'What have you got in there?' Orlando asked.
'Start climbing,' the spokesman said.
'This hill?'
'You see anything else to climb? Get moving.'
Orlando was overweight. The only thing he ever exercised was his drinking arm. Before he was even halfway up the slope his heart was pounding, and he was struggling to breathe. He tried to slow his pace, but when he did the strangler kicked him in the buttocks to speed him up. By the time they reached the top Orlando was sweating like one of his horses after a sharp gallop in midsummer.
The sun's disk was just peeking over the horizon. The golden light cast long shadows from two shovels standing upright in a pile of earth. The shadows fell over a trench, freshly dug at the very summit of the hill.
The four men who'd been carrying the box set it down. Then the whole gang gathered around the hole and took off their hoods.
Orlando gaped at the face of the spokesman.
'You!' he said.
'Yes, you swine, me. Surprised?'
Remembering Azevedo's gesture, Orlando tried to spit. But he couldn't. His throat was too dry. He tried to tell himself it was the wine, knew it wasn't. He studied every face and recognized three more: Flavio, who'd worked for him for years and was still working for him, damn him; Lucas, who he'd fired last August-no, September-for impertinence; and, finally, the killer in the red T-shirt. Carlos Something. He couldn't remember the rest of the name, but he did remember that the association had circulated a photo of him, a photo meant to ensure that he never got a job on any ranch owned by a member.
Orlando let his eyes sweep around the group, scanning the other faces, trying to commit each and every one of them to memory.
The entire circle was looking back at him with contempt and with no pity at all. In an attempt to avoid their eyes he looked down at the hole and had a sudden and very ugly thought. No. They wouldn't do that. It wouldn't make any sense. They're just trying to frighten me.
He strove for reassurance. 'How much is it?' he said, nervously.
The spokesman gave him a quizzical look. Orlando felt a shiver of fear go down his back, but he tried again. 'The ransom. How much is it?'
The spokesman's brow wrinkled. 'Is that what you think this is all about? Money?'
Orlando swallowed.
The man in the red shirt grinned, but no one else did.
'We're not interested in your money,' the spokesman said.
Up to that very moment Orlando had always thought that everyone was interested in money. It was very late in his life for him to discover that some people weren't. He struggled with the thought.
Far away, in the trees by the river, a parrot shrieked. The sun was warm on his cheek. A gentle breeze ruffled his hair. He could smell the freshly turned earth. Despite his persistent hangover, Orlando felt very much alive and he wanted to stay that way. There was a space between the spokesman and the man in the red T-shirt. Orlando tensed his tired muscles, prepared to run.
Something struck him on the back of his head. There was no pain, just a flash of light, and then blackness.
But it wasn't the end.
He awoke lying on his back. Thin slivers of light shone through planks that were only centimeters from his face. He tried to lift his hands, but they were still bound behind him, the wire cutting into his wrists. He tried to raise a knee. It wouldn't move. His feet were wired together at the ankles.
He called out for help, and as if his call had been something they'd been waiting for, he felt them lifting him up and then lowering him down. When the movement stopped, he found himself resting at a slight angle, his feet somewhat higher than his head.
Then began a series of thuds. He didn't recognize them for what they were until something fell onto one of the small cracks above his face, and some of it trickled through and landed on his lips. He opened his mouth to taste it. Dirt!
And then he knew: Those thuds were the thin red earth of his fazenda falling on his coffin. The bastards were burying him alive.
He cried out for them to stop, drummed against the top of the box with his knees, beat against it with his head.
The shoveling continued at the same rhythmic pace. He screamed, screamed as loud as he could, and while he was still screaming they began to sing.
It was that song of theirs, the one he hated, the one they always accompanied by waving their left fists in the air, the one about brotherhood and justice and all that other crap.
It was the anthem of the league.
Chapter Eight
The FBI National Academy is located on the grounds of the United States Marine Corps Base at Quantico in Virginia. It shares the same campus with the FBI Academy, and bears a similar name, leading some people confuse one with the other. They are, in fact, separate institutions.
The FBI Academy exists to train special agents for the bureau. The FBI National Academy is an advanced course of study for experienced law enforcement officials. Among them, there is always a handful of senior officers from countries outside of the United States. The benefit to those countries is that their most talented cops have an opportunity to share ideas, techniques, and experience with their American counterparts. The benefit for the United States is that lifelong relationships are established, relationships that transcend national boundaries.
In June of 1983, four and a half years after his father's murder, Mario Silva received an invitation to go to Quantico. He was the first Brazilian to be so honored. His law degree, fluent English, and the spectacular results he'd achieved in Brazil's combat against the drug trade had all contributed to his receiving the coveted opportunity. There could have been no clearer indication that his superiors destined him for greater things. For ten classroom weeks, in the company of 250 other police officers, he took courses in behavioral science, leadership development, communication, health/fitness, law, and forensics. Forensics interested him most of all.
Upon his return, he was transferred to Brasilia, the federal capital. The expectation of his superiors was that he'd be able to put some of the things he'd learned into practice. Those were the days when experienced law enforcement officers, not political appointees, ran the Federal Police. The man who held the job, Helio Fagundes, was a consummate professional who recognized talent when he saw it. And he saw it in Mario Silva.
'How BIG is this thing?' Fagundes asked. They were in his office. Silva had been back from the United States for about a week.
'About like that,' Silva said, as if demonstrating the size of a fish he'd caught, 'and like that, and that,' tracing the other dimensions in the air.
'That small? Jesus!' Fagundes leaned forward, leafed through the proposal on his desk, and looked at the bottom line. 'Cheap, too,' he said, 'Compared to those monsters we've got downstairs. Okay, you've got a green light. I'll send you the paperwork. Go buy the thing.'
The 'thing' was an IBM Personal Computer. The device, less than two years on the market, was just beginning to come into use in law enforcement agencies in the United States. Silva had seen his first one when he was in Quantico.
The computer was duly installed in a small room down the hall from Silva's new office. Silva started learning how to use it, and with the blessing of the director, he hired a young man to help him. The young man was Cicero Morales. Cicero had a sparse goatee, a developing potbelly, thick horned-rim glasses, an acne problem and unkempt hair. Years later, and thirty kilograms fatter, he would become the head of the Federal Police's forensic laboratory. Even then, at twenty-three, Cicero was an unusually perceptive man.
'This whole project of ours,' he said to Silva one night when they were working late, 'it's not just for the
