Moniz shakes his head. “Are you expecting the CIA?”
Santos shrugs. She does not know what to expect from this situation. “Tell me, António, what is it that you suspect of the Pryce woman?”
“Specifically? Nothing. But I want to be careful not to jump to conclusions. Yes, Senhora Pryce seems to be a beautiful, sympathetic woman who finds herself in an unfortunate situation. Perhaps too sympathetic? Perhaps too unfortunate?”
“You are not blaming her for her good looks and bad fortune, are you? Tell me you are not doing that.”
“Definitely not. But the whole package of her, combined with the fact that she showed up to us so early in the day, plus that she has not been completely forthright about everything, the bank accounts, even her own name—”
“No one is completely forthright about everything.”
“Of course. And no one is completely innocent about everything. And when I asked her why the sister is in Lisbon?”
“But the sister is not in Lisbon.”
“There you go again, Carolina, jumping to conclusions. It is true that we have no evidence that the sister is in Lisbon. But she could be. And the way Pryce responded to my question?”
“That was pure surprise.”
“Yes. But surprise at what?”
“You were badgering her about every—”
“Look,” Moniz interrupts. “Is that her?”
A woman has just stepped out of the hotel with a bag slung over her shoulder.
“Yes.” Santos moves the dangling microphone to her mouth. “Pryce is on the move. Tomas? Do you see her?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, Tomas, Erico, both of you remember: If you think you have been made by Pryce or by anyone else, you must say so. Francisco and Mariella are ready to tag in.”
*
The street is teeming with commuters, and the ludicrously hazardous streetcars are careening around, taxis and mopeds zipping with goose-like honks around the square, this loud place with hundreds of people coming and going and staying, a hard-to-monitor population that definitely includes some men and maybe women who are watching Ariel—the CIA, or the Lisbon police, or the national security service, or reporters, or kidnappers, or some combination of any of these, or maybe all, earpieces for instructions, handguns for interventions, vans around the corner, satellite feeds, cell phone intercepts— Ariel’s eyes jump around, looking for people who are looking at her, but she fails to identify a single one; they’re all doing a good job of pretending. Or she’s doing a bad job of detection.
When she arrives at the far side of the square, the phone rings again. “Yes?”
“Across the street to your left. Do you see that café?”
“Yes.”
“Walk into it. Keep this call open. Tell me when you’re inside the café.”
Ariel weaves through the traffic, enters the busy, well-lit place. “I’m inside.”
“Go to the toilet.”
She looks around, finds the sign, the corridor, the door. She turns the handle, but the door doesn’t open. “Damn,” she says. “Someone must be in there. It’s locked.”
“Wait.”
The thirty seconds feel like forever, then a woman emerges, and gives the crazed-looking Ariel as wide a berth as possible within the confines of the narrow corridor.
“I’m in the bathroom.”
“Lock the door. Do you see the shelf above the sink?”
“Yes.” It’s filled with the type of supplies you expect in a commercial bathroom.
“Reach behind the paper rolls on the right.”
“What am I looking for?”
“You will see.” And she does: a cell phone connected to earbuds. “Do you have it?”
“Yes.” This new device immediately starts to ring.
“Put on the headphones, and answer.”
Ariel does.
“Now end the connection on the old phone, place it behind the rolls, and leave.”
She wends her way among the tables. “I’m outside.”
“Do you know the Elevador de Santa Justa?”
“I do.” It’s just a few blocks away, a hundred-plus-foot-tall elevator that saves pedestrians the trouble of walking up a long staircase on a steep hill that separates one neighborhood from another.
“Go there, and ride to the top.”
Ariel walks quickly, neck swiveling left and right, back and forth, alert not just for tails but for muggers, for assailants of any sort. Lisbon is not a dangerous place, but now would be a very bad time to stumble into random danger. She notices a pair of teenaged boys loitering in a doorway, their heads down but eyes up, darting, shifty; a lupine pose, predatory. But these boys don’t notice Ariel. Whatever they’re hunting for, it’s not someone like her.
After just a few minutes’ walking here it is, the upper approach to the elevador, reminiscent of a smaller, utilitarian Eiffel Tower. Beside the elevator is a long staircase, at the bottom of which is the entrance. Ariel surveys the scene from the top of this crowded staircase, one side of which is filled with a thick throng that Ariel realizes is a queue, maybe a hundred people are waiting to ride this odd attraction, to enjoy the view from the platform at the top.
She groans; this is going to take forever. But Ariel doesn’t have a choice, so she installs herself at the end of the line, beside the busy flow of foot traffic, people going up and coming down, shopping bags from Nike and Foot Locker, Mango and H&M and Sephora, the same stores as everywhere. New groups quickly fill in the queue behind her—it’s good late-afternoon light for photos from up top—one group after another, a sunburned family with cockney accents, and behind them a half-dozen elderly Japanese, and behind them a trio of teenaged girls posing for selfies, peace signs, duck lips, shrieking at one another, screaming for attention shamelessly, indiscriminately.
Ariel tightens her grip on the strap of the cash-filled duffel bag. This would be an easy place to mug her; a hard place for her to give chase.
This queue can’t be the handoff spot—it’s too public, too obvious, too monitored, too soon. She hasn’t yet been instructed to make any evasive maneuvers. Whoever was watching her at the hotel is still watching her now, probably perched behind her at the top of these steps, with maybe a partner who rushed to the bottom and is now peering up, standing guard. Ariel is wedged in here, in the midst of this dense crowd, all this activity, all this humanity.
Without warning the line begins to move haltingly toward the ticket counter, four steps down then pause, another three steps then pause. Ariel descends carefully until she hears a new instruction in her ear: “Step out of the queue now. Walk down the steps.”
Ariel obeys the instructions, walking faster than the people descending beside her.
“There is a taxi at the bottom. Do you see?”
“No.” Panic, and then she does. “Yes, now I see.”