Chapter 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.
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’d given 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 the balls, 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.
The girls were long gone. In the lobby, the security men turned away, pretending they didn’t see a thing.
Outside in the heat, a passing cop stopped and opened the Rover’s door so they could lift the glassy-eyed old man into the car. He even offered to load the wheelchair in the back. “Obrigado,” Lewis said, smiling. “Muito gentil.”
The sky was blue, but a line of clouds gathered on the horizon.
Peter drove directly to Santos Dumont airport and pulled into the FBO facility, giving the guard at the gate a false name.
The guard saluted and pointed them toward the VIP apron, where a plain white jet, newer than the others waiting there, stood apart from the rest.
As the Rover came to a stop, the cabin door opened and Faraday, wearing a cast on his injured lower leg, leaned out to deploy the integrated steps.
Peter handed up his duffel and the alligator valise.
Manny slung Gary over one shoulder and carried him up the steps into the aircraft.
Lewis set the rest of their gear on the tarmac, then got back in the Range Rover and drove it toward the parking area, where the rental company would pick it up later.
The line of clouds was closer now. On the sun-blasted pavement, the tropical heat was thick with humidity. Peter handed up the remaining equipment to Faraday, who said, “Mr. Wilkinson’s lawyer is on the phone with the FBI director right now. A team will meet us at Leesburg FBO when we land.”
They still didn’t know how Gary Bevel had slipped the noose in Mexico City. They didn’t have a complete list of his US and overseas contacts, either. “Just tell me this asshole won’t end up at some Club Fed,” Peter said. “We don’t want him to spread his bullshit to a whole new audience.”
Faraday shook his head. “Nobody wants that. The feds are going to suck every last shred of intel out of him, learn about all the other freaky groups he knows, then lock him in a very deep hole and throw away the key.”
Peter didn’t particularly trust the feds not to screw this up.
If Bevel was to be believed, he had allies everywhere.
And if some grandstanding subcommittee chair called for congressional hearings and people started to cover their asses rather than do the right thing, the situation could go south in a hurry.
Regardless, the feds were the only ones in a position to actually act on what they learned.
And Peter still believed in the rule of law, even if it didn’t always work as well as he’d like.
And when it didn’t?
Peter would continue to live by the code of conduct he’d set for himself many years ago.
No matter how screwed up things got, that code was his North Star.
Take care of the people you love. Protect the people who can’t protect themselves.
Do the right thing, even when it hurts. Because liars and cheats are always temporary. Integrity is the only thing that lasts.
Faraday ducked back into the cabin and the engines began to wind up.
Now Peter could see the slanting gray shadow of rain falling from the approaching line of clouds.
As the squall blew toward them, the land darkened below.
The clouds grew closer, the flash of lightning followed quickly by the rumble of thunder.
Soon he could see the heavy droplets advancing down the runway, splashing off the wet pavement as the water accumulated faster than it could drain away.
He turned back toward the parking area and watched as Lewis jogged across the tarmac, loose and lean in the tropical heat.
He arrived ahead of the squall, his timing excellent as always. Halfway up the airplane steps, he turned to Peter, who remained on the ground in the rising wind, watching the storm come. “Let’s go, brother. We want to beat this storm, we gotta get moving.”
“On my way.” Peter took one last look at the darkness sweeping toward them, then headed for the jet.