Marten put the earpiece back in, then eased up and peered over the top of the platform. The people were gone; so were the police. What was left was at once eerie and gruesome.
A long empty platform with the bodies of four dead bystanders sprawled across it, and with the corpses of Irish Jack near the tunnel entrance and Agent Grant not far away. All of it lit by a wash of emergency lights with the newspaper kiosk near the center and the entrances/exits at either end.
“Coming out, Marten?”
He checked the clip in the Glock, then felt in his pocket for the backup. The magazines held fifteen shots. Four had already been fired from the clip in the gun—one by Kovalenko when he’d killed Hauptkommissar Franck, the other three by himself as he fought against the men in the Jaguar. That meant he had eleven shots left before changing magazines.
“I’m waiting, Marten.”
He pulled up his sleeve, touched the KEY TO TALK button on the radio unit, and spoke into its tiny microphone.
“You first.”
123
Marten saw the four step into the light just inside the platform entrances. Two at either end. One of them wore a stylish black suit, had gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard, and was clearly the leader. Unsuprisingly he looked like the man in the Hawaiian shirt and jeans who had pretended he was Anne’s brother at the Hotel Lisboa Chiado the night before. There was little doubt he was Carlos Branco. The others, his compatriots, were armed with submachine guns, Uzis it looked like, and were clearly cut in the mold of the gunmen he had encountered in the Jaguar the night before. Curiously they did nothing but stand there. Maybe that was their intent, simply to block the exits and make certain he didn’t get away. The fact that they were there and armed meant they had the blessing of the GOE. Something that, in turn, suggested that they, too, were somehow connected to the CIA.
Suddenly he realized something else: White knew Anne and Ryder had gotten out on the last train. That Branco was here meant he and White had communicated. In the process Branco would have learned that Anne and Ryder were gone.
“Marten . . . ” White’s voice rattled through his earpiece.
Marten stuck the Glock in his belt and took out the cell phone. He prayed that it would work in here and that Anne was somewhere where she could take a call. Fearfully he punched in the number she’d given him. He let out a breath as he heard it ring through. An instant later she clicked on.
“Where are you? Are you alright? We’ve just left Baixa/Chiado station and are in a taxi to the airport.”
“Don’t go near Ryder’s plane,” he said emphatically.
“Why?”
“White’s people are here. The police let them in. It means the Agency knows you and Ryder are out and is assuming you’re on your way to his plane. Can you arrange for another aircraft? You, not Ryder. They’ll have his phone bugged. Maybe yours, too. Use a pay phone. Call somebody you know in the oil business or some other deep-pockets people you travel with. Can you do that?”
“Yes, I think.”
“Then do it. Go somewhere, a park or something, and stay there until it’s ready. When it is, get the hell to it and out of Lisbon.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t know about me. It doesn’t matter.” Marten glanced around. Branco and his men hadn’t moved.
“Marten.” Conor White was beginning to sound impatient. “If we have to come get you we will.”
“Anne, do as I told you.” Marten was resolute. “We had a lot of fun together. Maybe sometime we will again.” With that he clicked off and slid the phone into his jacket. Then he lifted the Glock, hit the KEY TO TALK button and spoke into the microphone.
“Like I said, Colonel, you first.”
Conor White glanced across the tunnel entrance at Patrice, or what little he could see of him in the dark. Suddenly there was the glint of a light on the rails behind them. Two pinpoints of light were coming down the tunnel in their direction. The automated Metro car Branco had promised. White looked at Patrice, then back down the tunnel. Something didn’t feel right, but he didn’t know what it was. Again came the feeling of impending doom. The otherworldly sense of Marten as a demon come to destroy him came flooding back. He had to be crushed and crushed now. A foot put on his neck and a bullet through his brain.
Marten saw the approaching lights too, then heard White’s voice.
“I’m coming out, Marten. A big fat target for you. Come get me.”
Marten could hear the icy confidence in his voice, the professional soldier anxious to do his murderous work once again. At the same time, he saw the faces of Marita and her medical students. Saw Raisa in her red hair and pink robe. Next came Bioko and the bodies of the native woman and her children, their throats cut, floating in the branches of the dead tree; Father Willy and the young boys clubbed to death by Tiombe’s soldiers; the grotesque photographs of White and Patrice and Irish Jack lunching with General Mariano in the jungle; the soldiers with the flamethrowers and the naked man as he was burned alive. Then the Rossio Metro station and the GOEs as the balaclava-hooded White and his killers ambushed them outside. Agent Grant as he was gunned down on the platform scant moments earlier. Never in his life had he felt such contempt for a human being as he did now for Conor White.
“Make your move, you son of a bitch!” he spat into the microphone as the rail car neared, its approaching headlamps far too bright and garish for the scene. Suddenly a shadow dashed from the tunnel in front of it, jumped up on the platform, and ran across it. He raised the Glock and fired once, then a second time. Both shots missed, his rounds ricocheting off the concrete walls. The train came closer. Suddenly its lights revealed someone crouched in the tunnel entrance. Patrice. An instant later the same lights fell on him. Patrice swung the M-4. Marten hit the ground between the tracks as a burst from the M-4 chewed up the base of the concrete platform where he’d been. Once again he raised the Glock and squeezed the trigger.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The gunshots were ear shattering. Patrice was caught square in the face and chest and toppled backward into the tunnel. A blue arc of electricity sparked as he fell across the third rail. A split second later a burst of 9 mm slugs from White’s MP5 danced over his head, spraying off the tunnel walls. Then the train was on top of him. He pushed down, hugging the ground between the rails. With a nearly silent whoosh the car went over him, inches above his head. In a second he was up and at the edge of the platform. He pulled himself up, then rolled to one side and into deep shadow. Glock at the ready, he got to one knee and looked around. Where the hell was White? Where had his shots come from?
There was a screech of brakes and the train stopped. One man stood inside it, a machine pistol in his hand. The doors slid open and he stepped out.
Kovalenko.
“Get the hell out of the light,” Marten yelled. “You’re going to get killed!”
“Fuck you! Where’s my memory card?”
“I don’t have it!” Marten’s eyes darted over the area. Where was White? Where had he gone? He shifted the Glock to his left hand and raised his right, pushed the KEY TO TALK button, and spoke into the microphone in his sleeve.
“White,” he said softly. “I’m here, near the tunnel. Come get me.” Quickly he shifted the Glock back, holding it in a two-hand grip and slowly moving it back and forth over the area, his eyes alert, looking for any movement at all. He saw nothing but a faintly lit empty station with the bodies of Irish Jack and Agent Grant sprawled barely twenty feet apart and close at hand.
“Tovarich,” Kovalenko said quietly and nodded toward the newspaper kiosk.
Marten moved forward. If White was there, he couldn’t see him. Kovalenko came in from the side, the machine pistol up, his finger on the trigger. Suddenly Marten stopped.
There he was.
Inside the kiosk, his body in a sharp contrast of black and white, apparently sitting on a stool or something like it, staring blankly into the dark of the station.
&n
bsp; Marten raised the Glock, unsure what was happening. Kovalenko eased closer. Slowly White turned his head toward Marten.
“He’s dead,” he said quietly. “He’s dead,” he repeated, then looked off once again.
Marten inched forward. What was going on? Was White playing some kind of trick?
“Careful, tovarich,” Kovalenko warned.
“Throw the gun out!” Marten barked.
White didn’t react.
“Throw the gun out! Now!”
Kovalenko looked to the left and saw Carlos Branco coming toward them in the dim light, a Beretta automatic in his hand. His men moved in from either side. All three carried Uzis.
Marten glanced at them, the Glock still trained on Conor White. “Stay back or I’ll shoot him right now!” he ordered.
Branco stopped. So did his men.
White sat motionless, staring into the distance.
Marten glanced at Kovalenko. “Cover me.”
Kovalenko nodded. Marten waited a half beat, then rushed the kiosk, fully expecting White to make a sudden move. But he didn’t. Then Marten was in the kiosk and on top of him. All he saw was a tableau—White sitting in the center of the kiosk, half his face in light, the rest in deep shadow, a newspaper in his hands, the MP5 and a 9 mm SIG SAUER semiautomatic resting on a stack of magazines next to him. It might as well have been a still photograph.
Marten pushed the Glock against White’s head, then eased over and carefully slid the weapons out of reach. He was still expecting a trick, a sudden move. None came. White just sat there staring at nothing, his chest rising and falling as he breathed. In a heartbeat the fight, the life, everything, seemed to have gone out of him. Marten lowered the Glock.
Kovalenko stepped in beside him. “What the hell happened?”
Marten shook his head. “Don’t know.”
“ ‘He’s dead.’ What was he talking about? The guy you shot in the tunnel?”
“Maybe.”
Marten looked to the newspaper in White’s hand, as if that might have had something to with it. It was a copy of that morning’s copy of the International Herald Tribune. He could see part of a headline about a suicide bombing in the Middle East, a column about the ongoing global financial crisis, and a few more everyday items. Nothing that would bring a man like Conor White to his knees. Whatever had happened had to have been something else. Something physical. A small stroke. Some kind of mild heart attack. Who knew?
Kovalenko glanced at Carlos Branco. “One of White’s men is dead inside the tunnel. The bodies on the platform. Several appear to be people caught in the crossfire. Another is from White’s team. The last is Ryder’s RSO guy.”
“I know,” Branco said.
“Marten and I are taking the train car out. When we get to where we’re going, I’ll send it back.” He looked to Marten. “Give me the pistol.”
Marten’s eyes came up to Kovalenko’s. “Why? What the hell are you going to do?”
“Just give it to me.”
Marten glanced at Branco and then at his men. Finally and reluctantly he did as Kovalenko asked. The Russian took it, pulled out a handkerchief, then wiped off Marten’s fingerprints and put the gun down next to White. Still the Englishman didn’t move. Didn’t even acknowledge their presence.
“Get on the train, tovarich.” Kovalenko gestured with the machine pistol. “I want to talk about my memory card.”
Marten looked at White once more, then walked off toward the train car. Kovalenko followed him inside and pressed a button. The doors closed and the car started back up the track the way it had come. Then they heard the boom of a single gunshot.
Marten looked at Kovalenko. “White. Branco shot him.”
The Russian nodded. “White was CIA. Branco was freelancing for them.”
“Then why did he kill him?”
“The chapter had to be ended, tovarich. They would be afraid of what might come out if he was put on trial.”
“The police think I killed Franck and Theo Haas. They’re going to have the same problem with me if I get caught. Branco would have known that. Why didn’t he take care of me, too?”
“Because I paid him not to. He makes a lot of money not doing things.”
“Anne got away, Ryder got away. And then he lets me go. What happens to him now?”
“He goes to his handler and says, ‘We took care of White. His shooters are dead, too. Sorry, the rest didn’t quite work out the way it was supposed to, but call me the next time you need me.’ And they will. It’s a dirty business all around.”
Marten let out a sigh of disbelief, then looked back down the track toward the Rossio station. A tiny iris of bright at the end of a dark tunnel.
“Take off your clothes,” Kovalenko said behind him.
“What?” Marten whirled around. The machine pistol was pointed at his chest.
“Strip search, tovarich. Take off your clothes! Socks, skivvies included. Turn everything inside out!”
“I don’t have the memory card.”
“Ms. Tidrow, no doubt, had the photographs, which would now be in the possession of Congressman Ryder. And very soon put into a diplomatic pouch. But you wouldn’t have given her the memory card because you didn’t really trust her. I saw that in Praia da Rocha. It means you kept it yourself.”
“You’re right, Yuri. I did have it. But I lost it. I’m not sure where.”
Anger flashed across Kovalenko’s face. “You plotted nicely to leave a trail I could follow, and you knew I would come once I realized you had made the switch. You counted on me helping you because you knew things were going to get tough. In doing that you would have also known such help would come with a price. I cannot go back to Moscow empty-handed, tovarich. If I do I will soon be out of a job. Maybe worse.”
“You’re not going empty-handed. You have a memory card. It shows any number of lovely young women sunbathing. Is it your fault Theo Haas had such a hobby?”
Suddenly Kovalenko stepped into the driver’s cubicle and punched a button. Immediately the car slowed, then stopped mid-tunnel. He turned back and gestured with the machine pistol. “Take off your fucking clothes, tovarich. If I have to I will even check your asshole!”
124
They came out of the Martim Moniz Metro station in bright sunshine, damp sidewalks and puddles the only suggestion that a rainstorm had passed. A silver Peugeot was parked at the curb across the street, and Kovalenko nodded toward it.
Marten looked at him in surprise, if not admiration. “The train could have been sent in from the other direction. How did you know which way it would come?”
“It’s my business to know.”
Five minutes later Kovalenko was driving them past the Intendente Metro station and away from the city center. Two ambulances were parked outside it with two police cars behind them.
“Waiting for Branco’s delivery,” Marten said quietly. “I feel bad about Ryder’s RSO detail. They were good men, both of them.”
“Like I said, it’s a dirty business.” Kovalenko kept his eyes on the road. Thirty seconds went by, and then he looked at Marten. “I want you to know I’m very upset about the memory card. You did something with it. And don’t tell me again you lost it. Where the hell is it?”
“What if I were to promise you the pictures will never be made public, nor will the CIA have them. None of them. ‘The photographs and memory card you were after were either destroyed or never existed.’ That’s how the official record will read. The memory card you recovered is the only one there was. Knowing that, you can take it back to Moscow with a clear conscience and let your people examine it themselves. Soon everyone will smile and make jokes about what you’re paid to do, but you’ll be off the hook.”
Kovalenko glared at him. “You design gardens in England. The photographs and most probably the memory card are now in the hands of a United States congressman. That means every security agency in Washington will know about them. So how can you promise such a thing?” br />
“Because I can. From me to you, Yuri.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s true.”
Kovalenko looked off in disgust and then back at the road. They were traveling up a long tree-lined boulevard. Traffic was moving normally; people were chatting on street corners, going in and out of shops and offices, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The way life usually is in cities, people getting on with their own lives and for the most part wholly unaware of what murderous intrigues may be going on around them, or in the subways beneath their feet.
Suddenly Marten grew wary. “Where the hell are we going?”
“To the airport. I’m sending you home and hope you stay there for many years. As I said to you a long time ago, tovarich, go back to your English gardens. This other kind of life does not suit you.” Abruptly he looked at him. “I trust you haven’t lost your passport.”
“Yuri.” Marten was more than apprehensive. “I can’t go to an airport, not to a commercial airline anyway. I try to check in, the police will have me in handcuffs before I can turn around.”
“Why, for the murders of Franck and Theo Haas?”
“Yes.”
Kovalenko smiled. “As much as I’d like to see you in jail for stealing my memory card, don’t worry about the police. It’s why we left the Glock with Conor White. It’s the gun that killed the Hauptkommissar. The authorities know he was in Praia da Rocha that same day. It also happens to be the gun that killed two of Branco’s gunmen here in Lisbon. Last night, I believe.” He looked at Marten accusatively. “Correct?”
“What was I supposed to do, let them kill me? It’s why you gave me the thing in the first place. Correct?”
Kovalenko grinned. “If the police miss connecting the dots, Branco will help them, and rather quickly, I imagine, because he knows where I’m taking you. As for Theo Haas, his murderer was captured before Franck and I left Berlin.”
“What?” Marten was flabbergasted.