The Omicron Legion (25 page)

“You figured right.”

“Somebody you work for turn the tables, governor?”

“I’m not sure yet, Reverend.”

“This woman might be able to tell ya, though.”

“That’s what I m hoping.”

To pass the time while he waited for some word on Patty to be brought back, Blaine listened to the story of what had brought Reverend Jim Hope to Rio—and what had kept him here for over a decade now. A bank job had gone bad outside of London, a guard shot by one of his cohorts. Jim was only the driver, but he’d still have to pay the same price as the shooter, so he took off. Rio wasn’t chosen for logic; it was the first international flight he could book passage on. A single stop in his apartment to pick up a tote bag and off he went to Heathrow.

He met the first of his boys, ironically, when a pair of them tried to pick his pocket his first night in. Jim was drunk, and instead of giving them a licking, he gave them a wink.

“Now, you wanna see how to do it right, chaps?”

The boys couldn’t speak English, but they seemed to get the point. Teaching them English was the second order of business. After all, a great percentage of their targets would be Americans, so speaking the language would help. He took the name Reverend Jim Hope and took in as many boys as he could handle without losing control. When they got old enough they left. There were always new ones waiting to replace them.

“Thing is,” Jim Hope said, “this city’s a mess, governor. Sure, tourists come down here for the beaches and the sun, but they don’t see the poverty ’cept when they look up the mountain and see the
favelas
rising up the side. And the poverty feeds off itself. You know why there are so many babies born in Brazil? ’Cause the government pays all the costs. Don’t pay for no abortion or birth control, though. So more kids keep gettin’ added to the picture. Them that has ’em don’t want ’em, so they end up in the streets.”

“Adding to the surplus population.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Jim Hope gazed about him proudly. “Anyway, these boys’d have nothing without me. I keeps them safe, clean, and alive.”

“You don’t owe me any explanations.”

“Done some bad turns in your time, governor?”

“A few.”

“I met men like you in prison. Didn’t talk much about what they did that got them there. People pretty much left them alone. Never did anything to prove themselves, but I suppose some don’t have to.”

“And some do.”

“And what is it that you do, governor? What is it that got you down here? I ain’t asked that yet.”

“Let’s keep it that way.”

Reverend Jim Hope wasn’t about to. “Something busted you up pretty bad. Doc patched you up, but the way I see it, there’s smarter things to do than going out to ask for more.”

“Believe me, I don’t have a choice.”

“Like me with the boys?”

“Sort of.”

Hope’s eyes swept through the shanty again and came to focus on the stinking sewer stream running down the channel in its side. “Ain’t much, but the boys think they’re livin’ like kings. Compared to most around here, they are, too. Given a choice not a one of ’em would leave, neither. This is all they know, and none sees a reason to know any more.”

Just then, the sound of feet pounding quickly up the steps leading to the shanty made both Blaine and Reverend Jim turn toward the doorway. Hope met the trio just inside, and the lead boy whispered something in his ear.

“They found the woman, governor,” he reported, turning back toward Blaine.

Blaine rose rigidly to his feet. “Where?”

More whispering. “It ain’t good, governor.”

“Where!”

“She’s holed up at a circus in Barra da Tijuca, and Da Sa’s men are gonna move on her come the opening tonight.”

Blaine came forward. “Da Sa’s men? Why?”

“I reckon whoever turned them against you, turned them against her, too.”

“Just tell me where, and if one of your boys can get me a gun…”

The much smaller Reverend Jim stopped him with a hand pressed flat against his chest. “Need yourself an atom bomb to go against these odds, and one of those ain’t easy to pick out of a pocket.”

“You got a better idea?”

Hope’s wide smile revealed the brownish edges of his teeth. He spoke as the complement of boys present in the shanty came forward to enclose him.

“When going up against an army, governor, it’s best to bring one of your own.”

Chapter 24

“HIDING WOULD SEEM
a safer bet,” Patty suggested as she walked alongside John Lynnford toward the Ferris wheel, her post for the evening.

“Meaning a concealed place where you have limited range of motion. They find you and it’s over.”

“True.”

“And if they aren’t supposed to see you, neither can we. We wouldn’t be able to help you…. Patty, have some faith in Teresa’s work. All these people have to go on is a description you don’t fit anymore. Now do you want to hear the rest of the plan or not?” John asked her.

“I’m in your hands, right?”

“You’ll be taking tickets right in front of the platform. Someone else will run the ride, so you won’t have to worry about pushing any buttons or controls. You’ll be on ground level and not in plain view.”

“Why the Ferris wheel?”

“Central location on the midway in a relatively dark spot.” John pointed with his cane to the shopping mall parking lot on the circus’s right. “We’ll plant a car there this evening. When we close tonight at twelve o’clock, I’ll have one of our roadies escort you to it—just a couple melting into the crowd—and drive you to the airport. The professor’s working out the airline schedules.”

“What about tickets?”

“I’ll give you some cash to buy them out of tonight’s receipts.”

“That’s the problem,” Patty said, with a sigh.

“What is?”

“Where exactly do I go? I came down here to find the only man I could trust. I’ve
got
to get that message to him. If I don’t, he’s dead, and so am I. Eventually. Soon.”

“You want to stay with us, that’s fine, too.”

“Thanks for the offer, but no can do. What I know now goes way beyond me.”

“This a vendetta?”

“It used to be. Now I don’t know what it is.”

The yellow truck rumbled toward Barra da Tijuca, the boys filling its open back clutching the rails for handholds.

“Makes me feel like Bill Sykes,” Blaine said to Reverend Jim, who was squeezed next to him in the front seat.

“Bill
who,
governor?”

“Nevermind.”

Originally the plan was to take buses to the site of the circus, but seeing the yellow truck hauling fresh gas cannisters for the stoves of the
favela
gave Hope another idea. He knew the driver, and a quick exchange of words convinced him it would be in his best interest to drive the group to Barra da Tijuca. Blaine, dressed in native garb, could pass well enough for a local. The biggest problem was his muscular chest and arms, which made him stand out. The Brazilians were built lean and sinewy and the people of the slum seemed most impressed with such a well-developed stranger.

The
favela’s
construction boasted no overall plan. Layers piled atop layers, shanties tucked in wherever space permitted, created the serpentine structure of the steep, narrow walkways squeezed between them. Privacy was nonexistent, and ownership often changed as quickly as it took a pair of fast hands to pull clothes from a makeshift line.

Which was how McCracken’s tattered outfit had been obtained.

The sun was down by the time the truck dropped them off in the field adjacent to the Orlando Orfei Traveling Circus. Before entering the grounds, Reverend Jim gathered the boys around him, then gave each of them money for enjoying the attractions. Hope had also brought a pocketful of firecrackers with him; setting them off would be the signal that there was trouble. Beyond this, they had no plan. All Blaine could be sure of was that, according to Da Sa’s people, Patty was here, and that they were going to move on her tonight.

“Wait a minute,” Blaine said to Hope before the boys were dismissed to run amok. “Can they spot Da Sa’s men? I mean, can they tell them apart from the rest of the patrons?”

The boys’ collective smirk provided their answer as Reverend Jim nodded proudly.

“Interesting.”

“Got yourself an idea, governor?”

Blaine nodded. “Gather round, boys,” he said, “and pay attention….”

The crowds had begun arriving an hour before sunset, somewhat before the scheduled opening. The midway was already fully functional, although there were still some finishing touches to be added to the big top. The first show was scheduled for eight o’clock; succeeding shows would continue every hour on the hour throughout the evening. It was not an elaborate or lavish setup so far as such things went, but especially for the economically depressed people of the region, the circus was a not-to-be-missed highlight.

Patty quickly fell into the flow of taking tickets from the people forming an eager line in front of the Ferris wheel. The creaky apparatus whined into motion at the start of each ride, a speaker pounding out the same tune in rhythm with every turn.

She surveyed the strollers and ticket holders alike as inconspicuously as she could. She felt safe even in the spill of the thin light, even though she knew that, in all likelihood, the people who were after her had to be somewhere in the crowd. But they would be looking for the woman they got a glimpse of at the hotel, not the person Teresa had created. That, more than anything, gave her reason for hope and security.

Still, she had never felt more alone, and thinking of that made her think of Blaine McCracken. He lived in a world apart, alienated from the rest of a civilization that needed him to maintain its balance. He once told her how much he envied Johnny Wareagle’s reclusive existence in the forest, not realizing how much his own life had come to resemble it. You don’t have to pull out to pull away. McCracken had helped teach her that much back in the Pacific.

The Ferris wheel spun into the start of another ride, and Patty stuffed the tickets through the slit in the box in front of her. By sunset the ride was running at full capacity, seeming to strain under the weight. The entire midway was jammed now, no game or ride spared the inevitable line. Even the professor’s booth boasted a few skeptical patrons eager to test his knowledge.

Before her, the huge, muscle-bound Zandor was strutting proudly down the midway. He obliged children by letting them feel his muscles in the hope their parents would come to the entertainment tent, where he performed his act. Patty knew the steel bars the strongman bent were the real thing.

She concentrated on taking tickets, but once the ride started, she let her eyes roam. So far she hadn’t spotted anyone who looked suspicious. She took a deep breath. The chances of her being spotted had been reduced significantly now that it was getting dark.

A
pop!
sounded suddenly; behind her the Ferris wheel ground squeakily to a halt. A few of the people caught near the top screamed. Patty shuddered. Talk about bad timing! The damn thing had broken down, and now practically everyone at the carnival was looking in her direction.

“A cable broke loose down below,” the man running the ride told her. “I can see it. I’ll try to fix it.”

The man grabbed his tool belt and moved off toward the wheel itself, dropping down below it to get to the works and the faulty cable. The racket made by the stranded riders continued to attract bystanders. Although the true villain was the broken cable, accusations were hurled at her—in Portuguese, to boot—which she barely spoke at all.

She saw John’s face in the crowd. He was coming toward her, to rescue her from this mess! Then she noticed he was walking without his cane. Two men on either side of him were supporting him. The men were smiling. John wasn’t.
They’ve got me,
she realized, actually more worried about John than herself.
They’ve got me….

Blaine had been walking about for twenty minutes when he first noticed the ticket taker at the Ferris wheel. He looked away, but something made him gaze back her way. The hair was the wrong color, the age, too, but something,
something…

Could
this
be Patty?

He wasn’t sure until he saw the two men moving the woman’s way, dragging a third between them. Da Sa’s soldiers had one captive in hand and were now heading for the woman.

“Now!” McCracken ordered, rushing up to Reverend Jim. “Now!”

Hope’s hands jammed into his pockets and emerged with some fireworks and a lighter.

“Come on!” Blaine urged, just ahead of the first hiss, as flame met fuse, and Reverend Jim tossed the initial trio forward.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

McCracken shoved him aside. “Keep your eyes on the boys, Reverend. Keep them safe.”

“Where are you going?”

Blaine looked back one last time before sprinting for the Ferris wheel and the men approaching Patty Hunsecker.

“To work,” he said.

The popping sounds cost Patty a heartbeat, as John and the two men holding him captive neared the platform. The Ferris wheel had started to spin again, and behind her customers were piling out. She stood frozen, unable to move.

Turn myself in and maybe they won’t hurt him. What choice do I have?

That thought had been barely formed when she saw the shape whirling toward the platform, just to the rear of the trio approaching her. The night was dark, and he was darker, but Patty saw the beard, recognized him as his hands shot out in the direction of the men holding John Lynnford.

The goons holding the man with the limp never even turned. Blaine’s approach angled slightly from the left. He grabbed the one on that side by the scruff of his collar and heaved backward. When the man resisted, Blaine went with the motion and smashed him facefirst against the steel railing meant to keep eager patrons back. The one on the right had turned by then, the gun that had been pressed against Lynnford’s side coming up but not getting there before Blaine smashed the whiskey bottle against his face. It shattered against bone and flesh and the man reeled backward, crumpling, his cheeks and nose a spider web of blood.