Allan Folsom - The Hadrian Memorandum

He crossed to it, studied it for a moment, then walked on. At the end of the block he turned right and then right again into a narrow service alley. Somewhere farther down was the hospital’s rear entrance. There was no sign of Tomás’s truck, or of any other vehicle for that matter. Whether Anne was there and safely inside there was no way for him to know. Nor was there any way to know if Raisa had even reached the president with the details of what Joe Ryder should do. All along he had assumed it had happened. What if it hadn’t? What if Ryder and the president had never spoken? What if the congressman wasn’t even in the city?

Once more he felt as he had in the passageways with Anne, like a war time refugee in an uncertain state with spies and lookouts everywhere, with everything they’d counted on falling apart around them, and with no way to know it until it was too late. Absently he touched the Glock under his jacket. Then, with a glance over his shoulder, he started down the alley in search of the hospital’s rear entrance.

10:34 A.M.

10:35 A.M.

Raisa Amaro looked at Conor White, then again at the identification he had given her, and handed it back. His name was Jonathan Cape, and he was a special investigator for Interpol. A man and woman had stayed in the top-floor apartment of her building the night before but were no longer there. They were wanted for questioning in the murders of the German novelist Theo Haas and the Berlin police Hauptkommissar Emil Franck. She had helped them escape and he knew it. She could avoid many years in prison if she told him where they had gone.

Raisa looked around her large, utilitarian office. The man with the British accent calling himself Jonathan Cape sat in a wooden chair opposite her desk. The two well-dressed men who had come in with him waited outside, visible through the large window that overlooked most of her laundry operation.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know who or what you are referring to,” she said quietly. “It’s true I own the building, but I live alone and have little contact with the other residents. Except, of course”-she smiled a little-“when they are late with the rent.”

“These fugitives remain at large, Ms. Amaro. People are in danger.” White’s manner was quiet but at the same time utterly intense. “I don’t have time for lies.”

Raisa looked at him directly. “If you think I’m involved with anything illegal, I suggest you call Chief Inspector Gonçalo Fonseca of the Lisbon police. He’s a personal friend.”

“Ms. Amaro, you are impeding an international investigation. I want to know where the man and the woman went when they left your building and how they managed to avoid surveillance. Who provided the electrician’s truck and driver is a separate matter that will be taken up later. I want to know where they are now.”

“Mr. Cape. I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“I see.”

Conor White turned in his chair to look at Patrice on the far side of the glass, then nodded. Ten seconds later Irish Jack ushered Raisa Amaro’s supervisor and the two men who had been tending the washers and dryers into her office.

White sat back. “I will repeat my question. Where are the man and the woman now? Where are Nicholas Marten and Anne Tidrow?”

Raisa looked at her workers and then back to Conor White. “I simply don’t know.”

There was no need for White to give the order. Irish Jack already knew what to do. The same as Patrice had known what to do in the farm house outside Madrid. In a single move the Irishman slid the Beretta burst-fire automatic from under his blue suit coat, put it to the head of the nearest laundry worker-a dark-skinned young man no more than twenty-five-and squeezed the trigger. The stacco three-shot burst resonated across the room. A large portion of the man’s skull and brains splattered across his two co-workers standing beside him. His body dropped to the floor with a sickening thud.

The other men shrieked in horror. Raisa’s face froze to stone.

“Marten and Anne Tidrow. Where are they now?” Conor White repeated calmly as if the action behind him had never taken place. He could see Raisa fight through her shock and terror. Finally her eyes found his.

“The electrical truck took them to the Cais da Alfândega ferry terminal,” she said quietly. “They were to cross the river to Cacilhas. Whether they reached it or not I-”

“They went nowhere near the ferry terminal.” White cut her off angrily. “The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. I ask a question, I want the correct answer. That’s how I operate. Do you understand? Now, where are they?”

Raisa just stared, saying nothing.

White lifted a hand. “Jack-”

“No, please!” White heard the supervisor cry out behind him. He saw Raisa turn in that direction.

“Don’t!” she screamed.

Then came the second three-shot burst from Irish Jack’s machine pistol. There was no need for her to look at what had happened.

“It’s your card to play, Ms. Amaro,” White said calmly. “One way or another I will find the people I am looking for. Whether you or your last employee is still alive when I do is in your hands.”

Raisa gaped at him. Any sense of who she was, or had been even minutes earlier, was gone. “Hospital da Universidade,” she murmured. “Hospital da Universidade.”

“Thank you.” Conor White stood and turned toward the door. As he did Patrice stepped behind the last man, slid his own Beretta from inside his jacket, and shot him the head.

White reached the door, then turned back. Raisa had managed to stand. She used the edge of her desk for balance. Numbed beyond reason, her eyes still managed to find his.

“You are a criminal of the worst order. May your seed roast in hell for eternity.”

White smiled gently. “This is one day you should have stayed home.” He nodded at Irish Jack, then walked out the door.

Behind him he heard a three-shot burst. There was a dull thump as Raisa’s body hit the floor. For a moment there was silence. Then he heard the distant, thunderous bellow of a ship’s whistle, and Irish Jack and Patrice followed him across the laundry, past the A Melhor Lavanderia, Lisboa delivery truck in the loading dock and out into the Lisbon sunshine.

10:41 A.M.

10:42 A.M

RSO Special Agent Tim Grant, the near-spitting-image of Congressman Joe Ryder, stepped out of a taxi on Rua Ivens, paid the driver, and watched the cab drive away. At the far end of the street he could see the flashing lights of emergency vehicles. A wisp of black smoke rose skyward just past them; the cause of which he didn’t know. Immediately he turned and walked off in the direction of Rua Serpa Pinto. By his estimation, it was a block, two at most, to the Hospital da Universidade. He wore jeans and a light, baggy jacket and had a small backpack slung casually over his shoulder. Inside it were his wallet and diplomatic passport, a map of Lisbon, and an MP5K submachine gun with two fully loaded magazines. For all intents, he looked like a tourist.

10:43 A.M.

Carlos Branco sat waiting in a five-year-old Fiat on Rua da Vitória. He’d made the call at ten fourteen, seconds before he notified Conor White that Ryder and his RSO detail had vanished from the Ritz.

“You asked me to tell when I might have an apartment available for lease for your daughter,” he’d said. “I have one now, but it’s being shown this afternoon to another interested party. Perhaps you could come right away. I will meet you at Rua da Vitória just back from where it meets Rua dos Fanqueiros in the Baixa. The sooner you see it and make up your mind the better.”