The door of the jet was swung open from the outside and the passengers emerged into the brilliant sunshine, shading their eyes, edging their way down the steep aluminum stairway, ladened with hand luggage and magazines, starting to trail antwise across the tarmac toward the shaded building. The stewardess at the plane’s exit smiled at Da Silva brightly.
“Good-bye. I hope you enjoyed the flight.”
“As always,” Da Silva said, for he was a man who did not believe in lying when the truth would serve as well. He nodded a bit formally, for while there was no one on earth who admired stewardesses more — on earth — all thoughts of romance left him when aloft. He had often wondered at the stories of horseplay between pilots and stewardesses in the cockpit during flight; it seemed to him incredible that anyone could concentrate on sex when there were thirty-five thousand feet of empty space between them and the hard ground.
He came down the stairs and paused to look around. An official-looking limousine was drawn up not far from the plane, in an area where private vehicles were seldom if ever permitted. A uniformed chauffeur, standing beside the car, leaned inside a brief moment, as if receiving instructions, and then straightened up. He noted Da Silva, nodded as if in confirmation, and then hurried toward him, touching his cap.
“Captain Da Silva?”
Da Silva was pleasantly surprised at being so quickly recognized. To his knowledge he had never personally met the present Minister of Business and Industry, Dr. Jorge Wanderlay. Well, the captain thought with a touch of his usual modesty, the Minister probably saw my picture in the Rio newspapers, or maybe that time in Manchete. He nodded to the chauffeur.
“Right.”
“If you’ll come with me, sir—”
Da Silva obediently followed the man to the limousine, aware as he did so that the other passengers undoubtedly were wondering what Important Personage had shared their flight without their knowledge. Da Silva unconsciously stood a bit more erect; the chauffeur opened the rear door of the limousine and stepped back smartly, almost at attention. Da Silva bent forward. The Minister of Business and Industry, Dr. Wanderlay, was sitting in the center of the rear seat; the sharp features, tight lips, stern jaw and brush of stiff white hair, cut military style, were all quite familiar from the television screen or the newspapers; he was usually posed before a ribbon, scissors in hand, prepared to inaugurate a new factory or power plant. But it was the man on the jump seat, smiling at him in friendly fashion, who caught Da Silva’s attention and solved the problem of how he had been so quickly recognized. A wide smile of delight crossed the captain’s face; since an abraço in the restricted space was difficult, he contented himself by extending his hand.
“Wilson!”
“Hello, Zé.” Wilson took the outstretched hand and shook it warmly.
The Minister cleared his throat authoritatively. “If you’ll get into the car, Captain.”
“Yes, sir.” Da Silva climbed in; the Minister slid over a bit, making room for him on the rear seat. The chauffeur stepped forward to close the door, but rather than move around to the driver’s seat, he remained standing stiffly at the door, as if on guard. The Minister saw Da Silva’s faint look of surprise and properly interpreted it.
“You’ll be taking the next plane back to Rio with Mr. Wilson, so I thought we could talk here as well as at my office. Better, I suppose.” He glanced at Wilson a moment and then brought his steady gaze back to Da Silva. “So you two know each other?”
“Very well, sir,” Da Silva said, and smiled broadly. “Wilson and I have been involved in a good many cases together over the years.”
“Oh?” If the Minister thought it strange that a man in the relatively innocuous position that Wilson held — Security Officer for the American Consulate in Rio, a job normally concerned with visitors from the States who lost passports, or sailors from American ships who got drunk and ended up in Brazilian jails — should have worked on cases involving Da Silva’s particular branch of the police, he did not comment further on it. Da Silva, well aware of the true status of the nondescript-looking Mr. Wilson, did not press the matter. He just knew that the stocky Wilson, with his bland features, his sandy hair, and his pale eyes, and with his uncanny ability to appear unnoticed in any group, had saved his life several times, and there was no one he preferred to have beside him in a tight position than the quiet American. He didn’t know what had brought him to Brasilia, but he was just happy that the two of them were apparently going to work together again. He became aware that the Minister was speaking to him.
“Well, to get to business, Captain. What do you know about Paraíso?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said Paraíso.” There was a momentary glint of humor in the steady blue eyes, surprisingly not out of place on the stern face. “Not heaven, Captain — the city.”
Da Silva frowned. If he had taken the trouble to list all the potential questions a Minister of Business and Industry might throw at a captain of police, this one would have been at the bottom of the list. Or below.
“Paraíso?” he said slowly, trying to dig into the recesses of his memory to see what he really did know about the place. “It’s a small town in the northeast — in Ceará State, I think — where the government is trying to build an industrial city. Or they were some years back. It got quite a bit of publicity when it was launched several years ago, but I haven’t read much about it lately.”
“Have you ever been there?”
Da Silva shook his head. “No, sir.”
“Good! Do you have any contacts with the police there?”
Da Silva wondered at the word “good” but merely shook his head.
“No, sir. But I’m sure I could arrange any contacts you might want, if—” He stopped short. He was even more sure that a Minister of the Republic could arrange any police contacts he wanted anywhere in the country without his humble aid. Da Silva repeated his opening words and let it go at that. “No, sir.”
“Good!” said the Minister, again to Da Silva’s surprise. “Well, gentlemen, before I get down to our problem, let me tell you something about Paraíso, since you apparently know very little. In the first place, it is in Piauí, not Ceará, although it’s quite close to the state line, as well as being close to Maranhão. Secondly, it is far from having been dropped as a government project; that ‘small town’ as you called it, now has over two hundred thousand inhabitants, and if our plans for the city are fulfilled, we can easily envision Paraíso doubling its population within ten years.”
He turned to Wilson and his voice took on the timbre of an enthusiast. Da Silva, listening, suddenly remembered that the old man had come from that part of the northeast himself.
“Mr. Wilson, let me explain the vital importance of this industrial city — and, Captain, you listen closely, too, because what I am about to say is very important. Paraíso used to be a crossroads village, the center of a struggling cattle-raising area. But Paraíso is located in what we call, in Portuguese, caatinga — scrubland — not good for anything except raising cattle, and not especially good even for that. When the drought comes — as it does every six or eight years — then the cattle die and the people starve. Some of them, those who can, some of the men, go to the big cities — Recife, Salvador, Rio, São Paulo — and only swell the unemployment rolls there and add to their own misery as well as that of others. And even when the rains come again, many of the cattle are so weak by that time that they drown. And even in the best of times you could not put more than three head of cattle on a hectare of land in the caatinga — that’s about one head per acre, Mr. Wilson — whereas we can put ten head per hectare on ranches within a two-hour drive from Rio, near the slaughterhouses and near the market. But I’m getting off the track; what I’m trying to say is that in the old days the situation for the people in that area wasn’t very good. But now—”