Allan Folsom - The Hadrian Memorandum

“Number 17, top floor,” Carlos Branco said.

“You’re certain it’s them?”

“The woman, yes. The man, not positive, but I would bet it’s Marten. There’s a narrow alley at the back and a rear entrance. I have a man there watching. No one’s come out. My guess is they’re sleeping. The door lock’s easy to crack. You want to go in, now is the time.”

White looked to Irish Jack at the wheel and Patrice beside him. “Jack, take us around back and down the alley, lights out.”

“Colonel,” Branco warned. “This needs to be done very quickly. Afterward go directly to your plane and get out of the country. Right then, right away.”

“What do you mean, right away?”

“The police are everywhere looking for the shooter of my men.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“They are also looking for you and”-he nodded toward Patrice and Irish Jack-“them.”

“Why? What the hell do they want us for?”

“The murder of a Spanish doctor and her medical students in the countryside near Madrid.”

“What?” Conor White was stunned. “How do you know this?”

“I have many lines of contact within the police organizations. Whether you did what they say is not my affair. You were seen earlier tonight in the lobby of the Hotel Lisboa Chiado and a short time later in the bar of the Hotel Ritz. At the moment the police are sweeping the area between the Baixa where my men were killed and the Chiado, working this way in a grid pattern. So if you are going in after Nicholas Marten and Anne Tidrow, do it now, very quietly and quickly, and get out. Enter the airport using the same gate I brought you through when you came here. The police don’t know the manner in which you arrived in Lisbon, so for now they are watching the main terminals, not civil aviation.” Branco smiled thinly and reached for the door. “Good luck, my friend, I have to trust you will pay me when you can.”

“Get down,” Irish Jack spat suddenly.

In reflex action the four instantly slipped below window level. They were just out of sight when a Lisbon police car moved slowly by, its headlights sweeping over the car as it went. They gave it ten seconds, then sat up.

Branco stared after it. “So now they are here in Bairro Alto.” He looked at White. “Take it as God’s blessing they came when they did and not five minutes later when you were parked in the alley and going upstairs. Get out of here and go to your plane while you still can.”

“No,” White snapped. “Not when we’re this close. Not after everything.”

“Colonel.” Patrice turned to look at him. “It’s not worth it.”

White looked to Patrice, his eyes filled with contempt. “What do you know about worth?” He looked back to Branco. “Your people will stay here. At some point Marten and Anne will leave to meet the congressman. When they do your men will follow. At the same time, you will be at Ryder’s side as a member of his embassy RSO detail.”

“You mean you intend to go back to the old plan. Even after this.”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“I held up my end of the bargain.”

“Yes. And you will be paid.”

“You can’t stay out on the streets.”

“You say the police were working the Baixa and the Chiado, now they’re here. If they knew we were at the Ritz they would already have swept the area between there and the Baixa. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then they would have been satisfied we were no longer there, which is why they’ve moved their search this way. They will still have patrols, but patrols can be avoided, especially when one knows he is being hunted. This is a game of cat and mouse. All three of us have played it in far more dangerous situations and in considerably more horrifying places than the quaint streets of Lisbon. I assume your men doing surveillance are wearing team radio units.”

“Of course.”

“I need the frequency.”

Branco nodded. “171.925.”

“Good, we’ll be listening. Now, we are going back to our apartment. When Marten and Ms. Tidrow make their move, alert us and follow them. We will meet you wherever it is they have gone. In the meantime, treat Congressman Ryder well. We don’t want him to suspect he has a mole at his elbow.”

Branco smiled admiringly. “I see why you carry the Victoria Cross.” With that he opened the door and slipped out into the darkness.

4:37 A.M.

6:50 A.M.

Marten woke with a start. Anne was still asleep, looking as if she hadn’t moved since she’d put her head down. Immediately he got up, pulled on the shirt and jeans he’d been wearing since Berlin, then found his jacket and took the dark blue throwaway cell phone from it. Another glance at Anne and he picked up the Glock from the bedside table and left, carefully closing the door behind him.

He was crossing the front room on his way to the kitchen when something made him stop and go to the window. It was just dawn, and the morning light was beginning to expose the shadows in the park across from them. A truck rumbled past on the street below; seconds later someone went by on a bicycle. The park itself was empty.

Or was it?

He could just make out the figure of a man on the far side of the benches where he and Anne had been yesterday afternoon. He was alone and standing back under a tree. Marten’s first thought was that he was watching the building. Immediately he wondered if either he or Anne had somehow been seen and followed back to the apartment, if whoever had done it had reported in and been ordered to wait and watch and follow in the event either of them left.

Ordinarily he would have dismissed it, telling himself that maybe he was overdoing it. That there was no reason to be alarmed by a lone man standing in a public park, a lone man who might well be waiting to meet someone, say, for a ride to work. But he had to remember that only hours earlier he had been all but face-to-face with Conor White and Patrice. Had to remember that Anne had been very quickly traced to the Hotel Chiado Lisboa. Had to remember the men in the blue Jaguar. Meaning White or someone else, quite possibly the CIA, would have immediately put assets on the streets looking for them.

One last glance at the man in the park and he left the window and went into the kitchen.

It was now almost seven o’clock in Lisbon, approaching two in the morning in Washington, and President Harris would be sleeping. It made no difference; it was imperative he know what was going on. Moreover, Marten needed him to get in touch with Joe Ryder right then. Whoever the man in the park was or wasn’t, White knew they were in the city and probably somewhere in the vicinity of the hotel. The minute Ryder landed he would be under heavy surveillance. Wherever he went someone would be right on top of him. And if White’s people were already here watching the apartment, there was no way he and Anne and Ryder could go anywhere without being followed. Moreover, if they were going to meet with Ryder they would be physically carrying the evidence with them-Anne’s copy of the memorandum and the photographs in her purse, the camera’s memory card tucked unseen into his jeans. If they were caught, all of it would be gone in an instant.

He lifted the phone, started to punch in the number of the president’s throwaway cell phone, then stopped. If White’s men or CIA assets were watching the apartment, they might very well have sophisticated listening devices that would pick up any phone conversation coming into or going out of the building. Not only would his conversation be heard, it wouldn’t take long for them to analyze the voices and realize who he was talking to. Still, the president needed to know what was happening, and he needed to know now. What he had to do was assume the people outside were indeed White’s men or CIA and take the chance they had only recently come on-scene and as yet hadn’t received the kind of complex electronic gear they would need to monitor calls.