Brazilian Bandits: A short story
I do not want to monetize my first story, So please read it give us(we two are there) some feedback:
Cover for book
Disclaimer:
This book is meant to share fun and interesting information while respecting everyone’s feelings and beliefs. It is not meant to upset or harm anyone in any way. If anything in this book doesn’t sit right with you, please know it wasn’t intentional. Characters, and scenes in this story are fictional. Do not try to imitate the scenes in REAL LIFE. Thank you for understanding, and I hope you enjoy reading!
Copyright © 2025 by Aarush Naskar and Aaron Potsangbam
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by Indian copyright law.
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that neither the author nor the publisher is engaged in rendering legal, investment, accounting or other professional services. While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional when appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, personal, or other damages.
Book Cover by Aaron Postangbam
1st edition 2025
Preface
I am Aarush Naskar a citizen scientist, the youngest translator on the zooniverse and an amateur astronomer. I decided to try my hand at storywriting. Hope you enjoy this piece! Cover done by Aaron Potsangbam.
Brazilian Bandits
Chapter 1: Brasilia!
We boarded our flight from Delhi International Airport at the crack of dawn(4:00 am). We embarked on the plane and sat on our seats which were 20B and 20C. We decided to who was sitting in the window seat by playing an intense game of rock paper scissors. But not to boast I excelled in the art of playing rock paper scissors and beat him. The journey was going to last 36 hours which we got to know right now as the pilot announced. The person next to us appeared to be in good spirits. He was texting someone on a topic. We had a little chat with him. We learned his name was Santiago Pereira. We landed in the beautiful city of Brasilia. The airport terminus was big enough to take a whole day to explore. As we trudged with our heavy suitcases to the huge gates of the facility, suddenly gunshots were heard. The bustling airport suddenly became silent. A man, wearing a mask on his face, who looked like a bodybuilder, marched through the middle of the airport to the check-in counter, pushing everyone out of his way. In his right hand was a pistol and in his left a man held hostage. The man screamed, “Arrange a flight to São Paulo, Or else he is gone” In a Portuguese accent. He was backed up by a few other people, or rather “His Gang” held the security hostage. “A classic mafia group” I muttered under my breath. The ticketing agents’ faces went pale, they were under tremendous pressure. Let down their airport or kill an innocent person. They stuttered, “O-o-ok-okay”. Without waiting a second they booked him and his gang members a ticket. The gang leader threw the innocent one down and snatched the tickets. “What a rough start to our vacation Anil !” Ian exclaimed. We took a taxi to the St. Paul Plaza Hotel in the south wing of the city. It was lunchtime at the hotel. We took a seat in the humongous dining hall. Directly In front of us sat a relatively tall man, he seemed very fit, just like the gang leader from the airport. He greeted us politely and we introduced ourselves. We learned his name was Tomás Portillo, he was from Buenos Aries and was here for a business meeting. He was also here to explore Brazil. He also reached Brasilia this morning. Coincidentally his travel plan was the same as ours:
2 days- In Brasilia
5 days in Manaus — In The Villa Amazônia.
For lunch, we got Moqueca and Churrasco. As we relished the meal, Tomás revealed, “I have been writing a book on Brazil for the past year, and have been going to different places in the country since last year and these two destinations were the last additions to the book.” We finished our lunch and headed towards our room. I said, “That man was an interesting one”. At the entrance of our room, you would see a narrow hallway, with an entrance to the bathroom. The main room was after the corridor. On the left was a desk above was a smart TV and on the right were two separate beds. The window was directly in front of us. The dining table, in front of the window, had an amazing view of the city.
Chapter 2: A New Friend.
On the desk, I got to work, making notes on Tomás in my pocket diary, as I learnt in detective school. “ Make Notes On Everyone you see, it comes in handy later.” I also wrote about Ian In my diary. But Ian mocks me about this quality of me. Just now he said, “Stop your detective instincts to kick in so much, I take notes of people in my head!”. Having finished my three-page thesis on Tomás, I gave my brain some rest. I sat on my bed, observing Ian indulged in a book about the Amazon, I kindly asked if I should turn on our favourite show on an OTT platform. He readily approved. We lost track of time. Our evening tea came. Sipping our tea, we watched the news. “NEWS HEADLINES!” The reporter exclaimed, “ Man found dead near Manaus, quick
identification suggests that he was attacked by a jaguar.” We were not surprised by this, “This happens often,” I said The evening shifts to night. We go to bed. The next at the dining hall, where we were going to eat breakfast, we bumped into Tomás. We took a seat. “Have you heard the news?” Tomás asked.
“Yes” replied both of us
“That man was my cousin’s friend”
“Okay, so…?”
“His funeral will be held today, here in Brasilia, so I shall go to his funeral in an hour”
After breakfast, we went to get some sunglasses. We found a Vogue branch and bought some normal sunglasses. On our way to the Catedral Metropolitana Nossa Senhora Aparecida, we bumped into a rather short man.
“Sorry,” I said
“Wait, are you Anil Chopra and Ian Frost?” He asked
We were rather confused, startled, and surprised.
“Yes, May I know who you are?” We asked.
“Lucas, Lucas Peñalba, a friend of Tomás Portillo”
“Ahh, Ok,” Ian said
“I am here to help him with his book”
He helped us tour Brasilia. When we went back to our hotel room, we saw a crack in the window and a rock sticking a note, which read, “ You are next”
“This is strange,” I said
Ian picked it up and left the door. I followed him to the reception, where he handed the rock to the receptionist. The receptionist inspected it for a second and said, “This is basalt.”, “No, no, no,” said Ian “ We discovered it in our hotel room,” “With this note on it,” I added and handed in the note. “ Our room window was broken,” I said. Without wasting a second, he checked our room’s CCTV footage ( we were warned about the camera ). “Did you witness the event?” he enquired. “No”, both of us replied. “It took place when we were out”. “What!?” he exclaimed, “The camera is broken.” “So the rock must have come in and hit the camera”, he explained. “ Okay, that must be,” we said in ennui. We went up to our room by the elevator, which was on the 13th floor. “I reckon that that explanation was fake,” I said. “I trust your instincts on this,” Ian said.
Chapter 3: Doubtful Tomás.
When we got to our room, I took out my pocket notebook and made notes about the people I met today. To test Ian’s memory I examined him on the following topic.
“Tell me the names of people we met today,” I asked Ian.
“Tomás, he was going to his cousin’s friend’s funeral” He replied
“Then?”
“Lucas Peñalba, he was a friend of Tomás”
“Lastly”
“The receptionist, who was trying to help us to find the culprit of the broken window”
“Good One!”
“He had quite a good memory,” I mumbled. Dinner was ready and we went down to the dining hall. We saw Tomás, holding a card and anxiously waiting for someone. We sat in front of him and suddenly his anxiety flew away. He was happy to see us as if we had won a gold medal in the Olympics (which I already did, when I was in detective school). He handed us our business cards and said with a grin, “ So both of you are detectives?”, “Yes,” we noted nervously. “ Where did you find this” Ian asked. “Yesterday” he went on “When you left the dining hall, one of these fell out our pockets, and I picked them up,” said pointing at the card. Our dinner arrived and we mostly ate in silence. Our cab to go to Airpot would arrive at noon the next day, but before that, I wanted to experiment with something. We walked to the outskirts of the city. There was an open space where kids were playing football and families were picnicking. We went a bit far from those people and I explained my plan to Ian, “ If we make a rough estimate that our floor is like 240ft high, where that bird is flying, then a rock must be able to be thrown that high if a rock would have come into our room”
I picked up a rock from the ground, and gave Ian the rock, as he is the strongest person I know. The rock came nowhere near the set point.”That person definitely came into our room and did it.” Ian said. “But who let in our room? Hmm, maybe the receptionist?”, I said. “Don’t be so serious, he seemed to be a nice guy!” Ian said.
“Detective school rule 2: Never trust anyone. You remember that?” I asked.
“Ummm. Yes, Why would I forge?t,” he replied.
“Oh really, Then what was rule 1” I asked.
“Umm… Do not use your detective skills to show off?’ Ian said.
“That was rule 3,” I said,d questioning Ian’s memory.
“Uhh, I forgot,” he said, giving up.
“Make Notes On Everyone you see; it comes in handy later. That one you always mock me about,” I said proudly.
We went back to our hotel. Where we saw Tomás standing with our luggage along with his backpack on his shoulders.“I waiting was for my cab, when I saw both of you coming, so I requested the staff to bring down your luggage as you told me that you would be leaving today for Manaus.” “Thank you” we replied. Our taxi came and coincidentally he had booked the same taxi. Some of the hotel staff came out and wished us a happy journey, but something was off about the receptionist he had a grin on his face, and he was way too happy to be seeing us go, as we had been a burden on him, or another case which I would come to know later. The driver seemed pretty lively, enjoying his job. He was fit and had no tattoos on his hand(I brought that up as everyone we had seen till now had a tattoo). We drove to the city airport. All went smoothly until our car broke down 6 km in the trip. Tomás stepped out and opened the front of the vehicle and to his horror, the car’s battery melted. We went out to look, the battery was perfectly fine. We looked back at Tomás to find that he was nowhere, but out of the blue moon, the engine roared to life, and it sped towards us. Ian pulled me back as he saw the lights of the car starting from before. The car a few yards after stopping. We got back to the car to see Tomás nervously waiting for us. He asked “ Are you both okay? I told that driver to wait for you both, but he didn’t listen.” We both sat down, overwhelmed by the horror of that incident. My eyes went to the driver. He seemed to be terrified as if someone had been haunting him, his liveliness flew away. He had a bruise on his arm, an imprint of a human hand that was not there before. So far, evidence points to one conclusion — the suspect could be Tomás.
I whispered my explanation to Ian, He whispered,“ We need more evidence to prove it”. He was siding with me. We arrived at the airport to be greeted by a small line of about ten people.“All the people must have become terrified by the incident that happened 2 days back.” I said jokingly but it did not sit well with Tomás. He seemed rather worryful. Ignoring it, We went to the gate and quickly went to the gates of the same airport we were at the start of our trip. Numerous new guards were there to prevent any incidents like the one from before. Our flight to Manaus would leave at 4:00 pm, 1 hour later so we had plenty of time to explore the airport and Grab a bite of food.
Chapter 4: Hello Manaus!
We went to a restaurant called Mangai. It was a small building, and its vintage style was indescribable. There was no one in the restaurant except a cook and another person who was going to finish his meal. The cook came and took our order. I and Ian ordered Acarajé and Crab Meat while Tomás got Bobó de camarão. After that, he left to grab some food from outside, which is weird because he could have cooked the food himself.
Tomás went to the bathroom, which was outside the restaurant. Until then the man in the restaurant also left.
5 MINUTES Tomás did not come
10 MINUTES He still did not come.
15 MINUTES No sign of him.
“Where is this guy?” I uttered
Out of the blue moon, we heard the door slam and close. When we went to the restaurant entrance to find it locked, it would not budge a bit as hard as we pushed. “Who could have done this” Ian asked. “An employee” I suggested. My eyes suddenly fell towards an employee’s attendance board, which I also showed Ian. Only the chef and manager were coming for the past few days. Suddenly the door slammed open Tomás holding a man’s wrist came In. “This man locked you. I told him not to as you were there in the restaurant.” A fearful look passed over the man’s face. “Who is this man” I asked. “The manager of the restaurant,” he said stuttering. He looked horrified and rattled while staring at Tomás as if he had threatened to do something special to him. We brushed it off and forgave him and went on. Our plane would leave after thirty minutes, enough time to get through security and board the aircraft especially because the airport was almost empty. On the way, we asked Tomás,“ What did the man do, because, he seemed petrified”
“Oh, he, I told him not to shut the door, but he did not listen, so we fought,” he replied
“Didn’t security stop both of you?” Ian asked
“No, nobody was there” he replied
After going through security, we sat outside our plane’s gate(the aircraft had not arrived yet). We saw Lucas sitting and reading the newspaper. We went and sat beside Lucas.
Tomás asked, “You said you got another plane.”
“They cancelled my flight and rebooked me to this flight.” He replied
I watched as three planes landed one after the other, and made their way, taxing to their respective gates, one of the aircraft came to our gate. The flight attendant came out of the gate with a crowd of people with their bags after her. The crowd went away, and shortly after we were called. The plane was about empty, about 50 people. We taxied to the runway, and we propelled out of the city. This was a 5-hour journey, so most of our time was spent playing chess with each other. Four hours into our journey, we could see a canopy of trees, staring, which would later form into the Amazon Rainforest. After an hour we landed and disembarked the plane. Outside the Manaus Airport was a line of taxis, waiting for their customers, but we had already booked a cab before. Tomás and Lucas, got a taxi, while we waited for our cab. Our taxi came, the driver came out and helped us to put our luggage in the trunk. The driver asked us where to get out of the airport.
“We are new here, we do not know” I replied
“Me too,” he said
Suddenly a police officer came, told us that we were blocking the road, and guided us to the airport exit. Our driver was young, and again he did not have any tattoos. We talked about our life, and a conversation that I still remember, He said,“ I worked as an agent of the ABIN, which stands for Brazilian Intelligence Agency and worked on a case which has not been solved yet, just two-three months ago, two detectives — came to Brazil in Manaus to solve a case of disappearance, but both of them disappeared in one sunny day. They just got in a taxi to eat at a restaurant, but something strange happened. They were shot and thrown out of the car!”
Get Sunray Au’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
“How do you know?” I asked
“Witnesses told me.” He replied.
He started again,“ We were able to acquire the number of the car they were in but, it was not in our records. But I had to leave the Agency because they were just putting more stress on me to find the mastermind behind this incident.”
“Did you just indirectly compliment the criminal?” Ian asked.
“Deliberately, he was just too clever to be caught.” He said.
This was an interesting man, so I immediately started jotting things about him in my small notebook. We were dropped off at our respective hotels, and the taxi drove a few meters before stopping in front of another building. The driver got out of the car and trudged into the building. We went to the reception, where we met Tomás and Lucas.
“We already got the keys to our room, so we are going,” Lucas said.
We got our keys and slowly walked towards our room with our luggage. Immediately after we got to our room, our dinner arrived. As we ate our delicious, luscious dinner, a knock on the door alerted us that we were out of our comfort zone. We washed our faces and opened the door. A man, in trousers, a blue shirt and a black cap was in front of us.
Chapter 5: Stirring Safari!
“Hi,” he greeted us, “I am Louis Portillo, and I will be your tour guide for Manaus. Tomorrow after eating breakfast come to the hotel garage.”
“And?” Ian asked
“I will take you on a safari, on a jeep as you booked,” He said
“Thanks for the information,” I said with gratitude.
He left, waving with his cap, and closed the door. We ate our food and went to bed.
“I have a theory,” Ian said while in bed, “That driver guy, who was working for that disappearance of those two detectives”
“Yes..” I replied
“It can happen to us, especially because we are detectives.”
“Oh, don’t be serious”
“Look at my eyes, lo…”
“The light is off”
“Oh, yes. But I am serious”
“But who would do that?”
“Tomás!”
“What! Ok, maybe you are right”
“Who else would have slapped that driver, no one else was in the car”
“We need more evidence, did ‘you’ forget your own words”
“Umm..”
“Oh, come on, now go to bed”
New day new beginnings, a saying that is true today, A new day and a beginning for our holiday in Manaus. We went to the dining.
Hall, where we found Tomás and Lucas eating their breakfast, chicken sandwich. We ordered the same as today, and the only thing on the available menu was a chicken sandwich. We sat at the table beside both of them.
“Are you both also going on the safari?” I asked
“Yes!” They replied
“Brillant!” said Ian reading the newspaper,“ The Brazilian Government just invested a fortune in green energy!”
“That’s good news!” We all said.
As we were instructed the night before, we went to the hotel garage, where we saw Louis checking the jeep’s engines. He was dressed in the same clothes, with his iconic black cap. He turned towards us and smiled.
“Oh, good, you’re here. I was just about to call you.” He said, “All aboard the jeep!”
We got on the jeep and the jeep roared to life, it rushed out of the garage on the forest trail.
“This forest is a bustling ecosystem of animals,” he said.
“A sloth!” Lucas screamed
“A family of sloths” Louis added
“Here you will find jaguars, sloth, venomous frogs, The Harpy Eagle, Macaws, and Anacondas”
As the jeep was moving at swift speeds, Ian was able to spot a jaguar sleeping peacefully, the jeep stopped and we all went down and got our phones to capture a photo of it. I was able to take the photo before it woke and charged at us. We ran to our jeep, trying to catch our breath. A bit later I declared that I was able to get a photo of the animal. Everyone gathers around me, including the driver, to see the photo. I could feel everyone’s envy. Louis then showed us the gun compartment of the Jeep.
“Only use this when any animal attacks you,” he said wisely
At that moment, I was thinking of the misuse that these guns would cause.
Chapter 6: An Attack!
As we were going deeper into the jungle, we heard noises — not creepy ones but of the lush ecosystem of the Amazon, birds, jaguars, and if you listen closely, you would hear a frog or a snake. We stopped to get some water from the truck when we heard something in the bushes.
“It may be a rabbit or two.” Our tour guide said.
A mob of tribes came out of the bushes, screaming in their language. We were lost for words, we did not know what to do. In fright, we could not even control for bodies. We looked at each other not sure what to do. They with a rope tied, very tightly, spearing no mercy. They led to their humble settlement inside the forest, where small kids to the elderly saw us being led by ‘the hunters’ They took us on a stone roughly in the middle of the village and screamed “Kunan punchaw, kayta mikusun.” in a frightening voice, deep, cold and something about their voice kept ringing in my head. They were scared.
They came near us and with two bundles of dry grass and passed it from our heads. When they passed it from Lucas’s and Tomás’s heads, it passed their heads without any disturbance. It was our turn and still, I did not understand what was happening, but Ian seemed petrified. They passed it from our heads and it got stuck; the same happened to me. As they were doing their ‘Black Magic’ or something. I noticed a lot of shirts and caps behind a rock. “What were these” I mumbled, but Ian heard me. He turned to with a scared face and said,” The remains of people…” What did he mean by, ‘remains’? Just then a man walked in. A buff figure with a long staff but, his face did not make up for his appearance. He had a fearful look on his face. We were tied up to poles with rope and then the man or as I like to call him ‘the leader” screamed like a dog who was starving, “Aro yoku raduh!” and everyone cheered with enthusiasm. I looked around and observed Lucas and Tomas arguing but, what for? They took out spears and sprinted towards us. Then I understood that they were trying to kill us! The colour went away from my face, I wanted to scream as loud as I could but my fear was not allowing me to. Then I heard a gunshot, Ian had somehow cut his rope and trigger a gun. Their faces went pale and backed up. Ian untied my rope and ran with me to grab Lucas and Tomas and ran to our jeep, where our tour guide was sitting.
“I thought you were also captured,” I said
“I managed to escape when they were busy passing the dry grass from your head,” he said.
We jumped back onto our jeep trying to comprehend what happened. Tomas had a disturbing look on his face as if something or someone ruined his plan.
“From where did you get that gun” I asked Ian
“Oh, I stored it after Louis showed the gun compartment,” He said
Detective Instincts I see here. We returned to our humble abode or hotel, Ian was thinking about something.
“What is in your brain?” I Asked
“Tomas and Lucas” he replied, not acknowledging that I was there.
He turned to me and shocked said: “When did you come?”
“You were literally talking to me!” I exclaimed
“Oh yes, Tomas and Lucas were arguing about the jaguar murder.”
“I do not see any connection between them”
“Are you blind, he caused the murder. I was going through ABIN’s most wanted list and saw a man named Johannes Lupin who looked very similar to Tomás. I am now going to the local police station to confirm if Lupin was Tomás.”
Chapter 7: He got caught!
I followed Ian to the police station which was beside our hotel. It was empty, with one police officer scrolling through his phone. Ian slammed on his desk and he jumped from his desk. He kept the phone on the table and said:
“What brings you two here” with pride pluffing his chest forward.
Ian brought his phone out of his pocket and showed a picture of Tomas beside our jeep and said “ Does this man look familiar to you?”
The officer looked serious and all his pride flew away. He looked petrified by Tomas. “Lupin…” he said. “Where did you see him, he is feared by all, he is a notorious criminal wanted for several high-profile cases: Stalking, Kidnappings and murders.”
“He is our friend,” I said.
“What, you know he can kill you any second,” he said.
“We are Personal Investigators, and we had encounters when he had tried to kill us, with a car and tried to deoxygenate us,” I said.
“We have to catch him! Wait until I go undercover,” he said.
The officer went into a room and got dressed in a green polo shirt and long blue trousers. No one would even suspect him as an officer. We went back to our hotel with our newfound friend. As we were walking down the hallway, he heard some sounds from Tomas’s and Lucas’s room. We slammed the door open and saw a very disturbing scene. Tomas murdering Lucas. The room and Tomas were splattered with blood. Tomas saw us and his soul left his body. We cornered him to the wall but he pushed us aside and ran out of the room got on our jeep from the garage and sped off. There was a taxi right in front of our hotel. We got on it and told him to follow Tomas as quickly as he could. We assured him that nothing would happen if he broke the speed limit as there was a cop with us. We raced against time to catch that criminal. The jeep crashed into a tree, but he managed to get out and ran into the jungle. Our taxi followed him into the jungle until due to exhaustion Tomas fell. The officer caught him and put him in handcuffs. He took him into the taxi and told the taxi driver to go to the police station. The interrogation was done and it was found that he threatened the tribes to kill many people and eat them, he caused the disappearance of those two detectives was caused by him. The jaguar murder was done by him. The victim was his brother, who was an agent of ABIN and was tracking him. He suspected that Tomas’s gang which we saw at the airport was in Manaus. His gang ruthlessly murdered the young man. He was also not Argentinian. Lucas was killed because he trying to report Tomas. The next day was his trial in court where he was sentenced to life in prison. As the gavel struck, we knew that justice had been served, but the encounter with Tomas would haunt us for a long time.
Postface
Thank you everyone for reading this piece. I hope you enjoyed this short story. More stories to Come, and some might even be novellas. Please suggest improvements and genres I should also try.
Acknowledgements
Thank you, Aaron, for the illustrations. This could not have been possible without the tremendous support from my family and the excellent English that I have been taught in school.
