weather he was used to seeing before a large storm came through. On the horizon to the north, the impending storm shook the landscape with ballads of thunder and brilliant lightning. It was quiet here though, the quiet before the storm. The glow of a bright blue bug light caught Mander’s attention.

  ZAP!

  Another one bites the dust, he thought to himself as he contemplated getting out of his comfortable cruiser to help the old woman with her tire pressure. Na, she was almost finished, besides it had been a long day, he justified. Besides, his cruiser, when it was on the road, had been buffeting at around eighty miles an hour and had been pulling to the right earlier in the day. He needed to go over to the service station and have them check the steering tie bar. He had seen many different styles and models issued to him and his peers by the Highway Patrol, from the compact, high-speed Ford Mustang that he despised, to the oversized earlier Plymouths that he thought resembled something found floating on a lake. Still, despite their obvious differences, all of them had one distinction: the all-black body and tan roof and trunk with the accompanying blue lights, no red. His Plymouth Fury was just right, not too big and not too small. Its four hundred and forty cubic inch motor, something that had been discontinued, gave him plenty of speed and acceleration, elements that were needed on his beat, the lone highways of the Florida Turnpike.

  ZAP!

  There were a lot of bugs out for this time of year, Mander thought to himself. The old lady was to the last tire on her minivan, thank God. He looked at his watch, 7:47 p.m. and was off duty in thirteen minutes. His wife was making shepherd’s pie, his favorite. His plan was simple; check out the steering and then head home.

  Mander pulled around towards the service bay of the gas station. By doing so, the parked patrol car formed a different angle, pointing the dash-mounted radar cone towards the flow of traffic passing by on the four lane turnpike. Instantly, the amber digital display started recording the velocities of the passing cars. The alarm limit had been set earlier for sixty-five miles per hour. The national speed limit was fifty-five plus the ten extra he gave his motorists. Then without warning, the alarm sounded as ninety-two appeared on the amber display which started to blink.

  92-92-92-92.

  The six-foot-three-inch trooper looked over at the passing traffic just in time to see a red IROC Camaro, one of the confiscated cars that were in use by the agents of the Tavernier office. Joel, unaware of the trooper, passed traffic at a high rate of speed, heading up the overpass towards the extreme southern portion of the turnpike, the Homestead Extension. Mander pushed the gas pedal to the floor as the radar continued to blink its reading.

  92-92-92-92.

  A day of dealing with school buses and frivolous infractions made him miss a good high-speed pursuit. The Plymouth sped over the grass median leaving a pair of dirt tracks that led up to the turnpike roadside where the cruiser gripped the pavement with a squeal and a patch of smoke. He was off. The alignment buffet Mander had noticed chasing tourists at eighty was now more evident at a hundred and ten. He knew better than to test the response of the loose steering at this speed. He would most surely lose control. The red IROC was almost in sight. The driver was still maintaining a speed in excess of ninety miles per hour. As he got closer, Mander let off the gas. The wind resistance alone slowed the car almost immediately as he approached the tail end of the speeding Camaro. He closed his gap to a tight fifteen feet from the car’s bumper. They don’t even know I’m back here, he thought to himself.

  “Turnpike, 642…”

  “642.”

  “642, attempting to stop a vehicle, southbound, TPK on the Homestead Extension just south of mile marker nine. Unable to get a tag number Turnpike. He’s running in excess of ninety.”

  “642, do you need pursuit protocol?”

  “Not yet Turnpike, he hasn’t seen me yet.”

  With one hand holding the microphone and the other one gripping the wheel, Mander watched as the speeding car changed lanes to avoid a slower car, the elderly woman and her wood-paneled minivan that was maintaining a steady forty miles per hour. Mander watched in horro
r as the front of his patrol car rapidly approached the rear end of the slower vehicle. Mander dropped the microphone as he gripped the wheel with both hands, swerving the car to the right, onto the embankment, and around the van. The locked brakes did nothing to assist the ninety miles per hour sidespin Mander had created. The car continued down the embankment toward a hole filled with water and mud. He braced himself as the muddy banks of the small roadside pond absorbed the car’s velocity.

  * * * * *

  Reunion

  Why was it so hard to confront my father? Tessa Alazar thought. A massive storm had moved south through Miami and was now blistering the Upper Keys. She sat in front of her family’s home parked in her Datsun 300ZX next to her father’s dually pickup truck and a red IROC Camaro, listening to the rain pelt the roof. In the backseat, Monica sat strapped in her car seat, awake and emotionless, watching her mother who stared out the window.

  “Mommy?”

  “What baby?”

  “Can I go potty now?”

  “Sure baby, in a minute.”

  Why was it so hard? The thought hit her again. The home they were in front of was lit up and a steady stream of smoke oozed from the chimney like a scene from a Norman Rockwell print. Marrying Bobby Alazar was an act of rebellion more than it was an act of love; an excuse to escape her life, her one indulgence that had been reaping repercussions ever since.

  Why was it?

  “Let’s go baby. The rain is slowing down,” she said, reaching around unstrapping Monica.