Brazil is totally dark when we get there. Noah leads me through a side gate to a small door at the back of the building. It’s smaller than a lot of the other embassies, but it’s always been one of my favorites. So many of the buildings on Embassy Row are palaces — fortresses. The Brazilian embassy always looked, from the outside at least, like a home.
Noah knocks on the door. When no one answers he uses a key and lets himself in. As far as I know there are no keys to the US embassy. Just a whole lot of marines with semiautomatic sidearms.
“Come on,” Noah tells me. “We can work upstairs.”
“Are we supposed to be here?” I ask him.
“I told you. I have dual citizenship. It’s my night with my dad.”
“I mean, the place seems empty.”
“It’s not,” Noah says with a smile.
“Then where is everyone?”
Just then, as if on cue, there’s a massive, thunderous roar. Whoops and applause and cheers in Portuguese.
Only then do I realize that the building isn’t dark. Not exactly. The lights in the hall are out but there is a faint, flickering glow coming from a room not far away. Slowly, Noah and I creep toward it. As we pass, I can see the light is from a television that is so large it practically covers one wall of the big room. Inside, it seems like the entire Brazilian delegation is gathered around it, watching a soccer match that could be taking place anywhere in the world.
One man sits in the center of the crowd. Even among what has to be at least thirty people it’s impossible not to notice him. His skin is dark and smooth. He has broad shoulders and the kind of super intense gaze that could make most girls melt.
But I am not most girls.
I only go a little wobbly.
When he sees Noah and me, he nods and smiles in our direction.
“Oh my gosh,” I mutter to myself. “That guy is hot.”
“That guy’s my dad.” Noah says it like he’s said it a lot. “The ambassador.”
“Oh.” I can’t quite hide my embarrassment. “Should I say hi and introduce myself or something?”
“Are you kidding?” Noah sounds like I’ve just suggested I go jump off a cliff. Again. “That’s his old team playing. We do not interrupt my father when his team is playing.”
“Your dad was a soccer player?”
Noah looks disgusted. “Footballer.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry.”
“And, yes. National team, World Cup, Olympics — you name it. He was, as you Americans say, a stud. Clearly it runs in the family. Now, come on.” He points toward the stairs. “Let’s get to work.”
“What about him?” Noah asks several hours later. I don’t know what time it is, but I’m sure it must be late. There are shouts periodically from downstairs. The game has ended and a new one has begun, but the embassy is still mostly dark. We haven’t actually laid eyes on Lila yet, but I can hear her moving around in the room next door, noisy but unseen. Like a very entitled, very tortured poltergeist. I’m half afraid she’ll float through the wall at any minute.
“Grace?” Noah says, pulling my attention back to the screen.
I look at the image on the laptop, lean closer to the man who is there in black-and-white. He is looking the wrong direction and we can’t tell whether he has a scar or not.
I shake my head. “Too short.”
Noah hits a button and the footage advances to the next man in line. “This guy?”
“No scar,” I tell him.
“Okay. How about …”
“I’m telling you, he was Caucasian. Six one or two. He moved like a guy who knew what he was doing. Like he had training and was sure in his skin. You know what I mean?”
“No.” Noah shakes his head. “I really don’t.”
“I’ve seen it all my life. I grew up around those guys. Special forces — I can spot them from fifty paces. You can’t have that much power in your body and not let it affect the way you move. I’m telling you, he looked like …” I trail off, shiver a little. I make myself look Noah right in the eye when I finish, “He looked like a killer, Noah. He is my mother’s killer.”
“Okay,” Noah says calmly, then stands. I can tell he’s tired of sitting, staring at the screen. He’s tired of feeling helpless and he’s not the only one. “But maybe he —”
“I saw him!” I snap before Noah can join the long list of people who have told me that I am delusional.
“I know,” he hurries to add. “I know. I was just going to say that maybe he’s not in here.”
“I thought everyone had to go through that checkpoint.”
“All the guests did. But maybe he wasn’t a guest. Or maybe he found a way around the main doors. He could have posed as a waiter and then changed into a tux in an air duct or something.”
“This isn’t a spy movie,” I tell him. It feels like maybe he’s not taking it seriously.
“I’m just saying that he might not be in here, Grace. And that’s okay.”
I stand now, too. “It’s not okay! I’ve got to find him, Noah. I’ve got to …”
“What?” Noah presses closer to me, looks down right into my eyes. “What? No, I’m serious. Let’s think this through. Let’s say you do find him — then what happens? Really, Grace. I’m asking.”
I stumble slightly back. “And then I make him pay.”
“And what does that entail? Tell me exactly what you are going to do.”
“I’m going to prove what he did. I’m going to prove …”
That I’m not making this up.
The lights come on in the hallway. There’s more laughing now, talking. The matches must be over — the party breaking up — because the Brazilian embassy is coming awake even as the rest of Embassy Row is going to sleep.
Noah reaches past me, carefully closes the laptop.
“Come on,” he tells me. “We’ve just been looking for one day. Tomorrow we can make it two.”
I gather my things and Noah walks me to the street. He seems oddly protective in a way I’ve never really known before. Noah doesn’t think I’m a little kid; he doesn’t want to lock me in my room and keep me away from the dangers of the world. Noah isn’t like Jamie — not like Alexei. He just wants to make sure that when those dangers find me I’m in a position to take care of myself.
“You really do believe me, don’t you?” I ask when I reach the small gate that opens onto the sidewalk and the short walk home.
“Of course I believe you.”
“And you really are my friend.”
Noah grins. “Looks that way. Is that going to be a problem?”
“Just an unexpected development.” I shake my head.
Noah closes the metal gate behind me. “Yeah, well … welcome to Embassy Row.”
I start back up the hill, toward the US flag and my mother’s bed and a building full of people who would never spend a day helping me, even if they didn’t think it was a wild-goose chase.
“We’ll find him!” Noah yells through the fence, watching me walk away. “He’s out there somewhere. And we’ll find him.”
I have to smile. He’s such a dork. But I’m starting to realize the one good thing that’s happened: He’s my dork.
The wind is strong, blowing off the sea, and, overhead, the flags all stand like soldiers in their spotlights, cracking and popping in the breeze. I think about what Noah is saying. We’re not looking for a man. We’re looking for a needle in an international haystack.
“We’ll find him!” Noah yells again.
I laugh and turn and wave. I’m sure he cannot hear me when I say, “No. We won’t.”