The Hadrian Memorandum

54

FRANCE, BORDEAUX-MÉRIGNAC AIRPORT. 1:50 A.M.

Marten crossed the lighted tarmac in the area dedicated to civil aviation. A dozen planes were parked equidistant from each other. All dark. Locked for the night. The thirteenth, the Cessna D-VKRD, was farthest out, its interior lights on. By now it would have been fueled and ready for takeoff. Anne and their pilot, Brigitte Marie Reier, having used the terminal’s toilet facilities and had something to eat, would be in the plane waiting for him.

Before, he’d purposely stayed back, remaining with the aircraft, letting the women go inside first. There’d been no real reason, other than to be polite and wanting to stretch his legs, and to be alone and think. And for a brief time he had, reflecting back on his conversation with Anne.

Memories of his late, beloved Caroline had moved him deeply, as had the horrors of Equatorial Guinea. The deaths that occurred there screamed out, leaving nothing but unfathomable anger and damning hatred for the carnival of perpetrators. All of it complicated by his own mental and physical exhaustion.

The truth was he was coming apart. He’d thought he’d left the savagery of violent death behind when he’d begun his new life in England. Then, from nowhere, he’d been thrust headlong into a world far darker and more monstrous than anything he’d seen on the streets of L.A. Suddenly he was afraid he was no longer capable of operating in it, that the self-protective, steel-edged coping mechanism every homicide cop develops to deal with murder on a daily basis had left him. If he was to continue, he would need that attitude and those skills. Without them, he might very well be killed himself and take Anne along with him. Especially if he had to go up against Conor White and whatever mercenaries he was sure to have accompanying him.

Instinct told him to walk away now. Say to hell with Anne, the photographs, Joe Ryder, even the president. Leave the Cessna where it was without a word or a note or anything. Just find his way back to Manchester and the quiet beauty and emotional safety of his life there. Make believe none of this had ever happened.

He might have done it, too, or at least tried, if he hadn’t suddenly been jolted by the thundering roar of a corporate jet taking off less than two hundred yards from where he stood. He’d watched it disappear into the night sky, its exterior navigational lights quickly fading to nothing. In that moment he heard Erlanger’s words again.

“Stay away from the old contacts. You got away with it this once. For your sake, don’t try it again.”

Maybe they’d gotten away with it and maybe they hadn’t.

Immediately he thought of the jet aircraft he’d requested and then of the slow ’54 Chevy of a Cessna they’d been given. Had it been all that was available or was there some other reason?

In the next second he’d gone to the plane and walked around it, looking at the engines and under the wings, then examined the fuselage and tail assembly as best he could in the faint light. Afterward he climbed inside and poked around in the same way, looking under the instrument panel, the seats, the small luggage area, anywhere some kind of electronic transmitting device might have been planted. Then he’d heard the women coming back and quickly finished, stepping out just as they arrived.

A few insignificant words passed between them, and then it was his turn to go into the terminal. He’d used the restroom, then found a cafeteria area with Wi-Fi hookups and given the lone young man he found working at a laptop twenty euros to borrow it for a few moments-“to check my e-mail and stuff.” In those minutes he’d done what he’d not had the chance to do since Theo Haas had been murdered, clicked on Google Maps and pinpointed the location of the town Haas had pointed him toward, Praia da Rocha, in the Algarve region of Portugal’s south coast. He’d found it nestled among the myriad of small beach communities near the city of Portimão. The nearest major airport was in Faro, which was close to the Spanish border and probably not two hundred miles from Málaga. Importantly, there were rental car facilities at the airport, most of which opened at six in the morning.

Faro was close enough to Málaga for Brigitte to radio a last-minute amended flight plan to Málaga air traffic control saying her passengers had requested she give them a tour of the coastline and would return to her original flight plan when they had finished. Not an unusual request for civil aviation traffic. So, if he chose to bypass Málaga, Faro would be the clear option. Anne could rent a car, and they could take what on the Google map appeared to be no more than a thirty-minute drive to Praia da Rocha. So he had a workable alternative, but he would wait until they were approaching Málaga before he made a final decision.