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it.
    “Accommodation?” Silva said, to defuse the situation.
    “Like I said, there’s only one hotel. It’s called the Grand, but it’s anything but.”
    “Simple?”
    “Let’s put it this way, if one of those tourist publications was handing out stars, it wouldn’t get any.”
    “I can’t wait,” Arnaldo said.
    Barbosa couldn’t resist a final dig. “You would if you knew what you were getting into.”
    “How do we get there?” Silva said.
    “You could rent a jeep. The road’s unpaved, so you don’t want any vehicle that isn’t four-wheel drive.”
    “How far is it?”
    “About seven hundred and fifty kilometers, and there isn’t much along the way, except for two gas stations. One’s about two hundred kilometers out, another about six hundred. No hotels. If you can’t make it in one go, which you probably can’t, you’ll have to sleep in your jeep.”
    “How long is it likely to take?”
    “If you’re lucky, between eighteen and twenty hours. But if you get heavy rainfall along the way, all bets are off. The road turns to mud, fifty centimeters deep in some places, and you can’t move in either direction. You just have to sit and wait until it firms up.”
    “So we fly?”
    “That would be my advice. But there are no scheduled flights. You’ll have to charter a plane. You figure Sampaiois going to pop for that? He’s not exactly famous for sharing the wealth.”
    “If he refuses,” Arnaldo said, “we’ll squeal to his sister.”
    “His sister?”
    “Never mind,” Silva said. “Just Arnaldo’s little joke.”
    Barbosa looked at his watch. “As much as I’m enjoying this visit,” he said, “you’d better leave right now if you want to have any hope of getting there today. The runway doesn’t have lights. You can’t land after dark.”
    “This is getting better and better,” Arnaldo said.
    “You think
getting
there is bad?” Barbosa said. “Believe me, what’s waiting for you is worse.”

Chapter Ten
    “T HIRTEEN THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED Reais,” the woman at the air charter company said.
    “
Thirteen thousand four hundred?
” Silva echoed, incensed. “That’s crazy.”
    “Out and back, fuel and tax, thirteen four,” she rattled off, stone-faced. “That’s the price.”
    “That aircraft shouldn’t cost more than fifteen hundred an hour.”
    “It never did until the other charter company went bust, and we became the sole option. That’s when my boss raised his prices.”
    “Your boss is a thief.”
    “I hear that a lot.”
    “We can’t afford thirteen four. No way.”
    “I hear that a lot, too.”
    “And yet it’s a matter of life and death. We have to get there before dark.”
    “Is that a fact?” She looked like she’d heard that one a lot as well.
    “It is. Look.” He showed her his warrant card.
    “Oh,” she said. “Cops.”
    “That’s right.
Federal
cops.”
    She lowered her voice, looked around to make sure no one was listening. “It’s just the two of you, right?”
    Silva nodded.
    “Well, I didn’t tell you this, but our other three-forty is fueling for a flight to the same place and with only one otherpassenger. The three-forties accommodate five. Maybe you could team up and split the cost.”
    “Bless you,” Silva said. “Where is he?”
    T HE OTHER passenger wasn’t a he, it was a she.
    “You dropped from heaven,” the young woman said. “I was just sitting here trying to figure out how I was going to explain to my editor how I managed to spend thirteen thousand four hundred Reais to charter a plane that should have cost half that.”
    “So you’re a journalist?”
    She nodded. “
Folha de Manha
, São Paulo. And you’re Mario Silva, right?”
    “How did you know?”
    “I read my own newspaper. Your picture is in it all the time. Your boss’s, too. Now there’s a publicity whore if ever there was one. He can’t get enough of the limelight, that guy.”
    “No comment,” Arnaldo said.
    She turned to him. “And