The Hadrian Memorandum

80

SIMCO FALCON 50. 5:57 P.M.

Conor White looked at Patrice and Irish Jack in the seats across from him. They were calm and relaxed, patiently waiting for the plane to touch down and the next act to begin. White wasn’t quite as comfortable or composed.

Abruptly he shifted his weight and looked out the window as the chartered jet began its descent into Lisbon, a city he’d been to a dozen times or more-but never in a situation like this, where his entire future rode on luck. He had no doubt whatsoever that soon, maybe within hours, the pictures would be made public and, in the hands of the Russians, in a most demonic way. Meaning that aside from the terrifying specter of a superpower showdown in Equatorial Guinea, what he had feared from the beginning would finally come to pass-that his career, and therefore his life, were essentially over. The blame he put fully on Sy Wirth and his stupid, colossal meddling. If it would have accomplished anything at all, he would have killed him right there in the Faro hotel room. But there had been no point because things were beyond the control of either of them. Instead he’d simply watched as Wirth, in what could best be described as a violent stupor, picked up one of two BlackBerrys on the room’s writing desk and started to call Loyal Truex in Iraq to tell him what had happened. At the same time, the other BlackBerry sounded. Wirth looked at the one in his hand-one with a small piece of blue tape on the bottom-and, seeming to realize it was not the device he had intended to use, quickly put it in his pocket and answered the other. Truex had been on the line, excited and at the same time agitated. At that moment things began to happen, fast.

The first part was information, most of it coming from Truex.

Joe Ryder had suddenly been called away from a close inspection of the records division of Hadrian’s central facility in Baghdad. Less than thirty minutes later his plane had taken off for Rome, the first leg of a hurried return trip to Washington. But Rome, Truex had learned, was not his final destination in Europe. Lisbon was. The purpose of his Lisbon visit? A courtesy call on Lisbon’s mayor. It was bullshit. A man like Ryder, who’d gone all the way to Iraq for a hands-on inspection of the Striker and Hadrian operations there, accompanied by several members of his commission, an audit team, and their support staff, and who then suddenly abandoned everyone and everything to hurry back to Washington alone and for reasons unknown, does not stop to make a courtesy call on the mayor of Lisbon. Clearly he was going to the Portuguese capital for some other and very specific reason. And since Marten and Anne had been in Portugal that day, it was more than reasonable to presume that the three were planning to meet somewhere there. That same logic taken a step further, especially in light of the haste of Ryder’s departure from Baghdad, suggested that it was possible, even probable, that they had somehow snatched the photographs from under the Russian noses and were readying to turn them over to Ryder. It was equally probable that Anne-almost certainly to avoid prosecution-had agreed to brief Ryder on the Striker/Hadrian/SimCo arrangement in Equatorial Guinea and the Striker/Hadrian dealings in Iraq. Either or both reasons made it a meeting neither Striker nor Hadrian could afford to have take place.

For Conor White it was a defining moment. For the second time in hours he’d been given a massive injection of hope that the photographs might still be retrievable. With it came the feeling that maybe his torment would, at long last, be over and that finally everything would be alright. It was the kind of sentiment he’d so often longed for as a boy. That no matter what he had done or what had happened, his father would somehow manage to be there, to put his arms around him and hold him and tell him everything would be alright. That he was there for him, and always would be. Even if it was a lie. Just to see him and hear it and feel it even once would have brought untold joy.

Less than an hour after Truex’s call, they’d lifted off from Faro for Lisbon. Once again, Wirth had taken the Striker corporate Gulfstream, leaving the tri-engine Falcon 50 to White and the others, with Wirth promising to update them with more information the moment he received it. Ten minutes after takeoff White’s BlackBerry had sounded. Wirth already had it.

“Ryder is staying at the Four Seasons Ritz,” he’d said. “He’ll arrive sometime tomorrow morning. His dinner with the Lisbon mayor is at eight in the evening. I don’t have a location yet. A man named Carlos Branco will meet you on the tarmac in Lisbon at Air Terminal Two in the civil aviation area and take you to an apartment on Rua do São Filipe Néri, which is close to the Four Seasons. Go there and wait until you hear from me. Branco is a freelancer, a total professional. He’ll be working with you. It was set up by Truex, not me, so trust him. We’ll get out of this yet, Conor. We’ll look back and laugh.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Wirth,” he’d replied flatly. “We’ll look back and laugh.”

6:05 P.M.

White heard a thump as the Falcon’s landing gear came down. Then it banked and came around on final approach. As it did he could see the tarmac and terminals at Portela Airport and then Lisbon itself. Down there somewhere, among the tree-lined avenues and city squares, beneath the acres of red-tile rooftops-either now or sometime later tonight, certainly by tomorrow when Ryder arrived-would be Nicholas Marten and Anne and, he prayed, the photographs. All he had to do was find them.

PORTELA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, TERMINAL 2. 6:19 P.M.

“Conor White?” a slim, fortyish, dark-haired man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and blue jeans met them on the tarmac as they came down the Falcon’s stairway.

“Yes,” White said cautiously.

“My name is Carlos Branco. I have a car waiting.”

6:30 P.M.

A metallic gray BMW 520 touring car left the terminal and passed through the civil aviation security gate. Moments later it turned onto Avenida Cidade do Porto and headed into the city.

White sat in the right rear seat, with Patrice between him and Irish Jack. Branco rode up front next to the driver. He’d taken them directly to the car and waited as they put their luggage and two dark green and yellow sports equipment bags into the trunk. As they drove off, he mentioned something about the weather and rain showers that were due over the next few days. After that, they rode in silence.

6:38 P.M.

As Branco’s driver brought them into the city in a swirl of traffic, White began to feel a surge of energy. With it came a churning of thought, and he began to wonder where in the city a meeting between Anne and Marten and Joe Ryder might take place, and how, and at what point, they might best deal with it.

6:52 P.M.

The BMW entered the Marquês de Pombal roundabout at the top of the lush, tree-lined Avenida da Liberdade. Immediately the driver swung up the hill past the green of the city’s sprawling Eduardo VII Park.

“There,” Branco said, a long, narrow finger pointing out the window to the right.

Directly above them and looking out over the city like some modern, box-shaped sentinel was the place where Ryder would be staying. The Four Seasons Hotel Ritz.

6:54 P.M.