A cheap hotel room, a miserable night, and the first poor cup of coffee I’ve had in this São Paulo:

A face stares out at me from the morning newspaper: a smiling boy, perhaps a school photograph, posted under a grim headline

Casualties are mounting in the aftermath of the explosion…

My eyes follow the text, but as I reach the end of the column, I realise I don’t know what it said…

Rodrigo… The hotel boy who served my breakfast each morning. So helpful to the nice cavalheiro inglês who sometimes tipped him, as much for the smile as for good service. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen.

And now dead because some vengeful little bitch missed her target.

I had to grow up quick at that age…

He never will…

Did she miss her target?

Or was it all part of some plan to implicate me?

Lawrence Klempner… Trafficker, murderer, and guilty of a thousand sins, now wanted for terrorism…

?

Who knows? I’m getting beyond guessing how much mayhem Juliana is willing to unleash in her crusade against me.

How did she find me?

She knows I’m here…

She knew where I was…

So… why take so long about showing her hand?

How did she find me?

And when?

As I entered the country?

Three weeks ago…

our Juliana likes

a sense of power

cat and

customs officer maybe? Who recognised me

It’s possible.

signals, ‘the

Or trace me back to the bar after

Maybe they all do.

the word out on

That seems more likely.

to spot my quarry… Instead, they spotted me. She knew I’d turn up at some point, so of course, her

all makes much more

I think…

surface, I’m picking at

Does it add up?

Really?

What’s missing?

does she fit into a gang of

Brazil…

‘Traditional’ values…

you’d expect to find a woman heading a crime

ever find women in that kind of

‘Power Behind The Throne’? Find the man at the top and

Femme fatale…

Wonder who he is?

Poor bastard…

his life-expectancy down the

If Juliana has them

mental replay of my visit to Juliana’s apartment. The coffee’s dreadful stuff, but at least the caffeine hit

How many were there?

an uncertain number not

stare out at

What now?

Fade into the background?

Disappear?

How?

ID. Contact Dakho and get him to fit me out with the

fucking

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