The Genius Plague

CHAPTER 17

My first instinct was to run toward the explosions. Celso followed me as I navigated the maze of pedestrian pathways. The sites were, however, several kilometers away, and before I made it very far, it became clear from the crowds and the police that I wasn’t going to get anywhere near them. Celso coaxed me back to his dormitory, where we watched the unfolding story on the news, and I tried to reach the office back home.

After several tries, I reached Shaunessy on the phone, but she knew less than I did. There hadn’t been enough time before I left to buy a SIM card that would work in Brazil, so I gave her Celso’s number as a way to reach me. Ten minutes later, Deputy Director Michelle Clarke called me on Celso’s phone.

Clarke was a civilian who had risen through the agency ranks. I had never met her. Her voice on the line had the professional calm of a 911 operator or a NASA flight controller. “What’s our status there, Johns?”

I explained everything I had seen and heard.

“You’re certain Kilpatrick is dead?”

“I don’t know that at all,” I said. “I was a few miles away when it happened, but I don’t have any direct information. I’m just here watching the news.”

“You’re safe, that’s the important thing,” she said. “Hold tight. The cavalry is on its way.”

The news stations at first showed only chaos: the columns of smoke and the distant wreckage of buildings, the crowds of people and police holding them back. Finally, information started to roll in. The president of Brazil, most of her cabinet, and a large number of senators were dead. In one coordinated move, the country had been cut off at the head. Brazil was reeling, its future uncertain. Even the Brazilian newscasters showed a subtle anti-American sentiment, citing American interference as the reason for the rise of certain terrorist groups inside Brazil.

The news also showed rioting, to a degree that surprised me. Looters broke into stores, destroyed public property, and attacked Americans on the street. Not just in Brasília, but in Brazil’s other major cities, too: São Paulo, Salvador, Rio de Janeiro. The vice president of Brazil had been in São Paulo when the bombs went off, but no one on the news had been able to confirm that he was alive or get a clear statement from his staff.

“If he was safe, he would make a statement, don’t you think?” I said. “To show the country that he’s in control and there’s a clear line of succession?”

“Maybe he’s afraid that he’ll be next,” Celso said.

A pounding knock on the door startled me. Celso opened it a crack but kept his foot positioned to block it from opening any farther. “What do you want, Emílio?” he asked in Portuguese.

“What’s up with that gringo in your room?” The voice on the other side of the door sounded drunk.

“What gringo?”

Another pound on the door. “Your American friend.”

“Hey, take it easy, mano. He’s not here.”

“Tell him to stay away. We don’t want him around.”

I wondered how many of Emílio’s pals were behind him in the hallway. “Don’t worry,” Celso told him. “He ran like a rabbit as soon as the bombs went off. He went back home to America.”

“Good. Don’t be bringing any more gringos around, you hear?”

“I hear you, Emílio.”

“We don’t want them here telling us what to do.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” Celso said, closing the door. He locked it and then leaned his back against it.

“I can’t stay here, can I?” I said.

“Of course you can stay. Stay as long as you need to.”

“You’re a good friend,” I said. “But I need to get back to the States. I’ll get a flight out tomorrow.” As I said it, however, I wondered just how easy that would be.

The talking heads on the news stations kept talking all through the night. When they had something new to say, they delivered it with breathless intensity. When they didn’t, they repeated the same news in different words. Gradually, as the hours passed, it became clear that the three synchronized bombs were only a small part of the attack. The colonel in command of Manaus Air Force Base, several kilometers from the city of Manaus in the Amazon, had refused orders from central command and declared the base to be “free from imperialist control.” At the same time, the Val-de-Cães Naval Base in Belém had deployed boats on the Pará and Amazon Rivers, apparently turning away tourist boats and denying them passage. Just which parts of the military were under whose control seemed to be an open question.

Finally, César Nazif, the chief justice of the Supreme Federal Court and fourth in succession to the presidency, staged a press conference in front of the national cathedral and proclaimed himself acting president of the nation, assuring everyone that the country was under his control, at least until the vice president’s whereabouts could be ascertained. At his shoulder stood the imposing form of Júlio Eduardo de Almeida. Celso’s father.

In the morning, I called the airport, but I was told that all commercial and non-essential flights had been grounded, by order of acting President Nazif.

“I’ll just head back to my hotel and wait it out,” I told Celso. “I can communicate with my bosses from there, and I can stay there without inconveniencing or endangering you.”

Celso assured me I was welcome where I was, but he saw the sense in my plan.

“I’ll walk over with you,” he said.

“You might not want to do that.”

“I want to make sure you get there safely.”

I could already see the change in the city as we walked the streets of the Federal District. Children were nowhere to be seen, nor were family groups, nor the usual games of soccer or sunbathers on the grass. I saw plenty of men, however, especially young men. One had a bulge under his shirt that I suspected concealed a gun. Whatever was happening, it hadn’t started overnight. There were forces here that had been growing for some time. The explosions were just the spark, a kind of promise that life in Brazil was about to change. With the balance of power shifting, those who wanted change needed only to step out of their doors and take it.

When we reached the hotel, the man at the front desk assured me with clipped formality that my room reservation had been canceled for non-occupancy, and the room had been rented to another party. I asked for a new reservation, but he told me all their rooms were full. From the number of cars in the lot, I suspected this was a lie, but I had no way to prove it. When I asked him for my suitcase and belongings, he told me that they had been placed in storage for my safety, and that if I would provide my passport for identification purposes, he would send an employee to retrieve them. Without thinking, I handed over my passport and waited while he took it into a back office to make a photocopy for their records.

I leaned against the desk, my eyes roaming over the chandeliers and plush seating. A half-finished chess game sat on a coffee table, and I wondered if it had been abandoned the night before when the blasts went off. A balding man in glasses who looked like a Brazilian businessman sat in one of the plush chairs. He saw me and stood, and for a moment our eyes met. It suddenly occurred to me how stupid I was being.

“Time to go,” I said.

“What about your passport?” Celso asked.

“I don’t think I’m getting that back. In fact, I think if we don’t get out of here in the next thirty seconds, we’re going to be guests of the Agência Brasileira de Inteligência.”

Avoiding the front door, I turned in the opposite direction from the businessman and ran down a random hallway, expecting that any hall in a hotel would eventually lead to an exit. I wasn’t disappointed. We came out by the swimming pool and made our way around to the back of the hotel. I realized I was keeping an eye out for black sedans, as if I were in a movie. In truth, I had no idea what a Brazilian intelligence agent would drive. It seemed unlikely that the guy in the lobby had actually been an intelligence agent. I didn’t know if Director Kilpatrick was alive or dead. One thing I was pretty sure of, though: they had raided our rooms and confiscated our luggage, leaving the desk staff with a number to call if I should turn up. I was an idiot not to have realized it before.

“Where to?” Celso asked. “Back to my place?”

I shook my head. “The American embassy.”

The embassy was on Naçoes Avenue, not far in a straight line, but situated on the other side of the capital’s most important buildings. A direct route would have taken us right past the cathedral where Nazif had announced his presidency. Instead, we took over an hour circling around, trying to avoid major streets and government buildings—a difficult endeavor in the heart of the capital. When we finally arrived, we found a crowd of demonstrators surrounding the building, shouting slogans about American imperialism. The front gates, usually kept open during the day, were tightly shut. I’d seen the movie Argo, and I remembered other accounts I’d read of the storming of the American embassy in Iran by hundreds of Iranian militants. This was looking as bad as that.

There was no way to get past the crowd. I considered making a run for the gates and pounding on the door, hoping that the Marines that had to be stationed on the other side would let me in before the crowd could grab me. Then a youth in the crowd flung a bottle that hit the top of the wall and burst into flame. I walked in the other direction, trying not to draw any attention, Celso trailing right behind me.

Brazil was ethnically diverse, and many Brazilians were as light-skinned as me. I was wearing Celso’s clothes, I could speak Portuguese fluently, and I knew the city. I thought I should be able to pass for a native, as long as I stayed clear of anyone who knew where I came from.

“This is insane,” I said. “Why does everyone hate Americans all of a sudden?”

Celso took off his Yankees cap and stuffed it under his shirt. “It’s not so sudden,” he said. “You haven’t been here for a while.”

We headed south and west, away from the city center, trying to look nonchalant. “There were always stereotypes,” I said. “Americans are fat; Americans only care about money; Americans don’t care about their families. And everyone thinks America wants to rule the world.”

“Don’t you?” Celso asked.

I glanced at him to see if he was joking. “We don’t want to rule,” I said. “We just vigorously advance our own interests.”

“Seriously,” he said. “The United States is powerful. You control all the oceans and all the shipping lanes. You tell other countries where they can sail their navies, when they’re allowed to trade, and when they’re allowed to fight with their neighbors. Of course people hate you.”

“I get that,” I said. “And the whole Amazon thing’s not exactly new, either. Remember Miss Palmeira in fourth grade? She taught us that children’s textbooks in the US say that the Amazon is part of the United States. She was pretty insistent about it, as I recall, even though I told her it wasn’t true. But it was never a big deal before, not to most people. Nobody was rioting in the streets about it.”

Celso nodded. “That part’s pretty new.”

We were several blocks away from the embassy by that time. I stopped. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know.” He rubbed at his face, thinking. “My mom’s family would probably take you in.”

“Too obvious,” I said. A low stone wall separated a grassy area from the surrounding streets, and I sat down on it. “What about the Lacerdas? Do they still live in this quadra?” Carlos Lacerda had been a school friend, and his mother had often stuffed us with baked treats at her house after school.

Celso joined me on the wall, shaking his head. “Carlos is just like the others now.”

“You mean he hates Americans?”

“I mean environment-crazy. Talks about protecting the Amazon, keeping out the tourists. All that.”

“Carlos cares about the Amazon? Last time I saw Carlos, the only things he cared about were watching soccer and kissing Gabriela Garcia. Both at the same time, if he could manage it.”

Celso didn’t laugh. “It’s all anybody talks about anymore,” he said. “It’s like a virus.”

“A virus,” I repeated. My mind was racing. I turned to Celso. “Was it really a virus?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Was Carlos sick? Did he have a fever, a bad cough, any kind of lung infection?”

“I don’t know. There’s been a lot of that going around this year. Some kind of flu epidemic or something.” He considered. “You know, he did get sick a few months ago. Knocked him out for a few days.”

“Was it about the same time that he got passionate about environmentalism?”

Celso considered. “Could be. What difference does it make?”

“What about your dad? Did he get sick?”

“I don’t know. I guess.” He thought about it. “A few months ago, he had some kind of bad cold. Couldn’t stop coughing. I told him to go the hospital, but he wouldn’t, and after a while it just cleared up on its own.”

Goosebumps prickled my arms. A fungal infection, acquired in the Amazon, that increased intelligence. An increasing number of Amazon villagers showing signs of enhanced brain function. And now several highly coordinated attacks on South American leaders with the cooperation of their own security. Were they connected? Could the increase in pro-Amazon sentiment really be traced to the influence of a fungal host? Just how many people had been infected?

“Give me your phone,” said a voice in Portuguese.

I whirled to see a man standing by the wall behind us. He had dark hair that receded far back on his head, glasses, skin that was neither pale nor dark, and wore dull-colored clothing. He was so forgettable, I almost didn’t recognize him as the “businessman” from the hotel lobby.

“Your phone,” he said again. “Quickly.”

I froze. “Who are you?”

“A friend. And though I doubt the Agência has the resources of the NSA, cell phones can be tracked. If they’re looking for you, your phone will lead them straight to us.”

“I don’t have a phone,” I said. “It was in my luggage, and it didn’t have a SIM card that could work here anyway.”

The man took a step closer, holding out his hand. “Your friend’s, then. The one you used to call home.”

Celso looked back and forth between us. I nodded. Celso handed over his phone, and the man snapped the battery out in one smooth motion and threw both pieces into a bush. “Come on,” he said. He started walking south, not even looking to see if we were following him. I didn’t move.

“Who are you?” I said.

He turned back, annoyance evident on his face. “You don’t have much time. We need to get you out of here.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you until I know who you are and how you know me,” I said.

The annoyance disappeared from his face as if it had never been, and the man grinned. “Good show,” he said. “You’re not entirely stupid after all. They told me your tradecraft was nonexistent—the phone a case in point—and I wanted to see what I could expect from you.”

I crossed my arms. “Well?”

“The Major said to tell you that the next time you plan to back your car over a set of security spikes, please wait until after she leaves.”

I nodded and let my arms fall. “Good enough for me,” I said. “Let’s go.”

As we walked, he chatted in Portuguese about the weather, about that year’s World Cup, apparently about anything that came into his head. After a few blocks, we came upon a gray car with the yellow-and-green stripes of a taxi idling at the curb. “This is our ride,” he said, and opened the door for me to climb in.

I looked at Celso. “Are you coming?”

He shook his head. “This is my city. My family is here.”

“They might figure out that you helped me.”

“I’m not leaving.”

I threw my arms around him and squeezed hard. He smelled like Brasília, like my childhood. “Thank you,” I said. “Good luck.” I ducked into the back seat. The balding man slid in next to me, and the car drove away. I watched Celso’s form dwindle in the back window, and wondered if I would ever see him again.