The man with the gun had been carefully watching his wrist. Now his eyes came up from his watch. “That’s your one minute,” he said calmly, and raising his gun, fired it.
The bullet struck Chaney in the chest, sending him stumbling backward. He caught his balance with an effort, unable to believe this was actually happening to him, wondering in some dim recess of his brain why it was happening to him. There was no answer. Chicago, Buffalo, Cleveland, Vegas — and to die down here in some hole in the northeast of Brazil? It made no sense. The pain was spreading, becoming unbearable. He found himself on his knees without knowing how he got there.
“You clowns — guys — are making a mistake. My name is Chaney, George Chaney. I live—” The pain was growing, flooding his body as it radiated from his chest; it blocked further speech. He had never known anything could hurt so much! The man with the gun walked closer, holding the smooth muzzle against Chaney’s temple. Even in the heat of the night it felt cold, cold. Chaney stared through glazing eyes, uncomprehending, unbelieving. The trigger was pulled once; a blinding explosion of pain and colored brilliant lights, intermingled and memory shattering, sent Chaney sprawling onto his back in the path of the car, under the impersonal probing headlights.
The man with the gun sighed and slipped the weapon into a clip holster beneath his jacket. The driver also tucked his gun away and approached the body. He stared at it a moment and then rolled it over with his boot, putting effort into it to move the heavy body; then he crouched beside it, reaching for the exposed bulging hip pocket. A faint smile crossed his thin face.
“He was so anxious to be robbed—”
“Stop it!” The other man gripped the driver by the shoulder with authority and dragged him erect. “Don’t touch a thing.”
“Why not?” the other man protested. “Who knows how much he had on him? I’ll leave plenty. I’ll even leave his watch.”
“You’ll leave it all,” the man said firmly. “You idiot! How would you like to go the same route he did? Do you think he was killed just to buy you a few more beers?”
“But—”
“No ‘buts’!”
The driver was silent. His partner in the crime reached into an inner pocket of his jacket. He brought out a sheet of paper, crudely hand-printed, with a loop of string stapled to each side at the top, making it into a sort of flimsy placard. He squatted down and rolled the body back to its original position, sightlessly facing the sky. He brought the arms and legs together and then propped the sagging body enough to slide the string over the thick neck, and then let the heavy body slump back to the road. He stood up. The driver moved closer, looking down with no expression at their work of the past thirty minutes, and the sign the flaccid body now wore around its neck.
Under the white beam of the depressed headlights the sign was clearly visible. A skull and crossbones had been poorly sketched in black against the gray of the cheap paper, and beneath it in blood-red letters was a crudely printed legend. It read:
Chapter 2
Captain José Maria Carvalho Santos Da Silva, member of the Brazilian Federal Police assigned to the Rio de Janeiro district and liaison officer between that organization and Interpol, had nothing against his nation’s new capitol Brasilia, other, of course, than if one didn’t have all the time in the world to waste, the only way to get there was to fly, and airplanes headed a long list of things the captain heartily disliked. The list also included coral snakes, fat women in slacks, heavy traffic, bad brandy, and cocktail parties without pretty girls. Other than these and a few additional minor aversions and phobias, Captain Da Silva would have been the first to admit he was the most equable, mild-mannered, agreeable, tolerant, and generally lovable person in the world.
Certainly most women would have agreed. They found his six feet of athletic physique attractive; they thought his being under forty years of age and still single, intriguing; they considered his smile, a white flash of even teeth against his almost Indian-copper skin, to be gay and boyish; they found his swarthy, pock-marked face, with its bushy black mustache and topped by his black curly hair, to be romantic in the manner that swashbuckling brigands were romantic. A violently opposing vote would most certainly have been cast by those members of the Rio underworld who had had the misfortune of facing a scowl on that tough, pock-marked face, or an accusing glare from those piercing black eyes — not to mention those who had felt the captain’s wrath in more physical form, such as his strong right hand.
At the moment, though, Captain Da Silva was neither scowling nor smiling; with a cigarette in one hand and a glass of brandy on the small tray before him, he was trying his best to be as brave as possible about the almost assured disaster that was certain to result when the plane in which he was flying to the capitol attempted to land in a few minutes if the tragedy didn’t occur earlier. True, the turbines were humming along smoothly, the weather was perfect with the sky over the planalto its usual deep clear blue, with scattered puffy white clouds so stationary as to seem painted against an azure backdrop. Nor was there the slightest sign of panic among the stewardesses or passengers. Still, Da Silva was not deceived. In the course of his career he had been forced to fly in airplanes many times, and it was only logical that his luck had to run out some time. He only felt profoundly sorry for those other passengers who had had the misfortune of taking the same flight as himself.
He brushed ash into the ashtray, took another sip of brandy, and looked down, trying to postpone thoughts of the inevitable crash as long as possible. He had to concede that the capitol city over which they were now flying, at a constantly lessening altitude, was indeed spectacular when seen from this lower height, both for its heroic concept and its vast spaces, as well as for the remarkable architecture, which was just now becoming discernible beneath them. Still, in his beloved Rio de Janeiro one could get an equally fine view, or better, just by driving up to Corcovado or Vista Chineza; one didn’t have to risk life and limb just to enjoy a view.
He put the thought aside to return to one that had puzzled him since the command to appear in Brasilia had first crossed his desk the day before: Why was he being asked to present himself to the Minister of Business and Industry with minimum delay? Normally, in the old days when he had been summoned to the Itamarití — the Foreign Office — he had usually known why; it was usually to receive a reprimand. But this time he had no idea at all. He had nothing to do with either Business or Industry, so why the meeting with that particular minister? God alone knew; He, apparently, was saving His strength for the coming crash. Well, Da Silva thought, the chances were it won’t be for a reprimand, and then became aware that a stewardess was at his side, waiting for him to finish his drink. She gestured overhead; the light above his seat advised him to follow instructions as they were about to land. He crushed out his cigarette, finished his drink and handed the glass to the girl with a smile, and was in the process of tightening his seat belt, when he suddenly stopped smiling.
The jet reactor had changed pitch querulously; the horizon suddenly changed location, tilting sickeningly without warning. Da Silva swallowed and gripped the armrest tightly, feeling a sort of perverse satisfaction in the accuracy of his prediction. Strange bumps and grinds came from somewhere in the nether regions of the craft; the angle of the plane was reversed as suddenly as before, tipping the passengers in the opposite direction, and then the plane seemed to miraculously manage to level itself, but too late! They were falling, with the airport runway coming up swiftly to smash at them. Da Silva gripped the armrest tightly and closed his eyes, not wishing to see the actual disintegration; there was a gentle bump and he opened his eyes to find the airplane rolling sedately toward the distant terminal. It paused long enough to snort disdainfully in a backward direction, and then rolled on under better control. Da Silva released his death’s grip on the armrest and took a deep breath. The successful flight meant nothing and he knew it; it merely increased the chances of disaster on the next flight. One couldn’t argue with probabilities and statistics.