The Games (Private #11)(75)

Feeling refreshed, Castro tightened down the straps on the pack and started climbing to the summit of Corcovado Mountain as the sun drifted lower and into a haze brought on by the heat. The doctor soon stopped by a fence that surrounded the observation terraces below the statue of Christ the Redeemer.

Bathed in a gold and copper light, the Redeemer was the iconic symbol of Rio and now the Olympic Games. The doctor felt, however, that the Christ had been hijacked to hawk Coca-Cola and Visa and the goods of other multinationals. He did not look up at the statue. He stayed on task.

Castro knew there were only three people left on the summit of Corcovado now. Two worked for NBC, a producer and a cameraman there to provide a long-lensed look at Rio by night. They’d be picked up later by helicopter.

The third person was Corcovado’s trusted watchman Pietro Gonzalez. Dr. Castro stood there patiently in the shadows until the watchman appeared on his rounds. Castro whistled softly to Gonzalez, whose daughter and son had died of Hydra the day before the World Cup final.

Gonzalez stopped and signaled to Castro to wait. The doctor heard another helicopter circling, filming footage of the statue for the global audience.

How many would watch the opening ceremony? Castro had heard as many as a billion people.

That would do it, he thought. A billion people will get the message shoved right down their throats.

Finally Pietro gestured to him to hurry. Castro came up and over the rail, followed the security guard to a door on the back of the pedestal that supported the statue of the Redeemer.

Pietro had a key ready; he twisted it in the lock and pulled the door open.

Castro said, “Thank you, my friend.”

“For my babies and your wife, and all of the oppressed,” Pietro said, handing the doctor a headlamp and a small jar of gray makeup.





Chapter 93

Friday, August 5, 2016

5:40 p.m.

One Hour and Twenty Minutes Before the Olympic Games Open



“WE’VE GOT ABOUT ten minutes of usable light left,” General da Silva said, grunting in frustration from the copilot’s seat of a Brazilian army 36 AS350 helicopter, a nimble four-seater with a cruising speed of a hundred and fifty miles an hour.

Lieutenant Acosta and I rode in the back. We’d spent the better part of an hour flying over the most likely routes Dr. Castro could have taken through the mountainous jungle between Laranjeiras and Esta??o.

The pilot had flown us right above the rain-forest canopy, where we did our best to peer through the dense vegetation, hoping to catch a glimpse of the doctor and his backpack. In most places the cover was too thick to see anything. Even in those areas where it thinned, the winter jungle was as much gray pastels as greens. If he was wearing gray, he’d be all but invisible down there.

“Take us to the stadium,” da Silva said finally, and he called in for an update on the police presence in the streets between Maracan? and the jungle.

As the sun sank below the western mountains, it turned the sky an intense magenta color that was breathtaking.

My cell phone rang. I tucked it in under the headphones and said, “Jack Morgan.”

“It’s Sci, Jack. I’m with the forensics team at Castro’s lab.”

“Go ahead.”

“Did you see all the thumbtacks with the little corners of paper left above one of the workbenches?”

“Yes.”

“I found the papers in a dumpster behind the lab,” Sci said. “Some are weather maps of Rio that show wind speed and direction. The rest are printouts of wind data going back ten years, all in the month of August.”

“And I’m interested in this why?” I said as we swung over the lines of opening-ceremony ticket holders still trying to clear security and get inside.

“Because of what else I found,” Sci said. “Balsa wood, stout cardboard tubes, and sheets of aluminum with finlike shapes cut from them.”

“What do you mean, finlike?”

“Like the kind that stabilizes a model rocket,” Sci said.

“Like a kid’s hobby thing?”

“Exactly, except some of the discarded cardboard tubes I found were five inches in diameter and four feet long.”

We were coming in for a landing and it all started to hit me. Historical wind direction and speed. A huge model rocket. Capable of carrying…

“Jack?” Sci said as the helicopter landed.

“What’s the prevailing wind direction and speed in Rio in August?”

“Southeast at eight to ten miles an hour.”

“Which means he was thinking about trajectory, which means he doesn’t have to be here at the stadium to…”

“Correct,” Sci said. “He could be a mile or more away.”

“Well done,” I said, and hung up.

The second the pilot signaled it was safe to get out, I did and told da Silva and Acosta about my conversation with Kloppenberg.

“A rocket?” the general cried.

“The wind’s southeast right now, eight miles an hour,” I said, glancing that way and seeing the silhouette of the closest mountain. “He could be up there, just waiting for the right time to launch.”

Da Silva thought about that and looked ready to throw a fit.

“How the hell are we going to defend against something like that?”