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 looked 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.

• 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."