The Games (Private #11)(45)

Cherie seemed to grow in dimensions I had not imagined just a few moments before.

I said, “The fact that the girls were released in return for the ransom is a very good sign. I think if we cooperate, you’ll see him—”

My cell rang. It was Tavia.

“We were just contacted,” she said.





Chapter 51



FORTY MINUTES LATER, Cherie, Tavia, Acosta, and I were at the lab at Private Rio, watching impatiently as Sci and Mo-bot tried to analyze the metadata attached to the latest video. We’d wanted to watch it immediately, but they insisted on looking at it from the outside first for technical reasons I frankly didn’t understand.

Finally, shaking his curly head, Kloppenberg said, “I can’t quite figure out how they’ve done it, but the code’s corrupted, like it’s got a virus that worms through the code upon our receipt. Don’t know how they did it. Mo-bot?”

“It’s got me baffled too,” she said.

“Play it, then,” Lieutenant Acosta said.

Everyone looked at me.

“Put some kind of quarantine around it so it can’t attack our files, and then open it,” I said, and I glanced over at Cherie, who’d taken a seat and was holding her hands together tightly in desperate prayer.

Tavia went to sit at her side. She looked to me, and we shared a worried moment before the big screen in the lab came alive with the image of Andrew Wise. He was gagged and strapped to a stout chair, still wearing the blue jumpsuit.

The camera zoomed in and showed Wise’s face was bruised. Dried blood matted his hair. Drips and streaks of it showed on the chest of the coverall. He seemed alert, aware of his surroundings, but hurt and in considerable pain.

“Jesus.” Cherie moaned, and she buried her face in her hands. “Why are they doing this?”

“They released the girls,” Tavia said. “You’ll have him back soon.”

But then the camera retreated, revealing a white sheet behind the billionaire. On the sheet and above Wise’s head, there was crudely painted red lettering that read:

Favela Justice!



“What the hell is this?” Lieutenant Acosta said.

That same woman from the earlier video messages, Rayssa, wearing the primitive mask, appeared to Wise’s left. Walking with confidence all around the billionaire, she looked to the camera.

“For those of you who don’t know, this cancer of a man is Andrew Wise, the founder and chairman of Wise Enterprises, or WE,” Rayssa said in thickly accented English. “Senhor Wise is on trial here for his actions as they relate to the rape and persecution of Brazil’s poor through his company’s profiteering in the construction of the World Cup and Olympic Games venues.

“Favela Justice has all the damning evidence,” she went on. “Evidence you will see in the coming days. We’ll let you decide Senhor Wise’s guilt or innocence. If you judge him innocent, we let him go. You judge him guilty, and Favela Justice demands the payback of one billion dollars in gold, which will go to the poor of Brazil.”

“One billion?” Sci said.

Mo-bot whistled, said, “Got to be the highest ransom demand in history.”

I glanced at Cherie and saw her lose all color.

Rayssa paused at Wise’s left side and addressed the camera. “All news organizations gathered in Rio: You have been sent an excerpt from the trial of Andrew Wise. Every afternoon at three thirty eastern daylight saving time, you should expect another one. Tomorrow’s excerpt: the evidence revealed.”

The screen went blank.

“A billion dollars. Three thirty p.m. eastern,” I muttered, seeing where this was going. “Fuck.”

I left the room, pulling out my cell phone. “Fuck.”

“What?” asked Tavia, following me into the hall.

“I went through a nightmare at the last Olympics in London, and here comes another one,” I said, trying to wrap my head around what had just happened in there.

Was all of this solely about the billionaire? Or were they using the billionaire to attack the Olympics? Was Favela Justice connected to Luna’s death? Were the games being threatened once again?

When General da Silva answered my call, I said, “I’ve got news, and you’re not going to like it one bit.”

I laid it out for him: The story of the ransom and the kidnap. The video and the potential ramifications.

The general said shit in Portuguese.

“Exactly.”

“Get me that video,” he said. “Then we’ll talk.”

“Straightaway,” I said, and I returned to the lab, where Sci, Mo-bot, Lieutenant Acosta, and Cherie Wise were watching the video again.

“Andy’s hurt, but not out of it. He knows what’s going on around him,” Cherie said when she saw me. Then she started to cry. “Can we convince the media not to broadcast this?”

I shook my head and said, “I won’t lie to you, Cherie. The Olympics don’t start until Friday. That leaves three days with a gaping news hole. There’s a reason they’re delivering their messages at three thirty p.m. eastern. That’s a half an hour before the big news organizations’ early deadlines. A billion-dollar demand? The global media will eat this up.”