Prologue D09

Prologue (Draft – 09)

The beaches of Brazil in February are glorious even in the small hours. Although the summer school holidays are over, it's still the high season here and many Brazilians are enjoying their vacation, the music, the festivals and long romantic walks along a dark shoreline. While Rio and the beaches near Sao Paulo are the most popular during the days of carnival, some prefer the more rural settings where the stars over the ocean are unhampered by the city's glow.

The waves slowly roll in and out against a weakening tide and a balmy breeze moves with them. It's a night for lovers, searching for intimacy and the perfect setting that call them to meet. And what could be more enticing to those in love than a warm beach under all of creation? Look where you must across an endless world, but know this: the most intimate settings of bed and blossoms have nothing of splendor compared to a smooth sea under the cosmos at night.

Time and space seem endless here and unite like lovers do. They bond for the sake of harmony under the starry heavens. For harmony has a stake in love's seduction too, and solitude, as always… is its lady-in-waiting.

A warm beach under a spangled sky; the perfect setting for those in love, and it isn't long before time and space weave their spells to draw them out. It starts with the sound of a woman's distant laughter. She's running through the darkness across the sand, giggling as she looks back at the man chasing after her.

"Aléjate! Ayuda ayuda! Hay un maníaco detrás de mí!" ("Get away! Help-help! There's a maniac after me!") the woman cries out.

The man running behind her is laughing too and howls loudly like a wolf in pursuit.

The woman stops at the water's edge and then turns to face her eager pursuer.

("I said — stay away!")

The man finally stops to smile at the woman, the love of his life, and then down at her wrap and bikini. Even in the darkness surrounding them, the woman can see the hunger in his eyes as he reaches out.

("I said stay back!") she yelps warningly, stepping back into the water.

("Where are you going, Mariana? I love you. I want…")

("Oh—I know exactly what you want, Pedro,") she counters with a giggle.

He dashes forward and she screams again as he tackles her and they fall together into the sea. A wave washes over them and when they break the surface once more, they're locked together in a tight embrace and kissing each other madly. The man's hands move eagerly over her entire body as he pulls her tight against him.

She suddenly pushes him away and laughs again as another wave takes him. He resurfaces smiling to find her swimming into deeper water. Within seconds he can barely see her in all the blackness.

("The sharks are going to get you!") he yells out jokingly.

He can only hear her laughing back. ("Better to be eaten by sharks than taken by a wolf!")

A minute later, the two are embracing once more in the warm water lapping over their shoulders.

("I love you so much, Pedro,") the woman moans softly, as his lips slide down the side of her neck. She smiles as his hands continue down her body to caress her bottom and she wonders if they might make love right there in the sea.

Time and space are merging together with them and to the echoes of a long lost versifier:

I feel the Link of Nature draw me: Flesh of Flesh,

Bone of my Bone thou art, and from thy State

Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.

They expect everything of bliss and nothing of woe, but in every mind of lovers loving, there is forever present an unsaid prayer hidden deep within them: Please, God, let nothing of the world interfere. But of time and space, the expected merging is but a passing and thus woe is set to intrude.

The woman suddenly jerks back hard in Pedro's arms. ("Ouch!")

("What's the matter?")

She turns to look behind her. ("I don't know. Something hit me in the back.")

Still embracing, the two are surprised at the torrent of bubbles suddenly rising up all around them and Pedro is suddenly cautious.

("We should go back to the beach.")

The woman immediately lets go of him and starts wading through the water toward the shore. She suddenly yelps, trips and then vanishes under the blackness.

("Mariana!")

A large wave passes over the spot where she disappeared and it pushes Pedro off of his feet and away from her. The man would have laughed at the incident in the light of day, but her sudden disappearance unexpectedly kinks his heart and dissolves his courage. He regains his footing and breaks the surface only to realize he's lost his lover's place in the blackened vastness surrounding him.

("Mariana!")

He sees a place where the water is twisting oddly. Is that a hand he sees? Panicking, he lumbers his way toward her, maybe away from her – he's not really sure. He arrives and reaches down, searching the thinning locker for the one soul he needs more than any other.

("Mariana!")

How long has it been? How long has she been absent from his world? ("Please, God…") Suddenly, from ten feet to the side, the woman is ejected out of the water and into Pedro's arms; he catches her gasping for air.

("Mother of God!")

Pedro is frantic to hold onto the woman as she thrashes about, struggling to breathe. He works to push her hair away from her face as she heaves and then he watches her eyes widen in horror when she sees him looking down at her. She terrified, but now he sees her looking through him, past him, and at the sarsen rising up from out of the sea to his back. Pedro turns in astonishment to watch the emergent growing there, a thing coming into being, dark and foreboding; a sundry shadow of something ominous. It hovers above them before turning, a giant of a man, all in black, wearing a mask and breather is glaring down upon them.

Pedro feels a hint of understanding and then a sigh of relief passes through him until the man whips a pistol around to threaten them again. Pedro moves unthinkingly to put himself between the sarsen and his woman as the sea around them begins to boil once more. A few seconds later, several more men are rising up, all of them holding machine guns and pistols and wearing masks that hide their faces.

The first man reaches up to pull the breather out of his mouth and then he barks something at them in a language they don't understand.

"На пляж!" He waves his pistol at them, motioning them toward the shore.

Pedro reaches over to help Mariana, showing his intensions to obey. The woman is still coughing and then whispers, ("Pedro… who are they?").

("I don't know; we'd better go.")

She looks around worriedly. ("Are they the army?")

Pedro looks up at the beach still thirty yards ahead of them and finds his mind preoccupied with the sudden awareness there is nobody around to see what was happening. He glances back to see five men were now following them and he could hear the faint sound of someone talking on a radio.

"Команда прибыла, ожидая транспорта." ("Team two has arrived—waiting for transport.")

("It must be kind of military exercise…") Pedro whispers to Mariana, as they finally leave the water and step onto the beach. He then turns to embrace the frightened woman's shivering body.

Suddenly, one of the men is rudely shoving the two of them down on their knees.

("Hey!") Pedro tried to protest, and when Mariana yells out in pain he becomes angry.

"Тихо!" One of the men shouts back.

In the distance, they could hear the familiar sound of a large helicopter getting louder.

("Pedro… who are they? I'm scared.")

The man looks over and finally admits the truth to her, ("So am I.")

They watch the men pulling off their flappers, their masks and hoods before lowering their tanks to the sand. One of them is talking into a headset.

"Сигнализируй сейчас!" ("Signaling now!"). He nods to another man who then pulls out something that resembles a large flashlight. He points it at the incoming sound and starts to tap a button on its handle. The clicks sound like some kind of code to Pedro, but he doesn't see any light.

"Я вижу твою красную. Пара минут!" ("I see your red,") said a voice on the radio. ("Two minutes.")

The leader looks at one of the men standing behind the couple and nods again. Suddenly, there is a yelp of pain and Mariana looks over to see one of the men is holding a syringe to the side of Pedro's neck. She watches in horror as her man slumps over face-first into the sand. The man pulls the needle out and then turns to her.

("No! Oh please—no!") Mariana starts to scream, but the man immediately silences her with a hard slap to the side of her face. He sticks her with the needle while a second man uses zip ties to bind their hands behind their back.

A few minutes later, the men are in a helicopter and flying low over a nearly black landscape. They've already secured their equipment and are working to pull off their wetsuits. They begin the process of suiting up for the next stage of their mission; they don black clothing, jump boots, armored vests and knitted caps. They quietly check their rifles for any lingering sand and sea and inventory their belts. The couple taken off the beach are piled unceremoniously in the back as the leader begins speaking on the radio again.

"Команда 2 находится в воздухе. Какая у вас статусная команда?" ("Team two is in the air. What is your status team one?")

("Team one is on the ground outside the target, waiting for your orders, sir.")

("Pass the word… we'll be on the roof in ten minutes. I want complete containment in five after we land.")

("Yes, sir.")

The ground racing by them is dark and only a few houses sporadically fall into view as they travel well below any radar. The leader looks over and notices one of his men staring at the woman lying in the back. She's splayed invitingly there, still in her bikini, and unconscious. The man turns to see the leader watching him and he smiles.

("Seems a shame to let that go to waste,") he says, bouncing his eyebrows.

The leader smirks, taps his head and then at his watch at the man. The message is clear: get your head in the game. The other man nods and moves forward to sit next to one of his comrades.

An amber light on the wall begins to flash and the leader turns to signal the number five.

Three hundred miles away, a Brazilian Air Force officer is looking over the shoulder of one of his men who is studying his CINDACTA monitor.

("Flight 2202 – you have deviated from your flight path. Please respond.") The man looks up at this boss. ("Still no word, Lieutenant.")

("How long have they been off the grid?")

("About twenty minutes now, sir.")

("And you're sure they gave no warnings, sent no distress calls?")

("No sir. Not a word. They were flying on the designated path and suddenly veered off course and disappeared.")

The lieutenant looks over at another man behind him. ("Have there been any 19X calls for the police or fire department in that area?")

("No, sir. Nothing yet, but that area of the grid is pretty remote. If they went down… nobody might have been around to see it.")

The officer thinks about it and reluctantly heaves. ("Okay… let's send the police to the last point of contact and offer them the best grid in which to search.") The lieutenant turns to look over his man's shoulder again. He studies the green arrows and little boxes floating on the screen and then gives him a tap on the head. ("Keep trying.")

("Yes, sir. Flight 2202 – do you read? Helicoper 2202... please respond. You are off your designated flight plan, 2202… do you copy?")

Inside the missing helicopter, the amber light on the fire wall is flashing again. The leader holds up a signal finger at the others and then puts his hand over his ear to speak.

("Building in sight. Team one — be ready!")

The leader moves to the middle of the aircraft, slides the heavy door open, and then looks outside. He can see a painted, red cross on a rooftop coming into view. He frowns. Although the night had gone to plan flawlessly, he knows every mission will run into problems and it's in his blood to understand this fact. That's why he was put in charge of this mission: his ability to anticipate problems and quickly deal with them was legionary. Still… nothing is ever perfect. He looks over his shoulder and at the half-naked bodies lying unconscious there and shakes his head. For every mission, there's always something unexpected. He looks down again at the rooftop getting closer and wonders: what other problems will I have to deal with tonight?

The helicopter touches down and a few seconds later, the five men are already halfway to a door that reads, Hospital Entrance. The leader stops to look over the edge of the building. He flashes his light and immediately sees five more men appearing from out of darkness on the street below. He smiles when he sees them racing toward the hospital's front doors.

The hospital is very small; a simple three story, flat building in a remote part of the city. The leader feels a pang of regret as they burst through the metal floors and into the lighted hallway. The profiles he's read on the doctors and nurses working here told him they understood how much the people living around them value their presence. With all the government budget cuts, the dedicated caregivers in this place are a truly rare sort: those who choose the value of human decency and care over money. The leader pushes his regrets aside and raises his rifle to take aim as they move down the quiet corridor.

One floor down, one of those doctors is talking on the phone. ("Yes, that's right. The boy's name is Tiago Lopes. Yes… Lopes. He's approximately sixteen years of age and he came in tonight with his family. I'd like to get a complete blood series done on the boy and all the members of his family while they're still here in the hospital together. If the boy's condition is driven by genetics, we'll need to get a head start on that right away.")

The voice on the other end is curious.

("Let's check for any toxins to start: drugs, alcohol, poisons… just as wide a screen as possible without causing any alarm to the boy's family. I think they're all acting very strange, and they're making a lot of crazy claims about God and the boy's age. Listen… I know it's past midnight… so I can have our nurses begin taking blood so it's ready by the time you get here. We'll take enough for two CBTs for every member of the family. When can you get over here?")

Suddenly, the doctor hears a loud bang outside his office door and he looks up to frown. Was that a scream?

("Listen… I have to go. Just get over here as soon as possible.")

The doctor hangs up the phone and frowns again when he hears another voice screaming again. He opens his office door and looks left and right to find the corridors strangely empty. He heads down the hallway, looking around cautiously, until he hears another scream and then somebody is unexpectedly yelling in a strange language. He runs to the room where his newest patient, a boy named Tiago Lopes, had just been admitted.

The doctor rounds the corner just in time to see three men, dressed in black, motioning threateningly with machine guns at those standing in the room. A nurse and the boy's family are backing away and cringing in fear.

("What is this? What's happening?") the doctor yells, before he's unexpectedly hit in the back of the head. He barely hears another woman screaming before everything in his world turns black.

"Заткнись!" ("Shut up!") the leader yells at the others. He's still holding the pistol he used to put the doctor down as he steps into the room. Another man grabs the doctor's ankle and drags him unconscious out the door. The leader reaches into one of his breast pockets to remove a photograph and then looks to compare it to the boy lying in the bed. A woman who looks like Tiago's grandmother is crying over the frightened boy's chest. She thinks she can protect him.

The gunman stares at the photo and then at the boy's face and then nods to one of his men. The second gunman comes forward, removes another syringe from his pocket, bites off the cap, and then quickly sticks the boy in the neck with it. The old woman screams again, as the boy tries to grab his assailant's hand, but he falls into unconsciousness quickly.

Another member of the family suddenly leaps forward, perhaps it's the boy's father, but he's also unconscious and on the floor before he's able to reach the bed. The remaining family, mostly women, begin rushing forward in a panic.

The leader's anger spikes. ("Get back!") he warns them, pointing his pistol at their faces. The family's presence in the hospital wasn't unexpected, but he isn't going to allow them to put their mission at risk.

A second doctor is rudely pushed into the room behind them by another gunman.

("What is it you want? We're just a small hospital here. We have nothing! If you're after drugs, the pharmacy is downstairs.")

The leader looks over at one of his men who tells him, ("He thinks you want drugs.")

The leader smirks. ("Tell them why we're here.")

The other man turns to the family and speaks to them in Spanish, ("We're taking Tiago with us.") The old woman laying over the boy's body shrieks again.

Another man, perhaps an older brother this time, yells back, ("Why? What's he done? Are you arresting him?")

The interpreter doesn't bother to answer as two gunmen shoulder their weapons to unroll a black bag onto the bed. They unzip it, yank the IVs out of the boy's arm, and then pick him up with the grandmother still draped over his body. The leader suddenly grabs the old woman by the back of her hair and yanks her away. He shoves her hard into the arms of the other women who are now crying with her and the grandmother becomes hysterical.

("NO! NO! Don't take my Tiago… NO!") She steps forward to stop them again and the leader quickly turns to plant the barrel of his pistol into her forehead. The woman doesn't seem to care or understand she's just seconds away of her own death, but her life is spared by the brother who begins pulling her back.

The men zip the unconscious boy into the bag and begin carrying him out of the room, as the rest of the gunmen slowly back away. When the leader enters the corridor, he looks at his interpreter and jerks a quick nod. The man smiles happily and then steps back into the room.

He could see the boy's family huddled in the corner with the old woman who is crying uncontrollably. Two nurses were there as well, trying to console them. He pulls the bolt back on his machine gun and then smiles at them again.

("Sorry about this…") he whispers softly, before emptying his clip into them.

("Team two is in route to the roof again. We have the package. Team one – what is your status?")

("We're back outside. The front is clear and the charges are set. Standing by.")

("One minute from the roof; give us sixty seconds after wheels up. We'll see you on the beach.") He hears a double click on the radio in response.

Exactly two minutes later, the men are in the helicopter and are looking back expectantly as the hospital below them suddenly explodes. They watch in amazement as the massive condensers on the rooftop are hurled a hundred feet into the air by a huge ball of fire that illuminates their faces and heats their bodies like the sun. The expression on each man is different: one turns away in disgust; another is frowning at one of his teammates who calmly settles back to light a cigarette. Another is smiling madly as he looks over his shoulder at the others and laughs.

Twenty minutes later, the helicopter has picked up team one off the beach and is streaking its way back across the open ocean.

("Home base, this is team leader. Package is secure; we're heading home.")

The radio squawks back. ("Any loose ends? The Czar wants to know.")

The leader looks to the back of the helicopter and frowns when he sees the man and woman moving around groggily on their own.

("Two hostages were taken at the point of entry,") the leader replies, softly.

There's a long stretch of silence and the leader finds himself hoping he'll be allowed to let the lovers go. He holds his finger to his earpiece as the word comes back.

("Yes, sir. Right away.")

The man turns to stick his head between the two pilots.

("How high are we?")

The left pilot looks down at one of his gages and replies, ("Fifty feet above the deck.")

("Disconnect the transponder and take us up to a hundred.")

The pilot stares back at him, looking somewhat surprised, but knows better than to question an order given to him in the middle of a mission. ("Yes, sir.")

("Green light me when we're there.")

The leader returns to the back and barks down at one of his men, ("Why the hell are they waking up?") he asks him angrily, motioning toward the half-naked man in the back who is now trying to wake up his girlfriend.

The other man looks over at the couple and then back up at the leader, ("I had to split the dose between the two of them.")

The leader smirks. ("Idiot…")

("How many doses was I supposed to take? I had one for the boy and another as backup.")

("Tell that to the devil when you explain what we have to do next.")

The man frowns as he looks over at the couple again. He sees the woman is awake now and starting to cry.

The leader glares over at the rest of his men and then reluctantly tells them, ("No lose ends!") He motions them toward the couple and watches as two of the men immediately stand to begin moving toward the back. He thinks about it and then yells at them to stop. He smacks the man next to him on the side of the head. ("No… you do it!")

The man frowns back. ("Why me?")

("You should have been better prepared with the drugs!")

The man rolls his eyes. ("Fine!")

He stands, slides his rifle out of the way, and then stoops down as he walks to the back. He grabs the man by the hair and then begins dragging him to the front.

The man is yelling in pain, but there's little he could do with his hands tied behind his back. The green light on the firewall starts to flash and the leader halfheartedly motions them to open the door. The door slides to the side as the helicopter begins to hover and the hostage is made to stand. Then two other men grab him by the arms and immediately shove him out the door, and the woman behind them screams in horrified shock.

("Pedro! Oh my God… Pedro!")

Two more men walk to the back and grab the woman by the arms and drag her kicking and screaming to the edge of the open door. They set her upright on her knees again as the wind outside buffets her nearly naked body. The woman is crying and falls onto her side on the metal floor.

One of the men standing over her gently bumps her on the back of the head with his rifle and as she slowly looks up at him, she frowns in horror at his smiling face. He squats down beside her with a knife in his hand, reaches over her back, and cuts her bonds behind her away. He gently raises her up to set her on her knees and then unexpectedly tears the bikini top off of her body. The woman screams again as she tries to cover herself. The man rises, brings his rifle around, and uses the barrel to lift her chin. He then slowly moves the barrel to tap at his groin in front of her.

Despite being born on different sides of the world and barriers of language set between them, the woman understands his gestures clearly enough and her expression suddenly turns to disgust. She looks out the open door and into the blackness beyond and then cups her hands together in prayer. A few seconds later, she feels the barrel of the rifle tapping the side of her head again. She opens her eyes to whisper, ("Amen,") and then lets herself fall through the opening.

("Pedro!")

The man leans out to watch her body disappear into the darkness and then slides the door closed behind her. He looks back at the others and shakes his head. ("Such a waste.")

Mariana is suddenly amazed at how quiet the world has become all around her and at the blackness enveloping her tumbling body. A moment later, she sees a bright light and opens her eyes to see her beloved Pedro smiling back at her.

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