Allan Folsom - The Hadrian Memorandum

He remembered President Harris listening carefully and then telling him that he would do everything he could to see that Kovalenko’s life and reputation were not put in jeopardy but that he could not guarantee the photographs would not be brought forth if the matter went to trial. Marten told the president he was aware of that and in the pause that followed offered his suggestion.

“Mr. President,” he’d said, “you want the backing of Abba and his people. This other stuff comes out, General Mariano, the memorandum-all or part of it-and suddenly Abba’s not a friend but an enemy. World opinion of you and the U.S. will be ugly, maybe even provoke violence, and you’ll have the Russians and probably the Chinese stepping all over themselves to secure the Bioko leases. All the things you worried about when I told you about the photographs in the first place. Yes, you can go to trial against Striker and Hadrian and SimCo or-”

“Or what? Just forget about it? Is that your idea?”

“Hear me out.”

“Go ahead.”

“Somebody takes Hadrian’s Loyal Truex aside and strongly recommends that he get out of the protective security business. Maybe announce that the company made mistakes in Iraq and has decided to change its name and go in a different direction. As for Striker, the real heavy there was Sy Wirth, and he’s dead. Anne’s father built the business from the ground up, and she wants to shed its tarnished image with Hadrian. She’s been in and around the oil business her entire life. Give her the reins. Let her run the company.”

“And do what?”

“Equatorial Guinea is a tiny, impoverished country that’s been stomped into the ground by Tiombe and dictators before him. Abba appears to be some kind of democratic savior, but he has nothing to work with, so the best he can do is try to heal the misery the war has left behind, something that can take years to achieve, if it can ever be done at all. So let Striker stay there and exploit the Bioko field with Anne as boss and with the caveat the company give Abba’s government eighty percent of the gross oil revenue after costs are realized. And with a caveat to Abba that the money be used for infrastructure-clean water systems, sewage treatment plants, schools, hospitals, paved roads, things like that, and with a chunk of it put into the development of new businesses. Maybe even arrange for a third party to oversee the transfer and allocation of funds to make sure they go where they’re supposed to. You and I both know that sooner or later the idea of oil as a major energy source is going to slide into history, and you can’t have an entire country lifted up from nothing to something approaching a decent life that is wholly dependent on something that is going to vanish and leave them with nothing.

“I may sound like a dreamer, but what I’m suggesting can work. I was there. I saw those people and the conditions they live under. Poverty and abuse by Tiombe and his regime is the reason why Abba came to power and why all the disparate tribes united behind him. He gave them hope and they followed, but now Tiombe is gone and the war is over. As well-intentioned as Abba might be, he’s got to deliver on that hope or he’ll have a tribal backlash on his hands with people wondering what they did all this for and looking for a new leader.

“The size of the country makes it manageable. The oil is there. Striker has its equipment and people in place. Everything’s ready to go. Unless Abba’s a fool, and you don’t seem to think he is, he’ll be more than happy to accept his eighty percent, caveats and all, because it gives him the chance to prove he was the right man all along and the opportunity to make his country look like a model for other emerging nations. More than that, if it’s done right, and Anne can certainly do it, Striker Oil will be seen as a company that cares with its checkbook about the people and places where it operates, and the image of a greedy American corporation elbowing its way into the riches of third world countries like Equatorial Guinea will slowly begin to fade. Geopolitical suspicions about other motives can be left to the pundits.”

Marten remembered sitting in that little den of a library waiting for the president to dismiss everything he’d said. But he didn’t. Instead he smiled, finished his drink, and stood up. “Cousin,” he said, “I think you have the makings of a true politician.” With that he crossed to the door and was gone.

“Mr. Marten, we need you for a few moments.” Marten’s musings were suddenly broken by one of the survey crew coming up the hill toward him.

“Sure,” he said and followed the man back down the hill to where the others waited. He looked out over the land as he went-the rolling meadows, the great copses of wood, the clouds rolling overhead. Autumn was in the air. Fresh and sweet. This was where he wanted to be. This was what gave him life. He’d had enough blood and violence to last a dozen lifetimes. He’d killed three men in Lisbon, four if you counted the motorcycle rider, and, much to his horror, had done it well and without remorse.

“I think you’re one of those people trouble follows around,” Marita had said. Well, maybe so, but now it was resolutely in the past and he vowed it would remain that way for the rest of his life.

THE SQUIRE CROSS PUB, OXFORD STREET. 7:30 P.M.

Marten ordered a pint of Banks & Taylor Golden Fox ale and his favorite chicken curry with balsamic rice, naan bread, and mango chutney. The food had come, but he hadn’t touched it. Instead he was working on his third Banks & Taylor.

He’d read the letter three times when he’d gotten home and twice more here. Now he picked it up again. It was a copy of a correspondence that had arrived in the day’s mail and been sent to him from Moscow with no return address. A scrawled note had accompanied it.

See International Herald Tribune, dated Monday, June 7,bottom of page one.

That had been all. Just the copy of the letter and the note. There was no need to wonder who’d sent it. Kovalenko.

The letter itself was brief and hugely personal and, to Marten at least, very moving. It had been sent, most ironically, in the form of a memo and dated a day before the incident at the Rossio Metro station.

TO: Colin Conor White

FROM: EKR

Dated: 4 June

Dear Son,

I began this note many times over the years, and each time I crumbled it up and threw it away out of shame and embarrassment and perhaps the fear that my wife and children would find out.

Finally I came to realize that the matter was my own, not theirs, and that I am getting on. I would not want to leave this life without having reached out to you to tell you how very proud I am of your accomplishments and how sorry I am not to have accepted your kind invitation to stand alongside you when you received the VC.

I know that you have tried numerous times to contact me in one way or another. That I did not respond is nothing more than a sad showing of personal weakness. If you would still be open to it, I would very much like us to meet, if to do nothing more than shake hands and perhaps share a pint and get to know each other as best we might. Since I have no idea where you are or where your current travels have taken you, I have sent this on to your old SAS regiment with the request that it be forwarded to you. I have also left word with my private secretary to immediately put us in touch, should you respond. You would, of course, know the phone number. By mail: House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA.

I very much look forward to your response and, of course, to seeing you.

Your loving father,EKR

Following Kovalenko’s directive that he see the Monday, June 7, edition of the International Herald Tribune, bottom of page one. Marten had accessed the paper’s Web site and brought up the edition of the day in question, then quickly scrolled to the bottom of the first page, where he saw the photograph of a distinguished, silver-haired man. Above it was the caption