“She tried to get me to leave—and take you with me, remember?’
“If she’s going through with this, she’s past caring! Unrequited love only lasts so long, Graham. Plus, do you know anything about dismantling explosives?’
I watched him go to the desk in the apartment and pull out a drawer. He lifted out a small cotton money belt with a shoulder strap and undid his shirt to slip it on. I heard a rattle that didn’t sound like coins. It reminded me of the noise my lock picks make.
“If she’s planning a suicide run, she’ll use a detonator,’ said Graham. “I’ll have to shoot her down.’
“You think you can do it?’ I asked gently.
“It’s one thing for her to play sniper in the favelas, taking out members of the gangs,’ he answered. “There is no way I will allow her to pull a 7/7 in the heart of Rio de Janeiro.’
♦
Ipanema was at least a twenty-minute drive away, and Graham sped like a madman.
He had mentioned the July 7, 2005, attacks in London, and I remembered that day too well. Of course, I was in town. I was at home that morning. I remember watching the horrible scenes on TV, the cell-phone networks completely jammed as Helena phoned to check that I was nowhere near, everyone phoning everyone else in the Greater London area. My friend Jiro works close to Tavistock Square—he saw in person the sheared-off roof and hulk of twisted metal that was the bombed double-decker bus, barely five minutes after it happened. Horrible.
And then a fortnight later: four more bombers trying it again, thankfully failing.
And only months before my flight to Rio, the discovery of the car bombs in central London, and the flaming Jeep Cherokee in Glasgow. Horrible.
We were driving into a blast zone before the explosion was to go off, knowing it could go off, and the only thing more horrible than that sickening apprehension would be to actually see it, to have sobbing and bleeding victims in debris and aftermath ruins. No. Can’t allow it.
As Graham made the Beetle hug corners and run lights, appearing only slightly more insane than the average Brazilian (or French) motorist, I thought about Beatriz. Graham’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, his mind in denial.
“She’s not an Islamic terrorist,’ he announced, probably more to convince himself than me. “Consider the source. That bastard is full of it.’
“Why can’t she be?’ I asked. “Just because you’ve never seen her face Mecca or wear a hijab? You work in Africa, Graham! You know wearing a veil depends on what brand of Islam you want to practice.’
Hey, if you’re a fanatic group in Brazil trying to cause mayhem, you don’t put your girl in Islamic clothing. If anything, a hijab would instantly identify her. There are some African-American women who are Muslims who won’t wear a hijab to work, because they think if they do, they won’t advance in their careers.
The Qur’an called for modesty, and modesty is relative.
“Beatriz an Islamic terrorist,’ Graham muttered, shaking his head. He was still reeling from the idea.
The conversion of our madwoman of Favela do Buraco was perfectly plausible to me. Beatriz had endured sexual and physical abuse, poverty and racism and sporadic violence on the streets where she lived. No, she wouldn’t look to the more traditional Muslim community, but to the first Islamic group that accepted her with all her personality excesses.
Right in front of me, and I didn’t see it. Oh, they’ve gone to pray … Her followers. Me, assuming they were Catholic.
Once treated as a sexual commodity, she must have felt an awakening in a faith that had sharply different attitudes to women from what she’d endured in her life experience— even if you want to debate those attitudes as sexist. Only her vision of that faith was warped through a prism of vengeance and trauma.
God make no sense without war—without war for what is right.
Holy war.
Every day, the world had told Beatriz she was small—a bug. In her reckless raids in the favelas, there was something of the doomed warrior about her, desperate for life’s meaning.
We are stronger than the men…We must lead the war for what is right…
Graham found a place to park, the Volkswagen so reliable in fitting almost everywhere, and then we ran to check Satyricon and Barão da Torre. We weren’t properly dressed for the restaurant and we didn’t care. We barreled past the doorman and through what looked like a hotel foyer. I nearly capsized a seafood platter and felt sorry for the waitress. A bodyguard for a pop star jumped to his feet, fearing Graham had raced in here for his client’s sake. But no, we went past, checking tables, checking corners…
“He’s not here,’ I said. “Neither is Beatriz. How could she even know where to find Ferreira?’
“You let her know that Ferreira and Marinho were in cahoots,’ answered Graham. “My guess is she kept watch on Marinho’s house, the same way you did. Waited for him or one of his men to lead her to Ferreira. We should be able to spot him if he’s in the district.’ He stomped his foot in frustration. “Damn it! A bomb—she’s never used bombs before. Maybe this is her ‘closure’ before whatever happens in Foz do Iguaçu.’
I pulled his arm. “Come on! We can’t have much time!’
We were out on the pavement again. Ipanema’s streets are in a grid, but I hadn’t a clue where I was or where to go.
We hit the peculiar Rua Visconde de Pirajá, where not one green and yellow streetlamp stood straight, every one of them at a leaning angle. Shops and more shops. We flew by them, growing more agitated in our search.
We reached Bar 20, the improbable square right next to the Leblon district, and stood on the yellow rubber transfers on asphalt. There was a big honking streetlamp, twenty yards high, in the middle of this banana-colored space, and maybe if we didn’t get blown up I could ask Graham what the Obelisk was for.
But not now. There they were—Ferreira, Andrade, and an entourage of thug bodyguards passing in front of Sorveteria Itália, the city’s ice-cream landmark, as we stood right in the open.
Ferreira saw us. Absolutely no cover to dive behind. His men drew their guns—
“Beatriz!’
—And didn’t pay attention to her. Beatriz appeared out of the crowd behind Ferreira and hooked something quickly to his belt. I felt my spine freeze. Oh, my God. I know a rock-climbing carabiner when I see one. She just snapped the spring ring onto his belt.
A small tag dangled from the ring, and now Ferreira’s stocky frame was tethered on a black cord to another carabiner on a gym bag. Beatriz fired her pistol at the only bodyguard trying to take her out. Point-blank range, crack, perfect shot to his heart, and he was dead as he hit the ground.
“Ferreira!’
The other bodyguards fired blind at Beatriz, who ran into the street, the two of us in the square forgotten, but Graham was desperately trying to get Ferreira to stop doing the natural thing: trying to release the carabiner on his belt, sawing at it with a pocketknife. Andrade, ever the sycophant, was holding the cord, making a big show of helping.
“It’s a bomb!’ shouted Graham in English. Shout it in Portuguese, and we’d have a panic stampede of pedestrians. “It’s on a proximity detonator!’
Which meant we were really in trouble. There could be only one reason she had hooked it to Ferreira’s belt and left him with the obvious means to cut the cord. Because that tag dangling from the carabiner had a radio device in it. Tamper with it—break a certain distance from the bag—the bomb instantly goes off.
She had armed the bomb before she saw us. It didn’t matter anymore whether Graham was here or not.
“What the hell do we do?’ I yelled.
“Go after her!’ said Graham, not hesitating at all. He shoved his automatic into my hand, and then, spur of the moment, handed me the car keys, too, in case I needed them. “I’ve got this! Don’t let her get away!’
A millisecond to hesitate.
“Go!’
So help me, I ran.
Gun weigh
ed like a brick in my hand, nowhere to put it, dressed in just shorts and a tank top. And left Graham with a bomb that could take out the most famous district in Rio de Janeiro.
I ran as if it was nothing to leave him there, the shops and restaurants blurring in my eyes, half of me waiting for the deafening roar, a shock wave that even this far away would knock me and everyone else to the ground.
He had sent me, the choice made, and I had to go. Beatriz was our one lead to the horrible action planned for Foz do lguaçu, and if Ferreira’s hotheads shot her down first… More death. I imagined bloody faces with hands to eyes, others struggling in a daze to walk, others who would never get up. I saw Tavistock Square in news reports. Sick of it, we’re all sick of it. Don’t you maniacs understand? It doesn’t change minds, it doesn’t prove anything, and we’re sick of it!
I ran.
Does he even know what he’s doing? Does he know how to defuse a bomb? With what?
I had no idea where I was anymore. First I was chasing one of Ferreira’s men after her, and then I could see Beatriz yards ahead. Another bodyguard was farther along, trying to aim, but she zigzagged—she must have known they were close behind. As I closed the distance with the nearest guy, I gave him a hard shove, and the extra momentum pitched him forward off balance. He catapulted hard into a stone wall. I saw a spatter of blood. I couldn’t stop.
Can’t fire. Barely know what to do with a gun in my hand, and not at this distance.
Beatriz suddenly stumbled, and as she hit the ground and rolled, the guy on her tail slowed his pace. He wanted to take her alive, haul her back to Ferreira and—too late, he realized it was a feint. She was a small target there on the ground, aiming up in one quick decisive stretch of her arm and bang. A cluster of pedestrians gasped in shock, one woman screamed, and as Beatriz jumped to her feet, she saw me coming.
“Why?’
She still had her arm straight, the gun aimed point-blank at me.
I will never forget that face.
Glassy eyes washed in waves of stunned curiosity at my being here. Then irritation, for I was the intruder into her hell, an inconvenience, and perhaps she still saw me as a rival for Graham’s affections.
Aiming the gun—
And still more conflicted emotions making her lip quiver, her eyes moist and angry and deluded and frightened. The agony of a suicide just before the blade cuts vein. Rage turned inside out.
Aiming the gun at me—
I asked her why. I got my answer in a tortured sob, wrung out of her in a teeth-gnashing wail. It said: Don’t ask about my whys, my whys are pain and pain and pain, and you can have all of it.
She pulled the trigger, the gun shaking so badly in her grip the shot was wild.
It did succeed in scaring the shit out of me.
People ducked down on the street and, thank God, the bullet slammed into an empty parked car.
“Beatriz!’
People behind her. I couldn’t shoot. People too close who might be hit, and I was not Henrique Marinho who could fire a gun and not care where the bullet went, even if it went into a little girl.
If Beatriz gets away …
Shots behind me, multiple cracks and pops, and I dived behind a parked car, losing sight of her as two more bodyguards in a Porsche roared up to us, the one on the passenger side firing like a madman out the window. Beatriz fired back once, twice—practically emptied her magazine into the windshield of the Porsche, and with a squeal of tires, it jumped the curb onto the pavement and slammed into the patio furniture of a bar. A snap of giant matchsticks, and the car folded like a tin accordion into the concrete wall and the picture window.
A curtain of fleeing pedestrians ran from the steel juggernaut , and the driver lay dead on his horn, honking continuously for the wall to get out of his way.
Car and smashed chairs and tables, fallen awnings—all of this between me and Beatriz, a crowd in front of me, and by the time I was on my feet getting around the debris, I had lost precious seconds.
“God damn you, Beatriz!’ I screamed, knowing more people would die because I had failed.
At least five different streets she could escape into.
Gone. No point and not enough time to even fetch the car.
Graham.
I ran back, blessed that Ipanema was in a grid, and I could find my way to Bar 20. But another shock was coming. From yards away, I watched as a kneeling Graham did something with the apparatus in the gym bag, his back obscuring my view of his hands. He was working with the tools from the little kit he had brought along. Then he slumped and sat down on the street, chest heaving a relieved sigh. And dropped his guard.
Ferreira was on his cell phone.
A car pulled up, and Ferreira kicked Graham in the face.
“No!’ I was too far away to stop him.
Ferreira moved forward quickly on his short tree-trunk legs to kick him again in the stomach.
He had the black tether cable wrapped around Graham’s neck now, but it was more to subdue him than kill him.
A man got out of the car, and together, he and Ferreira shoved my lover into the backseat, Andrade scooping up the defused bomb bag to take with them. Ferreira barked in Portuguese the equivalent of go go go.
The car roared to life again and tore down Rua Visconde de Pirajá.
I had lost Beatriz. I had lost Graham.
♦
Minutes later, the cell I had taken from Marinho chirped away. I had brought it along when we drove into Ipanema.
“You still want to be clever, gringa?’
Andrade. He didn’t bother to check who answered—he and Ferreira had either learned from Graham we’d captured his mate or they had figured it out. There was no reason for him to call—except that I had Marinho as a bargaining chip.
“A swap,’ I said tightly into the phone.
“Very good,’ Andrade answered. “Meet us in the Buraco in two hours at—’
“Wait a minute,’ I broke in. “There’s no bloody way I’m going into the favela where you can—’
“You don’t have a choice, bitch.’
“Such a pity we couldn’t dump you and Ferreira in the Atlantic with that bomb. I’m told water doesn’t stop that kind of explosive from going off.’
I heard Ferreira’s growling laugh in the background then a stream of Portuguese. “Talvez a gente amarre ele nisso, e vamos ver se ele é rápido sem seu alicatizinho de bolso.’
“Oh, we still have it,’ said Andrade. “Mr. Ferreira says to tell you, ‘Maybe we’ll strap your man to it, and we’ll see how fast he is without his pocket pliers.’ Two hours— Buraco. I will post directions and a sketch map in the personals ‘men for women’ section on Rio’s Craigslist. Watch for it and then move your ass.’
I heard the click, and they were gone.
♦
At the safe house in Copacabana, Marinho was where we’d left him, miserable and still moaning in pain, dried blood from his nose caked on his upper lip.
“Two go out, one comes back,’ he observed.
“He’s buying me flowers. Tell me how you guys know Beatriz is an Islamic terrorist.’
If I had to release him back to Ferreira, I’d better learn as much as I could before letting him go.
“I think you are in trouble, gringa,’ chuckled Marinho. “I don’t think I have to tell you anything.’
“You want to have two broken arms?’
He panted a little at the thought, knowing I could do it. Then: “No … If I tell you, Ferreira will do worse to me before he kills me.’
“You know Bailey can get you out of the country.’
“You’re a fool, woman.’
Players so big they scared the assassin. And I was back on my own, with not a clue what was going on and running out of time.
I could waste more time doing a half-assed amateur interrogation, or I could check Craigslist on the apartment computer. I considered going to the rendezvous point early, but reconnaissance wouldn’t
help. No way to learn the terrain better than the local thugs in less than an hour, and I had no backup. I just had Marinho and Graham’s Glock pistol. Might as well drive to the Buraco.
Marinho needed persuading for his second ride in the trunk, and I heard muffled epithets for five minutes as I navigated the Rio streets. The favela loomed in the windshield, taunting me with more humiliation.
Ferreira had chosen a spot on the edge of the Buraco where I thought I had an escape route for the Beetle, a narrow road leading down to a main thoroughfare. But then six of his men popped out of the honeycomb of shacks, one with a machine gun. He didn’t need to have me surrounded—the machine gun would cut me in two before I could get back into the car and drive out. A new red Porsche drove up, and Ferreira was all smugness and smiles, Andrade in tow.
And there was Bassam Qabbani in the rear seat. I watched for a brief moment while Qabbani stared at me, quite chagrined. Andrade seemed to chastise Qabbani, looking back and forth between the Syrian and me. As if Qabbani should have reported sooner spotting me with Beatriz.
The Syrian with Ferreira. Of course. How else could Ferreira possibly know in advance precisely where Beatriz and her group would strike in Foz do Iguaçu? Her words came back to me from the Baile Funk. We do favors for each other. Like we test Qabbani’s weapons on somebody Qabbani don’t like. If a favela gangster rip him off for payment, he would like very much that creep to be dead.
I remembered reading up on Ferreira in London, how he was once an engineer who helped build a hydroelectric plant in Syria. He could have met the arms dealer there.
We do favors for each other …
It was Ferreira who had chosen the target in Foz do Iguaçu. And his man Qabbani had demanded that Beatriz and her group attack it, either as another “favor’ or as payment for the weapons. Beatriz wasn’t only being watched— she’d never stopped working for the men she hated the most in the world.
Ferreira, waiting for me now.
I opened the Volkswagen trunk and yanked Marinho out like a bag of garden soil.
“Show me Graham Bailey,’ I demanded.
“We’ll get to that,’ said Andrade.
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