The Machiavelli Covenant Read online

  "They work very quickly and very efficiently. If they had arrived when we were still in the room by now we would have been hustled out the back way, thrown into waiting cars, and gone. No one would ever know I or they had even been here, let alone that something had happened.

  "At the same time, those tactics give us a tiny window of opportunity because when they arrive, when my agent in charge comes through the door with his deputy and starts up to the room, the focus of every other agent will be on the plan to evacuate me. It's then, the moment he goes up, we go out. The three of us, right out the side entrance, onto the street, and into the crowd. I looked at both entrances carefully before I came in. Once outside we turn right and walk as a threesome down the block. At the end of it, maybe two hundred feet away, is a line of taxi cabs. Take the first one available and let me do the talking."

  Marten leaned in, "You're basing all this on the certainty your special agent will come in through the front and not some other way."

  "You're right, I'm not certain, I'm guessing. But that's because I know him well. Not only is he horrified the president vanished on his watch, he's worried as hell about my well-being and will want to get me out of here and into his custody as fast as he can. To do that he will take the shortest route to the object, and that is through the front door and up the elevators directly to the room."

  "What if he doesn't? What if he goes in another way, crashes the room, and finds you gone. No one's seen you go out. It means you're still somewhere in the building. Attention or not, this place will be shut down before any of us can take another breath."

  The president half smiled. "Let's just hope I know my man well enough to be right." Immediately he looked to Demi. "You were thrust into this because of Mr. Marten and what you might know about Dr. Foxx."

  Demi started.

  "Am I correct?" President Harris pushed her.

  Marten calmed her, "I told you before, he knows, it's alright to talk in front of him."

  "Yes, you are correct," Demi said.

  "Then you understand that if Mr. Marten or I are caught whatever information you have come to Mr. Marten with will go for nothing because I won't be able to do anything about it and neither will he. That puts you directly on the spot."

  "I don't understand," she said.

  "Because of the newspaper photo they will know what Mr. Marten looks like, and quite obviously my people know what I look like, and if they were surprised by my lack of hair they won't be now that they've talked to the desk clerk. That brings us back to you because none of them know you," the president paused, looking her in the eye. Marten knew he was using the moment to judge her.

  "What I'm doing, Ms. Picard, is putting your well-being and Mr. Marten's and mine fully into your hands. I'm asking for your help. Do you understand?"

  "Yes."

  "Will you help?"

  Demi glanced at Marten, then looked back to the president, "What do you want me to do?"

  • 3:45 A.M.

  Demi got up from the table and went out into the lobby carrying her large purse. Left behind was the big floppy hat she had been wearing and her light-colored trench coat.

  • 3:46 A.M.

  Demi used a napkin to fan herself as she mingled with sweaty, high-spirited dancers getting air just outside the open doors to the Jamboree Club. Her real attention was on the main entrance.

  Ten feet away Marten and President Harris stood watching just inside the club's doors. Marten had mussed up his hair, opened his shirt and had Demi's trench coat thrown cavalierly over one shoulder to hide his travel bag beneath it. The president, still wearing his clear glasses, had taken her big floppy hat and pulled it foppishly down over one ear, effectively, and for the most part, covering his baldness.

  • 3:50 A.M.

  Demi saw the four come through the front door and head directly for the elevators, one of them with a raincoat over his arm. The president's descriptions of Hap Daniels and Bill Strait had been perfect, as had been his prediction of their actions. The two men with them she recognized from her time in Washington: presidential adviser Jake Lowe and U.S. National Security Adviser Dr. James Marshall. Abruptly she turned and walked back into the club.

  "Now," she said.

  • 3:51 A.M.

  The threesome came out of the Jamboree Club walking arm in arm across the crowded lobby toward the side entrance. They were self-absorbed, laughing, half-dancing to the music as they moved through the crowd. They looked exactly as they wanted to look, a couple of half-drunken gay men and their party-loving straight girl out for the evening.

  Five seconds and they were halfway to the door. Another three and they were almost to it.

  "Not quite yet," the president said, forcing a smile and stopping. "One more drink before we go." As quickly he turned them back. "Just outside," he said, "Secret Service agent who's been on my detail since the inauguration."

  • 3:52 A.M.

  The elevator slowed and stopped, the door opened and Hap Daniels, Bill Strait, Jake Lowe and James Marshall stepped out into the fourth floor hallway.

  There was no need for Daniels to identify any of them to either Alfonso Leon or Sanzo Tarrega. They had known who they were and what they would be doing the moment the Chinook touched down at police headquarters. That agent Strait carried a raincoat was no surprise either. It was to throw over the president's head just before they brought him out, making certain no accidental passerby or alert media person or any paparazzi lurking undetected would have the slightest chance for recognition, let alone a photograph.

  • 3:53 A.M.

  The three remaining Secret Service agents who had accompanied Daniels from Madrid made contact with the Spanish GEO operatives at the hotel's rear service/delivery entrance and then went inside to the service elevator.

  At the same time, the rolling stock Daniels had requested little more than an hour earlier from Madrid—a lead car, an armored van with two doctors and two EMT techs inside, and three security tail cars—pulled up and stopped beside the GEO car. Immediately their lights were turned off.

  • 3:54 A.M.

  The president, Nicholas Marten, and Demi stood in the crowd just outside the open doors to the Jamboree Club. Across the lobby they could see the slim desk clerk and CIA asset Ortega. The clerk was on the phone and busy. Ortega had moved from the chair where she had been sitting and now stood near the main entrance, watching it carefully.

  "We're running out of time," the president said quietly. "We'll have to use the main entrance and hope the woman posted there is the only one and that the others are on strict assignment elsewhere. If we get past her, turn right outside and move into the crowd. If for some reason they get me, just keep going. If you try to help, somebody might get killed."

  The president was about to start toward the door. "Wait," Marten said quickly and turned to Demi. "You speak French."

  "Of course."

  "You go first. When you get to the woman speak to her as if you were a French tourist separated from your group and looking for directions to the harbor. She might understand, she might not; it doesn't matter. We'll be right behind you. All we need is about five seconds of distraction to get past her. Once we're out, just thank her and leave. We'll meet you halfway down the block. Can you do that?"

  "Yes."

  "Good."

  • 3:55 A.M.

  Jake Lowe and Dr. Marshall stood pressed against the wall as Hap Daniels and Bill Strait moved to the door of room 408. The corridor behind them was covered by CIA assets Tarrega and Leon in the event they needed help or that a hotel guest tried to leave his or her room.

  The three Secret Service agents who had taken the service elevator up from the rear entrance waited twenty feet down the hallway in a small L-shaped nook that housed the service elevator, the way the president would be taken down once they had him. The central elevator Hap and the others had taken up was locked and "temporarily out of service."

  Electronic room card in hand, Hap Daniels look
ed at Bill Strait, who held the raincoat to be thrown over the president's head, then glanced at Jake Lowe and Dr. Marshall.

  "Five seconds," he said quietly into the tiny microphone at his collar. He put up one finger, then two.

  The four CIA assets on the roof of the building across the street tensed. The two watching the street shifted their binoculars to the window of room 408. The two sharpshooters with Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifles and night-vision scopes were already squared on it. If someone or some group was holding the president hostage he, she or they, would be dead in the next few seconds.

  • THE HOTEL LOBBY, SAME TIME

  Marten and the president were steps behind Demi. Just beyond her they could see the female CIA asset standing just inside the hotel's main foyer. To their right they saw the desk clerk hang up the phone, then turn away and talk to someone.

  • THE FOURTH FLOOR CORRIDOR

  Hap Daniels threw up fingers four, then five.

  In one move he slid the electronic key into the latch. A half second later the red light on the lock turned green and he shoved the door open.

  • THE HOTEL FOYER

  "Excusez-moi. Mes amis sont partis. Pouvez-vous me dire quelle manière c'est au port? Là où mon hôtel est." Excuse me. My friends have left. Can you tell me which way it is to the harbor? Where my hotel is.

  Demi had stepped in front of Iuliana Ortega, blocking her view of the hotel entrance. As she did, Marten and the president slipped past and vanished into crowded sidewalk outside.

  "Trouvez un taxi, il est une longue promenade." Find a taxi, it's a long walk, Ortega said brusquely, then immediately stepped around her, trying to keep an eye on the door.

  "Merci," Demi said, then turned and walked out.

  60

  • 3:58 A.M

  "God dammit!" Hap Daniels yelled out loud.

  Special Agent Bill Strait was right behind him. Jake Lowe and Dr. James Marshall rushed in from the hallway.

  Room 408 was empty.

  "Was he here?" Lowe pushed into the room with Marshall on his heels.

  Daniels ignored him, instead spoke into his headset. "Lock down the building now! Nobody in or out. I want every last damn person checked. Along with every closet, toilet, hallway, every last inch, and that includes the goddamn air-conditioning ducts this time."

  Suddenly Jake Lowe was in his face. "I asked you if he was here. Was the president here in this room?"

  Daniels glared at him for a heartbeat, then calmed, "Don't know, sir," he said professionally, then abruptly turned back to his headset. "Alert Spanish intel. Have their people already on post seal down a two-mile perimeter around the hotel. Ask them to authorize the detention of any Caucasian male inside it between forty and seventy who is either bald or partially bald. Also to authorize the apprehension and detention of Nicholas Marten. And keep the media as far away from this as possible."

  Daniels looked to Marshall. "I think you'd better inform the chief of staff and the White House press secretary. They're both going to have a helluva lot of work and in a big hurry if this gets out."

  "Was he here?" Jake Lowe asked again. This time quietly but very deliberately, his eyes stark with anger.

  Hap Daniels looked at him, then tugged on an ear and glanced around the room. The bed was disheveled, as if someone had been sleeping in it. A chair was pulled back from a small writing desk.

  Daniels turned and went down the hall and into the bathroom. A washcloth and several wet towels were on the sink. The bathtub was still wet, the shower head slowly dripping. For a moment Daniels did nothing, just stood there thinking. A second later he brushed past Marshall and Bill Strait, went back into the bedroom, and stared at the bed. He studied it for a moment and then went over and bent down and sniffed the sheets and then the rumpled pillow.

  "What the hell are you doing?" Jake Lowe snapped. "Was he here or wasn't he? Or don't you know?"

  Abruptly Daniels straightened up. "Aftershave."

  "What?"

  "Aftershave. On the pillow. The president has been using the same cheap stuff ever since I've known him."

  "You mean he was here."

  "Yes, sir, he was." Daniels looked at Bill Strait, "Get a tech team up here now, see what we can find out."

  "Yes, sir." Strait turned and walked off down the hallway speaking into his own headset.

  "Hap," Marshall leaned his six-foot, four-inch frame against the writing desk and crossed his arms in front of him. His manner was icy. "What do we do now?"

  "Hope like hell we find him in the next twenty minutes. We don't, we can begin the whole process all over again."

  61

  • 4:03 A.M.

  "La estación del tren Barcelona-Sants." Barcelona-Sants Train Station, the president said as he, Demi, and Marten climbed into the back seat of crisp yellow-and-black taxi number 6622.

  "Sí." The driver put the taxi in gear and sped off just as the sound of sirens filled the air. The driver crossed a square, turned left and then slowed quickly to avoid hitting two Barcelona police cars crossing directly in front of him.

  "The alarm is out," Marten said quietly. "They'll be watching the station."

  "I know," the president said.

  "Then—?"

  "We'll see," the president sat back and pulled Demi's big floppy hat a little farther down over his forehead.

  Demi looked at him, then turned to Marten. "Wherever you're going, I can't join you. It's what I had to talk to you about, why I came."

  Suddenly two more police cars screamed past going in the direction of Marten's hotel. Just then they saw the line of stopped traffic.

  "Mossos d'Esquadra. ¿Qué demonios pasa aqui?" Catalan state police. What the hell is going on? The cab driver looked at them in the mirror.

  "¿Algo, pero, quién sabe qué?" Something, who knows? The president shrugged, then quickly looked to Marten.

  "Road block," he said sotto voce. "They'll be doing a vehicle search. There'll be more and then more after that. They build these things in concentric circles. Roadblocks funneled into checkpoints and then more outside them."

  "Then we'll walk," Marten said

  "Yes." Immediately the president looked to the driver. "Pare, por favor." Please pull over.

  "¿Aquí?" Here?

  "Sí."

  The driver shrugged and abruptly pulled to the curb. The three got out and the president paid the driver, giving him a large tip. "Usted nunca nos vio," he said, the big hat hiding his features. You never saw us.

  "Nunca," the driver winked. Never.

  Marten slammed the door and the cab drove off.

  Uneasy pedestrians moved around them, increasingly concerned about what was going on.

  "Terroristas." Terrorists. Some said out loud, "Terroristas," others whispered. "¿Vascos, ETA?" someone asked. "No," several voices spat fearfully at once, "al Qaeda."

  Drivers backed up for the roadblock were eerily quiet. Tension and dread anticipation filled the air. At another point in history they would have been impatiently yelling and honking their horns. Not now.

  "Keep moving," the president said quickly, "stay in the crowd."

  Marten nodded and took Demi by the arm, positioning her between himself and the president as they went. There was no doubt now the Secret Service knew the president had been in Marten's hotel room and that every stop had been pulled out to find them. All they could do was try and blend in to what was a long line of frightened people, people, they prayed, who would not recognize the man in the floppy hat shuffling along among them and then raise the alarm out of sheer surprise if nothing else.

  Marten let three young men shove past them, then looked at Demi, "Before, in the taxi, you said you couldn't go with us. Why?"

  Demi hesitated, then glanced at the president and looked back to Marten. "Reverend Beck is meeting Dr. Foxx tomorrow. In the early afternoon at the Benedictine Monastery at Montserrat in the mountains northeast of here. He asked me to go with him and I agreed. I have to go
back to the hotel. We're leaving from there."

  Marten and the president exchanged glances, then Marten turned back to Demi.

  "He asked you to go, just like that?"

  "Yes. For the same reason I came to Barcelona, to continue the photo shoot for the book."

  "Did he say why he canceled your Balkan trip or why he left Malta the way he did?"

  "All he said was that something came up unexpectedly and he had to meet someone here in the city. He didn't say anything more. Just apologized for leaving so abruptly."

  Suddenly there was a convergence of sirens ahead. People surged past them as if something was happening. More followed in their wake. They moved with them, trying to stay hidden in the crowd. Demi glanced at the president, then looked back to Marten.

  "I did what you recommended and told Beck you followed me to Barcelona, and that we met and talked. I expected him to show some anger or surprise. He didn't. Instead, he said something in passing to the effect that he wished you and Dr. Foxx had left things on a more congenial note in Malta. He didn't say why or even ask why you had followed me here or what we had talked about. It seemed to be of little interest to him, as if he had other things on his mind, but it gave me the sense that if you showed up in Montserrat while we were there he might find a way for you and Foxx to meet and talk things through. You could even say it was my idea, that way it wouldn't spoil my situation with him, especially when I ask his help in finding my sister."

  Marten studied her. Even now, after what they'd just been through, it was hard to know if he could trust her; if she was lying, if the whole melodrama of Foxx and Beck so abruptly leaving Malta and then having her come to Barcelona afterward was all part of whatever they were involved with. And this seemingly offhand "peace offering" to Marten, this wish by Beck that he and Merriman Foxx had left things on a "more congenial note" seemed a very convenient way to get him to come to Montserrat on his own—to an isolated monastery where they could get him alone, then demand to know whom he worked for and was reporting to and afterward get rid of him altogether. If that were the case and Demi's late night call to rendezvous with him was their idea and not hers, he needed to learn as much as he could about what was going on before she went back to her hotel.