A Father's Love (32 page)

By 7:20 AM, I was ready to go. I didn't have much choice; my room had been bustling with people since 7:00, as our team members gathered, including the NBC camera crew. I could see the excitement and optimism on the faces of the NBC crew. They really believed this was the day; it was over, and Sean and I would be reunited. I wouldn't allow myself to share in that feeling—not until the wheels were up. I gave everyone a thumbs-up as I left my hotel room, hopefully for the last time, and was ushered downstairs and out a back door of the hotel to where a black embassy car was waiting.

Congressman Smith and I traveled from the Marriott to the consulate in the embassy SUV and entered the building through the secure garage entrance. My heart was pounding as I went upstairs to the second floor, where I was to meet Sean. Was this really happening? This was the day I had waited for, prayed for, hoped for, and now we were actually here. Ricardo remained downstairs at the entryway, in case there were any last-second attempts to pull more legal shenanigans. Upstairs, a room had been prepared where I could meet Sean privately. We had agreed to allow his grandmother to accompany him that far, no more.

 

 

A NOISY CROWD of people had gathered early outside the U.S. consulate. It was hard to tell whether they were in support of Sean's return or opposed to it. Most of the throng was composed of reporters armed with microphones and television cameras. Relatively few “ordinary citizens” were in the crowd. It was as though the Ribeiro and Lins e Silva families were hoping to use Sean's return to elicit sympathy for themselves, or to incite feelings of nationalism and anti-Americanism—How can we give up one of our own?—and perhaps, at the last moment, something could yet stir the country to keep Sean in Brazil.

I stood in the second-floor hallway of the consulate, peering out the large-pane window, hoping for any glimpse of Sean. I heard the commotion before I saw the car in which his abductors were transporting him. They were a half hour early. A throng of reporters and television cameras surrounded the car as the occupants got out, Silvana dramatically playing to them with each motion and expression.

Then I saw him. My nine-year-old son, Sean, was dressed in a bright Brazilian soccer shirt and was being dragged through the crowd. Accompanying him were Silvana and Ray. Holding Sean firmly was Lins e Silva, the second kidnapper, with his hand on Sean's head, as though protecting him from the media's cameras; alongside them, Tostes kept putting his hand on Sean's neck. Slowly they pushed their way through the crowd and paraded Sean down the street. People were screaming, car horns were blaring, and helicopters circled overhead. Next to Tostes was a uniformed officer, a security guard of some sort, I guessed, although he was doing little to disperse the crowd. Sean was being jostled back and forth and from side to side, bouncing off one part of the crowd to the next, always collared by Lins e Silva or Tostes as they surged slowly forward with the crowd.

“Get away! Move back!” Tostes shouted at the members of the media as he plowed deeper into the crowd.

“Why did you call us, then?” a cameraman shouted back at the vicious leaders of the parade. “Why didn't you use the entrance in the back?”

It seemed that the abductors were trying to incite a riot, laying out trails of bloody bait, but nobody bit. John Walsh later called this incident “the perp walk,” the perpetrators making one last stand.

As they dragged Sean through the streets, it was obvious to even casual observers that this was inhumane and unmitigated cruelty on the part of his abductors. Their actions and attitudes were obscene.

Standing by myself, looking out the window, I couldn't believe that the abductors were doing this to Sean. My son looked terrified, his cheeks flushed red and puffy as he clung to Tostes and Lins e Silva. It was so painful to watch. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, and I wailed against the window, “Why? Why! How can you be so cruel to my child? Why, God? Why would you allow this to happen to any child?”

Then a thought flashed through my mind:
But this is the end of their hurting him. This is the end of the pain he must endure at the hands of these monsters.

Congressman Smith came upstairs to check on me. When the elevator doors opened, he saw me with my hands raised over my head, my face pressed against the windowpane. “Look what they're doing to my son!” I cried. I paced back and forth in front of the window.

Congressman Smith rushed to me and threw his arm around my shoulder, attempting to calm me. “David, in a few minutes it will be over,” he said. “You will be with your son, and you will be with him for the rest of your life.” He then hurried downstairs to make sure all went smoothly there.

 

 

AT THE ENTRYWAY, the abductors and their cohorts came inside the building. Immediately Silvana made a big scene over the fact that she wanted to see me before letting go of Sean. She had apparently attempted to foist upon Sean the insane notion that since Bruna's death,
she
was now his mother.

Silvana was not the only one making a ruckus. Tostes also demanded bombastically, “I want to talk to David! He must come here to talk to me.” Consul General Marie Damour was recounting these ongoing demands back to Tricia in New Jersey, who made it clear that under no circumstances was I to be subjected to any conditions not contained in the order.

One of my lawyers reminded him that “Lawyers talk to lawyers,” not to the opposing clients. They also reminded him that I had agreed to allow only Silvana to come upstairs to the second-floor room where I was waiting for Sean. Silvana, and Silvana only.

Tostes continued his bluster. “He has to be man enough to come here to talk to me. If he doesn't, he is not a man.” When my attorney reiterated our position, Tostes turned his verbal shots toward Congressman Smith, cussing him out in Portuguese, his eyes bulging out with hatred, dropping F-bombs in English and accusing him of provoking the entire affair. A deeply devout Christian, but also a strong, athletic man, Congressman Smith saw red and momentarily turned toward Tostes with a “bring it on” attitude, then turned away and, with great self-control, restrained himself from reacting to Tostes's insults. Like a child cajoling another, Tostes continued taunting the congressman: “And I hope you lose the next election!”

To the very end, Tostes attempted to stoke anti-American sentiment. When Orna Blum asked him why they had chosen not to accept the consulate's offer to bring Sean in through the private entrance, Tostes alluded to our refusal to grant him and Silvana a free ride to the United States. He railed first in Portuguese: “This is a protest, because the boy is traveling alone.” Then in English, he added, “We are in Brazil. This is our country. This is a protest.”

From my location on the second floor, I couldn't hear the rabble below. I sent word to Ricardo. “Okay, let's get this thing over.”

The plan was for me to wait in the room prepared for our meeting, but I decided to walk out to the hallway and meet Sean at the elevator. The doors opened, and there was my boy, so grown-up now, nearly ten years old, and looking quite confident, considering that, according to all he'd been told, he was going to meet the enemy, me.

I hugged him immediately, and we embraced tightly. Silvana hovered nearby. I got a chair for Sean to sit down. “I'm very hot,” he said.

I knelt down next to his chair, held his hand, and smoothed his hair. “I love you so much, Sean.” He exhibited no resistance to me, nor did he say anything like “I don't want to go with you” or “I want to stay here.” He just seemed to be drained from the traumatic events of the morning.

After he calmed down, he seemed to relax. He looked up at me, wide-eyed. “I'm going to need some snow boots,” he said. “Do we have a lot of snow? I'll need to get some ski pants.”

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. “Don't worry, buddy,” I said. “We'll get you some.” I looked up at Silvana and got to my feet to face her.

“Oh, David,” she said, “so many things have changed.”

I wasn't interested in discussing anything with her. I had only one question. “Why?” I asked. “Why didn't you drive into the embassy? Why did you—you dragged him down the street.”

Silvana stared back at me, her eyes dark, cold, and devoid of emotion. “Will you allow me to see him?”

I answered her as I had the reporters who asked me that same question. “I will not do to you what you have done to me.”

She recoiled. Apparently, all she heard me say was, “I will not.”

“You . . . you will not?”

“I will,” I said. “In time, we'll arrange that.” She had been my bitter adversary for more than five and a half years, but she was still my son's grandmother, and I respected that. So Sean would know that this was not about animosity toward his grandmother, I made a point of hugging her, too. But as I hugged her, I whispered loudly into her ear, “You need to tell him that you remember how good a father I was.” She looked back at me blankly. “Say it, Silvana. He needs to hear it. Tell him that I was and am a good father. For his sake.”

Silvana spoke to Sean in Portuguese, supposedly saying, “Your father is a good man. He will take good care of you.”

Silvana and I then talked briefly about what Sean liked to eat. “He's allergic to shellfish,” she said. That was news to me; he'd never been allergic to anything while living in New Jersey, but I nodded and thanked her for the information. Then it was time for her to go. She gave Sean one last tearful hug and said good-bye.

Sean and I talked for a few minutes, and then Congressman Smith came into the room. “The cars are ready to go,” he said.

We went downstairs and piled into the vehicles that would take us to the airport. Sean, his three sacks of clothing, Karen Gustafson de Andrade, a security guard, and I rode in the first dark gray van. A second vehicle carried Congressman Smith, Ricardo, Marcos, Orna, and a security guard. Several police cars led the way and others followed behind us. The caravan quickly pulled away from the consulate. We were on our way. I looked at Sean and smiled, but it wasn't time to celebrate yet. We were still in Brazil, and the powerful opposition forces were capable of anything.

The short ride to Galeão seemed to take forever. I couldn't wait for us to get on the plane and be in the air. We arrived at the private aircraft waiting room, and everyone hustled inside and began saying good-bye. I thanked everyone for their marvelous work, especially Ricardo, but I never let Sean out of my sight.

We waited only briefly. Sean was hungry, so we quickly ate a couple of hamburgers. The consulate had prepared a new passport for Sean's departure, so after going through minimal security checks, we stepped outside onto the tarmac and started walking toward the plane. The engines on the NBC jet were already revved and roaring. The door on the side of the jet was open and waiting to receive us.

The dilemma of who goes up the stairs first suddenly dawned on me as we approached the plane. I didn't want to have Sean go up ahead of me, as if I were forcing him to leave. I knew someone would take a photo of such an arrangement, which no doubt would bear the caption “Boy forced on plane against his will.” I wanted it to be obvious to all that he was leaving of his own free will. Yet, as his dad, I was concerned that he might slip, stumble, or fall on the portable staircase, or even collapse from the trauma he'd experienced. I wanted to be behind him to catch him if he fell, as I had done so many times when he was just a toddler. I looked up to the sky and prayed a silent prayer. “God, I'm going to walk up those stairs. Please, God, when I turn around, let Sean be behind me.” I went up the stairs first, and each step was a step of faith, hoping and praying all the while that Sean was still following behind me, knowing that at any moment he could bolt, or the Ribeiros or the Lins e Silvas could yet make a final desperate attempt to delay or derail our plans to depart. What if he threw a tantrum or refused to board the plane? With the engines running, I couldn't hear whether he was behind me; I simply had to believe. As I got to the top of the stairs, I turned around. Sean was right there with me, looking up at me with a big smile on his face and an expression that said, “Why are you stopping? Let's go.” We both waved, and smiled at the people standing below on the tarmac, watching us from outside the waiting room.

Congressman Smith waited on the tarmac along with Karen, several of the embassy officials, and a pediatric nurse whom we had asked to accompany us—just in case. I waved to Congressman Smith from atop the stairs and gave him a thumbs-up before Sean and I stepped inside the plane. I couldn't see the congressman's eyes clearly from the distance, but I knew they were filled with tears. In fact, looking around, I didn't see a dry eye within two hundred feet of us. The congressman remained with the rest of the people on the tarmac, waving good-bye until we taxied out onto the runway. He then went back inside for one final encounter with the Brazilian press.

During those horrible minutes that Sean had been paraded down the street toward the consulate, Marie Smith had called her husband from New Jersey. She had been watching the television coverage of Sean's abductors marching him down the street, attempting to give the impression that Sean was being returned against his will. Marie realized the potential damage those images could cause. “Chris, you have to get a picture of David and Sean as quickly as you can when they calm down, to counter what is going out around the world.” The congressman took several cell phone pictures and sent them to Mary Noonan to get to the networks, but nothing was of good enough quality.

Before we got on the plane, Congressman Smith had a word with Benita Noel. “You have to get a picture of those two when there is a brighter moment, and get it out to the world.” Benita agreed, and once Sean and I were settled in our seats, Adam, Benita's assistant, took what was to become a memorable shot, with Sean wearing his blue sunglasses, smiling from ear to ear, sitting next to me, both of us with elated expressions on our faces. To their credit,
O Globo
posted both pictures—the one of Sean horrifically being dragged down the street, and the one of us happy together aboard the jet—side by side on their Web site later that day.