That Time in Rio Read online

  That Time in Rio

  A Wolfgang Pierce Novella

  Logan Ryles

  Contents

  Also by Logan Ryles

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Wolfgang Returns in…

  That Time in Tokyo

  Ready for more?

  About the Author

  Also by Logan Ryles

  End Page

  Copyright © 2021 by Logan Ryles. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  THAT TIME IN RIO is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Control Number:

  Published by Ryker Morgan Publishing.

  Cover design by German Creative.

  Also by Logan Ryles

  The Wolfgang Pierce Novella Series

  Prequel: That Time in Appalachia (coming soon)

  Book 1: That Time in Paris

  Book 2: That Time in Cairo

  Book 3: That Time in Moscow

  Book 4: That Time in Rio

  Book 5: That Time in Tokyo (coming June 4)

  Book 6: That Time in Sydney (coming June 18)

  The Reed Montgomery Thriller Series

  Prequel: Sandbox, a short story (read for free at LoganRyles.com)

  Book 1: Overwatch

  Book 2: Hunt to Kill

  Book 3: Total War

  Book 4: Smoke & Mirrors

  Book 5: Survivor

  Book 6: Death Cycle (coming soon)

  Book 7: Sundown (coming soon)

  Visit LoganRyles.com to receive a free copy of Sandbox.

  The Wolfgang Pierce Novella Series is dedicated to:

  Abby and Naomi, my original super fans, and two of the coolest people I know.

  Thanks for keeping me inspired.

  “You walk off the plane in Rio,

  and your blood temperature goes up.”

  - Amy Irving

  1

  November, 2011

  “We’re going to Rio.”

  Wolfgang swiveled one of the leather-clad captain’s chairs toward the aisle of the private jet and stared down at the map Edric spread across the carpet. It depicted Rio de Janeiro in detail, with highlights of streets and key landmarks.

  “The director’s daughter has been kidnapped,” Edric said. “More details are on the way, but it seems she was vacationing on winter break in Rio when her private car was hijacked outside her hotel.”

  “She didn’t have security?” said Kevin, Charlie Team’s muscleman and disgruntled driver.

  Edric looked up. “She did. Two ex-military contractors. Both DOA.”

  Wolfgang winced and scanned the faces of the other two members of his team: Lyle, the wiry and awkward tech wiz cliché with smudged glasses, and Megan, Charlie Team’s ground leader. Megan was the most senior member of the team after Edric, with enough skills and smarts to execute missions blindfolded. She was petite and elegant, with red hair and grey eyes that Wolfgang lost himself in during all the worst moments.

  “There was a fight?” Megan asked.

  “Yep,” Edric said. “The vehicle was assaulted by at least four shooters. The first guard was hit by multiple large-caliber rounds through the windshield. The second guard took two rounds to the chest while attempting to return fire. As far as we know, the hit team took no casualties. After gunning down the guards, they took the target and evacuated in a waiting van.” Edric ran the back of his hand across his forehead. His face—still bruised and dirty from an unplanned confrontation with the SVR in Moscow—was lined with exhaustion and stress, but his posture remained upright and engaged.

  “Who is the target, again?” Wolfgang asked.

  Edric reached into a duffle bag and produced an iPad. He navigated to a secure email server and opened an attached file. “Rose K. Obviously, her last name is classified. She’s the director’s daughter and only child.”

  Edric flipped the iPad around, displaying a full-frame photograph of a teenage girl, maybe sixteen or seventeen years old. She had a dark complexion matched with cocoa-colored hair and wore a preparatory school uniform, although the identifying badge had been blurred out. Rose smiled so brightly that the whole room around her seemed to glow.

  “The director sent his teenage daughter on vacation to Rio?” Kevin asked.

  Edric shrugged. “Seems so. She went with two friends from school, both of whom were recovered. Rose was alone at the time of the assault.”

  Wolfgang rubbed his chin and studied the photograph. He looked beyond the smile and the girlish charm and wondered what he was missing. After three high-stakes missions with Charlie Team, Wolfgang knew nothing was what it appeared to be. In Paris, Cairo, and then Moscow, the tables had shifted beneath his feet, exposing him to altogether different realities than he had been briefed on.

  “Do we have intel on any possible motive?” Wolfgang asked.

  “The director’s daughter was kidnapped,” Kevin snorted. “The motive is obvious. Somebody’s going after SPIRE.”

  Wolfgang chewed a fingernail, still staring at the photograph. He thought about his six months with SPIRE and realized this was the first time that the director—the shadowy shot-caller who ran SPIRE—had ever been a topic of conversation. Wolfgang had been so caught up in the thrills of his job, not to mention the generous paychecks, that he’d never stopped to consider who he was working for. Charlie Team worked for SPIRE—a private company specializing in subterfuge, procurement, infiltration, retaliation, and entrapment. That was enough.

  “It’s a good question,” Megan said. “We assume because Rose is the director’s daughter, that this is an attack on SPIRE, but I’m sure the director is wealthy. This could be about money.”

  Edric shook his head. “Unfortunately, it’s not.” He tapped on the iPad’s screen, then flipped it around again.

  The screen displayed another image of Rose, but this time, she wasn’t smiling, and she wasn’t wearing a school uniform. In fact, she wasn’t wearing anything except dirty undergarments stained with traces of what looked like blood. She stood with her back pressed against a concrete wall—her hair disheveled and her makeup streaked with tear trails—while holding a local newspaper over her chest, the date displayed at the top. At the bottom of the photograph, a string of words was written in a foreign language.

  “It’s Portuguese,” Edric said. “The national language of Brazil. The translation is, ‘We demand immediate, unrestricted publication of all SPIRE operational files. You have twenty-four hours.’”

  Nobody said anything. Wolfgang was transfixed by the photo, but this time he didn’t see a carefree teenager posing for her yearbook snapshot. Instead, he imagined the haunted soul of a terrified child, lost and alone, staring into the masked faces of people who were ready and willing to kill her.

  “Shit,” Kevin muttered.

  Edric set the iPad down, then got to his feet and walked to the minibar, wincing as he moved.

  Wolfgang figured Edric was still sore from his interrogation by the Russians, and probably exhausted, too. They all were. None of them had slept in over twent
y hours.

  Edric poured himself a bourbon, then settled into a chair. “Okay, so here’s the deal. We’ve got twenty hours of flight time between us and Rio. You can do the math. That picture is an hour old, so after we land, we’ll only have three hours before the deadline.”

  “Is SPIRE in communication with the kidnappers?” Megan asked.

  Edric held both palms up. “I have no idea. Our mission brief contains only the details I’ve shared with you. If I had to guess, I’d say they’re trying. Any time they can buy us will be priceless, but these guys are clearly professionals and absolutely out for blood. We need to assume that we have only three hours after landing to make a play.”

  “In Rio?” Kevin said.

  “Hopefully. By the time we land, the kidnappers could be anywhere in the western hemisphere. We do have one thing going for us, however. Rose wore a necklace equipped with a GPS tracking device. The necklace isn’t visible in the ransom demand, but we’re still getting a strong signal from it pinpointing a location on the outskirts of Rio. Our current rationale is that the kidnappers took the necklace when they stripped her clothes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the device has been lost or that they know about it. At this time, it’s our best lead.”

  “Did headquarters send the tracker’s data identifier with the mission brief?” Lyle said. “I’d like to establish a link and begin monitoring it.”

  “Check your email. Already there.”

  Lyle ducked his head and tapped on his laptop.

  “Our directive is clear,” Edric said. “We’ve got to recover the director’s daughter by any means necessary. SPIRE does not negotiate with terrorists. The caliber of missions this organization has engaged in over the past decade are both highly classified, and in some cases, illegal. They involve the national security of multiple nations, and details of those operations cannot and will not be divulged.”

  “So, what’s the plan?” Wolfgang said.

  Edric finished the bourbon, then cleared his throat. “First, we rest. I need all of you at your absolute best. This won’t be like our other missions. We won’t walk away from this one without some fireworks. I’m setting combat protocol to Code Red.”

  Kevin grimaced, but no one said a thing.

  In Wolfgang’s three missions with Charlie Team, he’d experienced Code Yellow—no weapons, no combat—and Code Orange—armed, but only fire if fired upon. He’d never encountered Code Red before, a protocol that could be summarized in a simple phrase: use any force necessary.

  “Once we land, we’ll meet a local supplier and get equipped. Rio is a civilized city, but it’s surrounded by massive, unpoliced neighborhoods that can be as unpredictable and violent as the Middle East. My guess is that Rose K. is held in one of those neighborhoods, babysat by an army of mercenaries.”

  Edric walked to the aft cabin of the plane and put a hand on the door. “Get some sleep. Might be your last chance for days.”

  2

  Wolfgang tried to sleep, but even after the exhausting tumult of the Moscow mission only hours behind him, his mind refused to shut down. He leaned back in one of the comfortable captain’s chairs and put on a sleep mask, drawing deep breaths and counting sheep, but after thirty minutes, he was as awake and alert as an hour prior. Wolfgang’s final straw was Kevin slurping down three fingers of bourbon before collapsing in the tail of the plane and commencing to snore like the buzz of a chainsaw, at which point Wolfgang sat up and ripped his mask off.

  The cabin lights of the plane were turned dim, and Lyle still sat in the corner with his laptop propped on his knees, puffy headphones clamped over his ears. His eyes reflected the blue light of the screen, and Wolfgang wondered if the tech wiz ever slept.

  Megan sat at the plane’s solitary table—a narrow surface between two captain’s chairs—and studied an array of maps, a pencil in one hand and a notebook resting next to her elbow. Her hair was tucked behind her ears, and she chewed on the eraser of the pencil between scribbling on the notepad.

  Wolfgang made his way to the minibar, selected a Sprite, and sat down on the opposite side of the table. Megan looked up, and Wolfgang held out the Sprite.

  “No thanks,” she said, turning back to the maps.

  Wolfgang cracked the can open and took a long sip. The rush of sugar and carbonation jarred his system, further isolating any hopes of slumber. “What do you think?” he asked.

  Megan said nothing, tracing the tip of the pencil around the outskirts of the city displayed on the map. Wolfgang could tell it was Rio by the outlines of city streets that clustered next to the coast before creeping into mountains west of downtown. He wasn’t surprised to see Megan studying the map, and a quick glance at her notes confirmed what he already knew to be true—she was hard at work assimilating every possible fact about the city: demographics, street structure, the locations of key buildings and landmarks, and the quickest route of escape if things went sideways.

  Megan performed this research ritual prior to every mission, studying their target city to a detail that would make a travel nerd blush. After three missions working at her side, Wolfgang recognized the benefit of it. A comprehensive knowledge of her mission locale often proved to be the secret weapon that kept the whole operation from imploding.

  Megan set the pencil down and yawned. She stared at Wolfgang a moment, then cocked her head. “What do you think?”

  The question surprised Wolfgang. It was the first time Megan had ever looked to him for direct input, and somehow, the gesture made him uncomfortable. He sipped the Sprite to stall for time. “I think . . .” He hesitated some more, then shrugged. “I think that wherever that necklace is, it’s not a place we want to stumble up to like Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

  “The same could be said for most of Rio.”

  “That bad? Show me.”

  Megan gestured to the map with her pencil. “A little under seven million people live in metro Rio de Janeiro, making it the second-most populous city in Brazil. Those seven million souls are spread out over an area just over seventeen hundred square miles, most of it mountainous and unsuited to proper streets and buildings. Rio itself is divided into four governmental zones—West, North, South, and Central.”

  Megan beckoned for Wolfgang’s Sprite, took a sip, then pointed to the map with the pencil. “The Central Zone consists of the core of the city, including downtown and the financial district. The South Zone is situated south of the Central, along the Atlantic coast. All your postcard shots of Rio beaches are from the South Zone, but there’s some community living built in, as well.”

  She moved the pencil inland from the coast and gestured with it to a sprawling area of metropolis. “The West Zone is by far the largest, consisting of roughly fifty percent of the city’s total area. It contains a number of lower and middle-class neighborhoods, industrial centers, a couple parks, and a smattering of tourist attractions.”

  Again, she moved the pencil, this time indicating a small area just north of the bay. She tapped the spot, and her voice lowered. “This is the North Zone. It’s home to the Maracanã football stadium, along with Rio’s most iconic landmark, the Redeemer statue.”

  “Christ on the mountaintop, with his arms spread?” Wolfgang asked.

  “Right. But beneath all that, built along the hillside, there’s something a lot less tourist friendly. Are you familiar with the term favela?”

  Wolfgang squinted. He’d heard the word before but couldn’t place it. “Not really.”

  “It’s Portuguese. Roughly translated, it means a shantytown, or a slum. We don’t really have anything like it in America. The Cliffs Notes history is that over the past century, poverty-stricken residents with no proper homes moved into the hills of the North Zone and built themselves a community out of scraps. Bits of tin, wood, tarp—whatever they could find. These structures are illegally constructed by the thousands, clinging to the hillsides and stacked on top of one another to form a city within a city. Most of them don’t have electric
ity or running water. Those that do often siphon it illegally from the main water and electric lines that serve Rio. Most of Rio’s favelas are arranged on the hillsides of the North Zone, overlooking downtown and the bay.”

  “You keep saying favelas. Plural. How many are there?”

  Megan shrugged. “There’s around a thousand of them in Rio alone. The biggest of them is called Rocinha and is home to about a hundred thousand people.”

  Wolfgang let out a low whistle. The sheer gravity of the number was difficult to wrap his mind around. He tried to imagine the population of good-sized city living in shacks built along a mountainside and still couldn’t picture it. It was just too abstract.

  “Of course, it gets worse,” Megan said. “You don’t pack over a hundred thousand people into a shantytown full of illegal housing without creating a hotbed for organized and violent crime. The favelas are, for all intents and purposes, lawless. They’re run by completely self-sustained, brute-force governments, usually under the control of whatever drug dealer or militia is running the show at the time. Many of those militias and drug gangs are rivals, of course, so even if the residents of a given favela recognize the authority of the gang and enjoy protection from them, that doesn’t stop another gang from mounting a territorial attack. The Brazilian police have made multiple attempts to move in and regain control of the favelas, most notably with their Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora, or Police Pacification Units, beginning three years ago in two thousand eight. Such efforts have met with varying success. Favela residents, by and large, distrust police, and many of the favelas are still under complete control of the drug cartels. Homicide, rape, and everything in between is the heartbeat of favela life. These aren’t safe places.”