The Machiavelli Covenant (61 page)

Abruptly the president stood. "Where do we go now?"

"There," José stood, nodding toward a narrow path leading through a rocky canyon. Just then the clouds parted enough for the moon to appear, lighting the entire area—from the deep canyon floor where they were
to the pinnacles and mountaintops far above—like a silver moonscape. They could see the chute clearly, how deathly steep and narrow it really was and how far they had come down it. At any other time the idea of a grown man, let alone four, sliding down it out of his own choosing would have been insane if not suicidal, but this was hardly any other time.

The president looked to José.
"Vámonos,"
he said. Let's go.

José nodded and led them off quickly toward the canyon.

•
5:20 A.M.

Nicholas Marten stood in the open doorway of a tiny tin-roof and stone outbuilding on the edge of the Aragon vineyard, a structure Hap had remembered from his walk-through of the resort site a month earlier when the Secret Service had been preparing for the president's visit. Mylar blanket finally taken off, Hap's Sig Sauer automatic stuck in his belt, he was eating a handful of dried dates they'd found in a bag on the shelf when they arrived, and looking up at the sky. The weather was clear now, the moon just dipping behind the high peaks to the west. In another hour the horizon would begin to pale. In two it would be fully light. Sunup would come a half hour later.

Marten stood there a moment longer trying to visualize the steep zigzag trail they had come down after they'd left the base of the chute. So far he had seen noth
ing of the helicopters nor anything else to suggest that their tracks had been found and that their trail was being followed. With luck, Marine Corps Major George Herman "Woody" Woods and the other helo pilots were still confining their search to the mountains and would continue to do so until well after daybreak. What they did afterward would be of little consequence, because by then, if things worked the way Hap had outlined, they would have breached the Aragon resort's massive security force, and the president would long since have arrived at the church on the hill and given the speech of his life to the highly prestigious members of the New World Institute.

•
5:23 A.M.

Marten turned and went back inside. José was curled up asleep on the floor just inside the door. A few feet to his left, Hap slept the sleep of the dead, the Steyr machine pistol in the crook of his arm. Safely back from the doorway on Hap's far side, President Harris slept too.

Marten slid the Sig Sauer from his belt and sat down in the doorway. They had reached the outbuilding just before 4:30. Five minutes afterward Hap had determined that the area was secure. It was then they found a watering hose tethered to a wall outside the building and the bag of dates inside, and all four ate and drank. Almost immediately extreme weariness began to overtake them and Marten volunteered first watch. At 5:45 he was to wake Hap and then have some forty-odd minutes of sleep himself before they were up and moving at 6:30, hoping to cover the three-quarters of a mile across the vineyards and up the hill, to where the resort's maintenance buildings were, just before daybreak.

Hoping.

So far they had encountered no resistance. The reason, Hap said, was the time of day and the remoteness of the area, and that they had yet to approach the resort's security perimeter that was nearly a mile farther in—a gravel work road that cut the vineyard almost in half, with the inward side bordering the resort itself. That work road was where the first lines of security would be set up, lines that would ease out to encircle the entire Aragon complex, the size of which was staggering—the vineyards, the eighteen hole golf course, parking areas, tennis courts, forested walking trails, the eighteen resort buildings and bungalows, and finally their goal, the ancient church on the hill behind it.

The security force numbered five hundred and was made up of local and state police and controlled, as the president had guessed, by the Spanish Secret Service. If the president had been going to speak as originally planned Hap would have supplemented that force with an additional one hundred U.S. Secret Service agents. But that plan was abandoned after what had "officially" taken place in Madrid and the president was removed to the famous "undisclosed location." That the president would not be attending the Aragon sunrise service was something Hap knew had been transmitted formally to the New World Institute's hierarchy by White House Chief of Staff Tom Curran from the U.S. embassy in Madrid. It was just that situation Hap was counting on because he knew security would stand down to a lesser level of alert and was why he had taken the approach he had.

The vineyards at this time of year and particularly on an early Sunday morning would have at best a skeleton crew, if even that. The maintenance-building complex housed not only the vineyard, golf course and groundskeeping
equipment and supplies, but also the resort's sizable laundry where, among other things, employee uniforms were laundered and stored. Reaching those maintenance buildings safely and unseen became the first step in his plan. Far more difficult would be getting the president the next mile and a half, up the long forested hill behind the resort to the four-hundred-year-old church where the New World sunrise service was to be held.

If Marten marveled at Hap's inventory of logistical particulars, he shouldn't have. It was part of the job, what the Secret Service did before a presidential visit anywhere. He just hoped Hap's memory was as good as he thought it was and that in the meantime no new and unknown security measures had been implemented by the Spanish forces.

•
5:40 A.M.

Five minutes more until Marten woke Hap. He knew that in his state of exhaustion, if he wasn't careful he would fall asleep where he was and if he did they all might sleep for days. Instead, he played mind games with himself; thinking of his work as a landscape architect at Fitzsimmons and Justice in Manchester and of the very pressing and yet unfinished Banfield project. Of Demi; where she was now, what her real motivation had been for delivering himself and the president to Merriman Foxx at Montserrat. Whatever it had been, one thing was certain: she could have had no idea at all about what was really
going on, with Foxx, with his experiments, with any of the president's enemies. He had last seen her in the company of Foxx and Beck and Luciana at the monastery restaurant, but when he and the president had returned, Foxx had been alone. It meant she had gone somewhere with the others. But where and for what reason? All he could think was she had told the truth about her sister, and that finding her, or at least learning what had happened to her, was the most important thing in her life.

•
5:44 A.M.

"Cousin."

Marten started and looked up. The president stood before him, his bearded face more gaunt and drawn than ever.

"I know Hap was going to take second watch," he said quietly. "He's pretty banged up; let him sleep. Go get some yourself."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Want this?" Marten held up the Sig Sauer.

"Yes."

Marten handed it to him. "Thanks."

The president smiled, "You're wasting your precious forty winks."

"Don't fall back asleep."

"Can't. I've got a speech to practice."

•
6:30 A.M.

It was barely light enough to see when the president returned the Sig Sauer to Marten and the four left the outbuilding, starting up a long sloping hill, muddy from the rain, and lined with rows of just-budding grapevines. Marten first, then the president, then Hap, then José.

Moments earlier the president had thanked José for his courage and daring, and then told him he should turn back and go home before things got worse. But the teenager had refused, saying he wanted to stay, to be of any help that he could. Keeping José with them was something Hap wanted too. The youngster was not only a local who could speak easily to any worker they might come upon, but there was something else: if he went home Bill Strait would have the Secret Service, the CIA, or the Spanish police waiting for him, his presence in the shafts learned from Amado or Hector or both, his name and address taken. If they got him and he knew where the president was, it wouldn't be long before he told them everything, and in a blink the mountain teams would show up in full force, and that was something they couldn't have happen.

•
6:35 A.M.

Marten neared the crest of the hill, then suddenly stopped and dropped to one knee, motioning for the others to do the same. The maintenance buildings were just ahead. Four of them, large wooden barnlike structures
built around a central courtyard. Immediately to their right and just beyond three rows of budding grape canes was the gravel work road that cut the vineyard in half and where the initial lines of security would be set up.

"What is it?" the president whispered.

"Listen." Marten had his head up and was looking toward the buildings.

"What?" Hap slid in beside them.

"Down," Marten motioned them flat on the ground.

Seconds later two uniformed policemen on motorcycles passed by, their eyes scanning the vineyards on either side, heading slowly back down the road behind them.

Marten looked to Hap, "Think there are more?"

"Don't know."

"I'll find out," José said to the president in Spanish.

Before they could stop him he was up and running toward the quadrangle of buildings. Then he disappeared from sight.

•
6:43 A.M.

"No one else," José said in Spanish as he came back to kneel beside them. "Come quickly."

In no time he was leading them past the grape canes and onto the gravel road. Then they ran, moving like shadows toward the buildings in pale light. Fifty yards, thirty. Then twenty, ten, and they were there. José opened a side door and they went inside.

•
6:46 A.M.

The room was huge, the central garage for the resort's rolling stock. There were four pick-up trucks;
four full size tractors; six small flat-bedded three-wheel trucks; four large golf-course mowers, and four open electric-powered service carts, parked nose to tail in a line. Backed up against a closed sliding door at the rear was a dust-covered faded green Toyota van that looked like it hadn't been driven for months.

"Watch the door," Hap said, and went to the line of carts, hoping to find one with keys in the ignition.

"Here," Marten had opened a cabinet beside an office door. Inside, arranged neatly on pegs, were the keys to each vehicle. It took three full minutes before they were sorted out and the key for the first cart in line was found. Immediately Hap got in and tried it. The engine light glowed green, indicating a full electric charge.

Thirty seconds later they were warily crossing toward the building that housed the laundry. The sky was much lighter now. The cover of darkness they'd relied on for so long had given way to a rapidly brightening day.

They left José at the door and entered the main laundry room. Three enormous open vatlike stainless-steel washers took up the center area, while a bank of stainless-steel dryers was positioned against a far wall. Opposite both was a large window that looked out to the other buildings. Just past it were the pressing machines, and beyond them, stainless-steel clothing racks that held rows of assorted Aragon Resort uniforms, most on hangers and arranged by size: a necessary convenience for the exclusive five-star resort that Hap knew had more than two hundred employees who had to be in clean, well-pressed uniforms at all times.

"Viene un hombre."
A man is coming, José said from the doorway, then quickly ducked out of sight.

The president motioned to Hap and Marten, and the
three slipped out of sight behind the pressing machines. Hap took a breath and slid out the Steyr machine pistol. Marten raised the Sig Sauer.

A moment later a large curly-haired man in white pants and a white T-shirt came in. He flicked on the overhead lights, then went to a control panel and pressed a series of buttons. Almost immediately the washing machines began to fill with water. The man adjusted a temperature gauge, then walked to the washers and looked in. Satisfied, he turned and left.

Hap waited a half beat then crossed the room, pressing up against the big window to look out. He saw the laundryman walk to a far building and go inside, closing the door behind him. Immediately Hap turned to the others.

"He'll be back soon enough. We need to move and fast."

•
7:00 A.M.

Dr. James Marshall watched Captain Diaz and one of Bill Strait's Spanish-speaking Secret Service agents interrogating Miguel in an isolated area near the rear of the command post. The questions went from Spanish to English back to Spanish, then to English again. Handcuffed and more than a little nervous, CNP guards standing coldly alongside, Hector and Amado sat on folding chairs only feet away, deliberately made party to Miguel's grilling. If Miguel didn't break they were betting one of the boys would.

Abruptly Marshall turned and went to Bill Strait. "He's not telling them anything."