The Hadrian Memorandum

115

12:09 P.M

Santos slowed the laundry truck long enough to let Marten change places with the anesthesiologist who had been impersonating Agent Birns and slide into the back alongside Agent Grant and the bookkeeper who had portrayed Anne. With Marten out of sight, Santos continued on toward the roadblock the Public Security Police, the Polícia de Segurança Pública, had set up to keep traffic from the accident site.

Reaching it, he stopped and leaned out, telling the police who he was and asking to be let through. His brother, he said, had been driving the ambulance involved in the crash, and he wanted to get to him right away. As a longtime ambulance driver, Santos was known by almost every uniform in the Security Police, and those at the barricade were no exception; the bronzing face makeup he’d used in his role as Moses, which at another time would have been food for scurrilous comment, they let pass, telling him to park the truck down the hill and walk in. “I have hospital personnel with me,” he said strongly and received no argument about the others accompanying him. Less than two minutes later he had parked the truck, and the four followed him back up the hill and through the police line.

They were barely ten feet inside it when Santos and the hospital people suddenly rushed forward through the crowd toward the wrecked ambulance. Marten glanced back at the police; then he and Grant followed, looking for Anne and Ryder and Birns.

The cross streets-Calçada do Duque at Rua da Condessa, where White was to meet with whoever had the radio designation 6-4-were, Santos told them, partway up the hill from the accident scene. Meaning White and his gunmen were in close proximity and could easily infiltrate the swarm of people around them. Marten touched the Glock under his jacket and glanced at Grant, who now had the backpack under his arm so that the barrel of the MP5K submachine gun was just visible in its opening, his finger pressed through a hole in the material encircling the trigger.

Forty seconds of pushing past onlookers, firemen, rescue teams, police, and just-arriving media crews and they saw Anne and Ryder. Wherever Birns was, he wasn’t with them. They moved closer. With the exception of a small bandage over Anne’s right eye, both seemed to be physically unharmed. Anne, bless her after everything, had her purse with the photographs and the copy of the memorandum thrown over her shoulder and clutched to her side.

A little closer still and they could hear Ryder telling a fire captain that he and Anne were fine and that all they needed was a taxi to take them back to their hotel. Since there was no flurry of activity around him, it was clear he had not yet identified himself. Marten saw it as an opportunity to get them out of there before he did and signaled Grant to cover him in the event White or his men made their move.

He was just starting toward them when he saw a ranking uniformed police officer, a lieutenant maybe, approach Ryder. Once he reached him there would be questions, a lot of them. Who he was, who Anne was, why they had been in the ambulance, where they had been going. At this point Anne’s identity was unimportant because once Ryder’s identity was established the U.S. Embassy would be informed, meaning the CIA would almost immediately know where he was-if White hadn’t informed them already and/or if the 6-4 designate and those who had been in the 6-2 car weren’t CIA themselves. Whatever the case, it was imperative Marten get their attention and get them away from there right then.

Anne saw him as he was coming toward her. He nodded toward the approaching policeman and shook his head. At the same time, he realized he had a far better card to play. The police themselves. White would have his hands fully tied if suddenly Ryder and Anne were put into a police car and driven from the scene.

“That cop.” Marten pulled Grant close. “The lieutenant or whoever he is. Intercept him. Show him your ID and tell him who you and Ryder are and that Anne and I are with you. You are charged with the congressman’s personal safety. There have been threats against his life. What happened here might have been an accident, it might not. Ask him to get us out of here right now. He’ll have to request permission, but once he gets it White and his gunmen will have to pull up short, at least long enough for us to try to work out something else.”

Grant nodded and moved off. Marten let his eyes sweep the crowd. If White, Patrice, or the bull-like man Anne had called Irish Jack was there, he didn’t see them. He looked back. Grant was in conversation with Ryder and the policeman. A moment passed and he saw the cop lift his radio and turn away, talking into it. Again Marten scanned the crowd.

The permission.

The bureaucracy through which police machinery everywhere worked. Radio messages back and forth would take time, and he had to assume White and/or his people would intercept the exchanges and know what was going on. So would people at the U.S. Embassy, principally the CIA’s chief of station.

He felt a drop of rain and looked up at the darkening sky. There was another drop and then another. Suddenly he felt a hand tighten around his arm. He whirled. It was Anne. Ryder and Grant were with him.

“You were right, he had to get approval,” Grant said. “He’s calling for it now.”

Suddenly Marten remembered Birns. Where was he? Anne read his expression.

“Agent Birns was killed in the accident,” she said quietly. “Mário’s hurt. I don’t know how badly.”

Marten looked at Grant. Birns had been his traveling companion-in-arms for years. They were pals, buddies, as close as you get without being brothers. Maybe even closer than brothers. He knew that awful gut-eating loss too well from his days on the LAPD. He also knew there was nothing you could do about it but say a prayer for him and move on, as Grant was doing now.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and Grant nodded a solemn thanks. Then Marten looked at Anne. She was pale and still a little shaky. The bandage over her eye was the work of paramedics, and she limped a little, as did Ryder. “You okay?”

“Yes.”

He looked at her purse and grinned in admiration. “The lady seems to know how to hold on to the important things in life.”

“Once in a while.” She smiled softly. “Once in a while.”

Just then the rain that been teasing began to come down harder. A moment later the lieutenant returned. Two uniforms were with him. None of them paid Marten or Anne the slightest attention. Ryder was their man. Permission for a police escort had been granted. A large unmarked SUV was being brought up as they spoke.

“The U.S. ambassador was informed,” the lieutenant told Ryder. “He asked that we take you directly to the embassy. You’ll be quite safe there.”

“Thank you,” Ryder said graciously and then looked at Grant and Marten. His expression reinforced what Marten had known all along. The embassy was the last place they would be safe. Somewhere along the way they would have to make an abrupt change of plan.

12:22 P.M.