• Knock the gun askew—hear him out.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Narcotraficante
It’s not hard to find a drug dealer in the slums. Just say the magic word, narcotraficante, and odds are whomever you ask knows a guy.
Back out into the favela proper, just around the corner from that open-air market, you get word that one such man is inside a nearby bar—still there from the night before, in fact. You enter the dump (which gives new meaning to the term “dive bar”) and wait while Viktor asks the bartender for information on the drug trafficker you seek.
You look around, but don’t see anyone else here. Indeed, you’re surprised that the place is even open at this hour. It’s the kind of establishment where you pay solely for the liquor, where you pay to forget that you live in the slums. Not the kind of place that serves patty melts in the daytime, in other words.
“Our guy’s in the bathroom,” Viktor says. “Too much to drink.”
“Great. What now? Wait for him to sober up?”
Viktor’s jaw tightens and something fearsome flashes in those ethereal blue eyes. The same look that stared you down over a dead body when the two of you first met.
“Not hardly.”
Viktor turns and heads toward the restroom. You follow, gooseflesh appearing on your spine, tingling with anticipation. The doorjamb is broken so that not only is the bathroom door unlockable, you don’t even need to use a doorknob to open it.
“Keep that pistol handy, okay?”
“Okay,” you swallow.
Viktor opens the door casually, as if he were merely trying to use the restroom himself. Not rushed like a cop, or slow like someone frightened or nervous. It’s a one-seater, with two things worth noting: the man hugging the toilet and his AK-47 leaning against the sink.
The man curses at you, telling you to get lost, but this just brings up a fresh round of vomiting. The stench of stomach acid, alcohol, and seafood burns your nostrils and makes your eyes water. While the drug trafficker is “occupied,” Viktor slips out his money-clip, hands it to you, then claims the AK-47 and gives that to you as well.
“Give both of these to the bartender. He’ll understand.”
Moving quickly, you leave the restroom and make the handoff. Without a word, the bartender nods in understanding, stashes the rifle under the bar and pockets the cash. He then walks out the front door, closes it behind him, and locks the three of you inside—paid not to see whatever’s about to happen.
You rush back toward the bathroom, where shouted Portuguese cursing is growing in volume. The man is standing up now, making threatening gestures toward Viktor, who is oddly calm.
“Tourist—step in, close the door, stand with your back to it, and let our friend see your pistol.”
Nervously, you comply. The drug trafficker is taken aback for an instant and looks from you to Viktor, back and forth several times, sizing you up. Unimpressed, he starts cursing again, growing louder and angrier.
Viktor asks the man the name of his source in the Rio police force and a few words jump out at you: polícia and narcotraficante. But he isn’t going to play ball.
Like a striking viper, Viktor snatches the front of the druglord’s shirt and yanks him down toward the toilet. The man’s sneakers squeal in protest against the wet linoleum. Once he has the man prone, Viktor shoves the drug trafficker’s face into the toilet bowl, straight into the vomit floating there.
After a cacophony of thrashing and gurgled screams, Viktor lets the man up and asks him the identity of a dirty cop once more. It looks like he’s going to cooperate, but then all at once he lunges toward you, ready to take your weapon.
Bang.
The man falls back onto the floor, holding his gut with red fingers. The pistol smokes in your hand. You look to Viktor, but he only asks the man a third time. The drug trafficker cries in pain, shaking his head, and refuses to answer. Strike three.
Viktor claims the plunger from the corner of the room and with the controlled calmness of a madman, presses his shoe firmly onto the drug trafficker’s nose, his heel atop the crying man’s lips and teeth.
The man grabs onto Viktor’s leg, trying to get his foot off his face, just as the scientist hoped he would. Viktor carefully places the plunger against the bullet wound, steadies his feet, and begins to pump.
“Viktor!” you shout, but it’s lost amidst the shrill cries of tortured anguish.
The drug trafficker wails with inhuman pain and now Viktor roars like a lion, shouting his questions at the top of his lungs. The man continues to scream.
“Viktor!” you shout again.
He stops, but not because of your pleas. Miraculously, the man is able to answer him.
“Obrigado,” Viktor says, thanking the man for the information.
He releases the drug trafficker, drops the plunger atop his dying body, then removes his own pistol and shoots the man.
Looking to you, Viktor says, “You shouldn’t use my name.”
Too dumbfounded to speak, you simply follow him from the bar—despite your newfound fear of the man. Just who is this Viktor? Sure, he lost his fiancée, his job and his career, and the murder is pinned on him, but…that was insane.
• Go meet the dirty policeman.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Neither Fight nor Flight
You tuck yourself behind the bartop in the recesses of the kitchen, trying to flatten yourself next to the refrigerator. With hands over your mouth in an effort to muffle your terrified panting, you resemble a Speak No Evil sculpture. Using the strange image as inspiration, you keep stock-still and completely silent.
With wide, unblinking eyes, you watch as two men enter the house. They wear black suits and gloves and have handguns drawn, but these are neither American agents nor Brazilian police, you can tell that much. These men have the look of cold, hard killers. Brazilian mafia, maybe? They sweep through the apartment, scanning for intruders like you, but thankfully, they’re looking for someone at eye-level and skip right over you.
The men come back and start to tear the house apart—overturn bookshelves, rip open seat cushions—and then they see you. They start shouting in Portuguese, guns drawn and pointed at you. One of them grabs your arm and yanks you up from your seated position while the other searches you. They find the map, the key to the unit, and your American passport.
The man searching you raises his handgun to your forehead. He marches you out in front of the house, where there’s a moving van, its interior lined with plastic. It’s the last thing you’ll ever see.
THE END
The Net
Viktor sits down at the aged laptop, which has been glued to the table to prevent theft. There’s a sign above it that reads, Smile, you’re on camera, in several languages, though there’s no security cam in sight. Could be a clever bluff?
He’s silent as he pecks absentmindedly at the keyboard. You use the opportunity to delete any blurry pictures off your digital camera. Your most recent photo is from port, just as you embarked on the river. It shows the shore as the boat leaves, the first section of jungle just outside civilization.
But there’s something else.
There’s a box on the display, added atop the foliage. Your camera focuses on faces as part of its auto-optimized settings, which adds a box around portraits to ensure they’re given due attention. But why is there a box around a tree? You zoom in. Is something there? You keep tapping the zoom toward the box, amplifying the picture. Holy shit, the camera is right.
It’s a face. You see it now—it’s the assassin, the Man in Black. He was watching you; he followed you to the port. He knows what boat you’re on.
“Viktor…” you say.
“Oh, merda,” he murmurs.
“What?”
Viktor’s cursing grows more rapid, in tune with his newly frantic keystrokes. Webpage after webpage splashes across the screen with surprising speed for a jungle barge. He shakes his head in disbelief, mumbling inaudi
ble slurs.
“What is it?” you press.
“My university profile is gone. I don’t appear anywhere on the Energy Summit page—even though I was supposed to be the keynote speaker. At first I thought it was just PR, like they were trying to divorce themselves from controversy, but then my employment history is missing too. Even a simple web search shows nothing. No pictures, no records. It’s almost as if I never existed.”
“That might have something to do with this,” you say, showing him the picture.
“Dear God, they aren’t just going to kill us—they’re going to erase us.”
There’s a sudden commotion over on the starboard side of the boat. Viktor logs off the computer, then rushes over to see what’s going on.
• Follow him!
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
New Beginnings
Like a flower opening toward the sun, the shanty town stirs with first signs of life just after dawn. Right now it’s the workers opening their shops and the elderly generation with their Copernican lifestyles (as informed by decades of rising with the first light) who roam the dusty streets. Soon the warm glow of late summer will emerge and, with it, the favela populace.
A bakery whose sole form of advertisement is an open window next to the oven catches your attention. You’re famished. You’re about to tell Viktor as much, but the gurgle in your stomach does so for you.
“Hungry?” Viktor asks with a smile.
He takes you inside the padaria, where the smell is even more intense. The small building uses 90 percent of its space for the kitchen, but there’s enough room to stand and place your order in the doorway. Viktor orders for you in Portuguese, then steps out to the patio where white, mass-produced lawn furniture waits for you to sit down. It’s silty from all the dust, and not very sturdy—about the quality you’d find at Walmart—but it’ll do.
Viktor sets down two coffees on the plastic table as he sits, sliding one cup forward for you. He blows on the lip of his own cup, waiting for the liquid to cool.
“The note mentioned ‘the source of hate.’ What do you think that means?” you ask.
“I’m not sure,” he confesses. “That’s what we must figure out.”
Your shoulders slump. This mission is getting more difficult—and with even bigger stakes—every time you hear a new detail.
Just as Viktor takes his first sip of coffee, the woman inside the restaurant hollers at him to come get his order. He rises and returns a moment later with your meal.
“Bolinhos de bacalhau and manioc fries,” he announces, setting the tray down before you.
There’s a circular dish with some kind of breaded, fried ball, similar to a hushpuppy, a dipping sauce that could be tartar in the center, and a basket of thick-cut fries.
“What is it?” you ask.
“Cod fritter; it’s good, try it.”
“Fish? For breakfast? And maniac…?”
“Manioc,” he laughs. “It’s similar to a potato.”
When in Rome… you tell yourself, and dig in. You missed dinner last night, so this might as well be manna from heaven. The breading is light and slightly sweet, but the fish within is pleasantly salty. The fries are very much like farm-cut French fry wedges, but have a little more consistency. Before long, your belly is full and you’re sated.
An old man with a cane shuffles down the street next to you; a dog in the same twilight of life is pattering along next to him. The morning stillness prepares to finally give way to city life.
“I don’t get it,” you say. “I know this is a poor neighborhood, and that poverty has a way of making people desperate, but it hardly seems dangerous. What’s the big deal?”
Viktor doesn’t answer right away. He lifts his cup and sips on his coffee, casually uncurling his index finger to point over your shoulder. “The rooftop, behind you.”
Trying not to seem obvious, you turn and look back. An Afro-Brazilian sits up on the corrugated roof, smoking his morning cigarette. He looks right at you. He’s shaved bald and wears an old bomber jacket with a fur-lined collar. Sitting across his lap, pointed carelessly toward you, is a sniper rifle with a ruby-red scope. The man raises his hand in the shape of a gun and lets his thumb fall as he “shoots” you.
You drop your coffee.
The man stands up, the golden wrestling singlet he wears beneath the jacket glinting in the morning sun, extinguishes his cigarette, slings the rifle over his shoulder, and turns to head inside.
“It’s more than just poverty,” Viktor says, eyebrows raised.
You look back to the rooftop, but the man is gone. Viktor drains the last of his coffee, tightens the straps of his backpack, and says, “Let’s go buy some guns.”
You reach down to grab the ghost of your coffee, unaware that it’s making mud with the dust at your feet. Shaking your head to “snap out of it,” you follow Viktor down the dirt road. Around the next corner, in a wider street, a market is just opening for business. Tarpaulin flaps are raised on stakes and anchored with nylon rope to the buildings behind them. The drone of conversation fills the air as people buy and sell fresh fruit, ice-packed fish, herbs and spices, thatched handicrafts, dry goods, and carved wooden wares.
Viktor smiles. “Looking for souvenirs, Tourist? You’ll not find a cheaper price.”
You shake your head. Near the end of the market, a hard-looking man with a pockmarked face chews coca leaf and eyes the two of you when you approach. Unlike the other vendors, he makes no sales pitch. He just stares. His posture stiffens and you see that his throat is tattooed with an ornate crucifix centered on the Adam’s apple.
“Armas?” Viktor asks.
The man doesn’t respond. Viktor flashes his money-clip at the shopkeeper, just long enough to catch the man’s gaze. With the briefest cock of his head, the man motions toward the inside of the store, then ducks in himself.
“How did you know?” you ask.
Viktor runs a finger down the curve of a bowl on the man’s stand, bringing it back up for inspection. His finger is covered in dust. “That man wasn’t looking for customers,” he says. “He was standing watch.”
You follow Viktor inside the hovel, unsure what to think. Inside it’s even smaller than his market-stand outside, but the man waits expectantly. When you enter, he pulls back a tapestry from the wall—a weaving of Cristo Redentor—to reveal a hidden staircase.
With a sinking feeling, you follow the men into the passage and up the stairs. Now there’s a deep hum emanating from the building, a drumming from within the walls somewhere between a generator trying to start up and an underground rave. Every two or three seconds, an intense thud-thud rattles the building and causes the ceiling lights to flicker, as if the building’s heartbeat is reflecting your own.
You walk past an open door and peer into a room bigger than you could’ve imagined. It’s filled with a dozen gaming tables, six men at each, the patrons still gambling from the night before. How do so many people fit in here? Was that tiny shop the façade for this whole building?
The shopkeeper calls out to a man who shuts the remaining two doors in the hallway. This assistant opens a third door, the only one that was closed, and joins your pockmarked guide inside.
Staying close by Viktor’s side, you step in. Each wall is mounted with the same pegboard panels a machine shop uses to organize its tools. Except here it’s lined with weapons; assault rifles, handguns, sub-machine guns, an RPG, several types of knives, and a truck-mountable .50-cal machine gun.
The door shuts.
The assistant leans against the door, arms tucked behind his back, effectively sealing you in. You look to Viktor, trying to communicate, Are they going to rob us? You puff up, standing tall and trying to look unafraid. The hard man looks at the two of you, then nods toward the wall. Time to go shopping.
You linger near an AK-47, and Viktor says, “I like your style, Tourist, but let’s take something we can conceal, hmmm?”
Nodding, you shift over to the
handguns. A heavy revolver demands your attention, the weighty thickness of the gun potent with virility. You look it over—the serial number has been filed off. Hmmm, feels too much like the crime scene. Instead, you examine the room’s semi-automatic pistols, searching for what feels the most natural in your hands.
Your eyes drift toward a section of grenades: standard military issue, tear gas, smoke, and flashbangs.
Viktor says, “Trust me, my friend, my little ‘Manhattan Project’ puts all of those to shame.”
He selects his own handgun, each of you taking a spare magazine. Whew, this is intense. There’s no going back, you know that, though you tell yourself it’s just for defense. Viktor chooses special ammunition for your pistols: armor piercing rounds, aka, copkillers… but it’s just for the assassin, right? You wouldn’t shoot a cop, would you? They just think they’re doing their job, right? I mean—
“How about a little something fun?” Viktor says, interrupting your thoughts as he claims a small black submachine-gun.
The unit is military grade, an H&K MP5, to be exact. Most likely lifted from a dead cop. The thought sinks in—all of these are stolen, for sure. Viktor slips off his backpack, puts in the weapons, and pays the shopkeeper. Then, with another bill lingering in his hand, Viktor says, “Informação?”
The shopkeeper shakes his head, then escorts you back outside. Returning to the fresh air, away from all the buzzing and thudding, you feel like you can breathe again.
Getting Viktor’s attention, the hard man points across the way to an alley just outside the market. As you walk away, the man removes a cell phone and makes a call.
Viktor gives you your handgun and a box of bullets. He then proceeds to load his own weapons, right there in the open street in broad daylight. No one present so much as bats an eyelash, though they do intentionally avert their eyes. Once your handgun is loaded, you tuck the pistol into your waistband and follow Viktor toward the opposing alley.
MURDERED: Can YOU Solve the Mystery? (Click Your Poison Book 2) Page 24