Leibowitz Oil Building.
12.57 p.m.
“I don’t believe it!” Sophia huffed and raised from her chair, aggravated. She picked up her bag and put her iPhone in it. She opened her office door, “Sarah, please, inform IT that my computer’s crashed for the third time since yesterday! Please ask Liang to have it fixed during my lunch hour.”
“Mrs. L., it’s not just your computer. The whole company network has crashed,” Sarah informed her.
“This is absurd.” Sophia paused, in front of Sarah’s desk. “This can’t happen. What about the back-up system?”
“It crashed, too.” Sarah said, apologetic.
Sophia shook her head and muttered under her breath, “Gabriel would be so mad... I want Liang here. Now.”
“He’s with Mr. Davidoff, Mrs. L.”
Sophia stopped and slowly turned back to Sarah. “What?”
Liang Kang-Dae was a computer genius. After studying at the United States, having won a full university scholarship, he returned to England and applied for one of the Leibowitz Awards for New Projects. He had won the first place brilliantly and the one-hundred-thousand pound award. He was twenty-six at the time. Gabriel offered him a position at Leibowitz by the end of the award party. After a while, Gabriel relocated the whole IT department from London to the Ireland branch and gave the young man free rein to manage all the company’s IT issues. Gabriel had always said that it was one of the wisest things he had done.
All that came to Sophia’s mind while she walked to Edward’s door. “Good morning, Edward, Liang.” She didn’t wait for their replies. “Can anyone tell me why our über-advanced network has crashed three times since yesterday?”
“Hackers, Mrs.-” Liang’s instantly replied.
Sophia froze as a loud buzz rang in her ears. Her lips opened but only a soft wheeze left her mouth as she dropped unconscious on the floor.
Leibowitz’s Penthouse, Sophia and Gabriel’s home office.
Thursday, June 5th, 2008.
10.28 a.m.
“Mr. Santo, there’s no doubt. That is how they knew Mr. Leibowitz’s and your sister’s schedules. They must have been following them for a long time. They had all the information they needed.” The Brazilian Federal Police expert closed Sophia’s notebook and looked at the two men in front of him, shaking his head, and muttering, “Damn hackers. There’s no privacy anymore.” He put the notebook in a plastic bag, took off his gloves, and stored everything in his briefcase. He turned to a pale and wide-eyed Sophia, sitting rigidly in an armchair. He walked to her and said in a soothing voice, “I have to take your notebook to the lab. There, I will be able to use it to trace the hackers.”
Sophia nodded. My computer. It was my computer that lead the kidnappers to us.
“Have you backed up all the photos and documents from this machine?”
Sophia nodded once more. She knew that if she opened her mouth to answer she would start crying. Again.
“-Mrs. Leibowitz. Please?” The expert had continued talking but she hadn’t heard. Sophia looked to Felipe and Edward for help.
“Yes, we will keep in touch, won’t we, Sis?” She nodded for the nth time that day. “Thank you very much.” Felipe and Edward followed the expert out of the room to the stairs where Edson, her butler, was waiting to see him out.
Meanwhile, Gilberto, her driver, knocked on the opened door. “Doutora Sophia?”
“Do you have news for me?” Her throat was so raw from screaming at night that it was difficult to speak.
From behind his back, Gilberto revealed a small steel box, like an old fashioned medical box. It was sealed with tape. In his other hand, he held an envelope.
Without a word, Sophia rose and motioned for Gilberto to follow her to the terrace.
She squinted in the sunlight, lowered her sunglasses and sought refuge under the parasol. She sat on one of the reclining chairs.
Her sad smile turned into a dark grin as she looked at the steel box, “The fingers?”
“Doutora Sophia, you don’t want to see those.” He shook the box and Sophia heard soft thumps. “My brother guaranteed me it was done as you requested.” He stretched his hand that held the envelope. “The warlord sent you... Err... A gift. A photo.”
Gilberto opened the envelope, pulling out a photo placing it next to Sophia.
Twelve male faces stared back at Sophia. White, mixed and negro men. Tall, average and short. Thin, muscular and fat. Bald, blond and dark-haired.
Crime isn’t picky. She smiled sadly at her weird thought. Twelve completely different men. For her, they had only one thing in common: they had murdered her husband. They had murdered her love, her daughter’s father, her dream, her life.
“You can see that as you ordered,” Gilberto pointed at the photo with the steel box, “each one has lost their ring fingers.”
Sophia heard a shocked gasp and a sharp intake of breath behind her. She turned and faced her brother with an impassive face. “Don’t judge.”
Then she looked at Edward Davidoff, who had come for Gabriel’s funeral.
Sophia tilted her head to the side, studying him, as he stood on the enormous terrace. Under the Carioca sun and the absurd humidity, elegantly dressed in a tailored gray suit and dark-gray tie, Edward was rooted to the ground, openmouthed. His English flair had abandoned him.
Felipe scowled and his mellifluous voice turned hard and cold. “Sophia, you’re a lawyer. They-”
“They tortured and killed my husband!!” she screamed hoarsely, raising from the chair and stalking up to him. “They killed Gabriel!” She pushed Felipe aside and stormed off.
Felipe ogled the driver. “How did she find them?”
“Doutor Felipe, they were hiding near where my brother lives.” Gilberto raised his chin. “I told her. It was her right to order their deaths. We know the police wasn’t going up there to arrest them.”
Edward, who was recovering from the shock, asked even more horrified, “Have they been killed?”
“She didn’t wanted it,” Gilberto answered in his hard learned English. “We avenge our own. It’s the law of the slums.” He faced Felipe and shook his head slowly. “Doutor Gabriel was a great helper of our community. She give her leave when she asked for the fingers.” He shrugged. “She told me she only wanted the fingers, but some things are beyond anyone’s control. All of them, except he,” he pointed to one of the men in the photo, “died yesterday night. In the microwave.”
Edward looked at Felipe, “Microwave?”
“You don’t want to know,” Felipe grimaced, disgusted. “Please, Gilberto, get rid of these.” He motioned to the box in Gilberto’s hand and the photo
“No.”
The command, voiced in a whisper, made the men turn around.
“I want the photo.” Sophia was leaning on the sliding glass door, looking like she would faint at any minute, holding a thick envelope in her hand.
“Eleven men are dead because of you, Sophia,” Felipe thundered, glaring at her. He stepped in her direction and stopped, fisting his hands. “Who do you think you are? God?”
They were not supposed to be killed. A sudden anger burst inside her and, clenching her hands, she faced Felipe. “Do you know what?” she screamed at her brother in her raspy voice. “They tortured Gabriel for ninety-six days and then killed him. They deserved it. They deserved to die.”
Felipe stepped closed to her and, lowering his head, he hissed, “Maybe they did. But you, Sophia, you should know better. You lowered yourself to their level. Now, you’re a criminal, too, exactly like them.”