I rushed to turn the body over. We couldn’t see the face, just a shock of black hair. My instinctive thought was Pedro. I was wrong.
‘My God,’ said Julia. ‘It’s the Syrian.’
We looked into the contorted face of Khalid Attirmi. He had been dead for quite a time but had not died quickly. Our rescue of him at his hotel had been a short-lived favour. His body was bent peculiarly, as if he’d been stuffed into a box before rigor mortis set in.
‘We’d better search the place.’
Julia turned to the desk, which was standing, apparently untouched, beside the wall. She uttered an exclamation of surprise. I turned to see her holding a piece of paper.
‘It’s a note,’ she said, ‘for you.’
There were just a few lines. My name. An address in Gavea. And Pedro’s signature. Nothing else.
‘Is it Pedro’s writing?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
Why should Pedro leave a note like that? And if he’d gone to Gavea why was his car outside? It was possible he’d been the person who left as we arrived. But why would he do that and where had he been since last night?
I turned to examine the metal cabinet; it was locked. Julia tossed over the key which had been lying on the desk. As I unlocked it I felt something pushing against the door: it was another body, alive but unconscious. One of Allenberg’s men fell on to the floor, bound but not gagged.
Julia was starting to check his pockets when we heard the wail of a police siren.
‘Could they be coming here?’
‘I’ve no idea. Let’s sit in the car until they’ve passed.’
We ran down the stairs and out through the back. The siren drew nearer.
‘Let’s go.’
As we moved off, a police car stopped at the front. They must have paid attention to my call to Fitzwarren.
‘Do we try that address?’ Julia asked.
‘I suppose so.’
‘Where is Gavea?’
‘It’s out beyond Leblon on the ocean. Very expensive. Home to Rio’s most exclusive golf club.’
We headed west. My reasoning said that the Gavea address was a wild goose chase at best, a trap at worst. Was the message really from Pedro? How would he have known I was going to visit the warehouse? If Pedro had been kidnapped he couldn’t have left a message in full view and he wouldn’t have known where he was going. If Pedro had gone voluntarily why hadn’t he taken his car? And who was driving the red car that had been parked outside the warehouse when we arrived? Perhaps the message was really written by that man, not Pedro, and was intended to lure us into something we would be better to avoid.
We passed out of Leblon on the Avenida Niemeyer, named after Brazil’s foremost architect and hacked out of the rock and jungle that descend into the ocean. To our left waves pounded on to fangs of rock a hundred feet below. We passed the huge favela of Rocinha, a sprawling slum of closely packed cardboard and wooden shacks clinging perilously to the hillside. Before us the Pedra da Gavea rose nearly 3 000 feet, a green jumble of stone against the skyline.
Fortunately our street map covered Gavea. We passed the twenty-seven storeyed, 600-roomed Sheraton Hotel.
‘Strange shape,’ Julia grimaced, glancing at the upside down L-shaped building beside the ocean. I agreed: when I was here on holiday I had arranged to meet someone in the lobby which turned out to be on the sixth floor.
We swung inland, climbing away from the sea but with occasional glimpsed panoramas over what had once been a peaceful village but was now dominated by hotels like the Sheraton and Oscar Niemeyer’s twenty-six storey, round, black glass tower – the Rio Nacional.
We stopped on a gently sloping hillside and Julia pointed out our position on the map.
‘The house is along this road, probably another 500 yards. There’s a road behind it which must be just over the crest of the ridge. Perhaps we should go along there and approach the house from the rear.’
‘Let’s look at the front first. We don’t want to go in the back while everyone escapes through the front.’
‘Like the warehouse.’
‘Right. We can always go round the back if the front gives no cover.’
We approached on foot. The house was set well back from the road: a modern two-storey building, square and squat. There were ornamental trees and bushes along the drive and dotted around the lawn. The hill behind the house was densely packed with vegetation. It was not an ideal hideout and instinctively I felt we’d been led up a blind alley.
I was wrong.
We were halfway up the drive, hopping from cover to cover, when a man emerged from the front door. We froze, thinking we’d been spotted. But without glancing in our direction he walked to a small garage standing beside the house. It was one of the Allenberg group.
He swung the garage door open. Moments later a green Volkswagen Beetle emerged and stopped in front of the house. The man went back inside, apparently leaving the keys in the ignition.
I was considering grabbing the keys to stop him leaving but Julia had read my thoughts.
‘Let him go. The less people in the house when we go in the better.’
We moved forward, using every scrap of cover available. We knelt behind a large clump of feijoa bushes near the front of the house, hidden behind a mass of grey-green leaves. Soon the man reappeared, this time gun in hand. Another figure emerged from the house, someone I’d been half expecting: Captain Mackenzie. In his arms he was carrying Pedro – dead or drugged. He was followed by another man, also gun in hand.
‘We’ve got to take them,’ I whispered.
Mackenzie walked effortlessly to the car, as if carrying a sack of feathers, and put Pedro’s lifeless form on the back seat. Mackenzie and the two other men were about twenty yards away, grouped around the car. None of them were looking in our direction.
I stepped out from behind the shrubs. Nobody saw me leaving cover but after I’d walked a few yards one of them swung towards me. He must have caught the flash of movement in the corner of his eye.
‘Hold it right there,’ I shouted. ‘You’re surrounded.’
‘Drop those guns,’ Julia echoed, running in a crouch along the wall of the house.
The men stopped in their tracks, then dropped their guns and slowly raised their hands. I told them to move away from the car and they sullenly obeyed.
Mackenzie stepped towards one of the others and suddenly gave him a violent push in my direction. The man lurched between us blocking my line of fire. Julia could see Mackenzie clearly, but she must have had her attention elsewhere for he was around the corner of the house before she reacted.
‘He’s mine!’ she shouted, jumping after him.
I moved in front of the Volkswagen, motioning the men to stand against the wall. They were about ten yards away. As I stooped to pick up their weapons a flowerpot came hurtling towards me. It had evidently been resting on a window ledge one of the men was leaning against: I’d completely overlooked it. I jumped and, straightening up, levelled the Luger at the man who’d thrown the pot. He was standing perfectly still looking at the dent he’d made in the wing of the car. His companion had disappeared into the house. At that moment Julia returned.
‘Get into the car,’ I shouted, scooping up the guns and throwing them into the Volkswagen. I kept my own weapon aimed at our one remaining prisoner while Julia started up. As we spurted down the driveway the man rushed into the house to join his colleague. We expected a fusillade of shots: nothing came.
We were on to the road before I remembered the body in the back. I fumbled for Pedro’s wrist. There was a pulse, but weak.
‘He’s alive, drugged. He could be out for hours.’
‘Any injuries?’
‘A bruise on the forehead. There don’t seem to be any other marks.’
‘Let’s get off this road,’ said Julia, when we reached my car. ‘I’ll try to find a secluded spot, and we can take a closer look at him. You follow.’
It took ten minutes to find a deserted stretch of road. I jammed my car in behind the Volkswagen. Julia was already examining Pedro’s inert form.
‘He’s out cold all right. They’ve given him a massive dose of something. I don’t think he needs urgent attention. We ought to get him to bed and then call a doctor. Although I don’t suppose it will make much difference to him whether he’s in bed or the back of a car. We might as well drive him home.
‘Who were they?’ Julia continued. ‘We still don’t know who those men were.’
‘And we don’t know what part Mackenzie is playing.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Was he in with them?’ I asked. ‘Or did they have their guns out to stop him running away? They didn’t look around very carefully when they came out of the house, yet they both carried weapons as if they expected something. And Mackenzie’s first preoccupation seemed to be to escape himself. As far as I could see he made no attempt to help the others. Did you see which way he went, back into the house or into the trees?’
‘I couldn’t say. He vanished around the corner of the house but when I got there he’d gone. The trees were close, he could have reached them in the time it took me to run to the back.’ She paused. ‘What shall we do now? Shall I take Pedro home while you go back and take another look at that house?’
That was the last thing I felt like doing but it was a sensible suggestion. Allenberg’s men were the major unknown we faced. They could wreck any plans we made. If I could only overhear a short conversation, or find something they’d written, I could discover their native language which might tell me who they were. At the moment I hadn’t the slightest idea. But I decided against going back.
‘They’ll be on their guard now. And if they’ve deserted the house they won’t be leaving anything useful behind.’
‘You think they were planning to leave the house completely?’
‘Don’t you? They probably phoned the warehouse to find a policeman answering and immediately started a prearranged emergency procedure. Why else would they be moving Pedro?’
‘That’s reasonable. It’s strange that a group as professional as they seem to be should have chosen such a bad hideout. We could have approached that house from almost any direction without being seen.’
‘That’s true. But house-hunting in Rio is awful. They were probably overconfident, they didn’t expect to be tumbled.’
‘Do you know where Pedro lives?’ Julia asked. ‘We ought to be getting him home now.’
‘Leblon, a few miles back along the coast. I’ll take him there. You go out to the villa. Those men we left back there may be watching Pedro’s home, or alternatively Gomes may be. I’d prefer to keep you away from that.’
Julia looked at me with an expression I had come to recognise but not understand. A sort of fond irritation.
‘Thomas that’s very gentlemanly of you but we should get one thing clear. You don’t outrank me. I’ll let you take Pedro home because I do need to familiarise myself with the villa and the route out there.’
I could only nod my acquiescence.
‘Have you got the radio receiver with you so you can tell if Gonçalves planted those bugs?’ I asked.
‘Of course.’ Julia burrowed in her sack-like handbag and produced a transistorised receiver. She also produced the map. ‘Show me how to get to the villa.’
‘Right. It’s about forty-five miles as the crow flies, but you won’t be flying. You’ll see what I meant about Rio running out of flat land. There are hills all across the city so go inland. Drive north through the tunnel. Keep going roughly north or north-west, parallel to the coast, and follow the signs to Duque de Caxias. From there it’s easy. Take the Petrópolis road for twenty-six kilometres, then left towards Barra do Pirai. Keep going for ten miles until you reach a fork, the villa is just beyond that on the right-hand road.’
‘I should be able to tune into the bugs near the fork then.’
‘Perhaps even earlier. Don’t risk going past the villa itself. Gomes may be checking the traffic.’
‘What happens after that?’
‘Phone me. There’s a phone just off the Barra do Pirai turn-off on the Petrópolis road. It’s just a shack with the owner sleeping at the back, he’ll stay open late. We’d better set a definite time for the call.’
‘I’ll phone at eight,’ Julia suggested.
‘Make it eight-fifteen.’
‘Right. You’ll be at Pedro’s house?’
‘No. I want to get back into the city. You take my Ford and I’ll stick with this Volkswagen. Where’s the car you borrowed from Pedro?’
‘At the hairdressing salon.’
‘Let me have the keys. I’ll drop Pedro off and perhaps wait to see what the doctor says, then exchange the Beetle for Pedro’s car and go to the apartment. Call me there. If I have time I might do a little checking on Captain Mackenzie.’
‘You’re not going back to the house where we found Pedro?’
‘There isn’t time. Our top priority is the villa. Pedro put a couple of walkie-talkies in the boot of my Ford. I’ll take one, you keep the other. If Gonçalves has planted the bugs you find a place to hide within radio range of the villa. Let me know where it is when you phone and I’ll meet you there. We can use the walkie-talkies if there are problems when I get out there.’
‘And if Gonçalves hasn’t planted the bugs?’
‘Let’s cross that hurdle when we get to it.’
As we got out of the Volkswagen Julia had another thought. ‘I’ll put those two guns we took off Pedro’s captors in the hiding place in the Ford.’
‘That’s not a bad idea, but I’ll keep one of them.’
We’d been in such a hurry before that we hadn’t examined the guns. That was a mistake. One was a nine millimetre Beretta which I slipped into my pocket. The other was quite different. Either the gods of coincidence were smiling deceptively or it was my friend from the night before. Dwarfing Julia’s palm was a Colt Trooper Mark III Magnum, the six-inch barrel version weighing forty-two ounces. She flipped it open to reveal the .375 Remington 125 grain semi-jacketed hollow point ammunition. That was certainly capable of inflicting the damage I’d seen outside the villa.
But if Pedro’s captors were on my side why would they kidnap Pedro who was also on my side – or supposed to be?