The Presidential Suite was a flawless match of form and function, its white oak hardwood floors and the flaxen rug serving as the perfect complement to the russet-brown couches and the chestnut rafters.
But the pièce de résistance—the very soul of the room—was the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up the south wall.
Vandal padded to the door and stepped out onto the balcony, the tile warm on his bare feet as he crossed to the railing.
After getting used to the monochrome gray sky and sooty white snow of Slovakia, the sights and sounds of Luanda threatened sensory overload. From the liquid gold blush of the sun off the Atlantic to the verdant green of the hillsides far to the north, the city was awash in color.
For anyone else, finding one man in a city of two and a half million people would have been like searching for a needle in a stack of needles. An impossible task, even for someone with Vandal’s training.
But for the techs back at Site Tango, it was just another day in the office.
Leaving the beer on the balcony, he went inside and squatted down in front of the Pelican case. He worked the latches and after opening the lid revealed the tools of his trade: the suppressed H&K MP7, pair of SIG 226s, and the Accuracy International AX308 Covert with its Nightforce 5-25x56mm scope.
“Hey, there, good lookin’,” Vandal said, grabbing the straps embedded into the foam and lifting the entire shelf free.
After gently setting the weapons aside, he retrieved a laptop and a black cylinder from the case and stepped back onto the balcony.
Vandal set the laptop on one of the wicker chairs. While he waited for it to boot up, he opened the cylinder and pulled out a miniature S-band antenna—an object that looked like a corkscrew on steroids—and connected the coax cable that trailed from the end to the computer’s USB drive.
He carried the antenna to the railing and, sighting down the coil that protruded from the metallic dish, centered it on the city. He checked to make sure that it could move equidistant from left to right and was just clamping the antenna to the railing when his phone rang in his ear.
“Code in,” a flat, electronic voice ordered.
Vandal lifted the phone to his eye and held it there, waiting for the click of the shutter and the “authentication complete” that followed before returning the phone to his pocket.
A second later, Skyler was back on the line.
“Are you in position?” she asked.
“Yes, I’m set up and ready to rock and roll,” he answered.
“Okay. I am going to set up the uplink. Stand by.”
Vandal retrieved his beer from the table and took a drink, watched the flicker of the computer as Skyler took control. The rapid-fire opening and closing of the programs on the screen gave the impression that the laptop was possessed.
Fucking spooky.
A red light appeared at the base of the antenna, followed a second later by the whir of the motor in the base. “We are live and . . . tracking,” Skyler said, as the antenna began oscillating from left to right.
Now all that was left to do was wait for Hayes to make a call.
41
ROCHA PINTO, LUANDA
Sandwiched between the airport to the east and the highway to the west, the barrio of Rocha Pinto was a country unto itself. A neighborhood that both the police and the military avoided, where the rule of law was that of the RPG and AK-47.
Which made it the perfect spot for Hayes to lie low.
He’d found the hotel in the phone book, but knowing the locals’ propensity for burning down buildings, he called ahead, just to make sure it was still standing.
The woman who answered the phone confirmed that they were open and seemed genuinely excited at the thought of having a guest.
“Do you need directions?” she asked.
“I think I can find it,” he replied. “See you soon.”
He drove northwest on the Estrada de Catete, then turned onto the Avenue de 21 Janeiro, which he followed south past the airport.
He was making good time, everything going according to plan until he made the right-hand turn at the Toyota plant and found himself surrounded by a warren of streets without any street signs.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Hayes spent the next ten minutes burning gas, before pulling over next to an open field inhabited by a fleet of junked-out cars and a mob of barefoot kids kicking around a soccer ball. He pulled the Beretta out of its holster and shoved it under his thigh, then grabbed the map from the visor, ignoring the rattle of gunfire in the distance while he searched for his position.
He’d already marked the hotel on the map, and after finding the field was working on a route when the bass-rattling thump of a car stereo on full blast drew his attention to the road.
Hayes looked up, a frown stretching across his face as he studied the vehicle rolling toward him.
What in the holy hell is that?
At first glance he’d thought it was a van, but as it drew near, he saw that someone had used some kind of torch to cut the body off behind the cab, turning what had once been a functional vehicle into something straight out of the Thunderdome, complete with the spike-haired gun thugs holding rusted AKs and drinking beer in the back.
Don’t stop . . . don’t stop . . . and shit. They’re stopping.
The vehicle came to a rusted halt next to him, the driver motioning for Hayes to roll down the window.
There were literally hundreds of ways to say hello in Portuguese, from the formal “good afternoon” to the informal “how’s it going?”
But this wasn’t Hayes’s first time in a nonpermissive environment. He’d been here before and knew the key to avoiding unnecessary gunplay was to make sure the boys realized he was not the kind of prey they were looking for.
With that in mind, he rolled down the window and, looking the boy full in the eyes, said, “Qual é cara?” What’s up, bitch?
The driver did a double take, the sound of the gringo spitting street slang at him catching him off guard. While Hayes waited for him to regain his composure, he dropped his hand to the butt of the pistol.
“You lost, bro?” the man-child finally asked.
“Why? Are you with Triple A?” Hayes answered.
“Tri-pol-Eh?” the boy frowned, his hand snaking out of the window as he reached down for the door latch. “You a funny guy, eh, gringo?”
“What’s your name, kid?” Hayes asked, letting the smile fall from his face.
“They call me Razor,” the boy answered, fingers inches from the handle.
“You don’t want to open that door, Razor,” he said.