The helicopter was to Castro’s right now, some two hundred yards, searchlight off. It changed direction and closed the distance at an angle slightly to his rear, back toward the Christ’s head.
The doctor grabbed the joystick control and flung it into space, then he twisted around, swung the pistol toward the chopper, and started firing.
Chapter 99
CASTRO FIRED FIVE times. All five bullets missed the mark, though one hit the helicopter’s landing strut and another the lower fuselage. The doctor thumbed the latch that dropped the clip. He groped for another.
“Kill him,” I said.
“I can’t,” Acosta said.
One of the doctor’s first shots had hit the lieutenant in the right shoulder. He was trying to support his quivering arm with his left hand enough so that he could get a decent sight picture on Castro.
“Gimme the gun,” I said.
The lieutenant handed it to me.
I set it in my lap, reached up, and undid the slide window.
Air rushed in. I took the control stick with my right hand and pushed the gun out the window with my left. I spun the chopper one hundred and eighty degrees and saw Castro lift his head and his gun, grinning like a madman.
The instant I had a sight picture, I shot, shot, and then shot again.
Chapter 100
THE FIRST BULLET went right by Dr. Castro’s left ear.
Before he could return fire, the second slug hit him squarely just below the sternum. He bucked at the impact; it was like he’d been punched in the gut, except this punch was as hot as lava. Castro managed to squeeze off one round.
The pilot shot a third time and hit Castro high in the right chest.
The doctor was flung against the hatch frame. He swooned in shock and pain. The pistol slipped from his fingers, bounced off the statue’s arm, and fell to the terrace below.
Castro was dazed, but not confused. The doctor knew who he was and wanted to show the police that it didn’t matter what they did; he’d already won.
Castro held up the phone and with a bloody smile waved it at the helicopter and the men inside. Then he dropped it inside the arm.
It is done, he thought happily as he slumped toward death.
It is irreversible.
It is…good.
Chapter 101
WE WATCHED CASTRO sag against the hatch, drop the phone into the arm of the Christ, and die.
General da Silva saw him die too, said, “Now get control of that drone.”
“We can’t get control,” Acosta said. “He’s put it on autopilot. That’s why he waved his phone at us before he died.”
I hadn’t understood then, but now I agreed. If Castro had gone to this extreme, he must have had backups.
Swinging the helicopter away from the statue and accelerating north, I said, “General, evacuate that stadium.”
“The opening ceremony’s already started,” da Silva said indignantly.
“That drone’s flying right at you and forty-five thousand other people with more than a billion people watching. Your call.”
“Find the drone,” he said. “Knock it out of the sky.”
“It’s a pretty big sky, General,” Acosta said with a grunt as he got his belt around his upper arm and pulled the tourniquet tight.
“Actually, it’s not,” I said, and I took the helicopter up to one hundred and sixty miles an hour. “We know where it’s going. We’ll just get there first.”
“I’m going to have the cellular towers shut down, Jack,” da Silva said.
“What? Why?”
“That phone controls it. We’ll cut the link.”
“Don’t do it,” I said. “If you cut the link, it could go off anywhere, and we’ll never get a crack at intercepting it.”
I didn’t wait for a reply, said into the headset, “Mo-bot, are you there?”
“In the security center, Jack.”
“Patch me through to Sci,” I said as we closed on the stadium, which was glowing brilliantly.
“I’m sitting right beside her, Jack,” Kloppenberg said.
“We have a drone on autopilot heading toward the stadium with Hydra-9-infected blood on board. We have to figure out how to stop it.”
After a moment, Sci said, “How will it be dispersed?”
“I’m not sure,” I said as I dropped our airspeed over the parking lots of Maracan? and turned the chopper around. We hovered there, looking back toward the Redeemer.
Sci said, “If the drone’s navigation is on autopilot, it’s heading to a specific location. Which means that the triggering device of the delivery system has to be location-specific as well. Once the drone hits a certain GPS spot, the virus is released.”
“So if we stop it from getting to the stadium, there will be no release?”
“Unless he put redundancies in place.”
“Such as?” I asked.
“Maybe if it crashes, it goes off?”
“Great,” I said, gaining altitude and turning back toward the stadium.