reasonable to presume that the three were planning to meet somewhere there. That same logic taken a step further, especially in light of the haste of Ryder’s departure from Baghdad, suggested that it was possible, even probable, that they had somehow snatched the photographs from under the Russian noses and were readying to turn them over to Ryder. It was equally probable that Anne-almost certainly to avoid prosecution-had agreed to brief Ryder on the Striker/Hadrian/SimCo arrangement in Equatorial Guinea and the Striker/Hadrian dealings in Iraq. Either or both reasons made it a meeting neither Striker nor Hadrian could afford to have take place.
For Conor White it was a defining moment. For the second time in hours he’d been given a massive injection of hope that the photographs might still be retrievable. With it came the feeling that maybe his torment would, at long last, be over and that finally everything would be alright. It was the kind of sentiment he’d so often longed for as a boy. That no matter what he had done or what had happened, his father would somehow manage to be there, to put his arms around him and hold him and tell him everything would be alright. That he was there for him, and always would be. Even if it was a lie. Just to see him and hear it and feel it even once would have brought untold joy.
Less than an hour after Truex’s call, they’d lifted off from Faro for Lisbon. Once again, Wirth had taken the Striker corporate Gulfstream, leaving the tri-engine Falcon 50 to White and the others, with Wirth promising to update them with more information the moment he received it. Ten minutes after takeoff White’s BlackBerry had sounded. Wirth already had it.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Wirth,” he’d replied flatly. “We’ll look back and laugh.”
6:05 P.M.
White heard a thump as the Falcon’s landing gear came down. Then it banked and came around on final approach. As it did he could see the tarmac and terminals at Portela Airport and then Lisbon itself. Down there somewhere, among the tree-lined avenues and city squares, beneath the acres of red- tile rooftops-either now or sometime later tonight, certainly by tomorrow when Ryder arrived-would be Nicholas Marten and Anne and, he prayed, the photographs. All he had to do was find them.
PORTELA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, TERMINAL 2. 6:19 P.M.
“Conor White?” a slim, fortyish, dark-haired man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and blue jeans met them on the tarmac as they came down the Falcon’s stairway.
“Yes,” White said cautiously.
“My name is Carlos Branco. I have a car waiting.”
6:30 P.M.
A metallic gray BMW 520 touring car left the terminal and passed through the civil aviation security gate. Moments later it turned onto Avenida Cidade do Porto and headed into the city.
White sat in the right rear seat, with Patrice between him and Irish Jack. Branco rode up front next to the driver. He’d taken them directly to the car and waited as they put their luggage and two dark green and yellow sports equipment bags into the trunk. As they drove off, he mentioned something about the weather and rain showers that were due over the next few days. After that, they rode in silence.
6:38 P.M.
As Branco’s driver brought them into the city in a swirl of traffic, White began to feel a surge of energy. With it came a churning of thought, and he began to wonder where in the city a meeting between Anne and Marten and Joe Ryder might take place, and how, and at what point, they might best deal with it.
6:52 P.M.
The BMW entered the Marques de Pombal roundabout at the top of the lush, tree-lined Avenida da Liberdade. Immediately the driver swung up the hill past the green of the city’s sprawling Eduardo VII Park.
“There,” Branco said, a long, narrow finger pointing out the window to the right.
Directly above them and looking out over the city like some modern, box-shaped sentinel was the place where Ryder would be staying. The Four Seasons Hotel Ritz.
6:54 P.M.
81
BAIRRO ALTO, THE UPPER TOWN. 7:12 P.M.
It was still nearly three full hours until sunset. Nicholas Marten stood in a shaft of sunlight at the far end of a small, leafy park, one foot on a stone bench, the envelope with Father Willy’s photographs tucked under his left arm, Kovalenko’s Glock 9 mm automatic in his waistband under his jacket. Anne sat on another bench some thirty feet away casually feeding a congregation of pigeons from a box of crackers she’d bought at a variety store in the tourist-jammed lower old-town Baixa district fifteen minutes earlier. Around them were a dozen or so others-chatting, reading, playing cards, people just enjoying the long summer evening. Whether they were visitors or locals it was hard to tell, but whoever they were, none seemed to be paying either Anne or Marten any attention.
Directly across from the park was Rua do Almada, a narrow cobblestoned street and a block of four-and five-story apartment buildings. Number 17 was the third building down. Its second-through fourth-floor apartments had floor-to-ceiling windows that opened onto narrow balconies decorated with ornamental iron railings. The fifth, or top, floor had no balconies or railings at all, only large windows that, like those on the other floors, looked out onto the street below and the park across from it where they were.
7:16 P.M.
Marten glanced at Anne and nodded toward number 17. She responded with a slight shake of the head, then went back to feeding the pigeons. They were hot and tired from the nearly ninety- minute trek they had made across the city from where Stump Logan had dropped them. Their destination, hopefully with a message from Joe Ryder waiting for them, was only feet away across the cobblestones. But for all the good it did, they might as well have still been in Praia da Rocha. Dangerous as it was for them to stay out in the open, Anne’s sense was that it was even more foolhardy to simply walk up to the front door and knock on it without first surveying the building and its surroundings.
“See what vehicles come and go,” she’d said as they neared. “If they pass by more than once. Who goes in and out. If someone is watching from the windows or from the windows next door or from farther up or down the street. If a pedestrian or someone on a bicycle goes past, taking special interest in
