Ruthless

by Chris Ryan

  ‘Three …’

  Max looked down at his body. A red dot danced on his chest. He shuffled back. The red dot appeared on the pavement, then moved back up to his chest.

  ‘NOW!’

  Max didn’t hesitate. He pulled the pin on his flashbang grenade and hurled it as hard as he could at the police officer with the silver insignia on his balaclava. The others threw their grenades at the same time, and the flashbangs clattered to the ground: two in the middle of the road just in front of the barrier; two in front of the line of riot shields; one in front of Max’s marksman.

  There was a moment of silence.

  Then they exploded.

  The noise was ear-splitting. Even Max, who was expecting it, found himself momentarily disorientated. He had his eyes clenched shut to protect them from the sequence of bright flashes that he knew would accompany the sound, but could see the flashes through his closed eyelids.

  ‘Go!’ Abby shouted. ‘GO!’

  Max opened his eyes and pushed himself to his feet. The other cadets did the same. In his peripheral vision, he could see the BOPE guys with their arms over their eyes. He raced across the road. The old lady was no longer visible, but the door was still open. Every cell in Max’s body urged him towards it. The others were all around him, sprinting just as fast.

  Distance to the other side of the road: fifteen metres.

  Ten metres.

  Five.

  Lukas and Abby were through. They disappeared into the house. Sami was next, hurling himself through the open doorway. Lili moved like a ghost, slipping quietly off the street and into the house.

  Which left Max. He was almost at the entrance when he saw the red light on the wall to his right. He threw himself forward, half jumping, half diving. At the same time he heard gunfire. A chunk of brick exploded from the wall just where he’d seen the red dot. Grit showered his face. Some went into his eyes, half blinding him. He clattered into the house, his eyes half shut. Someone grabbed his arms and he heard the door shut behind him. A female voice, elderly, was talking quickly in Portuguese. Max forced himself to open his eyes. They were watering badly, and he had to keep blinking. Abby was holding him, looking concerned. ‘You okay?’ she said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Max replied. ‘I think so. That BOPE guy tried to shoot me, but he missed.’

  Abby’s eyes flashed. It was obvious what she thought about someone trying to shoot her friend. Max looked around. They were in a dingy room, with a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. The only other light came from an old television in one corner. There was no picture: just a blank blue screen, occasionally flickering. Crumbling bare plaster covered the wall, and a few items of old furniture were dotted around. In the middle of the room was a trapdoor with some stairs leading down to a basement. The old lady was holding it open and speaking urgently to them in Portuguese. She was obviously telling them to get down into the basement. To emphasise her point, there was another burst of gunfire outside.

  Lukas and Sami were already descending into the basement. Lili said something to the old lady, who replied quickly but ushered her down through the trapdoor as she spoke. Max was still a bit shaky, so he allowed Abby to guide him down the stairs. Within seconds the trapdoor had shut above them, plunging the cadets into darkness.

  8

  New Best Friend

  Lukas was the first to switch on his torch. It glowed red rather than white, because this would preserve their night vision if they had to switch it off suddenly. Max wiped the tears from his gritty eyes. In the dim light, his friends looked scared, and for a moment nobody spoke. Abby switched on her torch, then Sami did the same. There was enough light to see clearly where they were. It wasn’t nice.

  The roof sagged. Pools of water lay on the floor and rat-like shapes scurried into corners as the light disturbed them. It smelled damp and the brick walls were crumbling. In one of them, however, there was a door. Abby pointed at it. ‘Did the old lady tell you where that goes?’ she asked Lili.

  Lili shook her head. ‘She just said that too many children have been killed in the favela. I think she said her kids died. That’s why she wanted to help us.’

  There was the sound of footsteps up above.

  ‘We can’t stay here,’ Max said. ‘If the police arrive …’ He couldn’t shake the image of the man with the silver insignia on his balaclava – or of the dancing red dot.

  The others nodded their agreement. Lukas tried the handle. It was stiff, but it opened with a squeak. He shone his torch through into the next room. ‘It’s another basement,’ he said. ‘Just like this one. With another exit.’

  ‘They’re connected,’ Max said. He ran his hand through his hair and took a moment to work out his bearings. ‘If we head that way, the basements will take us past the barrier into Blue Command territory.’

  Gunfire was still audible. The cadets entered the next basement, which was indistinguishable from the first: the same sagging ceiling, dilapidated brickwork, wet floor and scurrying rodents. The door on the other side was open. On the far side of the third basement there was no exit, but an opening in the wall and a few old tin cans rusting on the floor. Max wondered if anybody ever came down here. He pointed his torch at the ceiling. There was no sign of a trapdoor here. Maybe the only access was the one they had used. In which case, how were they going to get out?

  The cadets crossed another two basements before they came to a brick wall with no exit. In the final basement, however, there was another trapdoor. But there were no steps leading up to it. Lukas and Lili were the tallest of the cadets, so Lili clambered up onto Lukas’s shoulders. ‘Kill the torches,’ she told everybody. ‘If I drop the hatch, it’s because there’s people in the room above. If that happens, run back into the next basement. We can defend ourselves better there.’ The cadets switched off their torches, plunging themselves once more into darkness. A dim slice of light appeared as Lili pushed up the trapdoor.

  The cadets listened carefully. The gunfire had subsided – or maybe they just couldn’t hear it any more. There was no sound from the room above. Lili manoeuvred the hatch to one side, then grabbed the edge of the opening and hauled herself up. She moved out of sight for a moment, then reappeared. ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘Nobody’s here.’

  Lukas gave Abby and Sami a leg-up. Once they’d grabbed the edge of the opening, they were strong enough to haul themselves through without difficulty. Max wiped his sore eyes, then approached Lukas.

  ‘You okay?’ Lukas asked. ‘I thought for a minute they’d put you down.’

  ‘They’ll have to try harder than that,’ Max said with a grin. He accepted Lukas’s leg-up and hauled himself into the room above. Then he leaned back down through the trapdoor, stretching out his hand. Lukas grabbed it and Max pulled him up.

  The room was similar to the old lady’s. They could hear gunfire again.

  ‘Who do you think lives here?’ Sami said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Max said. ‘Maybe no one.’

  There was a broken window on the far wall, beside a door. Max and Abby approached the window and looked out. The house faced a large square. To their left were some metal barricades. Max’s sense of direction told him that they were on the far side of the barricade the gang members had been attacking. There was no sign of Blue Command personnel on this side. Maybe they had decided to leave the fighting to the armed police unit. In fact, there was no sign of anybody in the square.

  ‘I guess nobody wanted to stick around when the bullets started to fly,’ Abby said.

  ‘Wise decision,’ Max said. He examined the square. A few motorbikes were propped up against walls. Cables tangled overhead. The houses surrounding the square were three storeys high. Max didn’t like the look of the dark windows on the first and second floors. Anyone could be hiding in the darkness with a weapon. It would be easy to take potshots at anybody entering the square.

  Yet the cadets couldn’t stay here. They had to keep pressing on, further into Blue Command territory
. It was the only way they had a chance of rescuing the ambassador’s son – wherever he might be.

  Max turned to the others. ‘We need to get out of here while the square is empty. But I think we should put on our bandanas. I don’t think we’ll come under fire immediately if people think we’re in Blue Command.’

  ‘That’s a big risk,’ Lukas said. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the direction of the firefight they’d just escaped. ‘Those red-bandana kids? There could be more of them.’

  ‘It’s a risk,’ Max agreed. ‘Anyone got a better plan?’

  Nobody spoke.

  ‘Then let’s move.’

  The cadets removed their scarves and reached into their rucksacks. They pulled out their bandanas and tied them around their faces. It had an instant effect. They all looked suddenly more aggressive and, crucially, anonymous. ‘We need to get across the square and down the road on the western side,’ Lili said. ‘I think that will take us towards the heart of Blue Command territory.’

  ‘When we get outside,’ Max said, ‘we need to run across the square individually. We don’t want to bunch up in a group because that will make us an easier target.’ Not for the first time, he wondered when he had started thinking like a military tactician.

  The cadets nodded. Abby opened the main door, checked left and right, then sprinted across the square. The other cadets followed: Lili, then Sami and Lukas. Max was the last to go. He stood in the doorway and saw the others congregate on the corner of the street heading west. As Max prepared to join them, something stopped him. Had he seen movement at a first-floor window opposite? He felt suddenly very exposed, reluctant to put himself out in the open.

  Then he heard another noise. It came from beneath the room. He ran over to it. Two men were in the basement. They had torches, and weapons, and balaclavas, and body armour. He cursed. Then one of them looked up and saw him standing there.

  The trapdoor was propped open. Max kicked it shut. He ran to the door, glancing up at the first-floor window as he burst into the square. There was definitely someone there. Were they a threat? It was impossible to tell. All Max could do was run.

  He flew across the square. He didn’t travel in a straight line, but zigzagged to make himself a more challenging target, should anybody have him in their sights. He wanted to look back over his shoulder, but he knew that would slow him down, so he kept his eye on the street corner where the other cadets were. Lukas, Sami and Lili were out of sight. Abby was watching him, her face urging him on, one arm outstretched. It occurred to Max that she looked more concerned for his safety than she ever had for her own. When he reached the corner of the street, she grabbed him and hugged him fiercely – and somewhat unexpectedly. Lili stood just behind her. Her brow was sweaty and she seemed out of breath. But there was something in her eyes as she watched the two cadets hugging. Despite the danger, she almost looked amused.

  Max unravelled himself from Abby’s embrace. He pressed himself against the building at the corner of the street and looked back across the square. He had a full view of this side of the barrier, with its roll of razor wire curled along the top. Someone was desperately trying to claw their way over the barrier. A single shot rang out, and the climber slid back out of view.

  There was silence.

  Max didn’t have long to feel sick about what he’d seen. The door of the house they’d escaped from was still open and a figure stood there. Max instantly recognised him: he had the silver insignia on his balaclava. He was the BOPE guy who had tried to shoot him. Only then did he remember the picture Hector had shown them back at the hotel. It was the Jackal, the BOPE man Guzman paid to keep the police onside! His weapon was slung across his chest and he was looking Max’s way. Their eyes met across the square. The Jackal didn’t engage his weapon. He must have realised that Max would disappear before he had a chance to take the shot. Instead he raised his right hand and made the shape of a gun with two fingers and a thumb.

  Max retreated away from the street corner, out of sight of the BOPE.

  ‘You okay?’ Abby asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Max muttered. ‘Just making a new best friend, is all.’

  ‘It was only a hug,’ Abby said, blushing.

  ‘Yeah. Not really what I meant.’ He looked back along the street. It meandered uphill and to the right. Now that the gunfire had stopped, people were emerging from their houses. ‘Let’s keep moving,’ he said quietly.

  The cadets pressed on.

  9

  Pepe’s Predicament

  Woody and Angel had gone quiet.

  They had been staring at the laptop screen in the safe house since the cadets had left. The tiny dots indicating their positions had been glowing on the screen, moving towards Blue Command’s territory. They had watched as the cadets split into two groups. Their pulses had risen somewhat when Lili’s dot had separated from the leading group and re-joined Max and Abby. They had felt a little calmer as the group moved forward as one.

  But now they were grim-faced. Their fingers twitched. The five dots had disappeared.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Angel whispered. She wanted to get out there and find out for herself, but she was experienced enough to know that she had to accumulate as much intel as possible before making an operational decision.

  Woody didn’t answer immediately. He was looking at his phone. It was gloomy in the room and his face was bathed in light from the phone and laptop screens. Ten seconds passed in silence. ‘We’ve got a problem,’ he said. He showed Angel the screen. It was open on the Fogo Cruzado app. Woody had zoomed in to the Complexo do Alemão, and specifically on the cadets’ last known location. He held it up to Angel. The app indicated gunfire in that location, and it was happening right now.

  Angel felt the blood draining from her face. She scraped her chair back and stood up.

  ‘Wait,’ Woody told her.

  ‘What do you mean, wait? They’re in trouble. We have to go in. Get Hector on the phone. Tell him what we’re doing.’ She cursed under her breath. ‘I told him this was madness,’ she muttered.

  ‘If they’d been hit,’ Woody said, ‘their GPS locators would still register.’

  ‘Not if their phones have been taken and destroyed.’

  ‘Okay, but I think they’re hiding. We need to give them a couple of minutes. Seriously, Angel, sit down. They’re smart kids. Trust them.’

  Angel frowned but did as he said. They continued to stare at the laptop. Angel realised they were both holding their breath.

  Pepe was not enjoying his game of football. His friends were as noisy as always, yelling at him to pass every time he had the ball. They were in good spirits and full of jokes. But Pepe couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened. What he had done.

  He couldn’t stop hearing his parents’ voices. You end up paying the penalty.

  He knew he’d made a big mistake.

  His first instinct had been to pretend he hadn’t done anything wrong. He could always deny having spoken to those Blue Command boys. Nobody else had seen him do it, he thought. It was like the time he had stolen a fidget spinner from a shop and pretended he’d found it in the street. Nobody could prove otherwise. But as he tried to dribble the football past one of his friends, and was easily tackled because he was so distracted, he realised this was different to the fidget spinner. Nobody had got hurt then. Now, however, his family might be in danger – because of him.

  He had to do something about it.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ he told the others. The other team had just scored and were hugging each other like they saw real footballers do on the TV – when the TV was working.

  His friends frowned, then they looked at the leather football. Pepe grabbed it. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow.’

  Without waiting for a reply, he turned his back on them and ran, clutching his precious football to his chest.

  The evening was warm and the favela streets were crowded and noisy. It didn’t matter
to Pepe, who knew these maze-like roads and alleys as well as he knew his own face. He cut through the crowds and across the traffic with speed. It only took five minutes to arrive at the top of the street where he lived.

  There he stopped. He was almost sick.

  A police vehicle had parked just beyond the alleyway that led to the entrance to his house. Armed officers with their trademark balaclavas had emerged. Breathless, his heart pumping and his skin tingling, he watched five of them disappear down the alleyway while another stood guard at the front.

  He knew that they had come for his family.

  The penalty.

  For a moment he was paralysed. He had to warn them. But there was no way of getting into the house. Not now the death squad had arrived.

  Pepe was small and he was sometimes naughty. But he was sharp and quick. He could see that the first-floor window of the house was open. Maybe, he thought, he could shout at them from the window opposite, the one above the cafe. He was good at slipping into places unseen, after all.

  He sprinted down the street.

  There was still no sign of the cadets on the laptop screen.

  A minute passed.

  Two minutes.

  Both Watchers exhaled suddenly. Five dots had reappeared on the screen. The cadets had changed position. They seemed to be in a house in a square on the edge of Blue Command territory. Angel threw her head back in relief.

  And then she saw the sniper.

  Angel and Woody faced an open window, which meant they could see across the street to the first floor of the cafe opposite. There was another open window there. The room beyond it was in near-darkness. But Angel could just make out the silhouette of a gunman hunched behind it, a weapon pressed into his shoulder.

  She looked down and saw the tiny red dot of a laser sight. It was not on her chest. It was on Woody’s.