The realization struck him like a burst from a jackhammer. He was no longer the person the birds knew and trusted. The essence of his manitou had changed.
First the spirits had stopped speaking to him. And now this.
The connection was inarguable. Yet the spirits had not deserted him. Their silence was counsel in itself. They had helped him reconcile himself to the past. But the future they would leave to him. Johnny could see it in all its obscurity, had seen it since first setting foot in Brazil.
Somewhere there was an enemy he had to face, an enemy who would test the very foundations on which he had built his life. All else, from the hellfire on, had been merely the proving ground leading up to this final rite of passage. The guidance of the spirits had taken him this far, but now he must face his Hanbelachia, his vision quest, alone.
He was changing and evolving. Soon he would face an enemy who would determine whether the rest of his days would be spent as a true warrior or with his ancestors. The enemy was vast and powerful, as black as the heart of a moonless night with an ice storm for a soul.
Out there now waiting.
Waiting for him.
Sal Belamo got Patty set up in her own personal office. She had always loved computers. She had never set out to sea without a portable along. This computer was simple enough to use, but it was powerful enough to analyze data coming in from an incredible number of government sources. Sal knew all the right access codes and passed them along.
Patty had started by calling up every bit of information available on the list of victims she already had. There were fifteen now with the names McCracken had added. She read everything on them she could find, much of the information classified.
The first part of the answer came to her quite by surprise. She was simply staring dreamily at the frozen screen when an item caught her eye. A simple fact and nothing more that made her think of her father. But it reminded her of something else, and she scanned fast to another entry.
A chill moved up her spine.
She spent the next hour rechecking seven more of the victims. Here was a connection.
Incredible. But what did it mean?
She resisted the urge to call Sal right now. She was on a roll and she knew it. This clue would lead her to others. The truth was within her grasp.
Chapter 18
“You ask me, chief, be a good idea if you let me ride shotgun with you back to the jungle,” Sal Belamo offered stubbornly. They had stopped outside Dulles Airport in the predawn hours of Saturday, where a government jet was waiting to fly Blaine McCracken to Rio de Janeiro.
“I don’t want Patty left alone, Sal. It’s as simple as that.”
“You don’t trust Maxie’s people to do the job?”
“I don’t trust anyone right now besides you and Johnny. Something about this whole business smells wrong to me, but I can’t pin down where it’s coming from. You and I go to Rio together, there’s no one up here to pick up the pieces.”
“How ’bout the Indian?”
“Johnny’s got his own stake in this.”
“You guys seem to read each other clear as the morning paper.”
“I carried him through a mine field once, and he’s been carrying me ever since.”
When Sal frowned, his twisted nose pointed to the right. He reached into his pocket and came out with a pair of clips for Blaine’s Heckler and Koch 9-mm pistol.
“Well, if you don’t want me tagging along, how about I give you a little going away present?”
“I’ve got plenty of bullets.”
“Not like these, you don’t. Got a friend who makes ’em up special. Puts a glass capsule inside each with a mixture of ground glass and picric acid.”
“Potent stuff.”
“Extremely shock sensitive, he would say. Anyway, mixing it with the ground glass makes it less sensitive and allows it to be fired from a gun. Once it goes bang, the bullet distorts, which breaks the glass capsule and allows the acid to mix with lead.”
“Forming lead picric,” Blaine concluded.
“Big boom when it hits its target. I call ’em Splats, since that’s what happens to whatever they hit.”
McCracken accepted the clips, noticing they were stored in clear plastic, which was carefully molded over their contours.
“Oh, yeah,” Sal added. “Thing is, you don’t want to get them wet. My friend says it undermines the explosives’ stability. Point is, you don’t load Splats until you’re near sure you’re gonna need them.”
Blaine ran his fingers over the plastic. “What kind of firepower we talking about?”
Belamo winked. “Fire one of these into a watermelon and you won’t even have any seeds left to plant.”
“I’m not hunting fruit, Sal.”
“Splats don’t discriminate, chief. They’ll turn anything into paste.”
They parted right after that, and Blaine’s thoughts turned to tracking down the only man he knew of who could shed light on what had gone on at the installation in the Amazon: Jonas Parker. For some reason, Parker had been absent during the time of the massacre. After it, he would have known he was a marked man in grave need of protection. Assuming he had been successful in that quest, he would still be in hiding now. The trick would be finding him.
Toward that end, McCracken called Carlos Salomao, the man who had drawn both him and Johnny Wareagle to Brazil in the first place.
“If you were in Brazil and needed to disappear fast, who would you go to, Carlos?”
“That is simple, amigo. Fernando Da Sa. Ever hear of him?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
Fernando Da Sa, Carlos explained, was the most powerful crime lord in Rio — and thus the entire country. As head of the Commando Vermelho, or Red Command, he controlled narcotics, weapons, gambling, prostitution, even the lotteries in the Rio mountainside slums. The Brazilian police were far more corruptible than their American counterparts and, as a result, Da Sa operated virtually untouched.
“Can you set up a meeting for me?” McCracken asked.
He could feel Salomao’s reluctance over the phone. “Da Sa is not fond of foreigners, amigo.”
“We’ll get along just fine.”
So McCracken flew to Rio determined to reach Da Sa himself if Carlos’ efforts failed. From Galeão Airport, a thirty-minute taxi ride brought him to the São Conrado district, where he would await the call from Carlos at the Rio Sheraton. Blaine chose to stay in American-style hotels wherever possible when he traveled. Ease and comfort were important to him, when danger was always right around the corner.
He checked in at two on Saturday afternoon, and fifteen minutes later he was drinking a virgin guarãna on his room’s terrace. His fourth-floor room offered a magnificent view of the private Vigidal Beach below. It was almost summer, and the temperature in the upper eighties was made pleasant by the breeze off the sea. With his feet propped up on the plastic terrace table, Blaine felt himself starting to slip off to sleep when the phone jarred him. He answered it, expecting to hear Carlos Salomao on the other end.
“I trust your trip went well, Mr. McCracken.” It was a heavily accented voice.
“Fernando Da Sa,” Blaine said.
“I am honored that you have graced my humble surroundings. You require a meeting, no doubt.”
“It won’t take much time.”
“It will take what it must. Come to the Copacabana Beach directly in front of the Hotel Meridien in exactly one hour. My guards will be waiting.”
“How will I know them?”
“They will know you.”
Da Sa hung up without saying any more. He didn’t have to. His people had been watching McCracken since the moment he emerged from the jetway, and they would watch him all the way to the meeting.