Silva could hear the telephone ringing while he was still in the corridor. It stopped before he could get his key into the lock, then started again when he was closing the door to the suite.
"Finally," his caller said. "I must have called ten times."
Vicenza Pelosi.
"I should have asked you for the number of your cell phone," she said. "Hang on. Let me make a note of it right now."
And why shouldn't I give it to her? Silva thought, thinking of the director's admonition to keep the number confidential. Everybody else seems to have it.
"Okay, go ahead," she said.
He rattled off the digits, could hear her fumbling as she wrote them down. She was outside somewhere. There were traffic noises in the background.
"Good news," she said when the fumbling stopped. "The kid called."
Silva's hand tightened on the phone. "Edson Souza?"
"He wants to meet."
"Thanks, Vicenza. I'll take it from here. Where and when?"
"I'm not going to tell you."
"What?"
Vicenza started talking fast. "I know we've got a deal, and I know you gave me his name, but he doesn't want anyone else. Just me. Says he's scared but he's willing to talk."
"Vicenza, for God's sake, it's dangerous to be anywhere near that kid."
"Don't worry. I'll be careful."
"Vicenza-"
"No time to talk now, Chief Inspector. I'm almost there. I'll drop by your suite when I get back to the hotel."
"Vicenza, please listen-"
But she didn't. She hung up.
Major Osmani Palmas told the technician to rewind the tape and play it back. Then he told him to rewind it again, and picked up the telephone.
Ferraz answered on the first ring.
"The monitoring of the phone in Silva's suite paid off, Colonel," Palmas said without preamble. "Listen to this."
He put the handset next to the speaker and nodded to the technician.
When the playback ended, Palmas put the telephone back to his ear. "How about that?" he said.
"Where's she meeting the kid?"
"We don't know."
"Where is she now?"
"We don't know that either. Not at the hotel, that's for sure. You heard those traffic noises? She's on the street somewhere."
"She's staying at the same place Silva is, right?"
"Uh-huh. The Excelsior."
"Throw a cordon around it. Snatch her when she comes back. Don't let her get anywhere near those federal cops."
"And then?"
"And then bring her to the tobacco shed."
Edson had told Vicenza to be on the northeast corner of Republic Square at four o'clock. Someone would come, pick her up, and take her to him.
In her blonde wig, dark glasses, and floppy hat she felt like a character out of a spy movie. Even disguised beyond recognition, she was still getting admiring glances from males.
Five minutes after the appointed hour, a battered Volkswagen taxi stopped directly in front of her. She waved him off, but the driver wouldn't take no for an answer. Ignoring the horns and catcalls from the traffic behind him, he climbed out and opened the door on the passenger side.
"I don't want a taxi," she said.
"You'll want this one, Senhorita Pelosi."
The driver was well above average height, with hair that had once been blond and intelligent brown eyes.
"I'm here to take you to Edson."
He didn't sound like any taxi driver she'd ever met. His elegant Portuguese bore a trace of a foreign accent.
"So who are you?" she asked, as they pulled away from the curb.
"I'll have to ask you to turn off your cell phone," he said. "It's been said they can be used to trace one's location."
No. Definitely not a taxi driver.
She took her phone out of her purse, switched it off, and leaned over to show him the blank screen. He reminded her of someone she'd seen somewhere before but she couldn't recall where or when.
And then she remembered. "Weren't you at the league encampment on the Muniz fazenda? Weren't you feeding a little girl with rickets?"
He glanced at her in the rearview mirror.
"I think you have me confused with someone else," he said. "We're going to follow a roundabout route. It will take some time to get where we're going. In the meantime, we're not supposed to talk."
"Who says so? Who says we're not supposed to talk?"
He didn't respond.
They drove into the countryside. He stopped at the top of a hill where there was a view for kilometers in every direction. He must have been pleased with what he saw, or didn't see, because he gave a grunt of satisfaction, made a U-turn, and started back toward the city. Less than two kilometers later he came to a sudden stop and put the car into reverse. He'd missed the turnoff. It was a dirt road-not much more than a track, really-and almost obscured by vegetation. There was a sign, barely legible white paint on a wooden board: SEM SAIDA, it said. Dead end.
They drove through a little forest with tree trunks no thicker than her arm, and emerged into tobacco fields where leaves from the plants brushed both sides of the car as they passed. The track ended at a cylindrical structure, a standpipe or silo, with riveted metal walls and a domed roof. The driver stopped, got out, and opened her door.
"Edson will be along directly," he said, speaking for the first time in many minutes.
None of the tobacco plants in the neighboring fields were taller than knee-high. There was no trace of another human being.
"You'll be taking me back?" she asked, nervous now at the isolation.
He nodded. "But I can't stay here. This yellow car is too visible." He returned to the taxi and drove back the way he'd come, the wheels throwing up red dust. She watched the retreating vehicle until it vanished into the trees.
Behind her, someone cleared his throat.
Her heart skipped a beat. She put her hand to her breast and spun around.
"Don't be afraid," the young man said. He must have been hiding behind the tall metal cylinder.