That Time in Rio

by Logan Ryles

  “Where now, kid?” he said, searching frantically for a way out of the alley.

  The boy beckoned toward the left, and they turned the corner onto yet another narrow footpath. It led down a hillside with houses pressing in on every side. The boy scampered in that direction like a goat, dancing over potholes and exposed bits of foundation and glancing back to be sure Wolfgang followed.

  A burst of automatic gunfire ripped through the air, and bullets hissed through sheet metal in the alley they just exited. Wolfgang ran, heedless of the uneven ground beneath him, the girl bouncing in his arms. His heart thundered, and the surge of adrenaline he felt was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. It was blinding—driving him to get out by any means possible. Megan kept close behind him, and they made it down the hill to a bend in the road, where Wolfgang slid through the turn and stumbled for balance.

  An open street stretched out in front of them, with huts stacked on top of each other on either side, and fifty yards ahead, another group of armed men charged up the hill. Wolfgang shouted and spun around, driving the others back into the alley as more bullets skipped off the street behind them. Everywhere, the shout of voices and blaze of rifles thundered in a constant, maddening crescendo. It was like they were trapped inside a cave with fireworks going off on every side. Everything distorted into a blur as they piled in between the buildings, and Wolfgang looked back up the hill they had just descended to see their original pursuers bursting out from between the shacks.

  “Okay, kid. Time for a miracle!”

  The boy tugged at his arm, then motioned to the ground as he rattled off another string of Portuguese. Wolfgang followed his gestures to the base of the houses that clustered near the bottom of the hill. Unlike most of the houses they had passed, these shacks weren’t built on concrete or wood foundations that rested directly against the earth. Instead, they stood on stilts that allowed for the passage of runoff water as it ran down the mountainside. A gap of about twelve inches opened between the bottom of the nearest house and the muddy ditch beneath it, and the boy dropped to his knees and wriggled in, still beckoning.

  “I can’t fit,” Wolfgang said.

  “Give him the girl,” Megan said. She ripped off her own jacket, then laid it on the ground. Wolfgang lowered the girl onto the jacket, then held out the arm of the garment to the boy. The boy’s hand appeared from beneath the house to accept it, then he pulled the girl beneath the house with a few passionate tugs. She grimaced and moaned as her back rolled over loose rocks strewn over the alley floor, but she met Wolfgang’s gaze and forced a smile only a moment before she disappeared beneath the shack.

  Wolfgang pulled himself back to his feet and grabbed Megan’s hand. The two turned back out of the alley as gunshots popped from the hillside only a little way behind them. They rounded the corner, breaking into a run and crashing directly into the arms of another party of combatants.

  Wolfgang toppled to the mud as a rifle butt crashed into his side. Megan’s hand was ripped out of his, and the air flooded with gruff Portuguese shouts. Wolfgang struggled to reach his Berretta, but then a foot crashed into his jaw and sent his head snapping backward. Rough hands jerked his arms away from the gun, then his holster was stripped from his body.

  “A white woman!” somebody said in English. “You from California, white woman?”

  Wolfgang jerked at the hands that pinned him to the ground. Megan thrashed in the mud a few feet away, a knot of men leaning over her. Two of them pinned her arms and legs to the ground while a third ripped at her shirt. Buttons snapped off, and she screamed, then the third man delivered a lightning punch to her gut. She gasped and twisted, her face turning blue as another punch smacked home directly over her navel.

  “Megan!” Wolfgang shouted. “Get off her, you bastards!”

  A boot crashed into Wolfgang’s exposed ribcage, sending the wind shooting through his teeth as a blinding surge of pain overcame his senses. He twisted and pulled his elbows in to deflect another kick, but a rifle butt crashed into his stomach, then another slammed his shoulder.

  Laughter filled the air, and a barrage of kicks rained against his arms and legs. Megan screamed from the background, and several of the men chanted something amid further laughs. Wolfgang’s head spun, and the black sky faded in and out of view. He saw Edric’s face set in hard lines of disgust, then heard his boss chiding him from the other side of a fish tank.

  “I counted on you!”

  Another boot struck home, this time on the top of Wolfgang’s head. Edric’s face vanished from his mind, replaced instantly by the face of a child, small and skinny, not unlike the girl he’d just rescued from the alleyway, except this girl was white with dark hair. Her features were narrow, and the skin clung to her bones in a sickly shade of chalky white that spoke to the sickness that consumed her body.

  “Don’t leave me, ‘Icky!”

  Wolfgang screamed and yanked his right arm free. With a Herculean effort, he swung his fist into the ribcage of the first assailant he could reach, then kicked a leg free and flailed with all his strength. The chants and laughs turned to angry shouts, followed by the metallic rolling sound of a rifle being chambered.

  A long string of automatic gunfire echoed off the metal walls of the shacks. The men around Wolfgang stumbled backward, and a sudden stillness fell over the small crowd. He slumped back into the mud, gasping for air as pain radiated from every extremity of his body. Megan didn’t scream anymore, and the voices of the men around him fell as silent as a funeral procession. Wolfgang wheezed and lifted himself up on one elbow, looking down the dirt road for the source of the sudden calm.

  A short, stocky Brazilian stood ten feet away, a smoking AK-47 held upright in one hand and a black bandanna wrapped around a bald head that sat atop almost no neck. A crooked scar ripped through one of his olive cheeks, and his eyes were the black, bottomless pits of a man who inhaled life and exhaled devastation.

  The illustrious ringleader.

  Wolfgang coughed, then spat blood into the dirt. “What’s up, kemosabe?”

  The man took two steps forward, consuming the distance between himself and Wolfgang with surprising speed. He lowered the rifle until its gaping muzzle hung only inches from Wolfgang’s nose.

  Wolfgang stared up the barrel without blinking, his jaw set, his body motionless. He held the Brazilian’s gaze, defying him to pull the trigger. The man held the rifle one-handed, but the muzzle didn’t so much as twitch. The circle of men stood perfectly silent, and time itself seemed to stand still. Wolfgang’s heart continued to pound, but he refused to display his fear, or give in to the panic surging his body. If this man was going to kill him, he was going to kill him. Wolfgang wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of begging.

  He just stared, and the Brazilian stared back.

  Then the man jerked the rifle up and snapped a command at his men. They rushed forward and grabbed Wolfgang by the arms, hauling him to his feet. Wolfgang thrashed, but his arms were wrenched behind his back, and leather straps encircled his wrists, cinched so tight his fingers went numb. Then four men grabbed him by the arms and marched him forward into the heart of the favela.

  8

  The detail of Red Command soldiers dog-marched Wolfgang and Megan over a mile through the shambled remains of metal and cinder block shacks. Wolfgang’s feet dragged most of the way, as he was unable to keep his balance while being jostled and prodded by the men surrounding him. He turned back to see Megan being similarly dragged along, her head rolling to one side. She was unconscious, and purple bruises clouded her cheeks. Her shirt was torn open, and the bruises continued over her stomach, mixed with traces of drying mud and what he hoped wasn’t blood.

  Wolfgang faced forward, his mind racing even as his body continued to throb with pain. Somehow, someway, he had to get them out of this. His radio and earpiece were long gone, ripped away along with his pistol, knife, and flashlight. The flare gun and water bottle were still in the pocket of his torn jacket, b
ack in the alley where he found the girl, along with his UMP.

  So, basically, I’ve screwed myself.

  Wolfgang looked skyward in a vague, desperate hope that Lyle might be watching. He remembered the six-second satellite delay Lyle talked about. Between that and Wolfgang’s mazelike navigation of the favela, often invisible under the eaves of the shacks, there was no way Lyle could have kept track of his location.

  We’re on our own.

  His foot caught on a rock, half-buried in the packed dirt of the roadway, and Wolfgang lurched forward. The men around him caught him by the elbows and yanked him back, then somebody shoved a rifle butt into his lower back. Wolfgang winced and coughed blood over the sidewalk from his busted lip. More soldiers joined the throng, some wearing red bandanas, but most clad in a mismatch of box-store-style clothing—jeans, windbreakers, and T-shirts paired with tennis shoes, boots, flip-flops, and bare feet. They all carried weapons—rifles, shotguns, and pistols, and some of them also sported long knives jammed without sheaths into belts.

  Wolfgang could no longer hear the sounds of battle from the other side of the favela, and he wondered if the Brazilian military had prevailed. Based on the crowd of unoccupied and unconcerned gangsters around him, he doubted it.

  His captors dragged him another few paces down a track, then arrived at a small opening between a cluster of slouching huts. The packed dirt in the middle of the clearing was littered with animal feces, empty beer cans, and junk-food wrappers. A small fire burned in one corner, and two men stood next to it, slowly turning a goat on a spit.

  Other men gathered on makeshift front porches, flipping through magazines or drinking beer. Everybody smelled like body odor and roasting goat. Nobody looked like Brazilian police.

  They threw Wolfgang onto the packed earth, and a second later, Megan crashed down next to him, her eyes shut, her body unmoving. Wolfgang fought to his knees, spitting dirt and blood, then he shouted at nobody in particular. “Who’s in charge of this circus?”

  A semi-surprised quiet fell over the crowd, then everybody laughed. A beer can shot through the air and bounced off Wolfgang’s head, followed by five or six more. He ducked and tried to shield his head with his shoulders, but with his hands tied behind his back, it was a useless effort.

  “Siléncio!” a voice bellowed from beyond the crowd. The soldiers grew suddenly still, and Wolfgang lifted his head to see the short man with the black bandanna appear between a parting crowd like Moses walking out of the Red Sea.

  Except this Moses is basically the devil.

  “What do you know,” Wolfgang panted. “It’s Brazilian John Cena. You know, you’d be a lot prettier if you smiled more.”

  The man stepped to within inches of Wolfgang and leaned down until their noses almost touched, his breath reeking of garlic and rotting teeth.

  He spoke in perfect English but with a heavy Brazilian accent. “You’d be a lot prettier if I gutted you.”

  Wolfgang smirked. “Brazilian John Cena speaks.”

  The man’s lips twitched, and Wolfgang couldn’t tell if it was a tick or the hint of a smile.

  “You’ve got a lot of balls, American.”

  “So I’ve been told. Not so many marbles, though. Guess I lost those before visiting this distinguished paradise of yours.”

  The man leaned back and crossed his arms, then glanced at Megan. She remained motionless, one cheek pressed into the mud.

  “My men want their way with your woman.”

  Wolfgang grimaced. “That’s not very progressive of them, is it? In a communist utopia such as your own, women’s rights should be paramount.”

  The man cocked his head, and then a smirk broke out across his lips. “Communism . . . that’s funny, American.”

  “Reagan didn’t think so. But surely we’ve got better things to discuss than political ideology. We both know all men are capitalists at heart. What’s it gonna take to get me and my friend out of here?”

  The man stuck two fingers into his pocket and withdrew a can of chewing tobacco. He cracked it open and shoved a wad into his cheek, then chewed without averting his gaze. After a minute, he leaned down and breathed a blast of tobacco-infused stench into Wolfgang’s face. “Who do you work for, American? The pacificadora?”

  Wolfgang recognized the name—the war effort of the Brazilian police against the drug gangs.

  He shook his head. “Believe it or not, I’m just an innocent tourist caught in the crossfire.”

  The man spat a spray of black saliva across Wolfgang’s chest. “I don’t believe it.”

  Wolfgang looked down at the mess and wrinkled his nose. “I’m sorry I can’t convince you, but it’s the truth. I heard the favelas were beautiful. Didn’t know an invasion was underway.”

  The man poked the tobacco can into his pocket, chewed a moment, then grunted.

  “Beautiful? They are broken. The favelas are what happens when rich white men poison the minds of Brazil’s leaders.”

  “Is that so? Don’t look now, Brazilian John Cena, but you’ve got a campaign slogan in there someplace.”

  The man’s face turned bitter, and he spat again. “You laugh, American. You don’t know the pain my people suffer.”

  “I’ll bet the drugs help,” Wolfgang said. “I mean, you snort enough crack, and anything is bearable, right? You do give the drugs away, don’t you? I can’t imagine a communist like yourself would stoop to selling them.”

  The man flushed and snapped his fingers. A group of men detached from the rest and rushed forward, dragging Wolfgang and Megan to their feet. Megan’s head rolled, still unconscious.

  “If you work for the police, they will want you back,” the man said. “If you are a tourist, as you say, they will want you back even more. Either way, you and the white woman will help me drive out the dogs.”

  He pointed off to his left, and the soldiers dragged Wolfgang and Megan across the clearing, amid the jeers and laughs of the other troops. Fists struck Wolfgang across the back and ribs, and he twisted to shield himself. Then the hard spruce stock of an AK-47 sliced through the air and collided with his forehead.

  Wolfgang didn’t know how long he’d been out when consciousness finally returned. His head pounded like a drum, sending pulsing agony ripping through his skull, down his spine, and to every end of his body.

  Screw me.

  He sat on a rock-hard floor made of wood planks fit close together, with his arms wrenched behind him and fastened to the wall. A metal roof blocked out the night sky, and brick walls surrounded him. So, he was inside a shack, then. Tied up and left alone.

  Megan. Where’s Megan?

  Panic overcame him. He sat up, and his vision cleared, then he jerked at the bonds that held his arms against the wall. His muscles ached, and his head swam, but the fear he felt overcame all of that. He imagined Megan in the mud again, pinned down by the Red Command, stretched out and—

  “Wolfgang! Be still, dammit.”

  Wolfgang froze and shook his head to clear it. His mind still felt fuzzy, but he recognized the voice. He turned toward the voice and saw Megan sitting directly beside him, her hands tied behind her in similar fashion.

  “Oh God,” he said. “I thought they had you.”

  Megan smirked. “I’d say they do.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  He leaned back, resting his pounding head against the bricks. The best he could tell, his hands were bound with wire ties to some kind of metal ring or maybe a pipe—something mounted to or running out of the masonry.

  “How long have we been here?”

  “Few hours. The Lego dude had them throw us in here, then they all left.”

  “The Lego dude?”

  “I believe you called him Brazilian John Cena.”

  Wolfgang forced a little laugh. “I thought you were unconscious.”

  “Faking it. It’s not a lot of fun to rape an unconscious woman.”

  Smart girl.

  “You have to adm
it,” Wolfgang said, “the dude kinda looks like a Brazilian John Cena.”

  “Sure. But I like John Cena.”

  Wolfgang grinned. “And I like Legos.”

  “Ha. You never despair, do you?”

  Wolfgang shrugged. It wasn’t much of a gesture with his hands bound. “What’s the point of that? Anything could change.”

  “Right . . . but it doesn’t look good.”

  No, it doesn’t. It looks like we’re neck-deep in quicksand.

  Wolfgang decided to change the subject to a slightly more hopeful topic. “I wonder if Edric and Kevin got out okay.”

  “I’m sure they figured something out. I’ve been thinking about that, and I think I figured out why our radios failed. When the Brazilian police stormed the favela, they must’ve run some kind of radio jammer to inhibit the Red Command. It locked us up, too.”

  “Makes sense. Which makes you wonder . . .”

  “Wonder what?”

  Wolfgang sat up. “It makes you wonder if this whole thing was a setup. Whoever kidnapped Rose had to know we’d make a play to recover her. By setting the deadline for their demands to be met, they established a window wherein they could predict the time of our rescue attempt. Assuming they knew about the GPS tracker in Rose’s necklace, they could also predict the location of our attempt.”

  Megan nodded slowly. “Right. All they had to do was plant the necklace someplace where we’d be caught in the crossfire. That building Edric and Kevin infiltrated had a red roof, remember?”

  “Yep. I’ll bet that was some kind of headquarters for the Red Command. The kidnappers set us up to be trapped at the heart of the conflict. What better way to wipe out Charlie Team?”

  Megan cursed and twisted at her bonds.

  Wolfgang watched and felt a wave of guilt overcome him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “This is my fault.”