Paraguay is a country about the size of California, ruled by dictators during most of its existence. Officially, the economy depends on agriculture and the exportation of iron ore and manganese. Unofficially, it depends on money laun-dering, smuggling, drug trafficking, and providing a safe haven for tax dodgers, criminals, and Islamic militants.
It was, therefore, an ideal choice of destination for Roberto Ribeiro.
His flight to Asuncion, the TAM 8033, was scheduled to depart from Guarulhos at 10:30 AM. They arrived at the air-port at 8:30 and Roberto checked in.
“I’ll wait here until I see you pass the checkpoint,” his mother said.
“It’s only gonna make me nervous. Go home. I’ll call you when I get settled.”
“Don’t be stupid. When they find out who I am, they’ll tap my phone. Call your aunt Dolores. Here, I’ve made a note of her number.”
She passed him a piece of paper. Dolores, not truly his aunt, was a close friend of his mother’s. They’d turned tricks together all through their teenage years and right up until Dolores’s marriage to a naive accountant she’d met at a Sunday-morning mass.
“What do I tell her?”
“Just give her a number and a time to call. I’ll get in touch.” Roberto pocketed the paper without looking at it. “Okay,” he said. “Go.”
She kissed him, held on for a while, and finally walked off, turning to wave several times before going out the door. He glanced at his watch. There was still time for a quick tele-phone call.
“Where the hell are you?” Bittler asked.
He was angry. Had to be. It was the first time Roberto had ever heard him use profanity. “None of your goddamned business,” he said.
It felt good to talk to the old bastard like that. He’d been eating shit for far too long.
There was a shocked silence at the other end of the line. Then, “What’s happened?”
“The federal cops are what happened. They’re onto me.
How?”
“I got no idea. But you better get your place cleaned up before they show up on your doorstep.”
“What did you tell them, you fool?”
“Fool, my ass, you sack of shit! I didn’t tell ’em a thing. But that’s only because they didn’t catch me. If they do, I’ll sing like a canary.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I wanted to hear you squirm. You been treating me like a lowlife for years. Now the shoe’s on the other foot.”
Bittler started cursing. Roberto hung up on him. He hadn’t been totally frank with the old bastard. He’d had another rea-son for calling. If Bittler got a chance to do some housecleaning before the federal cops showed up, the less evidence there’d be.
And less evidence would be a good thing for Roberto Ribeiro.
The passport Ribeiro was using was, as his mother had remarked, a fine piece of work. The gold lettering on the green, cloth cover was faded and, in part, worn away. It bore visas from the United States and France as well as stamps for multiple entries and departures, all of which were genuine. In fact, the whole passport was genuine, except for the altered photograph and the pages with the holder’s vital sta-tistics. The document had been stolen at that very airport two weeks earlier and was the former property of a salesman dealing in agricultural products.
Ribeiro’s new name was Eduardo Noronha, and his birth-place was listed as Sao Paulo. His mother had foreseen no problem with that and there wouldn’t have been one had he not come up against a zealous young border-control agent named Renato Wagner.
Ribeiro, who’d never been abroad in all of his life, didn’t know the drill. He handed over his new passport for perusal, but he didn’t hand over his ticket.
“I need the ticket, too,” Wagner said.
One of the tasks of the inspectors was to make sure that the visitor had paid his departure tax. The evidence of that was a stamp affixed to the ticket.
“Oh, desculpe,” Ribeiro said, and reached into his pocket.
The one word was enough. Desculpe, sorry, had been pro-nounced with a slurry, sibilant “s.” The only people who talked like that were cariocas.
Wagner double-checked the birthplace on the passport. Sao Paulo. He had it right the first time he’d looked. Something was fishy.
“You from Rio de Janeiro?” he asked.
“Born and bred,” Ribeiro said proudly.
Wagner nodded. The dumb bastard hadn’t even bothered to memorize his history. He glanced at the flyer that had been taped under the counter not two hours earlier. It was out of sight of the passengers, but in clear view of all of the agents.
“Uh-huh,” he said, and pushed a button.