Read Dead Heat for Free Online Page A

performance-enhancing drugs. Maybe Gilmore was taking the same drug and they were both suffering side-effects and confiding in each other. You know, trying to work out how to deal with them?’
    I shake my head.
    ‘How would either of them know that the other one was taking the drug? They wouldn’t advertise it. Jaffari said the main side-effect is paranoia. Therefore they’re not going to talk over the phone about it. No way.’
    Paz takes another drag on her cigarette, narrows her eyes and raises an eyebrow.
    ‘Do you think Jaffari’s right?’
    ‘It’s all speculation,’ I tell her. ‘A lot of assumptions. Who knows if he’s right? Maybe they were plotting to kill the President.’
    ‘With a javelin?’
    ‘Just keeping our options open, Paz.’
    Paz stubs out her cigarette as she spots Thiago approaching with the food. He arrives fully loaded and places toast and juice in front of Paz. The rest is for me.
    ‘Jesus, Rafael.’
    I smile. We eat. The feijoada stew tastes good: chunks of pork and beef falling apart as soon as my fork touches them.
    ‘Maybe it’s a coincidence,’ Paz says suddenly.
    ‘Maybe what is?’
    She points to the table next to us. A man and a woman are sharing breakfast. Early twenties, I’d guess. They’re well dressed. The woman is watching people passing by, the man is thumbing his phone, the way all young people seem to do these days. Then I see what Paz means. The woman is eating toast and drinking juice. The man has a plate of feijoada. Just like us.
    ‘What are the odds?’ Paz asks me. ‘And what are the odds of Gilmore’s attack and Meyer’s attempted suicide, and the phone call between them, all being a coincidence, too? Can we rule that out altogether?’
    I think about it for a minute. I think how much easier my life would be, if I could explain the problem away as one of life’s weird and wonderful quirks. But I can’t.
    ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘We’re ruling out coincidence.’
    Suddenly the table rattles as Paz’s phone vibrates with an incoming call.
    ‘Hello?’
    She listens for twenty seconds, and is already pushing her chair back by the time she hangs up.
    ‘Someone’s shooting at the crowd in the arena,’ she says. ‘We’ve got to go now.’

PART 3
WITT AND ZOU

CHAPTER 11
    THE NATIONAL SHOOTING centre is twenty minutes from Casas Pedro. Fifteen, the way Paz is driving.
    ‘Oliver Witt,’ Paz says and pushes the pedal closer to the floor. ‘Heard of him?’
    I tell her I haven’t.
    ‘He’s a target-shooter. A good one. Only he’s not aiming at the targets right now, so they’re evacuating the stadium.’
    ‘Have there been any casualties?’
    ‘He’s been shooting into the air, punching holes in the roof. He hasn’t hit anyone yet. Nobody’s quite sure what he’s doing.’
    When we arrive, people are spilling out of every exit and escaping down the long, narrow road that runs behind the shooting galleries. The building stretches far into the distance and is organised in the simplest way imaginable. The exits are on our side of the building. The ranges are on the other. People come in one side, and competitors fire out of the other, except for Witt, who is firing wherever he damn well likes. Every few seconds another shot rings out, and people in the emerging crowd duck and scream.
    Outside the main entrance, a Policia Militar SWAT team is kitting up with enough weapons to start a small war. Whatever Oliver Witt is trying to achieve, he’s on a suicide mission, just as Gilmore had been. I push through the crowd.
    ‘Let’s get in there,’ I tell Paz. Maybe I can get to Witt before the SWAT team. Inside, the place smells of fresh paint and burned cartridges. The corridor is tight, with breeze-block walls closing in on both sides. We’re swimming against a tide of people still trying to escape. I recognise a face in the crowd jostling past me. It’s the blonde woman who was talking to the Russian team at the wrestling venue. I turn on my