by Chris Ryan
Pepe didn’t seem at all pleased to see his new friend. Maybe he didn’t recognise her voice. He looked up in absolute alarm, took several paces back, then skirted them and continued to run down the hill. Abby watched him go, her head tilted. ‘Maybe he’s not my new best friend after all,’ she said.
‘Keep walking,’ Max said. The guys in the SUV were looking in their direction. Max could feel their eyes burning into him. He felt like running, but did his best to keep a steady speed and not draw further attention to himself. They moved past the SUV. He was desperate to look back over his shoulder to see if they were still being watched. But a movement like that could scupper the whole operation. He could almost hear Hector’s instructions in his head. Keep your patience. Keep your discipline. He carried on looking straight ahead and walking slowly. Abby did the same.
But then they heard a shout.
Max’s body went cold. He knew beyond question it was the guys in the SUV, and he knew intuitively they were shouting at him and Abby. He heard Abby mutter a swear word under her breath. ‘Do we run?’ she whispered. ‘We’ve got to be fitter than them, right?’
Max glanced over his shoulder. Two of the guys had jumped down from the SUV and were crossing the road towards them. To run would make them stand out even more, and the gang members would surely chase them …
Moments later, the two guys were right in front of them. Max couldn’t see the lower part of their faces because of their bandanas, but he could see their eyes flashing. One of them jabbed Max hard in the chest and they gabbled at him in Portuguese. Neither Max nor Abby spoke the language, so they couldn’t understand a word.
Defuse the situation, Max told himself. Step back, be compliant, let them think they’re the big guys. He raised his hands, palms out, as if to say ‘I don’t want any trouble’. He and Abby took a step backwards. But the guys were still shouting at them. It sounded like they were asking a question. Max and Abby glanced nervously at each other. Maybe, Max thought, the only thing they could do now was run …
He looked from side to side. And then he saw Lili.
She was striding up to them. The guys didn’t seem to notice her until she was alongside them. She stood in front of Max and Abby. The two guys looked her up and down but fell silent. Lili started talking. To Max, her Portuguese sounded fluent and native. She waved her arms in the air and occasionally pointed at Max and Abby. The two guys, unable to interrupt her, looked at each other and shrugged. Lili didn’t let up. Her voice rose and her words came even more quickly. Now it was the turn of the two gang members to raise their hands, but it was almost a gesture of defeat. They retreated back across the road and re-joined their mates in the car.
‘Get moving,’ Lili told them. ‘Don’t look back!’
Max and Abby didn’t need to be told twice. Sweating heavily, Max followed the two girls up the hill, trying to put as much distance between him and the gang members as possible.
‘What did you do there?’ Abby asked Lili.
‘I talked to them,’ Lili said.
‘I know that!’ Abby retorted. ‘What did you say?’
‘I told them you were my family,’ Lili said. She sounded evasive.
‘And that did it?’
‘Er, no, not really.’
‘So what else did you tell them?’ Abby sounded frustrated.
‘I, er … I told them you were a bit simple.’
Abby stopped. Lili and Max did the same. ‘You told them what?’
‘A bit simple. You know, not quite all there. I figured they wouldn’t take you too seriously if they knew that.’ She hesitated. ‘It just kind of came to me, you know?’
Abby turned to Max. ‘Can you believe she said that about us?’
Max shrugged. ‘It got us out of a hole,’ he said. ‘I think it was pretty smart.’
‘So she’s the smart one and I’m the simple one, is that what you’re saying?’
‘You know it’s not,’ Max told her. ‘Come on, the others are up there. Let’s get moving.’ He pushed past the arguing girls and crossed the street. Lukas and Sami were still loitering at the corner, waiting to turn left down a side road. Their eyes were questioning as Max, Abby and Lili re-joined them.
‘What’s going on?’ Lukas demanded.
‘Ah, nothing,’ said Abby. ‘Just Lili telling everybody that me and Max are stupid.’
‘What?’ Sami asked.
‘Never mind,’ Max said. ‘Look.’
He gestured down the side road. This was the route they had intended to take towards Blue Command territory. But right now it was blocked by a black armoured vehicle that took up almost the entire width of the road. It had high, heavy bumpers and a small, square windscreen. Its headlights were on but it wasn’t moving. It merely blocked the way, like a huge, immovable guard dog. None of the locals were venturing down that street.
‘It’s the BOPE,’ Lukas said.
‘Looks to me like they’re protecting Blue Command territory,’ Abby said. Her outrage at Lili had already subsided.
‘So what do we do?’ Sami said.
Max consulted his mental image of the favela map. ‘We find another way in,’ he said. ‘Follow me.’
7
Turf War
It was almost dark as the cadets continued uphill, past a barber’s, a tyre shop and another mini-mart. The houses on either side were more run down than those they’d passed earlier: they had bare breezeblocks, rotten window frames and broken panes. Roofs had buckled. Walls were stained around the downpipes, and the smell was even fouler than before. A scrawny dog chewed on a half-eaten chunk of meat. Motorbikes buzzed up and down the road.
Max led them away to the left. There were far fewer people here, even though the road was wide. A small group of children kicked a football around, dodging the litter strewn over the ground. As the cadets watched them, there were several bursts of gunfire in the distance. The children scattered, disappearing into the buildings on either side.
‘How far away do you think that was?’ Abby said.
‘Two hundred metres, maybe a little more,’ Sami said confidently. Having experienced urban gunfire in Syria during the civil war, he was able to make that judgement.
Max peered down the street. He could see that at the far end, it was blocked. Squinting, he could make out a solid barrier at least three metres high. It had holes here and there. ‘To shoot through,’ Lukas said.
‘I think there’s some kind of door in the middle of the barrier,’ Max said. ‘I guess they only let people they recognise into that part of the favela.’
‘Well, they’re not going to recognise us,’ Lukas said. ‘We need to find another way in.’
Max frowned. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I think all the access roads into Blue Command territory are going to be blocked in some way. I’d rather risk a roadblock guarded by some low-level gang members than by the BOPE.’ He turned to the others. ‘What do you all think? Shall we take a closer look? As there’s a solid barrier, there may not even be anyone guarding it. If there is, perhaps we can distract them.’
‘That’s what I like about you, Max,’ Abby said. ‘Your blind optimism.’ She started walking down the street then looked back over her shoulder. ‘So are you all coming, or what?’
They kept to the pavement on the left-hand side. There were no street lights so they were able to stay in the shadows. They moved in single file – Abby first, then Max, Lukas, Sami and Lili. It was immediately obvious that this street led to a dangerous area. There were no shops or cafes. No pedestrians. House windows were barred, doors were locked. There was a riot of graffiti on the walls and the cadets had to move around an enormous pile of litter that had accumulated on the pavement. There were plastic bags of rotten rubbish and even an old fridge, dented and half-open, lying on its side. Max thought he saw the movement of rodents among the debris.
They were a quarter of a football pitch from the barrier when Abby held up a hand. They were by a house whose first floor had
a precarious overhang. It looked like it could collapse at any minute, but it afforded them good cover from which to survey the barrier. It was constructed from breezeblocks. A vicious roll of razor wire lay along the top. Max counted five gun holes and it looked to him as if the door could only be opened from the other side.
‘I don’t see how we can get through that,’ Lili said. ‘Even if we manage to create a distraction, we can’t climb over –’
She didn’t finish her sentence, because there was a sudden noise behind them.
Max looked over his shoulder. Movement. A small crowd was approaching from the way they’d come. He estimated that there were fifteen people, and they were running, rather chaotically, in the cadets’ direction. They were young – very young, some of them. Aged between seven and sixteen, he reckoned. And many of them – all of them, perhaps – were armed. Some of the younger kids held handguns in the air, and they were shouting excitedly.
‘Get down!’ Lukas said. As one, the cadets crouched behind the sprawling pile of rubbish. The newcomers were still running their way and Max could see now that they all wore bandanas over their faces. Not blue bandanas, like he would have expected of Blue Command gang members. These were a mixture of reds and dirty oranges, covering their noses and mouths, but not their eyes, which gleamed with a wild ferocity.
‘It’s a different gang,’ Lili whispered.
‘Turf war,’ Lukas said. ‘They want to grab some of Blue Command’s territory and they’re going to fight them for it. This is going to get noisy.’
The gang had moved past the cadets’ position now. Either they had not seen the five of them crouching in the shadows behind the litter pile, or they had chosen to ignore them. They were about ten metres closer to the barrier when they stopped. The cadets watched them from behind. They formed a single line across the road. The excitement of the younger ones had suddenly seemed to evaporate. They were quiet and still. He couldn’t see their firearms, but from the way some had their arms raised, others their shoulder hunched, he reckoned that ten of the youngsters had pistols while five had something more powerful. Submachine guns, perhaps.
‘They’re going to be massacred,’ Sami whispered. ‘Standing in a line like that, one burst of fire from the barricade will take them out.’
He was right. The kids in the red bandanas might be armed and keen, but they were no military tacticians.
‘Get flat on the ground,’ Max urged the others. ‘There’s going to be crossfire, ricochets …’
One of the gang members shouted an instruction. There was suddenly a thunderous cacophony as fifteen weapons fired towards the barrier. Lumps of concrete and clouds of dust burst from it. Max pressed himself hard to the ground, covering his head with his hands.
Silence.
Any minute now, he told himself, the people behind the barrier would shoot back. They would be aiming for the gang, but there was nothing to stop loose bullets heading towards the cadets. ‘Keep low!’ he whispered. ‘Keep low!’
Ten seconds passed.
Twenty.
There was no retaliation.
One of the younger kids shouted something and laughed. He raised his arm, pointed his handgun to the sky, and fired. There was a muzzle flash and the retort echoed against the buildings. Two more kids laughed, and the line of armed youngsters started to move closer to the barrier.
‘We should leave,’ Lili whispered. ‘Go back the way we came. Get out of –’ She was looking back along the street as she spoke. ‘Oh no!’
All the other cadets had been focused on the line of youngsters. Now they followed Lili’s gaze. Max’s stomach lurched. A vehicle was visible at the end of the street. It was no ordinary vehicle. It was one of the armoured vans they had seen minutes previously. Perhaps it was even the same one. It was moving slowly towards them, its engine low and grumbling.
‘BOPE,’ Max said.
Abby looked at the barrier, then at the armoured van, then at the barrier again. ‘We’re trapped,’ she said, a hint of panic in her voice. She swallowed hard. ‘We have to get past the vehicle before any of those BOPE guys get out. Remember what Hector said: some of them are on Blue Command’s side. They’re going to open up on this lot and we’re going to get caught in the middle!’
The cadets didn’t need telling twice. They jumped up from their prone position. At the same time, Max saw a couple of the gang members turn around. Their eyes widened and they shouted out in alarm.
‘Run!’ Max bellowed.
The cadets raced back up the street. But they didn’t get far. The armoured van had stopped. Behind the glare of its headlights, Max could see figures emerging from the vehicle. Eight, maybe more. He could see their weapons and the smooth outline of their heads – they were wearing balaclavas. Four of them had ballistic riot shields. They positioned themselves efficiently in a line in front of the armoured van, kneeling down behind the shields. The van’s headlights cast long shadows along the road, almost reaching the group of young gunmen, who appeared disorderly in comparison. They were shouting at each other, a couple of the older boys waving their arms around and shouting instructions at the younger ones. Two of them discharged their weapons into the air, but it seemed to have no effect on the armed police. The four officers who had no riot shields took up position behind those who did. A voice came over a loudspeaker from the armoured vehicle. Max couldn’t understand the words but he understood their meaning. Put down your weapons!
It was never going to happen. One of the older gang members aimed his submachine gun towards the armed police and opened fire.
It was a five-second burst, with a bright orange muzzle flash from the barrel of the weapon. Max was used to the sound of an MP5 from his time on the range, but still, the noise was nasty. Bullets hit the ballistic shields, and a few ricocheted off the armoured vehicle. Instinctively, the cadets hit the ground again. Neither of the two sets of combatants seemed to have noticed them. Or if they had, they plainly didn’t care that they might get hit in the crossfire.
There was an awful moment of silence. Then the armed police retaliated.
Max and the other cadets had been well trained in the use of firearms. They were adept with pistols, submachine guns and rifles. But it was one thing handling weapons on the range. Being in the middle of a blazing firefight was quite another. The four BOPE guys without riot shields stood up and stepped to the right. It was a choreographed move. Max was weirdly reminded of books he’d read when he was younger that showed Roman legionaries attacking from behind a wall of shields. Unlike Roman legionaries, however, the BOPE were equipped with automatic weapons and laser sights. Each of the four men aimed their weapons with quick precision. Max glanced at the gang members. Red dots danced on the chests of the four biggest. The four police weapons fired a single shot. The four gang members crumpled to the ground. Quickly, the police marksmen positioned themselves back behind the ballistic shields.
The sudden death of four of their members had an immediate effect on the gang. They scattered from the middle of the street towards the pavements. Several of them fired handguns uselessly towards the armed police. They were young, and their weapon-handling skills were poor. Bullets slammed into the building behind the cadets.
‘Is anyone hit?’ Max shouted.
‘We’re fine!’ Sami yelled. ‘But we have to get out of here!’
Easier said than done. They were sandwiched between two warring parties. The gang members had mostly taken up defensive positions. Some were hiding behind a car parked on one side of the road. A couple were in a doorway. One or two were lying behind another pile of rubbish close to the barricade. They were taking occasional and ineffective potshots at the armed police, who were slowly moving forward, protected by their ballistic shields, their armoured van trundling along behind them.
The shots from the gang members became more frequent. They were getting desperate, yelling at each other in panic, and their aim was getting wilder. Stray bullets flew more frequently over the
cadets’ heads and into the wall behind them. The BOPE personnel and their armoured van halted. The occasional bullet pinged off their ballistic shields, but it was clear that gang members had no chance of harming them, and every chance of being massacred.
Opposite their position, on the other side of the street, a door opened.
The door was set back from the dilapidated facade of the house. An old woman appeared. Her shoulders were stooped, her face lined and leathery. She made an urgent gesture to the cadets, encouraging them into her house and away from the gunfire.
Max looked left and right. The armed police were preparing to fire again. The rate of gunfire from the gang members was increasing. Anxious sweat dripped into Max’s eyes. The old woman gestured again.
‘We can’t!’ Lukas shouted. ‘We can’t cross the road! We’ll get hit!’
He was right. At the moment, the combatants were not focusing on the cadets. But if they ran across the road, the BOPE would surely mistake them for gang members …
‘We have to get out of here!’ Sami said. ‘That last bullet nearly hit Max. If we don’t do something, we’re dead.’
‘Flashbangs!’ Abby said. She took off her rucksack and yanked out one of the canister-shaped grenades the Watchers had given them. The others did the same. ‘Me, Max, Lukas,’ Abby said, ‘we’ll throw ours at the police. Sami and Lili, chuck yours at the kids. As soon as they go off, we run. Agreed?’
‘Agreed,’ the others said.
‘OK. On the count of three. One …’
Max gripped his flashbang and tucked one finger into the loop of the pin. He rolled over so he was facing the armoured van and the police.
‘Two …’
He swore under his breath. Another armed police officer had emerged from the van. He was standing by it, protected from the gunfire by his police colleagues and by the van itself. Like the others, he wore a balaclava, but his was slightly different. On the forehead there was a silver insignia of some sort. Max couldn’t make out the detail – and in any case, he had more important things to worry about. The police officer raised his assault rifle – and it was not aimed at the gang members. It was aimed at the cadets.