Of all the times to tour Rio, we chose the night of an invasion.
Wolfgang and Megan broke through the narrow alley and into another winding dirt street. To their right, the track wound up the mountainside, while to their left it split and took off in illogical switchbacks through the favela. Wolfgang lingered, trying to decide which path was most likely to lead them into a position to assist Edric and Kevin, and then a shrill cry broke from twenty yards to his right, between the buildings. Someone spoke in what sounded like the voice of a Portuguese child. Sharp and panicked, the voice repeated the same words over and over. Wolfgang didn’t need to comprehend the language to recognize a cry for help.
“Come on,” Megan said. “We’ve got to move!”
“That’s a child,” Wolfgang said. “Can’t you hear it?”
“We don’t have time! They’re coming this way.”
Megan pulled him to the left, but the child’s cry repeated from his right, sharper this time, filled with pain and fear. Wolfgang hesitated, listening to the note of desperation that filled the child’s voice. It was more distinct and relevant to him than the pop of gunfire only yards behind, and it blocked out the demands of the mission. In an instant, Wolfgang wasn’t in Rio anymore. He was transported miles and years back to West Virginia, and the voice he heard wasn’t that of a helpless Brazilian child, but of an American girl. A girl he knew well.
Collins.
Wolfgang tore free of Megan’s hand and bolted up the hill, following the voice. Mud crumbled beneath his feet, and he almost fell as the UMP slapped against his chest, but he caught himself on the windowsill of a shack and kept moving. The screams were louder now, only a few yards away, and he thought he heard a second whimpering and agonized voice join the first. Another child?
Wolfgang rounded the corner, one hand on the grip of the UMP. Another alley, not more than eighteen inches wide, greeted him, with the rusted metal walls of two shacks pressing in on either side. It was so dark he couldn’t even make out silhouettes of the children he heard crying ahead, but the voices were sharp and immediate, laced with pain and panic.
He jerked the flashlight from his jacket pocket and snapped it on, flooding the alley with white light as Megan crashed in behind him. Halfway down the alley, he saw the two children—a boy of maybe twelve, bone skinny and barefoot, and a girl three or four years younger and lying on the packed Brazilian earth in a growing pool of blood. Wolfgang couldn’t tell where the blood was flowing from, but he knew it belonged to the girl with tears flowing down her face and a shaking body. The boy leaned over her, one hand on her shoulder, the other covered in blood as he pawed at her leg, but when Wolfgang clicked the light on, the boy whirled toward him and jerked a kitchen knife from his belt.
Wolfgang held up a hand, directing the flashlight at the dirt. “Easy!” he said. “I’m here to help.”
The boy’s face clouded with confusion, and he glanced back at the girl. She writhed in the dirt, and Wolfgang could now see that her leg was twisted under her and pinned beneath the washed-out foundation of the shack she lay next to. Blood flowed from that general vicinity, and he concluded she must have fallen and torn her leg on the sheet metal. Maybe she broke it, too, and now she couldn’t pull it free.
“Easy,” Wolfgang repeated. “I want to help.”
“Wolfgang!” Megan snapped. “We have to go.”
The roar of battle continued from the direction of the square. Lyle’s voice crackled over the radio, but it was distorted, and Wolfgang couldn’t make out the words. He didn’t care. The mission was blown to hell. The best they could do was escape the vicinity with their lives, but he wasn’t about to do so at the cost of two starving children.
“Shell in or shut up!” Wolfgang snapped, shoving his flashlight into Megan’s hand as he twisted and wiggled down the alleyway.
The boy held the knife out and mumbled a threat, but there was no resolve in his voice or body language. He kept looking down to check on the girl, and Wolfgang saw the fear in his face.
Wolfgang pressed himself deeper into the gap, then rotated until his hips jammed against the creaking walls of the favela shacks on either side. He had just enough room to wiggle the final three feet to the boy, and he placed a gentle hand on the outstretched arm.
“I’m here to help you,” Wolfgang whispered. He pushed the boy’s arm down, carrying the knife with it, then he knelt next to the girl and brushed her hair back with a gentle shushing sound. “It’s okay . . . we’ll get you out. Be quiet now.” He held a finger to his lips, and the girl quieted a little but still shook.
Megan wiggled in behind him, and light flooded over his shoulder, exposing the girl’s predicament. His first assessment was correct—she had fallen, scraping her leg against the twisted edge of a sheet metal panel as she fell. A jagged gash gushed crimson from her knee all the way to her ankle, and her foot was twisted and pinned beneath the concrete foundation of the shack.
The twist was decidedly unnatural, and Wolfgang had little doubt that her ankle was broken. “Shhh,” he soothed, twisting his shoulders until he could pull his jacket off.
“Charlie . . . can . . . copy?” Lyle’s voice had broken over the radios in
