“Let me have a closer look at that,” Nelson Sampaio said.

He leaned over his desk to snatch the photo from his Chief Inspector’s hand. Then he put on his gold-rimmed reading glasses and squinted at the headline.

Artist’s Mother Abducted.

He could have read it without the glasses. The typeface was that big.

In the photograph, Juraci Santos looked terrified. Her face was dirty, her hair unkempt; her upper body, as much of it as could be seen in the shot, was clad in a dark green sweatshirt several sizes too small. She had been photographed holding up a late edition of that morning’s Cidado de Sao Paulo.

Sampaio tossed the photo onto a pile of newspapers, all with headlines echoing the one he’d been squinting at.

“Proof of life, my ass,” he said. “These days they can fake anything. Why diamonds?”

“Cash is too bulky,” Silva said. “A bank transfer could be traced. Diamonds have universal value. It’s a good choice.”

Sampaio took off his glasses and rubbed the indentations on the bridge of his nose. “How did those damned radio people get the news before we did?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where’s Arnaldo Nunes?”

“In Sao Paulo, visiting family.”

“Good! Saves us a plane ticket.” Sampaio, when he wasn’t flattering a superior, or planning the overthrow of an enemy, kept a sharp eye on expenses. “Pry him loose from his bloody family. I need every available man. I need results fast. Timing is critical.”

For once, Sampaio was right. Timing was critical.

The felons who’d snatched the Artist’s mother could hardly have picked a worse time to do it.

The beginning of the FIFA World Cup was thirteen days away. The nation, as it did every four years, had gone football crazy. And, in the upcoming conflict, no player was more crucial to Brazil’s success than the Artist.