The Hadrian Memorandum

79

FOUR SEASONS HOTEL RITZ LISBON,

RUA RODRIGO DA FONSECA. SAME TIME.

CIA Chief of Station (COS)/Lisbon Jeremy Moyer worked Sundays when he had to, and this Sunday was one of them. Four and a half hours earlier he’d taken a call at home from Newhan Black, deputy director of the CIA, asking him to go into the embassy and pull up a file on a case officer named Fernando Coelho and when he had it to call him back right away.

What it meant was “Go to the office immediately and call me back over a secure line.” Clearly whatever Black wanted to discuss on this summer Sunday afternoon-one o’clock in Lisbon, eight in the morning at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia-was urgent.

Twenty minutes later Moyer was in his private office, door locked, secure phone in hand. When they established contact Newhan Black’s first words were: “I’m not going to tell you everything that’s going on, and it’s probably better that you don’t know. But this is what I want done.”

Now, at nearly five thirty in the afternoon, Moyer sat at a small cocktail table in the Ritz Bar sipping a Dubonnet on ice and chatting with forty-year-old Debra Wynn. Wynn was chief of the U.S. State Department’s Regional Security Office and, like Moyer, based in the U.S. Embassy/Lisbon. She was responsible for coordinating all security for the embassy, visiting guests, and dignitaries. In this case they had a CODEL, a congressional delegation, in the person of Congressman Joe Ryder of New York, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, coming into the country.

“What I would like, Debra, is to go over the Ryder situation.” Fifty-one-year-old Moyer fit well into the hotel’s posh surroundings-neatly trimmed graying hair, navy blazer, pin-striped shirt open at the neck, khaki trousers, oxblood loafers-one embassy official having drinks with another at the hotel where an important U.S. politician was due to arrive the next day. “The congressman, coming here as he is, makes him a very high-profile target. That he’s passing through on his way back from Iraq doesn’t help. As you know, I would have preferred to have him stay at the embassy.”

Wynn looked at Moyer directly. She was handsome and athletic, a twenty-year State Department veteran who’d come up through the ranks, as Moyer had. The difference was, her personality was far more guarded. While he drank Dubonnet, she chose iced tea. “The choice of where to stay was his,” she said.

“I know. And it’s why I came here, to look around for myself and to offer you some assistance.”

“You think he needs it?”

Moyer took a sip of the Dubonnet and used the government-employee-speak of someone more senior in rank than the person being addressed. “I hate to think what the result would be if something happened.”

In other words-what her career and life would look like if she had been offered CIA help in protecting Ryder and turned it down, and then, as Moyer said, something happened.

Wynn looked to the glass of iced tea on the cocktail table next to her, then picked it up and held it without drinking. “How many of your people should I expect?”

“One.”

“One?”

“Sometimes in one man you get ten.” Moyer smiled. “When are your people scheduled to secure the congressman’s room?”

“Tomorrow morning at seven.”

“My man will be there at six thirty. He is to be afforded freedom of movement. Your people will understand.”

“You mean he won’t be taking orders from us.”

Moyer nodded.

Debra Wynn smiled courteously. “Does he have a name?”

“Carlos Branco. But he will use another name then.”

“He’s a local. Portuguese.”

“Yes. You know him?”

“Just the name.”

“He’s been in the business for a long time. He knows the city and his way around it better than any of us, and the congressman will be visiting a number of venues before he has dinner with the mayor.” Moyer took another sip of the Dubonnet, then set the glass down and stood to leave. “One last thing. Ryder is used to RSO security, so let him think my man is one of yours. There’s no need to alarm him.”

“Is there a need for alarm?”

“It’s a precaution, nothing more.”

Debra Wynn nodded; again came the courteous smile. “Then, thank you.”

“We do what we can.” Moyer nodded and walked off.

She watched him leave the bar area and go out into the lobby. His driver met him there, and they left.

Moyer had said he’d come there to look around and to offer some assistance. Look around? He’d been stationed in Lisbon for more than three years. The Ritz was an international gathering spot, a place he’d been in and out of countless times. The assistance he was offering could as easily have been offered over the phone. The real truth was he’d come there to meet her in the venue where Joe Ryder would be staying for the purpose of gaining information. The “looking around” had been primarily into her eyes when he told her he wanted to place one of his operatives among hers. There had been no question that she would accept his offer, but he’d wanted to see if she knew more about Ryder’s visit than she was telling. Clearly something was going on and the CIA was involved. Whatever it was, it would require a security clearance and pay scale far higher than hers. So what he’d seen in her eyes would have been what he expected. Nothing. Whatever Congressman Ryder’s visit was really about, she didn’t know. And didn’t want to.

5:52 P.M.