"You got it."
"Do not take a pistol into the airport," Captain Soto warned.
Blancanales nodded. As he pushed open the van's door, he gave his partners a quick salute. "Stay close."
Then he hurried through the lines of taxis and cars. Weaving through the crowds of travelers, he scanned the terminal for Powell, Desmarais and Akbar. And he searched for surveillance, watching for eyes watching him.
But the thousands of faces in the crowds defeated his efforts. Anyone could be surveillance: the elderly Castillian man, the North American hippies in hurachesand huipiles, the dark-featured Mexicanatraveling with her children, the security guard armed with the .45 auto-Colt. Blancanales had only his anonymity as a mask.
The crowds surging through the entry prevented him from taking full strides. Unconsciously he continued searching as he flowed with the terminal's masses, his eyes always scanning, looking for the unusual or the unlikely. Yet he realized professional surveillance agents would avoid any distinguishing appearance. He eased along with the other people, his head turning from side to side.
He checked the flight arrival and departure notices. The plane carrying Powell, Desmarais and Akbar had arrived on schedule. He went to where incoming passengers exited customs and took a seat.
After five minutes, Akbar appeared. He wore sunglasses and three days' growth of beard. Blancanales rushed through the arriving passengers, rudely shouldering some, pushing past others. He bumped into Akbar and slipped the coin-sized units of a directional transmitter and a miniature microphone into his coat. Then Blancanales stood at the exit and watched as the other passengers cleared customs.
Powell and Desmarais emerged two minutes later. Powell saw Blancanales and continued past without a word, Desmarais at his side. Blancanales waited a few seconds, then followed them through the terminal.
Akbar went to the pay phones, Powell and Desmarais to the car-rental booths. Blancanales casually joined them at the rental counter. He waited until the clerk turned away, then dropped the miniature directional-finder transmitter and the minimicro-phone into the pocket of the Canadian woman's coat. The Canadian did not notice.
"We came in without a problem." Blancanales made a pretense of reading a brochure as he spoke. "They're outside, ready to go."
"Akbar will give us a signal when he knows what goes," Powell told him. "So you watch us. Stay away until we leave."
"Then I'll jump in." Blancanales folded and pocketed the brochure, then went to the foreign-currency exchange. After converting the American dollars and Lebanese pounds in his pockets to pesos, he turned to see Akbar walking to the exit. Akbar went outside to the curb and waited, ignoring the taxis and hotel limos.
Hurrying back to the van, Blancanales stepped inside and threw off his coat. He buckled on the shoulder holster for his silenced Beretta 93-R. "It's in motion. Watch Akbar, he's at..."
"I see him there." Lyons said, pointing. "What's going on with Powell?"
"As planned. He's renting a car. I'm on my way," the Politician said as he opened the vehicle's door.
Outside, Blancanales surveyed the traffic lanes of the terminal. He noted the pickup and drop-off points, the taxi waiting zones, the lines of rental cars. He walked quickly to a traffic island a hundred meters from the rental cars.
From where he stood, he had a view of Akbar waiting, of Powell and Desmarais sitting in the rental car, and of the parked catering van. Powell saw him standing on the traffic island and flashed his headlights.
Situation covered. But as he waited Blancanales never let his eyes stop, always searching the sidewalks and traffic lanes for sign of a pattern in movement, a pattern that meant ambush or kidnap or surveillance. He watched the crowds behind Akbar. He watched the arriving traffic, looking inside the cars and trucks, watching for any odd detail.
After fifteen minutes, a panel truck stopped in front of Akbar. The driver leaned out his window and spoke to the young Shia. Blancanales saw Powell reach for the ignition of the rental car. As Akbar got into the panel truck, Blancanales felt the hand radio inside his coat click. He answered with three clicks of the transmit key.
The panel truck accelerated past Blancanales. He memorized the make of the truck, the license number and the face of the driver.
Seconds later, Powell braked to a stop at the traffic island. Blancanales got in the rear seat. As they accelerated away, Blancanales looked back and saw the catering van weaving through traffic. He slouched down below the level of the front seat and keyed his hand radio.
"Any conversation?"
"They're jiving in Arabic," Gadgets reported. "I'll put the walkie-talkie up to the receiver. Let Powell listen, maybe he can translate..." Gadgets's voice faded away.
Then came the scratchy, twice-transmitted voices from the panel truck ahead. Blancanales held the hand radio behind Powell.
"He's quizzing him..." Powell began.
"I thought you didn't speak Arabic," Desmarais said.
"Don't really. Just listening for what I recognize. He's... he's asking him what's going on, who he knows. Akbar's saying he doesn't know. The other guy's asking about Iran, what town he comes from. This does not sound good."
Traffic slowed. When the cars stopped, vendors rushed from the curbs to offer candy and newspapers and prepared food. One indigenawoman offered eggs to the commuters. Brilliant against the soot-gray morning in her threadbare blue satin blouse and hand-woven skirt, her throat flashing with the traditional strands of gaudy beads, she went from car to car, almost running, holding three eggs between her fingers like a magician demonstrating a trick. One driver called out, "Quiero una docena!" A whistle and a few sharp words in a language Blancanales did not understand brought two barefoot children from the curb with more handfuls of eggs. The woman and the driver bargained, closed the deal, counted eggs and money in less than thirty seconds, then the traffic moved again.
On one block crowds of workers crossed the boulevard and filed down the stairs of the subway station. Blancanales looked through the rental-car window to see people everywhere, workers hurrying to the subway, vendors selling goods, boys waving newspapers, motorcyclists weaving between vehicles.
A young man stepped out in front of the stopped cars and spit out a spray of flame.
"What is going on!" Powell raved.
"This is Mexico City," Blancanales said, laughing.
The signal changed and traffic moved again. Drivers and passengers threw pesos to the fire breather. Blancanales tossed out a Lebanese five-pound note he'd kept.
The panel truck ahead of them veered to the right, swerving across two lanes of traffic. A diesel truck blocked Powell.
"Straight ahead! We're on them," Gadgets shouted through the hand radio. "Make a right turn at the next street. We'll give you directions. They say anything about spotting you?"
As Blancanales pressed the transit key, he saw the catering truck make a right turn. Powell leaned on the horn and switched lanes, daring a motorcyclist to hit him. He spoke into the hand radio, "If he's Iranian, that's the way they drive. Get closer and stay there."
"We're not in an unmarked vehicle, you know," the Wizard replied.
"Risk it. Otherwise, Akbar's gone." Powell whipped the car through a skidding right-hand turn and raced up the block. A double-parked truck slowed him. Sounding the horn, he swerved to the left, almost crashing head-on into another truck and accelerated again. "Which way? Which way!" he shouted.
"Wizard! Did they turn?" Blancanales asked.
"Straight ahead. Or..."
Powell floored the accelerator. The engine stalled. "God dammit! Move car, move it!" Grinding the starter, he raced the engine, then shifted into drive. The car hurtled across a boulevard full of traffic. Brakes screamed, and the car flashed past the bumper of a cattle truck, then they raced up the next block. Skidding through a right turn, then an illegal left, Powell merged with the boulevard's traffic.