“See you later, then.”
Later, she thought, would be when they were in the van, on their way to board the return flight.
Leao got to his feet and favored her with a leer before he swaggered off.
“Creep,” she said, as soon he was out of earshot.
“Screw him,” Lina said.
“Not on your life.”
“Figuratively, I meant. Come on, Bruna, come with me. It’ll be fun.”
Bruna shook her head. “I need sleep.”
They were on a seventy-two-hour layover. Lina was going to her uncle’s country place in Juquiti, a municipality three hours’ drive to the south. The uncle’s partner, Franco, was a gourmet cook. And neither man ever talked about airplanes.
But Bruna was exhausted. Her holiday on St. Bart’s had been anything but restful. Henri, the diving instructor she’d met on St. Jean Beach, had seen to that.
“I’m going to get into bed,” she said, “and I’m going to sleep for twelve hours. Then I’ll take it from there.”
“Take what where? This hotel’s in a dead zone.” Lina gestured toward the window where the control tower of Guarulhos Airport towered over some shrubbery and a chain-link fence.
“But in here there’s double glazing and room service,” Bruna said. She glanced at her watch. “Let’s go up to the room. Your uncle’s almost due.”
“He’s always late,” Lina said.
Upstairs, Lina stripped off her skirt and blouse. Bruna kicked off her shoes and inquired about messages.
There weren’t any.
Lina opened her suitcase, took out a shoulder bag, and started stuffing it with things she might need. “Nothing from your Frenchman?” she asked.
Bruna shook her head. “I’ll give him another ten minutes. Then I’m going to block incoming calls.”
“You? Block incoming calls? You must be exhausted.”
“I told you,” Bruna said, standing up and removing her blouse.
“Why don’t you call him?” Lina said and disappeared into the bathroom.
“You have any idea,” Bruna said, raising her voice so Lina could hear her over the sound of running water, “how much it would cost to call St. Bart’s from this hotel?”
“Probably a lot, but you could make it short, tell him to call you back.”
“I told him where I’d be. He’s the man, so he’s supposed to call. I don’t want him to think I’m chasing him.”
“Which you are.”
“Which I am, but I don’t want him to think so.”
Lina stepped out of the shower and Bruna stepped in. She’d just turned off the tap when the telephone rang. Lina answered it, but it wasn’t Henri. It was her Uncle Eduardo, and he was downstairs.
“Gotta run,” she said, coming into the bathroom to give Bruna a peck on the cheek.
Bruna heard the door slam and picked up the hair dryer.
It seemed as if she’d barely laid her head on the pillow when something woke her from a steamy dream in which Henri was playing a major role.
She squirmed, stretched, and looked at the clock. Half past eleven. She’d slept three hours, no more. She frowned, rubbed the sleep from her eyes. And then it came again: the sound of someone rapping at her door. She was sure she had hung out the DO NOT DISTURB sign. Once more, the same knock, furtive, as if the knocker didn’t want anyone in the neighboring rooms to hear; insistent, as if the intruder knew she was there.
Which, of course, he did. It had to be that damned copilot. He must have seen Lina leaving for her uncle’s sitio, must know Bruna was alone.
“Who’s there?” she said, not bothering to keep the irritation out of her voice.
There was no answer.
“I’m trying to get some sleep,” she said. “Whoever the hell you are, come back later. Come back in ten hours.”
The reply came in the form of three gentle taps, neither harder nor softer than before.
Furious now, she went to her open suitcase and felt around until she’d found her kimono.
“All right,” she said, searching for the sleeves and finding them. “I’m coming. Wait.”
And she did let him wait. She went into the bathroom, splashed some cold water on her face, grabbed a brush and smoothed her blond hair. Finally, she went to the door and removed the chain. If she’d been more awake, or if it hadn’t been the Caesar Park Hotel, with all the security in the world, or if she hadn’t been quite sure that it was their copilot, she might have kept the chain on.
But she didn’t.
Chapter Thirteen
Guarulhos, the largest of Sao Paulo’s international airports, is viewed with favor by the aviation community. Congonhas, the smallest, is not. The shortest runway at Guarulhos is in excess of three thousand meters; the shortest at Congonhas measures less than fifteen hundred, barely enough for a modern passenger jet. But that isn’t the worst of it. The worst of it is that the runways at Congonhas aren’t grooved.
Grooving is a technique whereby tiny trenches are cut into the surface of the concrete to drain rainwater. At Congonhas, an airport famous for inclement weather, rainwater on the runways often accumulates to a depth exceeding twenty-five millimeters, which is barely the thickness of a fifty-centavo piece, but it’s enough to cause aquaplaning, a fancy word for a skid.
Passenger jets depend on two devices to bring them to a stop: brakes and reverse thrusters. If either fails, and if the runway is as short as it is at Congonhas, skids can be fatal.
Hector approached the airport from the city center, passing on his right the blackened ruins of a warehouse. The area had been closed off by a brand-new fence now lined with flowers and teddy bears. Beyond the fence, bulldozers were demolishing walls and clearing rubble. Thirteen days earlier, a TAB flight from Porto Alegre, landing in light rain and with only one thruster functioning, had skidded off the runway to Hector’s left. The runway and the area around it were higher than the road. The Airbus had retained just enough momentum to clear the heavy rush- hour traffic before plunging into the warehouse.
Killed were 187 passengers on the plane, several employees working in the warehouse, and a few passersby, a grand total of 199 deaths. The authorities were still sorting out carbonized bodies, still trying to fix the blame for the disaster.
Hector parked in the underground garage, took the elevator up to the terminal, and asked to be directed to the airline’s personnel department.
“Aline Arriaga, Aline Arriaga,” the obliging young man repeated to himself, his fingers flying over the keyboard. “Ah, here she is. Works check-in on the noon to eight.”
The young man was wearing a red blazer and a name tag identifying him as G. Salcedo, Assistant Manager. He reached out for a telephone without taking his eyes off the screen.
And put it down as quickly as he’d picked it up.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Sorry, what?” Hector said.
“She’s off today. She works Saturdays and Sundays, takes Thursdays and Fridays off. She’ll be here on Saturday.”
“She live close by?”
Salcedo consulted his screen, “Not really. Mooca.”
The Mooca neighborhood was a long way from Congonhas.
“I’ll drop by her place tomorrow,” Hector said. He made a writing gesture. “Could you give me her address?”
