Allan Folsom - The Hadrian Memorandum

The rain came down steadily, and he pulled the umbrella close overhead. He turned right at the next corner and kept going. Now he realized he was walking toward the area where the shootings had taken place. There should be a way to circumvent it, but he didn’t know it. So he kept on, staying as much in shadows as he could.

He was wet and exhausted. The thought of the long walk back to the Bairro Alto was numbing, but he had no choice. So he kept on. Another block, then two. Somewhere along the way he began to think of the shootings themselves. Before, in the apartment in Berlin, he’d been nearly crushed by the fear of approaching police sirens. The next morning, he’d seen the television reports of the murders of Marita and her students and had a panic attack, losing control and physically assaulting Anne, blaming her for the killings. He nearly lost it again at the Bordeaux-Mérignac Airport when he’d been certain he had lost his edge and was no longer capable of surviving in a world of bloodshed and sudden death. But then had come the men in the Jaguar. Whatever security mechanisms that had been hounded into his psyche those years ago in the LAPD were still there. The gunmen had stepped from the car, and he’d done what he’d been trained to do. Shoot to kill in self-defense. Calmly, accurately. Then he’d walked away. There’d been no rapid heartbeat, no trembling hands, no indecision. Just swift, deadly action. And afterward no remorse at all. It was a thought that troubled him more than if he’d simply lost his nerve and run. What had Marita told him at the airport in Paris? I think you’re one of those people trouble follows around .

As much as he tried to escape it, blood and violent death seemed to hover over him like some predestined curse. How long before it reached critical mass and took him over completely, making him wholly mad and coldly murderous, the way he had been with the men in the Jaguar? How much longer before it finally finished the job and swallowed him up for good?

Six minutes later he started up Rua do Carmo toward Rua Garrett. Somewhere in front of him he heard the sound of an accordion. It grew louder as he approached. Finally, in the spill of a streetlight, he saw the man playing it. He was alone, sitting out of the rain on a small folding chair inside a doorway. He wore an old overcoat and a beret that was too small for his head and seemed completely unaware of the world around him. There was no way to guess his age or even his race. But none of it mattered. His soul was somewhere else, on a different plane and on a different journey than the world around him. Whatever song he was playing was unbearably sad but at the same time hauntingly beautiful. Marten wished he could pull up a chair beside him and sit there listening forever.

But he couldn’t.

So he passed him by in the rain and dark.

And walked on.

12:25 A.M.

12:30 A.M.

The gray BMW sped along Avenida Álvares Cabral, rounded the city park Jardim da Estrela, the Garden of the Star, and raced off down Avenida Infante Santo toward the harbor. With little or no traffic to slow them, Irish Jack kept the accelerator to the floor and an eye on the mirror looking for police coming up from behind. Patrice rode silently beside him, little more than a passenger himself. Conor White and Sy Wirth sat side by side in the seat behind them with Wirth staring silently into space.

“Carlos Branco’s found Anne.” White had brought the news when he’d joined them in the Ritz Bar.

“Where?” Wirth had been exuberant.

“A cheap hotel in Almada, across the 25th of April Bridge on the far side of the Tagus River. Branco thinks she’s waiting to meet someone.”

“Ryder?”

“Maybe. It’s probably why she went to the hotel. To contact him.”

“What about Marten?”

“He’s not with her. After the shooting he vanished. She’ll know where he is, or at least where they were staying before she went out on her own.”

“Why would she leave Marten behind to meet with Ryder alone?”

“You know her better than I do,” White said. “You tell me.”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

With that Wirth had finished his drink and they’d left, crossing the Ritz’s lobby and going out into the rain and dark, then walking up the block to meet Irish Jack waiting in the BMW.

Streetlights and the occasional passing car alternated the shadows inside the BMW. Black to bright to white to silhouette to something in between. Wirth glanced at Conor White as if in an angry dream, then stared off as he had before.

“What are you thinking?” White asked quietly.

Wirth kept his eyes straight ahead. “I’m trying not to.”

12:35 A.M.

Irish Jack turned off Avenida Infante Santo and onto the freeway just above the Port of Lisbon docks. Seconds later he swung the car onto Rua Vieira da Silva, a shortcut to the cloverleaf that would take them onto Avenida da Ponte and then onto the 25th of April Bridge and across the Tagus River to Almada and the hotel where Anne was. Wirth was alert, excited. Conor White could see his mind working, his thoughts dancing all over.

A few seconds later White looked up to see Irish Jack watching him in the mirror; he nodded imperceptibly. For no apparent reason, the BMW slowed. Irish Jack pulled it to the curb and stopped. The area was a darkened neighborhood, a mix of apartment and commercial buildings and closed shops.

“What’s this?” Sy Wirth snapped.

“We need to set some ground rules before we get to Anne,” White said quietly.

“Rules? What rules? What the hell are you talking about?”

“You sent us after the Spanish doctor and her charges, Mr. Wirth. It was an unforgivable mistake. They didn’t know a thing about the photographs. Worse, much worse, you brought the Russians into this.”

“What are you getting at?”

“We have one last chance to get the pictures. I don’t want you involved in any way.”

Wirth was outraged. “Who are you to talk to me like that? I gave you an enormous contract. Gave you power and prestige and visibility you would never have gotten on your own in a million fucking years.” He jabbed an angry finger at Conor White. “And you know what, I can just as quickly take it all away. All of it. So fuck your ground rules and get going. Get to Anne.”

“Have a drink, Mr. Wirth. You’re going to need it.” Conor White lifted a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue from a pocket in the back of the front seat and opened it.

“I don’t want a drink.”

“Yes you do.” Patrice turned in the front seat to look at him. “Mr. Wirth.”

A chill crept down Wirth’s spine. Slowly he looked to Conor White. “What do you want?”

“I want you to have a drink and calm down and listen to what I have to say.” White held out the bottle.

Wirth looked at it. “I need a glass.”

“I’m afraid you don’t.”

Wirth stared at him, then suddenly and reached for the door handle.

“It’s locked, Mr. Wirth.” Conor White showed no emotion at all. “Just have the drink.”

Wirth’s eyes went to Patrice. Then to the mirror, where Irish Jack was staring at him. Again White offered the bottle. Finally Wirth took it and took a strong pull. Then he looked back to White. “I’ll ask you again-what do you want?”

“Maybe you could explain these.” White reached into the inner breast pocket of his jacket pocket and brought out two number 2 Ticonderoga 1388 pencils.

“They’re yours. I believe they go with this.” White slid several folded pages of a yellow legal pad from the same pocket, unfolded them, and laid them out on the seat between them. “Maybe this will help.” He clicked on a vanity light over the seat. “Your handwriting, Mr. Wirth,”