Allan Folsom - The Hadrian Memorandum

“Carlos Branco. The bearded fellow driving the Alfa Romeo. One of two cars pursuing the ambulance before the incident with the fire truck.”

Marten took out the earpiece and listened in the dark, hoping he could hear White speaking and get some sense of where he was.

“You arranged for the fire alarm to be pulled just after you left the hospital. You nearly had Anne and Congressman Ryder killed in the process. Clever but foolish. You are not perfect.”

Marten could hear White’s voice through the earpiece but that was all. There was nothing else to suggest he was close by. Nevertheless, he was here somewhere. The business with the lights and letting the people go free meant he’d made some sort of deal with the police. Though it was hard to believe after he had just killed six of their men. On the other hand, he had to remember there was a strong possibility White was CIA. Meaning a dark political hand might well be maneuvering behind the scenes. There was something else he dared not forget. White hadn’t received the Victoria Cross and his string of combat medals because he was timid. There was every reason to believe he had gotten out of worse situations than this on guile and guts alone. And then there was Patrice, who would be every bit as dangerous as White himself.

“Marten, why don’t you come out and we can have a little chat about all this.”

Marten put the earpiece back in, then eased up and peered over the top of the platform. The people were gone; so were the police. What was left was at once eerie and gruesome.

A long empty platform with the bodies of four dead bystanders sprawled across it, and with the corpses of Irish Jack near the tunnel entrance and Agent Grant not far away. All of it lit by a wash of emergency lights with the newspaper kiosk near the center and the entrances/exits at either end.

“Coming out, Marten?”

He checked the clip in the Glock, then felt in his pocket for the backup. The magazines held fifteen shots. Four had already been fired from the clip in the gun-one by Kovalenko when he’d killed Hauptkommissar Franck, the other three by himself as he fought against the men in the Jaguar. That meant he had eleven shots left before changing magazines.

“I’m waiting, Marten.”

He pulled up his sleeve, touched the KEY TO TALK button on the radio unit, and spoke into its tiny microphone.

“You first.”

Marten saw the four step into the light just inside the platform entrances. Two at either end. One of them wore a stylish black suit, had gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard, and was clearly the leader. Unsuprisingly he looked like the man in the Hawaiian shirt and jeans who had pretended he was Anne’s brother at the Hotel Lisboa Chiado the night before. There was little doubt he was Carlos Branco. The others, his compatriots, were armed with submachine guns, Uzis it looked like, and were clearly cut in the mold of the gunmen he had encountered in the Jaguar the night before. Curiously they did nothing but stand there. Maybe that was their intent, simply to block the exits and make certain he didn’t get away. The fact that they were there and armed meant they had the blessing of the GOE. Something that, in turn, suggested that they, too, were somehow connected to the CIA.

Suddenly he realized something else: White knew Anne and Ryder had gotten out on the last train. That Branco was here meant he and White had communicated. In the process Branco would have learned that Anne and Ryder were gone.

“Marten … ” White’s voice rattled through his earpiece.

Marten stuck the Glock in his belt and took out the cell phone. He prayed that it would work in here and that Anne was somewhere where she could take a call. Fearfully he punched in the number she’d given him. He let out a breath as he heard it ring through. An instant later she clicked on.

“Where are you? Are you alright? We’ve just left Baixa/Chiado station and are in a taxi to the airport.”

“Don’t go near Ryder’s plane,” he said emphatically.

“Why?”

“White’s people are here. The police let them in. It means the Agency knows you and Ryder are out and is assuming you’re on your way to his plane. Can you arrange for another aircraft? You, not Ryder. They’ll have his phone bugged. Maybe yours, too. Use a pay phone. Call somebody you know in the oil business or some other deep-pockets people you travel with. Can you do that?”

“Yes, I think.”

“Then do it. Go somewhere, a park or something, and stay there until it’s ready. When it is, get the hell to it and out of Lisbon.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t know about me. It doesn’t matter.” Marten glanced around. Branco and his men hadn’t moved.

“Marten.” Conor White was beginning to sound impatient. “If we have to come get you we will.”

“Anne, do as I told you.” Marten was resolute. “We had a lot of fun together. Maybe sometime we will again.” With that he clicked off and slid the phone into his jacket. Then he lifted the Glock, hit the KEY TO TALK button and spoke into the microphone.

“Like I said, Colonel, you first.”

Conor White glanced across the tunnel entrance at Patrice, or what little he could see of him in the dark. Suddenly there was the glint of a light on the rails behind them. Two pinpoints of light were coming down the tunnel in their direction. The automated Metro car Branco had promised. White looked at Patrice, then back down the tunnel. Something didn’t feel right, but he didn’t know what it was. Again came the feeling of impending doom. The otherworldly sense of Marten as a demon come to destroy him came flooding back. He had to be crushed and crushed now. A foot put on his neck and a bullet through his brain.

Marten saw the approaching lights too, then heard White’s voice.

“I’m coming out, Marten. A big fat target for you. Come get me.”

Marten could hear the icy confidence in his voice, the professional soldier anxious to do his murderous work once again. At the same time, he saw the faces of Marita and her medical students. Saw Raisa in her red hair and pink robe. Next came Bioko and the bodies of the native woman and her children, their throats cut, floating in the branches of the dead tree; Father Willy and the young boys clubbed to death by Tiombe’s soldiers; the grotesque photographs of White and Patrice and Irish Jack lunching with General Mariano in the jungle; the soldiers with the flamethrowers and the naked man as he was burned alive. Then the Rossio Metro station and the GOEs as the balaclava-hooded White and his killers ambushed them outside. Agent Grant as he was gunned down on the platform scant moments earlier. Never in his life had he felt such contempt for a human being as he did now for Conor White.

“Make your move, you son of a bitch!” he spat into the microphone as the rail car neared, its approaching headlamps far too bright and garish for the scene. Suddenly a shadow dashed from the tunnel in front of it, jumped up on the platform, and ran across it. He raised the Glock and fired once, then a second time. Both shots missed, his rounds ricocheting off the concrete walls. The train came closer. Suddenly its lights revealed someone crouched in the tunnel entrance. Patrice. An instant later the same lights fell on him. Patrice swung the M-4. Marten hit the ground between the tracks as a burst from the M-4 chewed up the base of the concrete platform where he’d been. Once again he raised the Glock and squeezed the trigger.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The gunshots were ear shattering. Patrice was caught square in the face and chest and toppled backward into the tunnel. A blue arc of electricity sparked as he fell across the third rail. A split second later a burst of 9 mm slugs from White’s MP5 danced over his head, spraying off the tunnel walls. Then the train was on top of him. He pushed down, hugging the ground between the rails. With a nearly silent whoosh the car went over him, inches above his head. In a second he was up and at the edge of the platform. He pulled himself up, then rolled to one side and into deep shadow. Glock at the ready, he got to one knee and looked around. Where the hell was White? Where had his shots come from?