One
I FOUND HIM in Ponta Pora, a pleasant little town in Brazil, on the border of Paraguay, in a
land still known as the Frontier.
They found him living in a shaded brick house on Rua Tiradentes, a wide avenue with trees
down the center and barefoot boys dribbling soccer balls along the hot pavement.
They found him alone, as best they could tell, though a maid came and went at odd hours
during the eight days they hid and watched.
They found him living a comfortable life but certainly not one of luxury. The house was
modest and could've been owned by any local merchant. The car was a 1983 Volkswagen
Beetle, manufactured in Sao Paulo with a million others. It was red and clean, polished to a
shine. Their first photo of him was snapped as he waxed it just inside the gate to his short
driveway.
They found him much thinner, down considerably from the two hundred and thirty pounds
he'd been carrying when last seen. His hair and skin were darker, his chin had been squared,
and his nose had been slightly pointed. Subtle changes to the face. They'd paid a steep bribe
to the surgeon in Rio who'd performed the alterations two and a half years earlier.
They found him after four years of tedious but diligent searching, four years of dead ends
and lost trails and false tips, four years of pouring good money down the drain, good money
chasing bad, it seemed.
But they found him. And they waited. There was at first the desire to snatch him
immediately, to drug him and smuggle him to a safe house in Paraguay, to seize him before he
saw them or before a neighbor became suspicious. The initial excitement of the finding made
them consider a quick strike, but after two days they settled down and waited. They loitered at
various points along Rua Tiradentes, dressed like the locals, drinking tea in the shade, avoiding
the sun, eating ice cream, talking to the children, watching his house. They tracked him as he
drove downtown to shop, and they photographed him from across the street as he left the
pharmacy. They eased very near him in a fruit market and listened as he spoke to the clerk.
Excellent Portuguese, with the very slight accent of an American or a German who'd studied
hard. He moved quickly downtown, gathering his goods and returning home, where he locked
the gate behind him. His brief shopping trip yielded a dozen fine photos.
He had jogged in a prior life, though in the months before he disappeared his mileage
shrunk as his weight ballooned. Now that he teetered on the brink of emaciation, they were
not surprised to see him running again. He left his house, locking the gate behind him, and
began a slow trot down the sidewalk along Rua Tiradentes. Nine minutes for the first mile, as
the street went perfectly straight and the houses grew farther apart. The pavement turned to
gravel on the edge of town, and halfway into the second mile his pace was down to eight
minutes a mile and Danilo had himself a nice sweat. It was midday in October, the
temperature near eighty, and he gained speed as he left town, past a small clinic packed with
young mothers, past a small church the Baptists had built. The roads became dustier as he
headed for the countryside at seven minutes a mile.
The running was serious business, and it pleased them mightily. Danilo would simply run
into their arms.
THE DAY after the first sighting, a small unclean cottage on the edge of Ponta Pora was
rented by a Brazilian named Osmar, and before long the rest of the pursuit team poured in. It
was an equal mix of Americans and Brazilians, with Osmar giving the orders in Portuguese and
Guy barking in English. Osmar could handle both languages, and had become the official
interpreter for the team.
Guy was from Washington, an ex-government type who'd been hired to find Danny Boy, as
he'd been nicknamed. Guy was considered a genius at some levels and immensely talented at
others, and his past was a black hole. He was well into his fifth one-year contract to find
Danny Boy, and there was a nice bonus for snagging the prey. Though he hid it well, Guy had
been slowly cracking under the pressure of not finding Danny Boy.
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Four years and three and a half million dollars, with nothing to show for it.
But now they'd found him.
Osmar and his band of Brazilians had not the slightest hint of Danny Boy's sins, but a fool
could see that he'd disappeared and taken a trainload of money. And, although he was very
curious about Danny Boy, Osmar had learned quickly not to ask questions. Guy and the