Park walking under an umbrella of palm and conifer trees. Ryder wore Grant’s beige slacks, blue dress shirt, and light blue blazer. Birns wore a summer-weight tan business suit with a white shirt open at the collar. In his right hand was a briefcase. Inside it was a Heckler & Koch MP5K 9 mm compact submachine gun with a thirty- round clip and fitted with a laser sight. In the event of an attack all he needed to do was point the briefcase at his target; a red laser dot would spot on the subject. After that it was easy. Simply pull the trigger in the briefcase’s grip and let the weapon do its job.
10:02 A.M.
The two stepped out of the park where it met Rua Margues de Fronteira. Less than thirty seconds later they saw a taxi coming toward them through traffic. Birns cautioned Ryder back, then stepped into the street to flag it down. The taxi sped past, then twenty yards later suddenly pulled over and stopped.
“Let’s go,” Ryder commanded.
10:04 A.M.
“You speak English?” Ryder asked as they climbed in.
The driver looked at them in the mirror and gave a cheery “Yes, sir.”
“Good. Cafe Hitchcock. In the Alfama district.”
“Of course, sir,” the driver said, and they drove off.
103
10:05 A.M.
The car was a black Mercedes S600 sedan with smoked glass windows and, as Conor White had asked, United Nations license plates. Their driver was a handsome young black man called Moses, from Algeria, he said. He had a 9 mm automatic pistol mounted in a clip under the dashboard. The car itself had a 510 horse power V12 engine. It could go from 0 to 60 in 4.5 seconds. Its top speed through narrow city streets was unknown.
Irish Jack had parked the gray BMW on a side street a block from the U.S. Embassy. Less than a minute later, at eight thirty-seven, Moses met them with the Mercedes. Conor White was dressed in a tailored pin-striped navy suit with a light blue French-cuffed shirt and a striped maroon tie fastened with a Windsor knot. Patrice and Irish Jack wore conservative blue suits, white shirts, and ties. Each man carried a hard-shell briefcase holding his primary weapon of choice. For Patrice and Irish Jack, highly modified 45 mm M-4 Colt Commando submachine guns with sound and flame suppressors. For Conor White, two modified MP5 submachine guns, also with sound and flame suppressors. Each man, too, carried a concealed sidearm beneath his suit coat. Burst-firing 9 mm Beretta automatic pistols for Patrice and Irish Jack. The short-barrel 9 mm SIG SAUER semiautomatic for Conor White.
All three wore team ratio units and constantly monitored the on-and-off banter between Carlos Branco’s men watching the building at number 17 Rua do Almada. So far their communication had been little more than idle chatter; nothing seemed to be happening. That fact alone made White increasingly nervous. What were Anne and Marten-by now he was convinced it was indeed Marten who had been seen entering the building at close to one in the morning-doing? Waiting for communication from Ryder? Planning something else? So far he had no sense of any of it. Ryder was under Branco’s personal observation. His electronic surveillance team monitoring communications to and from the apartment building had reported no transmittals or receptions they could attribute to either Anne or Marten.
By nine fifty Moses had made two passes down Rua do Almada. There had been no sign of police, just a few pedestrians, several people in the park, two of which had to be Branco’s men, and normal everyday traffic. The quiet had made White bold enough to want to go in right then and take care of business. The Mercedes sedan, the UN plates, the men inside dressed like diplomats. Even if the police came by on patrol, it would be easy enough to simply let them pass, then go inside, do what had to be done, and quietly leave. But doing so might somehow alert Joe Ryder and would put Branco in the situation of having to kill him himself. That, in turn, risked a firefight with Ryder’s personal RSO bodyguards. Something like that would be loud and messy, and who knew how it would turn out? So going in after Anne and Marten was not a reasonable option. All he could do was wait until they made their move and Ryder made his in an attempt to join them. What he had to do was have patience, something every soldier in every war ever fought had had to have. Hurry up and wait. It was the unwritten heart of
10:09 A.M.
They had just taken seats at a small outdoor cafe on Rua Garrett and were ordering coffee to wait it out when they heard the alarm. One of Branco’s lookouts was extremely concerned about two people who had suddenly appeared from the basement entrance of the building at the end of the block and climbed into an electrician’s van that had been parked there for nearly a half hour. Seconds later the vehicle pulled away.
Immediately they heard Branco cut in.
“Excuse me,” Conor White said politely and left the table. He walked past several customers and crossed to where Moses waited in the parked Mercedes. Safely out of earshot, he lifted his right arm, pressed the KEY TO TALK button on the small microphone in the sleeve of his jacket, and spoke into it. “Branco,” he said quietly. “Can you talk?”
“Was it them?”
“Don’t lose that van.”
“Where is Ryder?”
“Where the hell is that?”
“Which way did the van go?”
“What’s that mean?”
“Stay on it to wherever it stops. Then just watch, don’t do anything. See who gets out and where they go afterward. If it is Marten and Anne I want immediate confirmation.”
Conor White clicked off the microphone, went back to the table, and sat down next to Patrice and Irish Jack. “You heard?”
Patrice nodded.
