“What is it?” I asked. “A fire?”
“More like an explosion.”
“Is it the congress building?” We were too far away to see clearly, but it was the right direction. A second boom vibrated through my bones, and this time the windows in all the nearby buildings rattled as well. A second column of smoke appeared, this one more directly east, at the edge of the lake.
“Minha nossa,” Celso swore. “It’s the Palácio da Alvorada.” The residence of the president of Brazil.
The cars on the freeway were pulling over now, and motorists joined us to stare at the rising pillars of smoke. The sound of a third explosion washed over us, this one distant and only noticeable because of the other two. A moment later, over the horizon to the south, a third column twisted into the sky.
“I can’t tell,” Celso said. He sounded shaken. “What is that one? The cathedral?”
I shook my head. “It’s farther away than that.”
“What then?”
“Hard to be sure. But my guess? It’s the Agência Brasileira de Inteligência.”
“My father’s there,” Celso said.
I flattened my lips into a straight line. “True,” I said. “And so is the director of the NSA.”
CHAPTER 17
My first instinct was to run toward the explosions. Celso followed me as I navigated the maze of pedestrian pathways. The sites were, however, several kilometers away, and before I made it very far, it became clear from the crowds and the police that I wasn’t going to get anywhere near them. Celso coaxed me back to his dormitory, where we watched the unfolding story on the news, and I tried to reach the office back home.
After several tries, I reached Shaunessy on the phone, but she knew less than I did. There hadn’t been enough time before I left to buy a SIM card that would work in Brazil, so I gave her Celso’s number as a way to reach me. Ten minutes later, Deputy Director Michelle Clarke called me on Celso’s phone.
Clarke was a civilian who had risen through the agency ranks. I had never met her. Her voice on the line had the professional calm of a 911 operator or a NASA flight controller. “What’s our status there, Johns?”
I explained everything I had seen and heard.
“You’re certain Kilpatrick is dead?”
“I don’t know that at all,” I said. “I was a few miles away when it happened, but I don’t have any direct information. I’m just here watching the news.”
“You’re safe, that’s the important thing,” she said. “Hold tight. The cavalry is on its way.”
The news stations at first showed only chaos: the columns of smoke and the distant wreckage of buildings, the crowds of people and police holding them back. Finally, information started to roll in. The president of Brazil, most of her cabinet, and a large number of senators were dead. In one coordinated move, the country had been cut off at the head. Brazil was reeling, its future uncertain. Even the Brazilian newscasters showed a subtle anti-American sentiment, citing American interference as the reason for the rise of certain terrorist groups inside Brazil.
The news also showed rioting, to a degree that surprised me. Looters broke into stores, destroyed public property, and attacked Americans on the street. Not just in Brasília, but in Brazil’s other major cities, too: São Paulo, Salvador, Rio de Janeiro. The vice president of Brazil had been in São Paulo when the bombs went off, but no one on the news had been able to confirm that he was alive or get a clear statement from his staff.
“If he was safe, he would make a statement, don’t you think?” I said. “To show the country that he’s in control and there’s a clear line of succession?”
“Maybe he’s afraid that he’ll be next,” Celso said.
A pounding knock on the door startled me. Celso opened it a crack but kept his foot positioned to block it from opening any farther. “What do you want, Emílio?” he asked in Portuguese.
“What’s up with that gringo in your room?” The voice on the other side of the door sounded drunk.
“What gringo?”
Another pound on the door. “Your American friend.”
“Hey, take it easy, mano. He’s not here.”
“Tell him to stay away. We don’t want him around.”
I wondered how many of Emílio’s pals were behind him in the hallway. “Don’t worry,” Celso told him. “He ran like a rabbit as soon as the bombs went off. He went back home to America.”
“Good. Don’t be bringing any more gringos around, you hear?”
“I hear you, Emílio.”
“We don’t want them here telling us what to do.”
“Couldn’t agree more,” Celso said, closing the door. He locked it and then leaned his back against it.
“I can’t stay here, can I?” I said.
“Of course you can stay. Stay as long as you need to.”
“You’re a good friend,” I said. “But I need to get back to the States. I’ll get a flight out tomorrow.” As I said it, however, I wondered just how easy that would be.
The talking heads on the news stations kept talking all through the night. When they had something new to say, they delivered it with breathless intensity. When they didn’t, they repeated the same news in different words. Gradually, as the hours passed, it became clear that the three synchronized bombs were only a small part of the attack. The colonel in command of Manaus Air Force Base, several kilometers from the city of Manaus in the Amazon, had refused orders from central command and declared the base to be “free from imperialist control.” At the same time, the Val-de-Cães Naval Base in Belém had deployed boats on the Pará and Amazon Rivers, apparently turning away tourist boats and denying them passage. Just which parts of the military were under whose control seemed to be an open question.
Finally, César Nazif, the chief justice of the Supreme Federal Court and fourth in succession to the presidency, staged a press conference in front of the national cathedral and proclaimed himself acting president of the nation, assuring everyone that the country was under his control, at least until the vice president’s whereabouts could be ascertained. At his shoulder stood the imposing form of Júlio Eduardo de Almeida. Celso’s father.
In the morning, I called the airport, but I was told that all commercial and non-essential flights had been grounded, by order of acting President Nazif.
“I’ll just head back to my hotel and wait it out,” I told Celso. “I can communicate with my bosses from there, and I can stay there without inconveniencing or endangering you.”
Celso assured me I was welcome where I was, but he saw the sense in my plan.
“I’ll walk over with you,” he said.
“You might not want to do that.”
“I want to make sure you get there safely.”
I could already see the change in the city as we walked the streets of the Federal District. Children were nowhere to be seen, nor were family groups, nor the usual games of soccer or sunbathers on the grass. I saw plenty of men, however, especially young men. One had a bulge under his shirt that I suspected concealed a gun. Whatever was happening, it hadn’t started overnight. There were forces here that had been growing for some time. The explosions were just the spark, a kind of promise that life in Brazil was about to change. With the balance of power shifting, those who wanted change needed only to step out of their doors and take it.
When we reached the hotel, the man at the front desk assured me with clipped formality that my room reservation had been canceled for non-occupancy, and the room had been rented to another party. I asked for a new reservation, but he told me all their rooms were full. From the number of cars in the lot, I suspected this was a lie, but I had no way to prove it. When I asked him for my suitcase and belongings, he told me that they had been placed in storage for my safety, and that if I would provide my passport for identification purposes, he would send an employee to retrieve them. Without thinking, I handed over my passport and waited while he took it into a back office to make a photocopy for their records.