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  As the lights in the cell snapped off for the second night, the two of them settled down to go to sleep.

  ‘So say you manage to avoid jail,’ Livio said, a drowsy note creeping into his voice. ‘What are you going to do then?’

  Luiz shrugged. ‘You heard the dono earlier. I sure as hell can’t go back to Rocinha.’ He paused. ‘You reckon anyone in Santa Marta might need a driver?’

  ‘What, like the Comando Negro? You serious?’

  ‘I got to do something for money. Driving’s all I know.’

  The MC had a doubtful look on his face. ‘I don’t know, man. You’ve got balls, but we’re taking it to a whole new level.’

  ‘But if we could get out of here,’ Luiz persisted, ‘would you take me up to Santa Marta? Put a word in for me?’

  ‘We get out of here, you can sleep with my sister,’ grunted Livio.

  With that, the MC’s breathing became deeper and more even as he fell fast asleep. Luiz lay awake for hours, thinking, until finally exhaustion overtook him and he drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

  7. Hell Mouth

  They were brutally awoken by a policeman banging on the cage with his baton.

  ‘Wake up, girls,’ he shouted. ‘Time to go to your prom!’

  Livio rubbed his eyes sleepily and groaned. ‘Man, I was having the nicest dream! I was with this beautiful girl and…’

  The policeman strode over to the bench and dragged Livio to the floor.

  ‘OK, OK!’ the MC cried out, as the policeman raised his baton in the air. ‘I’m up! No need to beat the shit out of me!’

  The two boys were handcuffed and marched out of the cells. As they walked back through the main hallway, Luiz saw Juan Oliveira leaning on the reception desk.

  ‘Have a nice day, girls,’ he called out as they passed. ‘Don’t worry – there’ll be lots of men in prison to keep you warm.’

  ‘Go screw yourself,’ Luiz spat back.

  Oliveira whirled round and punched him in the belly, knocking the air from his lungs. As the policeman wrestled him to the ground, Luiz felt him press a metal key into his palm.

  ‘You little scumbag,’ Oliveira snarled in his ear. ‘You’d better hope I don’t see you again.’

  He hauled Luiz to his feet and shoved him back to the guard.

  ‘Get them out of my sight.’

  Winded, Luiz staggered through the glass entrance alongside Livio and into the sunshine on the station steps. He had barely registered the police van waiting by the side of the road when a gunshot rang out.

  The sound shattered the bright blue morning as though it were glass. There was a shocked pause, a second when everything froze and utter silence reigned. Then another gunshot rang out and all hell broke loose.

  Passers-by began screaming, throwing themselves to the ground and covering their heads. Swearing, the policeman next to Luiz pushed him to one side and pulled a gun from his holster. He fired off a couple of return shots, aiming at a battered Ford on the other side of the street. There was a movement from behind the bonnet of the car and suddenly a third bullet flew narrowly past Luiz, smashing the Perspex doors of the police station with an earsplitting crash.

  Grabbing the sluggish form of Livio, Luiz dived to his left, hunkering down behind the low wall that ran around the front of the police station.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ the MC shouted.

  ‘Search me!’ Luiz yelled back. ‘Guess someone hates the cops more than we do.’

  Glancing around, he saw the policeman had taken cover behind the wall on the other side of the steps. From time to time the officer darted up from his cover to fire off intermittent shots, his attention fixed firmly on the mystery gunman behind the Ford. Producing the key Oliveira had stuffed into his hand, Luiz freed himself from his cuffs and then passed the key to Livio. The MC gave him a look of astonishment.

  ‘How did you…?’

  ‘Took it from the policeman when the shots began. Hurry up!’

  As Livio fumbled to undo the lock, Luiz peered over the wall and saw what he was looking for: a white scooter handily parked in front of the police van. Just where Oliveira had promised it would be.

  ‘Let’s make a break for that bike,’ he said.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ Livio hissed. ‘It’s a firefight out there.’

  ‘Do you want to go to prison?’ Luiz asked. ‘Come on!’

  He waited for a break in the shooting, then scrambled to his feet and jumped over the wall on to the pavement. Using the police van as cover, he crawled over to the scooter, then gestured frantically for Livio to follow. The MC seemed reluctant, but after a final look around him he hurriedly shambled over to the police van.

  Policemen were pouring out on to the station steps – reinforcements had finally arrived. It was now or never. Luiz dashed out into the open and leaped on to the scooter.

  ‘Get on!’ he screamed at Livio.

  As the MC bundled on to the back of the scooter, Luiz revved the handle and spurred the bike into life. With a roar it sped off down the road. There was a shout from the policemen behind them, then Luiz heard a bullet whiz over his head. He bent lower over the handlebars of the scooter and began zigzagging down the street, trying to present a difficult target. As they veered around a blue saloon, there was a pinging sound as a bullet hit the boot of the car.

  ‘Holy shit!’ Livio screamed. ‘Let’s move!’

  Luiz didn’t need to be told twice. He jammed down on the handle, urging the bike forward until it reached top speed, and the sound of gunfire fell away into the background.

  From his vantage point in the doorway of the police station, Juan Oliveira watched the two boys speed off. As they disappeared from sight, the boy on the back of the scooter whooped, raising his middle finger in the air at the policemen. Oliveira waited for a few seconds, then stepped out into the open and held up his hand. The gunshots abruptly stopped, leaving the street in a state of dazed aftershock.

  A man got up from behind the battered Ford and jogged over to Oliveira, stuffing his pistol back in his holster. Oliveira looked pointedly at the shattered door behind him.

  ‘I don’t recall telling you to destroy any doors, sergeant,’ he said mildly.

  ‘Sorry about that, sir,’ the sergeant said. ‘I pulled my shot to the left. What are you going to tell the bosses?’

  ‘Guess I’ll have to think of something.’

  ‘Apart from that, it went according to plan,’ the sergeant continued hastily. ‘We did as you ordered – put on a bit of a show. Would have looked real enough to a civilian. But short of giving the little shits directions, we couldn’t have made it any easier for them to escape. They’ll be back in the favela before you know it.’

  ‘Good.’

  An uneasy look crossed the sergeant’s face.

  ‘This doesn’t feel right, sir. Helping the bastards get away. You sure you can’t tell me what this is about?’

  Oliveira shook his head. The sergeant sighed. ‘This is crazy, boss.’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ Oliveira replied grimly, looking out in the direction of the boys.

  As the motorbike careered through the streets of Rio, Livio laughed and hollered in Luiz’s ear, shouting out insults about the police. Even though Luiz was focused on navigating the scooter through the traffic at breakneck speed, he couldn’t deny the wave of elation that was washing over him. Despite the fact that Oliveira had explained exactly how the set-up would work back at Trojan’s warehouse, it hadn’t made the gunfight feel any less real.

  Livio tapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘Hey, let me off here,’ he shouted, above the growl of the scooter’s engine. ‘There’s something I gotta do.’

  ‘What about the police?’ Luiz shouted back, as they pulled up alongside a row of shops.

  Livio shrugged. ‘If they come after me, they come after me. I got bigger worries than them.’

  ‘You want me to come with you?’

  ‘Nah – you can
get out of here.’

  As the MC turned to leave, Luiz quickly called him back. ‘Hey, wait! You just going to leave me here? You said you’d put a word in for me with the Comando Negro!’

  ‘I don’t know, Luiz,’ Livio replied, looking suddenly uncertain. ‘This might be a bad time. There’s a lot of shit going down right now.’

  ‘Come on, man! You promised!’

  Luiz held his breath as Livio bit his lip in thought. Eventually, the MC nodded.

  ‘OK. You know the way to Santa Marta?’

  Luiz nodded.

  ‘I’ll meet you at the boca in an hour. No promises, though.’ He exchanged a complicated handshake with Luiz. ‘See you then, my friend.’

  The MC sauntered away down the street. If he was worried that the police were going to catch up with him, he hid it well. Unlike Livio, Luiz knew for certain that no one would be coming after them. He drove slowly around Rio, trying to steel his jangling nerves. Although the morning had gone like clockwork, that had been arranged beforehand. In the favela, nothing was planned.

  An hour later, he steered his scooter up the steep incline that led towards Santa Marta. As the road narrowed, Luiz felt his heart begin to beat faster. It had been years since he’d last made this journey – but even so, there were certain sights he recognized: shopfronts and cafes, the mission where he and Ana had been taken in before their adoption. Now, however, the walls were plastered with a particular graffiti symbol, spray-painted in black: a cross-shaped gravestone in between the letters C and N. The message was clear. Santa Marta was Comando Negro territory.

  Outside a drinks shop, two boys were sitting on the step, warily scanning the street. Lookouts. As Luiz sped past them, one of them frowned and began talking into a radio phone. Unlike other kids, the gangs tended not to use mobiles, wary of their calls being traced. Regardless, it was bad news. After four years away, no one was going to recognize Luiz any more – and strangers didn’t try to enter the favela alone. Luiz knew that the lookout would be alerting other members of the Comando Negro, the ones standing guard further up the road at the boca do fumo – the ‘mouth of the smoke’.

  Every favela boasted at least one boca. It served as both a point of sale, where people bought their drugs from the local gangs, and a marker of the entrance to the favela. Gangs maintained bocas like security checkpoints, with lookouts and armed guards monitoring all the traffic that passed in and out of the favelas. Even the police tended not to approach the bocas unless they were intent on carrying out a raid. Beyond that point, it was the gangs’ law that mattered.

  Up ahead, the road banked sharply, creating a narrow funnel where it curved to the right. There was a building on the corner at the narrowest point, sandbags piled up around its base. A group of boys were milling around the doorway, openly parading their guns. Some were carrying satchels: they would be filled, Luiz knew, with one-gram wraps of cocaine in clear plastic bags.

  As he approached, one of the boys stepped forward, levelled his firearm at him and shouted at Luiz to stop. Luiz recognized the weapon from one of Richard Madison’s training sessions – an FAL self-loading rifle, powerful enough to punch a sizeable hole through the toughest metal. With a sinking heart, he realized something else as well.

  MC Livio was nowhere to be seen.

  Luiz slowly brought his scooter to a stop and dismounted.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ spat the boy. ‘This favela belongs to the Comando Negro. You got a death wish or something?’

  ‘I’m meeting someone here,’ Luiz said, trying to keep calm. ‘MC Livio – you know him?’

  The boy laughed harshly. ‘Everyone round here knows Livio. That don’t make them his friend. And it sure don’t make you mine.’

  As a pregnant silence descended, another guard, older than the first, appeared in the doorway of the checkpoint. He stalked over and pushed the other boy in the shoulder.

  ‘Who’s this – your new boyfriend?’ he said venomously. ‘You know that Angel don’t want no strangers hanging around the boca. Are you going to deal with him or not?’

  The mood outside the boca was turning ugly. Luiz silently cursed the MC. Was he late or had he just forgotten about him? On the roof of a building beyond the checkpoint, he saw something metallic glinting in the sunlight. More weaponry. Luiz knew that there were firing positions all over the rooftops around the boca. It would only take one jumpy finger on the trigger and he would be mowed down in a hail of bullets. He turned around, slowly raising his hands in the air.

  ‘I don’t want any trouble,’ he said. ‘I’m not carrying any guns. Check me if you want.’

  Luiz felt the rifle jab him in the back. ‘I don’t give a shit what you’re carrying. You’d need an army to get past us. Down on your knees.’

  ‘Just wait for Livio and he’ll –’

  The other boy smashed the gun against the back of Luiz’s legs, sending him sprawling to the floor.

  ‘Wait!’ a voice called out.

  His heart leaping with relief, Luiz saw MC Livio labouring up the hill towards them, a bulky brown paper bag in his arms.

  ‘He’s with me,’ the MC called out. ‘Don’t shoot!’

  The gang member swore loudly. ‘You cut it pretty fine, Livio,’ he shouted back. ‘Five more seconds and your friend here would be looking for his brains in the road. What are you doing telling strangers to meet you at the boca?’

  ‘I’m here now, aren’t I? It’s all cool.’ Livio pulled Luiz to his feet with a pudgy hand. ‘Sorry I’m late, Luiz. Took me longer to sort my shit out than I thought.’

  ‘Just glad you got here when you did.’

  ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  Nodding at the gang members, Livio moved past the boca and into Santa Marta. Luiz took a deep breath and followed him.

  8. Santa Marta

  Luiz stepped into a riot of colour and noise.

  Santa Marta was a warren of alleyways and backstreets that criss-crossed the steep hillside, cutting pathways through rows of rickety, tin-roofed shacks. Many dwellings had been built directly on top of one another, forming precarious tower blocks that looked as though one strong gust of wind could topple them over. They were painted in bright, Day-Glo paint, vibrant shades of pinks and yellows overlaid with Comando Negro graffiti: not just the now-familiar CN gravestone, but vivid murals showing gang members engaged in gun battles with rivals from the Compadres and Quarto Comando. Almost every house seemed to double as a shop, hand-painted signs advertising everything from Cheetos and lollipops to beer and bottled gas. Above Luiz’s head, tangled webs of cables conducted illegally tapped electricity back to the houses.

  The narrow streets were breathless with activity, young boys kicking footballs around while old women struggled with shopping bags. Shouts of laughter overlapped with scooter horns and blaring TV sets. Somewhere further up the hill, a thumping beat was blasting out from a sound system. Luiz’s nostrils were filled with a combustible mixture of diesel, sewage and barbecued meat, while the pungent aroma of marijuana hung thickly in the air. As he looked around the favela, memories of his childhood came flooding back and it was hard for Luiz to keep the smile from his face. He realized that, no matter how much time he had spent in the suburbs, a tiny part of him would always be a favela boy.

  Wherever they went in Santa Marta, everyone they passed in the alleyways seemed to know Livio. Old women called out to him and young girls blew kisses at him. The MC took it in his stride, nodding and smiling at them, his gaze lingering on the prettiest girls. He puffed as he toiled up the steep incline, shifting the brown paper bag in his arms.

  ‘What’s in the bag?’ Luiz asked curiously.

  The MC gave him a long look, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘Medicine for my little girl,’ he said. ‘She’s not been so well and it’s not easy getting her to a doctor. My wife would have killed me if I hadn’t brought it back.’

  Luiz glanced at Livio. Though he knew that many of the young boys in the favelas had families, th
e MC was barely a year older than him, and Luiz couldn’t begin to imagine taking care of a wife and kids. He was about to ask Livio about his family when the MC gestured for silence.

  They had come to the end of a long alleyway and now found themselves in a small, dusty square surrounded on all sides by shacks covered in Comando Negro graffiti. The joyful energy of the favela had disappeared – despite the muggy heat, the atmosphere in the square felt cold.

  Livio grabbed Luiz’s arm. ‘We’re here. Leave the talking to me at first, OK? The Comando Negro don’t know you and they hate surprises.’

  There were only three people in the square, lounging around the entrance to one of the shacks. A boy wearing a bright yellow Brazilian football shirt and orange Ray-Bans was straddling a low wall, music pumping out of a stereo beside him. He drummed the wall in time with the beat. An older boy with bleached-blond hair and a long scar running down his face was slouched on the shack’s steps, a bored expression on his face. Slightly removed from his companions, a younger, lighter-skinned boy in a dirty T-shirt was sitting on the ground, scratching at the dusty earth with a stick. Unlike the other two – whose semi-automatic pistols were visible in the waistband of their shorts – he didn’t appear to be armed. The boy jumped up excitedly when he saw Livio approaching.

  ‘Hey!’ he cried. ‘Look who’s back!’

  ‘You know it!’ Livio greeted him gleefully, slapping his palm in a greeting. ‘Can’t keep a good man down, Dog.’

  ‘Word was you got arrested,’ said Dog, in a high-pitched voice. ‘How did you get away?’

  ‘You should have seen it!’ Livio replied. ‘As soon as we stepped out of the police station some dude started firing at the cops!’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Who knows? Could have been one of the Comando Negro, could have been another gang. There’s enough people in Rio who want to take a shot at the police, aren’t there?’

  ‘It wasn’t the Comando Negro,’ the boy with the scar said. ‘We would have known about it.’