“You must understand, Senhor McCracken. They would kill me if they knew I was meeting with you.”
Blaine McCracken leaned across the table also, his arms nearly resting against those of the Brazilian. “Just who are they, Carlos? You haven’t told me that yet, either.”
“Não sei, senhor. I don’t know…at least not for sure. It would be best if we start from the beginning.”
“That means with Johnny. I want to know where the hell they’ve got him stashed.”
“Please senhor. I must tell it my way.”
Blaine shrugged and pulled back. “Muito bem. As long as you tell me first where I can find Johnny Wareagle.”
Carlos Salomao’s eyes continued to scan the nearly empty restaurant. Every time the door opened, his shoulders tensed and his spine arched. Meeting in downtown São Paulo had been his idea. McCracken had expected him to choose a spot where he felt more at ease. Unless there wasn’t one.
“He is being held at a jail outside the city. We call it Casa do Diabo.”
“The house of the devil? “
“Many years ago prisoners were tortured within its walls. It is just a jail now, though fear of it still discourages crime.”
“If anything bad’s happened to Johnny, I’ll teach the jailers plenty about fear.”
McCracken had flown into Cumbica Airport some two hours before, after a flight lasting more than half a day. He had returned from London to Maine early Thursday. His Thanksgiving at home was uneasy, with Johnny Wareagle nowhere to be found. The call from Carlos had come yesterday evening, Friday, with a shadowy explanation as to why the Indian hadn’t been around as planned. Blaine had been able to make a Varig flight out of Kennedy Airport with a single stop in Miami. But if one hadn’t been available, he had been fully prepared to charter a jet to make the trip.
Carlos Salomao did his best to look Blaine in the eye, but his eyes kept drifting — first to the unsightly scar running through McCracken’s left eyebrow, then back in the direction of the front door.
“Senhor McCracken, your friend is in jail because Brazilian customs officials denied him entry into the country. He lacked a visa. They had no choice, but he took exception to their denial.”
“By exception, you mean…?”
“Several of the police officers attempted to restrain him. He injured a number of them.”
“Which doesn’t tell me what he was doing down here in the first place.”
“I sent for him, senhor, just like I sent for you.”
“You sent for him? Just who the hell are you, Carlos?”
Salomao tried to smile and failed. “I am many things, much like you.”
“What do you know about me?”
Salomao looked confident for the first time. “Before Vietnam or after?”
“Let’s try after.”
“Let’s see…You spent the rest of 1972 in Japan and then joined the CIA. You led the covert U.S. assistance effort for Israel during the October Yom Kippur War of 1973, then remained in Israel until the early part of 1974. From there, you took part in activities in South America, Africa, Germany, and Italy. You were suspended from active duty following an incident of gross insubordination in London, 1980.”
“Like to hear about it, Carlos? British feet dragging cost a plane load of people their lives. I decided to voice my displeasure by shooting the groin area of Churchill’s Statue in Parliament Square. Won me the nickname ‘McCrackonballs’.”
“Senhor, I—”
“And yours are next on my hit list — unless you tell me how you happened to come by some supposedly classified information.”
“I am in the information business, senhor. It is how I found your friend.”
“Found him for who?”
“I am part Tupi Indian, senhor. I was born in the Amazon Basin. I left, but my roots remain strong.” Salomao’s lips quivered. “Just over a month ago, three members of my tribe vanished in the woods. Since then, the killings have continued. No matter what steps they take, no matter what defenses they erect, some nights one or two of my people disappear. Sometimes hunters go out during the day and never return. When they are found — what is left of them, that is — it is terrible, senhor. They believe a demon has risen from the underworld to punish them, a demon they call Ananga Teide, the Spirit of the Dead. They asked for help, but only a special person from outside the tribe would be trusted.”
“Johnny Wareagle…”
Salomao nodded. “They accepted him as the living incarnation of Tupan, the Tupi god. He came down here to help, but he never got the chance to try. Now he is in Casa do Diabo — and there he will remain for a considerable time…without your help.”
“And how do you expect me to bring this off?”
“With your influence perhaps. And if that falls short…” Salomao’s shrug completed his thought.
“Yeah, bust him out so he can go up to the Amazon and finish what you called him down here to do. Thing is, I know he never would have told you or anyone else about me.”
“Não. I was able to get a look at his passport. Your name was listed as next of kin.”
Blaine smiled in spite of himself. “Close enough.”
“I am responsible for this, senhor. It is a wrong I must right.”
“Bullshit, Carlos. If you knew Johnny Wareagle at all, you’d know that he’s not about to walk away from an unfinished job. He’ll head straight for your Tupi tribe even if he has to plow through the whole Brazilian militia en route. And since you’re so up on my file, you know that I’ll be with him.”
Salomao didn’t bother denying it. “What I don’t know, senhor, is whether the two of you will be enough.”
São Paulo is a thriving, bustling metropolis, the center of Brazil’s banking and commerce. By far the largest and most modern city in South America, it seems a combination of the pace of New York and the expanse of Los Angeles. Skyscrapers dominate the horizon in jagged concrete clusters, while below, the din of screeching brakes and honking horns are common sounds within the ever-present snarl of traffic.
Because of this traffic, the drive from the airport had taken an interminable sixty-five minutes. But the traffic was lighter leaving the city; eventually giving way to a freshly paved four-lane divided highway leading north to Atibaia. As the miles sped by, the modern look of the city gave way to simpler and more rural forms of construction. Whitewashed stone and terra-cotta replaced steel and glass as the dominant building base.
The jail Johnny Wareagle was being held in, on the outskirts of Atibaia, was rectangular in structure and three stories high. The building had the look of an old fort, except for the chain-link fence topped with barbed wire that enclosed it and the blacktop parking lot within. Blaine’s papers were found to be all in order and, after a casual frisk revealed him weaponless, he was escorted down a long corridor. The walls smelled of must, mold, and age. McCracken figured the mere running of his finger across them would cause the years to peel back, layer by layer. He felt his nostrils clog with the dust filling the air and noticed that the loose-grouted floor tiles were producing a rattling echo underfoot. His escort opened the door to a small windowless room and told Blaine to enter.
McCracken did as he was told, but elected not to take one of the two chairs at a thick wood table. Except for these, the claustrophobic cubicle was barren.
Christ, Johnny. What the hell happened?