The Hadrian Memorandum (41 page)

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 that 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.

“Everyone ready?” Marten asked. There was a murmur and unanimous nod. Then he looked at Anne.

“Good luck,” she said.

“You, too.”

“Good luck to us all,” Ryder added and looked to the people around him. “And a very indebted and heartfelt thank-you to Mário, to his brother Santos, and to his friends for helping us in what we all realize is a particularly dangerous situation.” He looked at Marten and nodded.

“Let’s go,” Marten said, and they parted: Anne, Ryder, Birns, and Gama down the corridor to the left and the ambulance bay; Marten and his people to the right, toward the front door. As they went Marten saw a fire alarm box on the wall. Quickly he turned back. “Mário,” he called, “is there an alarm box near the ambulance bay?”

“In the corridor just inside it, why?”

“Just a thought, it’s nothing, sorry.” He glanced at Anne, their eyes met, and he turned back to his group. “Out the door fast and into the truck!”

11:49 A.M.

113

The two minutes were up.

Conor White had come too far, been thwarted too often through no design of his own, not to complete the mission now. Not with the objective right there, yards from his grasp. He hit the KEY TO TALK button and lifted the microphone in his jacket sleeve to his hand.

“6-4, this is Control. We’re going in. Lockdown rules, full balaclavas.”

“Roger, Control.”

“6-2, you copy?” White reached for the balaclava on the seat beside him.

“Roger, Control.”

“They’re coming out,” Irish Jack said sharply.

“What?” White looked up.

They saw five people quickly exiting the hospital’s front entrance and heading for the parked laundry truck. Moses led them. Marten was next. Then Joe Ryder carrying some kind of backpack, Anne, and lastly one of the RSO agents. Patrice lifted the binoculars.

“6-4, abort action,” White snapped into his microphone. “Our relatives are in view!”

“That’s not Moses!” Patrice had the binoculars tight against his face, watching Marten’s group as they climbed into the truck. “It’s not Anne, either!”

“Christ!” White lifted the MP5. “Gun it, Jack, gun it!”

Irish Jack turned the ignition key. The Mercedes’s 510 horsepower V12 roared to life. A split second later he fishtailed it out of the parking spot after the laundry truck that was accelerating away.

“6-4, 6-2,” White said into the microphone at his sleeve. “Marten’s using the truck as a decoy. Anne and Ryder will be coming out in some other vehicle. Watch for it. We’re in pursuit of Marten! Copy.”

“6-4. Roger, Control.”

“6-2. Roger, Control.”

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 Mário’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, hell, those guys will kill all of us!”

Suddenly a sharp communication came through Marten’s earpiece.
“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 hell’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. “
We’re in pursuit now! Am assuming 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 massive 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 pass 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 space in front of them.

“Get out of the fucking 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. “
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.

“We’re on Calçada 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,
“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.
“If they can’t walk, carry them. Then get the hell out of there. You’ll have emergency personnel including police all over the place before you can piss. 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, Calçada do Duque at Rua da Condessa. Copy.”

“Calçada 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 Calçada do Carmo near Rossio Square. Fast as you can!”

“Yes, sir.” Santos glanced in his mirror, waited for a man on a bicycle to pass, then took an abrupt left and stepped hard on the truck’s accelerator.

12:02 P.M.