Brazil (19 page)

‘Quiet!’ he shouted.

Immediately the Comando Negro froze. In the silence, Luiz heard the distant sound of wheels rumbling up the hillside. His heart sank. He was too late.

‘It’s coming from the
boca
,’ said Joker. ‘What the hell is that?’

Angel flicked on his radio phone and quickly tapped a number into it. ‘This is Angel. What’s going on down there?’

There was a pause and then the radio phone crackled into life.

‘It’s CORE!’ a voice shouted back. ‘They’re coming!’

Before the guard could say any more, there was a crackle of gunfire and the radio phone went dead.

23. Air Raid

As the gang members stared at one another in horror, it was the
dono
of the Comando Negro who swung into action.

‘You!’ Angel barked at a young
soldado
. ‘Get these trucks out of here! Take them back to the warehouse downtown! If the cops get their hands on the drugs, I’m going to blame you, understand?’

The boy nodded, swallowing nervously.

‘The rest of you, tool up and get down to the
boca
. These CORE bastards are going to regret the day they stepped foot inside Santa Marta. Now MOVE!’

As the square hurriedly emptied in a confusion of shouts and squealing tyres, Angel ran over to his shack and tossed his shotgun on to the low roof, hauling himself up after it. Livio and Joker were barely a step behind him, the MC’s feet struggling for purchase on the wall before he finally managed to scramble on to the roof. Luiz took a wistful look at the alleyways leading out of the square and away to safety, then shook his head and followed them. Reaching for a handhold on the lip of the roof, he pulled himself up and swung his legs over the top.

From his vantage point on Angel’s shack, Luiz could see all of Santa Marta sprawling out below him. Down at the
boca
, pandemonium reigned. Black armoured personnel carriers were grinding up the narrow road like giant metal beetles, as the sound of gunfire echoed around the
favela
. All of the vehicles were marked with CORE’s insignia – a pair of crossed M16s and a skull with a knife through it. Members of the Comando Negro were huddled behind sandbags and in doorways, vainly trying to return fire. It was clear that, for once, they were hopelessly outgunned. Already some people were fleeing away across the rooftops, while Luiz could see several bodies lying prostrate in the road.

‘Shit,’ panted Livio, hands on his hips. ‘They aren’t going to last a second.’

‘Not if we don’t help them,’ Angel replied, his eyes gleaming. ‘We need to get down there.’

‘You sure about that, bro?’ asked Joker. ‘Taking on the Compadres is one thing, but this is CORE!’

The
dono
whirled round and grabbed Joker by the throat.

‘Come with me to the
boca
or I’ll shoot you right now,’ said Angel in a deathly whisper. ‘Family or not.’

The two brothers stood staring at each other, Joker’s face etched with shock. Despite everything he knew about Angel, Luiz had never thought that he would threaten his own blood.

For a few seconds no one moved. No one even breathed.

‘Er, Angel…?’ Livio said uncertainly.

The MC was looking up at the hillside behind them, shielding his eyes as he squinted into the sun.

‘What is it?’ snapped Angel.

‘We’ve got trouble.’

Luiz followed the MC’s gaze. At first glance, everything looked normal. Then, above the sounds of battle raging at the
boca
, he heard a low scudding noise coming from beyond the summit of Santa Marta. Peering into the sunshine, Luiz saw a dark silhouette rise up over the crest of the hill. A helicopter. Hovering in the air, it dipped its nose and flew forward – straight towards the shack.

‘Take cover!’ Angel shouted.

As the helicopter buzzed in overhead, the Comando Negro scattered. Luiz sprinted across the roof and dived off the edge, bullets exploding into the roof where he had been standing. He landed awkwardly, his ankle turning on the hard ground. Gritting his teeth through the pain, he pressed himself against the wall of Angel’s shack as the helicopter thundered over him, then banked for another pass.

Hobbling over to an open window, Luiz clambered inside, where he found Livio squatting on his haunches, loading an assault rifle.

‘One of Angel’s,’ the MC shouted above the din. ‘Let’s see how they like this! You OK?’

Luiz nodded, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his ankle.

The shack was shrouded in shadow as the helicopter took another pass, flying so low that the flimsy building reverberated to the whirring of its rotors. Livio raced over to the window and fired a stream of bullets up into the air, spraying spent cartridges across the floor.

Passing unscathed over the top of the building, the helicopter hovered metres above the square in front of Angel’s shack, whipping up a blinding storm of dust. The noise was deafening. As Luiz looked on, two lengths of cable dropped down from the helicopter and two commandos slid down them to the ground. They were dressed in all black, their faces masked by balaclavas. Instantly they were on their feet, M4 assault rifles trained on the shack.

Luiz froze. He was dimly aware that Livio was by his side again, hurriedly reloading his assault rifle. Something important was nagging at him at the back of his mind, but with all the noise and the chaos it was difficult to think. As the commandos crept towards the shack, Luiz moved back against the wall, which was still trembling from the vibrations of the helicopter’s blades.

That was it. The wall. Suddenly Luiz remembered Livio breaking off chunks of masonry from the side of his home with just his fingernail. And all the buildings in Santa Marta were the same. There was no way these walls could stop a bullet. Risking a glance out of the window, Luiz saw the commandos take aim.

‘Get down!’ he yelled.

He hurled himself on top of Livio as the shack was peppered with gunfire, bullets punching through the walls as though they were made of paper. As slugs ricocheted above him, Luiz curled up into a ball and covered his head with his hands, while Livio yelled in panic.

The barrage seemed to last for an eternity – then, abruptly, there was a booming report from outside, followed by another, and the shooting stopped. Cautiously, Luiz looked up through his fingers. The shack was suddenly very, very still. Shafts of sunlight poured in through the bullet holes in the walls. Crawling on his hands and knees over to the door, Luiz saw that the helicopter had moved off and was circling high in the air above them. The two CORE commandos were lying prostrate on the ground, one clutching his bloodied arm, the other lying stock-still.

In the middle of the square, a tall, dreadlocked figure was calmly reloading his shotgun. Angel gestured wildly up at the helicopter.

‘It’s me you want!’ he roared. ‘Come and get me!’

The helicopter circled angrily above the
dono
’s head, its snipers frustrated by the screen of dust and smoke rising up from the square, hiding Angel from their crosshairs. Although the situation looked like a stalemate, in the distance Luiz could hear the rumbling of wheels as CORE’s APCs bludgeoned their way through the
favela
. It would be only a matter of minutes before they reached the square.

Luiz turned and looked out through the back door of the shack, which led out to a tiny scrap of land and then a winding alleyway that disappeared off into Santa Marta. Grabbing Livio, he pointed towards it.

‘Get out of here!’ he shouted.

The MC frowned. ‘What?’

‘Go fetch your family. Get them out of Santa Marta!’

‘Screw that!’ Livio shouted back, tapping his gun. ‘I’m staying and fighting! I’m Comando Negro!’

‘Forget the Comando Negro! They’re finished! Even if Trojan can’t stop them, then CORE will, or the Compadres, or –’

Luiz stopped, suddenly aware of his slip. Livio’s forehead had wrinkled into a frown.

‘Trojan?’ he repeated, puzzled. ‘Who the hell are they?’

As the helicopter thundered overhead, Luiz looked at his friend. He was running out of time to convince him. Maybe the truth was the only way.

‘A secret organization. They’ve come to Rio to take down the Comando Negro.’

‘If they’re so secret, how come you know about them?’

Luiz took a deep breath. ‘I’ve been working for them.’

A look of incomprehension appeared on Livio’s face.

‘You’re telling me you’re a
spy
?’

‘No! I mean… I can’t explain right now. But you’ve got to believe me – you haven’t got a prayer. Running is your only chance!’

‘You betrayed us?’ the MC muttered to himself disbelievingly.

‘I didn’t want to, Livio,’ Luiz said desperately. ‘That’s why I came back to warn you. I didn’t have any choice!’

‘Forget it. I don’t want to know.’ The MC jabbed a finger in Luiz’s chest. ‘I stood up for you. I thought we were friends. I should put a bullet in you, you bastard!’

‘I know,’ Luiz said simply. ‘I’m sorry.’

Livio looked down at his assault rifle, then hurled it angrily to one side. With a final wounded glance, the MC stumbled out of the shack and began running down the alleyway. Luiz felt sick to his stomach. He was about to make his escape after Livio when a cry from the square made him turn back.

The helicopter had returned over the square, strafing bullets over Angel’s position. As Angel ducked for cover, there was a flash of orange in the sunlight – a pair of tinted Ray-Bans – and Luiz saw Joker hare across the square to help his brother.

At the same moment, there was a booming crash as an APC erupted into the square from one of the alleyways, its bodywork covered in dents and bits of rubble. Dumb-founded, Joker stopped and stared at the vehicle, completely and utterly exposed. Luiz could only watch helplessly as the APC ground to a halt and the order to fire rang out. A single bullet arrowed unerringly through the air, hitting Joker straight in the neck.

24. Meal Ticket

Luiz watched helplessly as, in slow motion, Joker put a hand to his throat, dropped his gun and collapsed to the ground.

‘NO!’ howled Angel.

The
dono
broke from his cover and dashed towards his brother, seemingly unconcerned whether or not he was shot too. Grabbing Joker’s shirt, Angel dragged his brother’s body out from the middle of the square and into the shelter of a side alley. There Angel hugged Joker tightly, then wiped his eyes. Luiz watched with horrified fascination as the
dono
reloaded his shotgun before standing up and gesturing at the commandos.

‘You bastards!’ he screamed. ‘I’ll kill you all!’

Angel strode out into the open, firing off round after round from his shotgun at the CORE men sheltering behind their APC. Shocked by the suicidal charge, the commandos shrank back behind the safety of their vehicle. One of them cried out and dropped to the floor, a bullet in his leg; another died instantly from a head wound. Angel walked on, a vengeful devil, even as the return gunfire grew ever more insistent and a blizzard of bullets whizzed around his head.

The dreadful scudding sound had returned: the helicopter had swung around and was making another pass of the square. Luiz saw Angel stagger as finally one CORE bullet hit him and then another. He was distracted from the
dono
’s last moments by the whine of a rocket zeroing in on him, then the shack exploded and everything went dark.

Dust. Everywhere there was dust and smoke. Luiz could taste blood in his mouth. His body was completely covered in bits of rubble, but he could feel his arms and legs, and nothing seemed to be broken.

He lay still, hardly daring to breathe. Pricking up his ears, he realized that the gunfight had stopped in the square. He heard the helicopter leave – disappearing as quickly as it had arrived, like a summer storm. After a few minutes, the APC followed suit, rumbling back down towards the
boca
. Every so often, there came a defiant crackle of gunfire, though by the sounds of it the battle was moving further and further away. With Angel gone, the Comando Negro would be on the run.

Only when the sky began to darken did Luiz feel safe enough to push himself free from the rubble and survey the scene. The square was cloaked in gloom, Joker’s body lying where Angel had left it. Of the
dono
’s corpse, there was no sign, only the pool of blood where the commandos had shot him.

Santa Marta was like a ghost town. The stereos had been silenced, the rhythms of the
favela
extinguished. Shutters had been drawn over the shopfronts and no one was seated at the tables outside the cafes. At the mouth of one alleyway Luiz walked past a woman cradling the body of a child in her arms, blood smeared across its limp limbs. He recognized the boy – one of the
soldados
who guarded the
boca
, he would have felt the full force of CORE’s assault.

The mother rocked back and forward in silence, her mouth wide open as though horror had stripped her of her voice. Luiz wanted to stop and help her, but had no idea what he could do or say. How could he make
that
better? Instead he moved on, trying to block out the image of the woman’s haunted face from his mind.

Luiz’s head was throbbing, his face was cut and his right arm hung limply from his side, but he was alive. Dimly, he wondered whether Livio had managed to escape. The look of betrayal in the MC’s eyes as he had fled made Luiz shudder to think about it. Wherever Livio had gone, they would never be friends again. As he trudged down Santa Marta’s main street, Luiz realized that there was nothing left for him here any more.

He pulled out his mobile phone and stared at it. Who could he call? Luiz wanted to call his parents, but had no idea where to begin. Trojan? Valerie had told him back in the Mercedes he was on his own. But maybe, with the Comando Negro gone, there was still a chance…

Luiz wearily tapped out a number.

‘Ricardo’s Pizzeria?’

There didn’t seem much point in bothering with code words any more. Instead Luiz said, ‘It’s Luiz. Tell Jordan it’s over.’