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 Mario"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, h.e.l.l, those guys will kill all of us!"
Suddenly a sharp communication came through Marten"s earpiece. "Control, this is 6-4." "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 h.e.l.l"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. " they heard him yell to his driver in Portuguese. "We"re in pursuit now! Am a.s.suming 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 ma.s.sive 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 pa.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce in front of them.
"Get out of the f.u.c.king 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. " 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. 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 Calcada 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, he heard Conor White bark. There was no reply. Then, "6-2. 6-2. Control. 6-2! Do you read me? Copy!" "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. White was calm but emphatic. "If they can"t walk, carry them. Then get the h.e.l.l out of there. You"ll have emergency personnel including police all over the place before you can p.i.s.s. You don"t want them talking to your guys. Copy." "If they can"t walk, carry them. Then get the h.e.l.l out of there. You"ll have emergency personnel including police all over the place before you can p.i.s.s. 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, Calcada do Duque at Rua da Condessa. Copy."
"Calcada 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 Calcada do Carmo near Rossio Square. Fast as you can!"
"Yes, sir." Santos glanced in his mirror, waited for a man on a bicycle to pa.s.s, 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 Mario 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 Policia de Seguranca Publica, 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 pa.s.s, 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-Calcada 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 ident.i.ty was unimportant because once Ryder"s ident.i.ty was established the U.S. Emba.s.sy 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.
"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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sume White and/or his people would intercept the exchanges and know what was going on. So would people at the U.S. Emba.s.sy, princ.i.p.ally 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. "Mario"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. amba.s.sador was informed," the lieutenant told Ryder. "He asked that we take you directly to the emba.s.sy. 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 emba.s.sy 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.
116.
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 Operaces 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. Emba.s.sy. 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 emba.s.sy.
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.