of cash and a little womanly schmoozing. “It’s my plane, my crew, and my story. The locals will protect you and the plane while you’re here. I’m taking my crew and going out to Ruiz’s farm to try to locate him.”
Jason climbed down off the CID unit. “Khalimov will certainly be out there, waiting for you,” he said, stepping over to her. “Don’t go. The sergeant major’s right: it’s too dangerous.”
“This is the hottest story of the decade, maybe even of the century,” Kristen said. “The story is out there, not here at this airport. I’m going.” She noticed the look of extreme concern on his face and smiled appreciatively. “Hey, don’t worry. I’ve been in lots of dangerous places before—I don’t think a farm in Brazil will be one of them.”
“Kristen…”
She reached out, touched his face, and smiled. “Hey, look at me—I’ve got a man worried about me. That’s a nice switch.” She motioned to the PME officer from Sao Paulo, now behind the wheel in the van. “I’ve got my friend Alderico there too, so I don’t think we’ll have any trouble if we run into any local PME.”
“What’s your plan, Kristen?” Jason asked.
“I want to make contact with the farm’s new owners and see if anyone else other than the PME has been sniffing around,” she replied. “I intend to look around first, do a little surveillance, and check it out carefully before I go in. That farm is surely under twenty-four-seven surveillance by several Brazilian and other government agencies…”
“And Zakharov and Khalimov,” he reminded her.
She held up a pair of night-vision binoculars, and tapped her chest indicating her bulletproof vest. “Standard issue stuff in our line of work. Don’t worry about me. I suggest you be ready to blast off as soon as I radio you—I might be high-tailing it out of there.”
Sergeant Major Jefferson drew his forty-five-caliber Smith and Wesson pistol from its holster on his right hip, checked the safety was on, then holstered it again. “I’m going with you,” he said.
Kristen looked at the big Ranger and nodded. “Good. Let’s go.”
Jason looked surprised. “You want him to go with you?”
“Hell yes. Do you think I’m stupid? I’ll take as many guns as I can with me.”
“Then I’ll go too,” Ariadna said, unholstering her SIG Sauer P220. Kristen was about to ask if she knew how to handle it, but Ari checked that she had a round chambered in the gun and reholstered it almost as fast and as expertly as Jefferson. Kristen nodded, impressed, and made sure she got a bulletproof vest, one with the letters “TV” outlined in tape on it.
“Ari…!”
“I’m no use here until all that seawater is dried up inside the CID unit, right, J?” Jason looked at her carefully, not believing what she was saying. “Right?”
“Yes, right.”
“Then let’s do it,” Kristen said.
“Eu irei protege-lo. I will go and protect you,” Manuel Pereira said.
Kristen nodded, and a PME officer gave him a bulletproof vest, a beat-up looking shotgun, and a box of shells; he loaded his gun quickly and stuffed the remaining shells into his pockets. To Jason, Kristen said, “The flight crew can watch over you and the plane and make sure the PME doesn’t try anything. It’ll take us no more than twenty minutes to drive back from the farm. When we radio you, have the crew fire up the engines and taxi to the hold line—we’ll go right to the end of the runway and jump on board so we can be off the ground as soon as the door’s shut.”
Everyone headed to the van to load up; Jason grasped Ariadna’s arm before she climbed inside. “Keep your damn fool head down, Ari,” he said.
“I will,” she replied. She looked at him carefully. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing, J?”
“Let’s go, boys and girls,” Jefferson prompted them.
Jason shrugged. “I’ll get back to work on El CID,” he said. “Wish me luck.”
“Just get it fixed, J,” she said seriously, and climbed inside the van. Jason immediately returned to work on the crippled robot, working as fast and as hard as he could.
Less than thirty minutes later, they passed over a cattle grating and four-strand barbed-wire fence with a whitewashed wooden archway over the driveway. Kristen scanned the area with her night-vision equipment— nothing seemed out of place. A dog barked in the distance—typical of any farm—and a peacock screeched, a bird often used by Brazilian farmers like watchdogs. “This is it,” Kristen said. “My crew and I are going in. I’ve contacted the new owners, and they’ve agreed to meet with us off-camera, although they say they have nothing to say about Jorge Ruiz or GAMMA.”
“Did you detect any kind of duress?” Jefferson asked.
“They were definitely nervous when I mentioned Ruiz,” Kristen said, “but it also seemed to me they were accustomed to doing interviews about Ruiz and GAMMA—rather, giving interviews but not talking about Ruiz. They did invite us inside, though. He’s a retired federal judge; I think I’ve met him before.”
“Think Ruiz is here? Think they’re protecting him?”
“There’s only one way to find out.” She turned to Pereira. “Manuel, onde nos encontrariamos Jorge? Where would we find him?”
“Cemetery da sua familia…his family cemetery, the place of the sepulturas, the gravesites, before the government dig them up,” Pereira replied. “The graves are no longer, but the Rocha da Paz, the Rock of Peace, is there. That is Jorge’s place of prayer.”
“That’s the last place you should go—if the PME or Khalimov is here, that’s exactly where he’ll be waiting for us,” Jefferson said. “Manuel and I will scout it out. We’ll meet up with you in the farmhouse.” The Ranger took their short-range FM walkie-talkie, keyed the mike, engaged the “HOT MIKE” locking switch keeping the mike button depressed, tested it, and told Ariadna to hook it on her pants out of sight. “I’ll be able to hear everything you say, so if you get in trouble I’ll know. You’re a producer or an assistant; you’re from Mexico; you speak Spanish and not much Portuguese; your English is very poor. Got it?”
“Si, senor,” Ari replied weakly.
“You want to give me your gun? If they find it on you, they’ll likely make it very difficult for you—it’ll be harder to convince them you’re just a journalist.”
Ari swallowed hard, but shook her head and smiled bravely. “I’ll keep it. ?Una muchacha consiguio protegerse, no? A girl’s gotta use protection, right?”
“How will we know if you’re okay, Sergeant Major?” Kristen asked.
“Manuel, how long to get to the cemetery from here?”
“Nao muita hora. Ten, fifteen minutos.”
“Give us no more than thirty minutes to scout out the cemetery,” Jefferson said. “If you don’t hear from us, assume we’ve been captured or killed, and get the hell out. Get on the jet and blast off—don’t try to set up a rescue mission or talk to the PME, just get out of Brazil.”
“Make it forty-five,” Kristen said. “Thirty minutes is not enough time for me to…”
“Thirty minutes, Miss Skyy,” Jefferson maintained, “or you’re risking your life and that of your crew and Dr. Vega. I would take it personally if any of you are hurt because you stayed to ask one last question or took one last ‘reaction’ shot.” Kristen noted the big Ranger’s stern voice, remained silent, and nodded.
“Shouldn’t we all scout out the farm first before we go in?” Ariadna asked.
“You’re a film crew from the United States here to do a piece on Jorge Ruiz and GAMMA—why would you be skulking around the place first?” Jefferson asked. “Let us do our recon, and you do your interview. Forget that we’re out there.”
“Okay,” she said, handing him her night-vision goggles. “You’ll need these.”
“Thank you.” Jefferson turned directly to Kristen and said, “I know this is your job and your career, Miss Skyy, but these men are killers, and no story is worth your life or the lives of your crew or Dr. Vega. Pavel Khalimov is a military-trained assassin for hire. If you suspect anything is wrong, turn around and get out. Is that clear?”
“I’ve done interviews with genocidal dictators, mass murderers, mobsters, gang-bangers, and every kind of human scum that’s ever existed—most times on their own turf,” Kristen said. “My crew and I have been shot at dozens of times; my cameraman Rich there has pieces of a camera still embedded in his eye socket after a bullet missed his head and his camera was shot out of his hands while he was filming. We’ll be careful, Sergeant Major— but we’re here to get a story, not sightseeing. The story is learning the whereabouts of, or perhaps rescuing, Jorge Ruiz. If I can’t do that story, I’ll get out—but not before.”
