Branco and four of his former Portuguese army commandos were already in place, waiting in dark-colored sedans, a Peugeot and an Alfa Romeo, at either end of the alley behind the hospital. Each man was acutely aware of the less-than-hour-old death of their group member sent to tail Marten and Anne by motorcycle. Each had been warned, too, of Marten’s deadly marksmanship in the shooting of the two others of their circle who had gone after him in the blue Jaguar the night before. That they had no idea who he really was, or what his training had been, wouldn’t matter; their blood was up for a proper response, and they were more than eager for it to begin.
For his part, he, Patrice, and Irish Jack would stay were they were, parked at the curb fifty yards up from the hospital entrance, weapons and black balaclavas at hand, ready to play the game as it unfolded.
No matter what happened, or where, the end would be the same. The five targets would be quickly cut off and isolated from the public. He, Patrice, and Irish Jack would do the work. Branco and his team would back them up. It would take thirty seconds, no more. As quickly, Branco’s people would fade into the city, and they would be on their way to the airport and the Falcon 50, safe with the knowledge that there were probably no more than a handful of policemen anywhere on the planet who would stop a highly polished black Mercedes with UN plates and three well-dressed gentlemen inside, no matter how fast they were going.
That was Plan A.
Alternatively, if something happened and Moses was exposed and/or he came out empty-handed, they would immediately shift to the uglier but still very effective Plan B. Call in Branco’s men, pull on the balaclavas, then go into the hospital, lock it down, and begin a forced search of their own. The hospital was small, and they’d done such things successfully before. In Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
“What’s taking Moses so fucking long?” Irish Jack squirmed uncomfortably behind the wheel. “If they’re there, he would know it. If they aren’t, he should have reported it by now.”
Patrice raised a pair of binoculars and studied the building’s front entrance.
“Give the man time, Jack,” White said quietly. “Give the man time.”
Irish Jack turned to look over his shoulder. “Colonel, my balls tell me he’s taking too fucking long.”
“I never distrust a man’s balls, Jack. Let’s find out.” White lifted his arm, pressed the KEY TO TALK button on the microphone inside his coat sleeve, and spoke into it. “3-3, this is Control. Do you have a rabbit for us? Copy.”
11:18 A.M.
111
11:19 A.M.
Marten, Mário Gama, and Special Agent Grant stood inside a darkened inner chamber of the hospital’s Security Center studying a bank of monitor screens tied to security cameras throughout the building.
“There.” Gama indicated one of the screens as a man in a starched white laundryman’s jacket stepped into view near the front entrance. “He’s the one who asked for you.”
They could see Moses standing in a shaft of daylight just back from the door, a hand to his ear, seemingly intent on something.
“He’s plugged into a radio unit. Someone’s talking to him,” Grant said quietly.
They could see Moses nod, then lift his left arm to his mouth and apparently say something. He waited, then nodded slightly. A second later he turned and walked out of view. Another monitor picked him up as he approached the front reception desk to speak with a hospital employee behind it.
“Whoever he was talking to wants to know what’s taking so long, and he’s trying to find out,” Grant continued.
Other monitors showed nothing more than normal hospital activity at the front and rear entries. Another showed the emergency room entrance, with a vanlike ambulance parked in the drive-in bay. One angle from a remote camera over the front door showed the sidewalk and street outside with the laundry truck parked on the far side of the traffic stanchions.
“I’m going to speak to Agent Grant for a moment, Mário,” Marten said. “Keep an eye on our man. If he leaves the area we need to know where he’s gone.” Marten took Grant to one side and lowered his voice.
“White is a smart, tactical thinker who has all kinds of connections and puts things together fast. By now he’ll know Ryder and you people are missing. He went to Raisa’s, found out where we were, and took a gamble that you and Ryder would meet us here. His man came in asking for us on the belief that using the laundry truck was part of the getaway plan and that coming in is what the original driver would have been instructed to do. He figured that out pretty well except that he couldn’t have known what time he was to have come in, or that he was to use the back entrance instead of the front. That his man had spoken to Mário and wasn’t turned away would be interpreted as meaning that we were not only here but were expecting the truck. Because of that he’s probably brought in more assets, meaning any escape route we might have planned will be blocked off.” Marten glanced at Mário, then looked back to Grant.
“He’ll think he’s got us, and because we’re taking time and haven’t yet responded to his driver he’ll assume we’re just being cautious and thinking things through. He’ll expect that we’ll soon realize everything so far has gone as planned and before long will follow his man out and into the truck.”
“We can’t do that,” Grant said emphatically.
“Yes, we can. At least some of us can.”
11:22 A.M.
“Control, this is 3-3. Copy?” Moses’s voice came through their headsets.
White pushed the KEY TO TALK button inside his sleeve. “This is Control, 3-3. What’s the delay?”
“There was an emergency on one of the upper floors. The security director, the man I spoke to earlier, sent his apologies and asked if I would wait. Instructions?”
White took a breath, then looked out through the Mercedes’s windshield to stare at the hospital entrance. Finally he looked to Patrice and Irish Jack. “What do you think, gentlemen?”
Patrice’s cold green eyes came up to White’s. “They’re there. They know Moses is waiting and are thinking it through. One way or another, at some point they will have to come out of the building. He walks away now, they’ll wonder what happened. I’d tell him to wait it out, see how they respond.”
“Agreed.” Irish Jack nodded.
Again White pushed the KEY TO TALK button. “6-4, this is Control. Did you read 3-3? Copy.”
Carlos Branco’s voice crackled through their earpieces. “6-4, roger.”
“We’re going to sit tight. Copy?”
“Roger.”
“3-3. Stay where you are and wait them out. Copy?”
“Roger.”
11:25 A.M.
Marten, Agent Grant, and Mário Gama joined Anne, Ryder, and Agent Birns in the small examination room where they had remained. In the next minute and a half Marten laid out his plan.
They would split into two groups, he told them. Anne, Ryder, and Birns in the first; himself and Grant in the other. At the same time, Gama would recruit a woman and two men from the hospital staff, people who, from a reasonable distance, would resemble Anne, White’s driver, and Agent Birns. The man playing White’s driver would wear the white laundryman’s jacket. The second man, who would resemble Agent Birns as closely as possible, would wear his jacket and sunglasses and carry a briefcase. The woman playing Anne would wear the bucket hat Anne had worn in the escape from Raisa’s apartment and now had in her purse.
The idea was to have Anne, Ryder, and Agent Birns slip into the ambulance in the docking bay at the hospital’s rear emergency entrance. Then, on a coordinated signal, Marten, Ryder’s look-alike Agent Grant, and the hospital recruits would exit the front door, go quickly to the laundry truck, get in, and drive off. In the meantime, the ambulance, with Gama driving, would leave from the emergency entrance and go directly to the airport and Ryder’s waiting plane. For their part, Marten and Grant would lead White’s pursuers through city streets back toward the Baixa district then suddenly pul
l over, let the hospital people out, and drive away. For a moment White and his followers would be thrown off by what had happened, giving Marten and Grant a brief escape window when they could abandon the truck and disappear on foot into the crowded Baixa itself. After that they would find a taxi and take it to the airport and Ryder’s jet.
That was Marten’s plan, and he was reasonably certain it would work. The problem was, Agents Grant and Birns strenuously objected. Armed gunmen were waiting for them outside, and their job was to protect Congressman Ryder. They knew that under the circumstances they couldn’t call in outside help, but they were dead set against splitting up and leaving only Birns to protect Ryder. Furthermore, the driver had asked for Anne and Marten. That meant there was every chance they had arrived after Ryder, Birns, and Grant had come in themselves. So there was no reason to believe that they knew any of them were there and that the driver was being used to see if they could get some definitive information. Why not just get into the ambulance now and leave, all five of them?
“What if you’re wrong?” Marten answered. “We have no idea when they got to the laundry and learned that we were coming here. What if they’ve had people outside the whole time? What if they saw each of us arrive? They can count. What if they know we’re all here? They won’t want to come in after us. It would be too noisy an operation. So they’ll be waiting for us to come out, using the truck to bait us as if it’s our plan, not theirs. Moreover, I can guarantee you Conor White and his gunmen are not out there alone. There’ll be at least one other team, maybe more. So yes, we could take a chance with the ambulance, and we might get away with it. But then again, we might not. What then? What if they follow us, then cut us off and box us in? That happens, we’re dead, all of us. Afterward White will go back to Bioko and pick up his game where he left off, and no one will know anything about his involvement here or what was at stake to begin with. You might want to take that chance. I don’t.” He looked at Ryder. “And I don’t think the congressman does, either.”
“He’s right, fellas,” Ryder said in the calm, everyday conversational tone he used in almost any situation. “Our job is to get to the plane and get out of here as quickly and safely as possible. Mr. Marten’s plan is as sound as it can be under the circumstances. The only problem is that it puts him and you”—he looked at Agent Grant—“and the hospital people in some serious jeopardy.”
“Unless they suspect something, White and his people aren’t likely to take action anywhere close by. The neighborhood is too dense and too upscale,” Marten said evenly. “It would be almost the same as storming the hospital itself. It would draw too much attention. My sense is they will have given their driver instructions where to go. If he doesn’t go where he’s supposed to, they’ll think he’s playing along with orders we’ve given him, so they’ll follow the truck, shifting tails with as many cars as they have. Then, at someplace out of the way, a park or abandoned lot or something, they’ll make their move. That means the beginning of the ride should be relatively safe.” Marten looked to Gama. “My main concern is you and your people, because it will be dangerous. This is our fight, not yours. There’s nothing that says you or any of them have to do it. If you decide against it we’ll do something else.”
“Let me find them, and you can talk to them yourself.”
“Fair enough,” Marten said. “The thing is, it all has to be done fast, before they begin to think about coming in.”
Mário Gama smiled. “I already have three people in mind who I am sure will be more than happy to help. Perhaps you don’t know. Raisa Amaro is, or perhaps . . . was”—his voice caught in his throat; then he recovered and went on—“a leading member of the hospital’s board of directors. She fought for and saved many jobs during economic hard times. She is a legend here. People love her. Give me five minutes and I will be back with the people you desire. If necessary you can then give your speech, but I don’t think you’ll have to.” With that Gama nodded at the others and left.
Marten looked at his watch, then at Anne. “Ten minutes at best until we get out of here. How much longer is White going to sit still?”
“Not much,” she said, then abruptly opened her purse and took a small notebook from it. “If something happens and we get crossed up—” She scribbled something on a page, tore it out, and handed it to him. “My cell number. I’d like yours if it’s alright.”
“Sure,” he smiled and took the notebook from her, then wrote the number in it and handed it back. When he did, their eyes met and held there. It was an exceedingly private moment despite the fact that Ryder and his RSO protectors stood only feet away. In that instant everything they had been through together registered in gut-wrenching shorthand, one that left them wondering—fearing—if this was the last time they would see each other. If, in the next hour or minutes, one or the other would die.
Then it was over. It had been a moment, nothing more. But it had been there nonetheless. Powerfully felt by both, yet neither saying a word. Love? The terrible fragility of life? A deep understanding between human beings of how much had been shared in so brief a time? Something else? Who knew.
11:30 A.M.
112
11:39 A.M.
“Control, this is 3-3. Copy?”
Immediately Irish Jack and Patrice perked up, their hands going to their earphones.
Conor White clicked on his microphone. “Go ahead, 3-3.”
“I’ve just been told our relatives have been located. The security director is coming to take me to them now.”
“Do you know how many there are?”
“The person who told me said only that ‘your people are here after all’ and that he was sorry for the delay.”
“Take the bait, 3-3. I repeat your instructions. You are a driver sent by Raisa Amaro. You were to meet them at the hospital and drive them to wherever they want to go. That’s all you know. Once you get them in the truck, take them directly to the construction site off Avenida Infante Dom Henrique. We’ll be right behind you. And take the earpiece out. We don’t want them wondering about it. Copy?”
“Roger. Copy.”
“6-4, did you read that? Copy.”
“Roger,” Branco’s voice came back. “We’re good to go.”
“6-2, did you read? Copy.”
“Roger, Control.” The gruff voice of the driver of Branco’s second car came back.
“Copy, 6-2.” White clicked off and glanced outside as the shadow of a cloud passed overhead. He studied it for a moment, mumbled something about rain, then reached down, opened his briefcase, and took out one of the two MP5 submachine guns. He checked its clip, then absently felt for the short-barrel SIG SAUER 9 mm semiautomatic tucked under his jacket at the small of his back. “Systems are go, gentlemen, load up,” he said quietly to Patrice and Irish Jack. “Systems are go.”
11:43 A.M.
Moses followed security director Gama down a hallway past a number of examination rooms. Two-thirds of the way down, Gama stopped and knocked on a door.
“Security,” Mário Gama said. The door opened, and Moses saw the people Conor White had described. Nicholas Marten, Anne Tidrow, and Congressman Ryder. What he didn’t see were the two RSO agents who were supposed to be guarding them. Immediately he tensed. It was too late. Gama shoved him inside. The door slammed closed behind him, and he found himself in the iron grip of the men he was looking for.
“Relax,” one of them said, and the other quickly frisked him for weapons. “Nothing.”
“What are you doing?” he pleaded in English. “I’m only doing what I was—”
“Oh, yeah?” the first man said.
In the next instant his laundryman’s jacket was stripped from him. They saw the wire on his left wrist running up to a small transmitter under his armpit. Instantly he jerked away, trying to push the KEY TO TALK button. Grant and Birns scrambled to get him. Marten got there first, grabbed his arm, and twisted it back. Moses cried out in pain.
“Get t
hat damn thing off him!” Marten snapped.
Birns did, and then Grant shoved him back hard against the wall.
“Mário,” Marten said, and Gama stepped in with a pair of handcuffs.
“You are being detained in accordance with the antiterrorist laws and statutes of Portugal,” he said in English, then repeated in Portuguese. Immediately he raised a radio of his own and spoke into it. Within seconds the door opened, two uniformed hospital security guards came in, and Moses was taken from the room.
11:47 A.M.
Irish Jack shifted impatiently, his hands on the wheel, his eyes on the hospital’s front door. Two men came out and walked off down the sidewalk. A moment later a taxi pulled up behind the laundry truck, and a woman and a young girl wearing an eye patch got out and went into the building. Seconds passed and the taxi drove off. Then there was only the parked laundry truck with its emergency lights flashing as they had been from the beginning.
“Don’t like it, Colonel.”
“Neither do I,” White said.
“Control. This is 6-4. What’s the delay? Copy.” Branco’s voice spat through their earpieces.
“Control, 6-4. I’m giving Moses two minutes more. Nothing happens, we go in. Copy.”
“Roger, Control. We’re ready.”
“6-2, you copy?”
“6-2. Roger, Control.”
11:48 A.M.
The two groups were gathered in a hallway just off the reception area. Anne, Ryder, Birns, and Mário Gama, now in the white smock of an ambulance driver, were in the first. The other was made up of Marten, with the Glock automatic in his belt, wearing the earpiece and microphone from Moses’s team radio unit that would enable him to monitor White’s communications; the Joe Ryder look-alike, Agent Grant; and the impersonators of Anne, Birns, and the just-apprehended laundry truck driver, Moses. A female bookkeeper wore Anne’s bucket hat pulled down over her ears; an anesthesiologist who more or less resembled Birns wore his tan sport coat; and Santos Gama, Mário’s brother, who was a real-life ambulance driver and to some degree resembled Moses physically, had on the laundryman’s jacket. Moments earlier he had put on a deep-bronzing makeup, courtesy of a male nurse, that darkened his facial complexion enough so that, from a distance at least, his skin color took on something of the Algerian’s. It was he who would drive the truck.