The Games

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Christ the redeemer appeared and vanished in the last clouds clinging to jungle mountains that rose right up out of the city and the sea. Then the sun broke through for good and shone down on the giant white statue of Jesus that looked over virtually all of Rio from the summit of Corcovado Mountain.

In the prior two months, I’d seen the statue from dozens of vantage points, but never like this, from a police helicopter hovering at the figure’s eye level two hundred and fifty feet away, close enough for me to understand the immensity of the statue and its simple, graceful lines.

I am a lapsed Catholic, but I tell you, I got chills up and down my spine.

“That’s incredible,” I said as the helicopter arced away, flying over the steep, jungle-choked mountainside.

“One of the seven modern wonders of the world, Jack,” Tavia said.

“You know the other six offhand, Tavia?” I asked her.

Tavia smiled, shook her head, said, “You?”

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