The Hadrian Memorandum

75

LIVROS USADOS GRANADA. 1:47 P.M.

Stump Logan was behind the checkout counter as they came in. They were hot and sweaty and looking as if they had just walked a considerable distance in the midday heat and done so quickly.

“I wonder if we might use your office for a few minutes,” Marten said intensely, squinting a little as his eyes adjusted from the bright sun outside to the relative darkness of the store. Anne was just behind him.

“My office,” Logan said flatly, peering through his thick glasses, first at Marten, then at Anne, and then back to Marten. Marten had a large padded envelope tucked under his arm. Something he hadn’t seen on the couple’s first visit.

“Actually I think Anne would like to use the restroom first,” Marten said. “That is, if you have one.”

Logan studied him a moment longer, then looked at Anne. “All the way to the back and down a flight of stairs into the basement. It’s not much, but it works.”

“Thank you.” Anne glanced at Marten and went off in the direction the book dealer had sent her.

Logan lifted the glasses and looked at Marten intently. “You’re in trouble.”

“More than a little. I’m afraid we need your help, and badly.”

Just then a middle-aged couple came in and began to look over the books in the front of the store. “Why don’t you see to them,” Marten said quickly. “If it’s alright, I’ll wait in your office.”

Logan nodded toward the back. “You know where it is.”

“Thank you.”

Marten walked off. Other than the couple who had just entered there were no other customers. The only employee he saw was the thirty-something woman with short dark hair and a light summer dress who’d been at the checkout counter when they’d come in the first time. She was on the far side of the room with her back to him, intent on rearranging a display of books.

It had all been planned. They’d left the rented Opel in a parking area near the beach, then walked to the only refuge they knew, Logan’s bookstore. The whole way they’d looked for both the police and Conor White, who they knew had to be closing in on them in one way or another. The idea had been to get to Logan’s store as quickly as possible, then get him alone, tell him as much of the story as was necessary, and ask for his help. They were taking a chance, but there was nowhere else to go, and he’d helped before. Now they were praying he’d do it again, if for no other reason than his past relationship with Theo Haas and Father Willy. The idea of sending Anne to the restroom had come to Marten as they entered-give him a chance to work Logan singly, man on man, before she came fully into the picture. At least that was what he’d told her. What he really wanted was to find a way to be alone for a few minutes so that he could call President Harris and tell him where he was and what had happened. He hadn’t been sure how he would do it, but then the middle-aged couple had come in and the problem had been solved, at least for the moment.

Just ahead was the door to Logan’s office. Marten opened it and went in.

1:59 P.M.

8:59 A.M. IN CAMP DAVID, MARYLAND.

President Harris had been sequestered in a small study off his bedroom for the last two hours. Note pad and pencil at his sleeve, he was taking yet another maddening pass, trying to cut fat from the proposed new federal budget when the slate gray cell phone on the table next to him rang. It startled him, and for a moment he did nothing; then it rang again. Immediately he realized what it was, and picked up.

“Where are you? What happened? Are you alright?” he spat emotionally, the words run together like a jet stream of consciousness.

“Praia da Rocha. The back office of a used-book store.”

In ninety seconds Marten told him everything. Recovering the photographs. Striker’s massive oil find in Bioko and Moscow’s knowledge of it. That Anne was still with him. Kovalenko’s arrival with Franck and subsequent killing of him. That Franck had been working for the CIA. His own fear that a huge police dragnet would be put out for him once Franck’s body was found. Everything, that was, but the business about Kovalenko and the camera’s memory card. That was something that could wait for later.

“What about Joe Ryder?” Marten asked at the end.

“He’s left Iraq and is on his way to Rome and then Lisbon, where he’ll meet you,” the president said. “He’ll be at the Four Seasons Ritz, but not until tomorrow morning at the earliest. He has a dinner tomorrow night with Lisbon’s mayor. The whole thing has been played as a courtesy call on his way back to Washington. The mayor’s wife and Ryder’s support the same international charity, so it’s a logical cover. It’s a long way from Iraq to Portugal, so you should have more than enough time to get to Lisbon even if you have to slow it down. The question is, police or not, can you do it? Can you get there?”

“What about a safe house?”

“One has been set up for you in Lisbon, a small apartment in the old part of the city, the Bairro Alto”-Harris picked up a notebook from the table and opened it-“number seventeen Rua do Almada. Ask for a woman named Raisa Amaro. She lives in a flat on the first floor. She knows you’re coming. It’s not fancy, but it’ll do until Ryder arrives. Go there and stay there. He’ll know where you are and how to get in touch. So again, can you get there? If you don’t think so, I’ll try to arrange something else.”

“We’ll get there.”

“Good. Call me the minute you’re safe. I’ll take the information you gave me and work on it. If the oil field is what you say it is, the find is hugely strategic. No matter what you think of them, Striker’s done a great job of keeping it quiet. Still, the handling of the rest from here on in, your end to mine, has to be done with extreme caution. None of this can get out.”

“Cousin,” Marten warned, “don’t go near the CIA. Something is still very wrong.”

“The Lisbon station chief already knows Ryder’s coming. But that’s all he knows. Ryder will be under the protection of the State Department’s Regional Security Office. The RSO will coordinate his movements, but they won’t know about you or Ms. Tidrow. Joe Ryder’s pretty resourceful. He’ll find a way for you to meet him alone.”

“Thank you, my friend,” Marten said quietly, gratefully.

“You’re the one to thank, cousin. Take damn good care of yourself. Good luck and Godspeed.”

2:06 P.M.

Marten clicked off just as Logan’s door opened. Anne came in, followed by Stump Logan.

Anne looked at the cell phone in Marten’s hand, then at Marten. “Are we disturbing something?”

“An old girlfriend.”

“An old girlfriend? Right now, in the middle of all this?”

“Well, yes…”

“How old?”

“Let’s just say-from a long time ago.”

“And she still has your number?”

“And how.” Marten grinned a little, then slid the cell into his jacket. Abruptly the grin faded, and he looked to Logan. “Please close the door.”

He waited until Logan did, then looked at him directly. “A Berlin policeman followed me here investigating the murder of Theo Haas. He was killed at Cádiz’s home by a man who was with him and who later drove off with the body in the trunk of his car. Once it’s found the police will blanket this whole area, thinking I killed him. As I said earlier, all of this has to do with the civil war in Equatorial Guinea. Ms. Tidrow and I have a meeting tomorrow in Lisbon that hopefully will-”

“We do?” Anne interrupted him in surprise. Her look told him everything. She knew what the phone call had been about, that he had somehow arranged for them to meet with Joe Ryder in Lisbon. It was clear, too, that she realized she had little choice but to go through with her promise to meet him. At least for now.

“Yes, we do,” he said emphatically. Immediately he turned back to Logan. “That meeting may well change the course of the war. But none of it will happen if the police have us in custody.”

“You want me to help you get to Lisbon.”

“Yes.”

Logan glanced at Anne, then looked back to Marten. “Suppose you did kill the policeman. Theo Haas, too. Maybe even Father Willy. What if everything you’ve told me is a lie? I help you and the police find out, then what?”

“That’s something you have to decide for yourself. Theo Haas put this whole thing in motion to begin with because he was concerned for his brother’s safety and because of what he had uncovered in Bioko. He’s the reason I went there to meet with Father Willy and why I came here looking for Jacob Cádiz. It’s also the reason I was followed to his house by both the German policeman and the man who ended up killing him, a high-level Russian security operative. They were supposed to be on the same page but weren’t.” Marten pushed harder. “What I’m telling you is the truth. If it wasn’t, Ms. Tidrow and I could just as easily have tried to get to Lisbon on our own. We came to you because you knew Theo Haas and Father Willy and what kind of men they were. You’ve lived here a long time, you know how things operate. We’ve got to get out before the police close in or we won’t get out at all, and everything we’ve worked for, what Father Willy died for, will have been for nothing. Please, I’m begging you. Can you help us? Will you help us?”

Stump Logan took off his thick glasses and wiped his eyes, then put them back on. “It might be a grave error on my part, Mr. Marten,” he said finally. “But yes, I will try to help you.”

2:13 P.M.