by Allan Folsom
“That cop.” Marten pulled Grant close. “The lieutenant or whoever he is. Intercept him. Show him your ID and tell him who you and Ryder are and that Anne and I are with you. You are charged with the congressman’s personal safety. There have been threats against his life. What happened here might have been an accident, it might not. Ask him to get us out of here right now. He’ll have to request permission, but once he gets it White and his gunmen will have to pull up short, at least long enough for us to try to work out something else.”
Grant nodded and moved off. Marten let his eyes sweep the crowd. If White, Patrice, or the bull-like man Anne had called Irish Jack was there, he didn’t see them. He looked back. Grant was in conversation with Ryder and the policeman. A moment passed and he saw the cop lift his radio and turn away, talking into it. Again Marten scanned the crowd.
The permission.
The bureaucracy through which police machinery everywhere worked. Radio messages back and forth would take time, and he had to assume White and/or his people would intercept the exchanges and know what was going on. So would people at the U.S. Embassy, principally the CIA’s chief of station.
He felt a drop of rain and looked up at the darkening sky. There was another drop and then another. Suddenly he felt a hand tighten around his arm. He whirled. It was Anne. Ryder and Grant were with him.
“You were right, he had to get approval,” Grant said. “He’s calling for it now.”
Suddenly Marten remembered Birns. Where was he? Anne read his expression.
“Agent Birns was killed in the accident,” she said quietly. “Mário’s hurt. I don’t know how badly.”
Marten looked at Grant. Birns had been his traveling companion-in-arms for years. They were pals, buddies, as close as you get without being brothers. Maybe even closer than brothers. He knew that awful gut-eating loss too well from his days on the LAPD. He also knew there was nothing you could do about it but say a prayer for him and move on, as Grant was doing now.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and Grant nodded a solemn thanks. Then Marten looked at Anne. She was pale and still a little shaky. The bandage over her eye was the work of paramedics, and she limped a little, as did Ryder. “You okay?”
“Yes.”
He looked at her purse and grinned in admiration. “The lady seems to know how to hold on to the important things in life.”
“Once in a while.” She smiled softly. “Once in a while.”
Just then the rain that been teasing began to come down harder. A moment later the lieutenant returned. Two uniforms were with him. None of them paid Marten or Anne the slightest attention. Ryder was their man. Permission for a police escort had been granted. A large unmarked SUV was being brought up as they spoke.
“The U.S. ambassador was informed,” the lieutenant told Ryder. “He asked that we take you directly to the embassy. You’ll be quite safe there.”
“Thank you,” Ryder said graciously and then looked at Grant and Marten. His expression reinforced what Marten had known all along. The embassy was the last place they would be safe. Somewhere along the way they would have to make an abrupt change of plan.
12:22 P.M.
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12:28 P.M.
Conor White knew what to look for—a black unmarked Toyota Land Cruiser coming down from the accident site followed by a white unmarked Ford. The driver and sergeant in the Toyota and the men in the tail car would be members of the Public Security Police Special Operations Group—Grupo de Operações Especiais, or GOE—highly trained counterterrorist police.
The GOE vehicles would follow the road down to Rossio Square, then circle it and drive up the verdant Avenida da Liberdade on the way to the U.S. Embassy. Carlos Branco had given him the information seconds after getting off the phone with the CIA/Lisbon station chief, Jeremy Moyer. The route had been laid out by the GOE and approved by the embassy.
The GOE plan gave them all they needed, a map to follow and a time frame in which to work. The entire trip from beginning to end would take no more than fifteen minutes. Somewhere in between they would strike. Where, when, and how was up to White. Branco was, and had always been, the “painter” here, both the setup man and the backup for White. Whatever else might be required he was wholly open to, as long as he got paid. A sum that in this case would be substantial. No matter what White had personally promised him on the side, his wages here, one hundred and fifty thousand euros, would be picked up by Moyer and paid out through a clandestine fund set up by the Agency.
Branco’s final radio communication with White had come immediately after the accident involving the fire truck and the ambulance. By then both men had realized Marten would have taken Moses’s radio unit and be monitoring their exchanges. White had set the location near the accident scene deliberately, betting Marten would rush there to protect Anne and Ryder, thereby bringing the three of them together in a very manageable line of fire. After that all radio contact with Branco ceased, their communication continuing by cell phone only.
That Marten had taken the bait was affirmed by the A Melhor Lavanderia, Lisboa laundry truck parked just up the hill from the street where White, Patrice, and Irish Jack now waited in the black UN-license-plated Mercedes. Branco and three of his former Portuguese army commandos were in the Alfa Romeo parked on the same street less than a hundred paces behind them. The plan was to wait for the Land Cruiser and Ford tail car to pass, then follow them in traffic around Rossio Square, past the Metro station, and up Avenida da Liberdade to where Rua Barata Salgueiro crossed it. It was there they would strike. Irish Jack would accelerate alongside the procession as if to pass it. At the last second he would abruptly turn in front of the Land Cruiser, cutting it off. In the meantime Branco’s Alfa would pull in tight behind the tailing Ford. The GOE was a highly respected antiterrorist SWAT-type organization whose members had been trained in the same manner as the British SAS, White’s primary regiment, which meant he knew their tactics and mind-set. He also knew that the only way to defeat them was by striking hard and fast, with Branco’s gunmen taking out the GOEs in the tail car while he, Patrice, and Irish Jack attacked the Land Cruiser. That a number of policemen would be killed meant little. Lisbon was a war zone, no different than if it were a city in Iraq or Afghanistan. As he had said—thirty seconds and it would be done. Then Branco and his men would be in the Alfa and gone, and they would be disappearing in the city’s myriad of narrow, twisting streets, racing to the airport and the waiting Falcon 50 for the flight back to Bioko.
“Colonel,” Patrice said quietly, his eyes on the street above them, his Quebecois accent as distinct as ever, “here they come.”
12:30 P.M.
117
The Land Cruiser came down the hill slowly, its windshield wipers beating a steady rhythm against the light rain. The white Ford was tight behind it.
The task of getting the congressman and his people from the accident scene to the U.S. Embassy was commanded by plainclothes GOE Sergeant Clemente Barbosa, a raw-boned man in his midthirties who rode in the shotgun seat. His driver, Eduardo, was several years younger and fully intent on the roadway ahead and the traffic, streets, and buildings around them. His world, like Barbosa’s, was in the moment, nowhere else. The same was true for the four armed, uniformed GOEs in the tail car.
Ryder and Grant rode in the seats directly behind Barbosa and Eduardo. Marten and Anne were in the third row. The passenger compartment where they all were was shielded from outside view by the Toyota’s dark-tinted windows. In the few moments before the GOE arrived, Marten, Anne, Ryder, and Grant had examined the situation. The consensus was that none wanted to chance going to the embassy, if for no other reason than that at some point they would have to leave it and, no matter how well guarded they were, White would know when they would be leaving and where they would be going. The same as he undoubtedly did now. The difference was that if they moved soon, meaning in the next few minutes, they would have an element of surprise they wouldn’t have
once they were in the confines of the embassy.
The idea of disappearing into a large crowd—as Marten and Grant had planned before the accident, when they would have abandoned the laundry truck and dashed into the heavily populated Baixa district to lose themselves in it—still seemed best. Even as the rain toyed with them, this was still the tourist season and crowds were everywhere, most especially where they were headed: Rossio Square, where Ryder and Agent Birns had stopped earlier that morning to change cabs. It was a place, Ryder was certain, that would be filled not only with tourists but also with readily available taxis.
So Rossio was the site where they would make their move. Grant would ask Barbosa to pull over and stop, saying that Ryder wasn’t feeling well and needed some air. Barbosa would be reluctant but have no choice except to do as he had been asked. At that point they would simply open the doors and get out, with Ryder saying he needed a few minutes to walk the sensation off and Grant reassuring Barbosa that he was armed and that the congressman was perfectly safe. Seconds later they would be in the crowd and quickly disappear into it, splitting up as they went—Grant staying with Ryder to guard him, Anne and Marten going off in a different direction altogether. After that each group would find a taxi, take it to the civil aviation terminal at Portela Airport, then go to directly Ryder’s plane, where the pilots would be waiting and the aircraft cleared for takeoff.
Not a word was said as they reached the bottom of the hill and Eduardo turned the Land Cruiser onto Praça Dom Pedro IV, following the one-way streets around Rossio Square in a line of traffic. At that point the rain came down in earnest.
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Irish Jack changed the speed of the Mercedes’s windshield wipers to keep up with the downpour and at the same time kept them a neat three vehicles behind the Ford tail car. Directly behind them was a silver Opel and then Branco and his men in the Alfa. He glanced at Patrice in the shotgun seat, then in the mirror at Conor White. Both men had their automatic weapons out and ready. His own M-4 Colt Commando rested in his lap. He looked back at the road in front of him just as the Toyota and Ford reached the far end of the square and began the run along its far side heading toward Avenida da Liberdade.
______
Ryder glanced at Grant, then turned to look over his shoulder at Marten. “Now what?” he said quietly. Because of the rain, the crowds they were counting on for cover were gone. The big plaza was void of anything but pigeons.
Anne turned to look behind them. “Nicholas,” she warned. “Gray Alfa Romeo, several cars back.”
Marten looked. He saw the Alfa and the black Mercedes in front of it. “The Mercedes is Conor White’s car.” He turned back to Ryder and Grant. “They’re right on our tail,” he said sotto voce. “All due respect to the GOEs, we’re not going to get anywhere near the embassy.”
Immediately he looked at the barren square on his left, trying to decide what to do, find any avenue of escape. There was nothing but the open, rain-soaked plaza. He looked right, along the facade of shops and cafés they were passing, but nothing jumped out at him. If they told Barbosa and they sped off, White would realize they had been seen, drop back, change cars, and wait for later. The same would happen if they called in more police, because he was certain White or his people would be monitoring the GOE radio frequencies. Then, in the distance, he saw it. A big red M marking the entrance to a Metro station. He looked to Anne, then leaned forward to Ryder and Grant. “We’re going underground,” he said quietly, “now.”
Conor White sat forward, his black balaclava and MP5 submachine gun in his lap, preparing himself for the action that was to come in less than two minutes as they left the Rossio and started up Avenida da Liberdade toward the strike point at Rua Barata Salgueiro.
Suddenly he felt a dark shadow descend from the car’s ceiling and settle around him like some precursor of doom. What the hell is this? he said to himself. Never in his life had he experienced anything like it. He tried to shake it off, but the shadow remained. In the next instant he had a soul-chilling premonition that he was right, that things were about to go horribly wrong. The way they had gone wrong ever since Nicholas Marten arrived in Bioko. Until then everything had gone smoothly. Then, and almost immediately, the trouble with the photographs had begun and everything started to come apart.
“Jesus Christ!” Irish Jack shouted.
Fifty yards in front of them the big Toyota suddenly pulled to the curb. The tail car came in right behind it. In a blink the Land Cruiser’s passenger doors opened. Ryder and Grant got out, followed by Marten and Anne. The driver and front-seat passenger got out at the same time. Marten looked at them, pointed toward the Mercedes, and said something. Then he, Anne, Ryder, and Grant dashed into the Metro.
“Take down the GOEs,” White said coolly. “We’re going in after them.”
“Stay with Anne and Ryder,” Marten yelled at Grant as they came into the station and headed toward a long flight of stairs that led to the Metro trains below. Immediately he turned back, lifting the Glock from his jacket and holding it tight against his side. The Metro entrance framed everything. The Mercedes pulled up behind the tail car as the uniformed GOEs piled out of it, their weapons coming into full view. The next happened in a millisecond. Three men wearing black balaclavas and business suits jumped from the Mercedes, their flame-and sound-suppressed automatic weapons already firing. Clemente Barbosa and Eduardo went down almost in silence. So did the four uniformed GOEs, their weapons never discharged. The horror didn’t stop there. The three came running into the Metro station after them.
Glock in hand, his heart pounding, Marten reached the stairs and started down. He could see Anne, Ryder, and Grant mixed in with other travelers as they neared the bottom. He looked back to see Conor White reach the top of the stairs and start down after him. The balaclava gone, his suit jacket open, he was concealing something beneath it. An instant later he saw Patrice and Irish Jack come in behind him and follow him down. Like White, their balaclavas were gone and their suit jackets were open, and each was holding something out of sight beneath it. In between them and himself were probably twenty or more travelers.
Marten shoved the Glock into his belt and pulled the dark blue cell phone from his jacket. He hit the speed dial and prayed he’d entered the right number and that it was still in service. It rang once, then again, then once more. Finally a familiar voice answered.
“Ya,” Kovalenko said in Russian.
“You here? In Lisbon?” Marten demanded.
“Where the hell is my memory card?”
“I need your damn help. Are you here or not?”
“I’m your guardian angel, always around when you need me. We Russians have big ears and wide eyes. I was going to meet you where you are going, the U.S. Embassy. Your friend Mr. Logan, with the books and dogs. It was kind of you to include his business card in the envelope you gave me when you switched the memory cards. Even then you were thinking you might need my assistance.”
“I was and I do.” Marten kept on down the stairs. He glanced over his shoulder, then stepped around an attractive young woman and pushed past a large, overweight man, trying to put as many people between himself and Conor White and his killers as possible. “We’re in the Rossio Metro. White and two of his mercenaries are coming after us. They just killed a half-dozen cops. We need help, and soon, or I’ll be dead and your memory card will end up in White’s trophy case.”
Marten looked up. He saw Ryder, Anne, and Grant stop at a ticket kiosk. Grant bought tickets and motioned for him to join them. The backpack was tucked under his arm, the MP5K at the ready, and he was being very cool. No need to alarm the other people crowding the station. People they would keep between themselves and White and his men until they could board a train. He looked up at a large Metro station guide. The next station in one direction was Martim Moniz. Baixa/Chiado was in the other. That was the one he chose because he guessed it would be the most crowded.
“We’re going to try to make the Ba
ixa/Chiado station. “Look for us there.” There was no reply. Only silence. “Kovalenko. Kovalenko! Jesus Christ, are you there?”
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Carlos Branco had seen the Toyota and the tail car suddenly pull over and stop. Had seen Marten and the others jump out and point at White’s Mercedes, then run with the others into the Metro. Had seen the GOEs react as the Mercedes slid to a stop behind them. He knew what was going to happen and got out of there fast, racing the Alfa Romeo past the Metro entrance just as White and the others jumped from the car.
At the top of Rossio Square he stopped and looked back, then called Moyer on his cell phone. There was no time for clandestine meetings or secure phones. Moyer needed to know what was going on right then.
“The wheels have completely come off,” he said. “White has taken down six GOEs in front of the Rossio Metro station and chased Marten, Ryder, and the others into it. There will be more people killed before it’s over. What do you want me to do?”
For the briefest moment Moyer said nothing. Then he spoke, calmly and quietly. “Complete the project.”
There had been no need to reply. Branco simply clicked off and looked at his men. They probably had sixty seconds at best before a GOE SWAT team arrived and closed off everything. They had to get to the Rossio station and inside it before that happened.
Patrice and Irish Jack caught up with White at the bottom of the stairs. They could see Grant hand Marten a rail ticket, and then the two followed Anne and Ryder through the glass-paneled entry gates into the station proper. Beyond them were the trains, and once they reached those and got on, everything would be lost. Moreover, he knew the GOE would respond to the killing of its officers with extreme prejudice and very fast. There was no time to finesse anything.