The John Milton Series Boxset 4

by Mark Dawson

  The man opened the leather satchel and took out a black plastic oblong, a length of wire and a roll of tape. He reached inside the placket and twisted the bottom upwards, revealing a thin square of plastic beneath one of the buttons that Paulo hadn’t noticed. The square was on the inside of the shirt with the button on the other side of the fabric; it looked as if the two were connected. Paulo looked down as the man took one end of the wire and plugged it into the bottom of the plastic square.

  The man held up the larger black oblong. “Turn around.”

  Paulo did so self-consciously. He looked in the cracked mirror and saw the man take the oblong and press it against the middle of his back. The man peeled off the end of the tape and cut a length off with a pair of scissors; the tape secured the oblong in place. Then, the man unrolled more, going from his back to beneath his arms to his chest and then back again, enough tape to go around Paulo’s body three times. He cut it with the scissors and put the roll to one side. He took the other end of the wire and pulled it around to where he had secured the object against his back; Paulo heard a small click as the man pressed the wire into the oblong.

  “This is a camera and recorder,” the man said.

  “Come on,” Paulo pleaded. “They’ll see it. It’s obvious.”

  “No, it isn’t.” The man pointed to the mirror. “Look. Turn around.”

  Paulo did.

  “The DVR is on your back. It’s slender—if you leave your shirt loose, no one will be able to see it. You see it?”

  Paulo couldn’t see it. The shirt fell over the recorder.

  He shook his head. “But they’ll still—”

  The man spoke over him. “The lens is hidden in the button. It’s very sensitive—it’ll work in low light, if you need it to. You’ve got nearly eighty degrees’ field of view, so you don’t need to be right in front of something. The recorder will last ninety minutes on a charge. You shouldn’t need any longer than that for what you need to do. There’s a single button on the back—press it to switch it on. Can you feel it?”

  Paulo reached around and felt the depression against the otherwise smooth surface of the recorder. “This?”

  “That’s right. Make sure no one sees you pressing it. Understand?”

  “Yes,” he said weakly.

  The man nodded his approval. “This is what you’re going to do: you go outside, get into your car, and go back to where they’ve got the girl. Record everything that my friend asked you to record.”

  “And if I see anyone?”

  “Act natural.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “You prepare before you go up there. You get your story straight. You’d just taken the two men to the house. You heard gunshots. You saw someone come out of the house and leave in the opposite direction. You waited, but they didn’t come back out—okay?”

  “He’ll ask why I didn’t go back to the Hill straight away. I’ve been with you all morning. He’ll know I’m lying.”

  “That’s easy. You tell him you waited in the car for the men to come back. You waited twenty minutes. You realised something was wrong, and you went inside to check. You found three dead bodies and you panicked. But before you could get back into your car, the police showed up. They were cruising up the street. You panicked. You didn’t think it was safe to get back to the car. So you walked. How long would it take to walk from Santa Teresa to Rocinha? Three hours?”

  Paulo nodded.

  “So that’s how you explain where you’ve been.”

  “I don’t know,” Paulo said.

  “You’re scared already, right?”

  Paulo swallowed and nodded.

  “Then don’t hide it. Use it. Be natural—he’ll expect you to be scared.”

  The old man opened the door to the block, and the warm breeze blew inside, disturbing the layers of torpid heat and the underlying smell of excrement. “It’s one o’clock now. I’m going to be here again at five. So are you. Don’t be late.”

  The man stepped outside and disappeared from view. Paulo waited where he was, despite the unpleasantness, and turned to look at himself in the mirror. He faced it, then turned in profile, then turned around and looked back over his shoulder. Surely the recorder must be obvious? He looked for it, feeling it against his spine yet unable to see it beneath the fabric of the shirt. He turned back to the front and looked at his face; even if he couldn’t see the recorder or the camera, then surely his guilt would be writ large on his face. He had heard the stories about Garanhão, about how it was said that he could sniff out a lie, an instinct for deceit that he backed with violence every time. And Paulo had always been a bad liar—it was a standing joke between him and Rafaela—and the audacity of this particular lie was several orders above lying about staying out for a drink with his friends when he had promised to return home. He was taking a camera into Garanhão’s operation and then delivering the footage to a man who appeared crazy enough to consider attacking the don.

  Paulo heard the slap of approaching footsteps and stepped outside before a man wearing flip-flops, shorts and a Fluminense shirt could go in. They blocked each other; Paulo took a step to the left and the man mirrored him, then repeated the movement as Paulo went right. The man grunted irritably; Paulo apologised and stepped aside. He was sweating, yet his throat was bone dry.

  He wanted to go home more than anything, but he shook his head, reminded himself that he still hadn’t seen Alícia today and, with fresh stabs of guilt mixing with his anxiety, he hurried to the Benz.

  63

  Milton took a taxi from the cache to a local car rental firm and hired a Fiat for the week. He drove east to Santa Teresa, parked at the foot of the Hill, and slung the rucksack that Marks had given him over his shoulders. He climbed the Hill on foot, paying careful attention to the cars and pedestrians that he passed as he made his ascent. He took the narrow flights of stairs that linked the snaking main road, cutting across the route he had followed for his morning run on the day after the festival. That all seemed like a long, long time ago now; he had been made to look a fool by a man that he had believed he knew. Milton was determined that there would be an accounting for that; the only question that he had to answer was whether Sophia was to be included in that accounting, too.

  He reached Ladeira do Meireles, the narrow road that ended with Drake’s rented villa, and made his way quickly along it. There was a wall to his left, with the same stunning view of the city that he remembered from before; to his right was a long stretch of wall, decorated by colourful bougainvillea, with flights of steps leading up to the properties beyond. Milton checked that he was unobserved and opened the gate to the property adjacent to Drake’s villa. He climbed the steps and looked through the open window: the rooms beyond were empty, without furniture or anything else that might have suggested that the place was occupied. Milton watched Drake’s villa. There was no sign that anyone was at home there, either: the lights were off, and the white Boxster was missing from the driveway.

  Milton made his way across the lawned garden and vaulted the low wall that marked the boundary between the two properties. He approached a brick shed that accommodated the trash cans and ducked down behind it. He took the rucksack off his shoulders, opened it, and pulled out a pair of latex gloves and latex overshoes. He put them on, then reached back into the rucksack for the suppressed Walther. He waited where he was, straining his eyes and ears for any sign that someone might be in the house. There was nothing.

  He jogged across the garden to the rear door. He remembered the layout of the house and approached the French doors that opened out onto the patio at the back. The door was much more secure than the one he had forced to get into Xavier de Oliveira’s home, and he needed to be subtler than he had before. He opened the rucksack again and withdrew the lock pick set that Marks had given him. He took out the instruments that he needed, knelt before the lock, and quickly and expertly picked it. He didn’t remember seeing any sensors inside the property, so he
was reasonably confident as he pushed down on the handle and opened the door that there would be no alarm to tackle. He heard nothing and so started the stopwatch on his phone, drew the Walther, and crept inside.

  He cleared the property, moving quickly from room to room until he was sure that it was unoccupied. Then, finally satisfied, he took the rucksack into the sitting room and withdrew the surveillance kit. It was a small aluminium case; he popped the clasps and opened the lid, revealing a variety of bugs, keyloggers and tracking devices nestled inside a foam inset. He unplugged a standard lamp, took a small leather tool roll from the rucksack and opened it, selected a screwdriver and used it to unscrew the double wall socket that had powered the lamp. He found the breaker in a closet, killed the power to the house, then removed the socket and took out an almost identical one from the case. The replacement contained a mains-powered GSM bug that would allow real-time audio monitoring. Milton wired it in, screwed it in place, and plugged in the lamp once more. He flipped the breaker and checked that the lamp still worked; it did.

  Milton checked his phone: he had been inside the villa for three minutes.

  He went into the bedroom. Everything looked normal, with no sign that anyone had left in a hurry. The doors to the wardrobe were closed, and, when he opened them, he saw that the shoes and clothes were still neatly stored inside. He pulled the bed back and located another wall socket behind it. He replaced this one, too, wiring the bug into the mains and pushing the bed back into place so that his work was hidden.

  He checked his stopwatch once more: nine minutes had passed. He wanted to be outside, but there was one final place to check. He went into the study. Drake had an old Dell desktop PC connected to a generic keyboard with a standard USB cable. Milton dropped down to his knees and turned the tower around so that he could get to the connections at the rear. He took out a small forensic keylogger that looked just like a normal USB memory key; he unplugged the keyboard, shoved the keylogger into the jack, and connected the keyboard to it. The logger would record every piece of data transmitted to it from the keyboard and then covertly text it to Milton’s phone. He checked his work, and, content that it would be impossible to see unless Drake or Sophia were looking for it, he pushed the tower back into place and left the room.

  Twelve minutes. There was no reason to wait any longer. He left through the French doors, closed and re-locked them, and stepped out into the warmth of the afternoon. He walked briskly back along the garden, vaulted the wall into the adjacent property, and started back to his Fiat at the bottom of the Hill.

  64

  Paulo parked the Mercedes in a quiet spot where it wouldn’t be found and walked to the top of the Hill. He paused in a darkened alley, closed his eyes, and tried to compose himself. He was terrified. He looked down at the button on his shirt and tried to see the camera; he couldn’t, but that didn’t help. Maybe he just didn’t know what to look for. Surely it would be obvious to someone else, and that wasn’t even taking into account the recorder that was taped to his back. He arched his back and felt it there, the sharp edges digging into his spine. They would see the camera or the recorder, or his panic would give him away. He tried not to imagine what Garanhão would do when he found out that Paulo was spying on him.

  But he had no choice. He couldn’t run. The man with the pale eyes had killed Alessandro and Junior as if it was of absolutely no consequence to him. The man had warned Paulo that he would find him if he ran, and he frightened Paulo almost as much as Garanhão did.

  He thought of Alícia locked in the basement not far from here, and he knew that he had to do what he had promised he would do.

  He squeezed his eyes shut until he could see little starbursts of coloured light against the lids and, taking a deep breath, he reached around his body until he could feel the depression in the body of the recorder. He pressed it, feeling the soft click as the button went down.

  He stepped out of the alley and, blinking in the sunlight, walked the short distance to Garanhão’s building.

  Paulo said that he needed to see Garanhão, but he was told to wait in the antechamber outside the room. He sat down and clasped his hands in his lap. His palms were slick with sweat, and his damp fingers slithered against one another. He could feel the recorder against the small of his back; it felt enormous, surely too large for someone not to see it.

  The door opened and Garanhão stood there. “Get in here,” he snapped.

  There was another man inside the room. He was sitting on the sofa, one leg crossed over the other. Paulo recognised him at once: it was the third man from this morning, the man whom Alessandro and Junior had met outside the house before all of them had gone inside.

  “This is senhor Drake,” he said. “He was there this morning.”

  “Yes,” Paulo said. “I saw him.”

  “He has told me what happened. But I would like to hear it from you, too.”

  Paulo looked at Drake; the man shuffled uncomfortably, as if what Paulo might say would have consequences for him, too.

  “Alessandro called me this morning. He told me to get up here, so I did. I drove him and Junior to Rio Comprido. We waited there until he got a phone call, and then I drove them to a house. They met senhor Drake”—he looked at the third man, who glared back at him—“and then they all went inside.”

  “Go on.”

  “I heard gunshots. Alessandro and Junior and senhor Drake had just gone in. I thought it was them.”

  “But?”

  He looked back to Drake, swallowed down on a dry throat, and went on. “Senhor Drake came out of the house. He got into a car and drove away. I didn’t know what to do. Alessandro and Junior didn’t come out. I thought something must have happened to them.”

  “And then?” Garanhão asked. “Did you see anyone else?”

  He nodded. “Someone else came out of the house.”

  “Describe him.”

  “Medium height. White, middle-aged. I was too far back to see much more than that, and he turned away from me.”

  “Did he see you?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Drove away.”

  “And then?” Garanhão said. “What did you do after that?”

  Paulo recited the story that the old man had suggested. He said that he had gone inside the house, that he had seen three dead bodies, but that he had seen police outside before he could get back to his car. He said that he’d been scared that they would see him if he went back to the car, so he had walked back to the Hill.

  “Why didn’t you call?”

  “My phone,” he said. “It’s in the car.”

  Garanhão eyed him. “Really? You couldn’t get a taxi?”

  “My wallet was there, too. I didn’t have any money.”

  Garanhão stared at Paulo, unblinking, and, for that moment, Paulo was sure that he had seen straight through him.

  And then the moment passed. Garanhão changed the subject. “This man you saw,” he said. “Do you think you would recognise him?”

  “I don’t know, Don Rodrigues. I was down the road from him and—”

  “But you will look at a picture?”

  “Of course.”

  Garanhão nodded, and Drake took out his phone, woke the screen, and held it up. Paulo looked at a photograph. A man was looking straight into the camera. It was the same man with the same pale blue eyes who had taken him to the motel in Jacarepaguá.

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know, Don Rodrigues. As I said—”

  “Could it be him?” he cut in.

  “Yes,” Paulo said. “Maybe. It could be. Who is he?”

  “Senhor Drake knows him,” Garanhão said without attempting to hide his derision.

  Paulo glanced across and saw Drake flinch. It was obvious that the man had irritated the don and that he was worried about what that might mean for him. Paulo found that he was relieved; there was someone else to absorb Garanhão’s
anger.

  “His name is John Milton,” Drake said.

  Paulo didn’t know what to say to that, or whether Garanhão wanted anything else from him. There was tension in the room, and it was obvious that Drake was as nervous as he was.

  Paulo shuffled. “Is there anything else, Don Rodrigues?”

  “No. You can go.”

  Paulo stood. Drake stood, too, but Garanhão froze him with an upheld hand. “Not you,” he said. “You stay. We have things to discuss.”

  Paulo didn’t need to be told twice. He made his way across the room, opened the door, and stepped out into the cool darkness of the antechamber beyond. One of the young bodyguards was lounging there, his AK propped against the wall, and it took all of Paulo’s strength to put one foot in front of the other and make for the stairs down to the street. He was buffeted by a sudden light-headedness and an urge to vomit that was almost impossible to suppress. He heard Garanhão’s angry voice as he stumbled down the stairs, pushed open the door, and stepped out onto the dusty street beyond.

  65

  Paulo went straight to the warehouse. He told himself that he should move slowly so that the camera could record everything that the man he now knew as Milton would need, but he was too scared to take his time. He went in through the open door, climbed the steps to the dock and hurried through the empty office. He descended the stairs to the basement and opened the door to the crawlspace. Alícia was sitting with her back to the wall. Paulo looked into her face and, in that moment, the doubts and fears were obliterated by a fresh surge of shame at what he had helped to make possible. Tears were running down her cheeks, which were already glistening. She lifted her head and looked at him.

  “Where have you been?” she said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “You’ve been gone so long,” she said, her voice shaking.

  “I had something that I had to do. Come here.”