Dead Heat: BookShots (Book Shots)

by James Patterson

  ‘Time to come back over, Steve,’ he says. ‘We’re all waiting for you, fella. You’re scaring the shit out of us.’

  On the edge of the cliff, Steve Lewis starts to cry. He drops his head and weeps as he watches the hawks riding the thermals. His Lycra-clad ribs shake as he sobs.

  ‘Take it easy,’ I tell him.

  I move towards him and get an arm under him. It’s the point of no return. If he decides to go over the edge now, then I’m going over, too. I clasp his hand in mine, and he leans into me. We both breathe a sigh of relief. I drag him back from the precipice, and he scrambles to his feet. I put an arm around his waist and guide him back to the bamboo barrier, where his coach gets an arm around his neck and grabs a hold of him as if he’s never going to let go.

  Once I’m on the other side of the barrier, it takes me five seconds to register that Paz has gone.

  ‘She left in a hurry,’ Wilson says, as I give Steve Lewis a bear hug and tell him everything’s going to be fine. ‘She told me to tell you she was heading for Vila Cruzeiro.’

  I stop short. Vila Cruzeiro is not a good place to visit alone.

  ‘Did she say why?’

  ‘Something about her boy,’ Wilson says apologetically. ‘She seemed panicked. She wasn’t very clear.’

  I have to go. Right now. I turn back to Lewis and look him straight in the eye. I mention a name that has been rattling around my head for the last five minutes, and watch his face for a reaction. He looks at me blankly, and then slowly but surely he nods. And all of my suspicions are confirmed.

  CHAPTER 21

  I PULL OUT my mobile as I walk away from the cyclists, scrolling to Paz’s number and hitting green. A single bleep. No damn signal. There is a slow stream of traffic rolling past the Vista Chinesa, and I hold my badge aloft and head out into the road. The first car to stop is a Mercedes SUV.

  The driver – a woman in her late twenties – looks relieved that I’m a cop and not a carjacker and, within seconds, I’m powering the SUV back down the asphalt towards the city. I try Paz’s number again, but there’s still no signal. I put my foot down hard and the SUV lurches forward. I cut corners. I slam into pavements. I’m heading for a street in the Vila Cruzeiro, a slum built on a rubbish dump outside Rio de Janeiro. As I drive, I find myself thinking about Paz’s car, and the tiny holes in the foam in her passenger seat, and Felipe’s tiny fingers. Every image gets me pushing harder on the accelerator.

  Vila Cruzeiro is a grim place, full of red-brick huts holding each other up, and kids playing football in the dusty streets. Bathtubs on the roofs slowly collect rainwater for residents below. The place feels lawless, and I know I should wait for backup, but I can’t. Paz is already charging headlong into trouble and I’m her partner. I’m not waiting for anyone.

  I pass the garish Haas & Hahn block, painted in vivid carnival colours by crazy Dutch artists, then I plunge back into the redbrick and grey-slab concrete. I watch small children – the eyes and ears of the favela – receding into alleyways. If feels like the clock is already ticking.

  I cruise for two minutes before I spot Paz’s car, parked outside a dilapidated place with a barbed-wire roof and a crumbling façade. There is movement behind the grimy first-floor windows and I waste no time getting inside. I slam through the rotten wooden front door – peeling paint exploding as I kick. Pain shoots through my knee and I recall the long list of doors I’ve smashed through during my career. How easy it used to be. How worn I have become. I wonder if this will be the very last time.

  ‘Police!’

  Upstairs there is movement on bare floorboards. People moving into position. I pull my gun and take the creaking stairs two at a time. I emerge into the half light of the dirty upstairs room and find a man sitting in an easy chair. It’s Rahim Jaffari, Lucas Meyer’s psychologist. His cropped white hair and taut olive skin are unmistakable, even in the gloom.

  Jaffari is smiling because he knows I can’t shoot him. He is holding Felipe in front of him, drawing the small boy up by grabbing a fistful of his hair, using his tiny body as a human shield. His own gun is pressed against Felipe’s delicate temple.

  ‘You are the link between all of the athletes.’

  He nods, and his lips curl into a satisfied smile. I want to hammer it right off his smug face, but he’s holding a gun to Paz’s boy’s head. So I take a breath.

  ‘We knew you were Meyer’s psychologist when we took your call at the hospital. I bet you cursed your luck when you realised you were talking to a police officer. And I also know you worked with Steve Lewis, the cyclist.’

  Jaffari looks intrigued.

  ‘I found him on the side of a cliff. He told me that pressure is a button. You said the same thing, back at the Belmond hotel.’

  Jaffari gives me a concessionary nod, before relaxing back into his chair, pulling Felipe with him. The boy looks drugged and docile.

  ‘Well, I’ve got bad news for you. Lewis didn’t jump. I talked him down. Whatever you’ve been doing, he will testify against you. I’ll see to that.’

  I catch a glimpse of Paz in the shadows. Her face looks bruised, but her eyes are burning with anger. She’s not interested in people testifying against Rahim Jaffari. She wants him to die, today, in this room. I look back at how he’s holding Felipe by the hair, and part of me hopes that Paz gets her way.

  ‘If I was a betting man,’ I tell Jaffari, ‘I would lay money on the telephone number we found in Gilmore’s apartment and Zou’s place being yours.’

  He smiles again, glances at a handset on the table next to him and presses a finger to his lips. I pull out my own mobile and dial. We both watch the phone on the table, but nothing happens.

  ‘It’s turned off, smart guy,’ Jaffari says smugly. ‘I don’t want your friends tracing it.’

  I shove my phone back into my pocket and look at the small boy Jaffari is holding in front of him. The boy who calls me Uncle Rafa. Behind Paz, I can see the red dot of a recording camera in the darkness.

  ‘Tell me what you’ve done.’

  Jaffari shrugs.

  ‘It will go in your favour.’

  He laughs.

  ‘Nothing will go in my favour,’ he says. ‘But I’ll tell you anyway. I need to tell you, because the world needs to know. That’s why I’ve done it.’

  ‘You killed four athletes,’ I prompt.

  ‘No. They killed themselves. I just told them that they should.’

  I’m struggling to see the difference.

  ‘Ever hear of Abu Ghraib prison?’ he asks, and his tone is that of a man settling in for the long haul. ‘I grew up in Iraq, and when the war came – when the Americans came – my brother was dragged off to Abu Ghraib. Back then, I had never heard of the place, either. Now everyone in Iraq knows the name. They tortured people there. They tortured my brother. They broke his bones. They electrocuted him three times. They raped him. And then they went back to their wives and their children, like heroes.’

  Jaffari is still calm, but his voice has turned ice-cold.

  ‘I wanted to know how any person could do that. Especially to my brother, who was a good man. So I studied psychology and psychiatry. First in Baghdad, and then in Lisbon. I began to practise. I wanted to learn about the evils people will do under pressure.’

  ‘And it’s all led to this?’

  I push him, even though I’m not sure what this is.

  ‘These are the world’s strongest athletes,’ Jaffari says. ‘They are the pinnacle of human achievement. They run faster, throw further, jump higher. They are the perfect experiment. They are the very best of humanity, waiting to be corrupted.’

  I say nothing.

  ‘Meyer was the first. His coach approached me with his problems. Don’t weep too hard for Meyer, Detective Carvalho. He was a big man, but he liked little girls.’

  I have no reason to doubt Jaffari.

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘Over time, Meyer’s coach recommended me to other athletes
. I began to collect them. Not all of them were susceptible, but I wanted to prove that I could force normal people to do terrible things. Just like the Americans did in Abu Ghraib. Just like the Nazis at Auschwitz. This week I’ve pushed the button and sent them off on their missions. Throw your javelin through the heart of the President. Kill yourself with drugs. Shoot the athlete you’re secretly having an affair with. Or wait for them to shoot you.’

  He looks particularly satisfied with this last accomplishment, and his eyes glint nastily from behind Felipe’s slumped torso.

  ‘What have Carvalho and I got to do with it?’ Paz asks angrily from the shadows. ‘What has Felipe got to do with it?’

  ‘This is a lifetime’s work. Universities will not sanction this kind of research. There is no other way for me to prove to the world that people are so easily manipulated. Think of the implications. This will help us to understand how terrorists convince suicide bombers to blow themselves up. How armies control their soldiers. How state atrocities are performed. The world needs to see my research. And you came very close to ruining everything. Too close to my athletes.’

  ‘Not really,’ Paz says. ‘They’re all dead.’

  Jaffari smiles again.

  ‘So how did you do it?’ I ask him. ‘How did you convince them to sacrifice themselves?’

  His cold eyes flick back to me.

  ‘Simple. I made it their best option. Everyone has a weak spot. Take Paz, for example. For Paz, her weakness is her son. This is why Paz is going to shoot you. Right now. Right between the eyes. Because if she doesn’t, I’ll shoot little Felipe here.’

  The words hang heavy in the air for a moment.

  ‘You see, she likes you. But she likes Felipe more. Just like I said before, pressure is a button. And I just pressed it.’

  CHAPTER 22

  PAZ’S ANGER TURNS to horror, but as Jaffari pushes his gun hard against her son’s head, she lifts her own weapon and points it slowly towards me. Buying time, maybe. In the shadows she lifts herself to her feet and, despite everything, I’m forced to cover her with my own gun. I have spent a lifetime on some of the world’s most dangerous streets. There’s a reason that I’m still here. I play the game pretty simply: if someone points a gun at me, I point mine right back at them. Even if it’s Paz. I watch her down the barrel. She’s like a marionette, fighting against her own strings. Every move is laboured, reluctant and inevitable.

  ‘Drop your weapon,’ Jaffari tells me. ‘You’re spoiling all the fun. Drop it now, or I will kill the boy.’

  I have no choice. I lower my gun to my side and reluctantly drop it onto the wooden floor.

  ‘You are one twisted son of a bitch,’ I tell Jaffari, as Paz walks from the shadows into the gloomy light. Her eyes are suddenly dull and lifeless, submitting to the task ahead.

  ‘Science is everything,’ Jaffari says, ‘and pressure is just a button. Paz shoots you, or I shoot the boy. There’s the pressure. You know she’s going to do it, Carvalho. What choice does she have? She’s a cog in a system, just like the soldiers at Abu Ghraib. Soon people will understand the human machine, and the people who can manipulate us into doing terrible things.’

  I realise that Jaffari is no longer talking to me, but delivering a sermon to the camera. The tiny red dot is still glowing in the dark, filming over Paz’s shoulder.

  ‘You have become the exact thing you are fighting against,’ I tell him. ‘A perversion of your original idea. You are enjoying this power. The thrill has corrupted you. Don’t you see the irony? You might as well be working in Abu Ghraib. You’re an insult to your brother’s memory.’

  Angering Jaffari is my only chance to change the game. If I can goad him into pointing his gun at me, even for a split second, we will win. If Jaffari moves his gun just an inch away from Felipe’s head, Paz will not hesitate to end this thing. However, Jaffari stays calm, and I can’t get a rise out of him.

  ‘People will understand,’ he continues. ‘A bit of psychology, some precise hypnosis and a little neurolinguistic programming, and someone like me can make an average person do almost anything. Even the greatest athletes in the world can have instructions embedded in their minds.’

  ‘Kill-codes,’ Paz says, staring at me over her gun.

  ‘Well, here’s the thing,’ I tell Jaffari as Paz walks slowly towards me. ‘I don’t think you understand people at all.’

  I stare straight into the psychologist’s eyes, and for a brief second he looks unsettled. Then Paz steps between us, her gun trained on my head. As she moves closer with her arms stretched out, pointing her weapon at me, I can see Jaffari staring over her shoulder with the faintest trace of doubt registering across his olive features.

  With good reason.

  With her back turned on her tormentor, Paz’s dull eyes light up. They burn with cold fury, and although I don’t know what she is planning, I am certain that we’re on the same side. Just like always. As she reaches me, she lets go of the butt and lets the weight of the gun rotate it around her finger.

  In the distance, sirens sound and Jaffari’s composure fades. It takes him about a second to realise that I never called the mobile phone on the table. I phoned for backup. Now the GPS in my phone is guiding the cavalry home. His chair scrapes on the rough wooden floor and he pushes himself to his feet, dragging Felipe with him like a shield.

  ‘Have some pressure of your own,’ I tell him, and his face contorts with rage.

  I look back at Paz, who looks me in the eye and mouths, ‘Don’t miss.’

  I reach forward and take the primed gun from my partner, her body shielding the transaction from Jaffari’s view. When I have it in my hands, Paz spins to one side and I get a split-second view of Jaffari. I could aim straight for his eye, poking out an inch to the side of Felipe’s head. But no matter how hard I try, the psychological pressure of avoiding Felipe will almost certainly force me wide of the mark. However, height is on my side. Rahim Jaffari is nearly six feet tall, and Felipe is a small boy. I look down and see that everything from Jaffari’s knees down is completely exposed. I don’t think. I just shoot twice, and splinter both of his shins.

  Jaffari’s legs fail and he topples backwards, his arms flailing in an attempt to regain some control over gravity. His pistol comes away from Felipe’s temple and I charge towards him, smashing the gun out of his unsteady hand. I hear the metal thump onto the wooden floor and skid into the dark corner where the video camera is still recording.

  Despite his mangled legs, Jaffari is strong. He has one arm snaked around Felipe’s neck and, as I get in close, he punches me hard in the side of the head. For a split second the scene goes black, and then my brain reboots and I see Paz diving between the psychologist and me. She times it badly and flies head-first into another of Jaffari’s swinging punches. I hear the dull thud of the impact and see Paz drop to the ground, unconscious long before her body hits the floor. I aim Paz’s gun, but the wreckage of her, her son and the psychologist is strewn across the floor. I can’t get a straight shot at Jaffari without the chance that I’ll hit Paz or Felipe in the process. Jaffari makes the most of my hesitation, scrabbling forward and seizing my wrist with both hands. I let the gun go, and it flies off into the shadows. It’s a better option that holding on and accidentally shooting Felipe.

  With mother and child lying unconscious on the floor, it’s just Jaffari and me. I punch him hard in the head with my free hand, connecting close to his eye and feeling him lurch backwards. He lets go of my wrist and falls back to the floor, his mangled legs pumping arterial blood across the dusty boards. In the half light it looks black, as if I’ve struck oil. But the slow inevitability of his death is not enough for me. My anger betrays my good sense, and I fall to the floor and grab him by the neck. I have a primal urge to squeeze the life out of him, to crush the wicked, unrepentant malice from his body until it is entirely extinguished from the world. Outside, the sirens are getting closer, but I don’t want the reinforcements to arrive. I want a l
ong moment between us, so that I see him suffer the same fate as those young, bright athletes he chose to snuff out on a whim.

  It’s a mistake, of course. Even as I do it, Jaffari reaches forward, gets a grip on my neck and crushes me just as hard as I am crushing him. We grapple and twist like eels in the black blood, each of us clawing our nails into the other man’s neck to counteract the slickness of Jaffari’s bleeding. My head feels light as he grips like steel across my windpipe. Jaffari is a dying man and it’s his last spiteful hope that he can take me with him. Suddenly, as the room begins to spin, it all stops. There are two fearsome bangs and I know at once what has happened. Paz has regained consciousness and found her gun. Both shots have hit Jaffari in the forehead, just inches from my fingers, and suddenly it is only my grip around his neck that is keeping him upright. I let go and he falls back on himself, his body twisted and his head lolling unnaturally to one side.

  Paz ignores her own handiwork, stepping over Jaffari to reach Felipe. She scoops up his tiny body from the floor and pulls him into an embrace. As the room settles and my hearing begins to return, it’s apparent that she’s sobbing. I want to reach her, but before I make it back onto my feet, I hear the tactical team thundering up the stairs and spilling out into the room all around us. And, just like that, the whole thing is over.

  CHAPTER 23

  A YOUNG GIRL is staring at me from across the street as I sit outside Casas Pedro. The girl’s mother follows her gaze and sees that she’s staring at the fearsome black bruising around my neck – the parting gift of a dying man. The woman takes her daughter’s hand and pulls her along the street, although the child glances back over her shoulder a couple of times as she goes. I don’t care about the bruising. The sun is shining and I am happy. I’m eating fried cheese rolls and a fatty pork feijoada stew, and opposite me Paz is eating the same.