You walk past the units, looking for Viktor’s. It’s a quiet neighborhood; these duplexes should be beyond the price range for student housing. An old man in a suede tracksuit shuffles his way down the walk, stopping to pick up a receipt from the bushes and take it to the waste bin.
He smiles and waves, so you nod back, arriving on Viktor’s doorstep. There’s stillness in the morning air as you press the key into the lock, engage the latch, and turn the knob to let yourself in. Even though you know the man who owns this unit is across town, you feel like you’re barging into someone’s house and are half-surprised that an outraged tenant doesn’t arrive to curse you.
The apartment is quiet and empty. Despite the glamor of the complex, the inside of his lodging is spartan. There are several bookshelves full of volumes both scientific and enlightening. The living room has a single chair with cushions that look well-worn and comfortable. There’s a lamp on the end table and a dog-eared copy of The Stranger by Albert Camus.
The room opens into a kitchen with a bartop counter, a table with two chairs; across from the kitchen is a sliding glass patio door. No sign of the laptop yet, but you can see there’s a hall leading into some back rooms. Most likely you’ll find the computer in one of the bedrooms, especially if he has one converted into a office and….
Someone starts jimmying the front door behind you. Your heart jumps into your throat and every hair stands on end. Panic gives a necessary shot of adrenaline to your legs, which send you sprinting to:
• The back patio! Time to get outta Dodge!
• The kitchen nook. If I hide behind the bar-top counter, I can spy on the newcomer.
• The rooms. Snag the laptop, quick!
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Interrupting POW!
You run back into the street, looking over your shoulder as you flee from the gun battle. Damn, another Elite Squad policeman comes, looking for his partner. You fire blindly at him and he hugs the side of the building for cover. While you’ve got him pinned down, Viktor comes out and offers a few shots of his own before turning to run. But then he goes down.
You look up at the rooftop just in time to see the assassin who’s been following you. One of his pistols smokes from shooting Viktor, and the other pistol is trained on you—he watches Viktor with one eye, and keeps one eye focused on you.
He fires.
THE END
Into the Lion’s Den
Around the corner from the university, past the larger and more expensive houses, is a series of duplexes. They’re off the main road and appear to be spacious and new enough to be expensive in their own right. Coupled with an ideal location (one could easily bike or even walk to the university or stadium), and the visual appeal of a lush, forested backdrop, you can assume Viktor must have been doing something right to afford such lodgings.
Agent Bertram confirms the address on his phone, then parks the car a few units away from the home registered to Viktor Lucio de Ocampo.
Removing the car keys, he says, “Listen, if the guy beat us home, he’ll be surprised to see us. He was cool and collected up by the statue, but that’s because things were on his terms. When a criminal is surprised, that’s when they become dangerous. Keep your wits about you.”
You nod. Exiting the car, you slip in behind Bertram, your heart pounding with adrenaline. A woman walking two toy teacup pooches looks at you with suspicion, but you don’t much care. When you get to the door of Viktor’s unit, Agent Bertram slides to the side, up against the wall, and indicates with a nod that you should get off the porch as well. Maybe he doesn’t want either of you to be seen through the peep-hole. As you move out of view, Bertram pulls out his sidearm, then knocks on the door with his fist.
Oh, you realize, he doesn’t want you to get hit should this guy decide to shoot through the door.
No response. After a moment, Bertram bangs on the door again, this time with a few extra raps. He’s got that “cop knock” down!
He shouts something in Portuguese, but still no response. After another moment of silence, he pounds once more and adds, “Viktor, we just want to talk!”
Nothing. Bertram turns to you and says, “I’m going in.”
“Don’t you need a warrant or something?” you ask.
He smiles. “This is Rio, baby.”
Handgun raised, he kicks the door in. With practiced efficiency, Agent Bertram sweeps the house, looking in the corners and into each room before ducking back out to you.
“It’s clear,” he says.
You enter the unit, but it’s as if no one lives here. It’s completely empty: no furniture—nothing. It’s not clean, like an apartment ready to be rented would be, instead there are the telltale signs of a human occupant. The carpet is dirtier at the entrance and near the rear patio. There are scuffs on the walls near doorways, and nails protrude from where pictures once hung, their ghostly impressions left in the dust.
“Damn, he’s cleared out,” Bertram says, holstering the handgun.
A barking dog catches your attention and you look out the rear window. The same woman from the front walks her teacup pooches down a path in front of the woods, pulling at their leashes to get them away from the woodline. Standing just at the forested edge is a man.
He’s tall, well-built, his black hair close-cropped like a combat soldier’s. Clean-shaven, but there’s a thick scar along the front of his chin like you’d expect to see on someone who flew over the handlebar of a motorcycle. He wears aviator-style shooting-range glasses and his face is as pale as a skull sun-bleached in the desert. He wears all black—combat boots, tactical cargo pants, a vest to match, and skin-tight long-sleeved under-armor. He has dual-holstered handguns on the sides of his vest and wears black motorcycle gloves.
In short, he’s terrifying.
“Ummm, Bertram?” you say, raising a finger to point out the window.
The agent rushes into action, removing his service weapon with one hand and slinging the glass door of the porch open with the other.
“Stop right there!” he shouts.
The man calmly shakes his head “no” and backs into the trees.
Agent Bertram sprints up the grassy hillside toward the trees; you’re only a few feet behind him. In the green, there’s no sign of the mysterious onlooker. The foliage is thick, but even so, it’s odd for him to disappear without a trace.
“Who was that?” you ask.
“How the hell should I know?”
“Think he has anything to do with Viktor?”
“Again, no idea—but I’ll tell you one thing, that was no innocent bystander. Pro-tip: when people run, it means they have something to hide. Keep an eye out for that guy, but let’s go check in with the front office and see when Viktor moved out.”
Paranoid and somewhat frightened, you follow Bertram and walk cautiously toward the rental office. Any tenant walking to their car catches your eye. No matter how innocuous they appear, they could be a threat; any movement could signal that it’s the Man in Black.
You jump when a door slams, but it’s just an elderly man with a sack of groceries. Something zips across the lawn—fast—and you duck, but it’s just two kids playing soccer. To put it mildly, you’re on edge.
You enter the rental office and find only a single attendant on duty, then lower your guard a little. The room is smallish—it could be one of the apartments furnished with office accoutrements—and the enclosed space is comforting. It’d be hard for the Man in Black to shoot you in here.
“Do you speak English?” Bertram asks the attendant.
Hesitantly, the woman shakes her head. She’s in her mid-30s, somewhat overweight, and wears all black herself—a professional pantsuit and jacket with an orange blouse. Her hair looks dyed black, and she’s painted her fingernails orange to complete the total coordinated look.
Bertram speaks to her in Portuguese and her face lights up. While he interviews her, you look about the office for anything that could prove clue-worthy.
There are several information brochures, but none in English. Evidently this place is off the beaten path for tourists. There are three desks; the other two attendants are off-duty. You take a mint from a dish on one of the empty desks.
Pictures tacked to a corkboard show residents at a community picnic; you take the time to scan the faces—looking for the man from the incident, Viktor himself, or the Man in Black (just in case). Nothing catches your eye.
“All right, we’re done here,” Agent Bertram says. “Our guy has not officially moved out, as I suspected. His rent is still good and there’s a deposit on hold. This reeks of premeditation. If he cleared his apartment in advance, it means he knew we’d come looking for him. He’s most likely in hiding. He might’ve even hired that guy to see whoever came snooping around.”
“The Man in Black?”
“Yeah. Looks like a classic ’merc to me—gun for hire.”
Bertram’s phone chimes and he checks the message. “Danly wants to meet up tonight for a progress report. Listen, if this Man in Black guy is paid to do more than just watch, things could get dangerous. I think it might be best if you hang out in the evidence locker with Agent Danly. Let’s head back for now.”
• Head to the DSS hotel.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Investigate
You’re not sure if it’s meant to throw off any possible tail, or if you’re really just that far off the beaten path, but you’ve taken three different buses, then walked a few blocks between each one, and finally made it to the periphery of Jane Nightingale’s apartment complex.
You can tell, even from a couple hundred yards away, that this is the kind of place you’d live in only if you had to, if it were all you could afford. There’s virtually no public green space, which says a lot in this country. It’s not seedy per se, at least not in the bright sunlight.
Her apartment is gravid with Rio cops.
“Damn,” Viktor says. “No American agents, but the Rio police are here in force. I hadn’t counted on that. How many young women go missing each year here? And yet one American causes all this uproar.”
“Maybe they’ll uncover the truth?” you ask.
He shakes his head. “They’re just in the way. I need a distraction, I need a way in.”
• “I’ll provide a distraction; you go for a window.”
• “Didn’t we just learn that money talks? Let’s try that.”
• “How badly do you need us in there? Couldn’t we come back another time?”
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
In Your Dreams
“You watch too many movies,” Maria says with a smirk. “Good night.”
She climbs into the cab of a tractor, curling up on the bench seat to go to bed. As soon as she closes the door, the windows steam up from the wet heat of her body. You look to Bertram.
He shakes his head. “I’m not that cold, Hotshot. Get some sleep.”
• Dream on.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
In Your Sleep
“Fine!” the governor bellows. “Have it your way.”
He turns to his security guard and adds something in Portuguese. It’s loud enough that Bertram and Maria can overhear, and they each protest.
“You’re just going to lock us up?” Bertram says.
“I won’t be your prisoner!” Maria cries.
“Relax… I’ll return you to São Paulo in the morning,” he says, a devilish grin on his face.
The security guards escort you back to the room where you cleaned up, locking the door tightly behind you. You try without success to communicate through the thick walls with Bertram or Maria.
Of course you can’t sleep. You pace about the room like a caged animal when it dawns on you—the window! You rush over, release and pull up the latch, but it’s sealed tight. Rain runs down the glass in serpentine trails.
The TV! You’ll smash it through the window and escape! But just as you’re about to, something glinting in the moonlight catches your eye. There, just below you at the rear of the house, is a man in a rain poncho.
He’s holding a rifle.
They’ve actually posted guards outside your room in case you try to escape. A feeling of dread sinks in; there’s no way out. You feel it deep down; you’re doomed. It’s as if you’re trapped in a horror story. It was a dark and stormy night….
Then a key is inserted in the lock to your door. The Sugar King enters, with two of his thugs. The Governor sighs when he sees you.
“I had hoped you’d be asleep, so we could do this quietly,” he says.
“Do what?” you say, hiding the fear from your voice.
“Kill you, of course. A pillow over the face would have been easiest.”
“You’re just going to murder us in cold blood?”
He smiles. “Once your helicopter crashed, you were dead anyway.”
“They know we’re here!” you bluff. “Agent Bertram called the consulate.”
“Nice try. But I called in the helicopter crash and learned that your government hasn’t heard from Agent Bertram since he left São Paulo. So I told them I found three bodies in the helicopter.”
You try to run, but the two men grab you and force you onto the bed. The Sugar King picks up the pillow. “Now we just need to put the bodies back in,” he says, lowering the pillow over your face.
THE END
It Sucks
After you click the device into place, it activates, rearranging itself like a Rubik’s Cube, expanding in some places and contracting in others. You toss the grapefruit-size object toward the men, who all dive out of the way as if you’d just thrown a grenade. The armed guards seek cover as well, buying you a few seconds’ time.
You grasp Viktor and pull him out of the room, slamming the door behind you just as the air is sucked out of the room. The door cracks dully under the mounting pressure, and you can be certain they’re all dead in there.
The “STAFF ONLY” door guard is dumbfounded, his face awash with horror at what you’ve just done. You punch the young man squarely in the jaw, sending him to the floor.
Viktor is still lost in shock and covered in blood, so there’s no way you can just walk out the front door. Luckily for you, there’s an emergency exit at every wing on the building. You rush out the nearest one, setting off the alarm system, and quickly get lost amongst the revelers of Carnaval.
* * *
Viktor is clearly in shock, unable to process what’s just happened. So it’s nearly two hours before he speaks, cold and devoid of emotion.
“Thank you for everything, Tourist. Because of you, justice has been served. The world is without three of its devils now. My patents are on that thumb drive, and I leave you to do what you will with them.”
“You’re not going to move forward with your discovery?” you ask.
“Be careful who you show that to; there are still many other devils in this world.”
He walks off into the shadows and disappears forever. Maybe you can leave the evidence of corruption to the press, but Viktor’s right, there are others who will rise up to take the place of those you killed tonight.
You may never know a feeling of safety again, but you’ve won…sort of.
• Click to continue…
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Jacob Marley
Viktor sighs, and reluctantly prods further. With a confounded look, he says, “He tells us we’ll understand why soon enough.”
A sound like a thick chain scraping against concrete is suddenly interjected into the conversation. You all look at the door. The man who enters is pale, with blue veins just beneath the surface of his thin skin. Broken shackles, the remains of split handcuffs, are around each wrist, as if he either wants to wear them for jewelry or he’s recently escaped from prison. From his pallor, you’d say he’s been hiding out for quite a while.
He has an AK-47 assault rifle trained on you.
“What’s this?” you say, but you already know.
Viktor n
ervously translates as Tinho introduces the man. “This is Marley, his business partner. ‘What business,’ you ask? The business of you. Us. He says, ‘We operate right here, out of our money-changing hole. You see, we get plenty of referrals from around town, and the arms dealer will get his cut, but anyone not belonging to this favela must pay a toll. Give us your wallets and that backpack.’”
Closing his eyes and turning toward your robbers, Viktor simply says. “No.”
Marley smashes the rifle butt into Viktor’s gut, then turns back, points the business end of the weapon at you and waits to see if Viktor will comply. At length, he does.
Tinho goes through the backpack, removing one of Viktor’s “Death Star”-shaped weapons and asks him just what the hell the object is. Viktor pantomimes a way to manipulate the device while explaining in Portuguese.
He turns to you and says, “See you in Manhattan, Tourist.”
Tinho clicks the tiny thing into place and now the device has begun moving, rearranging itself like a Rubik’s Cube, expanding in some places and contracting in others. Fearful, the two thieves shout to Viktor to explain himself, and now the AK-47 is pointed right toward the scientist.
Viktor tries to answer, but his breath is sucked out of him by the device. You feel it too, your insides collapsing as the tiny thing turns into something akin to a miniature black hole and sucks out all the air from the room. The walls, pictures, and television break inward, the ceiling threatens to collapse, and every person in the room dies when the strange bomb implodes.
MURDERED: Can YOU Solve the Mystery? (Click Your Poison Book 2) Page 19