The Games

by James Patterson

  Doctor reached into two of the tanks and lifted out two dead rats.

  He turned to show them to her. “This is the way virology works. You have to experiment on several or sometimes ten or two hundred or even thousands before you get the key.”

  Luna blinked at the dead rats. “What virus killed them?”

  Doctor seemed pleased at her interest, said, “I call her Hydra-9.”

  The fogginess cleared, and she understood somehow that she was in danger, grave danger. Luna wanted to move, to get up, but the lashes held her tight.

  A virus. Chosen.

  She fought against a growing panic. “Why am I tied up like this? And what’s the hose thing between my legs?”

  Putting the dead rats into a lift-top freezer, Castro said, “The restraints are so you don’t hurt yourself. The hose is a catheter.”

  Catheter? She felt humiliated, said, “Untie me.”

  The doctor tilted his head, said, “I can’t do that.”

  “Untie me!” she shouted. “I know when I can and can’t fulfill my needs.”

  “This isn’t about your needs. I chose you, remember, Luna?”

  A dread came around her like mist and caustic fog. She struggled against the lashes and screamed, “Help! Help!”

  “No one can hear you,” Castro said, twirling his gloved index finger, “the outer building has been soundproofed.”

  He crossed to a refrigerator, opened it, and retrieved an eight-inch stainless-steel canister fitted with a hose and nozzle. Attached perpendicularly to the base of the nozzle was a four-inch-long green canister and a pressure gauge.

  “What is that?” she asked, trying to squirm away as he came toward her with it.

  “A modified airbrush system,” he said, and he gestured at the larger canister. “This contains a propellant.”

  He pointed to the smaller one, said, “And this one contains rat blood infected with Hydra-9. I modified the airbrush so the propellant drives the blood through a series of screens inside the nozzle. Exiting under pressure, the blood will become an aerosol. Think of it like a virus cloud or fog.”

  Luna stared at him, horrified, screamed, “You can’t do this!”

  “I have to do this,” he said, fiddling with the control.

  “Please, this isn’t right!”

  “Lots of things aren’t right, Luna. Ask Antonio.”

  “You know my husband?” she choked out.

  “We’ve never met, but I’m acquainted with his work.”

  The doctor grabbed Luna by her hair. She screamed, tried to fight, but he got the nozzle in front of her face and mashed some kind of trigger.

  There was a whooshing sound. A short, sharp burst of fine pink haze blew out of the nozzle, coated her nose, lips, and eyes like sea spray.

  “No!” Luna screeched and writhed. “No!”

  Chapter 29

  ONE HOUR AND thirty-seven minutes postinfection, Luna was deteriorating rapidly. Sweating. Feverish. Borderline delirious. Dr. Castro had taken blood samples every fifteen minutes since the start of the experiment. Hydra-9 was definitely in her system, and wreaking havoc.

  With each blood sample, Castro could see evidence of the virus spreading like a flame through Luna’s major organs, leaving in its wake those nine-headed husks; the Hydra-9 infection was like a horde of insects breeding and feeding. The virus invaded cells and spun cocoons inside them that cracked to yield multiple offspring of the virus that in turn invaded more cells. And so on.

  It was an exponential assault that caused a cascading effect within the host’s system as one after another of the major organs burned out and shut down. The kidneys always seemed to be the first to go.

  Luna’s temperature had hovered around one hundred and two but now began to climb. One hundred and three point one. One hundred and three point six. One hundred and four point zero.

  Luna’s eyes were glazed. She looked over at the rat still moving in the tank and laughed madly. “You’re going to save me. That’s why you chose me, right?”

  “That would be counterproductive, Luna,” Castro replied. “I really don’t know yet what Hydra-9 does to a human in the full course of an unchecked infection.”

  “You’re insane,” she hissed weakly.

  “Actually, I’m the sanest man I know.”

  Her fever began to spike higher. One hundred and four point five. One hundred and four point seven. Luna trembled and twitched, closed her eyes.

  “Why’re you doing this?” she said, gasping.

  “Science.”

  “You said ask Antonio.”

  Castro paused, nodded. “Your husband played a significant part in the motivation behind the science. He and others stole precious things from me.”

  “Stole? Antonio? Never.”

  “Definitely.”

  “What’d he steal?”

  “My dignity,” Castro said. “And my wife.”

  Luna’s glassy, bloodshot eyes snapped open. Sweating and shaking, she gaped at Castro as if he were a fading light on a dark highway. She moved her lips, tried to form words but couldn’t. Then she arched up into a convulsion and writhed, her eyes bugging out and unseeing. As suddenly as it had started, the neurological frying ended. Luna collapsed as if deflated and died with blood seeping from her eyes and nose.

  Castro felt a pang of remorse but no regret. Luna’s death was just. It was fair. A way of restoring balance. And it served a nobler purpose. He looked to the clock and felt the remorse ebb away. Elapsed time from misting to last heartbeat: one hour, fifty-two minutes, and twenty seconds.

  “Perfect,” he said.

  Chapter 30

  Saturday, July 30, 2016

  4:20 a.m.

  TAVIA DOWNSHIFTED HER BMW and weaved in and out of traffic in the tunnel that linked Copacabana to Botafogo. The fog I’d been in at Tavia’s apartment after we got the call was long gone.

  She roared out of the tunnel and through the night toward the favelas while yelling into her cell phone’s mike, “Urso thinks he’s found the girls. Activate the response team. I’ll text the coordinates once we reach the location.”

  She hung up, still speeding and weaving, said, “Do we notify the Wises?”

  “Not until we have something to tell them,” I said.

  “The Bear said he is positive he has the place; it’s got the chimes, proximity to the train, dogs, plus one of his guys says the whole building has recently been boarded up, no activity during the day.”

  “I’d rather tell the Wises once we’ve got the girls,” I said. “Otherwise they’ll be second-guessing us at every turn.”

  “Your call,” she said and took an exit off the highway that brought us northwest of Alemão and into an area of run-down, tin-roofed structures (auto-body shops, upholsterers, tool-and-die makers), warehouses, and abandoned factories.

  We pulled over and parked.

  “We’re not far,” she said. “We’ll go the rest of the way on foot.”

  I got out. Tavia went around to the trunk, popped it, and took out two sets of body armor, two pairs of night-vision goggles, a 12-gauge Mossberg tactical shotgun, and a Beretta .380 with a short, fat sound suppressor.

  She handed me the Beretta, wrapped the shotgun in a blanket. “People might get unhappy if they saw this. Easier to hide it until we need it.”

  Tavia led us quickly through a maze of buildings. As I followed, I heard a train whistle blowing not far away. We rounded a corner. Urso stepped from the shadows.

  “Anything change?” Tavia asked, catching her breath.

  “Nada,” the Bear said. “My boys have the place locked down; you wanna hit it now?”

  Tavia looked at me, said, “Full response team is fifteen minutes away.”

  “Where are they?” I asked him.

  Urso pointed to a two-story stone structure down the block. “Used to be a cigar factory when I was a kid.”

  Dogs began barking nearby.

  “Pit bulls,” he said. “They’re
in the lumberyard beyond the cigar place.”

  “You see any activity in the factory?”

  “Heard movement inside, first floor and upstairs, about two hours ago.”

  I checked my watch. Four forty-five. It wouldn’t be light for more than an hour, and the Marines had taught me to infiltrate before dawn.

  “You and I go in now,” I said to Tavia. “Urso, put your men by the escape routes in case we flush something.”

  “I went all around it,” the Bear said, showing us a crowbar. “Already found the best places to go in and out.”

  Tavia unrolled the blanket, revealing the shotgun. She racked a shell into the chamber, and we set off. Urso led us behind the cigar factory to a boarded-up window above an alleyway. Down the alley, a single spotlight shone from a warehouse next door.

  The Bear fitted the crowbar under the boards and slowly, quietly pried them free, leaving a black gaping hole where a windowpane used to be.

  Chapter 31

  I DREW THE Beretta and lowered the night-vision goggles. My world turned a murky green. I peeked inside a hallway strewn with trash and debris. Seeing it was clear otherwise, I slipped over and in.

  The air reeked of cured tobacco more than dust.

  Tavia lowered her goggles too and came inside. We moved as one then, me bent over, navigating us around the obstacles on the floor as silently as possible, and her behind, putting her feet where I did, shotgun shouldered, scanning ahead for movement.

  We reached a door. I pushed it open and winced at the creaking noise the rusted hinges made. I pulled back, tense, squinting, waiting for a volley of gunfire. It didn’t come.

  I paused for a count of thirty, pushed the door wide open, and pulled back a second time. Count of thirty. Nothing.

  In a crouch I slid around the door into what seemed a cavernous space where the smell of tobacco was everywhere. Broken tables and chairs. Cabinets hanging off the wall. But there was no movement, not even in the dimmest corners.

  “Room clear,” Tavia whispered over my shoulder.

  I gestured at the stairs at the far end of the room. She understood and nodded. Urso said the chimes were hanging off a windowsill up there.

  We crept up the stairs, listening but hearing nothing. We reached the landing and Tavia got to her knees on the stairs, aiming over the top riser at the door. I went up to it, touched the handle, and prayed it wasn’t booby-trapped.

  I pressed down, heard the click, threw the door open, and ducked back into the corner. Nothing.

  Tavia eased up, her cheek welded to the shotgun stock. The Beretta leading, I edged around into what used to be an office, saw a filthy mattress, a broken bookcase, and an open window. Outside, chimes tinkled.

  “Those are definitely the same chimes,” Tavia whispered in my ear.

  I nodded, sweeping my attention around the room again and seeing something odd sticking out of the bottom of the bookcase.

  I crossed to it, crouched, and saw it was a feather. I pulled on it and out came the samba mask from the video.

  Chapter 32

  WE WERE IN the right place, which was both a relief and a ratcheting-up of our anxiety levels. The Wise twins were here in the cigar factory. But so were the kidnappers.

  “Whatever happens, we do not shoot the girls,” I muttered to Tavia.

  “Clear fields of fire,” she said.

  We left the mask on the floor and crept down the stairs as quietly as we’d climbed them. Twice as we crossed the old rolling room, our weight provoked creaking noises in the floorboards, and we froze for more than a minute each time.

  The girls and the kidnappers had to be in the basement. Every noise we made was a potential warning. Every noise could get them killed.

  We went to the only other door off the old factory floor. Outside in the lumberyard, the pit bulls went nuts, barking and snapping. After a moment’s hesitation, I motioned for Tavia to cover the door while I reached around the jamb for the handle. It twisted as if oiled. I let the door sag ajar, waited, and then pushed it open with two fingers.

  Something shot out of the darkness. For some reason, I thought, Pit bull, and I almost took a shot before I saw it was an enormous black cat. It darted between us and across the factory floor.

  After several deep breaths, I looked around the corner, saw a steep, rickety wooden staircase down into a cellar. My gut said it could be a trap, but I pointed it out to Tavia and we went anyway, trying to place our weight where the riser had the most support. We still ended up making several more soft squeaking noises.

  But we reached the bottom of the stairs without incident. It was cooler and drier in the cellar than it was above. There was so little light down there that the goggles only barely revealed a blurry green hallway with doors on both sides.

  “Take your goggles off,” I murmured. “Go to flashlight.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’d rather risk being shot at than make a mistake because of the goggles.”

  She understood, pulled her goggles off, and went to her vest for a Mini Maglite. I did too, setting my goggles down on the floor and sliding the thin, powerful flashlight under the barrel of the Beretta before flipping the switch on.

  The beam cut the gloom all the way to the back of the hallway. We went down it, trying the doors, finding them unlocked, and peering inside each. These rooms were evidently where the tobacco had been stored, but they were empty now.

  The hallway reached a T. A heavy wooden door stood at each end of the stubby arms. The right-hand door was padlocked. The left was ajar. A breeze from the other side caused it to move slightly.

  I heard a voice. Female. Scared. Crying behind the padlocked door. I immediately cupped the end of the flashlight, and Tavia did the same, both of us letting just enough light through our fingers to see our way toward the voice.

  Tavia and I snuck forward. Another woman spoke, louder, threatening in tone, but too muffled to make out. Tavia pressed into the wall two feet shy of the door, shotgun up.

  I stepped right up to the door, started to check my watch.

  Beyond the door, there was a loud, flat crack of wood on flesh. The first woman began to scream and sob.

  I shot the lock.

  Chapter 33

  THE BULLET SNAPPED the hasp.

  I ripped the lock free, pressed the latch, and shouldered my way into a dirty concrete-floored room with a painting on the rear wall. The mural depicted scenes from a town during a tobacco harvest. Dead center of the painting, on their knees in front of a church, were the two praying children we’d seen in the background of the ransom video.

  The Wise twins were gone. There was no one in the room. All we found were two mattresses, a filthy yellow cotton scarf, a thin hemp bracelet, several empty water bottles, some greasy waxed paper, and, on a stool, a tablet computer playing a two-minute video loop.

  In the video, Natalie was slumped in a chair, unconscious, the yellow scarf around her neck. The camera swung, revealing Alicia on her knees, praying like the children in the mural, showing the hemp bracelet on her wrist. She was begging her parents to pay the ransom and not try another rescue.

  Then the woman in the primitive mask appeared.

  She hit Alicia with a blackjack, knocked her senseless and bleeding to the floor. Then she spoke evenly to the camera.

  “You will be contacted tomorrow regarding payment, Senhor Wise,” she said. “No cops. No Private. The money for your daughters, a quick exchange. Unless you try to fuck with us. In that case, all you’ll get back is their worthless bodies.”

  Tavia bagged the tablet, Natalie’s scarf, and Alicia’s bracelet and went back for the samba mask. I checked the other door, the one that had been ajar and moving slightly in a breeze. The hallway continued on. At the far end it met another staircase that went up to another door.

  I opened it. The pit bulls came at me like blitzing linebackers.

  I yanked the door shut just in time, heard them thud, howl, and scratch violently agains
t it. I knew now: the kidnappers had taken the girls out through the lumberyard.

  It was almost daybreak when we slipped back out the window.

  Urso eased out of the shadows. “They in there?”

  “They were until they spotted you,” I said.

  “That’s bullshit,” Urso said. “No one sees the Bear unless he wants to be seen.”

  “Then they saw one of your friends,” I said. “They escaped through an underground passage to a shed in that lumberyard. You see anybody coming out of it? A gray van?”

  The Bear looked uncertain, said, “I dunno. We were watching this place.”

  “Did you go in there before us?” Tavia asked. “Look around?”

  “No way, Reynaldo,” Urso said hotly. “I heard the chimes, figured the train distance, left to call my boys into position. End of story until you showed up.”

  “How long were you gone when you went to get your friends?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Ten minutes? I walked around the corner to make the call where I wouldn’t be heard.”

  “Whatever it was, something spooked them,” Tavia said.

  Urso said, “I still get paid, though. I found them.”

  Tavia hesitated, but I said, “He did his job. Pay him.”

  I’d no sooner said that when my cell phone rang. It was General da Silva.

  “General?” I said, stifling a yawn. “You’re up early.”

  “I’m always up early,” the Olympic security chief said.

  “That’s why you’ve always got things so well in hand.”

  “Not this morning,” he said. “We’ve had a murder in the ranks, Jack. I want you and Octavia at the crime scene as soon as possible.”

  Chapter 34

  TRAFFIC WAS BUILDING. It took us almost an hour to drive from the cigar factory to Barra da Tijuca, a newer district of Rio south of Leblon. Shopping malls. Strip malls. Tract houses with red-tile roofs. It looked like large swaths of Orange County, California, had been slapped down in coastal Brazil.