Джеймс Паттерсон - The Games

“Correct,” Sci said. “He could be a mile or more away.”

“Well done,” I said, and hung up.

The second the pilot signaled it was safe to get out, I did and told da Silva and Acosta about my conversation with Kloppenberg.

“A rocket?” the general cried.

“The wind’s southeast right now, eight miles an hour,” I said, glancing that way and seeing the silhouette of the closest mountain. “He could be up there, just waiting for the right time to launch.”

Da Silva thought about that and looked ready to throw a fit.

“How the hell are we going to defend against something like that?”

“I have no idea,” I said.

After the door had closed and Pietro had thrown the bolt, Dr. Castro stood there in the pitch-dark cavity of the statue, taking a moment to be grateful for having gotten this far.

Then he flipped the headlamp on, fitted it to his head, and checked his watch. Right on schedule. He paused to smear his face, neck, and hands with the gray makeup.

He started the eight-story climb up a narrow iron staircase anchored into the inner wall of the Christ. He took his time, not wanting to bump the pack or make any noise that the two NBC workers might hear and report.

At 5:44 p.m., Dr. Castro reached the top of the staircase. He was inside the chest of the Christ, right at the junction of the two outstretched arms. Dropping the pack on the catwalk, Castro took a minute’s rest and then carried the pack into the hollow interior of the Redeemer’s right arm and the folds of his sleeve.

When the doctor started, the ceiling of the passage was more than eight feet high. But by the time he reached the elbow, it had dropped to less than five feet. It featured in the crook of the arm a large hatch that workmen used to maintain the statue exterior.

He checked his watch. It was 5:52.

Dr. Castro knew he should wait, knew he should focus on assembling a few things, but now that he was actually here, with the hatch right there, unexpected excitement seized him and he gave in to impulse. He threw the lever that unlocked it and felt the hatch door ease.

Heart pounding, Castro gently pushed on the hatch and felt it go up. Wind came whooshing in. So did blazing light, which concerned him.

He shouldn’t risk a look. Not yet. But then he realized the winds had shifted, gone southeasterly, eight or nine miles an hour, which was exactly what he wanted. He needed that wind direction and speed if this was to happen tonight. Now everything was perfect, and everything he’d planned for two years was about to move from dream to reality.

That made him feel blessed, powerful, and, well, righteous. He was doing this for Sophie and the Gonzalez kids. He was doing this for every other man, woman, and child who’d died needlessly of poverty.

Castro pushed the hatch up another inch and then another. He peeked out, seeing just the lights and the top of the arm. When he’d raised the door eight inches, he could see down to the terraces and spotted the NBC guys with their backs to him, drinking beer and watching the network coverage on an iPad.

They had no idea he was there. That emboldened Castro. He pushed over the door and laid it carefully on the Christ’s upper arm. Then he stuck his gray hat, gray face, and gray shoulders up out of the gray elbow of the Redeemer.

The sun was a ball of fire in the haze, and the sky to his west was an incredible dun-red color that seized his attention for several moments. Off to his east, several hundred yards, yet another helicopter circled the summit, but he wasn’t concerned.

All of Rio lay below the doctor now. The lights were going on, twinkling like so many jewels and charms. But Castro was interested only in that part of the Marvelous City that lay past the outstretched right hand of the Christ, five miles off, below a circling blimp.

Maracanã Stadium was lit up like the ultimate gem, no doubt already filled with a crowd of the people wealthy and powerful enough to afford one of only forty-five thousand tickets to the opening ceremony. They had to be eagerly counting down the minutes until the big night began.

I know I am, Dr. Castro thought before ducking down inside the arm and getting to work.

Friday, August 5, 2016

6:40 p.m.

Twenty Minutes Before the Olympic Games Open

“You can’t get some kind of radar in here?” Lieutenant Acosta asked. “At least so we know something’s been launched?”

“On this short notice?” General da Silva shot back. “Impossible.”

We were standing in the parking lot of the stadium, watching the thousands of people still pressing to get inside and looking off into the breeze, to the southwest toward the closest mountains.

“Then you better go tell your president,” I said. “You’ve got twenty minutes until the ceremony starts. Let her decide. But she better be quick about it.”

The Olympic security chief struggled, then swore in Portuguese and hurried off.

Lieutenant Acosta got a phone call and listened while I stared at the sky, which had gone from fire red to fading charcoal ashes. I didn’t know what to do. Common sense said to grab one of the hazmat suits from the helicopter and wear it all night. But part of me wanted to be defiant, to show that I would not be controlled by a threat.

“We had a second sighting of Dr. Castro in Laranjeiras,” Acosta said, pocketing his phone. “The security guard at the College of St. Vincent de Paul saw him carrying a heavy backpack toward the back of the campus. He said Castro went through a gate there and disappeared into the forest.”

“Where’s the college?” I asked. “Show me on a map.”

He pulled out his iPhone and called up the map, showed me.

I studied it, said, “That’s the wrong way.”

“What?”

My phone rang. Caller ID said it was Mo-bot.

I ignored her call, said, “If Castro goes out that gate on foot he’s heading due west, not north-northwest toward Maracanã.”

“What’s due west of the college?”

Before I could futz with the screen, my phone rang again.

“Here,” I said, handing him his phone and answering mine. “Things are kind of intense at the moment, Mo-bot.”

“They’re about to get more intense,” she said. “I’ve got him. He made a mistake and I’ve got him. Or at least where he was about fifty minutes ago.”

Lieutenant Acosta glanced up from the map on his phone with a puzzled look and said, “Due west; he’s up on Corcovado Mountain.”

“On Corcovado Mountain?” I said into my phone.

“How did you know that?” Mo-bot said, sounding deflated.

“An educated guess based on where he entered the jungle.”

“Oh,” she said, happy again. “Well, believe it or not, I’ve got video of him sticking his gray self up out of Christ’s right arm. I’m sending it to you now.”

I didn’t wait for it, just started running toward the helicopter.

No pilot.

Acosta had followed me. “What’s going on?” he demanded as I wrenched open the army chopper’s front door.

“Castro’s going to launch his rocket off the Redeemer.”

Friday, August 5, 2016

6:54 p.m.

Six Minutes Before the Olympic Games Open

In the headlamp beam, Dr. Castro gazed at his masterpiece reassembled on the inner floor of the Redeemer’s right arm. The Hydra-9 and propellant canisters fit snugly into the payload hammock. The hoses were all tight. So were the airbrush connections.

He’d paired his phone via Bluetooth to a small joystick in his shirt pocket. He’d also linked the phone through apps and a local cellular service to a GoPro Hero camera and to the GPS navigator on board the workhorse of his delivery system: a Freefly Alta drone.