The Hadrian Memorandum

85

FOUR SEASONS HOTEL RITZ, THE RITZ BAR. 9:20 P.M.

Sy Wirth sat alone finishing his second Johnnie Walker Blue over ice. An attractive woman in a green dress walked up to the bar, ordered a Black Russian, and smiled seductively at him. He didn’t respond. Instead he signed his tab, then got up and made his way through the bustling lounge area toward the elevators in the lobby. It was nearly nine thirty at night local time, almost three thirty in the afternoon in Houston.

9:24 P.M.

The elevator door opened; Wirth stepped out and walked down the hallway toward his tenth-floor room. His electronic key unlocked the door, and he went in. A hallway light was on. So was one on the nightstand beside the bed. The maid had turned down the sheets. A writing desk was in front of a large sliding glass door that opened onto an outdoor terrace overlooking the dark expanse of Eduardo VII Park.

He sat down at the desk and turned on the lamp, then slid the two BlackBerrys from his jacket pocket, put the one with the blue tape aside, and picked up the other. A deep breath and he punched in a number in England that automatically forwarded the call to Striker general counsel Arnold Moss’s personal BlackBerry in Houston. It rang three times before Moss picked up.

“I thought I’d be hearing from you,” Moss said immediately.

“Where are you?”

“In the office, where else?”

“You alone?”

“Yes.”

Wirth ran a hand through his hair. “Truex has gotten Washington involved. I’m in Lisbon. So is Conor White. Anne and this Nicholas Marten are either on their way or have already arrived. They’re going to meet with Joe Ryder somewhere here tomorrow. Most probably to give him the photographs and have Anne tell him what she knows about our operations. White’s already got an Agency freelancer on board to help stop them.”

“Carlos Branco.”

“How the hell do you know that?” Wirth was startled. “Truex tell you?”

“Newhan Black.”

“Black called you?”

“He wants us out, Sy. He didn’t want to talk to you. Thought I should deliver the news. It only happened a little while ago. It’s why I didn’t call. I wanted to think.”

“Stop thinking.” Wirth shoved back from the desk and stood up. “This is what we’re going to do.”

“You didn’t tell me the Russians were in this.”

“They aren’t anymore.”

“How the hell did they get involved in the-”

“I tried an end run. It didn’t work.” Wirth crossed the room, reached the far side, then turned back. He was angry. At the world. “Not everything pans out, Arnie. In the end you hope you come out a step ahead of even.”

“Sy, leave it alone. We’ve got to cut our losses while we can. Close the whole operation down. Get out of Equatorial Guinea.”

“What’s the matter?” Wirth’s anger flared. “The game gets a little rough and you suddenly start whimpering? Whose side are you on, theirs or ours? I told you a long time ago I wasn’t going to lose the Bioko field. I haven’t changed my mind.”

“Jesus, Sy. The whole thing’s crumbling. The walls are coming down. Black’s given us the opportunity to walk away. He’ll protect us. We have to do just that.”

“Arnie, listen to me.” Wirth was emphatic. “We’re going to execute what you and I discussed in Houston. Joe Ryder’s due here in the morning. I’m staying at the same hotel he is and am going to request a meeting with him. Just the two of us. He’ll see me if for no other reason than the Iraq situation. I plan to tell him exactly what he’s going to find when he gets the photos, then turn it right back on Truex. Tell Ryder it was all his game, his and Conor White’s, one we knew nothing about. We had no idea that they were helping to arm the revolution until we heard about the photographs.

“Their plan all along seems to have been to covertly expand their influence in West Africa by using us as cover while they backed Abba and his people, giving them whatever they needed to overthrow Tiombe. Something they were certain Abba could do if he had the weapons. Then suddenly the photos came into play and a whole new enterprise presented itself, one worth hundreds of millions if not billions.”

Again Wirth crossed the room. “All they had to do was get hold of the pictures and exploit them. Play Striker as the bad guy who ordered it done. Make it look as if we had backed the overthrow of the country for our own benefit. If they did it right, the exposure would kill Striker publicly and politically, and we’d have to pull out, forfeiting our leases.” He walked across the room once more and then again.

“In the chaos afterward, Truex would convince Abba that he had no experience finding and extracting oil. With Abba’s blessing, he would resurrect the leases in Hadrian’s name with the promise that he’d find someone who did have that experience, first and foremost the Russians, who’d been hovering there the whole time. Then he’d sell the leases to them for an enormous fee and leave, staying lily-white in the process.

“The trouble was, they didn’t have the photos but they knew who did, and they came to Lisbon to get them at any cost whatsoever. They hired a freelancer named Carlos Branco to take care of Anne and Marten and recover them when they went to meet with Ryder, kill Ryder, too, if necessary. I found out what was going on and confronted White and tried to stop him. He refused and threatened to kill me if I said anything or got in the way. That was when I knew I had to go to Ryder myself. He doesn’t have to know anything about Black or the Agency. They’d deny it anyway if it came up.”

“Sy, you’re out of your mind. Don’t touch it! Stay the hell away from Joe Ryder!” Moss warned in alarm and anger. “Black’s given us the green light to leave cleanly and quietly. He’ll let SimCo, even Hadrian, take the fall, and then plug in another U.S. oil company to pick up the pieces. He’s not stupid, he won’t lose the Bioko field, it’s too damn important. So forget Joe Ryder and get the hell out of there. Now. Tonight. Walk away from it. Just walk away.”

“Arnie.” Wirth kept pacing, not even aware of it. In his mind he was in Houston and face-to-face with his general counsel, a man he saw now as little more than an employee. “I run Striker Oil, not you. I’m the one who brought the company to where it is. I’m the one who decided to take the chance and explore Equatorial Guinea and then negotiated the long-term leases with Tiombe’s people. I’m also the same fucking guy who told you from the start he was not going to lose the Bioko field. Not to the Agency, the Russians, or anybody else. Newhan Black doesn’t want to talk to me, then fuck him. You call him and tell him just what I’ve told you and what I’m going to tell Joe Ryder.

“You’re right when you say Black’s not stupid and the find is far too strategic for him to risk. Still, he can’t chance having the photos get out, so he’ll let Branco, White, and his men get rid of Anne and Marten, then take the pictures and fade into the woodwork. Not long afterward, somebody they all know and trust will show up and they’ll disappear. Just like that. White, his gunmen, Branco, and the photos. That same day or maybe the next, Truex will go down, an accident of some kind, and the Bioko field will remain the legal property of the AG Striker Company. Much easier for the Agency that way. After all, we’re the oil company with the long-term leases. The others were just hired gunmen. Hired gunmen are dispensable. Long-term leases for an ocean of oil are not.”

“Sy, you’re crazy to think you can pull this off! You’re playing with fire.”

“I am the fire, Arnie. I’ll call you after I meet with Joe Ryder.”

9:46 P.M.