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.
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