He moved to the door that led to the office and opened it. The doctor flipped on the light, considered the crate on the desk, and felt a thrill go through him. The wood-reinforced cardboard box had been waiting for him when he arrived. He’d wanted to open it right away, but he’d had the blood to deal with first.
Now, however, Castro’s remarkable mind turned to focus on the contents of the crate. He’d have to be as precise and gentle opening it as he’d been handling the propagation of Hydra-9. A fortune lay inside; every bit of his savings had been poured into that crate, and he wasn’t going to—
Knock.
The doctor felt dizzy and frightened when he pivoted to look at the outside door. Other than deliverymen, no one had come to his door in the eighteen months he’d rented the space, and he had no more orders outstanding.
Knock. Knock.
These were louder than the first, more insistent. A cop? Castro fought against panic. Should he answer? Or just wait for whoever it was to walk away?
He stood frozen, straining to hear the sound of gravel under shoes leaving. Instead, there came a third series of knocks.
A male voice called, “Dr. Castro?”
The doctor almost melted down. It was over. It was all—
“Dr. Castro? Please, it’s me, Ricardo. My scooter is broken and my cell is dead and I need to use a phone.”
Ricardo Fauvea? My student? He knows this place? How? Why?
In the two seconds that followed, Castro lost what seemed like a pint of sweat. It gushed out of every pore and soaked him in a glistening sheen. His hand trembled as he turned the lock.
He opened the door and saw young Ricardo standing there looking sheepish. “Thank you, Dr. Castro. My scooter broke down, and I need to call someone to get me.”
Castro almost handed him his cell phone but then thought better of it.
“Where is your scooter?” he asked.
His student put a hand to his brow, said, “It’s around the corner there, about two blocks down.”
“What were you doing in the area?” the doctor asked, studying Ricardo’s every twitch and tic.
Ricardo looked at the ground, seeming disappointed with himself, and said, “I was following you, Dr. Castro.”
That took Castro aback. “Following me? From where?”
“The Hospital Geral,” he said, still not looking at the doctor.
“Why would you do such a thing?” Castro demanded in an even voice.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” the doctor said, firmer. “I have never known you to do anything without a reason, Ricardo. There has to be a reason.”
The medical student seemed mortified, but he looked Dr. Castro in the eye and said in a stammer, “I…I admire you, Dr. Castro. I want to be like you. And, I don’t know, it just seemed…interesting, that’s all, to learn how you live and where you, you know, go.”
The doctor believed him but didn’t know what to say.
“I’m flattered, but it’s a little creepy, Ricardo,” he said finally.
“I know,” Ricardo said with desperation in his voice. “And I completely apologize. I was wrong to invade your privacy.”
“It was wrong,” Castro said. “It is wrong.”
The young man held up his palms. “I’m sorry, Dr. Castro. I was stupid. I guess I don’t know many people here in Rio, not many that I’d consider friends, anyway, and it was just something to do. Nothing more than that.”
The doctor gazed at him for several moments. “Who were you going to call to help you with your scooter?”
“Uh, my cousin, probably. Diego.”
“Does Diego know you’re here?”
“No one knows I’m here,” Ricardo said. “I just followed you kind of spur of the moment, that’s all. What is this place? Is this your company or do you just work here? Like, moonlighting?”
After a pause, Castro tilted his head, smiled softly, and said, “No, this company is all mine. Since you’re here, would you like the grand tour?”
That pleased Ricardo a great deal. His head bobbed. He broke into a grin.
“Yes, Dr. Castro,” he said, his eyes bright and shiny. “I’d like that very much.”
Chapter 47
DR. CASTRO STOOD aside, smiled wider at Ricardo, and said, “Come in, then.”
The young medical student bowed his head as he passed the doctor and then looked around the small office at the chair, the desk, and the crate with some disappointment. Who knew what his imagination had conjured up about this place?
“From the U.S.?” Ricardo said, tapping the crate. “What’s in there?”
Castro double-bolted the outer door and said, “A new toy.”
“More rocket stuff?”
“Something like that,” the doctor said. He moved by Ricardo and opened the inner door. “This is where the work is done. My personal infectious-diseases lab.”
Ricardo walked eagerly into the airy warehouse space and gaped at the big tent with its air ducts, hoses, and electrical lines.
“Air locks?” the medical student asked.
“And a state-of-the-art decontamination system. I designed it myself.”
Ricardo looked at him in wonder. “So you’re set up to handle the truly dangerous viruses?”
“You have no idea.”
Ricardo shook his head. “Must have cost a fortune to build.”
“Cost me everything I had,” Dr. Castro admitted. “Would you like to go inside? See what I’m up to?”
His student acted like he’d been handed the keys to heaven, and he followed Castro into the air locks. The doctor helped Ricardo into a dry hazmat suit; he took the wet one he’d already used that morning.
He didn’t bother duct-taping his wrists and ankles or Ricardo’s. With Hydra-9 sealed and on ice, there really wasn’t any need. Castro turned on Ricardo’s radio and microphone.
“Hear me?” he asked.
“Loud and clear,” the medical student said.
Dr. Castro unzipped the final portal and crouched to step through and get inside. Ricardo followed, gazing all around like a sailor in a titty bar. The doctor told him to explore while he took care of a minor task.
His student didn’t need to be told twice. He walked past the hospital bed to the glass cages, peered into the ones that held live rats, while Castro busied himself at one of the cabinets.
“Are they infected with a virus now?” Ricardo asked. “The rats?”
The doctor continued what he was doing, said, “Yes, but those rats are very resilient, very resistant to the strain. They’ve survived it.”
“So you’re developing a vaccine?”
Castro turned, nodded, walked toward him. “You’re a smart young man, Ricardo. That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
“For who?”
“For mankind.”
“Well, yeah, of course,” his student said. “But, like, who’s funding this? You must have a big research grant. Is it from the government? Or a drug company?”
The doctor realized that he’d underestimated Ricardo.
“I’m funding the research personally,” Castro said, stepping up beside him.
Through the hazmat suit’s glass visor, he could see his student’s confusion.
“But this all had to cost over ten million reais,” Ricardo said.
“Twenty-two million reais,” the doctor said. “More than two million dollars U.S. Every penny of the settlement I got from the government after my wife was killed in a…well.”
Ricardo looked down. “Oh, I’m sorry, Doctor. I…I didn’t know.”
Dr. Castro considered him a moment before saying, “Ricardo, I’m sorry to say that there are many things you will never know about me.”
He plunged a hypodermic needle through his student’s hazmat suit, felt it pierce the young man’s abdomen before he mashed the plunger. Ricardo made a sound like pillow plumping and doubled over, staring down through the shield at Castr
o’s hand and the barrel of the syringe.
“What?” he said, gasping, already feeling the effects of the drug.
Castro yanked the needle free, grabbed Ricardo under the armpits.
The young man tried to straighten up, looked at the doctor with eyes that were widening. “Why?”
“Because you have seen too much, Ricardo,” Dr. Castro said. “And I need seven pints of your blood.”
“Seven?” his student whispered drunkenly as his muscles started to go slack. “That’s too much, Doctor. I’ll…”
“I know, Ricardo. I’m really sorry it had to be you.”
Chapter 48
THE BEAR ADJUSTED his knapsack, pulled on the helmet, and made the sign of the cross before climbing onto the motorcycle behind the driver. Urso hated taking motorcycle taxis, especially the ones in Vidigal favela, south of Leblon. The Vidigal drivers were insane.
The motorcycle engine revved. The driver let out the clutch and gunned it. They shot straight up the hill. Fifteen seconds into the ride they almost collided with tourists coming down out of the slum. That was the new thing: wealthy foreigners coming to Rio and staying in hostels in the favelas.
Why would anyone willingly vacation in a slum? the Bear wondered. Would they do the same thing in South Central or Compton?
The narrow tarred road turned supersteep and switchbacked. Shack shops that sold everything from cigarettes to plumbing supplies crowded the street, which meant people and motorcycles crowded the street, which meant people and motorcycles often smashed into each other on the street.
By the time they reached the top of the favela, Urso was soaked with nervous sweat. He handed the driver his fare and the helmet and hesitated at a path that led past the highest shack, which was right up against the jungle and in the shadow cast by the more eastern of the Dois Irmãos Mountains.
The Bear climbed past the shack and continued on into the jungle. Even in August, the dead of winter in Brazil, since there was no sea breeze penetrating the canopy of trees, the late-day heat was oppressive.
But the heat felt good to Urso. He followed the path through roots and along rock ledges. He could feel the towering cliff of the mountain’s east flank above him, and through holes in the jungle canopy he caught sight of the sheer gray rock face.
He passed a few other travelers coming down the mountain, always seeing them before they saw him, which gave Urso the chance to study them, evaluate their threat. Rio’s jungles were spectacular places, but given their remoteness right in the middle of a city, they could be utterly lawless.
The Bear was not a regular on this path. Not by any means. But he knew enough about these woods to understand that any smart gangster would hide in a ravine just beyond where the path buttonhooked along the flank of the hill. If the men were in the jungle, they’d be waiting above the pinch point.
By the agitated expressions of two young women who passed him a few minutes later, Urso knew for sure gangsters were up there collecting tolls, or worse. He reached around under his loose shirt and removed an old but well-cared-for .45-caliber Remington Model 1911 pistol. It was a heavy thing, but effective.
The Bear reached into his pants pocket and got out a crude, homemade suppressor, which he screwed onto the threaded muzzle. Even though the police rarely came into the jungle, he didn’t want to attract unnecessary attention.
Urso slid the suppressed gun into the front of his pants and let his loose shirt drape over it. He walked on confidently into the pinch point, eyes straight ahead but picking up movement on the slope above. He exited the narrow chute and found a kid, maybe seventeen or eighteen, standing there in the path. Two others, one above, and one below, revealed themselves.
“What are you doing here, man?” the one on the trail asked.
“Taking a walk,” Urso said. “Seeing old friends up in Rocinha.”
“What’s in the knapsack?” asked the one above and to his right.
“Groceries,” Urso said. “We’re having dinner.”
“Let’s see,” said the one below and to his left.
None of them displayed weapons, but the Bear knew they had them.
“Can’t we just make this a cash-and-go thing?” he asked. “I’d hate to see unwanted and unnecessary bloodshed.”
A long moment of silence unfolded, during which Urso’s decision was made for him. Catching a flicker of the uphill man’s hands, he dropped to one knee, drew the gun, and shot the man high in the chest. Then the Bear twisted and put one through the downhill man’s throat. He had the kid in the trail in his sights before the boy could even tug his old revolver out.
“No, Senhor,” the kid said. “Please. I was just following orders.”
Urso considered leniency, but in this case it just wouldn’t do. He shot the kid in the face.
It was so steep there by the ravine that it took the Bear less than two minutes to drag the dead bodies over and push them off the side. He watched them tumble, fall, and disappear into the jungle below.
There’d be a stench at some point, and birds circling and rodents gnawing, and maybe they’d find bones. But as Urso picked up his spent bullet casings, he knew there’d be nothing to connect him to the deaths.
Chapter 49
AN HOUR LATER, the Bear emerged from the jungle in the Rocinha favela. He nodded to the gangsters watching this end of the trail. They would think of him when their friends did not reappear, but by then it wouldn’t matter.
He wandered with purpose through the Rocinha slum, still a ridiculously dangerous place, as the sun began to set. He spotted the ruins of a mansion that a drug lord had built and that the BOPE had firebombed. He passed through the saddle on the west flank of the Two Brothers and dropped downhill toward the tony enclave of Leblon.
The new top 1 percent of the 1 percent—Russians, Chinese, Europeans, and the odd American—lived down there in flats that cost sixteen million dollars U.S. and more. With the great wealth of Rio below him, the Bear cut back to the eastern edge of the slum and started once more into the jungle. Monkeys scattered. Parrots going to roost scolded him.
Two hundred yards in, a thousand vertical feet below the cliffy north end of the mountains, Urso heard the hum of a generator before spotting a gathering of shacks hidden in the trees at the top of a small clearing, less than an acre. On the roof of the largest building was a satellite dish. That was not an uncommon sight in Rio, except this dish was joined by two others, and all three pointed in different directions.
The Bear saw the shadows of men to either side of the largest shack but went confidently to the door and knocked twice. The door soon opened.
The woman who called herself Rayssa stood there.
“Any trouble?” she asked.
“A little,” Urso admitted before handing over the knapsack. “But nothing to be worried about.”
Rayssa looked doubtful but took the pack and stood aside. The Bear entered the shack, saw fourteen-year-old Alou sitting in front of a desk made from a door turned flat. On top of the desk were three large iMac screens and a keyboard. Alou finished typing something in and hit Return. The two screens on the outside began to play the evening news. The center one showed the websites of the local papers. After watching several minutes of coverage focused on the upcoming Olympic Games, now just days away, Rayssa said, “The police, the Wises, and Private have kept it out of the news.”
Urso gestured with his chin at the knapsack, said, “Let’s change that.”
Rayssa nodded. She said to Alou, “Be ready in fifteen minutes.”
“The security’s strong, right?” the Bear asked.
Alou looked insulted, said, “It goes out in bursts, with corrupted and misleading metadata.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Rayssa said, “Don’t worry about it. He’s tested it. It works. Not even Private was able to track us.”
Urso chewed at the inside of his lip, said, “Where’s Wise?”
“Next door,” Alou said.
>
They went out the back of the shack and crossed a narrow gap to a smaller, tin-roofed structure. One of the Bear’s men stood at the door. He wordlessly moved aside and let them in.
Andrew Wise was dressed in another blue workman’s coverall, now with a black hood over his head. Straps held his chest, arms, and legs to a sturdy chair. The American billionaire heard them come in, turned his head their way, and tried to say something through his gag.
Rayssa ignored him. She went to a tripod mounted about three feet in front of Wise. She removed a recently stolen Canon HD camera from the knapsack, checked the SIM card, then attached the camera to the tripod and aimed it at her hostage.
Rayssa handed a black hood to the Bear and put on the primitive mask she’d used during the ransom demands for the Wise sisters.
“Okay, then,” Rayssa said, walking toward the billionaire. “It’s time to get down to it. The real reason you were brought here, Mr. Wise.”
Chapter 50
I HEARD THREE sharp knocks on my door at the Marriott. Despite the disaster of the previous evening, I’d been in desperate need of sleep, and around ten that morning I had gone there rather than to Tavia’s flat.
The knocking came again. I groaned, forced my eyes open, and looked at the clock. Six thirty p.m. I’d slept eight solid hours, the longest stretch I’d gotten in a month.
“Jack?” Cherie Wise called through the door. “Are you there?”
“Two seconds, Cherie,” I yelled back.
After throwing on sweatpants and a hoodie, I went to the door, looked through the peephole, and saw Cherie standing there, trembling, still wearing her clothes from the night before. I yanked the door open. “Cherie?”
“What am I going to do?” she asked, and burst into tears.
“Come inside,” I said, taking her by the elbow. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing,” she blubbered. “That’s the point. They’ve had him more than twelve hours and nothing!”
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