Chapter Twenty-Three
Thirty-three very serious, fatigue-wearing warriors entered Belem, causing other pedestrians to cast fearful glances in the combined team's direction. Humid, thick air almost stole every breath while sweltering heat bore down on them. Waiting for Kamal to do the necessary weapons transaction with his unnamed contacts from places she was too weary to imagine, Damali absorbed the collage of tower blocks, crumbling Portuguese churches, and the dotting of Old World Mediterranean palaces in pastel hues. Cobblestones, hand-laid, brick-by-brick by slave labor met her footfalls. Every sense quickened, she was not about to miss anything that could be of importance to the group's safety.
Sitting, waiting, watching, sipping cool glasses of cupuacu juice on rickety wooden outdoor cafe chairs, the table umbrellas mild relief from the sun, she studied the terrain. A dog ran by and thirty-two pairs of eyes behind dark sunglasses, expressions masked, looked at the animal. Children and vendors plied their wares, but made no move toward her group this time. She hunted the environment with her sweeping gaze, roving over every aspect of it, taking mental snapshots of the borderline Belem presented between elegance and shabbiness. It was a gray zone, too.
She felt it. The Jesuits had aided in the destruction of the Indian populations here. Smallpox, dysentery, the lash for not adopting the conquering religion, cultural destruction as much as physical annihilation, people who had known freedom remanded to aldeias - reservations. Segregation. Lands snatched and plundered. Righteous anger lived here, just under the surface, crumbling the buildings as much as the weather and the insidious heat. They were getting closer to the Amazon. The question was, how to reach this agonized entity that wanted to unleash a demon army upon this land to wrest it back from modern invaders?
Damali looked up at the sun, not needing a watch now to tell the time. It was late. The travel had been yet again delayed, as things were always delayed in parts of the world that lived by the natural rhythms. She was still uncomfortable about Kamal's decision to go all the way with the group, since it was not the original plan. She was worried not because of Shabazz; a truce had been established. The elders forecast that the number thirty-three in a situation like this was a double trinity to deal with a triangular relationship; three issues within it
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