"He came all that way for the pictures, killed the policeman, and then let you keep them?" The president was incredulous. The president was incredulous.
"Not exactly."
"What the devil does that mean?"
"Kovalenko took the memory card from the camera that was used to photograph them. There"s far more d.a.m.ning stuff on it than just the pictures that were printed. A lot more."
"So, in essence, he does have them."
"He thinks he does. But when he gets to where he"s going, plugs in the card, and brings the pictures up on a screen, he"s going to find he"s got a whole lot of pictures of half-naked young women Theo Haas secretly photographed while they were sunbathing on the beach near his house. I switched cards on him. I have the original. No one knows but you, not even Anne. Both are locked away in the room safe here."
Marten could almost see the president grin. Then abruptly he spoke, his voice even more somber than before.
"What the police haven"t made public is that you and Ms. Tidrow are the prime suspects in Franck"s murder."
"That doesn"t surprise me. They know we were in Praia da Rocha this morning. They don"t want to make it public and drive us underground, then have us get away, like in Berlin."
"This is different than Berlin, Nick. You"re now not just a murderer but a cop killer. So is she. Raisa Amaro is a very smart, very gifted and trusted woman. She"ll keep anyone away from where you are. So both of you, stay right there. Don"t do anything until you hear from Joe Ryder."
"Right." Marten still said nothing about Anne leaving.
"Not just right, crucial. I finally saw the CIA briefing video from Equatorial Guinea. I was sickened as you were. I"m meeting with the secretary-general of the UN tomorrow to see what we can do to intervene or at least bring in humanitarian aid. But there"s something else, and why we have to get you both out of there as quickly as possible and before the police or anyone else finds you.
"We need the photographs and whatever else is on the camera"s memory card as hard evidence. But we also need the sworn testimony of Anne Tidrow to establish beyond question that Striker Oil, the Hadrian Company, and SimCo conspired to arm the revolutionaries for their own gain."
"I"m not sure she knew what was going on at the time."
"Maybe not, but she certainly knows enough about the inner workings of Striker and its relationship with Hadrian to give the attorney general"s office a solid base to work from. Whatever she can give us is more than we have.
"One more thing. You said Franck was a double agent and the Russians knew it."
"Yes."
"Do you know if they have seen the CIA video?"
"They have. Kovalenko told me they intercepted it and copied it."
Marten heard the president sigh in despair. "That seriously exacerbates what we"ve worried about from the start. If the pictures are made public and at the same time the Russians leak the video, I can guarantee you very few in this world, our own citizens included, will see the U.S. as anything but a murderous exploiter who has used the mercenary forces of an American oil company to further its own political ends. We will then be in the extremely delicate position of having to prove our innocence beyond any doubt whatsoever to an outraged global public. A feat that will be all but impossible without Ms. Tidrow"s presence and testimony. "That seriously exacerbates what we"ve worried about from the start. If the pictures are made public and at the same time the Russians leak the video, I can guarantee you very few in this world, our own citizens included, will see the U.S. as anything but a murderous exploiter who has used the mercenary forces of an American oil company to further its own political ends. We will then be in the extremely delicate position of having to prove our innocence beyond any doubt whatsoever to an outraged global public. A feat that will be all but impossible without Ms. Tidrow"s presence and testimony.
"There"s something else, too. The very real possibility that Kovalenko or agents working with him will come after you again once they discover you"ve switched memory cards. They will want the real one. So I repeat. Stay where you are and wait for Ryder"s call. He"ll be protected by his own RSO security detail, and the CIA will leave it at that. They"ll get you out and onto Ryder"s plane. We"ll take it from there." The president hesitated, then finished. "I got you into this pickle, Nick, and I"m doing everything I can to get you out. But unfortunately I can"t guarantee success. Most of it"s going to be up to you, and Joe Ryder and his people."
"I realize that."
"Then, as I said before, good luck and G.o.dspeed. And keep Ms. Tidrow close."
"Yes, sir, I will," Marten said. The president clicked off.
Marten let out a breath and stared at the empty room.
10:10 P.M.
Lost in thought, still rattled by the president"s directive and his own guilt at letting Harris believe Anne was safely with him, Marten stepped blindly from a curb. Immediately there was a flash of headlights and a loud blare of horn, and he jumped back as a city bus pa.s.sed inches from his nose. He swore out loud, then ducked low under his umbrella and crossed the street, moving deeper into the Chiado district looking for any sign of Anne.
For all the rain and dark and the fact that it was Sunday night, it was still summer, and even though most shops were closed, here and there he found an open cafe, a bar, a restaurant, a specialty shop selling souvenir T-shirts, coffee mugs, key chains, cheap cameras, and the like. She had to be in one of them because there was nothing else. But which one? And how far had she gone before she found what she wanted? Whatever that was.
10:13 P.M.
87.
10:18 P.M.
The text message was sent from CIA Chief of Station/Lisbon Jeremy Moyer to Carlos Branco"s BlackBerry in an electronic heartbeat.
Striker Oil American Express credit card used at Hotel Lisboa Chiado, Rua Garrett, 9:57 P.M.
10:19 P.M.
The same message was forwarded by Branco to Conor White. And, after a moment"s hesitation, from White to Sy Wirth.
10:20 P.M.
Wirth had a one-word reply.
Respond!
10:24 P.M.
Nicholas Marten walked out of Casanova, a small blue-and-white-tiled restaurant permeated with the distinctive odor of delicately seasoned roast pork. Raising his umbrella against the rain, he walked on, his eyes scanning either side of the street for pedestrians. He"d counted twenty tables inside Casanova; six had still been occupied. None by Anne. Describing her to the English-speaking head waiter proved fruitless. No one resembling her had been in the restaurant all evening, let alone within the last hour. A quick use of the toilet facilities toward the kitchen area in the rear-a covering act to see if the restaurant had a second or private dining room-had been unproductive as well. The place was small. What you saw when you entered was what there was.
10:35 P.M.
A visit to a cafe further down the street and then a bar and shortly afterward a souvenir shop had had the same result. No Anne, nor anyone looking like her, had either come or gone within the past hour.
He moved on, the wet streets reflecting the vivid colors of lighted store signs and the headlights of pa.s.sing traffic. By now he was walking along Rua Garrett and nearly out of the Chiado district. Ahead, and down a steep cobblestoned street-he recalled from earlier-and he would be in the even more densely populated Baixa quarter. He was about to turn the corner and start down when two things came to mind at almost the same moment.
The first was something Anne had asked Raisa as she had shown them around the apartment.
"One other thing. A computer or laptop with an Internet connection. At some point I will need to do a little work."
Raisa"s reply had been that as yet the building had no Internet connection. It was a reality Anne had accepted with little more than a nod.
The second was something that had happened earlier as they"d climbed from the Baixa quarter and turned onto Rua Garrett, where he was now-when Anne had suddenly ducked into a small, elegant five-star hotel to use the loo. At the time it had seemed completely reasonable, but putting the two pieces together now he wondered if she hadn"t been doing something more than just taking a pee. Maybe she"d been deliberately checking out the hotel to see if it had Internet service, a service a five-star hotel might very well provide even if some of the surrounding neighborhoods did not. But why? She had an Internet connection on her BlackBerry.
Still ...
Abruptly Marten turned back, retracing his steps on Rua Garrett. The hotel had been small, stylish, and on the left. Where was it? What had it been called? He walked on. Suddenly the rain came down in earnest. He huddled close under the umbrella and moved on. Seconds later he stopped. Not fifty paces ahead he saw it. hotel lisboa chiado His blood came up in a rush, and he started toward it.
10:46 P.M.
88.
HOTEL LISBOA CHIADO. 10:48 P.M.
The sound of a piano greeted Marten as he entered the small foyer. It seemed to be coming from a bar partway down an elegant wood-paneled hallway that led to the main desk area in the rear. On the left and in between was an elevator. A stairwell was just past it. Not the best architectural layout for a hotel, but probably done to work within the structural confines of a building that looked to be eighty years old at least and might once have been a private residence.
Marten closed the umbrella and walked down the hallway to glance into the bar. A young black man in a white suit sat at a piano effortlessly playing a medley of show tunes for the dozen or so patrons congregated there. As in the other places he"d visited, Anne was not among them.
He turned back, looked in the direction of the main desk, and headed for it. As he did, the elevator in front of him opened and three people stepped out. Their backs to him, they walked in the same direction he was going, toward the main desk. Two were clearly hotel employees, both in dark suits, one older than the other, the concierge, maybe. The third was a slim, fortyish, dark-haired man dressed in jeans and a Hawaiian shirt.
"I understand she checked in, but where is she now?" the Hawaiian shirt asked emphatically.
"I don"t know, sir. I"m sorry." The older man was genuinely apologetic. "Maybe she went out for something she needed. She had no luggage. She said it had been lost at the airport and was to be delivered here. So far it hasn"t been."
"But she did go to the room."
"Yes, sir. The night clerk showed her to it. You saw that for yourself."
"All I saw was that someone had used a hand towel in the bathroom. It could have been anyone."
"I"m sorry, Mr. Tidrow. It"s all I can tell you."
"She"s my sister, you know. She"s not well. She was supposed to call the moment she checked in."
"I appreciate the situation, sir. We will alert you the moment she returns."
At the word "Tidrow" Marten stopped where he was. They were already here, looking for her. How could they have known? Unless she"d been foolish enough to use a credit card and her accounts were being electronically monitored. But then credit cards, plus a little cash-certainly not enough for a room in a hotel like this, four hundred euros a night at least, probably more-would have been all she had. Moreover, she would have known that there was every chance her accounts were being watched and that if she used any of her cards they would know where they had been used and when, almost instantly. It meant she"d come there, done whatever she"d had to do, and then left before they could get there. But why? What was it that was worth the risk of exposing herself like this?
Use of the Internet?
Maybe he was wrong. Maybe she"d come there for some other reason entirely. He looked around. On a side table near the bar entrance was an arrangement of hotel brochures. Quickly he crossed to it, picked one up, and opened it. In the list of hotel amenities were the words High Speed Internet Access in All Rooms High Speed Internet Access in All Rooms.
Again he saw the fire and fear and uncertainty in her eyes just before she"d left Raisa"s apartment building and disappeared into the night. Alright, maybe the Internet was what she"d been after. But what information had she hoped to get that wasn"t already available to her via her own BlackBerry?
He slipped the brochure back in its cradle and looked down the hallway. The man in the Hawaiian shirt had stepped away from the others and was on a cell phone.
Get out of here, now! Marten thought.
Head down, he started for the front door. As he did, it opened and two men in suit coats came in. One was strongly built and well over six feet; the other, tall and very slim. Marten barely glanced at them as he pa.s.sed, but in that instant the breath went out of him. The big man was Conor White. The other was the French-Canadian jungle fighter, Patrice Sennac.
Breathless, umbrella in hand, Marten pushed through the door and out into the rain. A metallic gray BMW was parked directly in front of the hotel; a lone man sat at the wheel. Double-parked across the street was a dark blue Jaguar sedan. Its parking lights were on and he could just make out two figures in the front seat. Both were looking in his direction. Immediately he turned right and walked quickly off. Back down Rua Garrett, toward the Baixa district. Seconds later he heard the hotel"s door open behind him. A rush of feet followed. Beard, turned-up collar, pulled-down hat, or not, he"d been recognized.
He took off on the dead run.
10:57 P.M.
89.
Marten turned off Rua Garrett and ran hard down steep, rain-slicked, white-cobblestoned steps that ran alongside whatever narrow side street he had taken.
"Marten!"
Someone shouted behind him. Conor White? Maybe.
"Marten!" it came again.
He looked back and saw two men crest the top of hill on foot. Just then the gray BMW came into view. It slid to a stop beside them. They jumped in and the car screeched off, coming after him.
He turned back and kept running, looking for a way out. Then he saw a darkened alley to his right and turned down it, moving, he thought, into the Baixa quarter. At the end he turned left and ran on. Seconds later he saw the dark blue Jaguar flash under street-lights as it cut in from a side street. He turned left again, ran up a hill, then cut right at the next street and started down it. For a moment there was silence. Then he heard a wild scream of tires behind him and saw the Jaguar slide around the corner, nearly hit a parked car, then regain control and race toward him. Where the BMW had gone he didn"t know.
Suddenly he remembered Kovalenko"s Glock automatic in his waistband. He slid it out and kept running. A hundred yards farther down was the bottom of the hill. There, it flattened out and went straight into the heart of the Baixa. If he could reach it, with its traffic and its myriad of streets and cross streets, he might still have a chance.
Then the Jaguar was alongside him. It flew past, then abruptly slid to a stop. The pa.s.senger door was wrenched open and a man stepped out, a machine pistol in his hand.
"Freeze right there!" he commanded in English.
"Freeze this!" Marten yelled and raised the Glock.
Boom! Boom!
He fired two quick shots. The man was blown backward, bounced off the pa.s.senger door, and dropped to the pavement like concrete. In the next instant the driver"s door slammed open. Marten dove behind a parked car as a salvo of machine-pistol fire cut across it, showering him with pieces of metal and windshield gla.s.s. For a seemingly endless moment there was quiet. Then, the machine pistol up, the driver came forward in the rain and dark looking for him.
Marten let him come. Thirty steps, then twenty. He could see him now in the glow of the streetlights. Short hair, medium height, slim build. Thirty, thirty-five. The rain continued to fall. Ten steps away. Then five. Then two.
Marten calmly stood up. Almost in his face. "Right here," he said. The driver cried out in surprise and swung the machine pistol.
Boom!
Marten"s lone shot caught him between the eyes. His head snapped back, taking his body with it. He tottered for a moment, defying gravity, and then his legs gave out and he collapsed on the pavement.
Instantly Marten shifted his stance and looked past him for the gray BMW. He didn"t see it. Suddenly lights in the apartments on either side of the street were coming on and he could hear voices. He debated whether to chance retrieving the driver"s machine pistol, then decided against it and quickly walked away. Down the hill. In the rain. And into the heart of the Baixa.