He became conscious of a slow tapping on the table by the minister's right hand.

"I believe that's what you would call it."

Rizzo stared at the political appointee in front of him. His eyes were fixed and steady. In a flash, he put much of the reasoning together and didn't like this one bit. After spending twenty-two years with the homicide brigades in Rome, he was going to be asked to fudge evidence, to squander the case, to perjure himself before a magistrate, just to ease a politician out of some sort of squeeze. And if the whole thing backfired, well, his own career would crash down, he could go to prison, there would go his pension, and Sophie would end up in bed with some young musician punk like the ones he was in the habit of arresting.

He thought quickly. "No, signore," he answered. "I know of no such criminal who would fit our needs so conveniently," he said.

The minister looked at him with thinly veiled dismay. "Very well," he finally said. "We will take another approach. How many detectives do you have working with you on this case?"

"Four of the best in Rome," he said.

"And I a.s.sume each of them has an a.s.sistant?"

"That would be true, signore."

"So that makes nine of you. What is your individual caseload?"

Rizzo did some quick math. "I would guess, each of us might have twenty, give or take. So somewhere between one hundred fifty and two hundred among all the detectives involved."

"Bene," said the minister. "Put them all back to work on their other cases."

"Excuse me?"

"I think you heard me, Rizzo. And I think you understood me. Rea.s.sign everyone and make no further efforts on this case yourself."

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

"I'm afraid you don't either, Gian Antonio. This case will most likely conclude itself. Remain available. You will need to liaison with an American agent sometime within the very near future."

The minister motioned to the newspaper. There was a copy of Il Messaggero on the table, the headlines blaring about Kiev.

"Do you speak English?" the minister asked. "Well enough to liaise with an American?"

"Not very well, sir. I understand a little, but-"

"Strange," the minister said. "Your file says that your father was in an American POW camp after the war. Your father spoke it quite well."

"The memory of spoken English was not pleasant to my father," Rizzo said. "We spoke Italian in our home."

"Yes. Of course. What else would Italians speak, correct?"

"Latin, maybe," Rizzo answered.

"Your sense of humor is not appreciated right now," the minister said.

"I do have someone in my department, an intern, who could be of service with English," Rizzo said.

"What about French, Rizzo? Do you speak French?"

"French?"

"Yes. It's what they speak in France."

"Si, signore," Rizzo answered.

"Good. That's all. Remain ready."

Rizzo opened his mouth to ask for more details, more of an explanation. But the minister cut him off.

"Do you like art, Gian Antonio?" the minister asked, changing the subject.

Rizzo was perplexed. "Art?"

"Italian art! The works of Bernardo Cavallino, for example. Guido Reni. Seventeenth century. Ever heard of them?"

Rizzo had never heard of either. Nor did he care to. "Of course I have," he said.

"If so, you're the first policeman I've ever met who has. Do you think the works should be in Italy?"

"If they're Italian, of course."

"I agree. That is all, Rizzo. Grazie mille."

The double doors opened. The minister's guards barged in to escort Rizzo out. He left without a protest.

SIXTY-FOUR.

Alex had not been to the Venezuelan capital for six years. She found it much as she had remembered it, hemmed in by green forested hills that rose to each side of the city. Caracas squeezed the tremendously wealthy and the desperately poor into a single chaotic metropolis. The fascinating disorder was reflected in the gravity-defying skysc.r.a.pers at the center of the city, which were a short walk from the teetering shantytowns that covered the surrounding hills.

In the evening, a Seor Caldern presented himself at the hotel. He was a lanky Venezuelan in his twenties. He was an emissary of Mr. Collins and worked for Collins's foundations in South America.

They spoke Spanish. He asked her to call him by his first name, Manuel.

Manuel Caldern would be her guide to the village of Barranco Lajoya. He would pick her up the next morning at 9:00 a.m. and take her to a small private airport east of Caracas. A private helicopter would take her and Caldern to Santa Yniez, which was a small clearing in the jungle. Caldern explained that the airfield had been built by smugglers who brought cocaine into Venezuela from Colombia and Brazil. But it had then been seized by the government in the 1980s following the collapse of Pablo Escobar's empire and had been sold to pro-Western business interests. President Chvez kept threatening to nationalize it, but so far, he hadn't.

"Pack your jungle gear in the backpack and have your weapon accessible just in case," Manuel said. "Dress accordingly. Temperatures will probably be a hundred, at least."

"Will the gun be a problem at the airfield?" she asked.

Caldern laughed. "You're in Venezuela," he said. "Everyone has a gun."

The next morning, Caldern led her to the airfield, which was on the edge of the city. They found their way to a rickety old helicopter, a thirty-year old Soviet SU-456. They buckled in for a flight to Canaimo. Two members of the national police joined them, needing a lift to Santa Yniez. One of them was in his forties, the younger one in his twenties.

The early morning heat was already stifling. Alex needed only a tan T-shirt and cargo shorts. She wore new hiking shoes and heavy socks. Before leaving the hotel, she had applied DEET to her neck, arms, and legs and packed her digital camera in a convenient pocket.

The two national police officers seemed perplexed, even amused, that a good-looking woman was to be on the flight. She could tell they were trying to figure her out. She engaged them in a conversation in Spanish and kept deflecting their questions about her nationality, as they waited to take off.

"As police, we could ask to see your pa.s.sport," one of them said, quite amiably.

"Mi madre fue mexicana," she said, trying to deflect it further. "En realidad, chilanga."

"As, usted es mexicana?" one asked.

She took a chance and showed them her American pa.s.sport. She told them that she was on her way to visit friends who were among the missionaries at Barranco Lajoya. This, plus her excellent command of Spanish, seemed to appease them. They didn't bat an eyelash when she pulled her Beretta out of her bag and strapped the holster to her waist. If anything, they were amused.

Then they began to ask more questions. They asked her why she was carrying a gun. She answered, why not carry a gun? They laughed and accepted the answer.

"The last time we were in this aircraft, we took seven bullets from rebels," the younger one said, making conversation. "But we were flying over near Colombia that day. Today we go southeast toward Brazil."

"Yes, I know," she said.

The older cop added that once they had sufficient alt.i.tude, small arms fire couldn't touch them. And if it did, it wouldn't penetrate. And if it did penetrate, it would be spent. And if it were spent, they could pick it up and throw it out the door.

"And if it did wound someone, the wound wouldn't be too bad, s?" Alex asked, picking up their facetious tone. "And if the wound was bad, we'd fly to a hospital."

They laughed again. "Claro, claro!" they said.

She swatted at a pair of mosquitoes that had somehow followed them into the aircraft. The policemen watched her as she reapplied some DEET lotion to her legs, even though she was already breaking a sweat. She caught them looking at her and gave them a smile. She felt she had won them over.

The helicopter lifted off into the low mist that covered the city, then broke through the clouds and hovered near the mountains, the aircraft listing to its port side dramatically. She held tightly to her seatbelt with one hand and her seat with the other. At one point, she reckoned, they were no more than two hundred feet above the treetops, and her heart gave a huge surge when a downdraft brought them half that distance lower.

The pilot righted the craft with a sudden jerky motion. They listed starboard violently, as if swinging in a gondola on a cable. Then the mountaintops became distant and they were well above them. The chopper banked and headed south. Alex kept track of directions by their relation to the sun.

The interior of the helicopter was stuffy and hot. Twenty minutes into the flight, Manuel pushed open the side door to the helicopter. "You'll get a better view this way," he said. "Plus, we'll get more air."

He was right. The open door cooled the helicopter. She and Manuel sat strapped into seats at the open door. There was a gun turret there also, but no weapon. The policemen retreated to a corner, broke out a deck of cards and started to play, having no interest in what lay below. Alex guessed they had seen it a thousand times. That, or they didn't want their uniforms to serve as airborne target practice.

They flew low between gaps in the mountains over breathlessly rugged undisturbed scenery. They crossed a long, wide savanna and then a blue river; then the jungle below thickened, though it was crisscrossed with rivers and lakes. The journey was hot, and the motor of the helicopter was thunderous.

Below, green stretched in every direction beneath a low haze. At one point they came to a clearing where there were modern houses and communities. Alex scanned carefully. She saw few vehicles and no people.

"Who lives out here?" she said.

She took out the digital camera and began taking random pictures.

Manuel answered. "Nadie. No one any more. There were merchants here. Rubber merchants. But it's no longer safe."

"Rebels?" she asked.

"Bandidos."

Alex nodded.

After ninety minutes, the chopper flew over one of the most beautiful areas of the country, the Canaima lagoon and its surroundings. The lagoon was fed by several small waterfalls. Mist hung above the falls. She was surprised by the changing color of the water and sand. In several places, both took on a reddish hue. In some paces the sand was a light pink because of the presence of quartz. She took out the digital camera and recorded what she saw.

Beyond that, they pa.s.sed over several flattop mountains. Several mining settlements had dug in. She could see machinery and movement on the ground, plus big gouges in the forests and earth. She took more photographs.

They arrived in La Paragua after a two-hour flight. A Jeep was there for them, along with a driver named Jose. He was a young man, maybe eighteen, with a handsome smile and an Argentine accent. A lunch of chicken, beans, and rice waited in the car, along with chilled bottled water in a crate with ice. Alex quickly won Jose's approval by talking about the ins and outs of Argentine soccer.

The police departed in their own direction, giving Alex a final glance as they departed, admiration mixed with approval and a hint of subdued lechery.

Manuel, Alex, and Jose then began a three-hour trek over b.u.mpy roads as they drew closer to Barranco Lajoya. The men rode in the front. Alex preferred to have more room to herself by sitting in the rear, but she continued to chat up both her driver and guide.

In some areas, mud on the road was so deep that it sucked at the tires of the vehicle. In one area, one entire lane of the road had been washed away by a mudslide. The road hadn't been repaired, but the line in the middle had been redrawn. At another area, there was a one-lane "bridge" that was nothing more than a sheet of metal dragged across a fifteen-foot crater. Manuel and Alex got out of the Jeep and crossed the bridge on foot in advance of the Jeep in case the vehicle tumbled.

The roads weren't bad, they were hideous. To make it worse, Manuel kept looking at the side rearview mirror. Alex asked twice if for any reason he thought they were being followed. Both times, Manuel answered only with a shrug.

"These days in Venezuela," Manuel finally grumbled, "anything is possible."

SIXTY-FIVE.

The Jeep halted at the side of a clearing. Beyond, a narrow path wound up the mountain between trees and rocks. The path was deeply rutted, the ruts flooded with water.

Jose stopped the vehicle and they all stepped out.

The late afternoon was so hot that steam rose from the mud. Low swarms of flies and gnats settled into little clouds above the mud. Alex fixed her hair into a ponytail, put on a cap to protect her head, and plastered herself with DEET for the third time.

"Barranco Lajoya is about a mile up the mountain," Manuel said. "From here we go on foot. When G.o.d made this place, he must have been in a bad mood."

She might have hiked up the mountain in long pants, despite the constant risk of insect or snake bits, but the heat ruled that out. Malaria was also rampant, so was rabies, and anything that flew or crawled had a good chance of being poisonous. She hoisted her pack onto her back and adjusted the weapon in her holster. The sheath with the knife was arranged on her left hip.

"The climb is steep," Manuel said. "Take plenty of water."

She put two one-liter bottles in her backpack and tied a fresh canteen at her waist.

"Los machetes," Jose reminded them. "Tigritos, ustedes saben?"

She frowned. Jose explained. There were occasionally jaguars on the mountain, he said. They tended not to attack during the day, but one never knew. If the big cats were hungry enough, they would go after anything. Manuel took a machete with him, for protection as much as slashing through the underbrush. Alex at first declined, then took one.

Both Alex and Manuel checked the ammunition in their sidearms. If they needed the pistols, they might need them in a hurry. With a final gesture, Jose produced a pair of bracelets, suitable for ankle or wrist. They were made out of light wood, slatted with thin but strong wires running through connecting the beads. He proposed that they each wear one. Within one of the slats on each was a variation on a SIM card, a small directional chip.

"In case someone needs to go looking for a body?" Alex said.