The Panic Zone

13

Gannon swayed in the chair of his murdered colleague, nurturing his new hunch.

Taking stock of Marcelo’s desk, Gannon considered an empty package for an Eye-Fi card, thinking about what the photographer could have done at the cafe.

“Marcelo was obviously familiar with wireless transmission of photos.”

“Most photographers are,” Luiz said.

“And the Cafe Amaldo had Wi-Fi wireless access.”

“Yes, the journalists went to the Amaldo often with their laptops.”

“With this-” Gannon held up the Eye-Fi package “-Marcelo had the ability to ensure that any picture he took at the cafe was immediately transmitted and stored securely online.”

Gannon studied Marcelo’s keyboard as if it held the answer.

“We’ve got to get into his computer.” Gannon switched it on.

After several moments of whirring and beeping, the system came to life and the password window popped up, stopping him cold.

“Do you have Marcelo’s password?”

“No, each member of the bureau has a secret password.”

Gannon tapped a finger next to the keyboard and searched the notes affixed to the edges of the computer monitor.

“You said he was forgetful?”

“It is why he attached all those notes to his screen.”

“Let’s go through them. Maybe he posted his password here?”

Luiz and Gannon scrutinized the notes one by one with Luiz reciting names, dates, numbers, addresses and phone numbers as possible passwords. Gannon submitted candidates, and each time they were denied access. He knew it was likely futile, given the upper- and lower-case combinations. But they tried for nearly an hour, including restarting the computer when they exceeded the number of failed attempts to log in.

No luck.

“I could call technical support,” Luiz suggested.

“No. I want to keep this between us for now,” Gannon said. “Think, Luiz. Did you ever see him submit his code or get a glimpse of any of the key strokes?”

“No, but I heard it all the time. It went like this-” Luiz tapped four quick strokes on the desk, paused then tapped a fifth. “One, two, three, four. Always like that.”

“So it’s a four-character code, because the fifth would be the enter key. Four characters. That’s pretty short for a password. Okay, let’s check the notes for a four-character word, or name.”

They had studied them for fifteen minutes when Luiz froze.

“I think I know Marcelo’s password. His girlfriend’s name is Anna, spelled A-N-N-A, that’s four characters.”

Gannon entered the name with the first letter in upper case.

It failed.

“Try with no capital letters,” Luiz said.

Gannon typed anna and pressed Enter.

The screen flashed to Marcelo’s desktop and screen saver of Rio de Janeiro’s skyline at night, a shot he’d taken himself.

“That’s it!” Luiz said.

“We’re in! It would be an Internet link. Go to his favorites.” Gannon got out of the chair. “Luiz, you do it. You’ll recognize names faster.”

Luiz translated after he’d pulled down a list of links for sports teams, a bank, camera stores, weather, magazines, an auto shop and restaurants.

“This could be it,” Luiz translated, “Onlinephotocapture.”

“Hit it.”

An array of news and feature photos came up. Luiz translated the text.

“Onlinephotocapture…welcome to Onlinephotocapture…the secure members-only Web site for storing visual data…”

“This might be it,” Gannon said.

It was secure with a member’s log-in tab, requiring a user ID and another password. Gannon cursed under his breath.

“It’s no problem,” Luiz said. “This one has a password recall feature. Marcelo’s locked in his password, see?”

A couple of clicks and they had entered Marcelo’s page. Luiz translated: “Marcelo V. Storage Inventory.” Gannon felt a chill rush up his spine. Topping the item list: Cafe Amaldo and the date of the explosion.

“Open it.”

Half a dozen thumbnail photos appeared on the screen.

“Open the first one,” Gannon said.

It presented a well-framed photo of a beautiful woman alone at a table of the busy cafe. A long silence passed as Luiz and Gannon realized the significance of the image.

“That’s Gabriela.” Luiz swallowed. “Before her death.”

“Jesus,” Gannon whispered.

Luiz clicked to the next picture.

A woman in her late twenties, dressed in a blazer and skirt, was gripping the strap of a shoulder bag and standing before Gabriela’s table.

Luiz clicked.

Next, a close-up of the woman, worry creasing her face and making her appear older than her wardrobe and posture suggested.

Next, the woman sitting at Gabriela’s table, removing a legal-sized envelope from her bag. Next, Gabriela reading documents from the woman’s envelope, which was open on the table before them.

When the last picture came up, Luiz gasped.

Tentacles of smoke spattered with debris shot out in all directions radiating from a red-yellow fireball. Marcelo had photographed the instant of the explosion within the millionths of a second he and the others were killed by it.

And like the others, this image was transmitted immediately to his page at Onlinephotocapture.

“My god!” Luiz said.

“Unbelievable,” Gannon agreed. “Marcelo photographed the moment of his death.” He shook his head. “No one has seen these pictures, right, Luiz?”

“No, no one knows they exist. None of the others here have thought to look for them as you did, Mr. Gannon.”

“Don’t tell anyone. I need time to follow this up my way.”

“But they’re so amazing. WPA’s news subscribers around the world would want these pictures.”

“I know.”

“And what about the police? Isn’t this evidence we should give to them?”

“We’ll sort that out later. I need time to chase this lead. Swear to me you won’t tell anyone just yet, okay?”

Luiz nodded.

“Pass me that copy of the Jornal do Brasil, please.”

Gannon spread the newspaper over the desk’s clutter so he and Luiz could study the ten victims of the bombing.

“This one-” Luiz pressed his finger on one of the pictures “-her name is Maria Santo. She is the woman in Marcelo’s pictures, Gabriella’s source.”

Gannon unfolded the floor plan Estralla had given him. It put Maria Santo at the table of architects and secretaries next to Gabriela, but her chair was flagged with a question mark, meaning the investigators were uncertain as to where exactly Santo was positioned.

Marcelo’s photographs confirmed where she was seated.

Luiz translated the newspaper’s small biography for her, telling him quickly that she was twenty-nine and had grown up in one of Rio’s harshest favelas. Her mother worked as a domestic for the wealthy, her father in a sheet-metal factory. Maria Santo had worked in shopping malls as she struggled to pursue her education, before finding work at various office jobs downtown.

On the day she died Maria Santo was working as an office assistant at the international law firm, Worldwide Rio Advogados.

“‘We’re saddened by this tragedy,’ said a spokesman for the firm, who would not elaborate or disclose his name,” Luiz finished reading.

Worldwide Rio Advogados? It was familiar to Gannon from the papers he’d collected near the scene of the bombing.

“Where are the copies of the documents I asked you to store?”

Luiz got them from the supply room. Paging through the papers, Gannon found a few records on the letterhead of Worldwide Rio Advogados.

These were the bloodied pages.

Looking them over again it appeared that they held little information.

A list of a dozen or so file numbers and a short note in Portuguese. As Luiz translated, the significance of the information dawned on Gannon.

“Please ensure all versions of these noted files, hardcopy and electronic, are destroyed and that no record exists in the firm that makes mention of their existence, including this one which should be destroyed after these instructions are carried out.”

Luiz looked at Gannon.

“This woman was on to something,” Gannon said.

Maria Santo’s eyes met Gannon’s from the front page of the Jornal do Brasil. As he stared into them, he wondered why she had needed to meet with a reporter from a global news agency.

Why did the firm where she worked need their files to disappear?

Were these the secrets Maria was planning to reveal in the moments before her death?

“Luiz, I’m going to the law firm to see what I can find out.”