The illustrious ringleader.
Wolfgang coughed, then spat blood into the dirt. “What’s up, kemosabe?”
The man took two steps forward, consuming the distance between himself and Wolfgang with surprising speed. He lowered the rifle until its gaping muzzle hung only inches from Wolfgang’s nose.
Wolfgang stared up the barrel without blinking, his jaw set, his body motionless. He held the Brazilian’s gaze, defying him to pull the trigger. The man held the rifle one-handed, but the muzzle didn’t so much as twitch. The circle of men stood perfectly silent, and time itself seemed to stand still. Wolfgang’s heart continued to pound, but he refused to display his fear, or give in to the panic surging his body. If this man was going to kill him, he was going to kill him. Wolfgang wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of begging.
He just stared, and the Brazilian stared back.
Then the man jerked the rifle up and snapped a command at his men. They rushed forward and grabbed Wolfgang by the arms, hauling him to his feet. Wolfgang thrashed, but his arms were wrenched behind his back, and leather straps encircled his wrists, cinched so tight his fingers went numb. Then four men grabbed him by the arms and marched him forward into the heart of the favela.
8
The detail of Red Command soldiers dog-marched Wolfgang and Megan over a mile through the shambled remains of metal and cinder block shacks. Wolfgang’s feet dragged most of the way, as he was unable to keep his balance while being jostled and prodded by the men surrounding him. He turned back to see Megan being similarly dragged along, her head rolling to one side. She was unconscious, and purple bruises clouded her cheeks. Her shirt was torn open, and the bruises continued over her stomach, mixed with traces of drying mud and what he hoped wasn’t blood.
Wolfgang faced forward, his mind racing even as his body continued to throb with pain. Somehow, someway, he had to get them out of this. His radio and earpiece were long gone, ripped away along with his pistol, knife, and flashlight. The flare gun and water bottle were still in the pocket of his torn jacket, back in the alley where he found the girl, along with his UMP.
So, basically, I’ve screwed myself.
Wolfgang looked skyward in a vague, desperate hope that Lyle might be watching. He remembered the six-second satellite delay Lyle talked about. Between that and Wolfgang’s mazelike navigation of the favela, often invisible under the eaves of the shacks, there was no way Lyle could have kept track of his location.
We’re on our own.
His foot caught on a rock, half-buried in the packed dirt of the roadway, and Wolfgang lurched forward. The men around him caught him by the elbows and yanked him back, then somebody shoved a rifle butt into his lower back. Wolfgang winced and coughed blood over the sidewalk from his busted lip. More soldiers joined the throng, some wearing red bandanas, but most clad in a mismatch of box-store-style clothing—jeans, windbreakers, and T-shirts paired with tennis shoes, boots, flip-flops, and bare feet. They all carried weapons—rifles, shotguns, and pistols, and some of them also sported long knives jammed without sheaths into belts.
Wolfgang could no longer hear the sounds of battle from the other side of the favela, and he wondered if the Brazilian military had prevailed. Based on the crowd of unoccupied and unconcerned gangsters around him, he doubted it.
His captors dragged him another few paces down a track, then arrived at a small opening between a cluster of slouching huts. The packed dirt in the middle of the clearing was littered with animal feces, empty beer cans, and junk-food wrappers. A small fire burned in one corner, and two men stood next to it, slowly turning a goat on a spit.
Other men gathered on makeshift front porches, flipping through magazines or drinking beer. Everybody smelled like body odor and roasting goat. Nobody looked like Brazilian police.
They threw Wolfgang onto the packed earth, and a second later, Megan crashed down next to him, her eyes shut, her body unmoving. Wolfgang fought to his knees, spitting dirt and blood, then he shouted at nobody in particular. “Who’s in charge of this circus?”
A semi-surprised quiet fell over the crowd, then everybody laughed. A beer can shot through the air and bounced off Wolfgang’s head, followed by five or six more. He ducked and tried to shield his head with his shoulders, but with his hands tied behind his back, it was a useless effort.
“Siléncio!” a voice bellowed from beyond the crowd. The soldiers grew suddenly still, and Wolfgang lifted his head to see the short man with the black bandanna appear between a parting crowd like Moses walking out of the Red Sea.
Except this Moses is basically the devil.
“What do you know,” Wolfgang panted. “It’s Brazilian John Cena. You know, you’d be a lot prettier if you smiled more.”
The man stepped to within inches of Wolfgang and leaned down until their noses almost touched, his breath reeking of garlic and rotting teeth.
He spoke in perfect English but with a heavy Brazilian accent. “You’d be a lot prettier if I gutted you.”
Wolfgang smirked. “Brazilian John Cena speaks.”
The man’s lips twitched, and Wolfgang couldn’t tell if it was a tick or the hint of a smile.
“You’ve got a lot of balls, American.”
“So I’ve been told. Not so many marbles, though. Guess I lost those before visiting this distinguished paradise of yours.”
The man leaned back and crossed his arms, then glanced at Megan. She remained motionless, one cheek pressed into the mud.
“My men want their way with your woman.”
Wolfgang grimaced. “That’s not very progressive of them, is it? In a communist utopia such as your own, women’s rights should be paramount.”
The man cocked his head, and then a smirk broke out across his lips. “Communism . . . that’s
