“Yes.”
“A car and driver will be outside whenever you have need. Supplementary transportation is available with a ten-minute-or-less response time.”
“Good.”
“I know you are armed. Will you need additional armaments?”
“Unlikely, but it would depend on the situation.”
Conor White and Carlos Branco stood on the balcony of a modest fourth-floor apartment on Rua do Sao Filipe Neri. In the distance, long shadows cast by the setting sun accentuated the wide Tagus River and the boat traffic on it. Illuminated, too, in bright yellow light, was the towering Golden Gate-like 25th of April Bridge carrying vehicles to and from areas to the south, the Algarve among them.
Inside, through the sliding glass door, they could see Patrice and Irish Jack in the living room. They were already comfortable in jeans and tight black T-shirts, drinking coffee and playing cards. Over the rooftops on the building’s far side rose the Four Seasons Ritz, where Congressman Ryder would make his base sometime the next morning. It was a four-minute walk at most, thirty seconds by car.
White studied Branco carefully, as if trying to take his full measure. How much experience he had, his thought process, the way he moved. If he could fully trust him. Clearly what Sy Wirth had told him-that Loyal Truex, not himself, had set this up-seemed to be true. From all appearances he was a skilled professional. It was one of the very few things Wirth hadn’t screwed up. The speed of it meant that Truex had been in direct contact with Washington and that Branco’s hire would have been done by Lisbon’s CIA station chief. It was a roundabout, but in intelligence terms, correct way of keeping White out of any direct contact with Washington. That way they all were protected, which had been the idea from the beginning.
“What do you see?” Branco asked calmly.
“An accomplished resource whose name is not on the Agency payroll or listed anywhere on its books or records. A freelancer for hire who is paid out of the chief of station’s private account and is used to working that way.”
“Good.” Branco smiled.
“How much do you know about what’s going on?”
“Little to nothing. I’m a simple painter who has been assigned to Congressman Ryder’s RSO security detail. My job is to help set up his quarters at the hotel before he arrives and then be with him for the rest of his stay.”
“Painter? As in paint him as a target.”
Branco smiled. “Make sure all of his communication lines are bugged and that he is under real-time surveillance wherever he goes.”
“You are aware there are two others involved.”
“A Nicholas Marten and a Ms. Anne Tidrow. At some point they will attempt to meet with the congressman. When that happens, I am to pull back and take the RSO detail with me. Then you and your cardplaying friends will move in and do whatever needs to be done.”
Again Conor White studied him. “You know Lisbon well.”
“You are asking if I know how and where to work our threesome into an isolated situation but so they won’t realize it. And in a way where there can be no interference from the police or problems with accidental witnesses.”
White nodded.
“In a city like this there are all kinds of unexpected trapdoors. One only needs to know when they will be needed, and after that how to put them in play.”
“You can do that.”
“I am, as you said, an accomplished resource. Preparation is everything. It’s a discipline in which I am quite skilled.”
White crossed the balcony to look out at the river. For a long moment he stared at it, his mind elsewhere. Finally he turned back to Branco. “Do you know what Marten and Anne Tidrow look like?”
“I was provided with Marten’s British passport photo and the Tidrow woman’s corporate photograph. By now, either through the passage of time or on purpose or both, they will have changed their appearance. We will have to take that into consideration.”
“They will be coming over that”-he nodded toward the 25th of April Bridge-“from the Algarve. Maybe they’re already here, maybe not. When they are here, now or later, can you find them?”
“Undoubtedly the congressman will know how to reach them and will do so at some point after he arrives. His room will be bugged, his cell phones monitored the minute he lands. When he makes contact, we can move.”
“Carlos.” White took him by the arm. “I don’t want to wait that long. Marten and Anne are the principal targets. If we can locate them before the congressman gets here, we won’t need to involve him at all. It would be much cleaner that way.” He paused and then smiled deliberately. “It’s something you might find quite lucrative.”
“You mean a bonus.”
“Yes.”
“Paid by who?”
“Me to you, personally. Fifty thousand euros in cash within thirty-six hours of the job’s completion. No one else will know. Not your chief of station, not even my own people.”
“How can I be sure you will keep your word?”
“You know who I am. You would have checked on me before you took the assignment. A man in our line of business who doesn’t honor his promises doesn’t last very long, and I’ve been around for quite some time.”
“I can’t guarantee success.”
“Then we will return to the original plan. You understand, of course, that if that were to happen you would be out a lot of money. ”
“I will do what I can.”
Again Conor White smiled. “I know you will.”
8:02 P.M.
83
17 RUA DO ALMADA. SAME TIME.
Who Raisa Amaro really was or worked for was impossible to know, at least in the first few minutes-and, Marten guessed, probably not even in a lifetime. What she did do was play the part of the discreet hostess exceedingly well. Which was how she had met them at the door. Elegantly dressed in a tailored navy suit under a shock of coiffed red hair, she’d introduced herself, inquired about their trip, then immediately taken them up in a small elevator to the sensual luxury of a top-floor apartment, acting all the while as if the sole purpose of their visit were an illicit affair.
French born and sixty-something, she was barely five feet tall; her livelihood seemed to revolve around the careful managing of this single piece of real estate that was little more than a very private stage designed for sexual intimacy. She expounded on the richness of her service by explaining that should a third-party plaything be required-male or female-she would be happy to provide one at short notice. In essence, Raisa Amaro was a handsomely paid madam of the first order who guarded the apartment as well as the front door to the building herself. A building, she explained, that she owned outright. If the edifice’s other tenants knew about her top-floor arrangement, they said nothing, knowing full well that as the proprietor Raisa-as she asked to be called-could and would evict them at any moment and for any reason at all, no matter what local ordinances
