The Games (Private #11)(26)

“To pleasure,” Doctor said, touching his cup to hers.

“To no strings,” Luna said saucily, and she downed the wine.

In his car, she rubbed her hands all over his chest, said, “I can’t wait to be alone with you.”

Castro kissed her, said, “It won’t take long for my little orchid to bloom.”

He drove. Luna felt pleasantly hammered, not thinking a bit about her husband, only about Doctor and how unbelievable he’d made her feel their first time together. She prayed she was going to feel even better tonight.

“Where are we going?” she asked once she realized they’d gotten onto the highway. “There are excellent sex motels around Lapa.”

“But nothing like this one,” Doctor said, and he rubbed her thigh.

Luna purred, realized she was drunker than she’d thought. Not sick drunk, but stripped of any and all inhibitions.

Free to do what I want.

She squirmed her hips in protest when his hand left her leg.

“You torturing me?”

“There’s a fine line between pain and ecstasy.”

Ecstasy. When was the last time Antonio spoke of such things? Maybe I should leave Antonio before I do something stupid like get pregnant. Maybe I should…just…

Her vision blurred and distorted. She was aware they were driving through an industrial area she didn’t recognize.

“Where you taking me, Doc?” she slurred.

Luna’s eyes drifted shut. She felt as if she were spinning slowly off a cliff, like a bird hovering on updrafts.

Far behind her, from back on that cliff as she twirled and glided toward nothingness, she heard Doctor reply, “My lab, Luna.”





Chapter 26



SCI AND MO-BOT arrived in Rio around eleven that night, and Tavia and I took them to see Andrew and Cherie Wise in their suite at the Marriott. We brought the couple up to speed on what we’d learned in the past five hours and gave them an overview of our strategy to find their daughters.

Maureen Roth typed on her iPad, linking it via Bluetooth to the flat-screen on the wall. A satellite image of Rio appeared, the mountains, the canyons, the beaches, and the sea. Mo-bot typed a few more commands, and six flickering pins appeared, three red, three yellow, superimposed on the image.

“These three in red are the charities where the girls worked in the past three weeks,” Maureen said. “The yellows are the hostels where they stayed. And now, I’ll filter out all areas more than two miles from a train or Metr? track, and…”

Large pieces of the image vanished, and it was like we were looking at Rio as an incomplete jigsaw puzzle. But it was clear from the pins that the hostels and all three charities were within our search area. So were the Spirit and Alem?o favelas.

I said, “We’ve got people working the tracks near the abduction site first and then expanding out. In the morning, we’ll be at those charities and hostels.”

“How can this help?” Cherie asked. “I mean, look at the density. Millions of people live in those parts of the city.”

“True,” Tavia said. “But at some point, Mrs. Wise, your daughters appeared on someone’s radar. Likely at the hostels or the charities. If we can figure out where and how they were targeted, we can figure out who has them.”

Wise said, “A search is your only strategy, Jack?”

“It’s the one that seems most promising at the moment.”

“You’ve got less than forty-two hours,” he said. “I’ve arranged to withdraw thirty million dollars’ worth of Brazilian reais on Sunday.”

“They said fifty million,” Cherie said.

“I can’t get fifty,” he said. “And they’ll never know the difference. It will be a big stack of money all strapped down, and that will be enough. Why? Because they won’t stop to count it and we’ll put newspaper cut like cash deep in the pile. They’ll give us the girls and take the money at the same time or no deal.”

His wife looked dubious, but she nodded.

“That is going to be a big stack,” Sci said.

Wise nodded, said, “The bills are roughly the size of U.S. currency. Given that every dollar weighs a gram, and using a fifty as the likely denomination, we’re talking about eleven hundred pounds.”

Sci said, “They’d be smarter to ask for it in gold. At this morning’s spot price, that drops the weight to nine hundred and thirty pounds.”

Wise stared at him, said, “Well done.”

Cherie looked disgusted, shook her head, and said, “It’s always about mental gymnastics with you, Andy. Can’t you just once look at life emotionally?”

“Emotion won’t get Alicia and Natalie back,” he snapped. “Strategy, a plan, and meticulous execution of that plan will get them back.”

“And what if it doesn’t?” she said, starting to cry as she gestured at the screen. “What if they take the money and kill the girls, and we never see them again?”

“That’s not happening.”

She wiped her bloodshot eyes, looked at the four of us from Private, said, “You see it, don’t you? With everything we’ve got, my girls are all I have.”





Chapter 27