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Authors: James Patterson
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this morning. I thought I’d leave you to sleep. I can drive you to meet her.’
When I arrive at the school, I wonder if Paz has been dreaming too, because she looks tired and careworn.
‘Let’s go eat,’ she says. ‘Food fixes everything.’
There’s a street vendor selling hot food halfway between Felipe’s school and the police station. Paz pulls over and I order two egg-and-meat burgers and we eat them at the side of the road.
‘This investigation is killing my diet.’
I look up from my burger.
‘Tastes good, though, right?’
We get stuck in, the egg yolk bursting as I bite into my burger. It’s impossible for my mood not to lift.
‘What’s the plan?’
I take another bite of my burger to buy some time. I have a mobile-phone number that links Gilmore to Zou, and a chain ofevents that link both of them to Meyer and Witt. But I can’t trace the mobile and nobody’s picking up the phone. We had a suspect in Galina Orlov, but she’s fallen through. So the truth is: I don’t have a plan.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and take a breath, but before I get a chance to say anything, my phone rings. It’s the precinct. There’s been a report that a British athlete is threatening to jump from the Vista Chinesa, a huge bamboo pagoda up in the mountains.
‘New plan,’ I tell Paz as we head back to the car. ‘The guy’s name is Steve Lewis, and apparently he knows why Oliver Witt went crazy.’
PART 4
STEVE LEWIS
CHAPTER 19
PAZ IS STILL eating her burger as she drives hard along the Alto da Boa Vista. We’re climbing away from the sea and into the mountains, the air getting cooler and thinner as we go.
‘Well, that explains why he’s at the Vista Chinesa,’ I say from the passenger seat as I scroll through an Internet search. ‘Steve Lewis is a British cyclist. The pagoda is on the route of the road race.’
‘Jesus!’ says Paz, glancing across at my screen. ‘Look at those thighs. They’re like tree trunks.’
Her phone rings on the dashboard. She has the steering wheel in one hand and her burger in the other, so I reach over and answer it for her. It’s bad news.
‘Meyer’s dead,’ I tell her when I hang up. ‘He picked up an infection in the hospital. Off the record, the doctors are saying it might have been the best thing for him. His liver and kidneys were ruined, and probably his brain, too. If he’d ever come round, it’s unlikely he could have told us anything.’
Another dead athlete. At the wheel, Paz is looking the same way I feel. Gutted.
‘Autopsy?’
I nod.
‘But they’re not expecting anything illuminating. The bloods have already been done, and nothing has come back from the pathologist. If he was taking an undetectable drug, then it did what it said on the tin.’
Paz is driving hard and the tyres of the Fiat slide and complain as we round a tight bend. When we straighten up, we’re driving straight into the sun. Paz squints and pulls down the visor. The Vista Chinesa comes into view moments later, a two-storey hexagonal structure clinging to the edge of the jutting mountain rock and looking out over all of Rio. A clutch of thin-wheeled bicycles are resting against the bollards, and a huddle of guys in Lycra are waiting inside the pagoda. They head towards us as we get out of the car. The first guy to reach us is the only one not wearing Lycra.
‘Thank Christ you’re here,’ he says, and introduces himself as the team manager. ‘I’m Adam Wilson. We’re on a time trial, but something’s gone wrong.’
‘What, exactly?’
He struggles to put it into words.
‘Not sure. It’s Steve Lewis. He’s on the wrong side of the barrier.’
‘How long has he been there?’
The coach looks at his watch.
‘Fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty.’
I leave Paz to deal with Wilson, and head to the barrier. I’ve already made a promise: no more athletes are going to die. Steve Lewis is not going to die . I climb straight over the barrier,
When I arrive at the school, I wonder if Paz has been dreaming too, because she looks tired and careworn.
‘Let’s go eat,’ she says. ‘Food fixes everything.’
There’s a street vendor selling hot food halfway between Felipe’s school and the police station. Paz pulls over and I order two egg-and-meat burgers and we eat them at the side of the road.
‘This investigation is killing my diet.’
I look up from my burger.
‘Tastes good, though, right?’
We get stuck in, the egg yolk bursting as I bite into my burger. It’s impossible for my mood not to lift.
‘What’s the plan?’
I take another bite of my burger to buy some time. I have a mobile-phone number that links Gilmore to Zou, and a chain ofevents that link both of them to Meyer and Witt. But I can’t trace the mobile and nobody’s picking up the phone. We had a suspect in Galina Orlov, but she’s fallen through. So the truth is: I don’t have a plan.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and take a breath, but before I get a chance to say anything, my phone rings. It’s the precinct. There’s been a report that a British athlete is threatening to jump from the Vista Chinesa, a huge bamboo pagoda up in the mountains.
‘New plan,’ I tell Paz as we head back to the car. ‘The guy’s name is Steve Lewis, and apparently he knows why Oliver Witt went crazy.’
PART 4
STEVE LEWIS
CHAPTER 19
PAZ IS STILL eating her burger as she drives hard along the Alto da Boa Vista. We’re climbing away from the sea and into the mountains, the air getting cooler and thinner as we go.
‘Well, that explains why he’s at the Vista Chinesa,’ I say from the passenger seat as I scroll through an Internet search. ‘Steve Lewis is a British cyclist. The pagoda is on the route of the road race.’
‘Jesus!’ says Paz, glancing across at my screen. ‘Look at those thighs. They’re like tree trunks.’
Her phone rings on the dashboard. She has the steering wheel in one hand and her burger in the other, so I reach over and answer it for her. It’s bad news.
‘Meyer’s dead,’ I tell her when I hang up. ‘He picked up an infection in the hospital. Off the record, the doctors are saying it might have been the best thing for him. His liver and kidneys were ruined, and probably his brain, too. If he’d ever come round, it’s unlikely he could have told us anything.’
Another dead athlete. At the wheel, Paz is looking the same way I feel. Gutted.
‘Autopsy?’
I nod.
‘But they’re not expecting anything illuminating. The bloods have already been done, and nothing has come back from the pathologist. If he was taking an undetectable drug, then it did what it said on the tin.’
Paz is driving hard and the tyres of the Fiat slide and complain as we round a tight bend. When we straighten up, we’re driving straight into the sun. Paz squints and pulls down the visor. The Vista Chinesa comes into view moments later, a two-storey hexagonal structure clinging to the edge of the jutting mountain rock and looking out over all of Rio. A clutch of thin-wheeled bicycles are resting against the bollards, and a huddle of guys in Lycra are waiting inside the pagoda. They head towards us as we get out of the car. The first guy to reach us is the only one not wearing Lycra.
‘Thank Christ you’re here,’ he says, and introduces himself as the team manager. ‘I’m Adam Wilson. We’re on a time trial, but something’s gone wrong.’
‘What, exactly?’
He struggles to put it into words.
‘Not sure. It’s Steve Lewis. He’s on the wrong side of the barrier.’
‘How long has he been there?’
The coach looks at his watch.
‘Fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty.’
I leave Paz to deal with Wilson, and head to the barrier. I’ve already made a promise: no more athletes are going to die. Steve Lewis is not going to die . I climb straight over the barrier,
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