by Chris Ryan
‘He looks cool,’ Abby said. ‘Who is he?’
‘Right now, I’d say he’s the most wanted man in Rio de Janeiro. His name is Antonio Guzman, and he’s the leader of Blue Command.’ Hector looked directly at Abby. ‘And he’s really not the kind of guy you’d want to know.’
‘Ah, don’t worry. I only have eyes for Max.’ She sounded sarcastic, but when she slid Max a glance he felt himself blush.
‘Guzman is wanted on twelve counts of murder,’ Hector continued, ‘but he’s committed far more than that. He runs Blue Command with an iron fist, and under his leadership the gang is responsible for more crime and suffering in the favela than almost any other organisation in Brazil. Drug dealing, protection rackets, people trafficking …’ Hector frowned. ‘He’s evil, and unhinged, but clever,’ he said. ‘Ordinarily, gangs don’t last long in the favela. Whichever gang is in the ascendency gets hit hard and fast by the BOPE. Sure, there’s always another gang waiting to take over, but they never have time to get a real foothold before the BOPE come for them. Guzman’s thought of a way around that. He’s put the BOPE on his payroll.’
The cadets were silent.
‘What this means,’ Hector continued, ‘is that Blue Command effectively have their own Special Forces unit. If any of the less dominant gangs in the favela start flexing their muscles, the BOPE move in and do what they do best.’
‘Kill them,’ Sami said bleakly.
‘Yeah. Kill them.’
‘And if, say, five foreign teenagers entered the favela with the aim of rescuing one of Blue Command’s hostages,’ Abby said quietly, ‘the BOPE, let me guess, would give them a biscuit and a mug of warm milk and send them on their way. Or, hang on, would they kill them too?’
Hector didn’t answer that. Instead, he swiped the iPad again. An image appeared of three corpses on a pavement. Their faces weren’t visible, but their clothes were blood-stained. ‘These were taken last week,’ Hector said. ‘The three victims are all under the age of fifteen.’
He let that sink in for a moment before swiping again. A logo appeared. It was circular, with a red circumference and a black interior. On top was a white skull with a dagger driven through the top and emerging from the chin. Two yellow pistols formed a cross behind the skull. ‘Faca ne caveira,’ Hector said.
‘Knife in the skull,’ Lili immediately translated from Portuguese. ‘Charming.’ She pulled her Special Forces Cadets challenge coin, with its winged star logo, from her pocket, and flicked it like a coin. ‘Makes these look kind of tame.’
Another swipe of the iPad. A soldier appeared, dressed in black. He wore body armour and a full military ops waistcoat and belt kit. He had a knee protector on his right leg to protect the joint when he knelt to fire. He was carrying what Max immediately recognised as an M16 assault rifle with laser sights. He wore a black military helmet and a balaclava.
‘This is what the BOPE guys protecting Blue Command will look like,’ Hector said. ‘Note the balaclava.’
‘That’s not going to stop a bullet,’ Lukas said.
‘It’s not supposed to,’ Hector replied. ‘Many members of the BOPE actually live in the favelas. For obvious reasons, they’re not always popular with the other people who live there. These areas are grindingly poor. Many of the inhabitants of the favela travel into central Rio to work in low-paid, menial jobs. Back home, they have poor sanitation and unreliable electricity. Healthcare is often non-existent. Families live on top of each other, many to a room. Some of the buildings are literally made of cardboard. Everybody knows that the drug gangs make the situation worse. So, when they’re on operations, the BOPE guys tend to hide their faces with balaclavas so they can remain anonymous. If they didn’t, and ordinary, law-abiding people realised their neighbours were in the pockets of the gangs …’
‘They wouldn’t be law-abiding for much longer,’ Lukas said.
‘Right,’ Hector said. He swiped again. They saw a photograph of a second BOPE officer, taken from a distance. The officer also wore a black balaclava, but this time it bore a silver insignia on the forehead. Hector zoomed in. ‘It’s a jackal,’ he said. ‘That’s what this guy is known as. The Jackal. We don’t know his real name, but he’s the guy Guzman pays to keep the rest of the BOPE onside. You want to stay clear of him. Word is, he’s the most trigger-happy of the lot.’
‘I’m not going to lie, Hector,’ Max said. ‘Us five against the worst the BOPE and Blue Command can throw at us? It doesn’t feel like a fair fight. Will we be armed?’
Hector shook his head. ‘If I had my way, you would be, but our superiors won’t allow it. In any case, it would probably be the wrong call, ops-wise. Your job is to be invisible. Street kids who nobody would look at twice. You can’t be that if you’re packing assault rifles. You’re going in under the radar. That means no firearms.’
‘Not even a teensy little handgun?’ Abby said.
‘No.’
‘What if we promise not to shoot anyone?’
‘No.’
‘What if we pinky promise not to shoot anyone?’
‘Ask me again, Abby, you’ll be on the first flight back to the UK.’
‘And miss this lovely opportunity to be killed by Guzman, the Jackal, Blue Command and the Brazilian armed police?’ She ticked them off on her fingers. ‘Why on earth would I want to do that?’
‘You’ll have backup,’ Angel said. ‘Woody and I will set up an ops room on the outskirts of the favela. We’ll be able to track your individual locations at all times. If you raise the alarm, we’ll move in.’
‘If we raise the alarm,’ Lili said, ‘it might be too late. Those BOPE guys sound like they know what they’re doing.’
‘And so do you,’ Hector said. It wasn’t often that their handler paid them a compliment, and Max thought it had an immediate effect on them all. They stood taller and seemed less scared.
‘How will we find this Tommy guy, anyway?’ Lukas said.
‘We don’t know exactly where he is,’ said Hector. ‘But we do know that Blue Command’s operations are focused around the north-east of the favela. You’ll find that as you approach it, security gets tough. But it’ll be up to you to locate the hostage. You just need to be careful about what questions you ask – and who you ask.’
Hector looked at his watch, then strode over to the window and pulled back the blackout curtain. It was dark outside. ‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘I want to show you something.’
Hector led the cadets and the Watchers from the room. They walked silently along an empty corridor towards the lift. Hector pressed the button that took them to the rooftop bar. After all the talk of favelas and drug gangs, it felt unreal walking into such a glamorous place. There was a long, mirrored cocktail bar at one end of the room, and a pianist played quiet jazz on a shiny black grand piano. Thirty or forty guests were milling around the bar area and by the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city. Woody ordered lemonades and Hector led the cadets, drinks in hand, to the windows.
The view over the Rio skyline was breathtaking. The lights of the city glowed excitingly across the urban sprawl. There was a spectacular view out to sea – the bay was full of yachts. A bright moon illuminated the water and outlined the surrounding hills. It was beautiful, but Max couldn’t work out why Hector had brought them here. A relaxed drink in a swanky hotel bar was hardly his style.
‘Can you see what I can see?’ Hector said.
Max peered through the glass. He didn’t know what their handler was talking about. Then he heard Lukas whisper something.
‘What is it?’ Max said. ‘What are you –’
And then he saw.
There was a hill in the distance. Its lower slopes were covered with houses, and the glow that emanated from it was less bright than that which bathed the centre of the city. Lights flashed above some of the buildings. ‘Are they fireworks?’ Max said.
‘No,’ Lili answered. ‘Not fireworks. Gunfire. From the rooftops.’
Sami gave a low whistle. Abby stared. Max said, ‘It’s like a war zone.’
‘It’s not like a war zone,’ Hector said. ‘It is a war zone. That’s tracers you can see. Tourists come and watch the most dangerous favelas from viewing points like this.’ He looked around. ‘Cocktails and firefights,’ he said, in a tone of voice that left nobody in any doubt about what he thought of such people. ‘Don’t they realise people are dying? It’s pathetic.’
Pathetic or not, Max couldn’t take his eyes from the faraway firefight. To put yourself in such an environment was borderline crazy. But that was what they were going to do.
‘Finish your drinks,’ Hector said. ‘We mobilise first thing in the morning. You need your sleep.’
He turned and left the bar with Woody and Angel. The cadets glanced nervously at each other, then followed.
3
Guzman and the Jackal
Antonio Guzman was in a good mood. And when Guzman was in a good mood, his lieutenants were in a good mood – because he was less likely to shoot one of them.
He had been in a good mood ever since the English boy, Tommy, had been abducted four nights ago. When they had brought the kid to him, struggling and shouting, Guzman had planned to let his people use him as live target practice. It was always good for the younger ones to get their first kill in early. It got it out of the way and meant they wouldn’t hesitate if they had to do it again in future. Guzman had been nine when he murdered his first man. Tommy had only been in Guzman’s hands for a couple of hours when another feisty nine-year-old had put a barrel to the hostage’s head, ready to take the shot.
But then the Jackal had entered.
The Jackal was Guzman’s tame BOPE agent, although perhaps ‘tame’ was not the right word. He could be as vicious as his boss if he wanted to be, and was almost – almost – as feared in the favela as Guzman himself. He always wore a black balaclava with a silver jackal insignia on the forehead. Very few people had ever seen his face.
The Jackal’s eyes had been dead and emotionless as Guzman had screamed at him to leave the room. They had barely flickered as Guzman stormed up to him, waving the Uzi submachine gun he always carried.
‘It’s up to you, Guzman,’ the Jackal had said in a lazy voice, ‘but I wouldn’t shoot that one if I were you.’
Guzman had seen a red mist. ‘You think you can tell me who to kill and who not to kill?’ he shouted. His voice went higher whenever he got angry. It rose at least an octave now. ‘I pay you! Never forget that!’
The Jackal had shrugged. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Shoot him, and throw five million reais down the drain.’
Guzman had lowered his Uzi. ‘What?’
So the Jackal had explained. An alert had been sent out to all police officers. The son of the British ambassador to Brazil was missing. One of the Jackal’s officers had been in the favela when Guzman’s gang members had abducted the kid, who had by all accounts simply walked across Rio and straight into the favela. The officer recognised the police picture. Dyed blond hair. Blue eyes. Lanky frame. There was no doubt about it: by chance, Guzman had the ambassador’s son, and he was worth a fortune in ransom money.
Now, four days later, Guzman was standing on the rooftop of the building in the heart of the favela that he used as his Blue Command headquarters. It was an ugly concrete structure, guarded on the ground floor by armed men. The immediate vicinity was deserted and quiet: people who lived in the favela knew it was in their best interests to avoid this place. There was an old basketball court below, unused as always. From the roof, Guzman could see over a large portion of the slum. He could see the tumbledown houses, some of them made of brick, some of recycled planks of wood, crates or even cardboard. He could hear traffic and music and somewhere, in the distance, gunfire. He felt like a king looking over his domain, even more so as he fingered his chunky gold necklace.
And a king, he decided, should be able to do what he wanted.
The Jackal had advised him to wait a couple of days before issuing the ransom request. Make them sweat. But that didn’t mean Guzman couldn’t have some fun with the boy. He called to one of the three guards standing nearby, each of them wearing a Blue Command bandana. ‘Bring me the English kid,’ he said.
Two minutes later, the hostage was on his knees, his head bowed, the moon casting a shadow across the roof. Guzman stood in front of him. He knew they did not share a language so he grabbed a clump of the kid’s bleached blond hair and pulled him to his feet. He was almost as tall as Guzman, but so slight that he made Guzman laugh when he jutted out his chin defiantly.
‘You a big man, hey?’ he shouted at him in Portuguese. ‘You a brave man?’
Guzman aimed his Uzi at the ground, just to the right of the boy’s feet. He fired a burst of 9mm rounds. The boy jumped back in fear. Guzman barked with laughter, then fired again. ‘Dance, brave boy!’ he shouted. He had seen someone say that in a movie, and it amused him to repeat it. He looked over at his guards. ‘Look at him dance!’ he shouted. He gave a high-pitched giggle.
The guards laughed as well, one of them more than the other two. When Guzman fired his Uzi for a third time, the blond boy almost collapsed backwards into this guard. The guard licked his lips, then spun the boy around and kneed him hard in the groin. The boy doubled over and the guard raised his knee into his face. The boy collapsed in a heap on the ground, groaning with pain, his face bleeding.
The guard laughed even harder, then grinned at Guzman. But his smile disappeared when he saw the look on Guzman’s face.
Guzman sneered. Nobody was laughing now. He walked up to the guard in silence. The guard glanced at his two mates, but they had both taken a step backwards, as if they wanted nothing to do with him.
Guzman stood close to the guard. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he whispered.
The guard swallowed hard. ‘I-I’m sorry. I thought –’
‘Your job isn’t to think,’ Guzman said. ‘Your job is to do as you’re told. Who told you to hit him? Who said you could play my game?’
‘Nobody. I-I’m sorry, boss. I –’ He looked down to see Guzman’s Uzi pointing at his belly. ‘Please …’ he said.
It was the last word he spoke.
Guzman fired. The bullets threw the guard backwards. He landed on his back, dead, blood flowing from his stomach.
Guzman glanced at the other two guards. ‘Get rid of him,’ he said. He pointed at the English boy, who was hyperventilating with terror. ‘And lock this stupid kid up. The sooner we get some ransom money for him, the sooner we can kill him.’
He turned his back on the carnage and returned to the edge of the rooftop, where he looked over the favela once more. He was in a bad mood now, and he wanted to be left alone.
4
Bullet Hole
Back at Valley House, where Max and the other cadets lived, trained, ate and slept, their quarters were functional. Hard beds, spartan living areas. They were nothing like the comfortable hotel room Max found himself in that night. The bed was large and soft, the bathroom bright and marble-clad, the lighting soft, the minibar filled with chocolate and crisps. Max didn’t like it. Valley House was home to him now. There was something deeply reassuring about its lack of creature comforts. The cadets spent their time in that bleak Scottish valley learning skills that would keep them alive in the toughest circumstances. Their surroundings were an extension of that: utilitarian. A reminder of who they were and what they could expect from this part of their lives. This hotel room, cocooning him with its soft furnishings and warm blankets, was a lie. On the streets of the favela, surrounded by ruthless criminals and armed personnel, he needed to be encased in granite. He spent a long, sleepless night.
Before dawn, there was a knock on his door. Max fumbled for the lamp, his head stuffy and his eyes bleary, then crawled out from under his covers wearing just his boxer shorts. He opened up to find Woody, smiling as always. ‘Looking good, Max. Can I come in?’
Max stepped aside so t
he Watcher could enter.
‘You get any sleep?’
‘I think I got half an hour just before three.’
‘Quite a good night then,’ Woody said without a hint of irony. ‘These hotel rooms kind of suck, huh?’
‘Once, I’d have loved them.’
‘Yeah, well, we’ll be back home soon. You need to get dressed.’
Max’s clothes were slung over the back of the armchair by his bed. He walked towards the chair.
‘Not those,’ Woody said. ‘You need to look like a favela kid.’ He indicated the bag he’d brought into the room. ‘Put these on. Meet us downstairs in ten minutes.’
Woody left the room, leaving Max to unpack the bag. There was an old pair of baggy jeans and a yellow Brazil football top. Old sandals and a baseball cap. The clothes were grubby and reeked of sweat. Max wondered where the Watchers had sourced them, then decided not to think too hard about that. The football top felt greasy as he pulled it on. He wore the baseball cap backwards and checked himself in the mirror. Did he look like a favela street kid? The clothes looked right, but his skin was white. He knew that there were many different skin colours in the favelas, but he was pleased to find a final item in the bag: a blue wrap, halfway between a bandana and an Arabic keffiyeh. Max wrapped it around his head so that only his eyes were exposed. In the dim light of the hotel room, he suddenly looked like a different person. He hoped the transformation would be as convincing on the streets.
He unwrapped the scarf and let it hang around his neck. Leaving the rest of his stuff where it was, he headed into the corridor. Sami was emerging from the next room. The dark smudges under his eyes told Max that his friend had slept just as poorly. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Max guessed that the average favela street kid was unlikely to look fresh and well rested. Sami was dressed like Max: in a plain green T-shirt instead of the Brazil football top, but in similar jeans and sandals and a darker blue wrap. ‘This is not my style,’ he said with characteristic seriousness.
