The Panic Zone Part 10

"I could call technical support," Luiz suggested.

"No. I want to keep this between us for now," Gannon said. "Think, Luiz. Did you ever see him submit his code or get a glimpse of any of the key strokes?"

"No, but I heard it all the time. It went like this--" Luiz tapped four quick strokes on the desk, paused then tapped a fifth. "One, two, three, four. Always like that."

"So it's a four-character code, because the fifth would be the enter key. Four characters. That's pretty short for a pa.s.sword. Okay, let's check the notes for a four-character word, or name."

They had studied them for fifteen minutes when Luiz froze.

"I think I know Marcelo's pa.s.sword. His girlfriend's name is Anna, spelled A-N-N-A, that's four characters."

Gannon entered the name with the first letter in upper case.

It failed.

"Try with no capital letters," Luiz said.

Gannon typed anna and pressed Enter.

The screen flashed to Marcelo's desktop and screen saver of Rio de Janeiro's skyline at night, a shot he'd taken himself.

"That's it!" Luiz said.

"We're in! It would be an Internet link. Go to his favorites." Gannon got out of the chair. "Luiz, you do it. You'll recognize names faster."

Luiz translated after he'd pulled down a list of links for sports teams, a bank, camera stores, weather, magazines, an auto shop and restaurants.

"This could be it," Luiz translated, "Onlinephotocapture."

"Hit it."

An array of news and feature photos came up. Luiz translated the text.

"Onlinephotocapture...welcome to Onlinephotocapture...the secure members-only Web site for storing visual data...."

"This might be it," Gannon said.

It was secure with a member's log-in tab, requiring a user ID and another pa.s.sword. Gannon cursed under his breath.

"It's no problem," Luiz said. "This one has a pa.s.sword recall feature. Marcelo's locked in his pa.s.sword, see?"

A couple of clicks and they had entered Marcelo's page. Luiz translated: "Marcelo V. Storage Inventory." Gannon felt a chill rush up his spine. Topping the item list: Cafe Amaldo and the date of the explosion.

"Open it."

Half a dozen thumbnail photos appeared on the screen.

"Open the first one," Gannon said.

It presented a well-framed photo of a beautiful woman alone at a table of the busy cafe. A long silence pa.s.sed as Luiz and Gannon realized the significance of the image.

"That's Gabriela." Luiz swallowed. "Before her death."

"Jesus," Gannon whispered.

Luiz clicked to the next picture.

A woman in her late twenties, dressed in a blazer and skirt, was gripping the strap of a shoulder bag and standing before Gabriela's table.

Luiz clicked.

Next, a close-up of the woman, worry creasing her face and making her appear older than her wardrobe and posture suggested.

Next, the woman sitting at Gabriela's table, removing a legal-sized envelope from her bag. Next, Gabriela reading doc.u.ments from the woman's envelope, which was open on the table before them.

When the last picture came up, Luiz gasped.

Tentacles of smoke spattered with debris shot out in all directions radiating from a red-yellow fireball. Marcelo had photographed the instant of the explosion within the millionths of a second he and the others were killed by it.

And like the others, this image was transmitted immediately to his page at Onlinephotocapture.

"My G.o.d!" Luiz said.

"Unbelievable," Gannon agreed. "Marcelo photographed the moment of his death." He shook his head. "No one has seen these pictures, right, Luiz?"

"No, no one knows they exist. None of the others here have thought to look for them as you did, Mr. Gannon."

"Don't tell anyone. I need time to follow this up my way."

"But they're so amazing. WPA's news subscribers around the world would want these pictures."

"I know."

"And what about the police? Isn't this evidence we should give to them?"

"We'll sort that out later. I need time to chase this lead. Swear to me you won't tell anyone just yet, okay?"

Luiz nodded.

"Pa.s.s me that copy of the Jornal do Brasil, please."

Gannon spread the newspaper over the desk's clutter so he and Luiz could study the ten victims of the bombing.

"This one--" Luiz pressed his finger on one of the pictures "--her name is Maria Santo. She is the woman in Marcelo's pictures, Gabriella's source."

Gannon unfolded the floor plan Estralla had given him. It put Maria Santo at the table of architects and secretaries next to Gabriela, but her chair was flagged with a question mark, meaning the investigators were uncertain as to where exactly Santo was positioned.

Marcelo's photographs confirmed where she was seated.

Luiz translated the newspaper's small biography for her, telling him quickly that she was twenty-nine and had grown up in one of Rio's harshest favelas. Her mother worked as a domestic for the wealthy, her father in a sheet-metal factory. Maria Santo had worked in shopping malls as she struggled to pursue her education, before finding work at various office jobs downtown.

On the day she died Maria Santo was working as an office a.s.sistant at the international law firm, Worldwide Rio Advogados.

"'We're saddened by this tragedy,' said a spokesman for the firm, who would not elaborate or disclose his name," Luiz finished reading.

Worldwide Rio Advogados? It was familiar to Gannon from the papers he'd collected near the scene of the bombing.

"Where are the copies of the doc.u.ments I asked you to store?"

Luiz got them from the supply room. Paging through the papers, Gannon found a few records on the letterhead of Worldwide Rio Advogados.

These were the bloodied pages.

Looking them over again it appeared that they held little information.

A list of a dozen or so file numbers and a short note in Portuguese. As Luiz translated, the significance of the information dawned on Gannon.

"Please ensure all versions of these noted files, hardcopy and electronic, are destroyed and that no record exists in the firm that makes mention of their existence, including this one which should be destroyed after these instructions are carried out."

Luiz looked at Gannon.

"This woman was on to something," Gannon said.

Maria Santo's eyes met Gannon's from the front page of the Jornal do Brasil. As he stared into them, he wondered why she had needed to meet with a reporter from a global news agency.

Why did the firm where she worked need their files to disappear?

Were these the secrets Maria was planning to reveal in the moments before her death?

"Luiz, I'm going to the law firm to see what I can find out."

14.

The offices of Worldwide Rio Advogados were in a skysc.r.a.per in Centro's east side, near Guanabara Bay.

As the elevator rose to the twenty-eighth floor, Gannon weighed the pros and cons of a cold visit.

Sure, he risked being turned away. But the fact that the Jornal do Brasil had already reported the firm's connection to the bombing might help--press interest would be expected.

According to its Web site, Worldwide Rio Advogados was a global operation that practiced in international trade, labor, family law, international adoptions, banking, patents, corporate law and the list went on. The firm functioned in several languages, including English. Gannon had decided to go alone, realizing that his chances of obtaining new information were slim.

Still, he had an edge.

His agency and the law firm shared a common bond in the tragedy--they had both lost staff to the bombing.

But it was the firm that had secrets linked to it.

Gannon had to learn those secrets and he had to do it now because time was working against him. At any moment, someone could beat him to it. Or Estralla could force him back to New York.

Gannon considered the bloodied pages he'd gathered from the street.

Copies were now folded in his jacket pocket as he stepped from the elevator to a polished stone hallway and pa.s.sed through the bra.s.s-plated doors of Worldwide Rio Advogados to the reception desk. The woman seated there finished a call.

"May I help you," she asked in English, then Portuguese.

"Jack Gannon, from the World Press Alliance." He placed his card on the counter. "I don't have an appointment but I'd like to speak to Maria Santo's supervisor. It will only take a moment."

"World Press Alliance?" She read his card, looked around her desk sadly as if searching for a response, then said, "Yes, please sit down. I will call someone."

She spoke softly into the phone as he went to the waiting area and sat in a thick-cus.h.i.+oned leather chair. To one side, a large window offered views of the bay and planes landing at Santos Dumont Airport. Down the hall, he saw a room with files.

"This way, Mr. Gannon, please." The receptionist led him to a door bearing the nameplate, Drake Stinson, then opened it for him.

"Jack Gannon?" A tall, silver-haired, well-built man in his late fifties stood. He wore a tailored suit and a smile as he crushed Gannon's hand in his. "Drake Stinson, I'm here by way of Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. Always nice to see a fellow countryman--too bad about the circ.u.mstances. Have a seat. Are you hearing anything new on the investigation?"

"Only that the victims' names have been released. You know we lost two of our bureau people."

"Yes, terrible." Stinson handed Gannon his card, and Gannon glimpsed Stinson's t.i.tle: special international counsel. "What were they doing there? Anything to do with the press reports that this was an execution in a drug war with the Colombians? Did your agency have an inside scoop?"

Gannon cautioned himself.

He was not there to reveal information, but to obtain it.

"No, we think Gabriela Rosa and Marcelo Verde just happened to be at the Cafe Amaldo for lunch. It's a short walk from our bureau."

"I see," Stinson said, "and I think that is how we lost Maria. She was at the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Which is why I'm here." Gannon opened his notebook and pen.

A hint of unease flickered across Stinson's eyes.

"We're profiling the victims," Gannon said, "and I was hoping you could tell me about Maria Santo."

"The firm won't comment other than to say we are saddened by this horrible event and our thoughts go to the families of the victims."

"Can't you elaborate? Both of our organizations lost people here. Can you tell me the kind of person she was?"

Stinson shook his head.

"Why not? You lost an employee--why not offer a few compa.s.sionate words to let people know just what kind of innocent person was murdered here?"

"I can't." Stinson paused. "Would you consider going off the record?"