The Hadrian Memorandum - Allan Folsom [176]
“White is a smart, tactical thinker who has all kinds of connections and puts things together fast. By now he’ll know Ryder and you people are missing. He went to Raisa’s, found out where we were, and took a gamble that you and Ryder would meet us here. His man came in asking for us on the belief that using the laundry truck was part of the getaway plan and that coming in is what the original driver would have been instructed to do. He figured that out pretty well except that he couldn’t have known what time he was to have come in, or that he was to use the back entrance instead of the front. That his man had spoken to Mário and wasn’t turned away would be interpreted as meaning that we were not only here but were expecting the truck. Because of that he’s probably brought in more assets, meaning any escape route we might have planned will be blocked off.” Marten glanced at Mário, then looked back to Grant.
“He’ll think he’s got us, and because we’re taking time and haven’t yet responded to his driver he’ll assume we’re just being cautious and thinking things through. He’ll expect that we’ll soon realize everything so far has gone as planned and before long will follow his man out and into the truck.”
“We can’t do that,” Grant said emphatically.
“Yes, we can. At least some of us can.”
11:22 A.M.
“Control, this is 3-3. Copy?” Moses’s voice came through their headsets.
White pushed the KEY TO TALK button inside his sleeve. “This is Control, 3-3. What’s the delay?”
“There was an emergency on one of the upper floors. The security director, the man I spoke to earlier, sent his apologies and asked if I would wait. Instructions?”
White took a breath, then looked out through the Mercedes’s windshield to stare at the hospital entrance. Finally he looked to Patrice and Irish Jack. “What do you think, gentlemen?”
Patrice’s cold green eyes came up to White’s. “They’re there. They know Moses is waiting and are thinking it through. One way or another, at some point they will have to come out of the building. He walks away now, they’ll wonder what happened. I’d tell him to wait it out, see how they respond.”
“Agreed.” Irish Jack nodded.
Again White pushed the KEY TO TALK button. “6-4, this is Control. Did you read 3-3? Copy.”
Carlos Branco’s voice crackled through their earpieces. “6-4, roger.”
“We’re going to sit tight. Copy?”
“Roger.”
“3-3. Stay where you are and wait them out. Copy?”
“Roger.”
11:25 A.M.
Marten, Agent Grant, and Mário Gama joined Anne, Ryder, and Agent Birns in the small examination room where they had remained. In the next minute and a half Marten laid out his plan.
They would split into two groups, he told them. Anne, Ryder, and Birns in the first; himself and Grant in the other. At the same time, Gama would recruit a woman and two men from the hospital staff, people who, from a reasonable distance, would resemble Anne, White’s driver, and Agent Birns. The man playing White’s driver would wear the white laundryman’s jacket. The second man, who would resemble Agent Birns as closely as possible, would wear his jacket and sunglasses and carry a briefcase. The woman playing Anne would wear the bucket hat Anne had worn in the escape from Raisa’s apartment and now had in her purse.
The idea was to have Anne, Ryder, and Agent Birns slip into the ambulance in the docking bay at the hospital’s rear emergency entrance. Then, on a coordinated signal, Marten, Ryder’s look-alike Agent Grant, and the hospital recruits would exit the front door, go quickly to the laundry truck, get in, and drive off. In the meantime, the ambulance, with Gama driving, would leave from the emergency entrance and go directly to the airport and Ryder’s waiting plane. For their part, Marten and Grant would lead White’s pursuers through city streets back toward the Baixa district then suddenly pull over, let the hospital people out, and drive away. For a