by Mark Dawson
Rodrigues froze.
“You wanted to meet me, Antonio. Here I am.”
Rodrigues fought back the fear. “Senhor Milton,” he said, “you’ve gone to a lot of trouble. It really isn’t necessary.”
“You made it necessary.”
The voice was blank, emotionless, calm. Rodrigues remembered it from the phone call that he had made on the top of the Hill last night.
Rodrigues saw that the man was holding something in his lap.
“What do you want?”
“There’s a cancer in Rocinha. It needs to be cut out.”
Milton moved his hand, and a thin shaft of light sparked against the gun in his hand.
“No,” Rodrigues said, “this really isn’t necessary, not like this. Perhaps we can reach an arrangement. Look around you. I am a rich man. What is your price?”
Milton did not answer; instead, he shook his head.
“Everyone has a price, senhor Milton.”
Milton still did not speak.
“Fine—perhaps something else. It is revenge that you want?”
“You can call it that if you like. I prefer justice.”
“You want to settle a score. I can understand that. You could kill me, but then what about the man who betrayed you? Senhor Drake. I expect you would like to see him again.”
“I would,” Milton said.
“Then you will need me to help you do that. He has gone to ground. You won’t be able to find him.”
“You have a very low opinion of me.”
“Not at all, senhor. You are an impressive man. But your friend—he is frightened.”
“He should be. He knows what I’m going to do to him.” The shadow shifted in the chair. “But you’re right—I am interested in him. You know where he is?”
“Of course. If I tell you, we can part on friendly terms?”
“Him and half a million dollars. No negotiation. You asked my price—that’s it.”
Relief. Perhaps he could be bargained with. “Fine. Senhor Drake and half a million. You walk away, and you give me my brother—I am assuming you have him?”
“He’s in the trunk of my car. He’s fine. I’ll hang onto him until I’m away from here, just to make sure you don’t get ideas when you don’t have a gun pointed at you. I’ll dump him at the side of the road when I’m safe.”
“Then we have a deal.”
Rodrigues was too wise to be reassured, but he allowed himself to entertain the notion that he might walk away from this after all.
Milton raised a hand. “There is one more thing. We can treat it as a sign of your good faith. The girl that Drake is with—Sophia Lopes. Is she involved?”
“Involved?”
“Does she work for you?”
“No,” he said. “She has nothing to do with me.” He shrugged.
“Thank you.”
Milton stood.
Rodrigues took a step back. “Are we good?”
“We’re good.”
“What about your money? How do you want to get paid?”
Milton aimed the pistol at Rodrigues.
“In kind,” he said.
93
Paulo de Almeida leaned back and scrubbed his tired eyes. It had been quite a day.
Milton had called him again after Saverin had spoken with his daughter and had provided him with clear instructions: he was to telephone the judge and give him the address of the hotel. Milton had explained what would happen next, and had been largely proven right. Saverin himself had driven out to Grumari with six policemen and had taken custody of Alícia. The officers had said that Paulo, Rafaela and Eloá would have to come with them, too. Paulo had not resisted. Milton had predicted that, too.
They had been taken to the main Polícia Federal building in Centro and, after being given food and drink, they had been questioned. Paulo had explained that Rafaela knew very little, and, after satisfying themselves that that was the case, the officers had taken her and Eloá to a room with a bed where they could rest. Paulo had not been extended the same offer, and a succession of different officers had asked him the same questions with minor variations. He answered them honestly, as Milton had said that he should, and eventually they had left him alone. He had been in the room for hours, and he wanted to see his family. He got to his feet and was about to go and try the door when it opened and Saverin came inside and made his way over to the table.
“Sit down,” he said firmly.
Paulo did. The judge was quite different now to how he had been this morning; then, he had barely acknowledged Paulo and his family in his hurry to get to his daughter. Now, though, he was all business. He wore the stern countenance that was so well known from his appearances on the television news, his brows knitted together in a heavy frown and his eyes sharp and piercing.
“I haven’t thanked you yet,” he said. “Smith said he wouldn’t have been able to get my daughter without the risks you took. I’m grateful.”
“I’m glad I could help,” Paulo replied a little nervously; it was obvious that the judge’s expression of gratitude was a formality, and that it would soon be replaced with something else entirely.
“But that’s not what I want to talk to you about,” Saverin said. “It’s John Smith. I want to know who he is.”
“Who?” John Smith? Paulo assumed that Saverin meant Milton, and caught himself before he could say anything else, but Saverin was sharp. He leaned forward.
“Smith isn’t his real name, is it?”
“I don’t know,” Paulo said.
“Yes, you do, Paulo. You know. You need to give me everything. Everything. He assaulted and then abducted a federal suspect yesterday evening. We still don’t know where he is. We found three dead bodies in a house in Santa Teresa. We think he was involved with that, too.” Saverin leaned back and managed a smile. “Look, Paulo—I know you were implicated in what happened to my daughter, but I want you to know that I’m working on an amnesty. You have my word that you’ll be looked after if you cooperate. You and your family. No charges. We’ll get you out of the city if you want, and I’ll make sure that your daughter gets the treatment that she needs.” The smile disappeared, and he leaned forward again, avid, like an eagle addressing a mouse. “But if I think you’re lying to me… If I think that, then we’re not going to be friends. There’ll be no deal, and I’ll bring charges against you. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now—what is his name?”
“Milton,” Paulo said reluctantly. “John Milton. But I know very little about him.”
“What do you know?” Saverin gestured impatiently with his hand. “Everything.”
Milton had told him that he could tell Saverin everything, even if Saverin were to ask about Milton himself, because, in fact, Paulo really did know very little about the man who had saved his life.
“He speaks English,” Paulo said. “He’s medium height and build. Middle aged. Blue eyes.”
“I know all that,” Saverin said impatiently. “What about his background?”
“Probably military.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He was very good with guns.”
“What else? Where was he staying?”
“He had a room at a hotel in Jacarepaguá.”
“You went there?”
Paulo said that he had. Saverin asked for the details and wrote down the address in a notebook.
“More.”
Paulo shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”
Saverin stared at him, drumming his fingers on the table, and then took a photograph out of the notebook and slid it across the table. “You know him?”
Paulo looked down; the photograph was of the old man who had been working with Milton, the man who had fitted him with the camera. “Yes,” he said. “He was working with Milton. They were friends.”
“You know his name?”
“No,” he said.
“I do
,” Saverin said. “His name was Harry Marks. He was English—he came to Rio years ago, had a place in Laranjeiras. Past tense. His body was found at the top of the Hill this morning. He’d been shot in the head and left at the side of the road.”
Paulo remembered the video call that Milton had received from Garanhão as they had driven away from the Hill. He hadn’t seen what had happened, but it was easy enough to guess.
Saverin was about to ask another question when the door opened and a uniformed policeman hurried inside.
“What is it?” Saverin snapped.
“Judge,” the officer said, “we got a call ten minutes ago. A man said there was a car parked outside and we should go and check it out. It was the car that Smith was driving last night.”
Saverin stood. “And?”
“You have to come and see.”
Saverin hurried out of the room, leaving the door open behind him. Paulo waited for a moment and then got up. He wasn’t under arrest; no one had said anything about staying in the room. He looked left and right outside the door and then walked down the corridor in the direction Saverin had gone.
The lobby of the station was thronged with officers and other men and women who worked for the department. A path had opened up at the door to the street, and a man was being brought inside. Paulo recognised Andreas Lima from the news: he was the businessman that Saverin had arrested at the airport just over a week ago. He looked different to how he had looked on the television. Instead of the expensive suit that he had been wearing then, now he was dressed in pyjamas. And rather than the haughty expression that he had managed to put on his face as he had been led away from the airport, now he looked frightened. His hands and feet were secured with cable ties, and two officers had to half-carry and half-drag him inside. Paulo stood with the officers and staff and heard the same question over and over again.
What had happened to him?
Paulo knew what had happened.
John Milton had happened.
“Clear the room,” Saverin called out, making his way to Lima. “And get those restraints off him.”
Paulo returned to the peace and quiet of the interview room and half closed the door.
Milton.
He remembered what the Englishman had told him as they had spoken earlier that morning. Milton had given him an address in Parada de Lucas and told him to remember it. He had explained it all: Paulo was to go to the address once things had quietened down and find the lock-up garage that he described to him. Milton told him where to find the key and what to look for once he was inside. He said that he had left something there that would help with Eloá’s treatment.
Paulo went back to the chair and lowered himself into it again. He hadn’t slept for over a day, and he was suffering because of it. He wanted to see his wife and daughter again, to be alone with them, to hug them and tell them that everything would all be all right. They were caught in the eye of the storm, but Paulo knew that things were going to work out for the best.
Paulo thought of Milton and everything that he had done for him. He knew so little about him. He didn’t understand why he had risked his life for the life of the girl, and why he was working so hard to make things right for Paulo and his family, too. Paulo had told the truth to Saverin. He knew almost nothing about Milton, apart from one thing about which he was certain: he would never see the Englishman again.
Paulo wondered where he was now.
Epilogue
Dawn broke over the city. Milton was starting to feel tired: his eyes were gritty and uncomfortable, and his muscles and joints ached like they always did when he hadn’t had enough sleep. He never used to feel that way when he was in the army. He could go forty-eight hours without sleep back then and still feel reasonable; it was different now, just another sign that he was getting older.
He leaned down again and put his eye to the optical scope. He was in the unfinished house on the other side of the road from Drake’s place in Santa Teresa. He could see the villa poking through the dense vegetation as the road curled up and around ahead of him. He had remembered this spot from his previous visits: Drake had mentioned that the developer had gone bust and that the villa had been left unattended. Milton had sliced a hole in the plastic sheeting that covered the open window frames and set up his equipment in the upstairs bedroom that faced the road. The wall had big spaces where floor-to-ceiling windows would be installed, and Milton had cut another slice in the sheeting through which he inserted the barrel of the Galil assault rifle that he had taken from the cache. The scope was excellent and provided a clear visual of Drake’s villa and the garden in front of it.
There had been a lot of time to plot and then perfect what he proposed to do. He had been here for almost two days and was prepared to be as patient as necessary. He was as sure as he could be that Drake’s house was empty.
He had seen Sophia on the first day of his watch. She had been driven to the house by an older man who looked like he might be her father. The man had wheeled a suitcase into the house, and Milton had watched through the scope as the two of them had gone from room to room packing things into it. They were inside for no longer than half an hour and had left without a backward glance. Milton had let her go. He had already satisfied himself that she was not involved, and Rodrigues had confirmed it. Sophia hadn’t sold him out to Drake; rather, either Rodrigues or Drake had put Xavier de Oliveira’s house under surveillance, knowing that Milton would go there eventually.
Drake and Milton had been hunter and hunted then, but the roles were reversed now.
Milton had brought a bedroll and a blanket and had set those up next to the rifle, snatching an hour or two of uncomfortable and fitful sleep where he could. He had military rations, MREs that he warmed up with the supplied flameless ration heater, and two big bottles of water.
He had been awake for most of the time and had distracted himself with two stories that had quickly appeared on Brazilian websites. The main sites—O Dia, O Fluminense, Meia Hora and O Globo—all led with the same image: a lucky photographer had snapped the moment that Andreas Lima had been found in the trunk of a stolen car in a lot near the police building in Centro. Two officers were photographed helping him out of the car.
There was a stock picture of Felipe Saverin in the O Globo story. There was a quote, too, and Milton had pasted it into Google Translate: Saverin said that Andreas Lima and Antonio Rodrigues were half brothers, and that the abduction of his daughter had been carried out by Rodrigues at Lima’s request. Kidnapping and murder would now be added to the businessman’s already extensive charge sheet.
The competing story was the murder of Rodrigues at his compound in Itaipava. Garanhão, and six of his men, had been found by a delivery driver. The don’s men had been stabbed and strangled, while Rodrigues had been shot in his bedroom. There was speculation about who had killed them, with the most popular theory implicating the military police. The body of an ex-BOPE policeman—Xavier de Oliveira—had been discovered at his home in Santa Teresa, and Red Command were suspected of his murder. A Reddit thread that Milton scanned suggested that Rodrigues and the others had been executed by the military police as a warning to the gangs that they would not win in a direct battle with the state.
Milton had been busy. He had driven back to the city from the compound, had dumped the stolen car in Centro, then called the police and told them who they would find in the trunk. Then he had made his way to the cache. He had opened the garage for the final time, collecting the sniper rifle, bedroll and rations. He had taken one of Marks’s junk televisions, kicked out the screen, and hidden Lima’s money and the Rolex that he had taken from Rodrigues inside the cabinet. Milton had counted the cash: there was two hundred and fifty thousand reais, and the watch would be worth another fifty thousand on top of that. Enough to make a difference to a family who needed a break. Milton had moved the set to the front of the line so that it would be easy for Paulo to find, had gone outside, pulled down the door and hid the
key where Paulo could find it. Then he had made his way here. He had been in place ever since.
Milton snapped back to attention as he heard a beep from the portable receiver that he had placed on the floor next to the rifle. The beep was from a motion detector connected to one of the bugs that Milton had hidden in Shawn Drake’s villa. Milton picked up the receiver and turned the volume all the way up.
He heard the sound of footsteps and then a door opening. He used the scope to check the front of the house. Nothing. Whoever was inside had gone in through the back. He heard more footsteps and then caught a flash of movement in the bedroom window. He nudged the rifle down and stared through the scope until he saw the movement again.
It was Drake. He was putting clothes into a bag that he had dumped on the bed. He was moving quickly, without discretion. He was bugging out.
Milton settled down on the floor, ensuring that his body was in line with the Galil and not canted out to the side. He made sure the rifle’s stock was against his shoulder and then grabbed as much floor as he could.
Milton took out his phone, put it on speaker, and dialled Drake’s number.
He relaxed his body, nudging the bipod legs forward until the muzzle was back on target and he had forward pressure against the bipod.
The call connected. “Hello?”
Milton slid his finger through the guard and curled it around the trigger.
“Hello?”
Milton watched through the scope as Drake froze.
“Hello? Who is this?”
“It’s me,” Milton said.
“John?”
“Surprised? Did you think I’d just disappear?”
“Where are you?”
Drake turned to the window and gazed out. Milton could see the wary expression on his face.
“How much did Rodrigues pay you?”
“Don’t be sanctimonious, John. You would’ve done the same thing.”
