by Ross Kemp
As his eyes flicked over the crates, Luiz noticed that a giant crack was running along the side of one of them. He ran a finger down the crack, astonished. It looked exactly like the crate Livio had dropped the day before – only then it had been filled with packages of cocaine. It seemed impossible, but it had to be the same one. When CORE had attacked Santa Marta, Angel had ordered that the crates be taken back to the holding warehouse downtown. So what in God’s name was one now doing outside the Casa Bahia?
As Luiz stared at the crates, Jordan’s words about the Doctor ran through his mind: Maybe he’s a legitimate businessman, someone with a good reason to have trucks going back and forth across the border. A chill ran down Luiz’s spine. They had all been wrong. There was a Doctor, and he had met Angel at Casa Bahia, but it wasn’t Jorge Cruz. It was Ivan Fernandes.
If Luiz was right, the man they had been looking for had just walked out the front of the restaurant. He was about to rush back inside and tell Madison and Oliveira when something else caught his eye, a distinctive red mark on the floor in front of him. Blood. Frowning, Luiz touched the bloodstain. It was still warm. Whoever had bled here, they had done it recently.
Luiz turned round and found himself standing face to face with Angel.
25. Gatecrashers
‘You lying piece of shit,’ Angel said through clenched teeth. ‘Stripe was right. You are a grass.’
He hadn’t died after all. Somehow the dono had managed to escape from the CORE forces, but the man standing in front of Luiz wasn’t the calm, forceful gang leader Luiz had come to know. Angel was huddled up against the back wall of the restaurant, his long trench coat buttoned up in spite of the heat. Sweat glistened on his forehead and his face was streaked with tears. Angel’s pupils were unnaturally large and his movements had an edgy quality to them that suggested he had been taking a lot of drugs. He was still carrying his 12-gauge shotgun, which was aimed directly at Luiz.
Slowly, Luiz held up his hands.
‘I’m no grass, I swear!’
Without warning Angel lunged forward and smashed the butt of his gun into Luiz’s stomach. Luiz crumpled to the floor, bent double in agony.
‘Don’t lie to me,’ the dono hissed. ‘I saw you inside with your friends. You think I can’t tell what kind of guys they are? They’re cops! You’ve been playing us for fools all along – and we treated you like a brother!’
The dono reached down, grabbed Luiz by the hair and smacked his head on the ground. Luiz heard a sickening crack and felt shooting pains race across his skull.
‘I had no choice, Angel!’ Luiz cried out. ‘My sister… they were going to put her in prison!’
‘A sister? Really? I used to have a brother, Luiz – remember him? Remember Joker? Remember when he got shot in the throat?’ Angel’s voice cracked with hysteria.
‘That wasn’t anything to do with me, I’m telling you! I ran to Santa Marta to try and warn you!’
‘Too little, too late,’ Angel said ominously.
‘Please let me go,’ Luiz begged, looking up at the dono through watering eyes. ‘I won’t say anything, I promise. Everyone thinks you’re dead. You can get away – no one will know!’
‘Where do I go, Luiz? Santa Marta’s all I know. I’ve got nothing there now. Where exactly should I go, wise guy?’
‘I don’t know,’ Luiz said desperately. ‘Get out of Rio – start over somewhere new.’
Angel placed his foot on Luiz’s chest and pressed his weight down upon him, nestling the barrel of his shotgun up against the boy’s throat.
‘Here’s a better idea,’ he said conversationally. ‘I’m going to go to Ivan Fernandes’s house. I’m going to see him. Then I’m going to kill him.’
‘Kill the Doctor?’ gasped Luiz. ‘Why?’
‘Because he betrayed me, just like you did. The Doctor promised that he would protect us, that he could pay the police off so they’d leave us alone. Now Rafael’s dead and the Doctor’s still got all his money and his business and his life. So I’m going to even up the score. And you’re going to help me.’
‘Me? What can I do? I’m begging you, leave me out of this.’
‘No, no, no!’ Angel shouted emphatically, pressing his foot down harder on Luiz’s chest. ‘You are Comando Negro, Luiz! No one leaves the Comando Negro. I’m ordering you to drive me to the Doctor’s place now or, God help me, Luiz, I’ll shoot you in the head right now. Do you understand me?’
Luiz understood, all right. He nodded quickly. After a wary pause, Angel lifted up his foot, allowing Luiz to pick himself gingerly up off the ground.
‘My truck’s around the corner,’ Angel said. ‘We’ll take that.’
The dono prodded Luiz in the back with his shotgun, forcing him to move. As he walked away from the restaurant, Luiz remembered with a jolt that he had just given back his GPS crucifix. Without it, there was no way he could contact Madison or anyone else at Trojan. He was on his own.
Over the course of the past week Luiz had witnessed enough violence and brutality to last him a lifetime. He had seen people shot in front of his eyes and had nearly lost his own life on more than one occasion. But even after all that there was a nightmarish quality to his journey with Angel that somehow surpassed anything else he had seen.
The death of his brother had broken the dono, reducing a proud man to tatters. His eyes wild, he chopped up long lines of cocaine on the dashboard, unsteadily snorting them through a banknote as the truck bounced about on the uneven road surface. He was so high that he didn’t seem to care whether the police saw him, not even bothering to wipe the residue of white powder from his nose.
However, without the drugs, it was doubtful whether Angel would have still been on his feet. Even though he had survived the shoot-out with CORE, it had taken a heavy toll. At one point he winced suddenly, doubling up in pain. Looking over, Luiz saw a trickle of blood collecting at Angel’s feet.
‘Jesus!’ he cried. ‘You’re still bleeding! We have to go to the hospital!’
‘Shut up and keep driving,’ growled Angel. ‘It’s not that much further now.’
The dono directed him west, along the southern coastal road out of Rio. They were heading for Barra da Tijuca, a suburb that boasted some of the city’s most expensive properties. Here foreign businessmen and wealthy cariocas maintained luxurious houses set back from the picturesque shoreline in secure gated communities.
As Luiz drove on through the bright afternoon sunshine, Angel slumped back in his seat, staring dully at the road ahead. He seemed to be slipping in and out of consciousness. If it hadn’t been for the shotgun lying menacingly in the dono’s lap, Luiz would have been tempted to pull over, or try and slip his mobile phone out of his pocket to call Richard Madison. But with Angel so unstable, it would have been suicide to try anything. All Luiz could do was pray that Madison and Oliveira had realized something had gone wrong. But even if they had, he wasn’t sure what they could do about it.
Things were looking bleak. If the worst happened and he died, would Trojan tell his family how and why? He very much doubted it. Would Luiz’s foster parents and Ana spend the rest of their lives not knowing whether he was alive or not? Would they think that he had just walked out on them?
‘Pull over here,’ Angel muttered.
Luiz stopped the truck at the side of the road. To his left, a paved driveway ran up towards a set of high metal railings. Through the gaps in the bars, he could see a palatial stucco house painted gleaming white. Two men in security outfits were standing guard either side of the gates.
‘What are we going to do now?’ Luiz asked. ‘How do we get past the gates?’
Angel made an impatient sound.
‘We’re in a truck, aren’t we? Put your foot down and drive through them!’
‘What? Even if we make it through the gates, those guys are armed, Angel!’
‘It’s up to you,’ Angel replied coldly, levelling his shotgun. ‘You can die over there or die right here.’
‘Listen,’ Luiz tried desperately. ‘We know that Fernandes is the Doctor. Let me call the police. I know people who can keep you out of jail. It’ll be all right, I promise.’
‘Drive!’ Angel bellowed.
Gritting his teeth, Luiz jammed his foot down on the accelerator. As the truck suddenly lurched towards the gates, the security guards waved frantically for it to slow down, fumbling for their weapons. Before they could fire a shot, the truck bounced in between them and crashed headlong into the gates.
The gates buckled and flew open, the impact sending Luiz flying painfully into his steering wheel. As he cried out, the truck veered wildly to the left, crashing into a low wall that ran alongside the driveway. Before the wheels had stopped spinning, Angel had climbed out of the truck and begun firing at the guards. As one of them fell, the other began sprinting down the main road. Angel turned away, instantly dismissing him.
The echo of the last gunshot faded away, leaving the estate in a state of eerie quiet.
Angel strode round to the driver’s seat and dragged Luiz out of the car. ‘Come on – we’re not done yet.’ Reaching into his waistband, the dono tossed Luiz a pistol. ‘Here. You’ll need this.’
Luiz stared dumbly at the gun. ‘You’re giving me a weapon?’
‘No going back now.’ Angel shrugged. ‘Fernandes’s guards will shoot you just as quickly as they will me. We’re both dead men. Only hope now is to take the Doctor down with us.’
Still limping and holding his belly, Angel dragged himself up the driveway towards the mansion. It was as though he had already forgotten about Luiz. Frantically, Luiz pulled out his mobile phone and dialled Trojan’s number. This time the call went straight through to Richard Madison.
‘Luiz! What’s happened? Where are you?’
‘At Ivan Fernandes’s house. He’s the Doctor! And now Angel’s going to –’
There was a loud pinging sound and a plant pot beside Luiz exploded. Whirling round, Luiz saw two men running towards him from the side of the mansion, assault rifles raised.
Madison was shouting something down the mobile phone, but Luiz couldn’t hear what he was saying. As another storm of bullets came towards him, he dived over the wall and into the flower bed on the other side, the phone slipping from his grasp. Luiz flattened himself into the dirt, flinching every time a bullet bit into the wall.
Given that Angel had already disappeared inside Fernandes’s house, Luiz knew there was no way he could last out here on his own. His only hope was to hare across the lawn towards the front door of the mansion, which had been left invitingly ajar. He could cover the open ground in maybe five, ten seconds. But with the guards fast approaching, he would be shot dead after three.
He needed cover. Poking his head up from behind the wall, Luiz fired off a couple of shots in the general direction of the guards. He heard shouts of alarm and the gunfire abruptly ceased.
It was now or never. Taking a deep breath, Luiz jumped to his feet and ran for his life.
26. Face-Off
As fast as he ran, time seemed to slow down for Luiz. Each second lasted an eternity. The slightest detail took on significance: from the feel of the springy lawn beneath his feet to the sing-song choruses of the birds high up in the trees. One step, then another. Luiz’s heart was raggedly thudding in his chest. The doorway to Fernandes’s house loomed up in front of him, a dark portal to safety.
The first gunshot went off sooner than he had been expecting, zinging over his shoulder and spurring him onwards. The two guards had reached the corner of the house and were racing towards him along the driveway. As Luiz hurdled over a flower bed and raced up the steps on to the veranda, there was another blast and a chunk of wood flew off one of the white balustrade posts. He threw himself headlong towards the door, landing inside the house even as the veranda was enveloped in a hail of bullets behind him.
It was gloomy inside, shadows stretching out across the spotless tiled floor. There was no sign of either Angel or the Doctor. Scrambling to his feet, Luiz ran down the hallway and through a door that led into a brightly lit kitchen. The room was silent, save for the soft humming of the fridge. Luiz stood stock-still, holding his breath.
The front door creaked open again as the guards followed him into the house, their soft footfalls audible as they crept inside. Luiz looked down at his gun. Even now, with his life in the balance, he wasn’t sure that he could shoot someone. He glanced around the kitchen, but saw nothing among the household appliances on the sideboard that could help him. Pressing himself against the wall by the door, he waited as the footsteps drew nearer.
The kitchen door opened a crack and the barrel of an assault rifle poked cautiously into the room. Luiz waited until the man was halfway through the doorway, then he kicked the door as hard as he could. There was a loud oath as the gun fell to the floor, which turned into a growl of rage as Luiz kicked the rifle out of reach. The guard burst into the kitchen, throwing a clumsy haymaker at Luiz, who ducked sharply. Luiz then responded with a deft punch to the man’s kidneys, followed up by a knee into his groin. As the guard buckled, Luiz brought his pistol down sharply on the man’s head. The guard grunted and went sprawling headlong across the tiles, unconscious.
‘Hold it right there,’ said a clipped voice.
Luiz looked up to see that the second guard had appeared in the kitchen. Before he could react, a booming shot rang out. As the guard fell to the floor, dead, Angel appeared in the doorway behind him, his shotgun still smoking.
‘Angel!’ Luiz gasped. ‘You saved me!’
‘I know,’ the dono replied flatly. ‘I guess we’re in this together now.’
A reflective look flickered across Angel’s face and for a brief second he seemed a lot younger than he had before. Then, his resolve hardening, he turned on his heel and marched back into the hallway. Glancing around at the expensive paintings and ornaments with undisguised hatred, he smashed a slender vase with the butt of his shotgun.
‘Where are you hiding, Fernandes?’ he cried out. ‘Come out and face me, you son of a bitch!’
‘Maybe he heard us coming and ran away,’ Luiz suggested.
The dono shook his head. ‘He’s here, all right. I can smell him.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the staircase. ‘I’m going upstairs. You stay down here and look for him.’
With that, Angel marched upstairs and disappeared inside one of the bedrooms. Luiz glanced at the front door. He could make a run for it, take a chance that there were no guards waiting for him outside, but what if the Doctor was still in the house somewhere? After everything, he couldn’t bear the thought that Fernandes might escape. Angel was right: they were in it together now.
Stealing across the ground floor of the house, Luiz found himself in a large room dominated by a long dining table. Sunlight poured in through a window that ran the length of the room, glinting off a mirror hanging on the far wall. Through the window, a sandy beach was visible, with surf pounding down relentlessly upon it. Luiz looked out over the view.
‘Are you lost, boy?’
Luiz whirled round and saw Ivan Fernandes staring back at him. The restaurateur was standing on the other side of the table from him, his back to the mirror. The smooth, polite facade he had displayed in the Casa Bahia had vanished, replaced by a disdainful sneer. In his hand Fernandes brandished a pearl-handled Colt .45 pistol, its barrel pointing straight at Luiz’s head.
‘Don’t move,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘You were at the restaurant. With the policeman.’
Luiz nodded dumbly.
‘And now you’re here. In my house. With a gun.’
‘I know who you are!’ Luiz shouted bravely. ‘You’re the Doctor!’
Fernandes raised a cold eyebrow. ‘Really? Come here to arrest me, have you?’
‘And I’ve phoned the police,’ Luiz lied. ‘They’re on their way, and if anything happens to me they’ll think it was you.’
‘The police will think what I tell them,�
�� Fernandes countered. ‘To them, you’re just another petty thief from the slums who’s about to be shot dead by a respectable man guarding his property. You need to be bit quicker if you’re going to try and outwit me.’
A dark shadow flitted across the mirror behind Fernandes and suddenly Angel was in the room with them.
‘This quick enough?’ the dono whispered, pressing his shotgun against the side of the Doctor’s head. ‘Drop it. Now.’
Fernandes froze, shock etched upon his face. Luiz could see his mind racing, calculating whether there was any way he could fight back. Then his shoulders slumped and he dropped the Colt to the floor with a clatter.
‘What the hell are you doing, Angel?’ he grimaced. ‘Have you gone crazy?’
‘I’m the sanest I’ve been in a long time,’ Angel replied. ‘I was crazy when I listened to you. I was crazy when I believed that you could protect us from the police.’
He jabbed the Doctor’s head with his gun. In a flash Fernandes’s cool demeanour had been stripped away and, when he spoke again, fear trembled at the edge of his voice.
‘I did everything I could!’ he protested. ‘I spent a fortune bribing officials to cover your rotten backs – policemen, politicians. But once that Jorge Cruz got involved, we were finished!’
‘No, the Comando Negro were finished. Seems to me you’re still doing pretty well for yourself, Fernandes.’
‘Think of all I’ve done for you, Angel!’ Fernandes tried desperately. ‘When I first hired you, you were a nothing in the Compadres. Now you’re the most feared gangster in Rio!’
‘Maybe so,’ Angel said. ‘But at least when I was a nothing I had a brother. Some things aren’t worth the price you pay for them.’
Keeping the Doctor at arm’s length, Angel pushed him into the centre of the room with the barrel of his Remington. Fernandes closed his eyes, as though he had resigned himself to his fate.
‘This is for Rafael,’ Angel said, through clenched teeth. His finger tightened on the trigger.