groom.
“Follow her. She knows where we’re going.”
Somewhere between the elevators and the escalators, Jack and his team had found themselves intertwined with the wedding party. Besides the bride and groom, there were at least four bridesmaids in matching cream dresses jockeying through the crowd around them, escorted by groomsmen in dark suits. Jack knew that within the base of the great statue was a wedding chapel; even though the space was small, carved into the granite block whose main purpose was holding up the massive, seven-hundred-ton soapstone monolith, the waiting list to hold weddings on Corcovado was months long. Jack supposed for a true believer, you couldn’t do much better than getting married a few inches below Christ’s toes.
As Jack had suspected, the wedding party was making a beeline toward the chapel, and Jack and his team fell into step right behind them, skirtingthe granite base with the help of their pink-frilled escort as most of the surrounding crowd moved outward toward the front of the viewing platform, which jutted out like a pirate’s plank over the sprawling city.
A dozen yards from the entrance to the chapel, the bride and groom exited the crowd and began their stroll down a red carpet that had been laid out along the paved stones, bordered on both sides by a pair of photographers. Jack tapped Andy’s shoulder, pointing him away from the carpet toward a crook in the wall at the edge of the viewing platform. Andy nodded, and the three of them slipped out from between the bridesmaids and regrouped right up next to the wall. Christ the Redeemer had his back toward them now, his vast, soapstone hips disappearing into the soupy gray.
Jack glanced at the handful of tourists who were still nearby; almost all were focused on the wedding party, still making its way down the red carpet and into the chapel. Through the open doors, Jack could make out a handful of red velvet chairs lined up in two parallel rows and a small lectern, manned by a priest in white robes. Then he turned his attention to the wall to his right; it was a little more than waist high, topped by an iron railing. Behind the railing, there was about a ten-foot drop, then a steep slope covered in chunks of rock ending in deep brush, the beginning of a thick twist of the rainforest that ran up and down most of the mountainside. Three feet into the brush, rising up on a black metal frame, was a bank of spotlights aimed at the statue behind him. Jack knew that the lights were part of the massive LED and spot system that had been added to the monument in 2011, giving the Wonder an entirely new dimension; at night, the intelligent lighting system could bathe the Redeemer in full Technicolor, which could be seen from every corner of the city below.
But at the moment, Jack wasn’t interested in the technology or artistry of the lighting panel; he was more concerned about its tensile strength. He had spent many hours during the trip to Brazil studying the information Jeremy had put on the thumb drive, coordinating it with geographic mapsand architectural blueprints Dashia had pulled off the Internet from local government servers. He had committed all of the data to memory, and as he scanned past the bank of lights, he counted another three yards of thick bush before the mountaintop gave way to what appeared to be a sheer twenty-foot drop into even thicker rainforest.
He put one hand on the railing, then nodded to Andy.
“This is where I go over.”
Andy dropped the heavy duffel to the paved stone and went after the zipper, while Dashia unloaded her laptop bag. Jack kept an eye on a pair of nearby tourists who had their cell phones out, peering straight up through the screens, trying to catch a glimpse of Christ’s outstretched arms above the clouds. Jack wasn’t really concerned about anyone seeing what they were up to. Although he’d counted a handful of security guards at the train depot and another half a dozen scattered
“Follow her. She knows where we’re going.”
Somewhere between the elevators and the escalators, Jack and his team had found themselves intertwined with the wedding party. Besides the bride and groom, there were at least four bridesmaids in matching cream dresses jockeying through the crowd around them, escorted by groomsmen in dark suits. Jack knew that within the base of the great statue was a wedding chapel; even though the space was small, carved into the granite block whose main purpose was holding up the massive, seven-hundred-ton soapstone monolith, the waiting list to hold weddings on Corcovado was months long. Jack supposed for a true believer, you couldn’t do much better than getting married a few inches below Christ’s toes.
As Jack had suspected, the wedding party was making a beeline toward the chapel, and Jack and his team fell into step right behind them, skirtingthe granite base with the help of their pink-frilled escort as most of the surrounding crowd moved outward toward the front of the viewing platform, which jutted out like a pirate’s plank over the sprawling city.
A dozen yards from the entrance to the chapel, the bride and groom exited the crowd and began their stroll down a red carpet that had been laid out along the paved stones, bordered on both sides by a pair of photographers. Jack tapped Andy’s shoulder, pointing him away from the carpet toward a crook in the wall at the edge of the viewing platform. Andy nodded, and the three of them slipped out from between the bridesmaids and regrouped right up next to the wall. Christ the Redeemer had his back toward them now, his vast, soapstone hips disappearing into the soupy gray.
Jack glanced at the handful of tourists who were still nearby; almost all were focused on the wedding party, still making its way down the red carpet and into the chapel. Through the open doors, Jack could make out a handful of red velvet chairs lined up in two parallel rows and a small lectern, manned by a priest in white robes. Then he turned his attention to the wall to his right; it was a little more than waist high, topped by an iron railing. Behind the railing, there was about a ten-foot drop, then a steep slope covered in chunks of rock ending in deep brush, the beginning of a thick twist of the rainforest that ran up and down most of the mountainside. Three feet into the brush, rising up on a black metal frame, was a bank of spotlights aimed at the statue behind him. Jack knew that the lights were part of the massive LED and spot system that had been added to the monument in 2011, giving the Wonder an entirely new dimension; at night, the intelligent lighting system could bathe the Redeemer in full Technicolor, which could be seen from every corner of the city below.
But at the moment, Jack wasn’t interested in the technology or artistry of the lighting panel; he was more concerned about its tensile strength. He had spent many hours during the trip to Brazil studying the information Jeremy had put on the thumb drive, coordinating it with geographic mapsand architectural blueprints Dashia had pulled off the Internet from local government servers. He had committed all of the data to memory, and as he scanned past the bank of lights, he counted another three yards of thick bush before the mountaintop gave way to what appeared to be a sheer twenty-foot drop into even thicker rainforest.
He put one hand on the railing, then nodded to Andy.
“This is where I go over.”
Andy dropped the heavy duffel to the paved stone and went after the zipper, while Dashia unloaded her laptop bag. Jack kept an eye on a pair of nearby tourists who had their cell phones out, peering straight up through the screens, trying to catch a glimpse of Christ’s outstretched arms above the clouds. Jack wasn’t really concerned about anyone seeing what they were up to. Although he’d counted a handful of security guards at the train depot and another half a dozen scattered