breath, then pulled open the door and went inside.
What he saw was a relatively small city hospital with corridors leading this way and that and people coming and going in any number of directions. A sign guided him toward the front of the building and to a waiting area where about a dozen people occupied its twenty-odd chairs. On the far side was a walk-up booth with two people behind it. One was a balding man, who fit Raisa’s description of Mario Gama, the hospital’s director of security. He was maybe fifty, wore a white shirt and a tie, gray slacks, and a dark green blazer, and was working at a computer terminal. Marten approached him.
“Excuse me, I’m looking for a Mario Gama.”
The man looked up. “You found him, sir.”
“My name is Marten. Has a Ms.Tidrow or a Mr. Ferguson arrived? I’m from the American Insurance Company. We are to meet with Catarina Silva, the accounts receivable director.”
“Ms. Tidrow is here, sir. Mr. Ferguson has not yet arrived. Please come with me.”
“Thank you,” Marten said gratefully and followed him across the room and down a side hallway.
10:54 A.M.
Gama opened the door to a small examination room and ushered Marten in. Anne stood there, alone and waiting. He was surprised at the way her face lit up when he came in, as if she had been more than a little worried about him.
“Please excuse me,” Mario said and then left.
“What happened?” Anne asked as the door closed behind him.
“There was an accident. The motorcycle rider chased after you and Tomas in the truck. He was going very fast when he suddenly swerved to avoid something in the street.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t?”
“No.”
“But he’s dead.”
“I didn’t hang around long enough to find out.” Marten changed the subject. “No sign of Ryder.”
“Not yet.” Anne looked at him uncertainly, as if she wanted to tell him something but didn’t quite know how.
“What is it?”
“I-”
“Go on.”
“Earlier, I got a text message from Loyal Truex at Hadrian. I didn’t tell you because we were on the run and there was no reason. But you should know. Sy Wirth is dead. They found his body floating in the Tagus River, downstream, where it meets the Atlantic.”
“So he was here.”
“Apparently.”
“And with Conor White.”
“Probably.”
“White kill him?”
“I don’t think he slipped and fell. Put the pieces together. Sy made a stupid deal with the CIA to protect the Bioko field. Then he and Loyal brought in White and created SimCo. Things were fine until the pictures showed up. Then everything started to come apart. At some point Sy probably pushed too hard like he always did and stepped all over Conor in the process.”
“And that jeopardized the whole operation, and White, maybe at the Agency’s request, got rid of him.”
“I don’t know. I doubt if we’ll ever know. What’s clear is that they-Conor, Loyal, Sy, and the Agency-wanted to recover the pictures from the beginning. Now, they want more.”
“What does that mean?”
“I knew when I hacked in and found the memorandum that at some point they would learn about it. Not who did it, or from where, but that the site had been accessed and on what day and at what time. They know that on that day and at that time I was at the Hotel Lisboa Chiado, where the rooms have Internet access. They may not know I made a copy but will assume I’d tell you and Ryder what I found.
“The pictures were bad enough because they implicate Striker in the war. The memorandum implicates, even criminalizes, the CIA. And not just the Agency but the deputy director personally. Conor White has enough to lose as it is. Now he has this. If he is Agency, or even if he’s not, he’s got to protect it. He can’t go down as the soldier who was supposed to guard something as massive as the Bioko field but lost it and at the same time disgraced the CIA.
“If he was fired up before, it’s double that now. He’ll come after us with everything he has, and there are few better than he is. He knows what he’s doing and how to do it, and he has his people with him. There may well be others, too, like those doing surveillance outside Raisa’s building. High or low, Conor pays people well. But bottom line, he’s the one running things. And if he is CIA, they’re letting him do whatever he wants because it benefits them most of all. What he wants is us dead and every piece of evidence we have recovered and destroyed. He can, and probably will, be very, very violent and won’t shy away from any means necessary to achieve his ends. That’s his training and the reason for all those medals. If he learns where we are he’ll kill everyone in this hospital if has to just to get to us. I-”
Suddenly there was a noise at the door. Immediately Marten’s hand went to the Glock in his waistband. Then the door opened and a man in a tan business suit and carrying a briefcase entered.
“Please don’t, Mr. Marten.” He turned the briefcase toward him. “It’s not necessary. I’m Special Agent Birns, Congressman Ryder’s RSO detail, half of it anyway.” He glanced at Anne and then around the room, then stepped back. “It’s alright, Congressman.”
A half second later Joe Ryder walked into the room; his look-alike, Tim Grant, followed him.
11:00 A.M.
109
AVENIDA DAS FORCAS ARMADAS. SAME TIME.
Jeremy Moyer had spent the moments since he’d given Carlos Branco the green light to back up Conor White at the hospital taking a roundabout return drive to the embassy, trying to think of the best way to respond to the disaster that was only moments from making world headlines. At the same time, he had to find a reasonable excuse for pulling the remaining RSO detail out of the Ritz so that their ongoing presence wouldn’t raise questions later, especially in the follow-up investigation by the FBI or the State Department of Congressman Ryder’s killing. He mulled over a number of possibilities, then settled on the simplest: call Debra Wynn, chief of RSO/Lisbon, and tell her that a member of Congressman Ryder’s personal RSO detail-Special Agent Birns, he distinctly remembered the name from State Department paperwork alerting him to Ryder’s visit-had phoned him a short time ago to say the congressman had abruptly changed his plans and was on his way to the airport, preparing to leave Lisbon immediately. That had been the entire message. Whether Ryder had informed the ambassador or not, he didn’t know. Nor did he know why Birns had called him instead of her. At any rate,
