Brazil (12 page)

There was a furious expression on Angel’s face. ‘What the hell are you doing here? I told you to wait in the car!’

‘We’ve got to get out of here!’ Luiz said breathlessly. ‘It’s a trap!’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The Quarto Comando are on their way up here, maybe ten of them, and they’re armed. We’ve got to go!’

Stripe trained his AK-47 on the fat businessman. ‘You know anything about this?’

‘Nothing!’ the businessman shouted back, blanching. ‘I never heard of the Quarto Comando!’ He turned to Angel. ‘What is this shit?’

Angel stood up grimly. ‘It’s nothing. We’ll take care of it. We’re done here anyway.’

The
dono
snapped shut the suitcase filled with money and passed it to MC Livio. With a final nod to the fat businessman, Angel picked up his shotgun and led his gang out of the hotel room.

As the Comando Negro filed into the corridor, tense fingers on triggers, there was a pinging sound behind them. Luiz turned to see the elevator doors at the end of the corridor opening and a flash of bright green…

14. Unwanted Guests

Angel didn’t blink. Levelling his shotgun, he fired twice, punching two booming craters into the wall either side of the elevator. Surprised by the sudden ferocity of the attack, the Quarto Comando threw themselves against the sides of the lift. Stripe dropped to one knee and sprayed a round from his AK-47 at them, smashing the mirror on the back wall of the elevator to smithereens and keeping the gang members penned in until the doors trundled closed again.

‘Let’s get out of here!’ Joker shouted, racing away down the hallway. As the Comando Negro followed after him, Luiz was suddenly painfully aware that he was the only gang member who wasn’t carrying a weapon. If they got caught up in a firefight, how was he supposed to defend himself?

Joker skidded to a halt at the end of the corridor and peered round the corner. He pulled back sharply as bullets bit into the brickwork by his head.

‘Shit!’ he cried out, poking his gun around the corner and blindly firing off rounds. ‘There’s more here!’

‘We’re trapped!’ Livio said despairingly.

‘Good!’ spat Stripe. ‘I’m not running from these bastards anyway.’

Angel shook his head. ‘They’ve got the jump on us and this place is going to be swarming with cops any minute. We gotta get out of here.’

Looking for an escape route, Luiz’s eyes fell upon a pair of oak-panelled double doors on the other side of the hallway.

‘Follow me!’ he cried.

As he ran towards the doors, the elevator doors pinged open again, this time revealing the yawning barrel of a Heckler & Koch G3 assault rifle. Without breaking stride, Luiz threw himself against the double doors and raced down the long, straight corridor beyond, the footsteps of the Comando Negro following hot on his heels. Coming to a second set of double doors, he crashed through them – and into another world.

He was standing in a brightly lit dining room filled with hotel guests sitting down to lunch. The clink of crystal wine glasses and fine china could be heard above the soft jazz drifting out from the speakers. For a split second Luiz stood and stared at the diners, who stared back at him in astonishment, forks and spoons hovering by their mouths. Then came the sound of the G3 erupting in the corridor outside and the Comando Negro dived into the room.

That was when the screaming started.

Pandemonium broke out as the guests scattered – some diving under the tables, dragging their loved ones with them, while others stampeded for the exit. Some stayed in their chairs, rigid with shock. They watched as the Comando Negro battled through the crowds, leaving an obstacle course of tipped-over tables and chairs in their wake.

Someone shouted a warning – maybe Livio – and then the dining room exploded into gunfire as the Quarto Comando entered. They fired indiscriminately into the throng. Beside Luiz, a man fell to the floor, clutching his side and screaming in agony as blood welled from a gunshot wound. Luiz stopped, wanting to help, but Angel appeared out of the crowd and grabbed him by the arm, pushing him towards the flight of steps at the end of the dining room.

Glancing back over his shoulder, Luiz saw that Stripe was holding up the rear, reluctant to take a single backward step. Laughing maniacally as he unloaded his magazine at the rival gang, the
soldado
’s relentless stream of bullets scattered the Quarto Comando, forcing them to dive behind tables for cover.

‘Stripe!’ Angel bellowed above the uproar. ‘Leave it!’

The guests had drained out of the dining room and were now flooding down the steps towards the lobby on a swell of screams and sobs. Angel followed them to the first floor, then gestured at the rest of his gang to come with him down a corridor.

‘Where are you going?’ Joker panted.

‘There could be anyone waiting for us in the lobby,’ Angel snarled. ‘We’ll go this way.’

Sprinting along the corridor, the
dono
came to a glass side door leading on to a terrace. He kicked it open and ran outside. The Comando Negro found themselves standing by a large swimming pool, its crystal blue waters lapping gently in the sunlight. The broad sweep of the Avenida Atlantica was just visible over a wall beyond the pool. There wasn’t a soul in sight. The white sunloungers had been abandoned, leaving scattered towels as the only clue that anyone had been here. The sound of screaming still carried from inside the hotel to Luiz’s ears, but it barely registered any more.

There was a flash of green from the side door of the hotel and then a blast of gunfire. Stripe spun round and shot back. There was a cry of pain and Luiz saw a smear of blood on the frame.

Angel pointed in the direction of the Avenida Atlantica. ‘This way!’

Racing around the poolside, Luiz realized that the tiles were slick with water. He turned to warn Livio, but it was too late. The MC slipped over, sending the suitcase filled with money spiralling from his grasp. The Comando Negro watched as, in slow motion, the suitcase skidded towards the pool’s edge. For a teasing second it teetered on the brink, before falling into the water with a splash.

‘No!’ cried Livio, scrambling on his hands and knees towards the pool.

Luiz dived behind a sunlounger as another round of bullets flew through the air. The Quarto Comando had hunkered down by the terrace door and were taking potshots at their exposed rivals. Luiz waited for a pause in the barrage, then darted out from the lounger and grabbed the MC.

‘The money…!’ Livio moaned.

‘Screw the money!’ Luiz screamed. ‘Come on!’

He dragged Livio away from the poolside, trying to stay as low as possible. The rest of the Comando Negro were sheltering by the wall overlooking the Avenida Atlantica, from where they gave covering fire. As Luiz and Livio scurried towards them, Joker and Angel flipped themselves over the wall, negotiating the much steeper drop to the road on the other side. With one final blast of his AK-47, Stripe followed suit. The Quarto Comando opened fire again as Livio and Luiz reached the wall, diving headlong to safety as a hail of bullets flew above their heads.

Luiz hit the pavement hard, the air whooshing from his lungs on impact. Gingerly picking himself up, he saw a couple of tourists staring at him, fingers frozen on the buttons of their cameras. They watched dumbfounded as Luiz broke into a staggering run after the Comando Negro, who had spotted the battered Chevrolet mounted on the pavement outside the Hotel Real, and were racing back towards it.

Although there were no signs of any police on the Avenida Atlantica, the air was alive with the sound of sirens. As the gang piled into the car, Luiz started the engine. To his relief, it caught first time. Stamping down on the accelerator, he reversed straight into the traffic lane, amid clouds of smoke rising up from the tyres and the blaring horns of other motorists.

As Luiz urged the car off the main road and into the backstreets that led to Santa Marta, Stripe punched the window. ‘You fat IDIOT!’ he screamed at Livio, who turned pale. ‘You lost all the money!’

‘Not now,’ Angel rapped from the front seat, a deathly threat in his voice.

‘Why not now,
dono
?’ Stripe spat back. ‘All he had to do was hold on to one lousy suitcase! We went through all that for
nothing
!’

‘I said leave it.’

‘You know who’s got our money now? The Quarto Comando. Those bastards’ll be pissing themselves laughing –’

Distracted, Luiz didn’t see the black van come veering out from an alleyway until the last second. As the van headed straight for the side of their car, Luiz yanked on the steering wheel. The car mounted the pavement, clattering through a couple of empty tables outside a restaurant and missing the van’s bumper by a matter of inches.

‘What the hell was that?’ someone shouted, as Luiz jammed down on the accelerator.

‘It’s the Quarto Comando!’ Luiz shouted back.

‘Keep going for the
boca
,’ urged Angel. ‘They won’t dare take us on there.’

‘The car won’t make it that far,’ Luiz said, through gritted teeth. The ominous silhouette of the black van was blocking out the sun in his rear-view mirror and he wasn’t sure how much more speed he could squeeze out of the engine.

‘Shut up and drive!’ Stripe snarled. ‘I’ll take care of the van.’

The blond-haired boy leaned out of the back passenger window and aimed his AK-47 at the van, peppering the grille with bullets.

As they raced through the Zona Sul back towards Santa Marta, Luiz had to channel every ounce of concentration into keeping the Chevrolet on the road, the fragile suspension shuddering as they bounced over bumps and potholes. He swerved in and out of traffic, forcing other drivers to jam on their brakes to avoid a collision, all the while the van looming on their tail like a nightmare. Hunched low in their seats, the rest of the gang continued to fire off shots at their pursuers, the reports so loud and continuous that Luiz could barely hear himself think. But even though the front of the Quarto Comando’s van was now riddled with bullet holes, the driver never let up for a second.

The Chevrolet’s engine growled in protest as the road began to climb and Luiz realized that they were on the familiar approach back to Santa Marta.

‘We’re going to make it!’ Livio cried out.

At the sight of the car careering up the hill, the lookouts near the
boca
began shouting into their radio phones. All around them kites were dropping from the sky like stones. As the
boca
loomed into view, Luiz offered up a silent prayer that the lookouts had recognized the car and he wasn’t driving them straight into another hail of bullets. He could see the guards scrambling into firing positions. As the car drew into range, Luiz hardly dared breathe.

The guards held their fire, waiting until the black van was in sight before unleashing a storm of bullets over the top of Luiz’s car at their pursuers. There was a loud squeal of brakes.

‘They’re backing off!’ Stripe called out jubilantly.

Before Luiz could celebrate, there was a loud pop and one of the front tyres blew out. Struggling to control the Chevrolet as it careered into a spin up the narrowing road, the last thing he saw was the guards scattering out of the way like ninepins and then the car ploughed straight into the
boca
.

15. Inquests

Luiz groggily raised his head. The impact of the crash had sent him flying forward into the steering wheel and he could feel a trickle of blood running down the side of his face. Through the shattered windscreen, Luiz could see the wall of the
boca
, dominated by a giant Comando Negro tag. As a cloud of dust and smoke enveloped him, he coughed. The smell of oil and burnt rubber was everywhere.

For a while nobody in the car spoke and then, from the back seat, came the sound of chuckling laughter.

‘No way, man!’ whooped Joker. ‘That was
insane
!’

He clapped his hands together with glee and clambered monkey-like out of the car. The
boca
guards had formed a cautious semicircle around the vehicle, peering into the wreckage. When Angel appeared unharmed, there was an audible murmur of relief.

Luiz was the last to get out. His head pounding, he found Livio mournfully inspecting the damage. The front of the car had buckled on impact, the bonnet flying upwards to expose the mangled innards of engine parts. The MC looked inconsolable.

‘What’s up? You don’t really care about this shitheap, do you?’

‘I don’t,’ Livio lamented, ‘but my cousin will. It’s his car.’

Luiz burst out laughing and hugged the MC.

‘Tell him we’ll buy him a new one,’ Joker shouted, pretending to count out the loose change in his pocket. ‘I got more than enough here.’

As the crowd around them laughed and began patting him on the back, Luiz couldn’t deny the thrill of the adrenalin surging through his veins. They had come very close to dying, but everyone had made it back alive – and it had been almost entirely down to him.

‘Quarto Comando can kiss my ass!’

Joker bent over and dropped his shorts, exposing his backside down the hill, towards where the black van had long since retreated. ‘You see that, you pussies?’

The gang members around him burst out laughing, adding their taunts and catcalls to the chorus. Someone up on the roof fired a couple of shots into the air, while the boys began bouncing up and down on their toes, chanting and throwing their arms around one another’s shoulders. Even Stripe struggled to hold back a grin.

One person wasn’t laughing.

‘Pull up your shorts and let’s go. We’ve got things to discuss.’

Angel said it quietly, but his words carried over the
boca
. Immediately the chanting petered out. Joker hastily hitched up his shorts and followed his brother as he strode away into Santa Marta.

‘So… what the hell happened back there?’

The five of them had congregated in Angel’s front room: Luiz, Livio, Stripe, Joker and the
dono
himself. Having never been inside the
dono
’s house before, Luiz was surprised to find that it wasn’t much bigger than the place Livio was letting him sleep in. Noticing his appraisal of the surroundings, the MC nudged Luiz in the ribs.