ELEVEN. 5 page

Nate never had the chance to be anxious. He said good-bye to a few members of the staff, but most were busy elsewhere because they avoided departures. He walked proudly through the front door after 140 days of wonderful sobriety; clean, tanned, fit, down 17 pounds to 174, a weight he hadn't known in twenty years.

Josh drove, and for the first five minutes nothing was said. The snow blanketed the pastures, but thinned quickly as they left the Blue Ridge. It was December 22. At a very low volume, the radio played carols.

“Could you turn that off?” Nate finally said.

“What?”

“The radio.”

Josh punched a button, and the music he hadn't heard disappeared.

“How do you feel?” Josh asked.

“Could you pull over at the nearest quick shop?”

“Sure. Why?”

“I'd like to get a six-pack.”

“Very funny.”

“I'd kill for a tall Coca-Cola.”

They bought soft drinks and peanuts at a country store. The lady at the cash register said a cheery “Merry Christmas,” and Nate could not respond. Back in the car, Josh headed for Dulles, two hours away.

“Your flight goes to Sao Paulo, where you'll lay over three hours before catching one to a city called Campo Grande.”

“Do these people speak English?”

“No. They're Brazilian. They speak Portuguese.”

“Of course they do.”

“But you'll find English at the airport.”

“How big is Campo Grande?”

“Half a million, but it's not your destination. From there, you'll catch a commuter flight to a place called Corumba. The towns get smaller.”

“And so do the airplanes.”

“Yes, same as here.”

“For some reason, the idea of a Brazilian commuter flight is not appealing. Help me here, Josh. I'm nervous.”

“Either that or a six-hour bus ride.”

“Keep talking.”

“In Corumba, you'll meet. a lawyer named Valdir Ruiz. He speaks English.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“Yes.”

“Could you understand him?”

“Yes, for the most part. A very nice man. Works for about fifty bucks an hour, if you can believe that.”

“How big is Corumba?”

“Ninety thousand.”

“So they'll have food and water, and a place to sleep.”

“Yes, Nate, you'll have a room. That's more than you can say for here.”

“Ouch.”

“Sorry. Do you want to back out?”

“Yes, but I'm not going to. My goal at this point is to flee this country before I hear ‘Jingle Bells’ again. I'd sleep in a ditch for the next two weeks to avoid ‘Frosty the Snowman.’”

“Forget the ditch. It's a nice hotel.”

“What am I supposed to do with Valdir?”

“He's looking for a guide to take you into the Pantanal.”

“How? Plane? Helicopter?”

“Boat, probably. As I understand the area, it's nothing but swamps and rivers.”

“And snakes, alligators, piranhas.”

“What a little coward you are. I thought you wanted to go.”

“I do. Drive faster.”

“Relax.” Josh pointed to a briefcase behind the passenger's seat. “Open that,” he said. “It's your carry-on bag.”

Nate pulled and grunted. “It weighs a ton. What's in here?”

“Good stuff.”

It was made of brown leather, new but built to look well used, and large enough to hold a small legal library. Nate sat it on his knees and popped it open. “Toys,” he said.

“That tiny gray instrument there is the latest high-tech digital phone,” Josh said, proud of the things he'd collected. “Valdir will have local service for you when you get to Corumba.”

“So they have phones in Brazil.”

“Lots of them. In fact, telecommunications are booming down there. Everybody has a cell phone.”

“Those poor people. What's this?”

“A computer.”

“What the hell for?”

“It's the latest thing. Look how small.”

“I can't even read the keyboard.”

“You can hook it to the phone and actually get your e-mail.”

“Wow. And I'm supposed to do this in the middle of a swamp with snakes and alligators watching?”

“It's up to you.”

“Josh, I don't even use e-mail at the office.”

“It's not for you, It's for me. I want to keep up with you. When you find her, I want to know immediately.”

“What's this?”

“The best toy in the box. It's a satellite phone. You can use it anywhere on the face of the earth. Keep the batteries charged, and you can always find me.”

“You just said they had a great phone system.”

“Not in the Pantanal. It's a hundred thousand square miles of wetlands, with no towns and very few people. That SatFone will be your only means of communication once you leave Corumba.”

Nate opened the hard plastic case and examined the glossy little phone. “How much did this cost you?” he asked.

“Me, not a dime.”

“Okay, how much did it cost the Phelan estate?”

“Forty— four hundred bucks. Worth every penny of it.”

“Do my Indians have electricity?” Nate was flipping through the owner's manual.

“Of course not.”

“Then how am I supposed to keep the batteries charged?”

“There's an extra battery. You'll think of something.”

“So much for a quiet getaway.”

“It's going to be very quiet. You'll thank me for the toys when you get there.”

“Can I thank you now?”

“No.”

“Thanks, Josh. For everything.”

“Don't mention it.”

IN THE CROWDED TERMINAL, at a small table across from a busy bar, they sipped weak espresso and read newspapers. Josh was very conscious of the bar; Nate didn't seem to be. The neon Heineken logo was hard to miss.

A tired and skinny Santa Claus ambled by, looking for children to take cheap gifts from his bag. Elvis sang “Blue Christmas” from a jukebox in the bar. The foot traffic was thick, the noise unnerving, everyone flying home for the holidays.

“Are you okay?” Josh asked.

“Yes, I'm fine. Why don't you leave? I'm sure you have better things to do.”

“I'll stay.”

“Look, Josh, I'm fine. If you think I'm waiting for you to leave so I can dash over there to the bar and guzzle vodka, you're wrong. I have no desire for booze. I'm clean, and very proud of it.”

Josh looked a bit sheepish, primarily because Nate had read his mind. Nate's binges were legendary. If he cracked, there wasn't enough booze in the airport to satisfy him. “I'm not worried about that,” he said, lying.

“Then go. I'm a big boy.”

They said good-bye at the gate, a warm embrace and promises to call almost on the hour. Nate was anxious to settle into his nest in first class. Josh had a thousand things to do at the office.

Two small, secret precautionary steps had been taken by Josh. First, adjacent seats had been booked for the flight. Nate would have the window; the aisle would remain vacant. No sense having some thirsty executive sitting next to Nate, swilling Scotch and wine. The seats cost over seven thousand dollars each for the round trip, but money was of no concern.

Second, Josh had talked at length with an airline official about Nate's rehab. No alcohol was to be served, under any circumstances. A letter from Josh to the airline was on board, just in case it had to be produced to convince Nate.

A flight attendant served him orange juice and coffee. He wrapped himself in a thin blanket, and watched the sprawl of D.C. disappear below him as the Varig airplane climbed through the clouds.

There was relief in the escape, from Walnut Hill and Sergio, from the city and its grind, from the past troubles with the last wife and the bankruptcy, and from the current mess with the IRS. At thirty thousand feet, Nate had almost decided he would never return.

But every reentry was nerve-racking. The fear of another slide was always there, just beneath the surface. The frightening part now was that there had been so many reentries he felt like a veteran. Like wives and big verdicts, he could now compare them. Would there always be another one?

During dinner, he realized Josh had been working behind the scenes. Wine was never offered. He picked through the food with the caution of one who'd just spent nearly four months enjoying the great lettuces of the world; until a few days ago, no fat, butter, grease, or sugar. The last thing he wanted was a queasy stomach.

He napped briefly, but he was tired of sleeping. As a busy lawyer and late-night prowler, he'd learned to live with little sleep. The first month at Walnut Hill they'd drugged him with pills and he'd slept ten hours a day. He couldn't fight them if he were in a coma.

He assembled his toys in the empty seat next to him, and began reading his collection of owner's manuals.

The satellite phone intrigued him, though it was difficult to believe he would actually be forced to use it.

Another phone caught his attention. It was the latest technical gadget in air travel, a sleek little device practically hidden in the wall next to his seat. He grabbed it and called Sergio at home. Sergio was having a late dinner, but happy to hear from him nonetheless.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“In a bar,” Nate replied, his voice low because the lights in the cabin were down.

“Very funny.”

“I'm probably over Miami, with eight hours to go. Just found this phone on board and wanted to check in.”

“So you're okay.”

“I'm fine. Do you miss me?”

“Not yet. You miss me?”

“Are you kidding? I'm a free man, flying off to the jungle for a marvelous adventure. I'll miss you later, okay?”

“Okay. And you'll call if you get in trouble.”

“No trouble, Serge. Not this time.”

“Atta boy, Nate.”

“Thanks, Serge.”

“Don't mention it. Just call me.”

A movie started, but no one was watching. The flight attendant brought more coffee. Nate's secretary was a long-suffering woman named Alice, who'd cleaned up after him for almost ten years. She lived with her sister in an old house in Arlington. He called her next. They'd spoken once in the past four months.

The conversation lasted for half an hour. She was delighted to hear his voice, and learn that he'd been released. She knew nothing about his trip to South America, which was a bit odd because she normally knew everything. But she was reserved on the phone, even cautious. Nate, the trial lawyer, smelled a rat, and attacked as if on cross-examination.

She was still in litigation, still at the same desk, doing pretty much the same thing but for a different lawyer. “Who?” Nate demanded.

A new guy. A new litigator. Her words were deliberate, and Nate knew that she had been fully briefed by Josh himself. Of course Nate would call her as soon as he was released.

Which office was the new guy in? Who was his paralegal? Where did he come from? How much medical malpractice had he done? Was her assignment with him just temporary?

Alice was sufficiently vague.

“Who's in my office?” he asked.

“No one. It hasn't been touched. Still has little stacks of files in every corner.”

“What's Kerry doing?”

“Staying busy. Waiting for you.” Kerry was Nate's favorite paralegal.

Alice had all the right answers, while revealing little. She was especially mum about the new litigator.

“Get ready,” he said as the conversation ran out of steam. “It's time for a comeback.”

“It's been dull, Nate.”

He hung up slowly, and played back her words. Something was different. Josh was quietly rearranging his firm. Would Nate get lost in the shuffle? Probably not, but his courtroom days were over.

He would worry about it later, he decided. There were so many people to call, and so many phones to do it with. He knew a judge who'd kicked booze ten years earlier, and he wanted to check in with his wonderful report from rehab. His first ex-wife deserved a blistering call, but he wasn't in the mood. And he wanted to phone all four of his children and ask why they hadn't called or written.

Instead he took a folder from his case and began reading about Mr. Troy Phelan and the business at hand. At midnight, somewhere over the Caribbean, Nate drifted away.

ELEVEN.

AN HOUR before dawn, the plane began its descent. He had slept through breakfast, and when he awoke a flight attendant hurriedly brought coffee.

The city of Sao Paulo appeared, an enormous sprawl that covered almost eight hundred square miles. Nate watched the sea of lights below and wondered how one city could hold twenty million people.

In a rush of Portuguese, the pilot said good morning and then several paragraphs of greetings that Nate missed entirely. The English translation that followed was not much better. Surely he wouldn't be forced to point and grunt his way across the country. The language barrier caused a short bout of anxiety, but it ended when a pretty Brazilian flight attendant asked him to buckle his seat belt.

The airport was hot and swarming with people. He collected his new duffel bag, walked it through customs without so much as a glance from anyone, and rechecked it on Varig to Campo Grande. Then he found a coffee bar with the menu on the wall. He pointed and said, “Espresso,” and the cashier rang him up. She frowned at his American money, but changed it anyway. One Brazilian real equaled one American dollar. Nate now owned a few reals.

He sipped the coffee while standing shoulder to shoulder with some rowdy Japanese tourists. Other languages flew around him; German and Spanish mixing with the Portuguese coming over the loudspeakers. He wished he'd bought a phrase book so he could at least understand a word or two.

Isolation settled in, slowly at first. In the midst of multitudes, he was a lonely man. He didn't know a soul. Almost no one knew where he was at that moment, and damned few people cared. Cigarette smoke from the tourists boiled around him, and he walked quickly away, into the main concourse, where he could see the ceiling two levels above and the ground floor below. He began walking through the crowds, aimlessly, carrying the heavy briefcase, cursing Josh for filling it with so much junk.

He heard loud English, and drifted toward it. Some businessmen were waiting near the United counter, and he found a seat near them. It was snowing in Detroit, and they were anxious to get home for Christmas. A pipeline had brought them to Brazil, and before long Nate tired of their drivel. They cured whatever homesickness he felt.

He missed Sergio. After the last rehab, the clinic had placed Nate in a halfway house for a week to ease the reentry. He hated the place and the routine, but with hindsight the idea had merit. You needed a few days to get reoriented. Maybe Sergio was right. He called him from a pay phone, and woke him up. It was six-thirty in Sao Paulo, but only four-thirty in Virginia. Sergio didn't mind. It went with the territory.

THERE WERE no first-class seats on the flight to Campo Grande, nor any empty ones. Nate was pleasantly surprised to observe that every face was behind the morning news, and a wide variety of papers at that. The dailies were as slick and modern as any in the States, and they were being read by people who had a thirst for the news. Perhaps Brazil wasn't as backward as he thought. These people could read! The airliner, a 727, was clean and newly refurbished. Coca-Cola and Sprite were on the drink cart; he almost felt at home.

Sitting by the window twenty rows back, he ignored the memo on Indians in his lap, and admired the countryside below. It was vast and lush and green, rolling with hills, dotted with cattle farms and crisscrossed with red dirt roads. The soil was a vivid burnt orange, and the roads ran haphazardly from one small settlement to the next. Highways were virtually nonexistent.

A paved road appeared, and there was traffic. The plane descended and the pilot welcomed them to Campo Grande. There were tall buildings, a crowded downtown, the obligatory soccer field, lots of streets and cars, and every residence had a red-tiled roof. Thanks to the typical big-firm efficiency, he possessed a memo, one no doubt prepared by the greenest of associates working at three hundred dollars an hour, in which Campo Grande was analyzed as if its presence were crucial to the matters at hand. Six hundred thousand people. A center for cattle trade. Lots of cowboys. Rapid growth. Modern conveniences. Nice to know, but why bother? Nate would not sleep there.

The airport seemed remarkably small for a city its size, and he realized he was comparing everything to the United States. This had to stop. When he stepped from the plane, he was hit with the heat. It was at least ninety degrees. Two days before Christmas, and it was sweltering in the southern hemisphere. He squinted in the brilliance of the sun, and descended the steps with a firm hand on the guardrail.

He managed to order lunch in the airport restaurant, and when it was brought to his table he was pleased to see that it was something he could eat. A grilled chicken sandwich in a bun he'd never seen before, with fries as crisp as those in any fast food joint in the States. He ate slowly while watching the runway in the distance. Halfway through lunch, a twin-engine turbo-prop of Air Pantanal landed and taxied to the terminal. Six people got off.

He stopped chewing as he wrestled with a sudden attack of fear. Commuter flights were the ones you read about and saw on CNN, except that no one back home would ever hear about this one if it went down.

But the plane looked sturdy and clean, even somewhat modern, and the pilots were well-dressed professionals. Nate continued eating. Think positive, he told himself.

He roamed the small terminal for an hour. In a news shop he bought a Portuguese phrase book and began memorizing words. He read travel ads for adventures into the Pantanal-ecotourism, it was called in English. There were cars for rent. A money exchange booth, a bar with beer signs and whiskey bottles lined on a shelf. And near the front entrance was a slender, artificial Christmas tree with a solitary string of lights. He watched them blink to the tune of some Brazilian carol, and despite his efforts not to, Nate thought of his children.

It was the day before Christmas Eve. Not all memories were painful.

He boarded the plane with teeth clenched and spine stiffened, then slept for most of the hour it took to reach Corumba. The small airport there was humid and packed with Bolivians waiting for a flight to Santa Cruz. They were laden with boxes and bags of Christmas gifts.

He found a cabdriver who spoke not a word of English, but it didn't matter. Nate showed him the words “Palace Hotel” on his travel itinerary, and they sped away in an old, dirty Mazda.

Corumba had ninety thousand people, according to yet another memo prepared by Josh's staff. Situated on the Paraguay River, on the Bolivian border, it had long since declared itself to be the capital of the Pantanal. River traffic and trade had built the city, and kept it going.

Through the heat and swelter of the back of the taxi, Corumba appeared to be a lazy, pleasant little town. The streets were paved and wide and lined with trees. Merchants sat in the shade of their storefronts, waiting for customers and chatting with each other. Teenagers darted through traffic on scooters. Barefoot children ate ice cream at sidewalk tables.

As they approached the business district, cars bunched together and stopped in the heat. The driver mumbled something, but was not particularly disturbed. The same driver in New York or D.C. would've been near the point of violence.

But it was Brazil, and Brazil was in South America. The clocks ran slower. Nothing was urgent. Time was not as crucial. Take off your watch, Nate told himself. Instead, he closed his eyes and breathed the heavy air.

The Palace Hotel was in the center of downtown, on a street that descended slightly toward the Paraguay River sitting majestically in the distance. He gave the cabbie a handful of reals, and waited patiently for his change. He thanked him in Portuguese, a feeble “Obrigado.” The cabbie smiled and said something he didn't understand. The doors to the lobby were open, as were all doors facing the sidewalks of Corumba.

The first words he heard upon entering were being yelled by someone from Texas. A band of roughnecks was in the process of checking out. They had been drinking and were in a festive mood, anxious to get home for the holidays. Nate took a seat near a television and waited for them to clear.

His room was on the eighth floor. For eighteen dollars a day he got a twelve-by-twelve with a narrow bed very close to the floor. If it had a mattress, it was quite thin. No box spring to speak of. There were a desk with a chair, a window unit of AC, a small refrigerator with bottled water, colas, and beer, and a clean bathroom with soap and plenty of towels. Not bad, he told himself. This was an adventure. Not the Four Seasons, but certainly livable.

For half an hour, he tried to call Josh. But the language barrier stopped him. The clerk at the front desk knew enough English to find an outside operator, but from there the Portuguese took over. He tried his new cell phone, but the local service had not been activated. Nate stretched his tired body the length of his flimsy little bed, and went to sleep.

VALDIR RUIZ was a short man with a tiny waist, light brown skin, a small slick head missing most of the hair except for a few strands he kept oiled and combed back. His eyes were black and bunched with wrinkles, the result of thirty years of heavy smoking. He was fifty-two, and at the age of seventeen he'd left home to spend a year with a family in Iowa as a Rotary exchange student. He was proud of his English, though he didn't use it much in Corumba. He watched CNN and American television most nights in an effort to stay sharp.

After the year in Iowa, he went to college in Campo Grande, then law school in Rio. He reluctantly returned to Corumba to work in his uncle's small law firm, and to care for his aging parents. For more years than he cared to count, Valdir had endured the languid pace of advocacy in Corumba, while dreaming of what might have been in the big city.

But he was a pleasant man, happy with life in the way most Brazilians tend to be. He worked efficiently in his small office, just himself and a secretary who answered the phone and did the typing. Valdir liked real estate, the deeds and contracts and such. He never went to court, primarily because courtrooms were not an integral part of practicing law in Brazil. Trials were rare. American-style litigation had not found its way south; in fact, it was still confined to the fifty states. Valdir marveled at the things lawyers did and said on CNN. Why do they clamor for the attention? he often asked himself. Lawyers staging press conferences, and hustling from one talk show to the next chatting about their clients. It was unheard of in Brazil.

His office was three blocks from the Palace Hotel, on a wide shaded lot his uncle had bought decades earlier. Thick trees covered the roof, so regardless of the heat, Valdir kept his windows open. He liked the gentle noise from the street. At three-fifteen, he saw a man he'd never seen before stop and examine his office. The man was obviously a stranger, and an American. Valdir knew it was Mr. O'Riley.

THE SECRETARY brought them cafezinho, the strong sugary black coffee Brazilians drink all day in tiny cups, and Nate was instantly addicted to it. He sat in Valdir's office, already on a first-name basis, and admired the surroundings: the squeaky ceiling fan above them, the open windows with the muted sounds of the street drifting in, the neat rows of dusty files on the shelves behind Valdir, the scuffed and worn plank floor under them. The office was quite warm, but not uncomfortable. Nate was sitting in a movie, one shot fifty years ago.

Valdir phoned D.C., and got Josh. They talked for a moment, then he handed the phone across the desk. “Hello, Josh,” Nate said. Josh was obviously relieved to hear his voice. Nate recounted his journey to Corumba, with emphasis on the fact that he was doing well, still sober, and looking forward to the rest of his adventure.

Valdir busied himself with a file in a corner, trying to appear as if he had no interest in the conversation, but absorbing every word. Why was Nate O'Riley so proud of being sober?

When the phone call was over, Valdir produced and unfolded a large air navigational map of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, roughly the same size as Texas, and pointed to the Pantanal. It covered the entire northwestern portion of the state, and continued into Mato Grosso to the north and Bolivia to the west. Hundreds of rivers and streams spread like veins through the swampland. It was shaded yellow, and there were no towns or cities in the Pantanal. No roads or highways. A hundred thousand square miles of swamp, Nate recalled from the innumerable memos Josh had packed for him.

Valdir lit a cigarette as they studied the map. He had done some homework. There were four red X's along the western edge of the map, near Bolivia.

“There are tribes here,” he said, pointing to the red marks. “Guato and Ipicas.”

“How large are they?” Nate asked, leaning close, his first real glimpse at the terrain he was expected to comb in search of Rachel Lane.

“We don't really know,” Valdir replied, his words very slow and precise. He was trying hard to impress the American with his English. “A hundred years ago, there were many more. But the tribes grow smaller with each generation.”

“How much contact do they have with the outside world?” Nate asked.

“Very little. Their culture hasn't changed in a thousand years. They trade some with the riverboats, but they have no desire to change.”

“Do we know where the missionaries are?”

“It's difficult to say. I talked with the Minister of Health for the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. I know him personally, and his office has a general idea of where the missionaries are working. I also spoke with a representative from FUNAI-it's our Bureau of Indian Affairs.” Valdir pointed to two of the X's. “These are Guato. There are probably missionaries around here.”

“Do you know their names?” Nate asked, but it was a throwaway question. According to a memo from Josh, Valdir had not been given the name of Rachel Lane. He had been told that the woman worked for World Tribes, but that was it.

Valdir smiled and shook his head. “That would not be too easy. You must understand that there are at least twenty different American and Canadian organizations with missionaries in Brazil. It's easy to get into our country, and it's easy to move around. Especially in the undeveloped areas. No one really cares who's out there and what they're doing. We figure if they're missionaries, then they are good people.”

Nate pointed at Corumba, then to the nearest red X. “How long does it take to get from here to there?”

“Depends. By plane, about an hour. By boat, from three to five days.”

“Then where's my plane?”

“It's not that easy,” Valdir said, reaching for another map. He unrolled it and pressed it on top of the first one. “This is a topographical map of the Pantanal. These are the fazendas.”

“The what?”

“Fazendas. Large farms.”

“I thought it was all swamp.”

“No. Many areas are elevated just enough to raise cattle. The fazendas were built two hundred years ago, and are still worked by the pantaneiros. Only a few of the fazendas are accessible by boat, so they use small airplanes. The airstrips are marked in blue.”

Nate noticed that there were very few airstrips near the Indian settlements.

Valdir continued, “Even if you flew into the area, you would then have to use a boat to get to the Indians.”

“How are the airstrips?”

“They're all grass. Sometimes they cut the grass, sometimes they don't. The biggest problem is cows.”

“Cows?”

“Yes, cows like grass. Sometimes it's hard to land because the cows are eating the runway.” Valdir said this with no effort at humor.

“Can't they move the cows?”

“Yes, if they know you're coming. But there are no phones.”

“No phones in the fazendas?”

“None. They are very isolated.”

“So I couldn't fly into the Pantanal, then rent a boat to find the Indians?”

“No. The boats are here in Corumba. As are the guides.”

Nate stared at the map, especially the Paraguay River as it wound and looped its way northward in the direction of the Indian settlements. Somewhere along the river, hopefully in proximity to it, in the midst of this vast wetlands, was a simple servant of God, living each day in peace and tranquility, thinking little of the future, quietly ministering to her flock.

And he had to find her.

“I'd like to at least fly over the area,” Nate said.

Valdir rerolled the last map. “I can arrange an airplane and a pilot.”

“What about a boat?”

“I'm working on that. This is the flood season, and most of the boats are in use. The rivers are up. There's more river traffic this time of the year.”

How nice of Troy to kill himself during the flood season. According to the firm's research, the rains came in November and lasted until February, and all of the lowest areas and many of the fazendas were underwater.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 566