Humberto Silva is behind the wheel of a bouncing Mitsubishi 4x4 hundreds of miles from civilization. When he looks left, he sees one of the wonders of the world: a thick wall of trees that marks the edge of the mighty Amazon rain forest. When he looks right, he sees a crime against humanity: a tableau of flames and embers so intense they leave the sun a flamingo pink as the western horizon is swallowed in a shroud of smoke.

In a few hours, Mr. Silva will camp under the stars with the noise of frogs croaking so loudly he can't sleep. He will eat piranhas caught 10 minutes earlier and see the fresh footprints of a jaguar heavier than many of the 14 members of his team. He will dodge butterflies painted in bright primary colors and hear birds with calls like rattlesnakes, maracas, and police sirens.

But right now he is focused on hunting for a camp of indentured slaves.

According to the Brazilian government, as many as 40,000 slaves - the majority of them poor, uneducated, and unskilled - are currently laboring under brutal conditions. Many are lured to the rain forest by ranchers - with the false promise of princely wages - to clear the trees. Once here, they have neither the money nor the means to leave. As the coordinator of one of the government's seven Mobile Anti-Slavery Units, it is Silva's job is to set them free.

On this day in August, he has been traveling a rutted dirt track through a part of the Amazon, known as the Arc of Deforestation, since early morning. An escaped worker, Domingos Santos, stands in the back of a following pickup truck, directing Silva and his team to a remote slave camp.

"It's not far now," says Santos, "only about 20 kilometers [12 miles] to go."

Half an hour later, with the sun low behind the towering treetops, Santos shouts, "Stop! Here!"

Silva quickly swings the vehicle into a clearing on the left. He jumps out and without waiting for his four police bodyguards, he picks his way through the gloom towards a shack made of branches and black plastic sheeting.

"What's your name?" he asks the old man who ambles out to meet him.

"Amazonas," the man replies.

"Come here," Silva tells him and the man slowly shuffles forward to be patted down for weapons. "How many people are here with you?"

"Just me and Thiago, and there are a few others in a camp just through there," he replies, as three men appear out of the forest.

Fanning out behind Silva are the police officers, a Federal Police sheriff, five detectives, two drivers, an assistant attorney general for labor issues, and four armed guards whose presence has become all the more vital since four officers were killed while investigating illegal labor practices not far from here in January. They pat down two others - one of them a 16-year old boy named Thiago - and pick through the rice, beans, motor oil, and other supplies piled in boxes at the back of the shack.

"There are others in shacks just along the road," one of the men says. Silva's team jumps back into the pickups and heads back into the forest. Night has fallen and the trees and bushes scrape against and over the truck as it bumps violently along the increasingly narrow path. When they cross a makeshift bridge over a dried river bed, Santos calls out again and Silva hits the brakes.

"Hello in there!" he shouts into the forest.

"Hello out there!" a voice from inside replies, and a group of a dozen or so surprised men emerge. Disheveled and unshaven, they look at the strangers with a bewilderment one of them would later say disguised both fear and elation.

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