The Games

by James Patterson

  Lieutenant Acosta and I rode in the back. We’d spent the better part of an hour flying over the most likely routes Dr. Castro could have taken through the mountainous jungle between Laranjeiras and Estação.

  The pilot had flown us right above the rain-forest canopy, where we did our best to peer through the dense vegetation, hoping to catch a glimpse of the doctor and his backpack. In most places the cover was too thick to see anything. Even in those areas where it thinned, the winter jungle was as much gray pastels as greens. If he was wearing gray, he’d be all but invisible down there.

  “Take us to the stadium,” da Silva said finally, and he called in for an update on the police presence in the streets between Maracanã and the jungle.

  As the sun sank below the western mountains, it turned the sky an intense magenta color that was breathtaking.

  My cell phone rang. I tucked it in under the headphones and said, “Jack Morgan.”

  “It’s Sci, Jack. I’m with the forensics team at Castro’s lab.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Did you see all the thumbtacks with the little corners of paper left above one of the workbenches?”

  “Yes.”

  “I found the papers in a dumpster behind the lab,” Sci said. “Some are weather maps of Rio that show wind speed and direction. The rest are printouts of wind data going back ten years, all in the month of August.”

  “And I’m interested in this why?” I said as we swung over the lines of opening-ceremony ticket holders still trying to clear security and get inside.

  “Because of what else I found,” Sci said. “Balsa wood, stout cardboard tubes, and sheets of aluminum with finlike shapes cut from them.”

  “What do you mean, finlike?”

  “Like the kind that stabilizes a model rocket,” Sci said.

  “Like a kid’s hobby thing?”

  “Exactly, except some of the discarded cardboard tubes I found were five inches in diameter and four feet long.”

  We were coming in for a landing and it all started to hit me. Historical wind direction and speed. A huge model rocket. Capable of carrying…

  “Jack?” Sci said as the helicopter landed.

  “What’s the prevailing wind direction and speed in Rio in August?”

  “Southeast at eight to ten miles an hour.”

  “Which means he was thinking about trajectory, which means he doesn’t have to be here at the stadium to…”

  “Correct,” Sci said. “He could be a mile or more away.”

  “Well done,” I said, and hung up.

  The second the pilot signaled it was safe to get out, I did and told da Silva and Acosta about my conversation with Kloppenberg.

  “A rocket?” the general cried.

  “The wind’s southeast right now, eight miles an hour,” I said, glancing that way and seeing the silhouette of the closest mountain. “He could be up there, just waiting for the right time to launch.”

  Da Silva thought about that and looked ready to throw a fit.

  “How the hell are we going to defend against something like that?”

  “I have no idea,” I said.

  Chapter 94

  AFTER THE DOOR had closed and Pietro had thrown the bolt, Dr. Castro stood there in the pitch-dark cavity of the statue, taking a moment to be grateful for having gotten this far.

  Then he flipped the headlamp on, fitted it to his head, and checked his watch. Right on schedule. He paused to smear his face, neck, and hands with the gray makeup.

  He started the eight-story climb up a narrow iron staircase anchored into the inner wall of the Christ. He took his time, not wanting to bump the pack or make any noise that the two NBC workers might hear and report.

  At 5:44 p.m., Dr. Castro reached the top of the staircase. He was inside the chest of the Christ, right at the junction of the two outstretched arms. Dropping the pack on the catwalk, Castro took a minute’s rest and then carried the pack into the hollow interior of the Redeemer’s right arm and the folds of his sleeve.

  When the doctor started, the ceiling of the passage was more than eight feet high. But by the time he reached the elbow, it had dropped to less than five feet. It featured in the crook of the arm a large hatch that workmen used to maintain the statue exterior.

  He checked his watch. It was 5:52.

  Dr. Castro knew he should wait, knew he should focus on assembling a few things, but now that he was actually here, with the hatch right there, unexpected excitement seized him and he gave in to impulse. He threw the lever that unlocked it and felt the hatch door ease.

  Heart pounding, Castro gently pushed on the hatch and felt it go up. Wind came whooshing in. So did blazing light, which concerned him.

  He shouldn’t risk a look. Not yet. But then he realized the winds had shifted, gone southeasterly, eight or nine miles an hour, which was exactly what he wanted. He needed that wind direction and speed if this was to happen tonight. Now everything was perfect, and everything he’d planned for two years was about to move from dream to reality.

  That made him feel blessed, powerful, and, well, righteous. He was doing this for Sophie and the Gonzalez kids. He was doing this for every other man, woman, and child who’d died needlessly of poverty.

  Castro pushed the hatch up another inch and then another. He peeked out, seeing just the lights and the top of the arm. When he’d raised the door eight inches, he could see down to the terraces and spotted the NBC guys with their backs to him, drinking beer and watching the network coverage on an iPad.

  They had no idea he was there. That emboldened Castro. He pushed over the door and laid it carefully on the Christ’s upper arm. Then he stuck his gray hat, gray face, and gray shoulders up out of the gray elbow of the Redeemer.

  The sun was a ball of fire in the haze, and the sky to his west was an incredible dun-red color that seized his attention for several moments. Off to his east, several hundred yards, yet another helicopter circled the summit, but he wasn’t concerned.

  All of Rio lay below the doctor now. The lights were going on, twinkling like so many jewels and charms. But Castro was interested only in that part of the Marvelous City that lay past the outstretched right hand of the Christ, five miles off, below a circling blimp.

  Maracanã Stadium was lit up like the ultimate gem, no doubt already filled with a crowd of the people wealthy and powerful enough to afford one of only forty-five thousand tickets to the opening ceremony. They had to be eagerly counting down the minutes until the big night began.

  I know I am, Dr. Castro thought before ducking down inside the arm and getting to work.

  Chapter 95

  Friday, August 5, 2016

  6:40 p.m.

  Twenty Minutes Before the Olympic Games Open

  “YOU CAN’T GET some kind of radar in here?” Lieutenant Acosta asked. “At least so we know something’s been launched?”

  “On this short notice?” General da Silva shot back. “Impossible.”

  We were standing in the parking lot of the stadium, watching the thousands of people still pressing to get inside and looking off into the breeze, to the southwest toward the closest mountains.

  “Then you better go tell your president,” I said. “You’ve got twenty minutes until the ceremony starts. Let her decide. But she better be quick about it.”

  The Olympic security chief struggled, then swore in Portuguese and hurried off.

  Lieutenant Acosta got a phone call and listened while I stared at the sky, which had gone from fire red to fading charcoal ashes. I didn’t know what to do. Common sense said to grab one of the hazmat suits from the helicopter and wear it all night. But part of me wanted to be defiant, to show that I would not be controlled by a threat.

  “We had a second sighting of Dr. Castro in Laranjeiras,” Acosta said, pocketing his phone. “The security guard at the College of St. Vincent de Paul saw him carrying a heavy backpack toward the back of the campus. He said Castro went through a gate there and disappeared in
to the forest.”

  “Where’s the college?” I asked. “Show me on a map.”

  He pulled out his iPhone and called up the map, showed me.

  I studied it, said, “That’s the wrong way.”

  “What?”

  My phone rang. Caller ID said it was Mo-bot.

  I ignored her call, said, “If Castro goes out that gate on foot he’s heading due west, not north-northwest toward Maracanã.”

  “What’s due west of the college?”

  Before I could futz with the screen, my phone rang again.

  “Here,” I said, handing him his phone and answering mine. “Things are kind of intense at the moment, Mo-bot.”

  “They’re about to get more intense,” she said. “I’ve got him. He made a mistake and I’ve got him. Or at least where he was about fifty minutes ago.”

  Lieutenant Acosta glanced up from the map on his phone with a puzzled look and said, “Due west; he’s up on Corcovado Mountain.”

  “On Corcovado Mountain?” I said into my phone.

  “How did you know that?” Mo-bot said, sounding deflated.

  “An educated guess based on where he entered the jungle.”

  “Oh,” she said, happy again. “Well, believe it or not, I’ve got video of him sticking his gray self up out of Christ’s right arm. I’m sending it to you now.”

  I didn’t wait for it, just started running toward the helicopter.

  No pilot.

  Acosta had followed me. “What’s going on?” he demanded as I wrenched open the army chopper’s front door.

  “Castro’s going to launch his rocket off the Redeemer.”

  Chapter 96

  Friday, August 5, 2016

  6:54 p.m.

  Six Minutes Before the Olympic Games Open

  IN THE HEADLAMP beam, Dr. Castro gazed at his masterpiece reassembled on the inner floor of the Redeemer’s right arm. The Hydra-9 and propellant canisters fit snugly into the payload hammock. The hoses were all tight. So were the airbrush connections.

  He’d paired his phone via Bluetooth to a small joystick in his shirt pocket. He’d also linked the phone through apps and a local cellular service to a GoPro Hero camera and to the GPS navigator on board the workhorse of his delivery system: a Freefly Alta drone.

  Castro had bought the Freefly drone on the Internet for $8,495. It was worth every penny. With a fold-up design, collapsible struts, and five propellers, the drone could carry a payload of fifteen pounds for more than ten miles.

  The doctor’s delivery system weighed in at a little over ten pounds, and the Freefly didn’t need to carry it more than five miles. Castro felt confident knowing he had more than enough fuel and power to reach the stadium and get the job done right.

  He folded the struts and props so he could get the drone up through the hatch and carefully set it on the Christ’s right arm. The doctor glanced down at the two NBC employees more than one hundred feet below him.

  One of them was taking a piss off the side of the terrace.

  The other one was still looking at his iPad and said, “It’s starting.”

  Perfect, Dr. Castro thought as he snapped the drone’s arms quietly into place. We’ll be fashionably late, coming to the show with the last of the stragglers, making it a full house.

  Castro gave the Freefly a command through his phone. The battery-driven motors started up. The propellers slowly turned.

  The doctor reached around to arrange the hoses and airbrushes one last time. Taking a deep breath, he said, “Boa viagem.”

  Castro got the joystick control. He increased the power until the propellers were a blur and watched with delight as the drone lifted off with its precious load.

  When the Freefly was ten feet overhead, the doctor used the joystick to send the drone north and at an angle to the southeast wind. With the black-mesh hammock, the nine hoses, and the airbrushes dangling below the drone, he thought it looked kind of like a jellyfish as it left the spotlights for the darkness.

  “Hey!” someone yelled.

  Dr. Castro twisted and looked down, saw the two from NBC looking up at him. He had a moment of panic, but then decided to ignore them.

  There was no way they could get inside the statue in the fifteen or twenty minutes it would take for the drone to fly the five miles. There was no way to stop him until it was too late. But just in case, Castro picked up his phone and called up another feature on the drone’s navigation app.

  “Hey, what the hell are you doing up there?” one of the men shouted.

  The doctor wanted to watch the screen of his phone, wanted to stay glued to the feed from the GoPro, seeing the lights of Maracanã Stadium out there in the distance already.

  But he turned his head and looked down.

  The cameraman had aimed his lens up at Castro. The producer was on a phone talking excitedly.

  It doesn’t matter, Castro thought. Nothing matters any—

  He heard the thumping of a helicopter in the darkness to his west but couldn’t make out running lights. It was circling and coming closer.

  Dr. Castro didn’t try to duck down or hide. He was done hiding.

  Using the joystick, flying the drone, the doctor felt totally at peace with his decisions, no fear now, no regrets now.

  None at all.

  Chapter 97

  “SON OF A bitch, there he is,” said Lieutenant Acosta, who sat beside me in the copilot’s seat of the police helicopter looking through high-powered binoculars.

  “You have eyes on him?” da Silva demanded over the radio.

  “Affirmative, General,” Acosta said. “Right where Mo-bot spotted him.”

  “Where’s the rocket?”

  “I don’t see any rocket.”

  “Then get closer, goddamn it, and throw your lights on him. And put on your radar and the camera, Jack. I want to see what you’re seeing.”

  The Brazilian military helicopter had a millimeter-wave radar system and optical and infrared cameras mounted below the nose.

  I turned them on and immediately heard blip!

  I took my eyes off the statue and glanced at the screen. Blip! Blip! It was small, moving slowly right along the tops of the trees. It vanished then, and I figured it for a big bird of some kind.

  “I can’t see any rocket,” Lieutenant Acosta said, drawing me off the radar screen.

  “Has he already launched it?” General da Silva asked.

  “No, we would have seen it take off,” I said, picking up speed, turning on the spotlight beam, and flying straight at Christ the Redeemer.

  I slowed the chopper and hovered one hundred feet from the outstretched arms of the Christ. Even with the gray outfit and the matching paint on his face, you couldn’t miss Castro’s head, shoulders, and torso sticking up out of the arm.

  He wasn’t looking our way. His head was down. His hands were busy.

  “What’s he doing?” I asked.

  Pistol drawn and in his lap, Acosta peered through the binoculars. “He’s looking at a large iPhone on the arm in front of him, and he’s using a control of some sort with a joystick.”

  I thought of the blips back there on the radar. Small. Slow speed. Right at the treetops. I felt sick.

  “It’s not a rocket,” I said. “He’s flying a drone.”

  “Shoot him,” General da Silva said over our headsets.

  “General?”

  “Put a bullet in his head,” da Silva said. “Then get control of that goddamned drone.”

  I had a handful of reasons why I thought that killing Castro wasn’t the best idea. I angled the spotlight directly on the doctor before handing the microphone to Lieutenant Acosta. “Call him by name. Tell him to bring the drone back and surrender.”

  Acosta said, “Dr. Castro, this is the federal police. Bring back the drone or you will be shot.”

  The doctor stared at us blankly, then he nodded and put the joystick down. He touched the screen of his phone with his left hand at the same time he re
ached below the hatch rim with his right.

  Castro came up with a pistol, aimed it at us, and fired three quick times.

  All three bullets went through the windshield.

  Acosta roared out in pain, “I’m hit!”

  Chapter 98

  DR. CASTRO SAW the bullets strike the windshield and watched the cop in the passenger seat jerk on impact. He swung his gun toward the pilot, but the chopper pulled away hard. He shot at the rear rotor as it retreated but missed.

  Castro glanced at the image from the GoPro on his phone screen; the stadium was much closer. Distance to target: 2.9 miles. ETA: eleven minutes.

  He looked up, hoping to see the helicopter heading toward a hospital, but it wasn’t. The chopper was taking a wide loop around the statue, too far for him to shoot. Could he keep them at bay, circling for eleven minutes?

  Castro believed he could, though he was certain he would die soon, and not from Hydra-9. He’d shot at a military police helicopter. The men in the helicopter somehow knew about the virus.

  They would try to kill him to get control of the drone. But the doctor knew that was an impossibility. There was nothing they could do now to stop it. The statue was locked. They might try to land on the other arm, but no. Who would get out? Not the cop with the bullet in him. And not the pilot.

  The helicopter was to Castro’s right now, some two hundred yards, searchlight off. It changed direction and closed the distance at an angle slightly to his rear, back toward the Christ’s head.

  The doctor grabbed the joystick control and flung it into space, then he twisted around, swung the pistol toward the chopper, and started firing.

  Chapter 99

  CASTRO FIRED FIVE times. All five bullets missed the mark, though one hit the helicopter’s landing strut and another the lower fuselage. The doctor thumbed the latch that dropped the clip. He groped for another.

  “Kill him,” I said.