The Hadrian Memorandum

89

Marten turned off Rua Garrett and ran hard down steep, rain-slicked, white-cobblestoned steps that ran alongside whatever narrow side street he had taken.

“Marten!”

Someone shouted behind him. Conor White? Maybe.

“Marten!” it came again.

He looked back and saw two men crest the top of hill on foot. Just then the gray BMW came into view. It slid to a stop beside them. They jumped in and the car screeched off, coming after him.

He turned back and kept running, looking for a way out. Then he saw a darkened alley to his right and turned down it, moving, he thought, into the Baixa quarter. At the end he turned left and ran on. Seconds later he saw the dark blue Jaguar flash under street-lights as it cut in from a side street. He turned left again, ran up a hill, then cut right at the next street and started down it. For a moment there was silence. Then he heard a wild scream of tires behind him and saw the Jaguar slide around the corner, nearly hit a parked car, then regain control and race toward him. Where the BMW had gone he didn’t know.

Suddenly he remembered Kovalenko’s Glock automatic in his waistband. He slid it out and kept running. A hundred yards farther down was the bottom of the hill. There, it flattened out and went straight into the heart of the Baixa. If he could reach it, with its traffic and its myriad of streets and cross streets, he might still have a chance.

Then the Jaguar was alongside him. It flew past, then abruptly slid to a stop. The passenger door was wrenched open and a man stepped out, a machine pistol in his hand.

“Freeze right there!” he commanded in English.

“Freeze this!” Marten yelled and raised the Glock.

Boom! Boom!

He fired two quick shots. The man was blown backward, bounced off the passenger door, and dropped to the pavement like concrete. In the next instant the driver’s door slammed open. Marten dove behind a parked car as a salvo of machine-pistol fire cut across it, showering him with pieces of metal and windshield glass. For a seemingly endless moment there was quiet. Then, the machine pistol up, the driver came forward in the rain and dark looking for him.

Marten let him come. Thirty steps, then twenty. He could see him now in the glow of the streetlights. Short hair, medium height, slim build. Thirty, thirty-five. The rain continued to fall. Ten steps away. Then five. Then two.

Marten calmly stood up. Almost in his face. “Right here,” he said. The driver cried out in surprise and swung the machine pistol.

Boom!

Marten’s lone shot caught him between the eyes. His head snapped back, taking his body with it. He tottered for a moment, defying gravity, and then his legs gave out and he collapsed on the pavement.

Instantly Marten shifted his stance and looked past him for the gray BMW. He didn’t see it. Suddenly lights in the apartments on either side of the street were coming on and he could hear voices. He debated whether to chance retrieving the driver’s machine pistol, then decided against it and quickly walked away. Down the hill. In the rain. And into the heart of the Baixa.

11:11 P.M.