The text message was sent from CIA Chief of Station/Lisbon Jeremy Moyer to Carlos Branco’s BlackBerry in an electronic heartbeat.
10:19 P.M.
The same message was forwarded by Branco to Conor White. And, after a moment’s hesitation, from White to Sy Wirth.
10:20 P.M.
Wirth had a one-word reply.
10:24 P.M.
Nicholas Marten walked out of Casanova, a small blue-and-white-tiled restaurant permeated with the distinctive odor of delicately seasoned roast pork. Raising his umbrella against the rain, he walked on, his eyes scanning either side of the street for pedestrians. He’d counted twenty tables inside Casanova; six had still been occupied. None by Anne. Describing her to the English-speaking head waiter proved fruitless. No one resembling her had been in the restaurant all evening, let alone within the last hour. A quick use of the toilet facilities toward the kitchen area in the rear-a covering act to see if the restaurant had a second or private dining room-had been unproductive as well. The place was small. What you saw when you entered was what there was.
10:35 P.M.
A visit to a cafe further down the street and then a bar and shortly afterward a souvenir shop had had the same result. No Anne, nor anyone looking like her, had either come or gone within the past hour.
He moved on, the wet streets reflecting the vivid colors of lighted store signs and the headlights of passing traffic. By now he was walking along Rua Garrett and nearly out of the Chiado district. Ahead, and down a steep cobblestoned street-he recalled from earlier-and he would be in the even more densely populated Baixa quarter. He was about to turn the corner and start down when two things came to mind at almost the same moment.
The first was something Anne had asked Raisa as she had shown them around the apartment.
Raisa’s reply had been that as yet the building had no Internet connection. It was a reality Anne had accepted with little more than a nod.
The second was something that had happened earlier as they’d climbed from the Baixa quarter and turned onto Rua Garrett, where he was now-when Anne had suddenly ducked into a small, elegant five-star hotel to use the loo. At the time it had seemed completely reasonable, but putting the two pieces together now he wondered if she hadn’t been doing something more than just taking a pee. Maybe she’d been deliberately checking out the hotel to see if it had Internet service, a service a five-star hotel might very well provide even if some of the surrounding neighborhoods did not. But why? She had an Internet connection on her BlackBerry.
Still…
Abruptly Marten turned back, retracing his steps on Rua Garrett. The hotel had been small, stylish, and on the left. Where was it? What had it been called? He walked on. Suddenly the rain came down in earnest. He huddled close under the umbrella and moved on. Seconds later he stopped. Not fifty paces ahead he saw it. hotel lisboa chiado His blood came up in a rush, and he started toward it.
10:46 P.M.
88
HOTEL LISBOA CHIADO. 10:48 P.M.
The sound of a piano greeted Marten as he entered the small foyer. It seemed to be coming from a bar partway down an elegant wood-paneled hallway that led to the main desk area in the rear. On the left and in between was an elevator. A stairwell was just past it. Not the best architectural layout for a hotel, but probably done to work within the structural confines of a building that looked to be eighty years old at least and might once have been a private residence.
Marten closed the umbrella and walked down the hallway to glance into the bar. A young black man in a white suit sat at a piano effortlessly playing a medley of show tunes for the dozen or so patrons congregated there. As in the other places he’d visited, Anne was not among them.
He turned back, looked in the direction of the main desk, and headed for it. As he did, the elevator in front of him opened and three people stepped out. Their backs to him, they walked in the same direction he was going, toward the main desk. Two were clearly hotel employees, both in dark suits, one older than the other, the concierge, maybe. The third was a slim, fortyish, dark-haired man dressed in jeans and a Hawaiian shirt.
“I understand she checked in, but where is she now?” the Hawaiian shirt asked emphatically.
“I don’t know, sir. I’m sorry.” The older man was genuinely apologetic. “Maybe she went out for something she needed. She had no luggage. She said it had been lost at the airport and was to be delivered here. So far it hasn’t been.”
“But she did go to the room.”
“Yes, sir. The night clerk showed her to it. You saw that for yourself.”
“All I saw was that someone had used a hand towel in the bathroom. It could have been anyone.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Tidrow. It’s all I can tell you.”
“She’s my sister, you know. She’s not well. She was supposed to call the moment she checked in.”
“I appreciate the situation, sir. We will alert you the moment she returns.”
At the word “Tidrow” Marten stopped where he was. They were already here, looking for her. How could they have known? Unless she’d been foolish enough to use a credit card and her accounts were being electronically monitored. But then credit cards, plus a little cash-certainly not enough for a room in a hotel like this, four hundred euros a night at least, probably more-would have been all she had. Moreover, she would have known that there was every chance her accounts were being watched and that if she used any of her cards they would know where they had been used and when, almost instantly. It meant she’d come there, done whatever she’d had to do, and then left before they could get there. But why? What was it that was worth the risk of exposing herself like this?
Use of the Internet?
