Dead or Alive (86 page)

When the site came up on the screen, he logged in and tabbed to the messages area. He was surprised to see a text file sitting in the “uploaded “section. He double-clicked on the file; it contained two lines of alphanumeric pairs. He jotted the pairs on the back of his brochure. There were 344. He signed off and left.

 

 

 

I
t took him thirty minutes to create the grid, and another twenty to decode and double-check the message:

H
adi read the message twice.
Compromised?
His mind spun. It wasn’t possible. Ibrahim or one of the others had betrayed him? Why? None of it made sense, but the message was authentic.
Break contact.
He checked his watch: 11:45. Hurrying now, he encoded the acknowledgment pairs, then returned to the café, typed the response into a text file, then uploaded it.

 

 

I
brahim passed both Fa’ad’s and Ahmed’s cars as he pulled into the parking lot. He found a spot, pulled in, and shut off the engine. Fa’ad and Ahmed had parked one row behind him, separated by half a dozen cars. Out his passenger window he saw Hadi exiting the garden’s main gate. His pace was hurried, his posture tense.
Police?
Ibrahim wondered. He kept watching, half expecting to see men running after Hadi, but nothing happened.

Hadi reached his car and got in.

Ibrahim made a snap decision. He waited until Hadi’s car was headed toward the entrance driveway, then backed out and followed. He slowed beside Ahmed’s car and gestured for him to follow.

T
HEY HOOKED HIM,” Chavez said, punching off the satellite phone. “Two o’clock, an Internet café on Rua Bráulio Cordeiro.”

“Great, where the hell’s that?” Dominic replied, swerving their car as a taxi swept them, the driver honking and yelling. “Not that it matters. We ain’t gonna get there in one piece anyway.”

Chavez was tracing his finger along a city map. “Keep heading east. I’ll steer you.”

“I assume we’re not grabbing him there?”

“Nope. First we gotta make sure he’s alone. We told him to break contact, but who knows? Plus, we’re gonna need some privacy to get done what we gotta get done.”

“Which is?”

“Whatever it takes.”

Dominic smiled grimly.

 

 

 

T
hey found the café and circled the block twice to get the lay of the land, then found a parking spot on the street fifty yards to the north on the other side of an intersection. They got out and walked south. Between a pharmacy and a tire repair shop they found a short alleyway that led to a makeshift junk-yard full of rusted washing machines, car axles, and stacks of old sewer pipes. Chavez led the way to the back of the yard and behind a trash heap. Through a wide-slatted fence they could see the Internet café across the street.

“Shit,” Chavez said.

“What?”

“Just noticed that walkway to the right of the café.”

“Back entrance, maybe,” Dominic said. He checked his watch. Still twenty minutes to go. “I’ll circle around, see if I can get a look.”

 

 

T
en minutes later, Chavez’s phone beeped. He pushed the talk button. “Go ahead.”

“There’s a back door, but there’s a Dumpster pushed up against it,” Dom said.

“Bad for fire code, good for us. Okay, come on back.”

Chavez had no sooner taken his finger off the button than a green Chevrolet Marajó slowed down outside the Internet café. Though the angle was oblique, Chavez could see a lone man sitting behind the wheel. The Marajó continued on, then braked and began backing into a space.

“Dom, where are you?”

“Almost back to the intersection.”

“Slow up. We might have our guy.”

“Roger.”

Up the street, the Marajó’s driver got out and started toward the café.

Chavez pushed the button. “It’s our guy.” He gave Dominic a description of Hadi’s car, then said, “Get back to the Hyundai. Shouldn’t take him long.”

Chavez got a double button click in response:
Roger.
He dialed The Campus. Sam Granger answered. Chavez said, “He’s in.”

“The message is uploaded. We’re sending him to a pool hall at the corner of Travessas Roma and Alegria at the south end of the Rocinha.”

“Time?”

“Seven.”

Chavez hung up. Ten minutes passed, and then Hadi walked out of the café. He looked up and down the street, then walked to his car and got in.

“Moving,” Chavez said. He sprinted back through the yard, down the alley, and emerged on the street. To his left, Hadi’s Marajó pulled up to the intersection and stopped.

Dominic said, “I see him.”

Hadi turned left.

“Coming to you,” Dominic radioed.

“Negative. Stay there.” Chavez sprinted up the street and reached the Hyundai in thirty seconds. “Okay, go. Left at the intersection, then turn left and pull up to the stop sign.”

Dominic did as instructed. As they reached the stop sign, Hadi passed in front of them, heading north. Dominic let two cars pass, then pulled out.

 

 

F
ifteen minutes later: “Someone’s on us,” Dominic said. “Or Hadi.”

Chavez glanced in the side mirror. “Blue Lancia?”

“And two more behind that. Green Fiat compact, red Ford Corcel.”

“What the fuck? You sure?”

“Saw the Fiat and the Ford circle the block twice while I was going around behind the café. Can’t be the cops.”

“Yeah, why?”

“Cops would be better at it. They’re in a goddamned convoy.”

Chavez checked their map. “Let’s get a face.”

Dominic slowed beside a parking spot and put on his blinker. Behind them, the Lancia honked its horn. Chavez stuck his hand out the window and waved him past. As the Lancia swerved and sped by, Chavez glanced over.

“Looked like the same ethnic persuasion as Hadi. His partners in crime, you think?”

“Could be. Maybe Hadi didn’t make a clean break.”

Dominic let the third car, the Corcel, pass, then waited five beats, then pulled out and fell in behind it.

 

 

 

M
usa’s third day of travel went as smoothly as his first two, and by late afternoon he reached his final overnight stop: Winnemucca, Nevada; population 7,030; 350 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

T
O HIS CREDIT, Hadi did his best to dry-clean himself on the way to the Rocinha, skirting the slums for two hours as he drove in circles and doubled back, looking for signs of pursuit that should have been plain to him. The Lancia, the Fiat, and the Corcel remained in convoy formation, never changing places and never more than a hundred yards from Hadi’s rear bumper.

“We’ve got a decision to make,” Dominic said. “Better do it now, before it’s made for us.” If he and Chavez had a chance to snatch Hadi and his three partners, did they go for it or concentrate on Hadi alone?

“The more, the merrier,” Chavez said, “but we gotta remember it’s just you and me, and the Rio cops wouldn’t see any difference between us and Hadi’s group if things go sideways.”

 

 

 

A
t 6:15 they broke off their pursuit and made their way back to the Rocinha’s southern entrance. Leaving Hadi on his own was a risk, they knew, but neither knew anything about the meeting’s location; they would have to hope Hadi’s pursuers didn’t decide to intercept him in the next forty-five minutes.

The sun was slipping behind the mountains to the west, casting the slums in golden light.

While the Portuguese translation of Rocinha was “Little Ranch,” Dominic and Chavez saw nothing small about it. Covering roughly three-quarters of a mile from north to south and a quarter-mile from east to west, the slums were situated in a shallow, sloping valley bracketed on both sides by thickly forested hills and cliffs. Shaded by crisscrossing clotheslines and makeshift canvas awnings, the narrow streets meandered up slopes of densely packed and pastel-painted saltbox apartments, many so close that their balconies touched and their rooflines merged. Crumbling concrete and brick stairways covered in climbing vines rose up from the streets and disappeared behind buildings. Telephone and power poles festooned with hundreds of feet of exposed wires and cables extended in every direction. Lining every alley were dozens upon dozens of huts made from planks and corrugated tin. Sewage ran down shallow gutters filled with trash.

“Unbelievable,” Dominic said.

“How many people in this place?”

“Hundred thousand at least. Maybe a hundred fifty.”

 

 

 

T
hey found a parking spot down the block from the pool hall and got out. “You take the back, I’ll take the front. Gimme fifteen minutes, then come on in.”

“Roger.”

Dominic headed down the street and turned the corner. Chavez walked across the street, bought a bottle of Coke from a street vendor, then leaned against a wall beneath an awning. Down the block, a lone streetlamp flickered to life. Ten minutes passed. No sign of Hadi, the Lancia, the Fiat, or the Corcel. He finished his Coke, handed it back to the vendor, then walked across the street and into the pool hall.

It wasn’t so much a hall as a double garage-sized room with two pool tables in the center, a bar on the right, and hard-back chairs lining the opposite wall. At the rear of the bar was a seating area with four round tables and chairs. In the corner, a set of three steps leading down to a door labeled “Exit” in Portuguese. Beneath plastic stained-glass hanging lights, he could see men clustered around the pool tables. The air was thick with smoke.

Ding took a seat at the bar and ordered a beer. Five minutes later the back door opened and Dominic walked in. He walked up to the bar, ordered a beer, then took it to the back, choosing a table.

At five after seven, the front door opened and Hadi walked in. He stood near the door, nervously looking about. Dominic raised his beer bottle to shoulder height and nodded at Hadi, who hesitated, then headed in Dominic’s direction.

The front door opened again. The Lancia driver walked in. Like Hadi, he stood still for thirty seconds, scanning the interior. His shirt was untucked, and on his right hip Chavez could see a familiar-shaped bump. The man’s scan stopped suddenly as he saw Hadi, who was just approaching Dominic’s table. The man started after him. Dominic let him pass, then got off his stool.

“Where’s my money, asshole?” Chavez said in Portuguese.