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woman.”
    Patrick’s head was lifted gently and cool water was poured on his lips. The ropes were cut from his wrists and ankles, and they very slowly removed the tape and the wires and the electrodes. He jerked and twitched, moaning words no one could understand. A shot of morphine was pumped into his well-worn veins, then a light depressant, and Patrick floated away again.
    At dawn, Osmar was in the airport at Ponta Porã waiting for a flight that would eventually get him to Rio by the end of the day. He had made contact with people in Rio. He had pulled them out of bed with promises of big bucks. They were supposed to be on the streets.
    She called her father first, just after sunrise, a time of the day he always enjoyed on his small terrace with his newspaper and his coffee. He lived in a small apartment in Ipanema, three blocks from the shore, not far from his beloved Eva. His apartment building was over thirty years old, making it one of the oldest in the poshest section of Rio. He lived alone.
    He knew from her voice something was wrong. She assured him she was safe and would remain so, that a client in Europe suddenly needed her for two weeks, and that she would call every day. She went on to explain that this particular client was perhaps a bit shady and very secretive, and therefore he might sendrepresentatives to poke around in her past. Don’t be alarmed. It was not unusual in international trade.
    He had several questions, but he knew there would be no answers.
    The call to her supervising partner was much more difficult. The story she had rehearsed delivered well, but there were huge gaps in it. A new client had called late yesterday, a referral from an American lawyer she went to school with, and she was needed immediately in Hamburg. She was taking an early flight. The client was in telecommunications, with plans for a large expansion in Brazil.
    The partner was half-asleep. He asked her to call later with more details.
    She called her secretary with the same story, and asked her to postpone all appointments and meetings until she returned.
    From Curitiba, she flew to São Paulo, where she boarded an Aerolineas Argentinas flight to Buenos Aires, nonstop. For the first time, she used her new passport, one Danilo had helped her acquire a year earlier. She had kept it hidden in the apartment, along with two new credit cards and eight thousand dollars in U.S. cash.
    She was Leah Pires now, same age but different birthday. Danilo didn’t know these details; he couldn’t know.
    She certainly felt like someone else.
    There were many scenarios. He could’ve been shot by bandits making a routine heist along a rural road. Happened occasionally along the Frontier. He could’ve been grabbed by the shadows from his past, tortured, killed, buried in the jungle. Maybe he talked,and if he did maybe her name got mentioned. She could spend the rest of her life on the run. At least he had warned her of this in the beginning. Maybe he didn’t talk, and she could remain Eva.
    Perhaps Danilo was still alive somewhere. He had promised her they wouldn’t kill him. They might make him beg for death, but they couldn’t afford to kill him. If the American authorities found him first, it would be a matter of extradition. He’d picked Latin America because of its historical reluctance to extradite.
    If the shadows found him first, they would beat him until he told them where the money was. That’s what he feared most—the coercion.
    She tried to nap in the Buenos Aires airport, but sleep was impossible. She called his home again in Ponta Porã, then the cell phone and the apartment in Curitiba.
    In Buenos Aires, she boarded a flight to New York, where she waited three hours then caught another one to Zurich on SwissAir.
    They laid him across the rear seat of the Volkswagen van, and wrapped a seat belt around his waist so he wouldn’t bounce off. The roads ahead were rough. He was dressed in his running shorts only. The doctor