The Hadrian Memorandum

81

BAIRRO ALTO, THE UPPER TOWN. 7:12 P.M.

It was still nearly three full hours until sunset. Nicholas Marten stood in a shaft of sunlight at the far end of a small, leafy park, one foot on a stone bench, the envelope with Father Willy’s photographs tucked under his left arm, Kovalenko’s Glock 9 mm automatic in his waistband under his jacket. Anne sat on another bench some thirty feet away casually feeding a congregation of pigeons from a box of crackers she’d bought at a variety store in the tourist-jammed lower old-town Baixa district fifteen minutes earlier. Around them were a dozen or so others-chatting, reading, playing cards, people just enjoying the long summer evening. Whether they were visitors or locals it was hard to tell, but whoever they were, none seemed to be paying either Anne or Marten any attention.

Directly across from the park was Rua do Almada, a narrow cobblestoned street and a block of four-and five-story apartment buildings. Number 17 was the third building down. Its second-through fourth-floor apartments had floor-to-ceiling windows that opened onto narrow balconies decorated with ornamental iron railings. The fifth, or top, floor had no balconies or railings at all, only large windows that, like those on the other floors, looked out onto the street below and the park across from it where they were.

7:16 P.M.

Marten glanced at Anne and nodded toward number 17. She responded with a slight shake of the head, then went back to feeding the pigeons. They were hot and tired from the nearly ninety-minute trek they had made across the city from where Stump Logan had dropped them. Their destination, hopefully with a message from Joe Ryder waiting for them, was only feet away across the cobblestones. But for all the good it did, they might as well have still been in Praia da Rocha. Dangerous as it was for them to stay out in the open, Anne’s sense was that it was even more foolhardy to simply walk up to the front door and knock on it without first surveying the building and its surroundings.

“See what vehicles come and go,” she’d said as they neared. “If they pass by more than once. Who goes in and out. If someone is watching from the windows or from the windows next door or from farther up or down the street. If a pedestrian or someone on a bicycle goes past, taking special interest in the building as they do. Look carefully at the people in the park. See if any of them are watching from there.”

“Anne.” Marten’s reply had been impatient and emphatic. “Only one person knows we’re coming, Raisa Amaro, and she’s inside. We have to get off the street.”

“Not yet, darling,” she’d said with finality and crossed into the park to feed the pigeons and watch the building. For how long, she hadn’t said.

Frustrated, indignant, yet knowing he couldn’t very well grab her by the hair and drag her into the building, Marten had reluctantly followed, taking up the position on the bench where he was now.

Their journey to Rua do Almada had begun the moment Stump Logan drove off. Following his directive, they’d gone to the nearby main bus depot, Terminal Rodoviário de Lisboa, crossed into the bus arrival/departure area, and entered through the ARRIVING PASSENGER doors. Taxis and public transportation were immediately available outside the main entrance on the far side, but Marten had been hesitant to use either for fear of leaving a trail that could be followed. Instead he’d bought a street map from a terminal vendor and they’d left on foot.

Ever wary of police patrols and deliberately trying to avoid appearing as a couple someone might remember later, they’d kept to opposite sides of the streets and avenues as they moved deeper into the city. With little sleep and even less to eat since they’d left Berlin, the walk had seemed interminable. The last twenty minutes especially had been a slow, lingering ramble through the crowded Baixa quarter, with Anne, on the far sidewalk, acting more like a tourist-poking her head into this store and that-than someone trying to get to the safe house on Rua do Almada.

Finally Marten had abandoned caution, crossed over, and taken her by the arm. Then, map in hand like a vacationer, he led her up a steep cobblestone street into the fashionable Chiado district and its rich blend of outdoor cafés, antique stores, and stylish shops. If Anne had had any intention of lingering there, Marten hadn’t let her-with the single exception of a small, elegant, five-star hotel on Rua Garrett that she’d gone into, to, as she’d said, “use the loo.”

Ten minutes more and up another sharply inclined street and they entered the Bairro Alto, the upper town, where Rua do Almada was. Another five and they entered the park across from number 17 where they were now, and where they had been for almost fifteen minutes of waiting and watching.

Marten looked at Anne again. She ignored him. This time it was enough. He walked over and leaned in close. “Nobody’s gone in, nobody’s come out. Not a single person has walked by. No vehicle has passed more than once. No bicycles, either. It’s time we go in. Now.”

Immediately she got up and walked a little way off. The pigeons followed; so did Marten. He started to say something, but she stopped him.

“Congressman Ryder’s coming to Lisbon,” she said quietly without looking at him. “That means the U.S. Embassy will have been informed. Which means the CIA/Lisbon chief of station will know.”

“He might know he’s coming, but he won’t know why.”

Abruptly she turned to look at him. “Don’t you suppose that by now he knows we were in Praia da Rocha and just might suspect that since Mr. Ryder is all-of-sudden coming to Lisbon we just might be too, and for some reason other than seeing the sights?” She stared at him a half beat, then went back to feeding the pigeons.

“Erlanger, in Berlin,” she said, still without looking at him, “was CIA. You wanted to know about his manner at the airstrip in Potsdam. He was trying to warn me that the Agency was actively involved and whatever I was doing I’d better stop. And then we found out that Hauptkommissar Franck was an operative. Conor White’s friend Patrice was CIA and maybe still is.”

“Yes, and maybe White is, too. We’ve been through that.”

“Nicholas-” Something caught her eye and she looked off. A well-dressed elderly couple sitting nearby was watching them intently. She smiled politely, then gently turned her back to them and looked to Marten.

“It all has to do with the photographs,” she said quietly and almost offhandedly, as if she were simply discussing the weather or where they might go for dinner. “If Erlanger knew about them, I don’t know. But clearly Franck did. He brought Kovalenko along because he had to, but he would have killed him afterward, the same as he planned to do with us.”

“You’re saying the Agency wants to make sure Ryder doesn’t get them.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t think they would particularly delight in the idea of someone-one of their own former operatives, or an expat American landscape architect, or even an esteemed U.S. congressman-having graphic proof that a private security contractor conspired to provoke a revolution in a third world country, especially one that resulted in the deaths of thousands of its citizens, to benefit an American oil company. Franck’s job was to kill us after he got the photographs. What makes you think that order isn’t still in place?

“The Agency has long arms, Nicholas, and very good hearing.” She nodded across the street toward number 17. “What if they’re already in there waiting? Or will be told where we are once we go inside? Who knows who this Raisa Amaro is, anyway?”

Just then the elderly couple walked slowly past, the gentleman walking with a cane and tipping his hat as he passed, his wife holding his arm.

Marten waited for them to move out of hearing, then abruptly turned to Anne. “Joe Ryder’s expecting to contact us through whatever means Ms. Amaro has set up for us. We try to reach him now-if we can reach him-and tell him our fears, he’ll want to change his plans. If he does, the people with him will want to know why, and he’ll have to tell them something, which can only make things worse when he tries to find a way to connect with us. We have to take the chance that your Lisbon chief of station, Sy Wirth, and White and his friends don’t yet know we’re here or, if they do, where we are.”

Anne looked off. She didn’t like it at all.

In the next instant a distinctive white-and-blue car with a thin red stripe running the length of it drove slowly past. A single word was painted on it-POLICIA. Seconds later two motorcycle units followed, their helmeted, uniformed riders carefully surveying the park as they went by. A moment of stillness followed, and then two more motorcycle units came by, this time on the far side of the park.

“May I suggest another storm front?” Marten asked quietly. “The very real possibility that Franck’s body has been found and that the authorities are keeping it quiet until the Portuguese police and maybe their counterparts in Spain, France, and Italy have been alerted and given the order to locate and take into custody the two persons the Hauptkommissar was investigating for the murder of Theo Haas. The same two persons the police know he followed to a beach house in Praia da Rocha that was owned by a certain Jacob Cádiz.”

Anne smiled thinly. “You’re saying we should take a great leap of faith and introduce ourselves to this Raisa Amaro as quickly as possible.”

“Sooner, darling. Sooner.”

7:34 P.M.