Tomlinson was still angry. “There he goes, calling you a liar again.”
Waldman looked at him, no emotion. “A few minutes with Doctor Ford alone. Then I think we’re done here.”
4
F BI Special Agent Waldman took one of the kitchen chairs, turned it, straddled it, then folded his arms over the backrest, his face very close to mine. He said, “Okay. It’s just you and me now, Ford. Private, no one else listening. Your very last chance. So tell me what the hell happened out there today. At least give me some interesting version of the truth. Just a little something I can work with.”
I shook my head. “Waldman, this is really starting to get tiresome. I collect fish for a living. I operate a tiny, one-man business. I’ve got a three-page catalog. I can send it to you. Want a hundred horseshoe crabs? Or a whelk egg case in preservative? I can collect it and sell it to you. Or brittle stars or octopi or unborn sharks with their veins already injected. That’s what I do. That’s what I’m good at. Not dealing with kidnappers or rescuing women.”
“That’s the way you want to leave it?”
“The truth’s the truth.”
He sighed, looking at me with careful appraisal. “You need to understand that, when you leave this island, whoever you screwed over out there on the water this afternoon may come looking for you. The girls say you knocked the hell out of the one guy. Said they heard a loud popping sound, like you maybe even broke his back. Depending on who it was, how bad he’s hurt, who he’s related to, they’re not going to let something like that slide.
“With the drug cartels, it’s business. A matter of pride. You hurt a member of their family, they’re going to double the hurt on you. With people like the Shining Path, they’re zealots, lunatics. What they enjoy is hacking someone up with a machete as a political statement. Not that you’d be a top priority. If they do check back and ID you, though, you’d be a very easy guy to find. Depends on whether or not you make it under their radar. Personally, I don’t think you ought to risk it.”
With the two of us alone now, Waldman’s manner was less official, his tone more reasonable. There was a time when the FBI hired only CPAs and attorneys, and he had the bookish, librarian look of a man who enjoyed the clarity of numbers, but who also got out and played golf or tennis on weekends. His hands and fingers told me he’d been married to the same woman for many years, didn’t smoke, didn’t do manual labor, was left-handed, and possibly dipped snuff judging from the orange stain on his thumb and middle finger.
Probably a good, dependable man. We might have become friends under different circumstances.
Even so, I wasn’t going to accept his help. Also, I thought it was extremely unlikely that cartel people or an organization like Sendero would waste time and money on an insignificant marine biologist who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. But I also had to admit to myself that Waldman might be right about one thing. Revenge is a compelling motivator. There was a lot of adrenaline and mass combined when I put my shoulder into the shooter’s spine. If he was badly injured, if he did have the right connections, he or his family might send someone after me to even the score.
It was a possibility.
The more information I had, the better chance I had of anticipating any move against me, so I decided to ask Waldman a few questions of my own, just in case. I said, “Off the record, you mind telling me why you think they targeted the girl?”
“We don’t even know who ‘they’ are yet, Doctor Ford.”
My expression was one of pain and tolerance. “Come on now, Agent Waldman. Wait a minute… know what? After nearly two hours together, we should be on a first-name basis, don’t you think? Call me Doc or call me Ford. Okay?”
He nodded, and waited for a moment before he said, “Sure. You’re Ford and I’m Doug. Just two guys talking, so talk away.”
“Doug, what I don’t understand is, you dropped the shields there for a little bit. Now, the first time I ask you a question, you raise the shields right back again. It’s pretty obvious you’ve been in your business awhile. What’s your title? Special liaison to the U.S. State Department’s Office of Counterterrorism? You must have an opinion. Like you said, it’s just you and me in here. So why not tell me what you think?”
“Are you offering me information in exchange?”
I said, “I think I told you everything, but I might be able to remember a few more details. I’ll try. I really will.”
“Okay. Why not?” His was a careful, formal smile. “I’ll risk it. Lindsey Harrington’s father is one of those behind-the-scenes diplomats, the kind you never hear about but who apparently has a lot to do with steering U.S. policy. He’s got some very powerful connections. I say ‘apparently’ because the moment the Agency got word Harrington’s daughter was almost taken down, the director ordered.. .” He paused, rethinking it. “Let’s just say that certain people in the director’s office made it very clear that this case is a priority. We’ve got people on the island doing the crime scene, standing guard over the girl, all of us reporting back with updates every hour.”
I said, “They wanted her for political reasons? I’m not asking for the official position. Just your personal opinion.”
“Why they tried to kidnap her? Political, sure, without a doubt. But is it drug cartel politics or political ideology? That’s what I don’t know. But we’ll find out. We’ve got people working on the stolen boats, the rental van, the motel they stayed in at Englewood. They wanted the girl, but they really wanted to leverage Harrington.”
“The girl’s father, he’s that important?”
“I’ve never heard his name before tonight. In the three years I’ve been attached to Counterterrorism, I’ve never heard the name Harrington mentioned. His official title is Consulting Ambassador, Latin America-a small-time political appointment. He works out of the U.S. Embassy in San Jose and he’s got some kind of villa or condo outside Cartagena. In international politics, it’s hard to tell who really does what. But Harrington, he’s so far behind the scenes that we had trouble coming up with a fast, full dossier on him.”
I told him, “Here’s something I may have left out. One of the guys on the dock, he was yelling in Spanish. He had a Colombian accent. They speak a very clean dialect, particularly in and around the cities. Bogota, maybe, but I’m just guessing.”
“Finally, you offer me a little scrap of useful information.” He chuckled, but it was a timing device, not laughter. “Colombian accent, huh? To pick out accents, you must be fluent. Spent some time down there in South America, have you Ford?”
“Several years. Traveled all over.” Interpreting the expression on the agent’s face, I added, “It had nothing to do with the drug trade, trust me. I was studying bull sharks. I’ve been researching them for years. The work took me all over South and Central America. All over the world, really.”
“Really? Who funded it? Who paid for all that travel and research?”
“I got some grants. But mostly private corporations that have a financial interest and see a potential for profit in certain sea products.”
“Fascinating.” His inflection said: Bullshit.
“You know anything about bull sharks?” I waited for him to respond, but he didn’t. He sat there leafing through his notebook. Finally, I continued, “A bull shark will swim hundreds of miles up freshwater rivers for reasons that we still don’t understand. It may have something to do with ferromagnetic crystals in their nervous system. Directional devices built right in, or perhaps it has something to do with the way their tissues deal with salt. Whatever the reason, they’re a very unusual animal. The Zambezi River shark? The freshwater sharks of Lake Nicaragua? Carcharhinus leucas. The same, aggressive animal. Because of that shark, I spent a lot of time working in the jungle.”