The John Milton Series Boxset 4

by Mark Dawson

  Returning to Rio, and the mundane realities of making his way through security at Galeão and then the crowds of other passengers going about their business, was something of a comedown. He had flown first class in both directions and had been insulated from the ignominies of poor service, cramped space and the foibles of other passengers, but now those pleasures were quickly fading away into the background. The queue for immigration was slow, and, even though he had been able to disembark first, he had already been waiting for twenty minutes. He had promised to return to the office for the monthly meeting of the executive division, and now it looked as if he was going to be late.

  The queue shuffled forward until, finally, Lima was at the front. He waited for the woman at the booth to be processed, and then, summoned by a curt gesture from the official, he came forward.

  “Passport,” the woman said.

  Lima opened the document at his photograph and slid it through the gap at the bottom of the booth’s Perspex screen. The woman looked at the picture and back up at Lima’s face. He waited for her, tapping his foot with an impatience that he was unable to hide. There was no reason that she would know that he held a senior role in the biggest oil and gas operation in South America, that he had a chauffeured Mercedes waiting for him outside, and that he had more money in his wallet than she would make in a month. There was no reason why she should know any of that, but, even though he knew it was irrational, it was all Lima could do to prevent himself from rapping his knuckles on the screen and asking her to hurry up.

  Finally, she slid the passport back through the slot.

  “Bem-vindo, senhor Lima.”

  Lima acknowledged her with a curt dip of his head and made his way through the passage into the arrivals lounge beyond.

  He descended the escalator into the shabby hall. Two barriers had been erected, and the passengers were being funnelled between them. Lima looked for the chauffeur who would drive him back into the city. He wheeled his case around a slow-moving family and searched along the signs held aloft by the waiting drivers for his own name.

  He saw it, caught the driver’s eye, and indicated with a flick of his hand that he would meet him where the barriers ended. He pulled around another slow-moving passenger and quickened his pace, keen to get into the car and away.

  “Senhor Lima?”

  He stopped. A man dressed in a police uniform had stepped out to block his way.

  “Yes?”

  “You’re under arrest.”

  “What? What for?”

  “On suspicion of fraud, extortion and embezzlement. Come with me, please.”

  The officer reached for him, but Lima pulled his arm away and stepped back. “This is a mistake,” he said. “Do you know who I am?”

  “I do, sir, and I’m afraid that it’s not a mistake. You’re under arrest. It would be better for you if you came with me without protesting. I could cuff you, but I’m sure you’d rather I didn’t.”

  Lima was blinded by the sudden flashes of light from both sides of the barriers. There were photographers there; they had been waiting for him, waiting for the moment when he was put under arrest. They had been tipped off.

  Lima felt sick. He knew exactly what was happening: this was the classic strategy of Felipe Saverin, the judge from Curitiba who was conducting the high-profile corruption investigation that had been such big news over the course of the past month. It had been in the papers and on the nightly news, but Lima had been careful and had been as confident as he could possibly be that he was insulated from Saverin’s attention.

  But now this…

  Saverin had made it his policy to tip off the press before he made arrests. He wanted to load the shame onto those men and women he suspected, capturing their lowest moments in an attempt to convict them in the court of public opinion before they were even brought to trial. He brought them down, trashed their reputations, ruined them so that they would be more amenable to the deals he would offer them if they were only prepared to finger someone higher up the food chain.

  And that was a problem for Lima. There were so few above him.

  He had always known, however, that there was a possibility of this, so even though he had pushed it to the back of his mind, he had prepared a contingency. There was a man, hidden among the shacks and shanties that made up the slums of Rocinha, who would be able to help him. Saverin thought that he was insulated by the authority of his office, but he was wrong. The man whom Andreas Lima had already decided to contact would pay no heed to any of that. He would find the judge’s weaknesses and exploit them.

  There was no doubt in Lima’s mind: Saverin had made a terrible mistake, and now he was going to have to pay.

  Part I

  The First Day

  1

  John Milton looked out of the window of the 747 as it emerged beneath the black thunderhead that the pilot had warned them had settled over the city. The plane banked, and Milton could see the land beneath them: the jagged spires of mountains, the brown rock garlanded with lush green vegetation, and, laid out on their flanks like a vast chequerboard, the favelas that comprised most of Rio de Janeiro. The plane banked in the opposite direction, and the porthole window tipped away from the city to show the underside of the angry storm clouds above. The pilot announced that they would be on the ground in ten minutes and told the cabin crew to take their seats.

  Milton had slept during the seven-hour flight from Panama City, and he felt a little sluggish. He reached down to the mesh pocket that was fixed to the seatback and took out his phone, popped a sweet into his mouth to help equalise the air pressure, pressed his earbuds into his ears, and scrolled through his playlist until he found his Guns N’ Roses playlist and swiped down until he found ‘Paradise City.’ The music started to play, muffling the noise of the engines as the jet lined up for landing.

  Milton watched out of the window again and saw the statue of Christ the Redeemer, His arms spread wide, welcoming new arrivals to the teeming metropolis over which He watched.

  Milton closed his eyes and concentrated on the music.

  There was a shortage of open booths at immigration, and Milton had to wait in line. He had expected the airport to be busy. Rock in Rio opened tomorrow with several days of concerts that would bring thousands of people to the city. Coming here to experience the festival had been on Milton’s bucket list for years, and despite his usual dourness, he found that he was excited at the prospect. The airport had been decorated to welcome tourists who had come to enjoy the week-long event, with banners draped from the ceiling that displayed photographs of the artists taking part. Guns N’ Roses were headlining the first night, but hundreds of other performers had been scheduled to appear across the seven days. Samba music could be heard from the other side of the immigration booths, and the irritable official who chivvied the queue onwards had been made to wear a feathered carnival headdress. It was an incongruous sight.

  Milton was called to the window. He handed his passport to the officer and waited as the man looked down at his photograph and then up to his face.

  “Senhor Smith?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What is your business in Brazil?”

  “Pleasure,” Milton said. “The music festival.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “With a friend.”

  The man looked down at the passport again as if weighing up this new piece of information, and then flipped through the document to an empty page and stamped it. He pushed the passport back through the slot, muttered something in Portuguese that Milton did not understand, and then beckoned the woman in the queue behind Milton to make her way forward.

  Milton hiked his rucksack onto his shoulder and made his way between the two booths.

  Shawn Drake was at the front of the barrier in the arrivals lounge. He was wearing shorts and a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt, and his clothes and hair were wet from the rain that Milton had seen through the windows as he had disembarked from the jet.
Drake’s face broke into a broad smile as he saw Milton.

  “John!” he called out, waving an arm.

  Milton raised his own hand in acknowledgement and made his way to the end of the barrier. Drake met him there. He wrapped his arms around Milton, embraced him and clapped him roughly on his back. The two of them had much in common, but Milton’s reserve stood in stark contrast to Drake’s fondness for shows of affection. Milton had never been one for that; it had been true when they had known each other before, and the intervening years had led to him withdrawing even more. Drake either ignored or failed to notice the discomfort that Milton couldn’t entirely hide; he maintained the embrace for a beat too long before finally letting go.

  “You’re soaked,” Milton said.

  “It’s pissing down,” Drake said.

  “Welcome to Rio.”

  “Stop moaning,” Drake said. “It passes. Forecast is great for the rest of the week. This way. My car’s in the lot.”

  Drake led the way to the exit. The airport was thronged with people, and the noise, echoing down from the high roof overhead, was intense enough to make Milton a little uncomfortable.

  “It’s good to see you,” Milton said.

  Drake grinned at him. “How long’s it been? Twenty years?”

  “And the rest.”

  Milton had been reunited with Drake on an army forum that he occasionally visited. They had exchanged a few private messages and, when Drake had mentioned that he was living in Rio, Milton had said—without really considering what Drake might say—that he was thinking about visiting the city for the festival. Drake had immediately responded with an invitation to come and stay with him and the suggestion that he could show Milton what the event was really like, away from the sanitised commercial version that the city sold to tempt foreigners. Milton did not like to rely on the hospitality of others, but he had always been fond of Drake, and his offer was tempting. After thinking about it for a day or two, he had accepted.

  “Nice T-shirt,” Milton said.

  Drake looked down at his chest and the shirt that sported a logo of twin pistols girdled by a thorny rose stem. “Still got mine from the first time I saw them,” he said. “Doesn’t fit now. Bought this on eBay.”

  “We’re not as young as we used to be.”

  “That’s the truth,” Drake said with a rueful smile.

  “What are you talking about?” Milton said. “You look good.”

  Drake beamed. “That’s Rio. Great weather, fantastic beaches… fantastic women.” He grinned. “Have you been here before? You didn’t say.”

  “Once,” Milton said. “Must be ten years ago.”

  “After the Regiment?”

  “That’s right.”

  Drake didn’t ask what Milton had been doing after he had left the SAS. Milton knew the question would come and was ready with a suitable answer. He wasn’t about to tell him the truth.

  “The city’s changed,” Drake said. “You wouldn’t recognise it. The Olympics and the World Cup made a big difference. Forced the government to clean it up.”

  Drake nudged his way through a line of people waiting to check in, seemingly oblivious to the angry muttering of the people he left in his wake. That was something that Milton remembered about him: Drake had a big personality, full to overflowing with joie de vivre, but he was sometimes enthusiastic to the point where he was not aware of the effect he had on others. There was a puppyish bounce about him that needed a little endurance every now and again. Milton had forgotten that in the intervening years since he had last seen him, and he reminded himself now that he might need to be patient.

  He had found a few more lost memories bobbing up to the surface during his long flight: one, in particular, was clear. He remembered the two of them in a bar in Hereford during their training for the Regiment. They had been talking to another soldier. The third man had become so annoyed at his inability to get a word in edgewise that he had thrown his drink in Drake’s face. They had all been drunk, and, in the inevitable brawl that followed, Milton had been pushed into a table, spilling the drinks that were stood there into the laps of two local farmhands. All five men had been arrested and spent the night in the drunk tank at the police station in Bath Street.

  It was half seven by the time Drake and Milton broke out of the crowd and pushed through the double doors. Thunder boomed and the rain came down so hard that it splashed against the asphalt with a steady hiss. It was ridiculously hot despite the rain. A sign in the arrivals lounge had noted that the temperature was in the nineties, but it had been air-conditioned inside. Now, though, it felt as if Milton had been dunked into a bucket of hot water.

  “Warm?” Drake said with a grin.

  “Just a little.”

  The taxi drivers sounded their horns impatiently as they tried to slide their cars in and out of spaces that were almost too small for them. Passengers whistled and shouted to attract their attention, and Milton saw an argument brewing between one family who were waiting in line and another who had, seemingly, jumped to the front. Drake plotted a course around them, and Milton followed, leaving the sound of their argument in their wake.

  “My car’s over there,” Drake said, pointing to a garage on the other side of the access road.

  A gap in the traffic appeared, and Drake jogged through it, leaving Milton to wait a moment for his own chance to cross. Finally, he hurried across the road as the driver of an approaching black town car held his hand on the horn to complain that he had been forced to slow down. The rain lashed against him and, despite only being out of shelter for a few seconds, he was quickly soaked.

  2

  The rain hammered against the tin roof of the building and drummed against the window, filling the room with a noise that was impossible to escape. Paulo de Almeida went to the window and looked out: their apartment was on the top floor of the three-storey building that had been constructed halfway up the Hill, and, from there, he could look all the way down to Gávea and São Conrado and the grand buildings that accommodated those with more money than the cariocas who were forced to live in the favela. The rain became heavier, and, within the space of a minute, the view narrowed so that he could only just see the building on the other side of the steeply ascending road that led to the top of the Hill.

  Paulo had lived in Rocinha all of his life, and he was familiar with these springtime downpours. The storm clouds would collect north of Rio and then, gathering strength as they swooped to the south, they would be funnelled by the Andes and sent straight to the centre and south of the country before being swept out to sea. The slum was not built to withstand extremes of weather, and there had been one particularly bad storm when Paulo had been a boy where a mudslide from the top of the Hill had swept down and swamped the rickety structures that had been established on its flanks. Several dozen people had been killed, either crushed beneath the weight of the lumber that had been torn up and sent down the slopes on the back of the mud, or drowned.

  This storm, while not forecast to be dangerous, would still cause no end of inconvenience and unpleasantness. The drains were little better than medieval, with open sewers that ran down the centres of alleys and passages that would soon be filled up with run-off so that their effluent was spilled out and sent into the street. The stinking mounds of garbage would be scattered and sent down the Hill. Paulo often wondered, when he lay awake at night, whether the bodies of the men and women who had crossed the gang before being taken to the top of the Hill to be killed and dismembered would be disturbed, too, and washed back to their families in bits.

  He turned from the window. Their bedroom was tiny, with little more than a mattress and their daughter’s small bed. It was painted a light shade of green, but there was a problem with damp, and the plaster was peeling away in scabrous patches. His wife, Rafaela, had tried to lighten the room with colourful rugs and throws, and she had fixed a series of devotional pictures of St George on one of the walls. There was a small hallway where they kep
t their shoes, this communal room, and then a screened-off area that they used as the bathroom with a bucket and a single tap that delivered an unreliable supply of cold water. The apartment was little more than six metres square, not nearly enough for two adults and a child. Natural light was a luxury for many inhabitants of the Hill, and they had none save the tiny slit of a window in their bedroom. The lack of privacy had been the source of the recent arguments that had made living here a trial. But what were they going to do? They had no money for anything else, and every spare real that they had was being saved for their daughter’s treatment.

  Rafaela was kneeling by the small mattress and murmuring to the child curled under the thin sheet. Their young daughter, Eloá, was crying softly.

  “How is she?” he asked quietly.

  “Can’t sleep. There’s too much noise.”

  “It’s the damn roof,” Paulo said, gesturing up at the ceiling. “If it was something other than tin, we wouldn’t hear it so much.”

  “There’s no sense complaining about something we can’t change,” Rafaela said, her voice tired.

  “It’ll stop soon. It always does.”

  Paulo looked at his wife. She didn’t just sound tired; the fatigue was in her bones. He felt the same. Eloá hadn’t slept through the night for three or four months—the time had become difficult to distinguish—and, since they all shared the same tiny bedroom, if their daughter was awake, then they were, too.