That same day, they got word that King County had fast-tracked Ellie’s guardianship by Manny and Carlotta Martinez. The State Department still hadn’t managed to locate her father, and he hadn’t responded to repeated attempts to contact him.
Ellie and Carlotta were talking to therapists. Manny’s dangerous roofers were on security detail, just in case. And the mechanic had finished repairs to Peter’s truck, except for the bullet holes in the front quarter panel, which Peter thought he might leave as a reminder.
Congress had supposedly set aside partisan differences to work on a bill to fund upgrades to the electric grid. The FBI was focusing on homegrown terrorist groups and extremist cults. The Seattle mayor offered Peter and June the key to the city. They declined.
Unsurprisingly, the tech conference went on as planned. The only change, according to news reports, was a few hollow speeches about how technology existed to safeguard humanity’s future.
Durant and the Messenger were nowhere to be found.
65
Four weeks later, Peter, Lewis, and Manny sat in a rented Range Rover with heavily tinted windows outside a Brazilian favela called Rocinha. Through high-powered binoculars, Peter watched a white-haired man a block away. He had a bullhorn and was speaking to a small crowd, drinking in their rapt attention like an intoxicating liquor.
He spoke in English, using simple language and pausing between sentences so a female interpreter could keep up. Behind him, a tall man with a dark mustache and a straw cowboy hat stood with an AR-15 slung over one shoulder and a pistol on his hip, head turning to scan his surroundings like the cop he had been for decades.
The tropical sun beat down, and the Rover’s air-conditioning was turned up high against the stifling summer heat. They’d been watching the two men for nine days.
Rocinha was one of many such favelas, improvised shantytowns climbing the hillsides outside of Rio de Janeiro, inhabited by people with few other choices. Lewis had found a local police detective who’dgiven them the rundown. A drug gang ruled Rocinha with an iron hand, extorting money from businesses and individuals alike. The only water came from a few public taps. Open sewers ran down the sides of the narrow dirt streets. Electricity was pirated from power poles at the edge of the community. Poverty was endemic and schools were few and underfunded. For a child born in a favela, there was little future.
This was the place Garrison Bevel, the Messenger, had chosen to start his new movement.
In stark contrast with Rocinha, the Messenger had moved into the penthouse of a luxury apartment building on Avenida Vieira Souto, across the street from beautiful Ipanema Beach. Durant was his constant companion, always armed with an automatic rifle and a pistol. Whenever they left the flat, they were accompanied by a local four-man security detail in an additional vehicle.
On three separate evenings, however, the Messenger received a pair of attractive female visitors at his apartment. The women were different each time, but all young and similarly dressed in short-shorts and bikini tops that left little to the imagination. From the beach, Manny had taken photographs of them dancing on the balcony with the Messenger while Durant frowned through the sliding glass door.
The fourth time two young women arrived in a taxi, Lewis got out of the Rover and met them at the gate for a conversation. Somehow, Lewis spoke passable Brazilian Portuguese. After a bit of back-and-forth, a significant amount of money changed hands. Then the women buzzed the gate and Lewis waved Peter and Manny out of the Rover.
The building’s security guards were not pleased to see three armed men accompany the young women into the elegant marble lobby. The women explained that these men were their friends, very nice men, here to make sure they arrived safely at their destination. More money changed hands. The guards went back to their posts. The two young women and their three nice friends got on the elevator.
When it arrived at the top floor, the young women led them to the apartment door. The men stood to the side and pulled suppressed pistols from beneath their shirts. The women rang the bell and waved cheerfully at the peephole, as if they did this kind of thing every day. For all Peter knew, they did.
After a long moment, Durant opened the door with a frown. He wore pale trousers and a striped linen shirt with the bulge of a pistol beneath it and his cowboy straw on his head. The women ran for the stairs as Peter pointed the gun at his chest. “Hands up and mouth shut.”
Durant reached for his holstered pistol. Peter shot him in the hand. Durant stepped back into the entryway and shook his injured hand like he’d been stung by a bee. A galaxy of fine red dots appeared on the white walls and ceiling.
Peter followed him in. Durant turned and dove for the assault rifle on the entry hall table. Peter shot him in the back of the thigh, then leapt forward with a fierce grin and pistol-whipped him on the back of the head. Durant dropped like a sack of shit.
Peter tossed the rifle to Lewis and stepped over the disgraced Seattle cop with Manny right behind him.
They found the Messenger climbing from a chaise lounge on the sunny balcony, wearing only a tiny red Speedo stretched by a bobbing erection that had to be the result of some kind of prescription medication. Super-classy, Peter thought. He was sure there would be a bottle of knockoff Viagra somewhere in the apartment. “Hi, Gary. Remember me?”
If Bevel was startled at the intruders, he didn’t let it show. Instead he just smiled and said, “Hello, friend. How can I help you?”
His eyes were still magnetic, his face still warm and expressive. Peter wanted to throw him off the balcony and shoot him as he fell.
Instead he caught the man’s wrist in a control grip and frog-marched him into the living room, where Manny kicked him in theballs, then dropped him on the Persian rug, rolled him over, stuck a syringe into his butt cheek, and pressed the plunger.
Peter returned to Durant, bleeding on the white floor tiles while Lewis stood over him. Durant’s tanned face had gone pale. There was a lot of blood. He wouldn’t last long. Peter’s leg shot had nicked something important. He didn’t care. “Looks like you traded your integrity for a couple of hookers and a nice apartment. How’s that working for you now, Captain?”
Durant stared up at him, dark-eyed and stern. “The Movement will go on without us.”
“No, it won’t.” Peter leveled his pistol at Durant’s head. “Kitzinger says hello, by the way.” Then he pulled the trigger.
Lewis had already closed the apartment door so the neighbors wouldn’t hear the ruckus and call the police. He found a set of apartment keys in Durant’s pocket, then went down to the Rover to bring up the wheelchair.
Gary was awake but compliant, thankfully speechless, and blinking like a man just emerging from the deepest cave in the world. The drug was a hypnotic cocktail often used to subdue schizophrenic patients in a mental ward. Peter was going to say something to him but decided not to waste his breath. The man was either delusional or a con man of the first order. Or possibly both.
Peter searched the apartment for electronics, financial documents, and whatever else might be of use, throwing it all into an alligator valise from the closet. Manny found a kimono in the bathroom and wrapped Gary up like he was headed to the beach. When Lewis returned, they loaded the man in the wheelchair, slapped sunglasses on his face and a straw hat on his head, and took him down the elevator.
