“Merda!” Irma says. “They’re actually going to move the body.”
The other cops help him roll up the corpse.
“Let’s go, now! You need to forget what you saw here tonight, Americano. For the safety of both of us. Now come on, let’s get out of here before he sees my car. Give me the revolver. I’ll take you back to your hotel.”
• Leave the slum.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Kick the Hornets
You scramble for something—anything—you can use to defend yourself from these pirates. A water hose? No, that won’t do. A fire extinguisher? Maybe, but the reach is pretty short. A flagpole? It’s about twice as long and thick as a broomstick. That might work.
Without any hint of irony, you remove the Brazilian flag and turn back to bash one of the pirates with the flagpole just as he makes it above the ship’s side. You connect cleanly to the side of his head, sending the dazed man tumbling down into the river.
Now the other passengers are awake and come to see the source of the commotion. The boat’s cook arrives with a kitchen knife held defensively, but clearly he’s too frightened to help. Families hide behind the fathers, who in turn press back against their families. Looks like you’re on your own.
You ready the flagpole for another strike just as two more angry pirates pop up with AK-47s aimed right at you. Uh-oh.
The passengers scream and hide as the two pirates blast apart the Brazilian flag and the brave tourist holding it.
THE END
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (In No Particular Order)
The revolver kicks back in your hands as the bullet explodes from its casing in a deafening echo. With trained proficiency, Irma, Lucio, and the two policemen all draw their weapons and take fire. In the span of three short seconds, a total of eighteen shots are fired and the three men lie dead. You can’t be sure if the fatal shots were yours, Irma’s, or a combination, but the outcome is the same.
Three cops are dead, and though the two of you are unscathed, you’re responsible. Irma turns toward you, but instead of terror on her face it’s a look you can’t quite place.
She grabs you in a firm embrace, kissing you deeply and passionately, perhaps beyond what’s merited for having just escaped death. “They were going to kill us,” she says, panting as she pulls away.
“What do we do now?”
She steps forward into the alley with the burnt corpse and the three fresh ones. Without a word, she takes a gasoline can and pours it over the bodies. Taking a lighter from one of the dead cops, she sets all three of them ablaze.
“Never speak of this again,” she says. “For our own safety, we cannot report them. Who knows what friends they have in the department?”
You nod your understanding.
“Give me the revolver. I’ll take you back to your hotel.”
• Return to the hotel.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
A Key Piece of Information
Irma takes a step back when she hears his answer. She’s dumbfounded. Her mouth hangs open and her eyes glitter with discovery.
“What? What did he say?” you practically shout.
“He says ‘no.’”
That doesn’t make any sense. “No? No what?”
“She didn’t owe any money. She didn’t deal in drugs,” Irma says, her voice breathless. “No one has ever heard of her, he’s sure of it. It’s all they’ve been talking about—he says one of his friends knows one of the guys who pulled the trigger and he’s certain that they never heard of her before the night she was killed.”
“But that would mean….”
“It was a hit.”
Jane Nightingale was targeted specifically…she was assassinated. But why? Who? “Who ordered the hit? Does he know? What’s the name of the killer? If we can bring that guy in…”
The drug trafficker is already shaking his head. Detective Dos Santos asks, but he just shakes his head more firmly. “He says he cannot, no matter how much you pay him. They will kill him.”
“Please!” you shout.
He shakes his head, raises three fingers, then opens his hand to receive his reward.
• Pay him the $R300. Then catch up to Agent Danly.
• Tell him his reward awaits him in heaven, then head out.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Knock, Knock
Viktor steps to one side of the doorway and you to the other. The unspoken hope you share is that police or drug traffickers might look inside, think the room was empty, and continue on their way. No such luck.
An Elite Squad member steps over the threshold of the doorway and is met by the unpleasant surprise of both of you bashing the butts of your weapons against his face. That was completely reactionary and unplanned, but it works splendidly.
The man crumples in a heap on the floor.
“Cover me,” Viktor says.
The policeman wears protective body armor and is clad in black, much like the US SWAT teams. Viktor stoops and drags the body away from the door into the room proper. You point your sub-machinegun into the open air, silently praying this man was alone.
“Should we run?”
“I’ve got an idea,” Viktor replies. “I’ll get in his uniform, then escort you out as my prisoner.”
“Why do I have to be the prisoner?”
“Because I’m the Brasileiro. You can’t pretend to be a Portuguese-speaking cop.”
• “Ummm, let’s just run.”
• “I’ll stay at the door, hurry up and get changed!”
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
A Long-Awaited Discovery
“You don’t know?” she says, not without a little indignation. “The professor had finally cracked cellulosic ethanol—the Holy Grail of biofuel production.”
“Could you put that in layman’s terms?”
“Sure. Right now ethanol exists only as a corn-based product in the US or a sugarcane-based fuel here in Brazil. It requires a rich, sugary pulp to be produced. But with cellulosic ethanol, you can use any plant—even plant waste—to produce ethanol. This would be a total game changer. Think about it; instead of harvesting food plants for fuel, you could feed the world and then use the leftovers—corn stalks, what-have-you, as the base for ethanol.”
“Which, if the technology was yours, would make BP a fortune.”
“It will make whoever gets it a fortune. Of course we want it! We’ve admittedly had some PR problems in the past and we’re striving to get away from that and do real good in the world. If we could solve world hunger and the energy crisis in one fell swoop, well, I’m sure you can imagine—that would change the world.”
You can imagine indeed. That technology would make a company billions of dollars; they’d become the world’s number one energy and food producer overnight.
• “Do you know why he was blacklisted? Did BP have anything to do with it?”
• “Tell me more about BP’s ethanol developments.”
• “Thank you for your time, Marilyn. Would you mind calling Agent Bertram?”
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
The Long Night
You scuttle across the street, hurrying to get away from your pursuers. A surge of fresh panic rushes over you as you realize the door to the hostel is barred and locked. Irma feverishly shouts through the porthole and rattles the bars. A short, potbellied man with thin grey hair peeks out cautiously from within.
You remove what money you have left and shake it at him like you’re bargaining for your life; which, in a sense, you are. He comes forward and lets you in, God bless him. Irma thanks him profusely, kissing both sides of his face over and over, which gets a smile from the innkeeper.
Irma looks back to you with tears of joy welling up in her eyes and a large smile parting her red lips. She negotiates the price for a room, then takes a key from the man, thanks him again and leads you upstairs.
The room is small, the floor is tiled instead of carpeted, and there’s nothing more than a bed in the cente
r, a floor lamp in one corner, and a faux plant in the other. A sliding door leads to a balcony, but neither of you are considering taking a stroll outside. Irma sits down on the bed, the mattress creaking in response, and lets out a long-overdue sigh.
Muffled gunshots continue from the streets beyond the hostel.
She runs her palms across the thighs of her jeans, her breasts swaying against her yellow soccer jersey, and finally looks up at you. “I’ll get you back to your hotel before Agent Danly suspects you’re gone, but we’re staying here until Elite Squad finishes their operation and the drug traffickers go back into hiding.”
You step over to the window and part the curtain slightly. An Elite Squad member combs the street below, moving in tactical fashion.
“That might be a while…” you say.
She rises from the bed and blinks at you through long lashes. “With all that’s happened tonight, I don’t know that I can sleep.”
• “I’ll just rest my eyes for a moment, if you don’t mind. Then you can take me to the hotel when it’s safe.”
• Take her in your arms and kiss her passionately.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
The Low Road
“Fuck that,” Bertram says.
“I’m with him,” Maria adds. “They will kill us.”
But when the first of the grileiros arrive, you make a show of throwing down your shotgun and raising your hands in surrender, and your companions have no choice but to do the same thing if they want you to live. Luckily for you, they do. Further compounding your luck, the grileiros don’t kill you.
Instead, the men escort you at gunpoint to their waiting truck. They say something in Portuguese as you load up, then start the engine and drive down the road.
“He’s here?” Maria asks Bertram in response to the threat from the men.
“Apparently,” he says.
“Who?” you ask.
“The Sugar King. And he’d like to meet us, alive.”
Must be your lucky day.
* * *
You half-expected something out of the pre-Civil War Southern states, like a giant manor from Gone With the Wind, but you’re greeted with a much more utilitarian structure. This isn’t a place where people live, it’s a place where people work.
Still, it’s a massive set of buildings. A cafeteria, several barracks for workers, washing and refining stations, and of course, the main house of the plantation.
“Hang on,” Bertram says to you. “Do you think Maria should come? This man has done terrible things to her family.”
“I can hear you, and I’m coming,” she says firmly.
“Hmmm. I don’t know….” you say, considering.
“No, I’m coming. This man is the devil.”
• “Okay… Just so long as you’re ready to meet him.”
• “Which is why I don’t want to put you through hell. I’m sorry, but I agree. We’ll take care of it; you stay here.”
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Lucky Strike
With one final burst of energy, you take out the man’s legs with your shoulders, chopping him down at the knees in a football tackle. It’s not difficult; he’s thin, and he certainly wasn’t expecting that. Irma goes with your move and draws on him as gunshots ring out, but not from his AK.
There’s another shooter, up on the rooftop. He’s tall, well-built, his black hair close-cropped like a combat soldier’s. Clean-shaven, but there’s a thick scar along the front of his chin like you’d expect to see on someone who flew over the handlebar of a motorcycle. He wears aviator-style shooting-range glasses and his face is as pale as a skull sun-bleached in the desert. He wears all black—combat boots, tactical cargo pants, a vest to match, and skin-tight long-sleeved under-armor. He has dual-silenced handguns pointed at you and he wears motorcycle gloves.
In short, he’s terrifying.
He fires with both weapons simultaneously, but hasn’t gotten a clean shot with all the movement. You’re not certain, but it looks like he’s firing at all three of you, like he’s targeting each of you at the same time with computer precision, à la The Terminator.
Irma returns fire with her handgun and the man you tackled takes the opportunity to flee down the alley, leaving the AK-47 on the ground behind him. The Man in Black on the rooftop ducks behind cover and out of sight, but Irma keeps firing just in case. You run down the alley after the suspect, as much trying to catch him as you are trying to distance yourself from the rooftop assassin.
There’s still a deep burning in your chest from where the rifle barrel struck home, and your breath is labored. The suspect pulls away, expanding the distance between you. Looking back over your shoulder, you see Irma catching up to you.
You come to a tee intersection as the alley dead-ends. The suspect flees to the right. Irma points to the left. “Jamanta,” she huffs. “This way; we must run away. That man—the assassin—Jamanta. He will kill us.”
Her eyes are distended with terror.
• Ignore her. Pursue the suspect!
• Trust her instincts. Flee the scene.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
The MacGuffin
You hold up the USB thumbdrive with the evidence that Jane nearly died to obtain and Viktor risked everything to get hold of. All eyes go to the device.
“This was given to me by the Energy Summit Chairman,” you announce to the group. “I’m Doctor Clines and I need your help. There was a last-minute change to the program lineup and an update to the opening presentation is here.”
“Come on, quickly,” the computer technician says, waving you over.
The ruse works. You smile and move toward him as the rest of the room goes back to what it was doing.
“Cutting it down to the last minute,” the tech says.
“Yeah, I know. Thanks for your help.”
The “auto-play” window opens as the tech inserts the USB drive and double-clicks the notification to browse the contents. There’s only one file on the device.
“That must be it,” he says.
You nod. He opens the program and starts the presentation, which plays automatically.
“Dim the lights,” you request.
The computer tech signals one of his co-workers, who dims the lights in the auditorium. Watching the security feed, you see scientists, luminaries, and members of the press take their seats and focus their attention on the screen.
The first slide fades in from black and shows, “Welcome to the International Energy Summit, with keynote Speaker Dr. Viktor Lucio de Ocampo.”
There’s some grumbling from the crowd, people no doubt wondering if there’s an error in the program lineup. The brochures, of course, show a different speaker for the event.
“Imagine a world where harvesting energy and food are one and the same. Imagine a world with cellulosic ethanol: fuel based on waste. Food and energy for all,” a man says over the PA system. You recognize the voice as Viktor’s.
Then the screen flickers with distortion. You think it’s an error at first, maybe some kind of interference, but when a red line creeps across Viktor’s name on the slideshow, you realize it’s an intended effect. After his name is “crossed off,” it starts to fade away altogether.
Through the video feed monitors, you can see the astounded faces of the theater audience. All of this is being broadcast live on Brazilian television and international news outlets. The silence and rapt attention of those present says it all.
“This world could be a reality, but there are those who would keep it from you,” Viktor continues.
The screen flashes police reports and news footage of Jane Nightingale’s murder, all proclaiming Viktor as the killer and a wanted fugitive on the run. The audience is getting restless now, looking around for the authorities to see if this is some kind of hacker’s prank.
With dramatic flair, the curtain flies open and Jane and Viktor come out hand-in-hand, arms held high, Viktor with a microphone.
“Get a spotl
ight on them!” you command.
The technicians comply. The DSS security agents jam their fingers against earbud microphones, desperate for guidance.
“These two men colluded against this new world for their own personal gain! Ambassador Peter Mays was willing to kill to protect corn ethanol and Governor Mateo Ferro did the same for sugarcane!” Viktor cries, pointing out the condemned men.
A camera films their reaction, which is nothing short of fury. The men sit side-by-side, their faces red with anger. They’re shouting something, but with no microphone, are drowned by the clamor of the crowd.
The slideshow shows pictures of both men, then splashes to a scanned document ordering the young couple to be targeted as reward for their discovery. It’s signed “Peter Mays” and you recognize the Ps and Ms as matching the handwriting on the “pick me up” note.
The presentation goes back to Ambassador Mays and Governor Ferro, but now both photographs have been doctored to give these Kings their rightful crowns and scepters.
“Cut the feed!” the lead agent says.
“Don’t you dare—this is the most important moment in your life. Let it play,” you tell the tech.
“Shut it down!”
One of the agents removes a pistol to intimidate the computer technician into submission. The man looks terrified but doesn’t move. The third agent swoops in to shut the computer down himself.
“No!” you shout, blocking them with your body.
Trained and ready for resistance, the agents grab hold of you, restraining your protests and handcuffing you with ease. The agents are still trying to shut down the presentation when the door opens.
“Leave it alone!” a male voice shouts.
MURDERED: Can YOU Solve the Mystery? (Click Your Poison Book 2) Page 21
