Ramsey's Gold (Drake Ramsey Book 1) (16 page)

Drake waved the bartender over and handed him money. “We will. It’s way safer here than in Texas or Menlo Park, apparently.”

They pushed their way through the double steel and glass doors and the humid swelter settled over them like a blanket. The sidewalks were jammed, the afternoon a popular time for those out of school or taking a late lunch. Rio boasted two world-class expanses of sand, Ipanema and Copacabana, both two miles long, sun-drenched and justifiably famous. In the distance, the iconic statue of Christ the Redeemer’s open arms watched over the city. Opposite, Sugar Loaf Mountain jutted into the sky at the northern end of Copacabana.

“You can really hear the Portuguese influence. It’s so strange that the other countries in South America speak Spanish and Brazil doesn’t,” Drake said.

“No huge surprise. The Portuguese pretty much ran the place for five hundred years, one way or another. Even after independence the two countries were locked at the hip. But the polarization between the rich and poor is a lot more obvious than you typically see elsewhere. It’s the kind of social situation that can’t last.”

“They’ve been saying that for decades, yet it just keeps on keeping on,” Drake observed. A group of rowdy teens approached down the sidewalk, their girlfriends laughing drunkenly, flashing endless expanses of flawless bronze skin, and Allie moved closer to Drake. As they pushed by, he took her hand, and while he thought she tried to pull away at first, soon they were strolling along like a couple, an important connection made and maintained. Neither wanted to interrupt the simple pleasure of the moment, so they walked in silence until they came to a volleyball net near the northern end of Ipanema, where young men and women were competing athletically in spite of the afternoon heat.

They paused, looking out across the sand at the crashing waves of the Atlantic clawing at the beach, the young Brazilians vigorously swatting the ball back and forth across the net. Drake squinted at Allie looking untamed as the breeze tugged at her hair, an eagerness in her eyes, as though she was considering joining the good-natured contest. He returned to his study of the players, noting that they were all in exceptional physical shape, and then Allie gave a cry. Two street urchins, maybe eleven or twelve, were running across the wide Avenida Vieira Souto, one of them with Allie’s purse clutched in his grasp.

Allie held up her hand, red with blood.

“Damn. They slashed the strap with a razor, and it got me.”

“How bad? Let me see.”

She turned and he could see a small red stain on her shirt, spreading slowly, but not alarmingly.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes tracking the boys. “Do you have anything in your purse that can’t be replaced?”

“Oh, God. My passport. I only had a few dollars, but my passport and wallet…”

“I’m going after them. Get back to the hotel and have them call a doctor. Or find a cop. You probably need stitches,” Drake said.

Without waiting for a response, he tore off after the thieves across the wide boulevard, dodging honking cars as he made for the far sidewalk. The boys had a good head start, but his longer legs equalized much of it, and in three blocks he was only thirty feet behind them. They raced up the street toward one of Rio’s infamous hillside slums, where red brick hovels sprawled up the steep face of the mountain, narrow alleys running in front of them, garbage littering much of the unclaimed open areas, which stank of sewage and rot.

The pair darted to the right of the massive elevator that had been built as a concession to the residents during one of the city’s modernization drives, and disappeared up a steep concrete staircase that would have challenged a mountain goat. Drake took a deep breath and took the steps two at a time, intent on not allowing them out of his sight. He knew that all it would take was a few seconds and they’d be gone for good, and with them, Allie’s passport, creating unknown hardship and placing them squarely on the radar with the Embassy – a situation to be avoided at all costs.

The stairs twisted to the right, and he caught a flash of cut-off jeans as one of the two twisted up an even narrower path carved straight into the dark brown dirt, flanked by a wooden handrail improvised out of cast-off lumber from broken pallets and shipping crates. His calves were burning like he’d run a marathon, and he wondered as he pushed himself how much longer the kids could keep up the pace. He was rewarded when the one with Allie’s purse lost his footing and slid down the hill toward him, only ten feet from Drake. His companion grabbed him and pulled him to his feet, a straight razor clutched in his other hand as hundred-year-old eyes stared at Drake from an adolescent face.

The pair bolted laterally along the dirt walkway scarcely three feet wide, and Drake drove himself harder. The boys were almost in his grasp. He sprinted with all his remaining energy and dove at the one with the purse and got his hand on it. Drake ripped it free as the boy kept going, neither of them quite up to tackling a full-grown man, even if the one with the razor had clearly been considering it before he’d locked eyes with Drake and seen something that had made him think twice.

Drake sat panting for several seconds, winded. A rustle behind him came from one of the shanties of crumbling red brick with a blue tarp for a roof, and a young man stepped from its entrance. His clothes were filthy, but the nickel-plated revolver in his hand looked clean enough.

The gunman pointed the pistol’s barrel at Drake and said something in rapid-fire Portuguese. Drake shook his head, and the man drew closer, his intent clear – he was robbing Drake and wanted the purse.

When he was only a few yards away, Drake twisted and simultaneously threw a baseball-sized chunk of brick he’d palmed at the would-be thief. It connected solidly with the thug’s forehead and nose, making a sound like a melon being hit with a bat, and then blood gushed down his shirt.

But he didn’t drop the pistol.

He was bringing it up to fire even as he bellowed in pain, and Drake launched from the ground and tackled him as he pulled the trigger. The shot missed by a hair, and then he was on top of the gunman, slamming his wrist against the ground with all his might in order to break his grip on the pistol. He felt it loosen and caught the man on the jaw with his elbow while he smashed his wrist again. The pistol fell harmlessly a few feet away and Drake lunged for it, making it a split second before the mugger.

Drake slammed the gun butt into the man’s cheek and his eyes rolled into his head, his face ruined as he blacked out. Drake lay panting by him and then caught movement up the hill. More youths – at least three, and all carrying weapons.

Drake leapt to his feet and sprinted down the alley, the gun gripped in his hand as he ran, his heart hammering in his chest as he fought to get some distance between himself and the thief’s friends. He was just turning to take the dirt path back down the hill when an explosion sounded from behind him and part of the wooden rail shattered. Drake didn’t like his odds, trying to make it down the hill with the punks shooting at him from higher ground, so he spun and dropped, simultaneously slowing his breathing. With Jack’s words reverberating in his head, he cocked the hammer back, drew a bead on the first gunman, and squeezed the trigger. The little revolver bucked like a panicked animal, and he fired again. The second pursuer grabbed his abdomen and dropped his gun, and Drake used the opportunity to throw himself down the hill, sliding down the path.

He began rolling and tumbling, and his downward trajectory was only stopped by a brick wall – another shanty. The collision knocked the wind out of him, but he quickly recovered when he saw the remaining two attackers at the top of the alley, pointing their weapons down at him. Four shots rang out. The rounds hit the wall behind him as he brought the barrel up and emptied the revolver at them, remembering Jack’s warning about how hard it was to hit someone in a combat situation with a handgun. None of his shots found a home, but they did seem to take the enthusiasm out of the thieves. In any case, they didn’t follow him as he rolled and lunged for the stairs, bolting down them three at a time, figuring the tradeoff of risking a shattered ankle was more than warranted by the circumstance.

Thirty seconds later Drake was crossing the garbage-strewn field at the base of the hill. He tossed the useless revolver into the heaping bags of refuse as a shambling vagrant dug through a nearby pile, oblivious or unmoved by the sound of nearby gunfire – likely an hourly occurrence in his life. Drake’s ribs were throbbing from the encounter with the brick building and his ears were ringing from the gunfire, but he had Allie’s purse, and he was alive.

Drake glanced back up at the hillside, but he didn’t see anyone chasing him. The predators had returned to their familiar haunts to prey on easier victims, or perhaps to help their downed friend. He jogged to the street and continued at that pace until he reached the beach – a world, with its G-strings and heady aroma of coconut suntan oil, as distant from that of the nearby hillside as night and day. Several passersby looked at him with alarm, and he realized he was filthy, his clothes torn from his fall down the hillside, dirt smeared on his sweating face and arms. Something about the situation made him grin and then laugh out loud as he moved along the famous strand toward the hotel. His fellow pedestrians gave him a wide berth, his lunatic smile and unaccountable mirth as disturbing as the gun would have been if he’d been brandishing it and screaming.

The security men barred him from entering the hotel until he was able to convey to them what had happened. Even once Jack emerged from the elevators and approached, they hovered close by, as though he might attack the other guests at the slightest provocation. Jack took one look at him and shook his head. Drake held the purse aloft in triumph.

“You weren’t kidding about this being a rough place,” Drake said.

Jack eyed him expressionlessly and then steered him to the elevator. “Come on. You’ve got a cut over your eye. I’ll patch you up after you return Allie’s purse.”

“Is she okay?”

“He sliced her pretty good, but it’s not critical. We’ll get a couple of stitches later. The hotel already called a doctor. Should be here in a few minutes.” Jack turned to look at Drake as he stepped into the elevator. “Maybe we can get a two-for-one deal. Looks like you could use a stitch or two, too.”

“I won’t even tell you about the gun battle.”

Jack’s eyebrow rose as the door slid closed. “Tell me you’re kidding,” he said, then saw the look in Drake’s eye. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

“At the rate things are going, you’re right.”

“Kid, you only have one life. No more stupid risks, okay?”

“Says the man who’s about to go into the jungle with me.”

Jack chuckled in spite of himself. “Touché. But seriously. Ease up. This will be dangerous enough as it is.”

“The lady needed her purse back. Tell me you would have done anything different.”

They rode up in silence, and when the floor indicator pinged, Jack sighed and shook his head. “Just like your father.”

“Maybe. Only I’m going to walk out of that jungle. That’s a promise.”

Jack eyed him. “You know what? I believe you.”

Drake nodded.

“Bank on it.”

Chapter Nineteen

The driver picked them up the next morning at ten, and by eleven they were on the road to Teresópolis, north of Rio. The highway was modern until they turned off onto the smaller road to Cachoeiras de Macacu, where it became a two-lane strip of asphalt winding through open fields, the rainforest held at bay by the hand of man. The sky was brilliant blue, the road framed by vivid green on both sides, and the air humid, redolent of wet earth and pollen.

An hour more and they arrived at their destination: a small winding dirt track leading through a clearing to a gate a quarter mile off the road. An ancient man, wearing a black baseball cap and brandishing a shotgun, sat in a security hut. After several moments of back-and-forth with the driver, the guard swung the gate wide and beckoned to them to enter.

The driver revved the motor and the little car lurched forward. Ten minutes later they neared the foothills, where a large two-story house hulked near a cluster of trees, a guest cottage and service quarters near the separate four-car garage. The home’s bright yellow paint had faded in spots, and a young man worked near them with a brush. He turned as they eased to a stop, curiosity in his eyes as they opened their car doors and stepped from the vehicle.

“Paolo?” Jack asked as he approached.

“Yes,” Paolo answered in heavily accented English.

“I’m Jack. Solomon should have called you to let you know we were coming.”

“He did. I’ve prepared rooms in the main house for you. Let me get your bags and I’ll show you the way,” Paolo said, closing the paint can and balancing his brush on the lid.

“That’s okay. I’ve got it,” Drake said from the trunk, hoisting his backpack and putting it on before lifting Jack’s and Allie’s bags free. Jack reached out and took one from him, and they followed Paolo inside through the front door.

The house was simply furnished with heavy pieces crafted from native wood, rustic and sturdy, in keeping with the locale. Paolo led them up the wide stairway to their rooms, which looked comfortable, if basic.

“Let me know if you need anything,” he said. “I’ve filled the refrigerator with food and drinks, and was told to assist you with whatever you want.”

“Thank you, Paolo. I’m expecting a visitor tomorrow or the next day. I’ll give you his information later. Other than that, we’re not to be disturbed. I’m conducting training exercises with my pupils here. Other than my single guest, nobody is to be allowed on the grounds,” said Jack, his tone eliminating any argument before it started.

Paolo nodded assent. “Enjoy your stay. I’ll be painting most of the day, so you’ll know where to find me.”

They quickly unpacked and, after stowing their gear, met downstairs, Drake with his father’s knife, Jack with a small black nylon bag.

“Come on. Grab some water and let’s go for a walk. I see no reason not to start on this now. The sooner you understand the basics of what I’m going to show you, the sooner we can begin our search,” Jack said.