Chapter Fourteen
Mount Corcovado, Rio de Janeiro, 01:53am
Two figures stood in the freezing cold out on a diagonally shaped balcony made from concrete high up on the summit of the famous mount Corcovado. Behind them stood the colossal chalk-white flood light lit Cristo Redentor statue -Christ the Redeemer- with arms stretched out. Cold winds pelted their bodies viscously from all directions causing their clothes to gyrate vigorously against their bodies.
‘Miguel, why did you choose this location of all the locations in Rio?’ Rodriquez asked his friend who kept trying to shield his face from the cold blast with something that looked like a manila folder.
'Oh Rodrigo, I’m disappointed in you. Look at the view, the lights. People travel from all over the world just to take in these pristine views and to marvel at what towers high above us.’
He turned his heavy frame away from Rodriquez, raised both his arms in the air smiling in the howling winds.
‘Look! Christ the redeemer!' Miguel said emphatically, 'He is right here, before our very own eyes. What else could you wish for?’
‘But it’s not why you dragged me out here. Are we sightseeing at this hour of the night, in this cold?’ Rodriquez asked pulling the hood of his black sweater to cover his head and ears which were beginning to hurt from the cold. ‘Is this your idea of winding down?’
‘No amigo, I asked you to come up here because there’s something you need to know.’
‘What are you talking about Miguel?’
‘The man we got…Marcelo, he wasn’t the one you wanted.’
Rodriquez became wide-eyed. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.
‘What do you mean he was not the one I wanted?’ He asked, startled. He was staring directly into Miguel’s face.
‘Rodrigo listen, the man we, you intercepted wasn’t Alfonso Marcelo, the leader of the Amigos dos Amigos.’
‘Impossible!’ Rodriquez shouted, ‘You said we had the right man.’ Rodriquez could feel his breathing falter. He covered his face with both hands. ‘The man, the one we put inside that container, who was he then?’ he asked.
Five days earlier, Miguel, at the insistence of Rodriquez, had placed a call to Benício de Lima, head of the National Commission of Nuclear Energy (CNEN), the body responsible for the disposing of radioactive waste in Brazil. Benício who also happened to be a close family friend of Miguel and Sofia Almeida, to Miguel’s surprise, had hastily agreed to assist in the ‘small but delicate matter’ as Miguel had put it over the phone. Miguel had mentioned to him how the ‘matter in question’ was a sworn enemy of nuclear technology in Brazil, a member of the green peace movement, and how it was in both men’s best interests that the favor remain a secret between them.
Benicio had arranged an empty steel storage cylinder be delivered to Rodriquez' apartment the following day. It had come from the Industrias Nucleares do Brasil (INB). On it were inscriptions-Uranium Hexafluoride Duf6 slapped on each side together with hazard warning symbols for nuclear waste depicting a red background, a black trefoil with waves of radiation streaming from it, along with a black skull with crossbones, and a running figure with an arrow pointing away from the scene. The same cylinder container used to shove a bewildered Marcelo into. It had had its cover welded back on before being airlifted to a nuclear reactor in the municipality of Angra dos Reis, sent down below into the plant’s basement were substances of high radioactivity such as the fuel used in nuclear reactors are stored.
‘Julio Marcelo da Silva is his name. Sorry, I meant was his name.’ answered Miguel.
‘Unbelievable! Miguel, you deliberately had me fooled, didn’t you? I can’t believe you used me to kill an innocent man and in such a manner.’
‘Life is uncertain, death inevitable amigo. It comes to us all.’ Miguel replied.
‘But he was innocent!’
‘No Rodrigo, listen to me, he wasn’t an innocent man. He was a rival Rodrigo, a rival to Recluse. He detested everything we stand for, and besides he stood in our way.’
‘Miguel, you honestly expect me to stand here and listen to you lie to my face?’ interrupted Rodriquez, anger was building up in his veins. ‘Tell me the truth, come clean.’
‘Alright, you want to hear the naked truth?’ Miguel shouted, ‘I’ll give it to you. Julio and my wife were having an affair.’
‘They were what?’ a stunned Rodriquez asked.
‘Yes they were.’ Miguel replied. ‘He worked as an insurance consultant for Federação Nacional dos Corretores de Seguros – National Federation of Insurance Brokers, divorced with three kids. I knew they were romantically involved for more than a year but just last month, Sofia took out two insurance policies on me listing him as the sole beneficiary. I knew it was time to act. So I got him arrested for a parking ticket and made the authorities believe they were holding Marcelo, leader of Amigos dos Amigos. But believe me amigo. I did it for love, to save my marriage. I wasn’t going to share my wife with another man.’
‘Miguel, we all know love can make us do crazy things, but killing in the name of love is taking it way too far.’
‘Let someone else be the judge but not you Rodrigo. You and I are the same. Why have you been pursuing Marcelo all this time? Isn’t it because of love? He took something precious from you and you could not rest, no, you had to find him. Why? Let me tell you why Rodrigo, love. Yes, because of love you were willing to kill him. That’s what makes you and me unique in a sense. We are not afraid to do whatever it takes to protect those we love.’
‘Does Sofia know?’
‘No she doesn’t and I prefer it stays that way. The problem is, can I count on you amigo to keep your mouth shut?’
‘You have my word.’ Replied Rodriquez, his mind was swirling.
‘Amigo, I cannot have any loose ends.’ Miguel said.
Rodriquez turned to face his friend only to see he was staring into a hole of a Glock pistol.
‘So, you are going to shoot me now Miguel? What is wrong with you? Oh, now I get it. You faked everything. You have all along been playing me like a fiddle just to get back at your wife’s lover. This talk about you helping me find Mariana’s murderer, always the concerned friend, then recruiting me into Recluse. It was all a lie, wasn’t it? You see, I hand it to you amigo. I was so blind. I didn’t know who the real enemy was all this time.’
‘Shut up Rodriquez!’ ordered Miguel, his hand steadied on the pistol.
‘There is someone here I want you to meet.’ Miguel said.
Three hours earlier, Rodriquez had received a call from Miguel to rendezvous at the peak of Mount Corcovado in the Tijuca Forest National Park overlooking the city. He’d shifted gears of his rented grey Renault at an uncomfortable pace up the narrow, steep, and winding road to the mount’s summit. The Renault’s manual transmission had kept threatening to explode as it labored noisily.
Finally, he had breathed a sigh of relief when the Renault curled around the final bend before screeching to a halt at the summit’s designated parking gravel filled yard. The Renault's headlights had briefly flashed into a parked white Fiat Uno across the yard before being turned off. Rodriquez had stepped out and raced up the remaining rows of stairs leading to the cemented diagonally shaped cement portico surrounding the almost eight meter pedestal on which the ninety eight feet lit giant statue stood.
Rodriquez had never been this close to the Statue. The giant sight, both its arms stretched out, and its face angled low towards the night lights of Rio in the distance below basked high up into the night skies in magnificent splendor from the bright white, yellow and blue floodlights stationed a few meters away at the portico lighting its rear and front giving it an almost divine appearance. Why here and at such an hour? Rodriquez had mused.
He had waited in the blazing cold winds close to twenty minutes when finally Miguel’s bulky figure had at last showed up walking hurriedly towards him, and now, another shape approached them.
‘Meet El Técnic
o-the Technician a.k.a Alexandro Alfonzo Marcelo, leader of the Amigos dos Amigos.’ Miguel happily announced. He waved the gun in the air then brought its steel muzzle back to rest pointing at Rodriquez’ chest. Rodriquez could see that Miguel was pleased with himself. Straining to adjust his eyes through the bright flood lights, Rodriquez awaited to see the face of the man he’d hunted for the last three years come into full view and stand right in front of him. And when he did, Rodriquez’ heart sunk within him. It all came flushing back into his mind. He’d seen this face on the night when he hunched under the stairs in the Rochina favela, the man with the bottle of wine -the Cabernet Sauvignon, the night Isabella was murdered. The same stranger’s distinct receding hairline, and mischievous mud-brown eyes he recalled seeing frozen on the surveillance camera screen caption at the Hospital Adventista Silvestre on the night of Natalia’s murder. Again this very man had mysteriously showed up in Mexico by Guzman’s side, the Sinaloa boss handing over to him the 32G modem. The same shadowy figure, yet again, he had fought with on the small plane when he attempted to hijack it before the very man clobbered him unconscious.
‘You’re quite a tough one.’ The man’s tobacco breath addressed Rodriquez. His flickering eyes pierced into Rodriquez.
‘You also sniff around too much and my concern is, you always seem to leave a bloody mess behind you.’ The man said. Rodriquez remained silent, his heart pounding hard.
‘When my amigo Miguel here joined us a few years back, he assured me of your loyalty if you came onboard, but that you needed some bit of persuasion. So he arranged to deliver your daughter to us.’
Inwardly Rodriquez exploded but with the gun aimed directly at him, he had to keep sane if he was to stay alive. He kept looking at Miguel then at Marcelo and then back at Miguel. Marcelo continued to speak, Rodriquez listened, but all he heard was just the man’s voice and the howl made by the blasting of the cold winds. The statement about Miguel delivering his daughter to be murdered clouded every thought in his mind.
‘Amigo’ Marcelo had turned facing Miguel.
‘Shoot him and this time, make sure you kill him.’ he commanded.
Miguel nodded and pulled the trigger.
The sound of the explosion sent nearby nesting birds scattering noisily in different directions. He was fraction too late. Rodriquez ducked just in time for the two bullets to wince past his left shoulder in opposite directions while simultaneously watching Miguel slump sideways, blood splattering out of his face before his huge frame hit the cement floor hard, his stunned eyes wide open and mouth gaping. He’d taken a shot to the head. White sheets of paper from the manila folder he’d held scattered about in midair. Rodriquez knew he could count on Ramona.
She had held her position, silent in the dark, camouflaged behind the flood lights which made her invisible to all three men standing on the portico. Rodriquez knew she was waiting for the right moment to release the fatal shot from the Heckler and Koch Sniper Rifle. He’d asked her to cover him in case Miguel tried to kill him.
‘You know he is going to try to kill you.’ She had said to him on the phone after he had told her about the Mount Corcovado meeting.
‘Then I’ll need you to cover me.’ Rodriquez had said over the phone.
‘Alright, I’ll cover you.’ She had said, ‘You will know of my presence when you spot a white Fiat Uno in the parking lot at the summit, but about my exact position, that’s not for you to know now.’
On that starry night in México, when she rescued Rodriquez from execution at the hands of Guzman’s bodyguards, she had briefly mentioned to him the strange visits by a certain Miguel Almeida, the Secretary of public security of Rio de Janeiro to Guzman’s hideout in the Sinaloa Mountains.
‘I hear he protects most of the drug gang leaders down in Rio and is in charge of El-chapo’s drug empire in Rio and Sao Paulo.’ She had said.
‘I find that hard to believe because I know the man, he is my friend and he fights crime. Just like me.’ Rodriquez had protested.
‘Nobody ever really gets to know anybody, because I know him too. He is my boss.’ She had shot back before changing the subject. And as he stared at the secretary of public safety’s lifeless body on the cement floor, he knew Ramona had been right.
‘Stop or I’ll shoot!’ her raised voice pierced through the wind. Her rifle levelled at a stunned Marcelo.
‘He’s mine!’ Rodriquez hissed. His heart thudded as if about to explode, adrenaline surging through his veins and his face moist with fury. He leaped up from the ground dashing wildly in pursuit of the fleeing man.
Rodriquez grabbed Marcelo by the neck viciously dragging him to the edge of the portico.
‘Any last words, amigo?’ Rodriquez asked, his blazing eyes menacingly staring into his victim’s wide eyes. The frightened look in man’s eyes infuriating him further.
‘I beg you, have mercy.’ the man said. His trembling voice was barely audible partly because Rodriquez was chocking him. He could feel the man’s soft neck muscles and vertebra. The man’s hands clasped hard at Rodriquez’ firm grip. Pointing his free arm at the giant Statue standing behind them, Rodriguez shouted at the man’s face.
‘Ask him not me!’
Images of daughter and wife flushed before his eyes as he stared into their killer’s eyes. The promise he’d made to his beautiful Natalia at last had to be fulfilled.
Summoning all the strength he had left in his exhausted and bruised body, in one sweep, he raised the man off the ground into the air hurling him over the portico. And as he turned to face Ramona who by now had climbed down from her shooting position onto the portico, Rodriquez could still hear the fading scream in the darkness below.