And then there was Sy Wirth. Wherever he was when he had tried to reach Anne-surely Faro, maybe even Praia da Rocha-he was too close. That Conor White and his mercenaries would be with him exacerbated an already highly dangerous situation because of their reach and connections and deadly expertise. He had only to remember what had happened to Marita and her medical students outside of Madrid to remind him what kind of people they were.
What had President Harris said about the CIA station chief in Lisbon? That he would know Joe Ryder was coming-
Maybe not, unless White was CIA. If he was, it wouldn’t take much for him to learn that Ryder had abruptly left Iraq and was on his way to Lisbon and to find out where he would be staying when he arrived and then realize why he was going there. If that happened, things would get a lot darker. And quickly.
Suddenly something large and black appeared in front of Marten and he was shoved back hard against his seat. The next instant brought a nauseating wave of hot doggie breath. Bruno had suddenly leapt up, throwing both forepaws against Marten’s chest, knocking him backward and holding him there. Now his large, drooly face was inches from Marten’s and he was staring at him with a look of deep sympathy, as if somehow he had sensed the fear and turmoil going on inside him and had determined to share his concern.
“Thanks, buddy, you’re a real pal,” Marten said gratefully, then lifted the Newfoundland’s big paws and eased him back to the floor. Afterward, he patted him gently on the head. “If I was going home I’d ask Stump if I could take you with me. Unfortunately, I’ve got other things to do first.”
3:48 P.M.
78
LISBON. STILL SUNDAY, JUNE 6. 5:12 P.M.
They came in on the A2
Marten leaned forward to talk to Stump Logan. “We’re looking for the Bairro Alto section. Rua do-”
Instantly Logan put up a hand for silence, then yanked off his iPod headset. “Don’t,” he said sharply, looking at Marten in the mirror. “I don’t want to know, period. Area, street address, who you’re meeting. Nothing at all.” With that he slipped the headset back on and drove on in silence.
Four or five miles later he took an exit near the Zoological Gardens, then turned left and then right onto Rua Professor Lima Basto. Another twenty yards and he pulled to the curb and stopped.
“Down there and around the corner”-he pointed a finger at the windshield-“is Terminal Rodoviario de Lisboa, a central bus terminal where the motor coaches from the Algarve come in. Get out and walk to it; go in from the coach entrance and then out the front door. Nobody will stop you, unless by now the police have the German policeman’s body and your faces are plastered all over. If they do, you’re as good as dead anyway. But if they don’t and somebody sees you and remembers you later, they’ll think you came into the city by bus. The police come to me afterward and ask if I was in Lisbon, I’ll tell them yes, I was, I had to pick up some books from a fellow used-book storekeeper-which I will do before I leave. Unless we had plain bad luck with those motorcycle cops, there’ll be no way they can prove I drove you here. All I can tell them is that you were in my store looking for a Jacob Cadiz and that you came back later looking for my help in getting out of the city. To where, you didn’t say. I told you there was nothing I could do. You left, and that was the last I saw of you.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Marten said.
“Good. Now, if you don’t mind, I have some books to pick up before I head home.”
They left it that way, with Anne and Marten on the street and Stump Logan and his dogs driving off in his thirty-odd-year-old VW bus, having wished them good luck and saying he was glad to have been of service.
Marten glanced around, then started them quickly down the sidewalk toward the bus terminal.
“This Bairro Alto section that you asked Logan about,” Anne said. “You know where it is?”
“No, we’re going to have to find it. Get a street map or something.”
“What’s there?”
“A safe house.”
“Safe house?”
“Yes.”
“And then tomorrow a meeting with Joe Ryder.”
“Yes.”
“The ‘old girlfriend’ you were on the phone with in Logan’s office. She set it up.”
Marten nodded.
“Who the hell is she that she can orchestrate all this?”
“Just a friend.”
“No, not just a friend. Someone who can pull top-level strings, and quickly. Things like this don’t just happen.”
Marten glanced around again, watching the traffic, looking for police.
“Who are you really, Mr. Nicholas Marten? Who do you work for?”
“Fitzsimmons and Justice. Landscape architects. Manchester, England.”
“That’s not a good enough answer.”
“For now it will have to do.”
5:20 P.M.
79
FOUR SEASONS HOTEL RITZ LISBON,
RUA RODRIGO DA FONSECA. SAME TIME.
CIA Chief of Station (COS)/Lisbon Jeremy Moyer worked Sundays when he had to, and this Sunday was one of them. Four and a half hours earlier he’d taken a call at home from Newhan Black, deputy director of the CIA, asking him to go into the embassy and pull up a file on a case officer named Fernando Coelho and when he had it to call him back right away.
What it meant was “Go to the office immediately and call me back over a secure line.” Clearly whatever Black wanted to discuss on this summer Sunday afternoon-one o’clock in Lisbon, eight in the morning at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia-was urgent.
