“How fast is it going?” Silva said.
Lefkowitz made a quick calculation.
“About forty kilometers an hour,” he said. “And it’s airborne.”
“How can you tell?”
“It’s moving out over a lake. No decrease in speed.”
“Carrier pigeon,” Arnaldo said.
Mara, entering the room, heard him.
“I’m astounded,” she said. “For once in your life, you’re right.”
Lefkowitz swiveled around in this chair and looked at her.
“What do you know that we don’t?”
“Some park ranger just called in with a message from Hector.”
Mara went on to explain, ending with, “That’s what you’ve been following, Lefkowitz-a carrier pigeon.”
“As soon as it lands,” Silva said, “the kidnappers will find the device.”
“And our teams are going to be far, far away when they do,” Lefkowitz said.
“Get them into the air immediately,” Silva said.
“It’s already happening,” Mara said. “I spoke to Gloria.
Rotors on the helicopters must be turning as we speak. Now, Nunes, tell me, how did someone with your limited cranial capacity hit on carrier pigeons?”
Arnaldo didn’t rise to the bait. “My sister’s got a neighbor, a penitentiary guard. He told me a story a while back. Some of the prisoners were raising pigeons in their cells. The warden thought it was a nice, safe hobby, Birdman of Alcatraz and all that crap. But no, turns out these birds were homing pigeons. The felons were using them to get cell phones and drugs into the prison.”
“Cell phones? Since when can a pigeon carry a cell phone?”
“They were breaking them down into components, then reassembling them within the walls.”
“Cute,” Lefkowitz said. “They start the birds off with smuggling. Next thing you know they’re carrying around tiny brass knuckles and beating up on other birds in the neighborhood. The felon’s perfect pet.”
“The way it works,” Arnaldo said, ignoring the levity, “is this: you get the birds before they learn to fly. You feed them. Bingo, they begin to think of the place as home. When you release them, they come back. They always come back. They come back even if you take them hundreds of kilometers away.”
All four of them looked at the screen, where a flashing green dot was showing the pigeon’s steady progression.
“Straight as an arrow,” Lefkowitz said. “The little dear knows exactly where she’s going.”
“If she does,” Arnaldo said, “it’s a he.”
“Shut up, Nunes.”
Silva tapped the screen with a forefinger. “What town is this?”
“Porangaba. Looks like she, or he, is going to pass right over it.”
Porangaba was about a hundred KM northeast of the cave complex.
“Let’s get Gloria and her people moving in that direction,” Silva said. “Do carrier pigeons fly at night?”
The others looked blank.
“I’ll talk to Gloria first,” Mara said, “and then I’ll find out.”
Five minutes later she was back.
“They only fly at night,” she said, “if they’re trained to do so. Otherwise, they roost and start flying again at first light. Let’s hope she-”
“He,” Arnaldo said.
“-isn’t so trained. How long has she been in the air?”
“The bird,” Lefkowitz said, remaining strictly neutral, “took off just before four. It’s flying at about forty kilometers an hour.”
“Sundown tonight will be at around eight,” Silva said. “Subtract four from eight and that gives us four hours of flying time.”
“And four hours at forty an hour,” Mara said, “means she’s likely to roost at about one hundred sixty kilometers from her take-off point.”
“Who said that thing about the best laid plans of mice and men?” Lefkowitz asked.
“A poet by the name of Robert Burns,” Silva said. “And I don’t think I’m going to like what you’re about to tell me.”
“You’re not.” Lefkowitz was fiddling with the knobs on the receiver.
“We lost the signal?”
“Just now. It went out like a light.”