Джеймс Паттерсон - The Games

“Definitely.”

“What’d he steal?”

“My dignity,” Castro said. “And my wife.”

Luna’s glassy, bloodshot eyes snapped open. Sweating and shaking, she gaped at Castro as if he were a fading light on a dark highway. She moved her lips, tried to form words but couldn’t. Then she arched up into a convulsion and writhed, her eyes bugging out and unseeing. As suddenly as it had started, the neurological frying ended. Luna collapsed as if deflated and died with blood seeping from her eyes and nose.

Castro felt a pang of remorse but no regret. Luna’s death was just. It was fair. A way of restoring balance. And it served a nobler purpose. He looked to the clock and felt the remorse ebb away. Elapsed time from misting to last heartbeat: one hour, fifty-two minutes, and twenty seconds.

“Perfect,” he said.

Saturday, July 30, 2016

4:20 a.m.

Tavia downshifted her BMW and weaved in and out of traffic in the tunnel that linked Copacabana to Botafogo. The fog I’d been in at Tavia’s apartment after we got the call was long gone.

She roared out of the tunnel and through the night toward the favelas while yelling into her cell phone’s mike, “Urso thinks he’s found the girls. Activate the response team. I’ll text the coordinates once we reach the location.”

She hung up, still speeding and weaving, said, “Do we notify the Wises?”

“Not until we have something to tell them,” I said.

“The Bear said he is positive he has the place; it’s got the chimes, proximity to the train, dogs, plus one of his guys says the whole building has recently been boarded up, no activity during the day.”

“I’d rather tell the Wises once we’ve got the girls,” I said. “Otherwise they’ll be second-guessing us at every turn.”

“Your call,” she said and took an exit off the highway that brought us northwest of Alemão and into an area of run-down, tin-roofed structures (auto-body shops, upholsterers, tool-and-die makers), warehouses, and abandoned factories.

We pulled over and parked.

“We’re not far,” she said. “We’ll go the rest of the way on foot.”

I got out. Tavia went around to the trunk, popped it, and took out two sets of body armor, two pairs of night-vision goggles, a 12-gauge Mossberg tactical shotgun, and a Beretta .380 with a short, fat sound suppressor.

She handed me the Beretta, wrapped the shotgun in a blanket. “People might get unhappy if they saw this. Easier to hide it until we need it.”

Tavia led us quickly through a maze of buildings. As I followed, I heard a train whistle blowing not far away. We rounded a corner. Urso stepped from the shadows.

“Anything change?” Tavia asked, catching her breath.

“Nada,” the Bear said. “My boys have the place locked down; you wanna hit it now?”

Tavia looked at me, said, “Full response team is fifteen minutes away.”

“Where are they?” I asked him.

Urso pointed to a two-story stone structure down the block. “Used to be a cigar factory when I was a kid.”

Dogs began barking nearby.

“Pit bulls,” he said. “They’re in the lumberyard beyond the cigar place.”

“You see any activity in the factory?”

“Heard movement inside, first floor and upstairs, about two hours ago.”

I checked my watch. Four forty-five. It wouldn’t be light for more than an hour, and the Marines had taught me to infiltrate before dawn.

“You and I go in now,” I said to Tavia. “Urso, put your men by the escape routes in case we flush something.”

“I went all around it,” the Bear said, showing us a crowbar. “Already found the best places to go in and out.”

Tavia unrolled the blanket, revealing the shotgun. She racked a shell into the chamber, and we set off. Urso led us behind the cigar factory to a boarded-up window above an alleyway. Down the alley, a single spotlight shone from a warehouse next door.

The Bear fitted the crowbar under the boards and slowly, quietly pried them free, leaving a black gaping hole where a windowpane used to be.

I drew the Beretta and lowered the night-vision goggles. My world turned a murky green. I peeked inside a hallway strewn with trash and debris. Seeing it was clear otherwise, I slipped over and in.

The air reeked of cured tobacco more than dust.

Tavia lowered her goggles too and came inside. We moved as one then, me bent over, navigating us around the obstacles on the floor as silently as possible, and her behind, putting her feet where I did, shotgun shouldered, scanning ahead for movement.

We reached a door. I pushed it open and winced at the creaking noise the rusted hinges made. I pulled back, tense, squinting, waiting for a volley of gunfire. It didn’t come.

I paused for a count of thirty, pushed the door wide open, and pulled back a second time. Count of thirty. Nothing.

In a crouch I slid around the door into what seemed a cavernous space where the smell of tobacco was everywhere. Broken tables and chairs. Cabinets hanging off the wall. But there was no movement, not even in the dimmest corners.

“Room clear,” Tavia whispered over my shoulder.

I gestured at the stairs at the far end of the room. She understood and nodded. Urso said the chimes were hanging off a windowsill up there.

We crept up the stairs, listening but hearing nothing. We reached the landing and Tavia got to her knees on the stairs, aiming over the top riser at the door. I went up to it, touched the handle, and prayed it wasn’t booby-trapped.

I pressed down, heard the click, threw the door open, and ducked back into the corner. Nothing.

Tavia eased up, her cheek welded to the shotgun stock. The Beretta leading, I edged around into what used to be an office, saw a filthy mattress, a broken bookcase, and an open window. Outside, chimes tinkled.

“Those are definitely the same chimes,” Tavia whispered in my ear.

I nodded, sweeping my attention around the room again and seeing something odd sticking out of the bottom of the bookcase.

I crossed to it, crouched, and saw it was a feather. I pulled on it and out came the samba mask from the video.

We were in the right place, which was both a relief and a ratcheting-up of our anxiety levels. The Wise twins were here in the cigar factory. But so were the kidnappers.

“Whatever happens, we do not shoot the girls,” I muttered to Tavia.

“Clear fields of fire,” she said.

We left the mask on the floor and crept down the stairs as quietly as we’d climbed them. Twice as we crossed the old rolling room, our weight provoked creaking noises in the floorboards, and we froze for more than a minute each time.

The girls and the kidnappers had to be in the basement. Every noise we made was a potential warning. Every noise could get them killed.

We went to the only other door off the old factory floor. Outside in the lumberyard, the pit bulls went nuts, barking and snapping. After a moment’s hesitation, I motioned for Tavia to cover the door while I reached around the jamb for the handle. It twisted as if oiled. I let the door sag ajar, waited, and then pushed it open with two fingers.

Something shot out of the darkness. For some reason, I thought, Pit bull, and I almost took a shot before I saw it was an enormous black cat. It darted between us and across the factory floor.

After several deep breaths, I looked around the corner, saw a steep, rickety wooden staircase down into a cellar. My gut said it could be a trap, but I pointed it out to Tavia and we went anyway, trying to place our weight where the riser had the most support. We still ended up making several more soft squeaking noises.