The harsh quality of life in the favelas was a stark contrast to Copacabana Beach a few hundred yards away, where ritzy hotels, night clubs, bars, and restaurants glittered just off the Atlantic. Palm trees towered over the sandy beach and lined the promenade. Music thumped into the night, an out-of-tune anthem of the two worlds that existed here in Rio. I was about to descend into the other world, the underworld, where desperate people took desperate actions to survive—and just maybe lift themselves out of poverty. The situation had forced me to do something I didn’t like, but such was this world. My people were in danger. More than that: my friends were in danger. It was as simple as that.

The bus pulled away, puffing thick black smoke the rain couldn’t force down.

Beside me, Sylvia started to tremble. I knew it wasn’t because of the cold wind or the rain.

“It’s all right, Sylvia.”

I could tell she wanted to cry, but she resisted. One of my intelligence operatives was in the cafe behind us, the other in the adjacent alley.

A rattling Volkswagen pulled up, and a man wearing a bandanna over his mouth and a stained white tank top got out. In the back seat, another man pointed a handgun at Sylvia. Her cry broke forth then. I held my arm out, across her, and stepped in between the man and the trembling woman.

“The money!” he yelled.

“Give us our people first. Then we pay.”

He shook his head. He was high on amphetamines of some sort. His eyes were wide, darting back and forth. “No! You pay now. If I not back in five minutes, we kill one.”

I held my hands up. “All right. Fine. We’ll pay. But I want to see them first. Show me they’re alive, I make a call, and the money is delivered here.”

Bandanna Man made eye contact with the driver, who nodded. He grabbed my arm and shoved me in the back of the tiny car, between him and the thug who had the gun. The thug pressed his old revolver in my side. His friend searched me quickly, found no weapon, then jerked my hat off and tied the bandanna from his face around my eyes. It stank of sweat and cigarettes, forcing me to cough.

They bounced me around in the back seat for ten minutes; the roar of the German car’s engine was nearly deafening. I wondered if the divider between the back seat and engine compartment had been taken out.

Finally the car stopped, and they stood me up and perp-walked me down a cobblestone street. They were rough with me each time I tripped. I heard a wooden door scrape open and slam closed behind us. They walked me slower, then pulled the bandanna off in a room with a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling.