Dark Redemption (David Rivers Book 3) Page 8

  He nodded toward the tangles of black wire stretched between the second stories of the favela. Our view suddenly became blocked by a mass of people rushing uphill, flowing past us like a school of fish that quickly slowed our progress to a crawl.

  Parvaneh asked, “What’s going on out there?”

  “I have no clue,” Gabriel said, “but we’re better off in the crowd than outside it. We need to get away from this car.”

  Micah looked over at me from the driver’s seat. “Give me the gun.”

  “I can shoot as well as you.”

  We pulled into an open section of road, edging in as much as the tight dirt path allowed. He killed the engine and turned to face me.

  “Maybe you can, maybe you can’t. But we’re not betting her life on it.”

  I handed him the Beretta.

  He snatched it from my hand, checking the chamber and magazine before sliding it into his belt. Pulling his suit jacket over it, he said, “Everyone stick with Gabriel. Let him do the talking. Let’s move.”

  We exited the vehicle to a symphony of noise: thumping samba bass notes, barking dogs, babies crying in every direction at once. I scanned for threats—everywhere I looked were thin metal doors, chain link, chicken wire, and dim lights casting a murky glow into the maze we’d just entered. Urine, rotting garbage, and fried food melded into a choking stench as the vast crowd of people rushed up the street, oblivious to Gabriel calling out for help.

  Finally, a man in his twenties stopped. The subsequent flurry of shared Portuguese was punctuated by Gabriel trading cash for a cell phone, the two of them glancing at the screen in confusion before the man shrugged and took his phone back, keeping the money and walking uphill.

  Gabriel turned to us. “He said police are blocking the streets and checking everyone going in or out. And there’s no phone reception—someone has already shut down the cell towers.”

  Micah glowered at him. “Find a landline. Now.”

  Gabriel turned in a circle, examining our surroundings before shoving through the crowd toward a storefront.

  A tall man with a pencil moustache who was smoking a cigarette with aplomb stood by the entryway.

  “Linha fixa?” Gabriel asked him.

  The vendor waved his cigarette inside as if he’d been expecting us. “Claro, claro, pode entrar.”

  We stepped into the shop. The interior reminded me of being in Afghanistan more than anything I’d yet seen in South America: three claustrophobically tight walls covered floor-to-ceiling in wares ranging from clothes to junk food, cigarettes to shoes. Like a fern growing among rocks, the entrepreneurial spirit resulted in retail stores stocking, selling, and trading anything and everything the most poverty-stricken environment had to offer.

  Gabriel took the cordless phone being offered by the vendor, then pressed a button and held it to his ear.

  He shook his head at Micah.

  The vendor took the phone from him and pressed the power button, listening to the receiver before speaking apologetically in Portuguese.

  Gabriel spoke quietly. “Landline and cell reception have been cut. We’re fucked, Micah.”

  “Shut up. Ask him where we can find a radio. CB, ham radio, whatever’s around.”

  The man shook his head in response to Gabriel’s inquiry.

  Micah asked Gabriel, “Can we leave the favela on foot?”

  “Cops are blocking roads to the east, and we’ll never make it to the west side of Rocinha alive. The north and south are blocked by mountains too steep to climb.”

  Undeterred, Micah gestured to the metal roll-down door above us. “Close. Close up.”

  The shopkeeper gave Micah an eyebrow-raised glance as if reproaching a schoolboy for talking back and then rubbed the fingertips of one hand together. “Dinheiro.”

  Gabriel sighed. “You need me to translate that?”

  “We’ll pay. And tell him we’re buying clothes, jackets, and shoes for all of us.” As Gabriel began to translate, Micah added, “Food, bottled water. And newspapers.”

  Gabriel began thumbing through a wad of bills. The vendor’s eyes dipped to the cash and he nonchalantly closed the roll-down door to ensconce us beneath two bare light bulbs.

  Micah addressed all of us. “Lose the suits. Put on whatever fits.”

  I grabbed a windbreaker off a hanger beside me, and then noticed that Parvaneh was standing a few feet away with her feet shoulder-width apart, unbuttoning her blouse to expose a white bra and a long, lean abdomen the same olive shade as her face. Her physique was toned, athletic, the subtle definition of her abdominals visible even in the store’s poor lighting.

  “David,” Micah said through gritted teeth.

  He and Gabriel had already turned away. Even the vendor had reluctantly faced the wall.

  I gave a repentant shrug and turned away from Parvaneh. “I’ve already saved her ass by getting us a gun and a car. At least one of us is keeping an eye on the primary.”

  Micah’s face visibly reddened. He slapped Gabriel on the arm and pointed to the vendor.

  “And tell him I need to buy his lighter.”

  Micah finished lighting the last of three fires to complete a triangle of burning newspaper and trash on a flat roof less than twenty meters from the rooftop shed where Parvaneh and Gabriel were safely tucked away. The sun had set in the hours since our race from the police, the air now tinged with a cool, comfortable dampness.

  I knelt beside him in the darkness. “Rio’s a big city, Micah.”

  “This favela is a much smaller piece.”

  “If your people figure out we’re here.”

  “They already know that much from the intel network, not to mention monitoring the police scanners. They’re looking for us right now. The surveillance plane will find our signal fires within the hour if we’re lucky. At worst, three to four hours until they spot us.”

  We’d successfully donned a haphazard array of street clothes. They fit into our surroundings only slightly better than the business attire Micah had added to the flames, fearful that the vendor would try to sell it and betray our passage. Upon exiting the shop, we quickly found that the only way to escape the sweltering masses of people in the favela was to travel as far upward as we could go.

  Even then, the small, empty patch of corrugated iron roof that we now occupied had taken thirty minutes of negotiating noisy balconies and rooftop water tanks to find.

  I asked, “So what happens when the plane finds our signal fires? The Outfit helicopter breaks every speed record in the book to get here?”

  His chin bobbed in the firelight. “Count on it.”

  “Just blazing in, shooting anyone around us?”

  Micah spoke slowly, quietly. “That’s the lowest-profile ending we’ll see.”

  “What’s the highest-profile ending?”

  “You know by now what he’s capable of. What do you think he’s going to do, David?”

  I studied Micah’s face, his features lit by the orange glow that sharpened the lines and made him look much older than he had in the light of day. I responded, “If he were going to invade the favela, he’d be doing it right now.”

  “He doesn’t have enough men here for a raid. But you can bet the entire Outfit is on their way to Rio as we speak. Given the time it’ll take to mobilize them, and the flight from the Complex to Brazil, that would put their invasion at nightfall tomorrow.”

  “He cares that much about his ambassador?”

  “He and I have that much in common.” He looked at me quickly, adding, “What’s your excuse?”

  I felt my anger rising. After my vision of Karma and then seeing Parvaneh very nearly meet the same fate, I was nearly quaking with rage.

  “Hey, genius, I’m not the one who let her waltz into that truck. You couldn’t see that death trap from a mile away?”

  “Her judgment isn’t mine to control. But her survival is.”

  “You think I don’t care about that too?”

  �
��That’s not the same as keeping her from getting hurt.”

  I planted a fist against the gritty iron surface below me, taking a breath to calm myself. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “That much is clear.”

  “If you expect me to be better informed, you could start by explaining why I was sent here in the first place.”

  “If I had the authority to disclose that, you’d listen to me a lot better than you are now.”

  “Do you have the authority to tell me about Langley?”

  His expression solidified into resolute silence.

  “Yeah, I didn’t forget about that little CIA reference you made back in the car. Is Parvaneh an Agency asset, or is the whole organization a front for Langley?”

  My words caused a seismic shift in his demeanor. His eyes turned black in the firelight, his mouth parting to breathe as his voice lowered. “If I hear that word begin to leave your lips one more time, I’m going to break your jaw before you finish it.”

  I shook my head in disgust. “Everyone’s been eager to threaten me. I’m curious why no one has just blown my head off by now.”

  He stood and brushed the ashes from his thighs.

  “Make sure the fires stay lit. I’ll check on you in an hour.”

  He stalked away, moving quietly to the rooftop shed where Parvaneh and Gabriel waited.

  I watched him leave, trying to make sense of the interaction. The mention of Langley had struck a nerve that I wanted to understand, but it didn’t matter much to my present situation—the Handler was waiting to kill me upon my return, and whether he was sponsored by the US Government didn’t change the fact that I needed to assassinate him. The Indian’s life had already been lost in this game, and mine was going to follow in short order. But Ian’s hadn’t, at least not yet.

  I moved to a rickety overhang of sheet metal, looking back to ensure it would allow me to observe the fires while remaining hidden in shadow. The delta of flame burned crisply, though I questioned the effectiveness of our fires despite Micah’s confidence that the aircraft could spot them. My nighttime view from the roof revealed a dense expanse of favela that glittered with outdoor cooking flames, poorly lit balconies, and steel drums containing the blaze of fire.

  On a quiet night I may have been able to hear the surveillance plane circling in the black sky overhead. As it was, the constant ringing in my ears took a distant second to rhythmic bass notes and periodic laughter within the brick walls all around me, and honking motorcycles in the tight streets below, the collective throb of tightly-packed civilization punctuated by barking dogs. I gathered my knees between my elbows, my back beginning to ache dully, its first objection to the Suburban crash.

  The lights of a distant balcony were extinguished as my thoughts shifted to the identity of our aggressors, whether cop or otherwise, though that might not matter a terrible amount to me at present. As I kept the signal fires in my periphery to retain what night vision I could, I thought about the greater issue looming in the midnight of my future—my fate upon returning from Brazil.

  The helicopter was a few hours out at most. I’d be executed at my next meeting with the Handler, and if I didn’t find a way to kill him first, Ian would recklessly continue his assassination schemes until he got slain in the process. Our team and Karma would be unavenged, and the course of events from my exile, to Africa, to South America and back would represent little more than an elaborate exercise in futility.

  Another balcony went dark, followed by the abrupt cessation of a stereo blasting samba music. I rose to a crouch beneath the sheet metal over my head, a great tingling ripple of goose bumps spreading across my neck.

  The rapid-fire barking of dogs erupted a few blocks away and then went silent.

  I burst out of my hidden alcove and raced toward the rooftop shed, stumbling over a pile of scrap wood and recovering my bearings as I plunged through the darkness. The shed was ten feet distant when a black shape appeared to my left and arrested all forward momentum with a sudden blow across my chest.

  My body spun in a controlled descent, and as I slammed to the ground Micah’s face appeared over mine.

  “What are you doing?” he whispered.

  “We’ve got to move her. Now. Something’s coming for us from the east.”

  His hesitation only lasted half a breath before he was gone, his face replaced by an empty black sky.

  I rolled over and scrambled to my feet, seeing that Micah was already pulling Parvaneh from the shed. Joined by his hand on her wrist, they broke into a run toward an edge of the roof that Micah must have plotted as his primary escape route. Gabriel stumbled out of the shed and followed them, and I had almost caught up to the trio when they disappeared off the edge of the roof.

  I jumped off without looking, my stomach leaping to my throat amid the knowledge that to lose sight of them was a death sentence that wouldn’t particularly trouble any of them.

  The fall was short, ending in a lower balcony that I landed on just in time to see Micah kicking open a flimsy door, gun drawn as he pulled Parvaneh into the harsh fluorescent light of a home scarcely bigger than the average American living room.

  We raced through a tiny dwelling where a family dined on the single couch, the teenage father leaping up and shielding an even younger woman with two toddlers.

  “Desculpa, desculpa,” Gabriel yelled, a single yellow bill of currency fluttering in his wake.

  We were gone as quickly as we had arrived, Micah flinging open the far door and disappearing down a shoddy staircase. I leapt down the stairs after them until we arrived at ground level, where Micah led us past a row of erratically parked cars along the narrow, crumbling street. After clambering over a pile of loose brick, we slipped between unfinished concrete surfaces and followed a tight footpath to a short wall.

  Micah climbed over first, assisting Parvaneh as I trailed behind them. From there we took a wild route through alleys and switchbacks threading deeper into the maze, sporadic groups of people smoking and drinking and dancing to stereos, trash packed into the crevices lining the space between buildings.

  Micah found an outdoor staircase leading up, and we climbed past landing after landing until it would rise no higher. We stepped onto a covered balcony wrapping past lit windows and hurried toward a rickety ladder leaned against a wall. Clambering up its quaking height, we arrived at a rooftop and slipped under an awning of bed sheets strung above us.

  Kneeling in the shadows, I saw Micah scanning across the other rooftops until he found our signal. No one spoke for a few minutes of panting breath as our pulses returned to normal. The three fires continued to burn amid the irregular lighting pooled in the fissures of the labyrinth.

  Finally, Micah whispered, “If that helicopter lands at the signal while we’re sitting here because you got spooked for no reason, I’m going to kill you.”

  I shook my head. “Something was coming for us.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just knew. Lights started going out. Music stopped.”

  “It’s getting late. Of course people shut off their lights. Gabriel?”

  Gabriel sighed. “The favelas are no different than any other city. This is all… normal, Micah. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

  “So we exposed ourselves and fled from our signal for nothing.”

  Parvaneh touched Micah’s arm. “What do we do now?”

  “We make our way back and hope the helicopter doesn’t come before we get there.”

  “Micah,” I said as firmly as I could without raising my voice, “I’ve been to war in three countries now. Brazil will make four. And I’m telling you, something was coming for us.”

  He drew closer to me, his face a black shadow.

  “I don’t care if you think you’re a war hero.”

  “I never said—”

  “You have zero credibility here. This isn’t the military, no matter how much you want it to be.”

  Parvaneh spoke to m
e. “If Micah says we go back, we go back. His experience means more than your instinct, David.”

  “My instinct told you not to get in that car. How many times do I have to save you before you get over my shitty haircut?”

  “Micah’s experience got us out with our lives.”

  Micah grabbed my arm. “You’re not making the decisions here. We go back and—”

  Parvaneh gasped. “Look!”

  Following her eyes toward the signal, I saw the fires glowing just as before, their collective light dimming as the piles of wood, trash, and clothes slowly burned out.

  “What?” Micah asked.

  She replied, “Can’t you see?”

  I stared at the signal, unable to discern what she was talking about.

  Then I saw the man.

  At first he was just a shadow, but gradually the signal fires silhouetted his figure. He was moving precisely, tactically, his steps preceded by the suppressor of a rifle as a second man appeared behind him.

  Gabriel asked, “Are they from the Outfit?”

  “Not a chance,” Micah responded. “The Outfit would have come by helicopter.”

  The second man’s head turned to reveal the insect-like profile of a night vision device suspended over his eyes, and then he continued moving until a third man passed into the light.

  Parvaneh asked, “What if they had to insert by ground, Micah?”

  “Outfit shooters would be treating it like a hostage rescue. They’d be white-lighting the rooftop and calling for us, knowing the helicopter was a few minutes away.”

  Gabriel offered, “Maybe the ambush wasn’t Ribeiro. Maybe his people are trying to help us.”

  “Ribeiro’s people wouldn’t know our recovery signal.”

  Gabriel replied, “Unless they were working with the Handler to find us.”

  “The Handler wouldn’t trust anyone else to recover a delegation. He’d send the Outfit.”

  Almost in unison, the three men kicked the burning piles apart, stomping the flame before vanishing into the darkness as quickly as they had appeared.

  I asked, “Think the store owner ratted us out?”