by Nick Thacker
7
JULIETTE RICHARDSON STARED OUT THE small oval window of the 737 as it flew south over the Caribbean Sea. She longed to be down there, cruising around in the bright blue waters between Mexico and Jamaica. The cruise she’d chosen would have taken them to three ports in Cozumel, Grand Cayman, and Port Royal, and they’d have spent a luxurious seven days aboard a gigantic floating 5-star hotel.
Instead, they were flying over the open waters and onward toward Belo Horizonte, Brazil, where they would have a plane change and then fly north again to a smaller municipality in Central Brazil called Marabá, where they would land in the stifling heat and overwhelming humidity to spend God-knows-how-long tracking down an organization they weren’t sure really existed. They would meet up with Dr. Meron, Paulinho’s acquaintance, at her research firm, NARATech, and try to piece together tidbits of information that might — or might not — point back to Drache Global.
She turned to Ben, who was sitting in the seat next to her. “You think we’ll find them?” she asked.
He opened his eyes. “Hm?”
“Sorry, I thought you couldn’t sleep on planes,” she said.
He rubbed his eyes and sat up straighter in the seat. “I wasn’t asleep. Just couldn’t hear you…”
She watched him pop a piece of gum into his mouth and waited for him to respond. It took another ten seconds.
“Yeah, I think we’ll find something,” he said.
She raised her eyebrows, hoping to get the message across. We could have been on a cruise right now, but you’re dragging me halfway around the hemisphere because you think we’ll find something?
He got the hint.
“Fine,” he said. “Yeah, I think we’ll find them. It’s a company, or an organization, or whatever. But it deals in currency, just like the rest of us. They’ve got to have their fingerprints there somewhere.”
She nodded.
“And you said that this ‘Paul’ — Paulinho — guy had some information that tied Drache Global to his friend’s company?”
She nodded. “Yes. He told me she thought they were connected somehow; that maybe they were funding her, but trying to keep themselves out of the spotlight.”
Ben was silent for a moment. “What does her company do, exactly?”
“From what I gather online, they’re a neurological research company. Neurological Advanced Research Applications, I believe. NARATech. Paulinho said they’re currently working on an application to map dreamstates.”
“Dreamstates?”
“Dreams. They’re using fMRI technology, applied directly to the skull, to image and record human dreams.”
“That’s a trip. Does it work?”
“I guess,” she said. “There’s nothing about it on their website, but I pried Paulinho for whatever he knew about it. It’s not much, but he told me they’ve had ‘mostly positive results.’”
“Wonder what ‘negative results’ looks like,” Ben said.
“Whatever it is, if Drache Global is actually behind it, it’s probably important to something they’re planning.”
“Did he say anything about what this ‘research’ actually looks like?”
“No, except that they’ve had some sort of anomaly crop up. He didn’t know what it was, but he said it made Amanda seem ‘fidgety’ when they spoke.”
“‘Fidgety?’”
“That’s what he said.”
Ben didn’t respond, but instead went back to ‘sleep’ with his head resting gently against the rock-hard cushion of the airplane seat. His legs, far too long to be comfortable, were smashed against the seat in front of him, not helped by the passenger’s decision to recline the seat as far back as it would go.
Watching Ben sit there like a crash-test dummy who had been smashed against the front of its vehicle after a failed test, Julie felt even more uncomfortable.
“Now I know why you don’t like flying,” she said.
Ben opened his eyes and grinned, shifting in his seat to try to find a more comfortable position. “You think this is why I hate flying?” he asked.
She smiled back. “Surely it’s not the kind, caring staff of in-flight personnel.”
He glared at her. “I know you’re joking, but it still hurts to remember.”
She laughed. They’d flown together only once before, when they were both invited to the White House to meet the President after the events at Yellowstone National Park. The United States government, ostensibly intending to honor them at the nation’s capitol, didn’t seem to think it necessary to honor them until they arrived — they wouldn’t spring for anything more expensive than coach tickets. They spent the hours-long flight smashed together in the back row, neither seat able to recline to offer even a little respite from the miserable journey.
To top it off, the plane had run out of alcoholic beverages, leaving Ben and Julie to subsist on peanuts and half-cans of Diet Coke delivered by a flight attendant that was clearly and vocally unsatisfied with his career. The attendant made a snide comment every time they’d asked for something, and he eventually told Ben to “get up and get it yourself” when Ben asked for another beverage.
And yet, If there was anything they both took away from the experience, it was the memory of laughing at the ridiculousness of it all; an inside joke between them. Julie knew Ben hated flying for a number of reasons, but even Ben admitted he was in much higher spirits when they traveled together.
She wondered if he’d ever get over his fear of flying. It was a control issue — namely, that he knew he had no control — but she liked to remind him that fears could be overcome.
He always argued back, as was his custom, but Julie secretly loved to see him squirm in his seat as the plane took off and then again as it landed. She thought it made him look cute.
“You’re still thinking three days, right?” she asked.
“Three days for what?”
She shot him a look. “Three days to find whatever we can about Drache Global, then the rest of the time we’re on vacation. Not looking.”
“I thought we said a week — “
“You said a week. We’re spending two weeks there, and I’m not wasting half of it tracking out a mysterious organization.” Julie didn’t push any further; she knew Ben was much more adamant about chasing the nebulous organization that had almost cost them their lives. She wanted to know who they were as much as he did, but she was more than happy to leave the detective work to actual detectives.
Ben didn’t respond at first, but when she didn’t stop staring at him, he finally nodded. “Yeah, right, I know. Three days. But if we find —“
“No, Ben. Three days. That’s it.” She wanted to sound decisive, firm, but the words sounded tired. She was tired — Yellowstone and the debriefing sessions with the government and media in the following months had taken their toll, and she was ready to be done with it. Like her mother always said, “sometimes you don’t get closure, you just move on.”
Ben, however, was not the type of person who could simply “move on.” He was far too stubborn and driven to move on. It was probably the most frustrating thing about the man. Julie loved that she could count on him to finish a project, no matter how large, but she had to balance that with the reality that he tended to focus on nothing else until the project was finished.
She was always afraid that he would eventually find some lead, a small thread of information that might pique his interest in the case once again. She’d even considered not telling him about Paulinho’s call, but she knew he was too smart for that. He’d ask who had called, and he’d know it was something serious, and she would eventually tell him.
So it was with great reluctance that she told Ben about the possible lead in Brazil, put their vacation on hold, and agreed to fly to Brazil with him to dig around for a few days. If everything went as planned, they’d spend a few days with Paulinho and his friend Amanda Meron, checking through her company’s investment documents and funding details, and pos
sibly examining some of the research, then they’d spend another ten days lazing on the beautiful white sand beaches and drinking with the locals.
If everything went as planned.
8
BEN MASSAGED HIS HANDS, WORKING out the stiffness from white-knuckling the airplane seat’s armrests during their landing a couple of hours ago. He listened as the group shared welcomes and pleasantries, all of them waiting for their drink orders to be delivered. They sat around a circular table at a picturesque Brazilian cafe, an umbrella that stood over them blocking out the most egregious of the sunlight that bathed the city streets. Streams of shoppers and businesspeople moved around them on the walkway, navigating between the cafe’s street-side table.
The man who’d introduced everyone, Paulinho, still stood in front of his chair, a full-width smile on his face. He’d shaken Ben’s hand with a grip that seemed to want to impress, but not quite strong enough to feel useful. Ben couldn’t tell if he liked him or not, but as was his usual custom, he decided that he did not, but would allow the man to change Ben’s mind. The man’s skin was dark, deeply tanned from the Brazilian sun, and as he drew his hand away Ben noticed a small, circular tattoo on the inside of his wrist. He didn’t recognize the design, and couldn’t get a long enough look at it to decipher it further.
To his left sat Julie, who blushed when Paulinho kissed her on each cheek. Ben couldn’t remember if that was supposed to be a European greeting or something the entire world did, but he still thought it was strange to see it in Brazil. Across from Julie, to Ben’s right, sat Dr. Amanda Meron, a young woman who seemed, in Ben’s opinion, better fit for a beach volleyball team than a science laboratory. Her skin was light, but bronzed with a natural glow that only summertime in a place like Brazil could provide. Her hair was short and blond, but long enough to be pulled back in a loose ponytail that rested gently on the back of her neck. She was apparently American or European by birth, and she stood out from the Brazilian natives around them.
Ben tried not to dwell on the fact that she was absolutely gorgeous. When Julie told him about her company, he’d assumed she would be a shriveled old lady, her back hunched from years of sitting over a microscope. Glasses, probably held onto her white lab coat by a long dangling chain she would clip onto her front pocket. He pictured his late grandmother, a wide, tiny woman who had the fierceness of a bull and the shoulders to match. He thought about every other “science-y”-type person he could think of — Bill Nye, Bill Gates, some white lab coat-wearing men and women in stock photographs — all of them nerds, according to Ben.
He realized when he met Amanda Meron that he knew nothing about science.
Stealing another glance, he saw that Dr. Meron sat with her elbows on the table, back straight, her eyes gazing upward at Paulinho. Relaxed, yet on edge. Julie looked over at Ben, and he quickly coughed and nodded once, then looked up at Paulinho.
Julie grinned, her eyes twinkling with a laughter she kept to herself.
Ben wondered if he was blushing.
“Ben, tell me — what is it you do for a living, if I may ask?” Paulinho said, somehow talking with impeccably spaced English while keeping the huge smile plastered on his face.
“Uh, sure,” Ben said. “I’m a park ranger, up in Alaska.”
“Oh? Quite interesting! Is that something you do year-round?”
Ben frowned, trying to interpret the question. If it was anyone else, it would have been a comment related to weather: ’Isn’t it too cold to work in Alaska in the wintertime?’ But he still wasn’t sure about Paulinho. ‘Is that something that pays the bills for you and your girlfriend, or doesn’t she need a better man? Someone like me, perhaps…?’
“Ben?”
Ben snapped his head up, and Julie — and Paulinho and Amanda — were staring at him.
“Right, oh, sorry,” he said. “Yeah, it’s full-time. Pays the bills, you know…”
Paulinho’s smile, miraculously, got even larger. “Wonderful! Well I’m glad we could all be here. Thank you for coming on such short notice. I assume Dr. Meron has filled you in on the details of her company’s endeavors?”
Julie nodded. “Yes, thank you. And you have been looking for anything related to Drache Global?”
The waiter returned with their drinks. Two light, springy, sparkling juices for Paulinho and Amanda, a Diet Coke for Julie, and a water for Ben.
Paulinho nodded in response to Julie’s question, finally sitting down. “Yes, but it has so far been fruitless. The company seems to want to keep themselves well-hidden.”
“Which means they’re doing something wrong,” Amanda said.
“Not necessarily. Businesses often prefer to operate at arms-length from their local and national governments. Taxes are a hefty burden these days, not to mention the constant threat of lawsuits and bad publicity.”
Everyone around the table nodded, accepting the answer.
“But if they were doing something wrong, you would find it?” Ben asked.
“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I work in an office that has access to otherwise private records that businesses must file every year — that doesn’t mean I will be able to find anything, if it’s there. I’m doing this as a favor to Dr. Meron, and, of course, to you two as well. I’ve also reached out to a friend of mine who’s interested in history. He’s somewhat of an eccentric, but you’ll like him.”
Julie reached over and patted Paulinho’s hand with a concerned look on her face, as if he’d just rescued her nephew’s puppy. Ben took a deep, long sip of his water, trying to ignore the odd way his girlfriend was acting around the strapping, dark-skinned Paulinho. Paulinho just sat, smiling, soaking it all in.
The man’s got swagger, Ben thought. He had to hand it to him. Living in Brazil, educated, wealthy, and good-looking, Ben knew the man wasn’t wanting for attention from the opposite sex. He held himself confidently, his permanent smile lighting up the already sun-bleached day.
“So,” Ben asked. “What’s the next step?”
Amanda shook her head, forming the words. “I’m not sure what’s going on, or why, but I’m glad you’re here — both of you. You need to check into your hotel, and get some rest. We can chat tomorrow. And if there’s anything you can tell me about this organization, I’m all ears.”
Ben stood up, preparing to leave with Julie. “We’re in the dark on this one, but I can tell you this: Drache Global, if they’re really who’s behind this, is not a company you want to mess around with.”
9
JUAN ORTEGA PULLED UP TO the tiny house at the end of the block and parked his sedan on the driveway. He made enough money to buy a better vehicle, a larger house, and live just about anywhere in Brazil, but for him it was never about wanting more.
He’d been raised Catholic, by a farmer and a schoolteacher, and frugality had always been a strong master in their home. Juan’s father taught the children — nine total, including Juan — how to garden and grow food, fend for themselves, and take care of a family. His mother taught them the value of a proper education, and instilled in all of them the desire to learn.
As he collected his bag and hung his NARATech ID badge over the rearview mirror, an image of his parents came to mind. His father, smiling with the knowledge that his oldest son was carrying on the family name in a proud, world-benefiting way, and his mother, smug with the look only a satisfied mother can have when watching their grown children. They had both passed away five years ago, within six months of one another, and Juan did his best to remember them well. They had set up a small shrine in the entryway of the house, just inside the front door. He walked toward it, opened the screen door and turned the handle on the larger door behind it, and entered the house.
He passed the shrine, seeing the row of candles and framed image of his parents smiling back at him. He paused for just a moment, hoping to take a minute to honor their memory in silence, but his five-year-old daughter was already rounding the corner.
�
��Papa!” she yelled, bounding up toward him and jumping into his arms.
“Caroline,” he said, kissing her cheek, “what are you doing home?” Caroline was supposed to have dance class after school today, so he was surprised to see her in the house.
“Mama said I could skip so we could make cookies tonight.”
He smiled. ‘Making cookies’ meant the entire kitchen would be turned upside-down for the remainder of the night, but soon after there would be hundreds of cookies of all shapes, sizes, textures, and flavors to choose from. It was a family tradition his wife and their three daughters — nine, seven, and five years old — all took part in. Juan’s role was ‘official taster.’
“And why are you not helping her now?” he said, tickling her.
She screamed in laughter, then ran out of the room as soon as he put her down. His wife welcomed him in Portuguese, too busy to leave her post in the kitchen, and he responded and walked into the family area adjoined to the kitchen.
Before he could put the briefcase down, his oldest daughter, Gloria, came into the room holding a game. She already had the pouty eyes of a begging child, hoping to get something from her father.
“What, you too are not helping your mother?”
“I am, but we are waiting to be done with this batch,” she responded. “Please?” She held up the small, rectangular box toward Juan.
“I guess,” he said, “if it’s okay with your mother.”
She gave a quick nod, then added, “But if you’re late to the next batch of dough you won’t be allowed to eat any of them.”
The girls laughed, and Gloria dumped out the box onto the rug in the family room. Pega-vereta was a children’s game they’d gotten from his wife’s brother a few weeks ago. The set of colored sticks fell out haphazardly on top of one another, and the game was to try to pick them up without moving any other stick. Each color of stick was worth a different point value. It was a simple game, but Juan enjoyed roleplaying for the girls when they played. Tonight, he would be a crazed surgeon, attempting to fix a patient without causing more damage. He immediately went into character, yelling at the sticks on the floor in an American accent to “clear the room!”
