It was the day before Christmas Eve. Not all memories were painful.

He boarded the plane with teeth clenched and spine stiffened, then slept for most of the hour it took to reach Corumba. The small airport there was humid and packed with Bolivians waiting for a flight to Santa Cruz. They were laden with boxes and bags of Christmas gifts.

He found a cabdriver who spoke not a word of English, but it didn't matter. Nate showed him the words “Palace Hotel” on his travel itinerary, and they sped away in an old, dirty Mazda.

Corumba had ninety thousand people, according to yet another memo prepared by Josh's staff. Situated on the Paraguay River, on the Bolivian border, it had long since declared itself to be the capital of the Pantanal. River traffic and trade had built the city, and kept it going.

Through the heat and swelter of the back of the taxi, Corumba appeared to be a lazy, pleasant little town. The streets were paved and wide and lined with trees. Merchants sat in the shade of their storefronts, waiting for customers and chatting with each other. Teenagers darted through traffic on scooters. Barefoot children ate ice cream at sidewalk tables.

As they approached the business district, cars bunched together and stopped in the heat. The driver mumbled something, but was not particularly disturbed. The same driver in New York or D.C. would've been near the point of violence.

But it was Brazil, and Brazil was in South America. The clocks ran slower. Nothing was urgent. Time was not as crucial. Take off your watch, Nate told himself. Instead, he closed his eyes and breathed the heavy air.

The Palace Hotel was in the center of downtown, on a street that descended slightly toward the Paraguay River sitting majestically in the distance. He gave the cabbie a handful of reals, and waited patiently for his change. He thanked him in Portuguese, a feeble “Obrigado.” The cabbie smiled and said something he didn't understand. The doors to the lobby were open, as were all doors facing the sidewalks of Corumba.

The first words he heard upon entering were being yelled by someone from Texas. A band of roughnecks was in the process of checking out. They had been drinking and were in a festive mood, anxious to get home for the holidays. Nate took a seat near a television and waited for them to clear.

His room was on the eighth floor. For eighteen dollars a day he got a twelve-by-twelve with a narrow bed very close to the floor. If it had a mattress, it was quite thin. No box spring to speak of. There were a desk with a chair, a window unit of AC, a small refrigerator with bottled water, colas, and beer, and a clean bathroom with soap and plenty of towels. Not bad, he told himself. This was an adventure. Not the Four Seasons, but certainly livable.

For half an hour, he tried to call Josh. But the language barrier stopped him. The clerk at the front desk knew enough English to find an outside operator, but from there the Portuguese took over. He tried his new cell phone, but the local service had not been activated. Nate stretched his tired body the length of his flimsy little bed, and went to sleep.

VALDIR RUIZ was a short man with a tiny waist, light brown skin, a small slick head missing most of the hair except for a few strands he kept oiled and combed back. His eyes were black and bunched with wrinkles, the result of thirty years of heavy smoking. He was fifty-two, and at the age of seventeen he'd left home to spend a year with a family in Iowa as a Rotary exchange student. He was proud of his English, though he didn't use it much in Corumba. He watched CNN and American television most nights in an effort to stay sharp.

After the year in Iowa, he went to college in Campo Grande, then law school in Rio. He reluctantly returned to Corumba to work in his uncle's small law firm, and to care for his aging parents. For more years than he cared to count, Valdir had endured the languid pace of advocacy in Corumba, while dreaming of what might have been in the big city.

But he was a pleasant man, happy with life in the way most Brazilians tend to be. He worked efficiently in his small office, just himself and a secretary who answered the phone and did the typing. Valdir liked real estate, the deeds and contracts and such. He never went to court, primarily because courtrooms were not an integral part of practicing law in Brazil. Trials were rare. American-style litigation had not found its way south; in fact, it was still confined to the fifty states. Valdir marveled at the things lawyers did and said on CNN. Why do they clamor for the attention? he often asked himself. Lawyers staging press conferences, and hustling from one talk show to the next chatting about their clients. It was unheard of in Brazil.

His office was three blocks from the Palace Hotel, on a wide shaded lot his uncle had bought decades earlier. Thick trees covered the roof, so regardless of the heat, Valdir kept his windows open. He liked the gentle noise from the street. At three-fifteen, he saw a man he'd never seen before stop and examine his office. The man was obviously a stranger, and an American. Valdir knew it was Mr. O'Riley.

THE SECRETARY brought them cafezinho, the strong sugary black coffee Brazilians drink all day in tiny cups, and Nate was instantly addicted to it. He sat in Valdir's office, already on a first-name basis, and admired the surroundings: the squeaky ceiling fan above them, the open windows with the muted sounds of the street drifting in, the neat rows of dusty files on the shelves behind Valdir, the scuffed and worn plank floor under them. The office was quite warm, but not uncomfortable. Nate was sitting in a movie, one shot fifty years ago.

Valdir phoned D.C., and got Josh. They talked for a moment, then he handed the phone across the desk. “Hello, Josh,” Nate said. Josh was obviously relieved to hear his voice. Nate recounted his journey to Corumba, with emphasis on the fact that he was doing well, still sober, and looking forward to the rest of his adventure.

Valdir busied himself with a file in a corner, trying to appear as if he had no interest in the conversation, but absorbing every word. Why was Nate O'Riley so proud of being sober?

When the phone call was over, Valdir produced and unfolded a large air navigational map of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, roughly the same size as Texas, and pointed to the Pantanal. It covered the entire northwestern portion of the state, and continued into Mato Grosso to the north and Bolivia to the west. Hundreds of rivers and streams spread like veins through the swampland. It was shaded yellow, and there were no towns or cities in the Pantanal. No roads or highways. A hundred thousand square miles of swamp, Nate recalled from the innumerable memos Josh had packed for him.

Valdir lit a cigarette as they studied the map. He had done some homework. There were four red X's along the western edge of the map, near Bolivia.

“There are tribes here,” he said, pointing to the red marks. “Guato and Ipicas.”

“How large are they?” Nate asked, leaning close, his first real glimpse at the terrain he was expected to comb in search of Rachel Lane.

“We don't really know,” Valdir replied, his words very slow and precise. He was trying hard to impress the American with his English. “A hundred years ago, there were many more. But the tribes grow smaller with each generation.”

“How much contact do they have with the outside world?” Nate asked.

“Very little. Their culture hasn't changed in a thousand years. They trade some with the riverboats, but they have no desire to change.”

“Do we know where the missionaries are?”

“It's difficult to say. I talked with the Minister of Health for the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. I know him personally, and his office has a general idea of where the missionaries are working. I also spoke with a representative from FUNAI-it's our Bureau of Indian Affairs.” Valdir pointed to two of the X's. “These are Guato. There are probably missionaries around here.”

“Do you know their names?” Nate asked, but it was a throwaway question. According to a memo from Josh, Valdir had not been given the name of Rachel Lane. He had been told that the woman worked for World Tribes, but that was it.

Valdir smiled and shook his head. “That would not be too easy. You must understand that there are at least twenty different American and Canadian organizations with missionaries in Brazil. It's easy to get into our country, and it's easy to move around. Especially in the undeveloped areas. No one really cares who's out there and what they're doing. We figure if they're missionaries, then they are good people.”

Nate pointed at Corumba, then to the nearest red X. “How long does it take to get from here to there?”

“Depends. By plane, about an hour. By boat, from three to five days.”

“Then where's my plane?”

“It's not that easy,” Valdir said, reaching for another map. He unrolled it and pressed it on top of the first one. “This is a topographical map of the Pantanal. These are the fazendas.”

“The what?”

“Fazendas. Large farms.”

“I thought it was all swamp.”

“No. Many areas are elevated just enough to raise cattle. The fazendas were built two hundred years ago, and are still worked by the pantaneiros. Only a few of the fazendas are accessible by boat, so they use small airplanes. The airstrips are marked in blue.”

Nate noticed that there were very few airstrips near the Indian settlements.