With that he’d wished him well and signed off quickly. He’d sounded like he felt he’d already spoken too long and was worried-calling as he had at nearly three o’clock in the morning Washington time-that someone from his Secret Service detail would come into his room to make certain he was alright and then set a wave of gossip rolling with speculation about who he had been talking to and why.
“Ready to go down to the pool, sir?” Agent Grant stood in the doorway to the adjoining room.
“You bet. Right now.”
9:37 A.M.
101
9:40 A.M.
Hunched over, flashlight beam focused in front of them, the Glock automatic in his waistband, Marten led Anne down a dark, narrow, low-ceilinged, cobweb-filled brick-and-mortar passageway that led from the basement of the building at 17 Rua do Almada to that of the building next door. It was a corridor that, theoretically at least, would continue on to the building after that and the one after that, ending finally in the basement at number 9, the last edifice on the block, which was at the far end of the park and a good fifty yards down from where the lookouts were stationed.
These long-unused connecting passageways had been built during World War II, when a neutral Portugal became a temporary haven for Jewish refugees fleeing Central Europe and Lisbon was a major transit point for exit to the United States. Sections of the Baixa, Chiado, and Bairro Alto districts with their close proximity to the harbor were favorites not only of the refugees but of Nazi spies commanded to report their movements and the names and destinations of the ships they boarded. As a result, the owners of many buildings like those on Rua do Almada built secret, interconnecting subterranean corridors through, and sometimes under, the buildings’ cellars in order to help smuggle people unnoticed to waiting ships in the attempt to keep the transit lines open and create as little political turbulence for Portugal as possible.
Anne and Marten were attempting much the same thing now. Only their destination was not a ship on the waterfront but an electrician’s van parked at the end of the block. With luck, and if the passageways were still navigable after nearly seventy years of nonuse, and if they left the building at number 9 and climbed unseen into the van Raisa had waiting, they should arrive at Hospital da Universidade on Rua Serpa Pinto after a reasonably short ride and pretty much on time.
That Raisa had been able to put the entire rescue plan together so quickly was a marvel in itself. She had taken Marten’s call at seven fifteen. At seven eighteen she was in the top-floor apartment dressed in the rose-colored bathrobe and slippers she’d worn the night before and listening carefully to what Marten had to say, knowing all the while that with Anne present he would have to find a way to let her know what was happening and what needed to be done without referring to President Harris by name or office.
And he had, telling her that an American politician had just flown in by private plane from Iraq, and they needed to meet with him as soon as possible and in a place that was private and out of the public eye. Further, there were people outside her building now waiting to follow them to wherever that place was. What they hoped she could do was provide them with that meeting place and a way that they could get to it, quickly and without being seen by those outside. Further, wherever that place was, they would all have to leave it soon afterward undetected for a trip to the airport and the politician’s plane. Complicating things even more was the fact that they had no way to contact their man without the people outside knowing. It was a big order, Marten understood, and made on very short notice. He ended his plea with a simple sentence. “I think you appreciate where this is coming from.”
“I appreciate very well where this is coming from,” Raisa said with a smile. “Old lovers die hard.”
If Anne had been caught up in the game of “what the hell’s going on?” she didn’t show it. Instead she gave Raisa a warning. “The people watching outside will have very sophisticated electronic listening equipment. Any conversation coming into or going out of the building will be heard, traced, and recorded, and that includes the line in this apartment that transfers out through your laundry company.”
“Then we’ll have to find another means.” Raisa walked off, lifting a BlackBerry from the pocket of her robe as she did. They saw her scan a list of names and numbers programmed into it. Immediately she put it away, turned, and came back.
“My laundry is called A Melhor Lavanderia, Lisboa, or Best Laundry of Lisbon. It’s not far from here. I go to my office there every morning, as I will do now. When I have something to tell you I will send a messenger. A teenage boy named Otavio. He will give you a slip of paper with instructions. Follow them exactly.”
“Raisa,” Marten said, “we can’t just walk out through the front door, or the back, either.”
It was then she’d told them about the network of passageways, warning of their age and probable condition but saying she thought they were still passable. “Look for a blue electrician’s van with white and gold lettering, Servico Eletrico de Sete Dias-Seven Day Electrical Service. It will be parked at the end of the last house on the block. Go out the basement door and to it quickly. The driver will take you where you need to go. A truck from my laundry will get you to the airport.”
“You realize our man will have to know where to meet us and when,” Marten said quietly.
Raisa smiled again. “I will take care of it myself.” She looked at Anne. “Dirty little secrets, my dear. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course,” Anne matched Raisa’s smile. “Old lovers, like old girlfriends, die hard.” Her eyes went to Marten. He didn’t respond.
9:45 A.M.
Marten moved the beam of his flashlight across an old, rough-hewn wooden barricade that closed off the passageway in front of them. He studied it for the briefest second, then looked over his shoulder at Anne.
“I don’t know what this is. Hold the light,” he said and handed the flashlight to her. They’d been less than twenty minutes in the underground corridors, passing from Raisa’s building and then through the next and the next. The smell of must and mold permeated the air, and the going had been frustratingly slow. Rubble from partially crumbled walls, pieces of old furniture, and plumbing and electrical fixtures stored for years and forgotten had had to be moved, climbed over, or squeezed around. At one point there had been what was left of the carcass of a long-dead dog.
Now the way into the last building at 9 Rua do Almada was completely blocked
