The driver nods, takes the half-note.
Ariel and John walk into the market, big and loud and packed with people lined up at dozens of food stands to order tapas and croquettes, stews and pastas, burgers and sandwiches, beer and wine and white port spritzes, cakes and pastries and chocolates and ice cream, hundreds of people carrying trays and glasses and plates, it’s a madhouse that Ariel and John are rushing through, and then around a corner and into the busy corridor where Ariel drops her mobile into a garbage can and then they exit through a side door, around the building quickly, back into the still-waiting taxi—
“Teatro Nacional, por favor, rua Duques de Bragan?a.”
Ariel doesn’t see any trace of the CIA car, nor the police, nor anyone else who seems to be watching. But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t there. It might just mean that they’re better at hiding.
And then she does see something, a familiar-looking woman sitting on a moped around the corner, talking into a mic dangling from earbuds, and Ariel senses other movement from another direction, and swivels her head around until she sees another car pulling away from another curb.
“Damn,” she mutters, and then to the driver, “Rápido, por favor,” guessing at the Portuguese, hoping that even if she’s not completely right, she’s close enough, which is usually good enough.
*
“Oh Christ.” Griffiths spins her moped in a tight circle. “Jefferson, do not lose them.” She too is riding a moped. For surveillance in a place like Lisbon, there’s nothing better.
“Guido, where the fuck are you?”
“Still in the market. Go ahead without me. Note that you’ve got company.”
“Lisbon police?”
“I think so. At least two plainclothes in a car, and one uniform tracking on foot.”
“Good God.”
Three cops, in the middle of the night, vehicular pursuit—that’s a lot of manpower—and suddenly Griffiths has an epiphany that her mission just tilted on its axis: There’s no fucking way she can allow the Portuguese police to arrest Ariel Pryce and John Wright.
She accelerates up the hill.
*
“Obrigada.”
Ariel tosses the other half-hundred over the seat, then she and John spring out of the taxi. She glances back down the one-way street, and sees the same silver car in pursuit, followed by the same moped.
On the right side of the street, a stone staircase leads down to the national theater and a broad plaza; on the left, stairs lead up to a different street, a one-way in the other direction. These are the stairs that Ariel and John sprint up, taking two steps at a time.
“Hurry,” she urges him as they reach the top step, and “This way” as they turn left, quickly out of sight to whoever’s pursuing below, and directly into the roomy backseat of the waiting Mercedes, which pulls away from the curb even while John is still pulling the door closed, speeding down the street, around one corner and then another and then accelerating on a straight wide street.
“Okay?” asks the driver, the same man who drove them from the airport on Saturday morning, forever ago. This is the person Ariel called from the balcony, confirming the pickup for twelve-fifteen A.M. that she’d arranged earlier, but changing the location. And the destination.
“It will be a long drive,” she’d said. “Four hours? Something like that.”
“Yes, that is long. To where, please?”
“Five hundred euros,” Ariel answered. “In cash. Plus we pay for the petrol and tolls.”
She imagined the driver debating with himself, maybe whether to negotiate, and if so for what; maybe whether to do this at all, whether these Americans were criminals, whether this might be dangerous, or illegal, or both. On the other hand: Five hundred euros, tax-free, was a lot of money. So maybe it would be better to not ask any questions. Maybe that’s always the case.
Ariel was prepared to pay more, if necessary. Whatever it took to get out of there.
“Okay,” he’d said.
“Can you be waiting at midnight? We might arrive early.” Ariel wanted to make sure that the driver wouldn’t be late.
Now she leans across the seat, and places the five hundred euros on the center console. The driver glances down at the green bills. “Where, please?”
“Just go straight,” Ariel says. “I’ll let you know what to do when you need to do it.”
He nods repeatedly, as if this is a good idea. As if he too is happy to operate on a need-to-know basis. Plausible deniability.
Ariel watches the late-night streets fly by, and within minutes they’re ascending the longest bridge in Europe. She keeps turning to look out the rear windshield, expecting to see blinking lights closing in.
They’re not out of the woods yet. Maybe never will be.
*
“No no no. Tell me this did not just happen.”
Griffiths is standing astride her moped, facing the wrong way on the one-way street that she just sped down rapidly, dangerously, illegally, and all to no avail: There’s no sign of the Americans.
“Where the hell could they have gone?”
Jefferson has abandoned her bike, is walking quickly up the lively street, busy restaurants and bars, people everywhere. “Anywhere,” she says into her mic. “There are thousands of places they can be. They could also have gotten into another car.”
“Fuck. And their devices are still in the market?”
It’s Antonucci who answers. “Yup. Ditched somewhere.”
No phones, no luggage, no computers. Which means that not only have they fled, but they did it expecting that they were being watched. Expecting to be chased.
“Jefferson, let’s you and me keep looking around here. Guido, get yourself to the airport. If they show up, call me immediately.”
“What about Mazagón and Cádiz?” The ferries to the Canary Islands.
“I think not. Then they’d be trapped in the Canaries, which isn’t any closer to the States, and isn’t a particularly easy place to hide. But Tangier is another story. A quick trip, at the end of which they can disappear in Africa. So let’s alert Rabat to be on the lookout.”
“Okay. But why don’t we just let them go?”
It’s a good question; she can understand how it would seem like a reasonable option to Antonucci. Griffiths doesn’t want to explain the whole thing to him, her whole array of fears. And she doesn’t need to. Guido works for her. But she doesn’t want to be imperious about it.
“It’s a matter of national security,” she says, which has the benefit of being true.
CHAPTER 41
DAY 3. 2:00 A.M.
This time Ariel does need an alarm. The new phone trills and vibrates an unfamiliar sequence, jarring Ariel awake, and for a second she doesn’t know where the phone is, or even what it is, then she finds the thing lying on her stomach, and turns it off, and tries to get her bearings.
John stirs, but doesn’t open his eyes.
Ariel looks out the window. “Are we still in Portugal?”
“Five more kilometers,” the driver says.