Джеймс Паттерсон - The Games

“That was our doing,” Cherie said. “My husband and I. We would not let Mr. Morgan, Ms. Reynaldo, or anyone at Private divulge to police what was happening. If anyone is at fault for keeping you in the dark, I am, and I’m sorry. We want you to be part of the investigation now.”

I glanced at Cherie and had to admit she could indeed play Jackie O. when she wanted to. The way she’d spoken to Acosta, frank, open, yet deferential, coupled with her dazzling looks had charmed the lieutenant and instantly defused the situation.

Still, he glared at me.

“You are a foreign national, Mr. Morgan, and yet you ignore our laws like they are worthless, below you somehow,” the lieutenant said. “I’m asking that you be thrown out of Brazil.”

Tavia said, “Lieutenant, may I remind you that Mr. Morgan works directly for General da Silva at the highest security levels for the sake of the Olympics. The only person who can have him fired and deported is the general.”

Acosta looked ready to ignite again until I said, “So let’s figure out a way to work together. Put the past behind us and start over.”

I held out my hand. The lieutenant hesitated. He really didn’t want to, but he finally took my hand and shook it firmly. “We are partners now, yes?” Acosta asked.

“Equal sharing of information, backup when and if you need it.”

Acosta thought it over briefly and then said, “I can live with that.”

We brought him up to speed fast. The lieutenant was attentive and smart in his questioning and not happy when we described the ransom drop, the release of the girls, the kidnapping of Andy Wise, and the gunfire in Central. He said the hail of bullets had been heard all over the downtown area. Foreign journalists staying at one of the new hotels were asking questions.

“This kind of Wild West thing is not what Rio needs right before the Olympic Games,” Acosta said.

Tavia threw up her hands, said, “They shot at us, Bruno. We never pulled a trigger. The back of the van flew open and this guy was there with an assault gun.”

“And no one saw a face?” the lieutenant asked. “A license plate?”

“No license plates and they all wore masks,” Tavia said.

“They even anticipated tracking devices and jammed them,” I said. “These guys are planners and bold executors.”

“And now they have the big fish,” Acosta said. “There will be a ransom demand, a large one.”

“We were thinking the same thing,”

I looked to Cherie, said, “Do you have Andy’s power of attorney?”

She nodded. “On most things.”

“Access to large amounts of cash?”

Wise’s wife thought about that, said, “I would have to get it cosigned by a trustee, but yes. How much?”

I said, “I think it’s going to be a whole lot more than before. I’d tell your trustees you may need access to as much as a hundred million dollars in the next twenty-four hours.”

Cherie looked to Lieutenant Acosta, said, “I know this might be a sore subject, but can we try to keep this quiet? Out of the press?”

The officer hesitated.

I said, “The last thing Brazil or Rio needs is the story getting out that one of the Olympic Games’ biggest benefactors was kidnapped days before the opening ceremony.”

Acosta looked frustrated, but he nodded. “We’ll do our best, Mrs. Wise.”

My cell phone rang. General da Silva.

“General?”

“There will be an autopsy of Luna Santos’s body at eight a.m. sharp at the Hospital Geral,” he said. “I expect you, Tavia, and Lieutenant Acosta to meet me there.”

I glanced at my watch and was surprised to see it was nearly seven. I really needed some sleep, but I said, “We’ll see you soon.”

The colonial front of the Hospital Geral featured a series of archways facing Santa Luzia Road. The arches gave way to an airy colonnade where patients were already lined up waiting for their names to be called.

Ending an overnight shift, Dr. Lucas Castro yawned as he walked through the courtyard beyond the colonnade. He decided he would stop and get an açaí smoothie, double-dosed with guarana and other herbs to keep up his stamina. He was going to need it in the coming—

The doctor stopped short. There in the colonnade he spotted three and then four people he absolutely did not want to see. Ever. Especially here, where he worked. My God, how did they... What did they...

Castro pivoted and slowly and deliberately walked away, back toward the building and the clinic. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Jack Morgan, Octavia Reynaldo, General da Silva, Lieutenant Acosta, Antonio Santos, and a tall, wild-haired guy wearing a tie-dyed shirt. They were walking into the courtyard, talking, not looking his way at all.

The doctor felt ill nonetheless.

They had to be looking for him. What else would they be here for? Castro hurried into the building where he worked, took a left, and ducked into a men’s room. He stood inside the door, watching through a crack.

If they turn this way, it’s over, Castro thought, breathing hard. I go out through the window, get to the house, get what I need, and then head for the...

All six of them went right. He watched them go down the hall away from him and his office. Relieved, he told himself to wait until they disappeared before hurrying on his way.

But now he was intrigued. If they weren’t in search of him, what were they doing in the Hospital Geral? Where were they going?

Against his better judgment, Dr. Castro exited the restroom and strolled down the hall after them, keeping a few nurses and patients between them and him. They took a left and then a right, then boarded an elevator. They were going down, he saw. He ran to the stairs.

He opened the stairwell door in the basement, saw them already out of the elevator and moving away from him. There were fewer people down on the lower level of the hospital. For a second, Castro hesitated. Then he saw where they were going.

Pathology.

The doctor put it all together in an instant. Luna Santos’s body had to be in pathology, awaiting autopsy. He felt a pang of dread but took a breath and calmed himself. He’d made sure the burn was intense. They weren’t going to get much off her except carbonized flesh and singed bone.

Castro stood there several more moments, wishing there was a way he could go to the autopsy and listen to the idiots trying to figure out how and why Luna Santos had died. He supposed he could wander through and...

He shook off this foolishness. These people weren’t at the Hospital Geral for him, and they weren’t going to get anything from Luna’s husk. It was time to go, time to attend to far more important business.

As he began to climb back up the stairs, Dr. Castro figured he had less than three days left to live, and he didn’t want to waste a single, precious moment.

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

8:00 a.m.

Eighty-Three Hours Before the Olympic Games Open

Dr. Emilio Cardoso adjusted his belly beneath his scrubs, checked the drawstring that held the bottoms up, and then pressed a scalpel to the charred remains of Luna Santos just above her right ear. He cut through scorched flesh to the brittle bone and sliced over the top of her head to her opposite ear. Pieces of skin and muscle fell away like dead coals and ash.

The general, Acosta, and I watched from the other side of a window in an observation room; an intercom allowed us to communicate with Cardoso. The victim’s husband had asked to be at the autopsy, but the second they’d pulled back the sheets on her body he’d almost fainted. Tavia had taken him to get something to drink.