The Panic Zone

9

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

A phone rang and Jack Gannon awakened in a strange room. He looked at the walls, the sunlight streaming through the shutters.

He lifted the phone.

“Good morning, Mr. Gannon. This is your wake-up call.”

“Thank you.”

Piece by piece, it all came back to him as he rubbed his face. He took two aspirin, shaved, showered, dressed, grabbed some breakfast, got his bag and headed to the bureau. When he arrived, Luiz, the news assistant, was the only person there.

“What’s going on, Luiz? Where is everybody?”

“Much has happened. Mr. Archer is interviewing an official with the Departmento de Policia Federal.”

“They’re like our FBI and Estralla is with the Civil Police?”

“Yes. And Mr. Porter and Ms. Turner are interviewing people about the Colombian narco connection to the bombing.”

“Porter said the victim list might be released today?”

“Yes, but not yet. Not officially. Mr. Archer wants me to help you follow today’s major story. JB has obtained the list.”

“JB-what’s that and what did they get?” Gannon switched on his laptop.

“JB has broken the story identifying all the bombing victims,” Luiz held up a newspaper, Jornal do Brasil, with the main headline: Caras dos Mortos, over a gallery of ten head shots superimposed on a photo of the ruins of the Cafe Amaldo.

Gannon did not have to understand Portuguese to see that the newspaper had beaten its competition by obtaining the victim list in advance.

Gabriela Rosa and Marcelo Verde were on the newspaper’s front page, staring back from WPA file photos.

Luiz blinked back tears, staring at the newspaper.

“Seeing it now in the paper like this is hard,” Luiz said. “Gabriela was kind to me, she helped me write travel features for WPA. She took me out for lunch on my birthday.”

Luiz gazed at Gabriela’s empty desk, orderly and uncluttered compared with Marcelo’s desk. His was heaped with magazines, manuals and empty food wrappers. Marcelo’s monitor was feathered with two dozen small yellow notes.

“Marcelo was a consummate photographer, an artist who loved his work. He was fun, always joking but so forgetful with many things. He needed all these notes.”

Gannon studied the Jornal do Brasil and the faces of the ten victims, five men and five women. There were small bios about each of them. It was good work. He tapped the picture of Angella Roho-Ruiz, a beautiful woman in her twenties, smiling under the headline: Era uma Execucao do Narco?

Luiz nodded.

“That is Paulo’s daughter on a shopping vacation in Bogota, Colombia. The headline Era uma Execucao do Narco? is asking, Was this a narco execution?”

Gannon took a moment to process the growing speculation that the bombing was the result of a drug war.

Was everyone else right about who was behind it?

Was he an idiot to question reporters who worked, lived and breathed in Brazil everyday? Was he out of his league?

Gannon looked at the other victims. Was Gabriela’s source among them? Maybe they’d met and the source left? Or maybe the source never showed up at all?

The sheaf of charred and bloodied papers from the alley sat next to his laptop. If he could connect the victims to any of these documents, it would be a key puzzle piece.

First, he had to take precautions. His little adventure from last night underscored the need to protect his documents, for now.

“Luiz, will you do a confidential favor for me?”

“Of course.”

“Copy these pages, keep a set in a safe place, but tell no one. Do you swear to me you will do this?”

“I like working with you, Mr. Gannon. You’re different from the others. I give you my word I will do as you ask.”

“Good, these pages could be very important, we need to be careful. But I don’t want you to tell anyone. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

Luiz flipped through the papers. “It won’t take long.” He disappeared into the small supply closet. As the photocopier hummed, Gannon reviewed the faces in the newspaper and tried to think of a strategy to determine the cafe’s seating situation at the time of the explosion. Maybe talking to the families of the victims would be a good start.

Luiz returned the original documents and Gannon put them in his bag.

“I’ve hidden my copies in our supply room,” Luiz said. “I will not speak of them to anyone.”

The bureau’s door opened and two uniformed police officers entered. They were grim faced, and spoke in gruff, rapid Portuguese to Luiz before they approached Gannon.

“Jack Gannon, American citizen of New York City, U.S.A.?” One of the cops stood before Gannon, unfolded a single sheet of paper, glanced at it, then at Gannon.

“Yes.”

“Your identification, please?”

Gannon retrieved his passport from his computer bag. The officer looked at it, then tucked it in his breast pocket and snapped the flap closed.

“You will come with us to police headquarters.”

“Why, what’s this about?”

“For questioning.”

“Questioning? About what? Do you have a warrant?”

“No warrant, come with us.”

“Not without a warrant, or lawyer.”

“You will come with us now.”

“Am I being charged? Am I under arrest?”

“You will cooperate and come with us now, or you will face immediate expulsion from Brazil.”

The second officer stepped around Gannon. Their body language was loud and clear. Gannon looked at Luiz, then back at the cop and got his bag.

“I will cooperate. Luiz, call Frank, tell him to alert New York and the U.S. consulate that I have been arrested without a warrant.”