The Panic Zone by Rick Mofina

telling him quickly that she was twenty-nine and had grown up in one of Rio’s harshest favelas. Her mother worked as a domestic for the wealthy, her father in a sheet-metal factory. Maria Santo had worked in shopping malls as she struggled to pursue her education, before finding work at various office jobs downtown.
    On the day she died Maria Santo was working as an office assistant at the international law firm, Worldwide Rio Advogados.
    â€œâ€˜We’re saddened by this tragedy,’ said a spokesman for the firm, who would not elaborate or disclose his name,” Luiz finished reading.
    Worldwide Rio Advogados? It was familiar to Gannon from the papers he’d collected near the scene of the bombing.
    â€œWhere are the copies of the documents I asked you to store?”
    Luiz got them from the supply room. Paging through the papers, Gannon found a few records on the letterhead of Worldwide Rio Advogados.
    These were the bloodied pages.
    Looking them over again it appeared that they held little information.
    A list of a dozen or so file numbers and a short note in Portuguese. As Luiz translated, the significance of the information dawned on Gannon.
    â€œPlease ensure all versions of these noted files, hardcopy and electronic, are destroyed and that no record exists in the firm that makes mention of their existence, including this one which should be destroyed after these instructions are carried out.”
    Luiz looked at Gannon.
    â€œThis woman was on to something,” Gannon said.
    Maria Santo’s eyes met Gannon’s from the front page of the Jornal do Brasil. As he stared into them, he wondered why she had needed to meet with a reporter from a global news agency.
    Why did the firm where she worked need their files to disappear?
    Were these the secrets Maria was planning to reveal in the moments before her death?
    â€œLuiz, I’m going to the law firm to see what I can find out.”

CHAPTER 14
    T he offices of Worldwide Rio Advogados were in a skyscraper in Centro’s east side, near Guanabara Bay.
    As the elevator rose to the twenty-eighth floor, Gannon weighed the pros and cons of a cold visit.
    Sure, he risked being turned away. But the fact that the Jornal do Brasil had already reported the firm’s connection to the bombing might help—press interest would be expected.
    According to its Web site, Worldwide Rio Advogados was a global operation that practiced in international trade, labor, family law, international adoptions, banking, patents, corporate law and the list went on. The firm functioned in several languages, including English. Gannon had decided to go alone, realizing that his chances of obtaining new information were slim.
    Still, he had an edge.
    His agency and the law firm shared a common bond in the tragedy—they had both lost staff to the bombing.
    But it was the firm that had secrets linked to it.
    Gannon had to learn those secrets and he had to do it now because time was working against him. At any moment, someone could beat him to it. Or Estralla could force him back to New York.
    Gannon considered the bloodied pages he’d gathered from the street.
    Copies were now folded in his jacket pocket as he steppedfrom the elevator to a polished stone hallway and passed through the brass-plated doors of Worldwide Rio Advogados to the reception desk. The woman seated there finished a call.
    â€œMay I help you,” she asked in English, then Portuguese.
    â€œJack Gannon, from the World Press Alliance.” He placed his card on the counter. “I don’t have an appointment but I’d like to speak to Maria Santo’s supervisor. It will only take a moment.”
    â€œWorld Press Alliance?” She read his card, looked around her desk sadly as if searching for a response, then said, “Yes, please sit down. I will call someone.”
    She spoke softly into the phone as he went to the waiting area and sat in a thick-cushioned leather