"I don't have to leave America for that," said Brewster.
"It is important that he take you nowhere. These things are not for you to understand. And wear this," said Francisco Braun, giving Brewster a small oblong gold bar with a bullion stamp impressed into it. "It will show your gratitude. It is a symbol I have come to love and serve. You too may be asked to serve one day for all that we have done for you."
"For what you have just done, I would wear it on my you-know-what," said Brewster.
"The chain around your neck will do," said Braun. On the plane, comfortably seated in first class all the way to Rio, James Brewster looked at the little gold bar. It had an apothecary jar inscribed on it. With his first rum punch, he snapped the bar onto his gold chain, and rode the rest of the way to safety in absolute comfort dreaming of luxury for the rest of his life.
Consuelo Bonner did not tell Remo and Chiun how she knew James Brewster had fled to Rio. She knew and that was it.
"Policework. Straight-cut detection. You don't tell me how you know people aren't in rooms behind locked doors, and I don't tell you how I track down people."
"It would help if we knew," said Remo. "Maybe we could help you do things faster."
"Just keep me alive. That's all I want from you," said Consuelo. "If you do that, we can find out who is bribing James Brewster, and stop this uranium problem."
She noticed neither Chiun nor Remo ate on the many-hour flight to Rio. She also noticed neither of them seemed to be bothered by the oppressively hot Brazilian weather. When they were briefly out of sight, she peeked at the note she had written down back in the States when she had spoken to Braun. It had the address in Rio of a tour guide.
When they returned, Consuelo said:
"Given that a fleeing man chose a country without an extradition treaty with the United States, where would he go once he was in Brazil? Either of you two men figure that out?"
"Probably to the same sort of luxury condo he enjoyed back in the States," said Remo.
"No," said Consuelo. "The amateur mind might think that. I think he was panicked. I think I saw a frightened, terrified man back in La Jolla. I think our dispatcher who ships uranium to an accomplice and flees to Brazil keeps on fleeing. I would bet he has run up the Amazon."
"Only if you find someone who would bet with you," said Remo. "Are you sure he is in Brazil?"
"Yes," said Consuelo. She loosened the top button of her blouse. Her clothes felt like wet sacks stuck to her body. Street urchins seemed to grow out of the sidewalks. None of the travel brochures ever showed so many unwashed young people. They featured the beaches. Nor did they mention the smells of garbage. They gave you twilight photos of the city skyline. Maybe they could build high-rises in Rio but they could not collect garbage.
And the people. So many people. And it seemed that half of them were tour guides; most of them wanted to take them to nightclubs.
"We want the Amazon. We are looking for someone who has gone up the Amazon."
"To Brasilia?" asked each guide. That was the name of the new capital that the government wanted people to populate. There were state-paid bonuses for moving there. Consuela was sure that there were also bonuses for taking tourists there.
"No. Into the jungle."
"There is much jungle in Brazil. Most of it is jungle. I have yet to have anyone ask to visit it."
"I am looking for someone who has."
"No esta here, beautiful young woman."
Consuela waited for either Remo or Chiun to say they would never find the right guide, that the trail was lost, that she was a fool, that she was incapable of making a right decision because she was a woman. But by noon when Consuelo was hot, tired, and disappointed that neither of her companions accused her of feminine frailty, she gave up and headed right for the name she had taken down back in the States.
The guide was in a hotel. And he remembered a James Brewster. The man seemed nervous. He left the day before on a trip up the Amazon. The guide pointed to a map of Brazil. It was like a large peculiarly shaped pear. The green represented jungle. The dots represented civilization. The pear had very few dots. A thin dark line ran hundreds of miles into the green. That was the Amazon.
"He took our main boat but we can get another," said the guide. He spoke English. Much business was done in English, though the main language of the country was Portuguese.
Consuelo reserved the boat.
"Even if you find him," asked Remo, "why should he tell you anything?"
"Because I'll promise not to follow him anymore if he tells me who paid him. You and I are after the same thing," she said.
"No we're not," said Remo.
"What are you after?" she asked.
"Honestly, I don't know. I just keep doing my job, and hoping someday I'll figure it out."
"I have already figured it out," said Chiun. "Your purpose in life is to make mine miserable."
"You don't have to stay. You don't have to come with me."
"It is always nice to feel welcome," said Chiun.
The Master of Sinanju did not like South America. Not only did it bear little resemblance to the modern travel brochures but it was unrecognizable from the accounts given in Chiun's histories. The Masters of Sinanju had been here before. They had served both of the great South American empires, the Mayan and Incan, and were paid well for their services. But since the Spanish and Portuguese had moved into the neighborhood, nothing was the same.
What had been great cities were now slums or areas overgrown by the jungle that had reclaimed terraces and parapets. Where gold-clad emperors had walked, monkeys now chirped in trees that grew from crevices in what had once been royal walkways.
The place, as Chiun commented on the way up to the Amazon, had become a jungle.
Consuelo, who was part Spanish, wanted to know the history of South America. Her mother's family had come from Chile.
"The tales of the Masters are only for other Masters," said Chiun.
"You should be grateful for that," said Remo.
"What can one do with a son who despises the family history?"
"Is he your son? He doesn't look Oriental," said Consuelo.
Their boat chugged through swarms of flies hovering around the mud-brown river that seemed to go on forever. The flies landed only on the guide, Consuelo, and the sailors.
Remo and Chiun seemed immune.
"He denies any possibility of Oriental blood," said Chiun. "I have to live with that."
"That's awful," said Consuelo. "You shouldn't be ashamed of what you are."
"I'm not," said Remo.
"Then why do you hide your Koreanness?" she asked. "I don't hide that I am part Hispanic. No one should be ashamed of who he is."
"He's ashamed that I'm white," said Remo, "if you want to know the truth."