It was on the seventh day that the news broke. Alan picked it up from the satellite feed, which he accessed on his phone only once a day, out of concern his location would be tracked. Even then he moved his campsite shortly after each news check. He’d been camping along isolated sections of the Rio Perdido, a stream some miles west of Satobra. With the story dominating headlines everywhere, Alan figured it was safe now. The Syndicate had too much chaos going on, and he was no longer their concern. He was right. He drove straight to Campo Grande, made his returns, paid through the nose for cutting the dorado, and was in São Paulo getting a new passport the next day.

When Alan next checked the news, he was strolling through the Miami airport. The story was, to use a cliché lingering from days long gone, still “front-page, top-of-the-fold news.” And it would remain so for many days to come. What he read gave a pretty good review of the issue: the story about the anonymous phone call, a transmitter placed inside a jaú, and the IBDE tracking it and seizing it upon its arrival at an isolated, yet extensive drug distribution point just upstream of Buenos Aires. In short succession, agents had seized bioengineered “drug fish” throughout the world. Whale sharks off the coast of France and India; a channel catfish in Mississippi; and a freshwater dolphin in the Amazon. They were holding yet another press conference. This was the story of the decade.

As Alan looked, he saw a new item–one about a small drug lab and farm in the upper Satobra area that had been seized by the IBDE. There were no definitive evidence of a distribution system here, although speculation was it had been fish-based. It had been another anonymous phone call that revealed that location. Good going, Moarcir, thought Alan.

Maybe the Syndicate would piece everything together and trace their troubles to a solitary researcher in the Pantanal. Maybe they would yet track Alan down. But, probably not, Alan figured. There were too many politicians and police officials taking credit all over the globe. Every minor official from Argentina to Zambia wanted to get their name in the paper and the evening news, now that they had the cover of numbers and the press. And Alan hadn’t even had to mention the Miranda River, nor the Satobra. Just the Paraguay River and the transmission frequency. He knew law enforcement agencies would follow such a frequency no matter what they thought of the source. Now the Syndicate had their own worries and enough problems. What he knew was no longer their concern. He was Mr. Anonymous—his death would serve no meaning. And he wasn’t going to rub it in their faces.

Alan would not be at a press conference. He would not be on a talk show. He would not be famous or write a book. But he would probably be safe. And Alan wouldn’t worry anymore, at any rate. He ran his fingers through his graying hair, straightened his glasses, and slowly walked, with a self-satisfied smile, through the airport.