Allan Folsom - The Hadrian Memorandum

SIR EDWARD KERCHER RAINES, DECORATED BRITISHWAR HERO, LONGTIME MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT,DEAD AT 75.

There was no need to read the story; the caption told it all, its tragic revelation made all the more chilling when one knew it had been the paper clutched in Conor White’s hand as he sat motionless in the dim light of the subway kiosk. It was what he was referring to when he’d looked to Marten and said “He’s dead.”

Clearly, Raines was a father he’d never met but very much wanted to. In that moment when he’d slipped into the kiosk, prepared to use it as a blind from which to ambush Marten, he must have inadvertently seen the newspaper and been instantly shattered. There was little doubt it was the reason he had acted as he had.

Marten left the Squire Cross Pub and walked slowly back to his apartment. The night was crisp and clear, the moon nearly full. People were out, the traffic heavy, the air filled with the sounds of the city. He paid little attention to any of it. His thoughts were on Conor White, and he wondered if he’d invested his entire life, physically and emotionally, in trying to gain his father’s recognition; if he had chosen the career he had for no other reason than to prove himself worthy. Then, like that-a photograph and a caption in a newspaper-any possibility of it ever happening had been stripped away. The emotional blow would have been staggering, his life suddenly become meaningless. The grand heartbreak of it was that he had died never knowing his father’s note of reconciliation was in the mail.

Walking on he thought how important a figure Anne’s father had been in her life. The difference was, they had been able to share it. Some of the journey, especially that surrounding her mother’s illness and death and later her father’s, had been rough. Still, some big portion of their lives had been rich and filled with adventure and joy and love.

For the first time in years, Marten thought of his own father. Not the caring, loving adoptive father he and Rebecca had grown up with in California but his birth father. He wondered if he was still alive and, if so, where. Who he was. What he had done for a living. How old he would be. His birth mother, he knew, had died from a heart ailment only weeks after he’d been born. But his birth father, even with open public records, he’d been able to find nothing about. The name he’d given when he put him up for adoption, James Bergen, turned out to have been false, as was the address where he said he lived. Why he had lied about those things and why he had given him up were questions that would haunt him forever.

Marten turned down Liverpool Road. His apartment was nearby, but he chose instead to take the long way to it and walk along the river. The lights and life of the city reflected off its surface, the rising moon giving it an almost magical silver shimmer. For a moment he thought of the young curly-haired man who had murdered Theo Haas. His gut feeling, as he’d chased him toward the Brandenburg Gate, had been right-that he was not a professional killer but a madman. Or, in retrospect, an overzealous critic. Disliking a book or play or film is one thing. Murdering the writer because of it, quite another.

A boat moved slowly past, its wake breaking the smoothness of the river’s surface and sending ribbons of moonglow rippling across it. He thought now of Anne and their last moments together in New Hampshire. They had left the farmhouse and gone to walk in the woods to be alone. President Harris and Congressman Ryder had left hours before, and Attorney General Kotteras was preparing to leave then, as they would within the hour. His suggestion to the president, that in lieu of prosecution Anne be allowed to take over the company and continue to develop the Bioko field with the bulk of the profits going to the people of Equatorial Guinea, had been received with merit and discussed at length between the parties. But no final decision had been made. Nor had the topic been brought up on their walk.

She could have asked him about his shooting to death of the men in Lisbon and his rather remarkable ability with firearms. Or about his warning to the drug pusher in Berlin that he was an L.A. cop. Or how he had come to be so close a confidant of the president of the United States. But she hadn’t. In fact, little had been said at all. They simply walked under gray skies through the still-damp woods, glad to be alive and in each other’s company. More than once they stopped and hugged and looked into each other’s eyes. “I love you,” one or the other might have said, but neither did. That she was a few years older than he made no difference. Their worlds were far removed and wholly different, yet they had shared more in a few short days than most people would in a lifetime. Nonetheless it was time to move on and, in doing so, best to leave some things unsaid.

It was just after nine when he climbed the stairs to his apartment on Water Street. The phone was ringing as he came in the door and he picked up.

“Mr. Nicholas Marten?” a female voice with a Manchester accent asked.

“Yes.”

“This is the H &H Delivery Service. We have a parcel for you that is perishable. Will you be home in the next hour?”

“I will, yes. Thank you,” he said without thinking and hung up.

He glanced once more at the letter from Conor White’s father, then put it away. As he did, the thought suddenly struck-what was the H &H Delivery Service? He’d never heard of it. Furthermore who delivered something “perishable” after nine o’clock at night?

In the next moment his doorbell rang.

“Christ!” he breathed. The image of Carlos Branco flashed across his mind. Maybe the CIA had told him to go back and finish the job. Whoever it was had probably been outside watching, waiting for him to return, then, when he did, rang him up to make sure he had gone to his apartment and not someone else’s. The doorbell chimed again. He wished to hell he still had the Glock. In its stead he picked up a baseball bat he’d bought in New Hampshire as a kind of nostalgic souvenir of the American life that still resonated in his soul, turned out the light and went to the door. He waited a moment then carefully opened it and peered out. There was no one there. The stairs were directly across, and he could hear someone rushing down them. Immediately he went to the balustrade and looked over the side. He glimpsed a hand on the lower railing, and then the front door opened and whoever it was went out. Just then he heard a sharp cry behind him. He whirled.

What he saw was a big wicker basket padded with a dark green blanket. In the center of it, its face poking over the side, eyes brown as the richest soil, its coat as black as shining coal, was a Newfoundland puppy. Eight, nine weeks old at most.

It was love at first sight for both, and they stared at each other unmoving and unblinking for a long time. Then Marten put down the bat and picked up the dog, holding it above his head, all the while grinning from ear to ear. The pup was a male, and he could feel its strength as it struggled in his grip. He brought it close and got a big, wet, sloppy doggy kiss for his trouble. Then he saw the tag around its neck and dropped to one knee to read it.

Bruno wanted you to have the pick of his first litter.He knew you’d make a great dad.

There was no signature.

Bruno Junior under his arm, he went back into the apartment to look out the window, hoping to see who’d left it. There was nothing but the glistening river and the lights of the city. He grinned again, wider this time if that were possible. There was only one person it could have been. Only one person with the skill and humor to have pulled off the perfect Manchester accent over the phone without ever before having been in the city. Only one person who had ridden beside him in Stump Logan’s ancient VW bus from Praia da Rocha to Lisbon when Bruno the Elder tried to climb into his lap to comfort him. Only one person with the caring and sensitivity to know he just might need a pal.