“Up! Up the mountain!”
She frowned. “What?”
“We’ve got to get up the mountain!”
Megan shook her head. “There’s no way out! It’s a dead end.”
A hail of bullets ripped out of an alleyway to their left and assaulted the brick side of a shack as they both ducked and plowed ahead.
“Trust me!” Wolfgang said. Without waiting for her to agree, he took the next right and shot up the mountainside. All around him were clusters of shacks leaning in next to the narrow track but growing thinner as he progressed upward. Megan closed in behind him, but then the throaty rumble of her bike was joined by what sounded like a third and maybe a fourth motorcycle.
Wolfgang’s fears were confirmed as the scream of multiple dirt bikes joined his and Megan’s. He didn’t bother to look over his shoulder, already knowing what was closing in behind them as he twisted the throttle and felt it stop at max speed.
Brick and metal flashed by on all sides. The sun, now fully risen over the ocean, blazed into his eyes and forced him to squint, but Wolfgang didn’t stop. After a quarter mile, the favela vanished altogether, and the dirt track fed onto a paved road three times as wide as anything in the favela but still not broad enough for two lanes. The houses that clustered next to the favela tracks were replaced by tall jungle trees that leaned over the road and blocked out the brightening sky.
Wolfgang turned up the mountain, huddling close to the bike as popping sounds rang out from behind him. They were dirt bike engines backfiring, he hoped, but more likely gunshots. He searched between the trees for any sign of the sky or helicopter. The sound of the rotor still pounded in the distance, but trees now leaned over the roadway and hid them from view of the pilot.
I need someplace flat. Someplace visible.
Wolfgang’s mind clicked with a solution, and he committed to it without second-guessing himself. He didn’t have time to look over his shoulder for Megan. He didn’t have time to worry about the growing sounds of other dirt bikes closing in on him, focusing instead on the road, the trees, and the signs that directed him to turn left and then right.
In a blur, the mountainside grew steeper and the road wider. He passed park benches and bus stops, then the terminus of a sky lift that brought tourists up from Rio. Early morning workers gathered around the sky lift and the bus stop, apparently unfazed by the conflict in the favela only a couple miles away. Wolfgang wanted to shout at them to take cover, to hide from the horde of dirt bike–riding thugs hurtling toward them, but he didn’t have time.
He jerked the bike to the left at an intersection, passing a low building that featured trinket shops and a couple local restaurants calibrated for tourists. A motor whined to his left, and Megan pulled alongside him. She cast him a worried and confused glance, but he nodded reassurance and then powered ahead again.
The trees cleared almost as quickly as they had appeared, opening up onto the rocky crest of the mountainside. Rio stretched out in front of them, with the bay laid out like a painting and mountains rising beyond it. On both sides, the peak of the mountain dropped away into emptiness, with certain death awaiting any driver careless enough to slide off the street. Behind them, Wolfgang heard the roar of the pursuing bikes, as loud as a horde of bees closing in by the second, ready to consume them.
But salvation lay directly ahead, where the statue of Christ the Redeemer towered out of the mountaintop.
The road ended abruptly in a parking lot, with walking paths and stairs leading up to the several platforms encircling the base of the statue. Wolfgang ground to a halt and slid the bike into the curb, feeling Rose jolt and sink her fingers into his side in panic. He jumped off the bike, tearing her along with him, and snatched the captured pistol from his belt.
Megan ducked, and Wolfgang fired his last three shots at the oncoming pack of fighters. When they saw the gun, they twisted out of the line of fire, crashing into each other and grinding to a halt. None of the three shots found a mark, but they sufficiently stalled the progress of their pursuers.
Wolfgang grabbed Rose by the hand and dashed up the nearest set of stairs, with Megan close behind. He couldn’t hear the helicopter anymore, but it was too late to change his plan. They were at the top of the mountain, with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
Wolfgang broke through the turnstiles blocking the path up the stairs, then he helped Rose over as Megan twisted through like a child. He couldn’t tell if she’d figured out his plan or was following him on blind faith. They cleared the next flight of stairs and broke into an open run past gift shops and more trinket booths, bursting onto the top platform laid out at the feet of the Redeemer.
Brazil lay exposed all around them. Green jungle rolled over mountaintops and reached for the horizon, while the Atlantic Ocean glimmered to the east, alight by the rising sun. The golden glow of that sunrise bathed Rio de Janeiro in the kiss of a new day.
Had it been another day without the threat of imminent death hot on their heels, Wolfgang would’ve stopped to breathe in the moment and the view. He would’ve held Megan and kissed her again and maybe said some stupid things about love.
But he ignored it all, letting go of Rose and looking skyward. He held out a hand to block the sun and searched for the helicopter. He couldn’t see or hear it, but the clamor of the approaching Red Command grew louder from the turnstiles.
Overwhelming desperation clouded his mind, and he ran to the far side of the platform and
