Ruthless

by Chris Ryan

  ‘We have to get in there,’ Tommy announced, too loudly for Max’s liking. He started to step forward, out of the shadows, before Lukas grabbed him and pushed him roughly against the wall.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ Lukas said, ‘unless you want those guys to shoot you in the head.’

  Abby was shaking. Max put an arm around her. ‘We have to get you out of here,’ he whispered.

  ‘This job needs all of us,’ Abby said wearily. ‘Look how heavily guarded it is. And we can’t leave Tommy’s girlfriend to these people. Think what will happen to her. Don’t argue with me, Max.’

  Max knew she was right. He nodded. ‘I think we need to get onto the roof,’ he said.

  ‘Right,’ Lili agreed. ‘There must be an access point where those cables enter the building.’

  ‘And some way to get up there to fix the cables.’

  ‘We can’t approach from this direction,’ Sami said. ‘The guards will see us. We need to get around to the side or the back.’

  Nobody disagreed. They retreated stealthily, Max holding Abby steady and Lukas keeping a stern eye on Tommy in case he tried anything stupid. They cut around several bullet-marked, graffiti-strewn buildings, using their internal compasses to skirt around the communications warehouse, keeping to the darkest, most desolate side streets.

  It was five minutes before the warehouse came into view again, at the end of a stinking alleyway. The cadets fought their way along it, holding their breath. They emerged by the warehouse. To their right they could make out the Blue Command guards at the front. They were facing away from the cadets, who were able to creep around the warehouse unseen.

  At the back they encountered five kids, probably no older than ten years old. The kids scurried away into the maze of the favela the moment they saw the cadets approach. No doubt they mistook them for older Blue Command personnel, which suited the cadets fine, because here, at the back of the building, was a metal access ladder, precariously fixed to the roof and leading all the way down to the ground.

  Wordlessly, the cadets made a collective decision to climb it. Lili went first. The ladder wobbled as she ascended, but she was fast and lithe and was on the roof within thirty seconds. Abby went next, Max close behind her, ready to catch her if she fell. Climbing one-handed, she nearly did, but Max was there, supporting her to stay on the wobbly rungs. It was with relief that they tumbled onto the roof.

  Lili had already reassembled the rifle from her rucksack and was examining the two sturdy bolts that fastened the ladder to the roof. It would take a heavy spanner to loosen them. Abby crouched, breathing heavily. Max clicked his assault rifle together as Tommy, then Lukas, then Sami, joined them on the roof.

  ‘Cover the back,’ Max told Lukas. Lukas nodded, assembled his weapon and got down on one knee, his rifle engaged and pointing towards the ladder. Lili put her arm around Abby, checking she was okay. Max, Sami and Tommy advanced along the roof, bending low. The communications satellite was set back from the front edge and the mass of cabling entered the building next to it. There were five bundles of black cables, each as thick as a drainpipe. They emitted an electric hum. A circular rubber housing protected the entry point from the elements. Just behind it was a metal panel set into the roof – a roof hatch! Two iron bars opposite each other acted as a handle to lift it.

  Max grabbed the bars. Sami pointed his weapon at the panel.

  Max opened the panel a crack. Light flooded out from the warehouse. Max peered in. The interior was vast, well-lit and at least fifteen metres high. In the middle, in a line across the warehouse, were three long trestle tables. One was covered with tools: wrenches and screwdrivers, hammers and soldering irons. Another bowed under the weight of rolls of thick black cable. On the third table were several laptops and TV monitors. Max couldn’t see what the monitors showed, but they emitted a flickering glow.

  Between the trestle tables and the back of the warehouse, the bundles of cables descended from the ceiling to a collection of vast junction boxes, each one the size of a small car. The room was illuminated by four bright lamps, one in each corner. A power cable snaked from each lamp into the centre, meeting out of sight under the middle trestle table. Between the tables and the front entrance were two video cameras on tripods.

  And alone in the warehouse was a girl.

  She had raven-black hair down to the middle of her back, and she was leaning over one of the trestle tables with a soldering iron. Max couldn’t see what she was working on.

  He could see, however, that they had a big problem.

  A square metal frame was fixed to the ceiling, surrounding the roof hatch. A thick chain was attached to a carabiner on the frame. The chain extended down to the girl, where it was fastened to an iron band locked around her waist. She was able to move around the warehouse, but how far was limited by the length of the chain. She could access the tools around her. She could work. But she couldn’t leave.

  Max turned to Tommy. ‘Is that her?’ he whispered.

  Tommy joined him at the open hatch and looked down. ‘Beatriz,’ he whispered. He looked at Max, clearly shocked by what he saw. Then, much louder, he called, ‘Beatriz!’

  ‘Quiet!’ Max hissed. But it was too late. The girl looked around, obviously expecting to see somebody inside the warehouse. Only when it became apparent that there was nobody did she look up to the ceiling. Max saw her face for the first time. She was unexpectedly pale. Her skin was smudged with dirt and her hair looked matted. Her tired eyes widened as she saw the two faces looking down at her from the ceiling.

  ‘Tommy?’ she mouthed. She looked sharply towards the main entrance of the warehouse, then back up at the ceiling. She made a shooing gesture with her hands. ‘Go!’ she mouthed. ‘They have guns!’

  Max lowered the panel and turned to Tommy. ‘She speaks good English?’

  ‘Fluent,’ Tommy said. ‘I told you, she’s a brainbox. How will we get her out of there?’

  Max thought hard. Beatriz wasn’t going anywhere until they could disconnect her from that chain. There were, to his mind, only two ways to do that. Either they cut the chain where it was attached to Beatriz or they unclipped the carabiner where it met the frame on the ceiling. But the frame was well out of their reach. Max couldn’t think of a way to get to it.

  Tommy stared at him, looking frightened. ‘She’s stuck there, isn’t she?’ he said.

  ‘Unless we can cut that chain, yes.’

  ‘Then what are we going to do? I’m not leaving without her.’

  Max looked around, across the rooftops of the favela. It crossed his mind that if they could remove the ladder from the wall of the warehouse, they could use it to cross the gap to the next building, then escape across the rooftops, safely away from the dangers of the street.

  But at the moment, they could only do that without Beatriz.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Tommy repeated, deep worry lines etched on his brow. ‘Maybe I can call down to the guards at the front and talk them round …’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ Max said. ‘Don’t move.’ He looked back at the panel. He felt strangely calm. There was no sign of Guzman. There was no indication that the BOPE were nearby. Maybe, just maybe, they had enough time to sneak Beatriz out from under the BOPE’s noses.

  ‘I’m going down there,’ he said.

  17

  A Leap of Faith

  The cadets assembled in the middle of the roof. Max explained to them what he and Tommy had seen. ‘So this is the plan,’ he said.

  ‘There’s a plan?’ Abby said with a wan smile. ‘I thought we were making this up as we went along.’ She was sweating badly. Her lips were pale. It pained Max to see her in this state, trying to pretend that nothing was wrong. He forced himself to concentrate. The sooner they could rescue Beatriz, the sooner they could be out of this cursed favela.

  ‘I’m going to open the panel in the roof,’ he continued, ‘and call down to Beatriz to throw up one of the big loops of cable that are down there
. Lukas, you’re the strongest. If I hold one end of the cable, you can lower me down, right?’

  Lukas nodded.

  ‘Once I’m down there, I’ll try to find some way of cutting through the chain that’s holding Beatriz. I’ll also look for a spanner that we can use to loosen that ladder. I think it’s too short for us to put it through the roof and use it to escape the warehouse, but it’ll stop anyone else getting up here, and we might be able to use it to get across the rooftops if we need to. Once I’ve freed Beatriz, Lukas can pull us back up through the roof and we’ll get the hell out of here.’

  ‘We’ll have to be quiet,’ Lili said. ‘If the guards hear us, they’ll shoot.’

  Max nodded. ‘I’ll have my weapon,’ he said quietly.

  ‘What if the guards walk in while you’re in there?’

  ‘It’s a risk,’ Max admitted. ‘But I don’t think it’s likely. They’ve got Beatriz on a leash so they won’t be expecting her to escape. And I don’t think they know we’re up here. If they expect an attack from anywhere, it’ll be from the front.’

  ‘We should still be on our guard,’ Lili said. ‘Sami, you cover the back. I’ll cover the front. We can lay down suppressive fire if we need to.’

  ‘What can I do?’ Tommy asked. ‘I want to help.’

  There was a brief pause. The cadets looked at each other. The best thing Tommy could do would be to stay well out of the way while they got to work, but nobody wanted to say that. It was Abby who finally spoke. ‘Your job is to look after me,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to lie – I feel a bit under the weather.’ She looked down at her wounded arm. Blood had started to seep through the bandage. Tommy swallowed hard, then nodded.

  ‘Okay,’ Max said. ‘Let’s do it.’

  The cadets moved in absolute silence: Sami to the back of the roof, Lili to the front, Lukas and Max to the metal panel. Max lifted it away fully this time. Beatriz was below, looking up at them with an expression of pure alarm, then at the main doors, then back up again. Max pointed at the table that held the rolls of cable and gave what he hoped was an encouraging nod.

  She frowned.

  ‘Throw it up!’ Max mouthed, gesturing with his hands.

  Beatriz tilted her head, as if she didn’t understand what he was saying. She obviously did though, because she hurried over, lifted a roll of cable and gave Max an inquisitive look. Max nodded and gave her a thumbs-up. Beatriz glanced nervously at the door again. She swung the roll of cable under her legs to give it some momentum and then hurled it up towards the opening in the roof.

  It missed. Badly. The roll crashed against the roof of the warehouse and fell back to the ground, where it clattered into another trestle table. Max winced at the noise, held his breath and half shut the panel in case anybody came to investigate. Nobody did. He opened the panel and Beatriz tried again.

  This time her aim was good. The roll soared up to the opening in the roof and Max grabbed it with one hand. ‘Hope it’s long enough,’ he said as he handed it to Lukas.

  The roll was held together with a plastic cable tie, which Lukas cut with the knife from his pack while Max disassembled his rifle again and stowed it in his rucksack. Together they unfurled the cable. Max took the leading end and wrapped it around his waist and across his chest and back. The cable was too stiff to tie into a knot, so he gripped the end firmly with his right hand and nodded at Lukas. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Ready.’

  ‘Here goes nothing. Don’t drop me, hey?’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ Lukas said without smiling. He gripped the cable. ‘Go.’

  Gingerly, Max lowered himself through the opening, holding on to the roof with his left hand. It took a great leap of faith to let go of the edge, but he took a deep breath and did it. Immediately he was swinging in mid-air like a pendulum.

  He was grateful to Lukas for letting him down quickly and smoothly. He didn’t relish the thought of being suspended in the middle of that warehouse, an easy target, for a second longer than necessary. As soon as his feet touched the ground, he unwound the cable from his body and left it hanging in the air. He turned to Beatriz, who was staring at him, wide-eyed. ‘Who are you?’ she whispered.

  ‘I’m a friend of Tommy’s.’

  ‘That tells me nothing. Who are you?’

  ‘Nobody,’ Max said. He took off his rucksack, removed the assault rifle from inside and reassembled it. Then he approached the trestle table that was covered with tools. He grabbed a sturdy adjustable spanner and looked up at the hole in the ceiling. Lukas was there, looking down. Max showed him the spanner, then hurled it up to him. Lukas caught it, then disappeared.

  ‘Let’s get you out of here,’ Max said. He walked up to Beatriz and examined the chain that attached her to the roof. ‘We need to cut through this,’ he said.

  Beatriz stared at him and blinked. ‘That’s your big plan?’ she whispered. She barely had an accent. ‘You think I have not tried to do that already? Look!’ She showed him various points in the chain where it was dented and marked. Then she waved one arm to indicate the warehouse in general. ‘There isn’t a tool in here I haven’t tried!’

  Max blushed. For some reason it hadn’t occurred to him that Beatriz would have attempted this herself. But he didn’t have time to say anything, because at that precise moment, the door opened.

  A single Blue Command guard appeared. He didn’t seem to be expecting anything untoward because he was not holding a weapon and was walking with a relaxed, almost arrogant gait. He wore a bandana, of course, but no top. His right arm was covered with tattoos. He froze when he saw Max looking at him, then snarled. Max raised his weapon quickly and pointed it at the guard. ‘Tell him to get out,’ he said to Beatriz.

  Beatriz translated. The guard turned quickly and scurried out of the warehouse. From the roof, Max had not been able to see the doors. Now he saw that they opened inwards and there was a long, solid beam of wood on a hinge to one side that acted as a primitive lock. At the moment it pointed upwards, but if he swung it down he could lock them into the warehouse.

  His weapon pointing ahead, he ran to the door. Voices shouted urgently outside. Somebody shouted, ‘Guzman!’ Max fired a warning round into the wall above the door. The retort echoed around the warehouse. He reached the door and slammed it shut, then swung the wooden bolt down, barring the door. Just in time. Gunshots sounded from outside.

  Max ran back to Beatriz. Her face was panicked. He looked up at the hole in the ceiling. Lukas was there.

  ‘What’s happening?’ his friend asked.

  ‘We’re blown!’ Max shouted. ‘Pull the ladder up before they get up there!’

  Sami had the spanner and was straining to loosen the first bolt when he heard gunfire. It sounded like it was coming from inside the warehouse.

  ‘Max,’ he whispered.

  He turned. He wanted to run back to the hole in the roof and do whatever was necessary to help and protect his mate. But Lukas shouted at him. ‘Get the ladder up! Get it up! Now!’

  Max spun. He took in the contents of the warehouse again. The communications cables snaking down from the ceiling. The video cameras. The lights. The trestle tables full of tools. Beatriz. She was breathing heavily, her eyes darting around. She looked terrified, but also determined.

  There was a banging on the door. More gunfire.

  ‘You’ve got to get out of here,’ Beatriz said. She pointed helplessly at the chain attaching her to the roof. ‘I’m stuck here, but they can pull you back up through the roof.’

  Was she right? Was that really their only option?

  Max didn’t think so. He pointed at the communications cables. ‘Those things distribute pirated TV around the favelas, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Max moved over to the video cameras. ‘Can you connect the cables to these cameras?’

  Beatriz nodded mutely.

  Max closed his eyes and breathed deeply as he tried to think. A series of images flashed across his mind. He saw Pep
e at the safe house, staring at the blank TV, uselessly pointing the remote control at it. He saw Guzman – crazy eyes and wild hair. He saw the Jackal with the silver insignia on his BOPE balaclava.

  And all of a sudden, a way out of this impossible situation suggested itself. He strode over to the centre of the warehouse and looked up at the hole in the ceiling. Lukas was there, still clutching the cable Max had used to descend. He looked panicky and was mouthing the words, ‘Get back up!’

  Max shook his head. ‘I need Guzman,’ he called up. ‘I need the Jackal. And I need time.’

  For a moment, Max thought Lukas was going to argue. But he didn’t. He simply nodded, and disappeared.

  Desperately, Sami continued to unscrew the first bolt. It came off easily, but the second was a more difficult proposition. It wouldn’t budge. He twisted as hard as he could, but to no avail.

  Voices, shouting, down below. Sami didn’t even have time to look over the edge. He knew the Blue Command kids were coming. Any moment now, they’d be up the ladder and on the roof. If that happened, it would be game over.

  He stood up and kicked the end of the spanner. It budged a fraction. He held his breath then kicked again. More movement. On his knees, he twisted the final bolt by hand as fast as he could. By now, Lili was beside him. She grabbed one side of the ladder as Sami grabbed the other. As they hauled it up, Sami peeked over the edge. He saw three armed gang members down there. One of them was jumping to try and grab the ladder, but it was just out of reach. Sami leaned back as one of the others raised his weapon and fired into the air. ‘What’s happening with Max?’ Sami demanded as he and Lili pulled the ladder up.

  ‘He’s still inside,’ Lili said. ‘He’s refusing to come up.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Sami said. Stepping backwards, they dragged the heavy ladder onto the roof. There was another burst of fire from down below.

  ‘He won’t leave Beatriz. He’s given Lukas some instructions. I don’t know what yet.’ She looked him straight in the eye. ‘I think he’s got a plan,’ she said.