The Rhythm Section--A Stephanie Patrick Thriller

by Mark Burnell

  When the doors parted, there were people waiting. She stepped out and walked past them, not looking back. Move confidently, don’t draw attention to yourself. The lobby seemed larger. The American tourists were still there, pink-faced and slack-bellied, bewildering their guide. Outside, the heat was a slap in the face. A man in uniform asked if she wanted a taxi. She brushed past him, turning right. A few yards on, there was a door leading to the underground car park. The lift was out of service so she took the stairs.

  She reached Level Four. The heat was worse than outside, incredible, hotter than anything she had experienced so far. The smell of evaporated fuel and exhaust fumes was overpowering. She heard voices and withdrew the Beretta from the shoulder bag.

  How long would it take for the panic to spread? How many people had heard the shooting? By now, those she had ejected from the lift were doubtless on the phone. From there to hotel security to the police, how long would it be before the hotel was sealed?

  She moved out from the passage connecting the stairs to the level. The ceiling was low, and was made lower by a chaotic grid of pipes which were hanging from it, many of which seemed to be leaking. She tiptoed through stagnant puddles of oily water. Voices echoed but their owners were invisible to her.

  The black Omega was parked by a pillar. She knelt on the ground and examined the underside but saw nothing out of place, so she climbed inside, fastened her seat-belt and turned the ignition. She drove slowly towards the barrier, her ticket on the passenger seat. She kept the passenger window a third open. As the attendant raised his hand to halt her, she heard the squeal of tires on smooth, painted concrete. She looked round but saw nothing. The attendant waved her through. She turned right and headed up the ramp, fumbling with the dashboard, trying to find her headlights. Instead, she activated the windscreen wipers. When she reached ground level, she powered the engine, accelerating past three parked coaches outside the hotel’s entrance. She reached Avenida Niemeyer and began to turn right, wanting to return to Leblon as quickly as possible.

  Normally, Avenida Niemeyer is a two-way road but not during rush-hour. Rio de Janeiro’s legendary traffic had prompted the authorities to take drastic action to alleviate the worst of the congestion. One of their solutions had been to turn Avenida Niemeyer into a one-way road heading into town during the morning rush-hour, and a one-way road heading out of town during the evening rush-hour. Ignorant of this, Petra had planned to barge into the nearest lane for Leblon. As she began to turn, she saw two lanes of traffic coming straight at her. She pounded the brake and yanked the wheel. The car skidded. A white Volkswagen swerved to avoid her and mounted the kerb. A rusting blue Ford drove into the back of the Omega.

  Tires screeched, horns blared, fists shook. The driver of the Ford opened his door. There was no time for civility. Any moment now, the alarm would be raised in the hotel. Perhaps it already had been. Running the steering-wheel through her hands, she reversed into the side of a purple Fiat, went forward to the rock face at the road’s edge and then reversed into the Fiat again. The startled policeman in the booth on the central island was now striding towards her, his hand heading for the holster on his hip. Her brutal three-point turn accomplished, Petra engaged first gear, spun the wheel and crushed the accelerator to the floor.

  Moving up through the gears, she glanced in the rear-view mirror. The policeman had his gun out but his attention was distracted by the fury of the drivers she had left behind. Petra knew that somebody would have made a note of the number plate. She needed to dump the vehicle as quickly as possible. The dented boot and bonnet would only make it easier to identify. The twisting road began to descend. Petra saw São Conrado beach ahead, curving for a mile. The road broadened as she sped past the Inter-Continental and the empty, cylindrical, glass tower of the Nacional. She got stuck behind a local bus. Hopelessly overcrowded and with its suspension shot to pieces, it leaned to one side, limping more than motoring. The road started to curve to the left when Petra caught a glimpse of a Retorno sign on the right. She braked as fiercely as possible and swung right, clipping the kerb and narrowly avoiding a blur of pedestrians. She just made the Retorno slip-road, which rose to join the dual carriageway heading into the tunnel back to Leblon.

  Only now did she become aware of how violently she was shaking. Every muscle seemed to quiver. She checked her mirrors constantly, half-expecting the chilling siren of a pursuing police car. She cursed herself for taking the wrong turn out of the hotel. Had she driven a little slower, she would have had time to see the change in traffic direction. But under the circumstances, driving slower would have seemed like an invitation for trouble. Another check in the rear-view mirror and there were still no police behind her. She spied dirty light at the end of the tunnel and began to feel calmer. Once she was through it, she had an entire city to lose herself in.

  * * *

  Petra watched the pink water circle the plug-hole before slipping down it. Then she clutched her right side with her right hand, letting the water rinse her skin before she turned off the shower. By the basin, the contents of her medical kit were laid out on a paper towel. She disinfected the cut, which stung, and then, squeezing the two walls of the wound together, applied the butterfly sutures as well as she could. She knew she had been lucky. The bullet had grazed her close to the bottom rib. She didn’t know whether the rib itself was damaged—the whole area was painful—but a few inches the wrong way and the bullet could have proved fatal.

  She wrapped a towel around her body and walked into the bedroom. The air-conditioning kept the temperature cool and the sealed windows kept the noise of the street muted. Although by no means a smart establishment, the Hotel Plaza on Rua Joana Angélica, between Rua Visconde de Pirajá and Rua Prudente de Morais, was far more comfortable than the hotel in Copacabana where she had spent the three previous nights. But then Marina Gaudenzi had a more comfortable lifestyle than Susan Branch.

  Susan Branch was a mature student at New York University, who was on a four-day visit to Rio for the wedding of an old friend of hers. Marina Gaudenzi was Swiss, a native of Geneva, and she was in Rio on business for one night only. That night had been last night.

  As Susan Branch, Petra had flown into Rio on a United flight—the cheapest available—from New York. Apart from the absence of a wedding to attend, she had existed in the city as Susan Branch until her meeting with Ferreira. Marina Gaudenzi had been established by someone else—a courier she had never met—and she had arrived in Rio late the previous evening from Buenos Aires. She had gone straight to bed and then left the hotel early in the morning after a breakfast delivered by Room Service. Petra wondered where she was now.

  The courier had left some money—reis and dollars—and all Marina Gaudenzi’s documents in an inner pocket of the suitcase, which was secured by a numbered padlock. Petra knew the number. On the desk, the courier had also left some of her faked business correspondence. Her air-ticket showed the itinerary: Geneva-Buenos Aires-Rio de Janeiro-London-Geneva. A week from start to finish, although the final section would never be used.

  Having driven through the tunnel back into Leblon, Petra had needed to dump the damaged car quickly. She had been glad it was dark, the evening offering cover despite the street lights. She’d parked in Rua General Venáncio Flores, placed the shoulder bag containing the guns in the boot, and then walked the short distance to the Hotel Plaza. As she’d entered the hotel, she’d draped the dark green—and slightly stained—beach towel over her right shoulder to cover the wet wound on her side.

  Now, she examined the clothes on the bed. A white silk blouse, a navy jacket, pressed Armani trousers. There was a pair of oval Calvin Klein glasses to complete the effect. Susan Branch had been a jeans and T-shirt girl, whereas Marina Gaudenzi was a serious European professional.

  * * *

  Petra sat in the back of the car, peering out of the window as they cruised along Avenida Brasil. The driver had given up trying to make small-talk to her with his limited Engl
ish.

  The zona norte was mostly industrial. By the side of the multi-laned highway there were pockets of habitation between large crumbling factories. Ramshackle housing had grown up around the manufacturing plants as randomly as the weeds. Dead cars rusted to dust beside make-believe kerbs. Children slept beneath the billboards promoting Chevrolets and Brahma beer.

  They crossed the bridge to Ilha do Governador and Galeão, Rio’s international airport. It was cool inside the departures terminal, but crowded; the great majority of flights to Europe and North America left during a four-hour period at night. Also, Brazilians tended to come in numbers to bid farewell to their travelling relatives or friends. Petra felt the congestion would work to her advantage.

  She walked slowly through the terminal for a second time to confirm what she had suspected the first time; there were more officials around the United desks than anywhere else. Police and airport security hung back from the desks themselves, waiting for some signal from airline staff, who had presumably been briefed. Susan Branch was due to return to New York that night. Marin was dead but his operation was not; somebody had told the police who to look out for because they could not have made the connection themselves. Arriving at the Sheraton reception desk, she had been careful not to use her name. Or rather, the name of Susan Branch.

  As Marina Gaudenzi, Petra checked in at the Varig Executive Class desk and then got in line for Immigration. The official in the booth took his time, poring over her Swiss passport and the Immigration counterfoil the courier had retained the previous evening on arrival from Buenos Aires. Once through, Petra ignored the private lounge that was available to her, preferring to keep moving until her flight was called. Through the terminal windows, she saw her Varig MD-11 parked outside, the gantry attached to the aircraft like a vast umbilical cord. She drifted through the duty-free shops and past the stalls selling easy-to-carry packs of Brazilian coffee and three-bottle boxes of cachaça.

  The United flight to New York was delayed for an hour. Petra was not surprised. Then more delays were announced, including her Varig flight to London, also by one hour. Most of the other flights, however, were getting away on time and, as the night’s quota of departures neared completion, the number of passengers cruising the concourse began to diminish.

  At quarter-to-midnight, her flight was finally called. A stewardess took her boarding pass and showed her to seat 9L. As the other passengers boarded, she read a copy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine. Out of her window, she could see the New York-bound United 747 at the next-door gate. Even when her own flight rolled back from the stand, she remained tense, a part of her still expecting the aircraft to be recalled. It was a sensation that persisted as they taxied to the runway and which was only lifted as the wheels of the MD-11 lost touch with the ground.

  Her face pressed to the window, she watched the sparkling lights of Rio de Janeiro vanish beneath her.

  * * *

  No longer the robot, Petra panicked. She opened her eyes. The wound in her side hurt but the pain in her head was worse. There was darkness and noise; it took her a moment to remember where she was. Both hands were clamped tight to the arm-rests, her entire body tensed to rigidity. She forced herself to deepen each breath, to slow the rate. As her eyes grew accustomed to the half-light, she looked around. The cabin was virtually empty; she was the only passenger in row 9.

  Aware of creeping wetness around her ribs, Petra found the small medical kit that she had put in her hand-luggage and went to the washroom. She unbuttoned her white silk blouse. There were bloodstains on the garment. She peeled off the covering plaster and saw the sutures had not fastened the wound properly. She wiped away the blood, dried the area and covered it with fresh plasters.

  Looking in the mirror, she saw herself as she really was, not as she was programmed to be; a scared and confused fraud. For a few seconds, she was not Petra Reuter. She was Stephanie again. And when she closed her eyes she saw Marin crying, she saw Ferreira falling, she felt the weight of a gun in her hand. When she opened her eyes again, she didn’t recognize the pupils which stared back at her from the mirror.

  In the galley, she found a stewardess and asked for coffee. Curled into a ball in her seat, she raised the blind a little and daylight spilled into her lap. She marvelled at the sky, at the curvature of the horizon where sapphire turned to purple then black, and at the first fiery tongues of sun.

  When it came, the coffee was strong and sweet.

  16

  At Heathrow, Petra cleared Customs and made her call from a pay-phone. A familiar and comforting voice answered. ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s…’ Who was she to him? It took a moment to remember. ‘It’s Stephanie.’

  ‘Ah, yes. And how are you?’

  ‘That’s what I want you to tell me. Can I come now?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Heathrow.’

  ‘Yes, all right. I’ll expect you in an hour, then.’

  She took the Underground and sat with her head against the dirty window, watching the suburbs of west London slip by. The doubt persisted. What had gone wrong? Why had Marin suddenly turned the gun on her? On account of Mechelen? Unlikely. After all, Alexander—masquerading as Petra—had contacted Marin, not the other way around. Perhaps she had made some mistake that had betrayed her. She tried to remember her conversation with Marin but found she could only recall inconsequential fragments.

  Marin had been a monster, it was true, a man responsible for more deaths than could reasonably be calculated. But he had been a husband, too. Thrice over, in fact. He’d also been a father of five. And what of Ferreira? Was he also a husband and father? If not, he had still been a son and, maybe, a brother. Grief was a chain reaction and through Marin and Ferreira, Petra had touched the lives of many.

  She felt suspended between two different states; the woman she had once been and the woman she was supposed to be now. In Rio, she had been Petra. Now, if only temporarily, she felt she was Stephanie again; confused, isolated, vulnerable—not things one would have associated with Petra. What alarmed her the most was how easily she had been the other woman, how natural it had felt. Her reactions had been automatic, correct and clinical, just as Boyd had taught her, just as Alexander demanded of her. It was only now, in the aftermath, that she felt the effect of her actions. The narrowness of the margin of her escape chilled the part of her that was Stephanie just as surely as it thrilled the part of her that was Petra.

  At Green Park, she changed from the Piccadilly Line to the Jubilee Line, which took her to Bond Street. From there, she walked to George Street. Dr Brian Rutherford welcomed her warmly, as usual. A lean man, with salt and pepper hair and a sallow complexion, he was wearing a heavy tweed suit, the sort of ill-fitting garment so beloved of British films from the Fifties. He led her through to his surgery where she stripped from the waist up.

  Her sutures prompted raised eyebrows. ‘Who did these?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. I’d hate to think a fellow professional was responsible, no matter what part of the world they came from.’

  ‘That bad, are they?’

  ‘For a novice, they could be worse. Especially considering the awkward angle. But they’ll have to come out.’

  ‘I thought as much.’

  Rutherford straightened himself. ‘I need to know where you’ve been.’

  ‘Brazil.’

  ‘The Amazon?’

  ‘No. Rio.’

  He reopened the cut, disinfected it thoroughly with antiseptic and then re-sealed it neatly with new sutures. Then he checked the bruising around her ribs.

  ‘You’ll be fine. You’ve got nothing broken. The bruising will start to go down in a day or two. I’m going to give you some antibiotics for the wound. Make sure you finish them. Do you need painkillers?’

  Stephanie fastened her bra. ‘Nothing too strong.’

  Rutherford nodded and then glanced at the scar on her left shoulder. ‘That’s come out ni
cely, I must say. Very realistic.’

  * * *

  Mechelen. What a sad catalogue of errors that had been: a consignment of firearms destined for Belfast; a surveillance operation that had been corrupted; tarnished information sold at a price; an armed gang who thought they were intercepting cocaine, who thought they were on the verge of the easiest score of their criminal lives. The plan had been simple enough: when the lorry reached the warehouse in Mechelen, they would deal with the single, unsuspecting driver—the gang believed he was unaware of the illegal cargo hidden among the TVs and VCRs—and then drive the lorry to a rendezvous outside the town where all the merchandise would be transferred to a vehicle of their own. The French police officer who had sold them the information had assured them that the cocaine was stored inside the VCRs themselves, in the slots that held the tapes.

  The gang had executed six successful armed robberies in Belgium over four years. Originally a quartet, they were now a trio and of the three, Anna Gerets was the only one who survived Mechelen. As it turned out, the driver of the lorry, far from being naïve about his cargo, was armed and had an accomplice, who shot Guy, Anna’s boyfriend. So she shot the accomplice. That was when the Belgian police, who had assumed control of the surveillance from the French police, intervened. During the shoot-out that followed, Jean, the third member of the gang, and the driver were shot dead, along with one police officer, while another four were injured. Anna escaped through the back of the warehouse, but not before she had been shot through the left shoulder.

  A fortnight later, the French policeman who had sold the information was dead. An apparent suicide, it seemed he knew the investigators were closing in on him and couldn’t face the consequences. A week after that, Anna Gerets drowned. It was not witnessed. Her body sank in the Channel, unnoticed and unmourned. As far as the police were concerned, however, she was still at large.