Wolfgang shifted down a gear and powered around a house, narrowly missing a stray goat as Megan closed in behind him. The next turn led him around a cluster of shacks built together, and then he burst onto a slightly wider track that ran across the side of the mountain with favela shacks on either side. The bike’s motor was strong, pumping out enough power for him to surge forward at every available straightaway.
After half a mile, Wolfgang judged they were far enough to the west of the main conflict to risk turning south toward downtown Rio. He jerked his head to the left, not risking looking back to make sure Megan understood him. He still heard her bike, so he knew she was close, but without the aid of rearview mirrors, he couldn’t be sure she was keeping up with his developing plan.
Wolfgang turned left at the next track and almost immediately collided with the Red Command. Half a dozen of the highly armed thugs clustered in the street, running south and firing into the air every few yards. Somehow, they hadn’t heard the dirt bikes screaming toward them, or more likely, they assumed the bikes carried more of their own comrades. Wolfgang didn’t have time to stop, and there wasn’t any place to hide, anyway. He crashed into the back of the small crowd at over twenty miles an hour, knocking two of them to the ground and running over a third man’s foot.
Shouts and screams of pain and surprise filled the air. Wolfgang gripped the bike and jerked it to the right, hitting the throttle and hoping madly that Megan could navigate around the small knot of fighters. He powered onto another narrow foot track, taking himself out of the line of fire from the fighters behind, but he couldn’t hear Megan’s bike. He risked a glance over his shoulder as panic filled him, but still didn’t see her.
Wolfgang relaxed on the throttle and debated whether to stop, but a shower of exploding brick fragments pelting his head turned his attention upward. Megan crashed down an adjacent foot track twenty yards up the mountainside. Dirt and bits of rock showered from her rear tire as she powered along a narrow path with a row of shacks to her right and the roofs of the next row to her left. Wolfgang couldn’t see the attackers behind her, but dust exploded from the shanties next to her as bullets zipped next to her head.
Turn! Turn now!
Megan turned, yanking the bike to the left and flying off the track into midair. The bike rocketed fifteen feet out from the mountainside, her red hair torn in the wind like a crimson flag. Then she slammed into the roofs of the next row of shacks, sending another shower of shingles and dust exploding into the air.
Wolfgang gunned his bike, shooting forward as a bullet whizzed past his head. Megan shot off the low roof of the shack at the end of the line and flew, falling a full eight feet before her bike slammed into the track directly ahead of him.
Man, she’s got some nerve.
Wolfgang cranked the throttle again, racing to catch up with her. In the near distance, a four-way intersection appeared between the shacks, with the path ahead leading toward the east and an intersecting track leading down toward Rio to the left or farther up the mountainside to their right.
Megan hesitated a few yards from the intersection, then turned her bike cautiously toward Rio. Only a moment before she committed to the turn, an explosion rocked the favela, and smoke rose from that direction. Megan jerked the bike straight ahead again and flew across the intersection, catching air before she disappeared between shacks.
Wolfgang glanced to his left as his own bike rocketed across the intersection, and he saw Red Command soldiers moving up the hill, brandishing rifles. When they saw his bike, several of them pointed and shouted, then the lot of them opened fire.
Bullets smacked against the sides of the shacks closest to the intersection as Wolfgang blew down the next street. At every gap between buildings, Wolfgang looked to the left, and every time he saw more Red Command fighters running next to their current path, hurrying ahead to cut off the dirt bikes. For the moment, speed was on Wolfgang and Megan’s side, but as the track grew muddier and the shacks on either side grew closer, it became impossible to blast down the road at full speed.
We’ve got to switch things up.
Wolfgang’s mind spun, desperately searching for another way out. They needed another path down the mountainside, or barring that, a track that led into another favela without Red Command presence.
Then a new sound joined the clamor of battle, soft at first, but pronounced—a deep whoop whoop whoop that grew louder with the passing seconds. At first it seemed to come from behind him, and he thought it might be some kind of heavy cannon designed to blast through the shacks and blow them to hell. Then he realized the sound was actually coming from the sky itself.
Wolfgang looked up and saw a small black helicopter rocketing over the favelas, flying just high enough to avoid small-arms fire from the Red Command. It wove back and forth, never coming closer than a thousand yards from the heart of the conflict but always circling back to orbit over Vila Cruzeiro. White letters adorned its tail, and Wolfgang couldn’t see any weapons mounted next to the glass windshield.
Had the Brazilian military deployed an overwatch aircraft? Surely the Red Command didn’t own a helicopter. Maybe it belonged to a Brazilian news station and they were risking their lives to deliver a clear image of the erupting battle in Vila Cruzeiro.
Or . . .
Wolfgang twisted the throttle and surged ahead, catching up to Megan and riding only a yard behind.
“Megan!” he shouted.
She glanced over her shoulder but didn’t relax off the
