He climbed into the Land Cruiser and, wanting to stay away from both the city center and the Hotel Sunshine, drove north—a hint of a plan forming at the edge of his mind.
His first stop was the AngoMart on the Estrada Zango, where he bought a brace of burner phones to communicate with Mallory, a baby monitor, and bandages and iodine for his wounds. On the way out, he paused at the bank of pay phones outside. Incredibly, one still had an ancient phone book attached. Hayes ripped it from the chain and hurried to the SUV.
He spent five minutes conducting countersurveillance, making sure that he hadn’t picked up a tail before pulling into a parking lot. Hayes’s Portuguese was rusty, but thanks to the ads inside the phone book, he was able to find the section for hardware stores. After consulting the map the man at the airfield had given him, he located one five miles from his current position.
Anywhere else in the world Hayes could have covered the distance in fifteen minutes max, but like the rest of Africa, traffic in Luanda was a bitch, the streets packed with cars and vendors darting in and out of traffic selling everything from yellow jugs of gasoline to bushels of fruit.
Good thing I’m not in a rush.
During his time in the 82nd Airborne, Hayes’s knowledge of explosives was limited to pulling the pin on a grenade and throwing it before it exploded in his hand. Everything else was handled by chemists—trained professionals—who worked in military armament facilities.
It wasn’t until he went to the Special Forces Qualification course at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, that Hayes learned that everything he needed to make something go boom could be found at a hardware store.
By the time he arrived at his destination, the ancient A/C had given out and the clutch and brakes were hot from the constant stop-and-go of the street.
But Hayes made the most of his commute, using the drive to compile a list of what he needed, so that when he finally stepped inside the store and grabbed one of the rickety carts, he was ready to go.
Most of the items, like the sections of lead pipe, dry cell batteries, road flares, and the household cleaners, were easy to find. The more esoteric components, on the other hand, taxed both Hayes’s imagination and his limited knowledge of basic chemistry, but he made it work and, three hundred dollars later, had what he needed.
After everything was loaded up, all that was left to do was find a base of operations—somewhere he could work undisturbed until it was time to head back to the Rusty Nail.
40
LUANDA, ANGOLA
It was noon when Cyrus Vandal pulled into the parking lot of the Hotel Epic and parked beneath the shade of a coconut palm. He climbed into the backseat of the 4Runner, stripped out of his travel clothes, and dressed quickly in a pair of khaki chinos, a white silk button-down, and a pair of leather deck shoes.
After clipping the SIG 365 onto his belt, he shrugged into a light-blue sports coat and climbed out. He moved to the rear of the SUV, paused to check his surroundings, and when he was sure that he was clear, opened the hatch.
One of the first rules he’d been taught at Site Tango was how to blend in—avoid drawing unnecessary attention. Most of the tactics and techniques were obvious, like don’t walk into a five-star hotel carrying a bulky cargo bag and the olive drab rucksack, which was why he’d requested the cooler-sized Pelican case and the nondescript backpack that were sitting in the back of the SUV.
With all the gear packed into the case, it weighed well over a hundred pounds, but Vandal effortlessly lifted it out, set it lightly on the ground. He grabbed the pack, slung it over his shoulder, and closed the hatch.
He extended the Pelican case’s telescoping carrying handle, slipped a pair of Ray-Bans over his eyes, and started toward the entrance.
At three hundred and forty-one feet, the glass-fronted hotel was one of the tallest buildings in the city, and from the balcony of the three-thousand-dollars-a-night Presidential Suite, Vandal knew he’d have a commanding view of the capital.
The only problem was that the current guests, a Mr. and Mrs. Alistair Chadwick from Virginia Water, Surrey, had the room booked for the rest of the week.
But that wasn’t Vandal’s problem.
He was halfway to the door when the Bluetooth rang in his ear.
“Yes?” he answered.
“It’s done,” Skyler advised, her voice tiny in his ear.
“Good. Call me back in fifteen.”
Vandal ended the call and stepped up on the curb, followed the walkway beneath the awning, offering a nod to the man in the gray suit holding the door.
He stepped inside, pulled his sunglasses off, and, after slipping them into his coat pocket, scanned the interior.
Despite himself, Vandal was struck by the understated elegance of the lobby. The white marbled floor, chromium staircase, and the teardrop chandeliers that hung from the ice cube–white ceiling seemed to reflect Luanda’s commitment to atone for its violent past. While he, on the other hand, was just getting started.
With that thought in mind, Vandal started across the lobby, where a red-faced man was shouting at the manager.
“Do you know what this is?” the man demanded, waving a credit card in the man’s face. “It’s a bloody Amex Black.”
“Mr. Chadwick, if you could please calm down,” the manager begged.
“Calm down? Calm down?” the man bellowed. “First you tell me that my credit card has been canceled and now you want me to calm down?”
Sucks for you, mate.
Cyrus brushed past the man and sidled up to the front desk, where an openmouthed clerk stood watching the proceedings.
“Problem?” Vandal asked the man in Portuguese.
“An issue with the gentleman’s card, it seems,” the man answered with a strained smile. “How may I help you?”
“Is the Presidential Suite available?”
“As a matter of fact, the maids are cleaning it now,” the man said, nodding to the red-faced Englishman.
“Oh . . . I see,” he said, doing his best to maintain a straight face. “Well, if that’s the case I’d like to book it for the rest of the week.”
“Of course, sir.”
Vandal took the key and shot Mr. Chadwick an unapologetic wink on his way to the bank of elevators around the corner. Following the deskman’s instruction, he stepped into the first car on the right, inserted his key into the slot, and pressed the only button on the panel.
The elevator arrived at the forty-second floor with a polite ding and he stepped out into the hall, the Pelican case rolling silent behind him. He stopped at the mahogany door at the end of the hall, swiped his key over the reader, and stepped inside.
Leaving the Pelican case in the sitting room, Vandal peeled off the coat and kicked out of his shoes. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and, knowing that this was the first and last time he’d ever stay in such a room, took his time soaking it in.