by Allan Folsom
“What the hell are you going to do?”
Marten smiled. “Not quite sure.”
With that he opened the passenger door and stepped onto the street. “Get out of here, Tomás. Now!”
Marten slammed the door and stepped into the shadows between parked cars. Tomás glanced at him and then drove off. Marten looked back down the street. The motorcycle rider was watching either him or the van, it was hard to tell which. Suddenly he moved his head animatedly, as if he were either receiving orders or replying to them over a radio-microphone in his helmet. A split second later he set himself and revved the machine. There was a vicious scream of engine and the street racer shot toward him. Its speed alone told Marten all he needed to know. The rider had been ordered to ignore him and follow the van.
By his estimation a bike like that would accelerate from 0 to 150 miles per hour in about ten seconds. Meaning it would be going close to a hundred by the time it reached him. He counted, one, two; then stepped into the middle of the street and directly into its path. He waited a half second, then raised the Glock with both hands, pointing it at the rider’s chest and giving him three choices to make in less than a heartbeat. Swerve out of the way, hit him at full speed, or get shot. The distance between them was closing at warp speed. The machine and rider were little more than a blur. A bullet coming straight at him. Marten stood his ground, his finger closing on the trigger. Then it was right there. Marten saw the rider touch his brakes and veer sharply to the left in an attempt to go around him. Instantly the laws of physics took over. The machine slid out from under him and he was airborne. A split second later he slammed headfirst into the windshield of a parked car. His head snapped back and he bounced off it, his body twisting high in the air and then disappearing from sight on the far side of the car with a sickening thud. In the next instant the riderless motorcycle hit another car and exploded in an enormous fireball.
Marten watched for a moment, then slipped the Glock back into his waistband and turned and walked off toward Rua Capelo, the way Tomás had told him to go. Behind him traffic came to a standstill as flames and black smoke bellowed skyward.
10:21 A.M.
105
10:22 A.M.
“Stop here, please,” Joe Ryder said abruptly as the cabdriver took them along a large tree-lined plaza called the Rossio. One of the city’s main squares, it was alive with tourists peopling the shops and cafés surrounding it.
“We are not yet close to the Alfama district, senhor.”
“It’s alright. I just realized this is my wedding anniversary. I want to get my wife a present.”
“You’re American, yes?” The driver slowed, then pulled to the curb near a large flower stand.
“Yes.”
The driver grinned. “Then you mean you have to get your wife a present.”
Ryder smiled in return. “That’s one way to put it.”
“I will wait for you, senhor.”
“Not necessary, thank you. We’ll find another cab when we’ve finished shopping.”
Agent Birns got out first, briefcase in hand, his eyes sweeping the area. Ryder paid the driver, then followed Birns, and the cab drove off. Immediately they turned down a side street and went into a store selling brightly colored ceramics. Thirty seconds later they exited, walked to the end of the next block, and hailed another taxi.
“Rua Serpa Pinto,” Ryder said as they got in.
The driver nodded, put his cab in gear, and pulled into traffic.
10:24 A.M.
10:25 A.M.
Conor White left Moses and the others in the Mercedes, then crossed a dusty parking area, climbed a short flight of stairs, and entered the side door of the large, one-story white stucco building that was A Melhor Lavanderia, Lisboa, Avenida de Brasilia, 22. In the distance was the 25th of April Bridge. Behind him, as Carlos Branco had said, was a large stretch of Lisbon’s waterfront where vessels from hand-rowed dories to ferries to cruise ships plied the midmorning waters of the Tagus River. A world within a world chugging innocently on, a heartbeat away.
The door closed behind White, and he entered a loading dock area with space for two good-sized laundry trucks. One was there. The other, assuming there was another, would be out making pickups or deliveries. Across the way was a battered work desk where a dark-haired man in white trousers and white T-shirt talked on the phone. To the left was a large room filled with industrial-sized washers and dryers, tended by two men in white. If there were other employees he didn’t see them.
White approached the desk. “Are you the supervisor?” he said politely.
The man nodded, then finished his phone conversation and hung up. “I am,” he said, his English thickly colored with Portuguese. “What can I do for you?”
“Raisa Amaro, please. I have an appointment.”
The supervisor studied him. “I am afraid she’s not here, sir. If you would leave your name and a number where you could be reached, I—”
“You don’t understand,” White cut him off. “I have an appointment.”
“I’m sorry, but—”
“I spoke to her on the phone not five minutes ago.”
Again the man studied him. Finally he reached for the phone on his desk. “I’ll have to check.”
Abruptly White put his hand on the man’s hand, stopping him. “Just take me to her.” Gone was the politeness. In its stead was a cold, deadly resolve. “It would be in your best interests.”
The man stared at him unafraid; then his eyes abruptly shifted as the outside door opened and two men in business suits came in. Patrice and Irish Jack. In the distance came the deep-throated blast of a boat whistle, a tugboat, or maybe a ferry.
Conor White stared at the supervisor. “Raisa Amaro, please,” he said quietly.
10:30 A.M.
10:31 A.M.
Marten walked quickly along Rua Capelo, the sirens of emergency vehicles hanging in the air behind him, black smoke from the still-burning motorcycle clearly visible as it drifted upward.
Fifty feet ahead the street ended at Rua Serpa Pinto. He kept on, stepping around a woman pushing an elderly man in a wheelchair, then dodging two young teenage boys running to investigate the smoke and sirens. Finally he reached the corner and stopped. To the left, partway down the block and across the street, was Hospital da Universidade. In appearance, a small, all-purpose hospital.
The building itself was tasteful and well kept, if unimpressive. Four stories tall, concrete and plaster covering its facade, it was connected, like almost every other structure in the city, to its neighboring buildings. As on its adjoining buildings wrought-iron balconies decorated the second-floor windows. To the right of its doorway was a simple call box.
He crossed to it, studied it for a moment, then walked on. At the end of the block he turned right and then right again into a narrow service alley. Somewhere farther down was the hospital’s rear entrance. There was no sign of Tomás’s truck, or of any other vehicle for that matter. Whether Anne was there and safely inside there was no way for him to know. Nor was there any way to know if Raisa had even reached the president with the details of what Joe Ryder should do. All along he had assumed it had happened. What if it hadn’t? What if Ryder and the president had never spoken? What if the congressman wasn’t even in the city?
Once more he felt as he had in the passageways with Anne, like a war time refugee in an uncertain state with spies and lookouts everywhere, with everything they’d counted on falling apart around them, and with no way to know it until it was too late. Absently he touched the Glock under his jacket. Then, with a glance over his shoulder, he started down the alley in search of the hospital’s rear entrance.
10:34 A.M.
106
10:35 A.M.
Raisa Amaro looked at Conor White, then again at the identification he had given her, and handed it back. His name was Jonathan Cape, and he was a special investigator for Interpol. A man and woman had stayed in the top-floor apartment of h
er building the night before but were no longer there. They were wanted for questioning in the murders of the German novelist Theo Haas and the Berlin police Hauptkommissar Emil Franck. She had helped them escape and he knew it. She could avoid many years in prison if she told him where they had gone.
Raisa looked around her large, utilitarian office. The man with the British accent calling himself Jonathan Cape sat in a wooden chair opposite her desk. The two well-dressed men who had come in with him waited outside, visible through the large window that overlooked most of her laundry operation.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know who or what you are referring to,” she said quietly. “It’s true I own the building, but I live alone and have little contact with the other residents. Except, of course”—she smiled a little—“when they are late with the rent.”
“These fugitives remain at large, Ms. Amaro. People are in danger.” White’s manner was quiet but at the same time utterly intense. “I don’t have time for lies.”
Raisa looked at him directly. “If you think I’m involved with anything illegal, I suggest you call Chief Inspector Gonçalo Fonseca of the Lisbon police. He’s a personal friend.”
“Ms. Amaro, you are impeding an international investigation. I want to know where the man and the woman went when they left your building and how they managed to avoid surveillance. Who provided the electrician’s truck and driver is a separate matter that will be taken up later. I want to know where they are now.”
“Mr. Cape. I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“I see.”
Conor White turned in his chair to look at Patrice on the far side of the glass, then nodded. Ten seconds later Irish Jack ushered Raisa Amaro’s supervisor and the two men who had been tending the washers and dryers into her office.
White sat back. “I will repeat my question. Where are the man and the woman now? Where are Nicholas Marten and Anne Tidrow?”
Raisa looked at her workers and then back to Conor White. “I simply don’t know.”
There was no need for White to give the order. Irish Jack already knew what to do. The same as Patrice had known what to do in the farm house outside Madrid. In a single move the Irishman slid the Beretta burst-fire automatic from under his blue suit coat, put it to the head of the nearest laundry worker—a dark-skinned young man no more than twenty-five—and squeezed the trigger. The stacco three-shot burst resonated across the room. A large portion of the man’s skull and brains splattered across his two co-workers standing beside him. His body dropped to the floor with a sickening thud.
The other men shrieked in horror. Raisa’s face froze to stone.
“Marten and Anne Tidrow. Where are they now?” Conor White repeated calmly as if the action behind him had never taken place. He could see Raisa fight through her shock and terror. Finally her eyes found his.
“The electrical truck took them to the Cais da Alfândega ferry terminal,” she said quietly. “They were to cross the river to Cacilhas. Whether they reached it or not I—”
“They went nowhere near the ferry terminal.” White cut her off angrily. “The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. I ask a question, I want the correct answer. That’s how I operate. Do you understand? Now, where are they?”
Raisa just stared, saying nothing.
White lifted a hand. “Jack—”
“No, please!” White heard the supervisor cry out behind him. He saw Raisa turn in that direction.
“Don’t!” she screamed.
Then came the second three-shot burst from Irish Jack’s machine pistol. There was no need for her to look at what had happened.
“It’s your card to play, Ms. Amaro,” White said calmly. “One way or another I will find the people I am looking for. Whether you or your last employee is still alive when I do is in your hands.”
Raisa gaped at him. Any sense of who she was, or had been even minutes earlier, was gone. “Hospital da Universidade,” she murmured. “Hospital da Universidade.”
“Thank you.” Conor White stood and turned toward the door. As he did Patrice stepped behind the last man, slid his own Beretta from inside his jacket, and shot him the head.
White reached the door, then turned back. Raisa had managed to stand. She used the edge of her desk for balance. Numbed beyond reason, her eyes still managed to find his.
“You are a criminal of the worst order. May your seed roast in hell for eternity.”
White smiled gently. “This is one day you should have stayed home.” He nodded at Irish Jack, then walked out the door.
Behind him he heard a three-shot burst. There was a dull thump as Raisa’s body hit the floor. For a moment there was silence. Then he heard the distant, thunderous bellow of a ship’s whistle, and Irish Jack and Patrice followed him across the laundry, past the A Melhor Lavanderia, Lisboa delivery truck in the loading dock and out into the Lisbon sunshine.
10:41 A.M.
107
10:42 A.M
RSO Special Agent Tim Grant, the near-spitting-image of Congressman Joe Ryder, stepped out of a taxi on Rua Ivens, paid the driver, and watched the cab drive away. At the far end of the street he could see the flashing lights of emergency vehicles. A wisp of black smoke rose skyward just past them; the cause of which he didn’t know. Immediately he turned and walked off in the direction of Rua Serpa Pinto. By his estimation, it was a block, two at most, to the Hospital da Universidade. He wore jeans and a light, baggy jacket and had a small backpack slung casually over his shoulder. Inside it were his wallet and diplomatic passport, a map of Lisbon, and an MP5K submachine gun with two fully loaded magazines. For all intents, he looked like a tourist.
10:43 A.M.
Carlos Branco sat waiting in a five-year-old Fiat on Rua da Vitória. He’d made the call at ten fourteen, seconds before he notified Conor White that Ryder and his RSO detail had vanished from the Ritz.
“You asked me to tell when I might have an apartment available for lease for your daughter,” he’d said. “I have one now, but it’s being shown this afternoon to another interested party. Perhaps you could come right away. I will meet you at Rua da Vitória just back from where it meets Rua dos Fanqueiros in the Baixa. The sooner you see it and make up your mind the better.”
10:45 A.M.
A gray Ford with a fading paint job pulled up next to the Fiat and stopped. Branco glanced briefly around, then got out and climbed into the Ford’s front passenger seat.
“What is it?” Jeremy Moyer asked without emotion as he pulled the Ford into traffic.
“The wheels are starting to come off,” Branco said, telling the CIA/Lisbon station chief what he couldn’t tell him over the phone. “Ryder and his RSO detail are gone from the hotel. Somehow they got out without being seen. The same thing happened with Marten and Anne Tidrow. They got help and slipped out of the apartment building using the cover of an electrician’s van. I had an asset follow them on a motorcycle. He’s dead. Maybe an accident. Probably not.”
Moyer flared. “You’re telling me with the all the talent under your control, you lost—”
“White found out where Marten and Anne Tidrow are headed.” Branco cut him off. “Hospital da Universidade on Rua Serpa Pinto. It’s either a stopping point for them or a place for them to meet Ryder. White’s on his way there now. So far there’s been no communication from Ryder or his RSO detail at all, so somebody on the outside has to be coordinating all this. Who it is, or where it’s coming from, we don’t know. What we do know is where they’re going. If we have to take them down in the hospital it will be messy. But the longer we hold off, the greater the chance something will go wrong and we’ll lose them altogether. What do you want to do? The call is yours.”
Moyer ground his teeth and looked at the traffic in front of him. Suddenly he was riding a whirlwind. In the next seconds a thousand thoughts crisscrossed. CIA Deputy Director Newhan Black had personally given him the order to put a trusted freelancer like Branco in charge of th
e operation in order to set up a terminal action by Conor White. For a moment it appeared those best-laid plans were coming apart. But then, in a sudden turn, they began to come together again, never mind that the venue was a hospital. His choices were simple: either go back to the embassy, try to get Black on a secure phone, and ask him for a further directive; or take charge himself and do what Black had intended he do from the beginning—let White put the matter to rest. Career-wise, the second choice was extremely risky, especially if it ended in disaster. But considering the time constraints, and how long it might take to make a secure contact with Black, it seemed best that he act now and on his own. Besides, if it came out as it should, it would greatly improve his standing within the organization.
“Take your assets and back up White at the hospital,” he said to Branco, then swung the Ford around and headed back into the Baixa.
“The rest of the embassy RSO detail is waiting at the Ritz for further instructions. What about them?”
“I’ll take care of it.” Moyer slowed for traffic, then abruptly pulled to the curb and stopped. He looked at the freelancer. “Compreenda?”
Branco nodded, “Sim.” Yes. Then opened the door and got out. Moyer drove off, and he walked back toward his car in a gaggle of tourists knowing he’d just been given carte blanche to do whatever was necessary to bring the entire episode to a suitable end.
10:50 A.M.
108
HOSPITAL DA UNIVERSIDADE. 10:52 A.M.
Marten reached the rear entrance and hesitated. He had no idea what to expect when he went in. A Lisbon police car had come down the alley from the opposite direction just as he’d started toward the entrance, and he’d had to draw back and wait. It had stopped at the door, and a uniformed officer had gone inside. It was a full ten minutes before he came out again and drove away past Marten. Why the police had stopped there, what had happened inside that had taken so long, he had no way of knowing. Conor White and the others aside, he’d had to remember that he was still wanted for the murder of Theo Haas. And, as the president had told him, both he and Anne were the prime suspects in the murder of Hauptkommissar Franck. The Portuguese police knew they had been in the Algarve the day before and might well suspect they were in Lisbon now. For all he knew the police visit to the hospital was one of many, giving the staff their description and instructions on what to do in the event either of them showed up. Still, he had little choice but to go ahead as planned, hoping that he was wrong about the police and that Anne was safely there and that Ryder and his RSO detail were either with her or on their way for the eleven o’clock encounter. With great trepidation he took a deep breath, then pulled open the door and went inside.