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

customs officer maybe? Who recognised me at

It’s possible.

likely though. If my face had flagged up any warning signals, ‘the system’ would have taken

me back to the bar

Maybe they all do.

she put the word out on

That seems more likely.

the restaurant… hoping to spot my quarry… Instead, they spotted me. She knew I’d turn up at some

makes much

I think…

surface, I’m picking

Does it add up?

Really?

What’s missing?

fit into

Brazil…

‘Traditional’ values…

kind of place you’d expect to find a woman heading a crime

do you ever find women in that kind of

Behind The Throne’? Find the man at the top and get

Femme fatale…

Wonder who he is?

Poor bastard…

life-expectancy down

in the meantime, if they all know who I am… If Juliana has them

my cup, I run a mental replay of my visit to Juliana’s apartment. The coffee’s dreadful stuff,

How many were there?

an

set the newspaper to one side. But smiling, accusing eyes still stare

What now?

Fade into the background?

Disappear?

How?

Dakho and get him to fit

fucking

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