The Panic Zone (11 page)

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

A
fine rain was falling the next day when Gannon returned to the diner to meet Alfonso, his guide into the slum.

He was waiting in the street, straddling a motorcycle and wearing a helmet and a baggy flowered shirt. He waved, and Gannon approached him.

Alfonso pointed to the gas tank and the hills and held up four fingers. Gannon gave him about forty reais, roughly twenty bucks U.S. Alfonso stuffed the bills in his jeans and nodded for Gannon to strap on the spare helmet and climb on behind him.

“You will take me to the parents of Maria Santo, Pedro and Fatima Santo?”

Alfonso gave him a thumbs-up, the motorcycle roared and they raced off along the crowded streets. Small shops, kiosks and parked cars blazed by as the commercial fringe of Zona Sul morphed into a narrow road, twisting into a lush jungle gateway to the favela.

The road continued slimming, coiling up and up. The engine growled as Alfonso shifted gears, threading through traffic. His body slid back and Gannon saw something sticking out from Alfonso's waistband. When a breeze lifted Alfonso's shirt, he saw the butt of a pistol.

They climbed for an eternity, the hills growing steeper, the road shrinking until finally they stopped at a side street.

The engine sputtered into the quiet of Céu sobre Rio on a Sunday.

Gannon turned to the God's-eye view of downtown Rio de Janeiro, the beaches, the bay, the statue of Christ on Corcovado Mountain. The upward sweep over the endless jumble of rooftops was amazing. Shacks and multi-story houses covered every speck of land, every outcropping; they were crushed together, battling for sun, angling to stand free as somewhere church bells tolled.

Alfonso led Gannon to a stairwell slicing between buildings and taking them higher. As they climbed, Gannon extended his arms, touching the lichen-laced walls on either side of the canyon they passed through. From time to time he saw large nests of wires and cables, common in favelas where residents spliced illegally into city utilities.

Drenched with sweat and breathing hard, Gannon guessed the temperature at more than a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, when they veered down a tight passageway that led to a side street.

Here, the low-standing concrete walls in front of the houses were coated with graffiti and bullet-pocked from gang shootouts with police.

They pushed on, passing more walls and shacks, then a pack of dogs yipping at children who were using sticks to probe garbage in the middle of the street. Watching them were several teenaged boys, smoking pot and sitting on a seat ripped from the rear of a car. Each of them had a gun and regarded Gannon as if he were new merchandise.

Alfonso gave a little whistle and led him down an alley that was slivered into yet another ascending canyon of stairs. This one opened to an oasis of well-kept houses, painted neatly in coral pinks, blues and lavenders. They were small houses with clean stone walls and ornate metal gates. Most had flower boxes in the windows.

Pretty, Gannon thought, as Alfonso stopped at one and unlatched the gate. They stepped into the cramped stone
landing that welcomed them to a sky-blue house with a bone-white door.

“Santo.” Alfonso nodded to the door, holding out his hand for payment.

Gannon gave him another forty reais then knocked.

The door opened to a man in his fifties. His haunted, tired eyes went to Alfonso then traveled sadly over Gannon. His white mustache was like snow against his leathery skin.

“Pedro Santo?” Gannon asked.

The man nodded.

Alfonso spoke to him in Portuguese and the older man looked at Gannon.

“Do you speak English?” Gannon asked

Pedro Santo shook his head.

Gannon turned to Alfonso who shouted in Portuguese to some girls down the street who were skipping with a rope. One, who appeared fourteen or fifteen, approached them. Alfonso spoke a stream of Portuguese to her. She looked to Gannon and said in English, “Hello, sir. My name is Bruna. I will try to help you. I am learning English from the British ladies at the human-rights center where Maria Santo has many friends.”

Bruna listened intently as Gannon told her that he was a journalist from New York with the World Press Alliance and needed to talk to Pedro Santo and his wife about Maria. After Bruna translated, Pedro opened his door wider, inviting them inside.

The house was immaculate but small with a living room and adjoining kitchen. Pedro Santo introduced his wife, Fatima, who was washing dishes at the sink. Pedro spoke to her in Portuguese and she gave Gannon a slight bow then began fixing him a fruit drink, indicating he sit in a chair at their kitchen table.

A moment of silence passed.

Over his years as a crime reporter, Gannon had come to learn a universal truth—that it didn't matter if it was Buf
falo or Rio de Janeiro, a home visited by death was the same the world over, empty of light. Like a black hole left by a dying star, its devastation was absolute.

When Fatima Santo set a glass before him, Gannon noticed her hands were scarred and wrinkled from years of cleaning the houses of the rich. Her eyes were dimmed with tears, her body weighted with sorrow. A gold-framed photograph of her murdered daughter was perched on the shelf above the TV, draped with a rosary.

“Please tell them—” Gannon turned to Bruna “—that I give them my sympathy for the loss of their daughter.”

Bruna nodded then translated, softening her voice as she grasped Gannon's intentions. That small act, the inflection of Bruna's voice, won his immediate respect, for he realized that in Bruna, he had the help of an intelligent young girl.

Gannon began by asking Pedro and Fatima to tell him about the kind of person Maria was. Bruna put the question to Fatima, who buried her face in her hands and spoke in a voice filled with pain.

Bruna translated, “She says that Maria was a good girl who went to mass and worked hard at important jobs in big offices. They wanted her to leave the favela for a better life but she insisted on remaining in Céu sobre Rio. Maria wanted to make life better for everyone, the children of the favela, the whole world.”

Pedro spoke in a deep, soft voice to Bruna, who nodded.

“He says that is why Maria worked with the human-rights groups, the earth groups, the unions. She was committed to social justice.”

A motorcycle thundered by, rattling the door, distracting Gannon momentarily as he resumed taking notes.

“I am interested in the kind of work Maria did for these causes.” Gannon gestured. “Did she keep files, records or notes here?”

Bruna translated and Pedro led them to a small bedroom, neat and evocative of a monk's cell. It smelled of soap and
contained a single bed, a dresser with a mirror, a desk, posters from Amnesty and other global and environmental groups. In one corner stood a four-drawer steel file cabinet.

As Pedro spoke to Bruna, there was a burst of shouting outside and the sound of people running near the house. It lasted a few seconds then Bruna turned to Gannon.

“He says you can look at anything, but be respectful.”

Gannon and Bruna immersed themselves in Maria's files, which were all in Portuguese, spreading them out on the desk, floor and bed. Items on the dresser began ticking from the vibrations of loud hip-hop music pounding from someone's sound system nearby.

Bruna raised her voice a bit as she translated excerpts of reports, studies and news clippings on human rights, child labor, human smuggling, environmental issues, police corruption, religious and political persecution.

Gannon noticed something: A low side drawer on the desk had a very slender sleeve inside holding a leather-bound notebook. He opened it to pages filled with dates and notes written in longhand in Portuguese.

A diary.

Outside, the music's volume increased, and Gannon never heard the front door latch click over its menacing throb, never heard the living room floor creak as the house filled with people.

Gannon had passed Maria's journal to Bruna and she was reading over the entries for the last three days of Maria's life.

“I have located the documents the law firm thought it had destroyed. It proves what we have suspected. I have copied the thirteen pages and shared them with SK at the center.” Bruna paused.

Gannon held up his hand before he reached into his back pocket and unfolded the documents he'd found near the bomb scene. He had pages two, five and nine. There were thirteen in all. He needed to see all of them.

Who was SK at the center? What center?

As Gannon nodded for Bruna to resume, “We agree we must go to the press with these records—” he noticed a flash in the mirror, a diffusion of light “—I will contact the WPA and give the documents to a journalist—”

Music hammered the air, and in a heartbeat Gannon turned to glimpse Pedro and Fatima held at gunpoint by people—a dozen, maybe more—brandishing automatic guns, their faces covered with bandannas.

Without warning Gannon's head was swallowed by a large black hood.

His head exploded into a starburst of sudden pain.

G
annon was drowning.

Oh, Christ!

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't see. His head was wrapped in cloth and held underwater. His lungs were splitting, he struggled but his hands were bound behind his back.

God, please!

Mercifully, his head was pulled up. As he choked on air, he was tossed onto a mattress in a darkened room.

Who was doing this? Why? Where was he?

Someone jerked him upright, yanked the cloth hood from his head. Blinding light burned his face and a voice he didn't recognize mocked him in accented English from the darkness.

“Jack Gannon, reporter, World Press Alliance, New York.”

Gannon coughed.

“Your card identifies you as an American reporter. Is this true?”

Gannon said nothing, then a fist smashed the side of his head. He tasted blood, gritted his teeth and was pulled to his feet.

“Answer! You are an American reporter?”

“Yes.”

“You lie. You work for police. You're here to frame us for the bombing!”

“No, I don't know who you are. I've come to learn about Maria Santo.”

A knee flattened Gannon's groin. Lightning flashed in his eyes, and he doubled over, groaning in agony.

Gannon wheezed, “You're making a mistake.”

“There is no mistake.”

The man barked in Portuguese. A small video player was shoved into Gannon's face. He blinked, his eyes adjusting to the light.

It was a TV news report of him talking to Detective Roberto Estralla beyond the yellow tape at the crime scene of the attack on the Café Amaldo. The report cut to Gannon close up. The video player vanished, then newspapers were thrust before him, a flashlight haloed on the photograph of him taken with Estralla at the scene.

“Did you think you could walk into our turf and plant evidence in the home of Maria Santo?”

“No. No, you don't understand,” Gannon said.

“We are going to send a message to your police friends that we had nothing to do with the bombing.”

A chrome-plated revolver materialized. Gannon's captor spun its cylinder, showing the empty chambers, then he held up a bullet before sliding it into one of the chambers. He spun the cylinder then clicked it into the frame.

“Don't. Please.”

The barrel was drilled into Gannon's mouth, he tasted metal.

“Our message will be written on your corpse.”

Gannon's stomach heaved, a finger squeezed the trigger. As it went back, he shut his eyes.

God help me.

Click.

Empty chamber.

Laughter filled the room.

The gun was removed, Gannon's heart nearly burst.

“So you live a little longer. Spend the last moments of your life dreaming of your execution.”

A sudden blow to his head sent Gannon falling to the mattress and falling back through his life….

He is ten years old in the Buffalo Public Library where his big sister Cora is telling him he must read books because he's going to be a writer…I see it in your eyes, you don't give up…his mother, the waitress, in her white apron…his father in the rope factory, his blistered hands…his mother sobbing…they've lost Cora to drugs…she's run off…they can't find her for years…he resents Cora for the pain she's caused…he loves Cora for his life follows the course she envisioned…he's a news reporter with the
Buffalo Sentinel…
he meets Lisa Newsome on assignment from the
Cleveland Plain Dealer…
Lisa wants to get married and have kids…he could be cutting his lawn in suburbia, taking the kids to the mall…not him…he breaks Lisa's heart…ghosts will haunt you…his parents keep looking for Cora…she may have children…she may have a new life…what became of Cora?… A New York State Trooper, standing at his apartment, hat in hand…a pickup driven by a drunk driver has smashed into his parents' Ford Taurus, killing them both…he aches to get out of Buffalo but is afraid to leave…. ghosts…nominated for a Pulitzer…for convincing the brother of the suicidal Russian airline pilot who plunged his jet into Lake Erie to talk…think of the dead, their ghosts will haunt you…he got what he wanted…Buffalo behind him…working for the World Press Alliance…wasn't that what he wanted?… No one to mourn him…he was alone… Wasn't that what he wanted?… To die in the slums of Rio de Janeiro…ghosts will haunt you…don't ever give up, Jack…

Jack…

“Jack Gannon.”

His eyes opened then squinted.

He was on a bed in a bright room with an open window, fresh air. He had been moved. A woman was sitting near, tending to his face. She had a British accent.

“Can you hear me, Jack? I only have a few minutes.”

He turned to her, a woman in her early thirties with brown hair and dark eyes filled with worry.

“My name is Sarah Kirby. I'm Maria's friend from the Human Rights Center, at the bottom of the favela.”

“Help me get out of here.”

“I'm trying. You must listen. You were taken by the Blue Brigade, the drug gang that controls the Céu sobre Rio. They have places to hide people here, but everyone knows them. Bruna came for me.”

“Did they hurt her? Did they hurt Pedro or Fatima?”

“No, the narcos protect the people of the favela.”

“But how did you get in? We have to leave! Untie my hands!”

Someone outside shouted to Sarah in Portuguese and she responded, then turned back to Gannon.

“No, we have no time, listen—”

“
No!
They're going to kill me! They think I'm a police informant!”

“I know. It's Dragon, the leader of the Blues, he's psychotic. He fears the Colombians are coming for him because of Café Amaldo. Dragon fears police are trying to fuel a drug gang war so that the narcos exterminate each other. He swears the Blue Brigade had no role in the bombing.”

“Great, let's get out of here!”

“Jack, we can't leave, you must listen, they trust me, they trusted Maria because of the work we do in the favela.”

“Well, it was Maria who came to the WPA with documents from her firm for a story.”

“I know.”

“Then for God's sake, untie me and let's get out of here!”

“No, listen! They're waiting outside this door. I have negotiated for you, now listen, please!”

Gannon listened.

“Maria discovered evidence that the law firm was linked to criminal activity,” Sarah said.

“I found a few of her pages at the bomb scene. Is it about drugs?”

“We think it's about human trafficking or the illegal adoptions of children, stolen children.”

“What?”

“Maria was working with our human-rights networks. We kept it secret. Only a few knew—we had to get the story out. Maria agreed to contact the WPA. She was so afraid and so brave.”

Someone thudded on the door, Sarah hurried.

“After the explosion those of us at the center were terrified. We didn't know what to think. Was it a gang hit, or was Maria the target? Were corrupt police involved? How big was this illegal operation?”

“Jesus,” Gannon said. “Estralla, the cop, has my documents!”

“Listen, I have told Dragon a little about Maria's work, her connection to WPA, the café. I told him that killing you was stupid. He must keep you alive so you can get the truth out through your worldwide news agency.”

“Did he buy it?”

“He's allowed me a few minutes to get your vow that you will write the truth about the bombing, if he lets you live.”

“Dammit, that's why I'm here. Tell him yes.”

The door strained with banging.

“Time is up,” Sarah said. “If we get out together I'll give you copies of all of Maria's documents and our contacts in Europe. We think this is bigger than you could imagine.”

Sarah rapped on the door, it opened and Sarah left.

Gannon was alone, unsure how much time had passed before the door opened again and several armed men entered. Blue bandannas covered their faces as they leveled their pistols and M-16s at him.

A scrappy man in his mid-twenties followed them into the room, the grip of a chrome pistol sticking out of his
waistband. His eyes were sharp and icy as he inventoried Gannon.

“The woman assures me you are not with police, that you will write the truth about the café bombing, which is that the Blue Brigade did not do it.”

“I give my word.”

“If you fail, we will not harm you.”

Gannon was relieved but confused as Dragon nodded to a gang member who again displayed a digital recorder. The images jerked but showed Luiz walking the streets of Centro, then cut to Sally Turner, Hugh Porter and Frank Archer getting out of taxis at the bureau.

“We will kill your friends. You have two days.”

“I need more time.”

“Two days.”

Dragon nodded and a gang member pulled out a knife and sliced away Gannon's bindings. The others surrounded him and escorted him through the house. Sarah Kirby was waiting in the living room where Gannon's wallet and cell phone were handed back to him before the group left the building. As Gannon and Sarah began walking down the street amid Dragon's armed posse, Gannon noticed something odd.

Life was absent from this area.

Silent and still. Too still. As if the neighborhood was holding its breath.

Not even birdsong, the echo of children playing or a dog barking. It was the kind of deathly silence Gannon knew. It was familiar to him. Realization landed on him, he felt an arm lock around his chest and a gang member had suddenly made Gannon his shield.

Gannon saw Sarah pulled close to another gang member, then he glimpsed a police sniper behind a stone wall, eye clenched behind a scope, fire flaring from his rifle muzzle.

A bullet tore through the cheek of the gangster holding Gannon as the street exploded in gunfire. Bullets whizzed
in the air and ricocheted off of the stone walls, the street, sparks, dust, blood and debris flying.

Gannon turned but failed to find Sarah in the chaos. Bullets ripped through the air near his head, and he dove to the ground.

Men shouted. Police vehicles, their radios squawking, appeared from nowhere and the sky thundered with a helicopter. Gannon crawled to the shelter of a doorway, pressing his body to a low wall.

He kept his head down until the gun battle subsided.

In the dust-filled air of the aftermath Gannon saw several police officers toeing the bodies of dead gang members in the street. As radios crackled, Gannon was certain he recognized Roberto Estralla in the distance, wearing dark glasses, watching from the open door of an unmarked car.

Then Gannon heard sirens and his attention went back to the dead and wounded on the bloody street.

That's when he found Sarah Kirby, in a puddle of blood.