by Allan Folsom
“Everyone ready?” Marten asked. There was a murmur and unanimous nod. Then he looked at Anne.
“Good luck,” she said.
“You, too.”
“Good luck to us all,” Ryder added and looked to the people around him. “And a very indebted and heartfelt thank-you to Mário, to his brother Santos, and to his friends for helping us in what we all realize is a particularly dangerous situation.” He looked at Marten and nodded.
“Let’s go,” Marten said, and they parted: Anne, Ryder, Birns, and Gama down the corridor to the left and the ambulance bay; Marten and his people to the right, toward the front door. As they went Marten saw a fire alarm box on the wall. Quickly he turned back. “Mário,” he called, “is there an alarm box near the ambulance bay?”
“In the corridor just inside it, why?”
“Just a thought, it’s nothing, sorry.” He glanced at Anne, their eyes met, and he turned back to his group. “Out the door fast and into the truck!”
11:49 A.M.
113
The two minutes were up.
Conor White had come too far, been thwarted too often through no design of his own, not to complete the mission now. Not with the objective right there, yards from his grasp. He hit the KEY TO TALK button and lifted the microphone in his jacket sleeve to his hand.
“6-4, this is Control. We’re going in. Lockdown rules, full balaclavas.”
“Roger, Control.”
“6-2, you copy?” White reached for the balaclava on the seat beside him.
“Roger, Control.”
“They’re coming out,” Irish Jack said sharply.
“What?” White looked up.
They saw five people quickly exiting the hospital’s front entrance and heading for the parked laundry truck. Moses led them. Marten was next. Then Joe Ryder carrying some kind of backpack, Anne, and lastly one of the RSO agents. Patrice lifted the binoculars.
“6-4, abort action,” White snapped into his microphone. “Our relatives are in view!”
“That’s not Moses!” Patrice had the binoculars tight against his face, watching Marten’s group as they climbed into the truck. “It’s not Anne, either!”
“Christ!” White lifted the MP5. “Gun it, Jack, gun it!”
Irish Jack turned the ignition key. The Mercedes’s 510 horsepower V12 roared to life. A split second later he fishtailed it out of the parking spot after the laundry truck that was accelerating away.
“6-4, 6-2,” White said into the microphone at his sleeve. “Marten’s using the truck as a decoy. Anne and Ryder will be coming out in some other vehicle. Watch for it. We’re in pursuit of Marten! Copy.”
“6-4. Roger, Control.”
“6-2. Roger, Control.”
Marten rode in the shotgun seat watching the truck’s outside mirror. “Here they come. Black Mercedes.” He clicked on the power to the team radio unit he had taken from Moses and pressed the earpiece into his left ear.
Agent Grant was right behind him. He looked to the bookkeeper playing Anne and the anesthesiologist who had the part of Agent Birns. “Get down, flat on the floor!” he ordered, then opened his backpack and slid the MP5K submachine gun from it.
“Santos.” Marten looked to Mário’s brother at the wheel. “Take us into the Baixa, the shortest route you know.”
Twenty yards ahead, Rua Serpa Pinto ended at the bottom of the hill. Santos touched the brakes, then leaned on the horn and took a sharp left, the top-heavy truck leaning dangerously to one side as it went. Marten could see the Mercedes slide through the same turn seconds behind them. His hand went to the Glock in his belt. He looked at Santos.
“They’re coming hard. What can you do?”
To his great surprise, Santos grinned, almost as if he were enjoying it. “I have been an ambulance driver for twenty-two years. This is no ambulance, but—” Abruptly he swung the wheel right and turned the laundry truck down a narrow cobblestone alley that was almost impossible to see from the street. Marten saw the Mercedes fly past, then slide to a stop, back up in a cloud of burning rubber, and come down the alley after them. Then Santos was taking another right, then a sharp left. The Mercedes disappeared from view.
“How far is the Baixa?” Marten pressed.
“Three minutes.”
“Get me on a street where I can drive to it myself. Then pull over and stop. I want you people out of here.”
Santos grinned again. “Out of here? This is fun!”
“Fun, hell, those guys will kill all of us!”
Suddenly a sharp communication came through Marten’s earpiece. “Control, this is 6-4.”
The men in the Mercedes heard Carlos Branco as well. “A fire alarm was pulled in the hospital seconds after you left. I’m monitoring Lisbon Fire. They’ve got five vehicles rolling now. They’ll probably ring a second alarm and double that. Every street in the area will be filled with fire apparat—Christ!” Branco blurted suddenly and then there was silence.
“Christ! What?” Conor White spat into his microphone as Irish Jack slid the Mercedes through a corner and accelerated off. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Hospital ambulance just shot past us in the alley. RSO Special Agent Birns was in the shotgun seat! Go!” they heard him yell to his driver in Portuguese. “We’re in pursuit now! Am assuming Anne and Ryder are with him, maybe the other RSO, too, if he didn’t decoy with Marten!”
“Stay on him! Stay on him! 6-2, back up 6-4. Copy.”
“6-4. Roger. 6-2, copy.”
“6-2. Roger.”
“I see him. I see him!” Irish Jack glimpsed the laundry truck. There was a massive whine as he touched the accelerator and the Mercedes shot forward. In seconds they were on top of a lumbering vintage streetcar. Irish Jack cut left, started to pass it, then found himself in the path of an oncoming bus. He swore out loud and dropped back, letting the bus go by. In the next instant he pulled left. There was a scream of engine and then they were around the streetcar and cutting back in front of it. Ahead they could see the laundry truck turn down a side street. At the same time, an aging white Opel pulled out of a parking space in front of them.
“Get out of the fucking way!” Irish Jack slammed on the brakes, then jumped on the accelerator and fishtailed around it, barely missing an oncoming taxi, its driver leaning on his horn and throwing a fist up in rage.
Santos turned the laundry truck onto Rua Nova do Almada. As quickly he swung right, and they were into the heart of the Baxia.
Marten looked in the mirror. Two blocks back he saw the Mercedes round a corner and race after them.
“Santos, next block pull over. Tell me which way to go afterward.”
“Right turn, then left,” Santos told Marten, “then two streets and—”
“Control, 6-4. We’ve got the ambulance. 6-2’s on their tail.” Marten heard the quick rasp of Branco’s voice. “We’re right behind them. Copy.”
“Control. 6-4. Where are you? Can you take them down now?” Marten felt a stabbing chill as Conor White’s distinctive British accent spat through his earpiece. In the same instant he flashed on the memory of the first time he had seen him as he accompanied Anne across the floor of the Hotel Malabo. A strong, proud, seemingly sane military man in a well-cut suit.
“We’re on Calçada do Carmo heading toward Rossio Square. Streets are too narrow to make any kind of takedown move.”
Suddenly the piercing scream of a siren followed by the thundering blare of an air horn shot through Marten’s earpiece. A split second later he heard what sounded like a horrendous crash.
For a moment there was absolute silence. Then—
“6-4. Control. 6-4! Copy,” he heard Conor White bark. There was no reply. Then, “6-2. 6-2. Control. 6-2! Do you read me? Copy!”
“This is 6-4, Control. Fire truck went through an intersection. Hit the ambulance and the 6-2 car. Ambulance is on its side. 6-2 car not drivable.”
“Control, 6-4. How bad is it? Anybody killed?”
“Can’t tell. Firemen are on it. My guys seem banged up but okay, don’t know the extent of it. Firemen have the ambulance’s rear doors open. I can’t—Wait. I see Ryder. He’s being helped out. Looks stunned. Don’t know about the others.”
“Get your men out of the 6-2 car.” White was calm but emphatic. “If they can’t walk, carry them. Then get the hell out of there. You’ll have emergency personnel including police all over the place before you can piss. You don’t want them talking to your guys. Copy.”
“6-4, roger, copy.”
“Control, 6-4. Imperative we meet close to accident scene. Our vehicle has GPS. Give me street coordinates. Copy.”
“Roger, Control. Ah, Calçada do Duque at Rua da Condessa. Copy.”
“Calçada do Duque at Rua da Condessa. Five minutes tops. Copy.”
“Roger, Control. Five minutes.”
For an instant Marten sat stunned. It wasn’t just the unexpectedness of the accident and the acute fear that Anne and Ryder might be seriously hurt or worse; what struck him was how quickly White had read the situation and decided on what action to take next. Whatever that was, whoever his 6-4 and 6-2 people were, clearly none of them were running away.
As quickly, real time caught up. He glanced in the mirror looking for the trailing black Mercedes. He saw it several cars behind just as the driver did an abrupt U-turn in traffic, then accelerated off in the opposite direction. Immediately he turned to Grant.
“Fire truck hit the ambulance. It’s on its side. Ryder seems okay. That’s the most we know. White had two cars tailing it. One of them got caught up in the accident. He’s regrouping to meet near the scene.” He looked to Santos. “Your brother may have been hurt, I don’t know. Get us to Calçada do Carmo near Rossio Square. Fast as you can!”
“Yes, sir.” Santos glanced in his mirror, waited for a man on a bicycle to pass, then took an abrupt left and stepped hard on the truck’s accelerator.
12:02 P.M.
114
Anne was on her knees. A young fireman with red hair poking out from under his helmet was with her, trying to help her stand up on what was once a sidewall but was now the floor of the overturned ambulance. She was a little woozy from the impact and rollover, and blood oozed from a gash above her right eye, but other than that she seemed alright. At least that was what she told the fireman. In the distance she heard the singsong of approaching sirens. She shook her head, trying to clear it. Then she saw Ryder sitting on the sidewalk partway up a hill on the far side of the street. Two firemen were attending to him.
“Easy,” the fireman helping her said calmly in English. “Can you put weight on your legs?”
She tried, then nodded.
“Good. There’s a fuel leak. We have to get out and away from the vehicle now.” He started to lead her toward the door that by now had been propped open. As he did, her mind cleared and she turned back, looking crazily around in the upside-down confusion. Nothing was where it should have been.
“What are you doing?”
“I need my bag.”
“Senhora. Leave it. We have to get out!”
He took her by the arm and was moving her toward the door when she saw it, thrown into the corner by the force of the crash. Abruptly she pulled away to retrieve it. He swore out loud and scrambled after her.
“Senhora, the vehicle is going to explode. Leave your purse, it’s not important!”
“That’s what you think.” She lunged and grabbed it just as he caught her. A second later they were out and under an increasingly cloudy sky, rushing back, away from the stricken ambulance. The smell of raw fuel was everywhere. Feet away was the wreckage of a dark blue Peugeot, its front end all but torn off. Two men in jeans and Windbreakers, one with a hand to his head, stood next to it talking with a fireman. Behind them, up the hill they had been coming down when the collision happened, she could see a gray Alfa Romeo sedan stopped in the middle of the roadway just opposite a narrow side street. A slim, bearded man in a black suit had gotten out of it and was walking down the hill toward them. Now the memory came back. The Alfa and the Peugeot were the cars that had been following them just moments after they left the hospital. Ryder had remarked about them; so had Agent Birns.
“Over here.” The redheaded fireman led her toward the area where Ryder was. The approaching sirens were closer. Everywhere she saw faces of onlookers. People gathered on the sidewalks. Faces peering from shops and apartment buildings. She looked toward Ryder and saw him get to his feet. To his left, two firefighters were lifting Mário onto some kind of gurney. Suddenly there was an ear-shattering blast of sirens. Immediately they shut down. Two fire trucks had arrived at the same time, adding to the chaos. Firemen jumped from them carrying large canisters and rushed toward the ambulance to lay a carpet of gray-white foam over the leaking fuel. A police car came in from a side street and stopped. Another followed. Uniformed officers got out and began herding the onlookers back. Then more police arrived. It was all happening in seconds. Then an ambulance came, and then one more. The sound and confusion magnified. She looked back and saw the bearded man in black gesture to the men who had been in the Peugeot. The fireman guiding her told her to watch her step and again asked if she was alright and after that asked what her name was and why she had been in the ambulance.
She told him her first name, then murmured something about not remembering where they were going or why. She stepped up on the curb near Ryder and looked around for Agent Birns. She didn’t see him. She looked to Ryder. He understood and shook his head. Then she saw two ambulance attendants run forward with a gurney. A body lay on the far sidewalk, a white sheet covering it.
A firefighter walked up carrying Birns’s briefcase and spoke with the ambulance people. There was a short conversation; then he turned and went over to a policeman. Another short conversation, and a gesture toward the wrecked ambulance. Inside the briefcase was Birns’s MP5K, and Anne knew well how to use it. She was trying to think of some way to retrieve it when the policeman took the briefcase from the fireman, then put it in the trunk of his patrol car and closed it, thereby ending any hope for recovering it she might have had.
115
12:09 P.M
Santos slowed the laundry truck long enough to let Marten change places with the anesthesiologist who had been impersonating Agent Birns and slide into the back alongside Agent Grant and the bookkeeper who had portrayed Anne. With Marten out of sight, Santos continued on toward the roadblock the Public Security Police, the Polícia de Segurança Pública, had set up to keep traffic from the accident site.
Reaching it, he stopped and leaned out, telling the police who he was and asking to be let through. His brother, he said, had been driving the ambulance involved in the crash, and he wanted to get to him right away. As a longtime ambulance driver, Santos was known by almost every uniform in the Security Police, and those at the barricade were no exception; the bronzing face makeup he’d used in his role as Moses, which at another time would have been food for scurrilous comment, they let pass, telling him to park the truck down the hill and walk in. “I have hospital personnel with me,” he said strongly and received no argument about the others accompanying him. Less than two minutes later he had parked the truck, and the four followed him back up the hill and through the police line.
They were barely ten feet inside it when Santos and the hospital people suddenly rushed forward through the crowd toward the wrecked ambulance. Marten glanced back at the police; then he and Grant followed, looking for Anne and Ryder and Birns.
The cross streets—Calçada do Duque at Rua da Condessa, where White was to meet with whoever had the radio designation 6-4—were, Santos told them, partway up the hill from the accident scene. Meaning White and his gunmen were in close proximity and could easily infiltrate the swarm of people around them. Marten touched the Glock under his jacket and glanced at Grant, who now had the backpack under his arm so that the barrel of the MP5K submachine gun was just visible in
its opening, his finger pressed through a hole in the material encircling the trigger.
Forty seconds of pushing past onlookers, firemen, rescue teams, police, and just-arriving media crews and they saw Anne and Ryder. Wherever Birns was, he wasn’t with them. They moved closer. With the exception of a small bandage over Anne’s right eye, both seemed to be physically unharmed. Anne, bless her after everything, had her purse with the photographs and the copy of the memorandum thrown over her shoulder and clutched to her side.
A little closer still and they could hear Ryder telling a fire captain that he and Anne were fine and that all they needed was a taxi to take them back to their hotel. Since there was no flurry of activity around him, it was clear he had not yet identified himself. Marten saw it as an opportunity to get them out of there before he did and signaled Grant to cover him in the event White or his men made their move.
He was just starting toward them when he saw a ranking uniformed police officer, a lieutenant maybe, approach Ryder. Once he reached him there would be questions, a lot of them. Who he was, who Anne was, why they had been in the ambulance, where they had been going. At this point Anne’s identity was unimportant because once Ryder’s identity was established the U.S. Embassy would be informed, meaning the CIA would almost immediately know where he was—if White hadn’t informed them already and/or if the 6-4 designate and those who had been in the 6-2 car weren’t CIA themselves. Whatever the case, it was imperative Marten get their attention and get them away from there right then.
Anne saw him as he was coming toward her. He nodded toward the approaching policeman and shook his head. At the same time, he realized he had a far better card to play. The police themselves. White would have his hands fully tied if suddenly Ryder and Anne were put into a police car and driven from the scene.