Ruthless Page 4

  ‘Kid’s got a good memory,’ Abby said. ‘Give it five years, he’ll find Hector on his doorstep trying to recruit him.’ She grinned. ‘Don’t go with the nasty man, Pepe. Not unless you like running for twenty miles with rocks in your backpack.’

  Pepe clearly didn’t understand what she was saying, but he giggled nonetheless. He high-fived Abby, who said, ‘Me and Pepe are buddies now.’

  The family gave them some food – a meat stew and bread. From time to time there was more gunfire in the distance. Sometimes it was a little closer, sometimes further away. It did nothing for Max’s nerves as the hour of their departure grew nearer. At 1600 hours, Woody and Angel fired up their laptop and checked that the cadets’ GPS locators were operational. The cadets checked the favela map again, along with pictures of Tommy and Guzman.

  At quarter to five, Pepe scurried upstairs and returned with his football. He spoke earnestly to his dad in Portuguese, then hugged Lili and Abby before hurrying to the door by which they’d all entered.

  ‘Where’s he going?’ Angel said sharply.

  ‘To play football with his friends,’ Manuel said. ‘One day, he will be the new P—’

  ‘He should stay here,’ Angel interrupted.

  ‘He’ll be safe. He knows where to go and where not to go.’

  ‘I’m not talking about him. He might mention us to his friends.’

  Manuel shook his head rapidly. ‘He understands to be quiet. It will not be a problem.’ Before Angel could say anything else, Manuel said something to Pepe in Portuguese and the little boy disappeared.

  Angel’s face was stormy and she muttered something under her breath. Max had the impression that she was about to run after Pepe.

  ‘Ah, c’mon,’ said Abby. ‘It’s okay for him to go and play with his friends. He’s been cooped up in here all day.’

  ‘We don’t have much choice now,’ Angel said. ‘Woody and I don’t want to be seen on the streets, and you lot need to move in fifteen minutes. Headscarves on. It’s time to get ready.’

  Pepe knew his friends would be waiting for him on the Avenue Santiago. It was the best place to play football because the street was wider than most, and there were few cars, even at busy times of the day. His friends liked having Pepe there because he was the only one with a real leather football. But sometimes he didn’t turn up and that was okay too, because they would carry on without him and use a plastic ball.

  Of course, what they all wanted was a new pair of football boots. They would probably never wear them on the hard ground of the favela, but would hang them in their shiny glory round their necks like medals. But football boots were expensive, way out of the reach of Pepe and his friends.

  Unless …

  At the end of his road, Pepe didn’t turn left. He turned right.

  Pepe was a fast runner, and because he was small he could weave quickly in and out of the crowds of people in the favela. It was hot. Many of the men were bare-chested, their T-shirts slung over their shoulders. Some wore vests like his father’s. The women wore shorts and carried bags of shopping. There were children too, a few even younger than Pepe. Some were loitering on street corners, smoking cigarettes. Others sat on the kerbside, arguing good-naturedly, or kicking footballs against the graffitied walls of favela buildings. None of them – adult or child – paid Pepe any attention as he sprinted past, heading north-east.

  It only took a couple of minutes for his surroundings to grow subtly different. There was more graffiti on the buildings and Pepe, who had learned to read, knew that it consisted of words he was not supposed to know. Brazilian funk music blared from the windows of certain cafes that he knew not to enter. And as for the children? They weren’t playing football, and there was nothing good-natured about any arguments he saw. Far from it. Outside a small mini-mart, two broad-shouldered teenagers – their faces covered with blue scarves – were shoving each other. An old lady watched them from the entrance to the shop, her lined face full of concern. But she clearly knew better than to interfere. Pepe skirted the fighting boys and continued running uphill. He slowed down as he passed a man selling grilled meat from a rickety barbecue – it smelled so good! But he didn’t stop. He turned left by an old SUV, its doors open, deafening music playing from its loudspeaker. And there, up ahead, he saw what he was looking for.

  There were five of them. They wore baseball caps and blue bandanas. The bandanas were folded in half, corner to corner, and tied behind their heads. The material covered their faces below the eyes. Two of them were bare-chested and they had dark tattoos over their arms and chests. The others wore military vests like Pepe had sometimes seen on TV – when it was working, of course. Of these three, two had guns – long ones, slung across their backs. They looked very frightening, but also glamorous. Pepe heard his mother and father’s words in his head: You must stay away from the gangs, Pepe. If you join a gang, you will end up paying the penalty. It scared him when they said that. But now, he told himself, he shouldn’t be scared. These boys would be pleased to hear what he had to say.

  He stopped, caught his breath, and walked towards them.

  At first, they didn’t seem to notice him. Only when he was close enough to see the tattoos on the back of their hands did one of the bare-chested boys turn towards him. He said something that Pepe didn’t catch, and the two gunmen turned quickly and raised their weapons. Pepe dropped his football and held his hands in the air. He had seen other people do that when confronted by gunmen from the gangs and he understood why: in the favela, it was possible for a seven-year-old like Pepe to be carrying a gun. He stopped walking and kept the football still with one foot.

  ‘What do you want?’ one of the gang members said from behind his bandana. His voice hadn’t yet broken.

  ‘I want to tell you something.’

  The gang members looked at each other. Pepe couldn’t see their mouths, but he could tell that their eyes were smiling.

  ‘What is it?’

  Pepe sniffed. He tried to look casual. ‘You have to give me some money first,’ he said.

  The gang members looked at each other again. ‘Is this a joke?’ one of them spat.

  Pepe shook his head. ‘Money first, information second.’ The image of a shiny new pair of football boots rose in his mind.

  One of the bare-chested boys swaggered towards him. He stopped in front of Pepe, then bent down so their eyes were level. Pepe could smell sweat and marijuana, and he noticed that the boy’s pupils were very large. It occurred to him that he was making a big mistake and maybe he should run. If he was holding his football, he might have done. But it was on the ground and he wouldn’t have time to grab it and sprint …

  The boy grabbed Pepe’s hair, twisting it tight. Pepe squeaked with pain. His other hand curled around Pepe’s throat. ‘Give me one good reason,’ he said, ‘why I shouldn’t shoot you now like the gutter rat you are.’

  Pepe could feel tears forming. All of a sudden, the promise of a new pair of football boots wasn’t so alluring. He truly regretted coming here. ‘Please,’ he whispered. ‘I just want to go and play football with my friends.’

  The other gang members were walking up. They surrounded him. The guy who had his throat said, ‘What information?’

  ‘It’s nothing. It isn’t important.’

  The guy looked up at one of the others. ‘Shoot him,’ he said.

  Pepe’s eyes bulged as one of the guys pointed his weapon at Pepe’s head. His whole body went cold. His skin tingled. ‘No,’ he squeeked. ‘I just want to go and play football.’ Tears trickled down his cheeks.

  ‘What information?’ the bare-chested guy repeated.

  ‘There are some teenagers,’ Pepe whispered. ‘They are British. They came to our house. I heard them talking about …’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About Guzman.’

  ‘What were they saying?’

  ‘I-I can’t remember.’

  ‘Think. Think very hard.’ The gun guy pressed th
e barrel of his weapon against Pepe’s forehead.

  ‘They … they were saying that they were going to go into Blue Command’s area …’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tonight.’

  Now the gang members laughed. ‘They sound even more stupid than you,’ one said.

  ‘Can I go now?’ Pepe asked. ‘I really want to play football.’

  The boy who had him in his grip pulled him even closer. ‘What do they look like?’

  ‘There are three boys and two girls. One of the boys is black, one of the girls is Chinese. Please, let me go.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  Pepe stared at him. ‘I can’t tell you,’ he said.

  The boy looked up to the gun guy and nodded.

  You end up paying the penalty.

  ‘Wait!’ Pepe squealed. ‘No! I –’ He didn’t want to say it. He didn’t want to tell them where he and his family lived. But he was more scared than he had ever been, and the gunman’s finger had moved from the trigger guard to the trigger.

  So he told them.

  ‘Opposite the Cafe Tricolor. On the first floor.’

  The gunman lowered his weapon. He turned to one of the other guys. ‘Tell Guzman,’ he said. The guy ran off down the street.

  The boy let go of Pepe. Pepe staggered backwards. He looked over his shoulder, back the way he’d come. Then he looked at his football. He ran forward and grabbed it, then turned to run away. Then he stopped again. He turned and looked at the gang members. ‘You won’t hurt my family, will you?’

  They didn’t answer immediately, then one of them said, ‘Sure, we won’t hurt your family.’

  Pepe couldn’t tell if he meant it or not. He decided to believe him. Clutching the ball to his chest, he ran away as fast as he could. He decided that he would go and find his friends. His attempt to earn some money had failed. He would try to forget all about it. The Blue Command boys wouldn’t tell his mum and dad or his brother and sister. They had said they wouldn’t harm his family, after all.

  So it would probably be fine.

  6

  Simple

  1700 hours.

  The cadets were preparing to leave.

  For the past few minutes, Max had stood at the open window where the power and TV cables entered the house. One by one, the others had joined him to look down at the street below. It was starting to get dark and the cafe opposite, which had been closed during the day, had opened. There were people in the street now, all different ages. Some of them milled around outside the cafe, while others walked purposefully past, clearly on their way home. There was enough of a crowd that the cadets could step outside without attracting attention.

  The gunfire they had heard in the distance had stopped, but it was noisy. People were shouting at each other in the street. Some of those shouts were good-natured; others weren’t. And there was music. Grinding drumbeats came from the cafe, merging with different beats from elsewhere in the favela. It was chaotic and strangely exciting, but to Max the street throbbed with danger. He felt a tight knot of anxiety in his stomach at the prospect of leaving the safe house.

  But it was time. The cadets had their headscarves on and their rucksacks slung across their shoulders. Each of them appeared as a dot on Woody and Angel’s laptop. Manuel shook them all by the hand.

  ‘Say goodbye to Pepe for us,’ Abby said. ‘He’s a good kid.’

  Manuel bowed his head in acknowledgement. The cadets looked over at Woody and Angel, who stood by the laptop. It struck Max that they looked like anxious parents at the school gate. But when Angel gave the final instruction, she sounded anything but. ‘Keep your heads. Stay safe. Trust nobody. Now go.’

  They filed out of the room and down the metal staircase to the small courtyard behind the house. ‘We should split up into two groups,’ Lili said. ‘We’ll be less noticeable that way.’

  ‘Roger that,’ Max agreed. ‘You, Lukas and Sami go first. I’ll follow with Abby.’

  ‘Does that mean we get a romantic walk through the favela, just you and me?’ Abby said. But although her words were light-hearted, she sounded as tense as Max felt.

  ‘Turn right at the end of the street,’ Max said, ‘then –’

  ‘Then second left,’ Lili said. ‘We studied the map too, Max.’ She looked at Lukas and Sami. ‘Let’s go.’

  Without another word, they moved in single file down the alley and disappeared out into the street.

  ‘How long do we give it?’ Abby said.

  ‘A minute,’ Max said. ‘We don’t want to lose sight of them.’

  They were silent for a few seconds.

  ‘Hey, Max,’ Abby said. ‘Did something strike you as strange about the ambassador?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know. Like he wasn’t telling us everything?’

  Max shrugged. ‘He was freaked out, I guess. His son’s missing. He wasn’t expecting a cadet team. But I don’t think he’d hold anything back. Not in a situation like this. What parent would do that?’

  ‘Not all parents are as trustworthy as you think they are.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Max said. ‘Well, I wouldn’t know about that.’

  Abby put one hand on his shoulder. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean –’

  ‘Forget about it,’ Max said. ‘Come on, we should go.’ He moved along the alleyway with Abby following close behind.

  The music from the cafe was louder down here in the street. Max knew, as soon as he stepped out of the alleyway, that the headscarves were a blessing and a curse. A woman was approaching. She wore shorts and a T-shirt and held a canvas shopping bag to her chest, and she seemed to be in a rush. As soon as she saw Max and Abby, her expression changed. She frowned and looked away, avoiding their eye. Then she hurried over to the other side of the street in an obvious attempt to have no contact with them.

  ‘She thought we might be gang members,’ Abby said quietly.

  ‘Yeah,’ Max agreed.

  ‘I thought these scarves were supposed to make us anonymous.’

  ‘Me too. But maybe if they make people stay clear of us, that’s good too.’

  They could just see the others further up the road. They followed, side by side, keeping themselves to themselves. More than a few people went out of their way to avoid staring at them. Max forced himself to walk with confidence, because to appear timid would be conspicuous if passers-by expected the opposite of them. Abby did the same, walking with shoulders back and head high. They passed several colourfully painted, ramshackle buildings. Some of them were peppered with bullet holes. Max found himself wondering what kind of round would make a hole like that. A 7.62, maybe, fired from a high-powered assault rifle. It only served to heighten the anxiety he felt about the dangers the favela might hold for them.

  At the end of the road they turned right into a much busier street. There was a cacophony of voices and the thrum of music was stronger, though Max couldn’t tell where it was coming from. There were cars on the road – all of them rather beaten up – and they moved slowly because the crowds of pedestrians didn’t seem to distinguish between road and pavement. The network of electricity cables overhead was even busier and more complicated than in the street where the safe house was, and the cables sagged precariously in places. Max heard a faint background hum, and he wondered if it came from the power lines.

  There was a rank smell. The stench of sewage. Max remembered that Hector had said the favela suffered from poor sanitation. He noticed plastic waste pipes on the front of some of the houses. They led down to the pavement. Max’s skin crawled at the thought of the damp, muddy, sticky patches that spread from the bottom of these pipes. He concentrated on the other cadets, who were still visible ahead through the crowd. Max and Abby moved to the opposite pavement, where it was easier to walk unobstructed. There were a lot of beggars here, mostly male, many of them with missing limbs, scarred faces or even eye patches. They looked to Max like the kind of wounds that were associa
ted with violence, and they were all young. If any of them were older than twenty, he’d have been surprised.

  The street was on a steep gradient. They walked uphill, past haphazardly built houses on either side. Some had broken windows; many had roofs constructed from sheets of corrugated iron. There were shops too, and more cafes. Despite the obvious poverty, there was a certain vibrancy. People called and waved to each other over the noise of car horns. The cadets passed a cafe that had salsa music blaring loudly and several stalls outside selling street food: cauldrons of beans and rice, flatbreads with sizzling meat and deep-fried pastries. It smelled enticingly spicy and sweet.

  ‘I could eat some of that,’ Abby said, quietly so that her English didn’t stand out amid the babble of voices talking Portuguese. But even as she spoke, Max gently grabbed her arm.

  ‘Look,’ he said.

  A car was parked on their side of the road up ahead. It was a convertible SUV, and it almost seemed to vibrate with the volume of the music blaring from it. Four people were in the car, standing up on the seats so their heads were visible above the vehicle’s roof. They had blue bandanas covering the lower part of their faces, and shaved heads. They seemed to repel the flow of pedestrians, who walked around the vehicle, keeping their distance.

  ‘Blue Command?’ Abby said.

  ‘I guess so,’ Max said. ‘Look, the others have crossed the road. We should do the same.’

  They crossed the road. An old Brazilian man in a beaten-up car waved a fist at them as they passed in front of his barely moving vehicle. On the other side of the road, they continued to climb, keeping their heads down so that the gang members in the SUV didn’t notice them.

  They were alongside the SUV when there was a disturbance up ahead. A young boy was sprinting down the hill and knocked an older woman to one side. He was carrying a football. He was running so fast, he almost ran straight into Abby. ‘Pepe!’ she said, and Max saw that it was the little boy she and Lili had spent most of the day playing with.