Silent Assassin(75)

“Oh,” she said, sitting up. “So early.” The sheet fell about her lap, exposing her ample breasts.

He touched his toes, then ran in place for ten seconds.

“Why don’t you come back to bed?” she said languidly.

“I’m not sleepy anymore.”

“Who said anything about sleep?”

He turned to see her mischievous smile, with all those pearly white teeth. He grinned back, and climbed onto the bed. He ran his hands over her skin. They kissed, deeply, fiercely. She grabbed his hair, he grabbed hers, and they fell on the bed together, bodies tangling.

An hour later, Conley stepped out of the shower, and she was already putting on a white low-cut sundress.

First, he called Chico, an agent with Brazilian Intelligence who was collaborating with him.

“Nothing new here, Cougar,” Chico told him. “I mean, we got a couple of new drug murders up in the favelas.” That was the proper term for the slums of Rio. “BOPE ran an operation today, might be you’ll want to take that up with them.” Short for Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais, BOPE was the group primarily responsible for running crime suppression and antidrug operations in the favelas, and the few who had the guts and the guns to face the informal armies of the drug lords.

“All right, bud,” Conley said. “Just let me know if anything . . . out of the ordinary turns up, will you?”

“It’s the first thing I’ll do.”

Next, he tried to call up Captain Siqueira, from BOPE. He was told that the captain wasn’t coming in until a few hours later. There was nothing Conley could do, so he went for a run on the beach

It was a pleasant day, and people filled the calçadão, the broad boardwalk that ran along the beach. Young and old, rich and poor, shared this space, many shirtless, lean bodies basking in the sun. Conley jogged steadily, the sun hot on his shoulders and the salty wind blowing in his face, his sneakers hitting the stones that made up the boardwalk, which were black and white and arranged in a pattern that resembled waves. He made it all the way down the beach, and stopped for another stretch. As he pulled his foot against his thigh, a young man in shorts and a tank top came toward him, then pulled out a small knife.

“Perdeu, gringo,” he said, brandishing the blade.

Conley looked at him blankly. He was just a kid, definitely no older than eighteen, with tan skin and hair dyed an ugly golden-blond. He had a defiant look on his face, of triumphant self-satisfaction. Conley knew the type. One of those who grew up in the favelas a little too impressed with the money and power of the drug dealers, out either to prove himself or to make a little cash to buy some small luxury, like expensive sneakers or a videogame.

“Money,” the kid insisted impatiently. He pronounced it mo-neigh. “Money!”

Conley grabbed the wrist on the kid’s knife hand and twisted. The blade clattered on the ground. Then he kneed him in the abdomen and kicked his legs from below him. The kid fell to the ground, groaning in pain.

“Take this as a lesson, kid,” said Conley in Portuguese. “Turn your life around. Or the next guy could be the death of you.”

He got out of there, leaving the kid still in pain on the ground. There was a crowd forming around him already, and he didn’t want any extra attention.

He got quickly back to the apartment and showered again, putting on some fresh clothes. It was a twenty-minute drive to the BOPE headquarters. At the gate was a sign that said, VISITORS WELCOME, BUT MAKE NO SUDDEN MOVES, along with the familiar BOPE emblem: a skull crossed by two handguns with a knife stuck vertically through the bone.

The guard at the door waved him inside, and he drove in. He found parking, walked inside, and told reception whom he was there to meet. Soon enough, a square-faced, pug-nosed man in a black T-shirt and black military fatigues walked out.

“Capitão Siqueira,” said Conley, warmly.

“Our American friend,” he said. “Conley. What brings you here today?”

“I’m told you were running an operation today. I thought I’d come check in and see how it went.”

“Our boys just got back. We raided the house of a lieutenant from Paulinho AK’s outfit.”

“How did it go?”

“We captured the son of a bitch, and then another one to boot,” said Siqueira. “Popped a couple of their soldiers in the process.”

“Not bad,” said Conley.

“All in a day’s work for the skull,” he said laughing. Siqueira walked him to one of their interrogation rooms, where a thin, jittery man with curly brown hair who sported a big scar on his left cheek was sitting. He looked bruised and cut, with a fat lip and a black eye. There was blood on his shirt, still red and not quite dried.