The Games (Private #11)(23)

Castro thought of his private lab work but said, “The virus that causes the common cold. It’s constantly changing. That’s why so many have tried and failed to cure it. Ready?” He held out the ignition key and switch. “You do the honors.”

Ricardo smiled, took the device, said, “It’s not dangerous?”

“No,” the doctor said. “Just fun.”

His student twisted the key and flipped the switch. An intense flame shot out the bottom of the little rocket. It gathered thrust, soared into the sky, and blew a white contrail for five, maybe six hundred feet before a parachute popped open and the rocket dangled there, floating on the sea breeze.

Still northeast, Dr. Castro thought, and then he noticed the parachute stutter and float on a slightly different tangent as it fell slowly into the harbor and then sank.

“You lost it,” Ricardo said.

“Still fun,” Castro said, grinning. “You didn’t like that?”

“No, I did,” his student said. “I liked it taking off the best.”

“I kind of like the whole experience,” Castro said, laughing. “I honestly do.”

“Why, do you think?”

“I don’t know,” the doctor said. “I read about these when I was a boy, but of course we could never afford such luxuries. I suppose the rockets make me feel like the kid I was never allowed to be.”





Chapter 22



WHILE THE WISES checked into the Copacabana Marriott under assumed names, Tavia and I went to the hostel where the other members of the church group were staying. We took the newly restored tram from Centro across the Carioca Aqueduct and up Santa Teresa Hill. Santa Teresa, more than any other area of Rio, feels European and old, and trendy restaurants and bars thrive there.

We got off near Monte Alegre and found our way to the hostel on Laurinda Road. Carlos Seitz, the church-group leader, was waiting, along with eight other members of the mission. They were all concerned and frightened for Natalie and Alicia. They were also nervous about returning to the favelas after the attack. One girl said she wanted to go home but her parents wouldn’t let her.

All of them described the twins as inseparable and very hard workers, gentle and caring, though reserved. Not one of them felt close to either Natalie or Alicia despite the fact that the group had been together for three weeks.

“Do you do all of your work in Alem?o?” I asked.

Seitz shook his head and told us they’d worked at three charity sites around Rio. Most recently they’d been with Shirt Off My Back, an NGO that delivered clothes and food to the desperately poor. Before that, they’d worked on a sanitation project in Campo Grande. When they’d first arrived, they volunteered at an orphanage in Bangu.

“Mariana Lopes’s orphanage?” Tavia asked.

“That’s right,” Seitz said.

“That’s odd,” I said. “She never mentioned that she’d met the girls.”

“We never named them,” Tavia reminded me.

Seitz gave us the addresses of the charities, and we left with promises to keep him updated on the twins.

Outside, we caught a taxi that returned us to Alem?o favela. Night had fallen by the time we reached the tram station. We moved with the sparse crowd toward the red gondolas. The doors opened automatically.

We got inside, meaning to return to the scene of the attack, to see it again at night and perhaps find someone who’d seen something and neglected to tell the police. Two men in their twenties climbed into the gondola, sat opposite us, pulled out cell phones, and studied them.

The doors closed. We cleared the station and were soon high above the lights of the slum. Tavia and I turned to each other and spoke in soft English about how best to pursue the few leads we had.

Click. Click.

Two minutes out of the base station, I heard it. Click. Click.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw stiletto switchblades. The men never said a word, just lunged at us, blades leading.





Chapter 23



I HAMMERED MY right fist back and sideways, just inside the path of the oncoming knife aimed for my ribs and lungs. My blow struck the bundle of nerves, tendons, and ligaments that pass through the underside of the human wrist. The strike not only deflected the blade but sent a shock through my attacker’s fingers and thumb, loosening his grip.

Beside me, Tavia had seen the attacker coming her way and had kicked him in the kneecap with her shoe. He’d staggered back screaming at the same time I twisted my upper body and hammered again at my assailant’s wrist, then tried to punch him in the face with my left.

He was quick and dodged the punch, leaning backward so it passed just out of range. I drove myself to my feet, wanting to strip him of his knife.

But he got underneath me and popped his shoulder up under my solar plexus, slammed me against the closed doors. I hammer-smashed my fist against the scapula and rotator cuff of the arm with the knife. On the second blow, over the noise of Tavia fighting the other guy, I heard the stiletto clatter to the floor of the gondola.

I tried to knee him in the face. He blocked it, got hold of my belt, and spun me around and into Tavia, who crashed into the corner. My guy squatted, tried to punch me in the groin. I shifted my hips, took the blow on the thigh. He snatched up the knife before I could get at it.