The Hadrian Memorandum

94

THE APARTMENT AT 17 RUA DO ALMADA. EXACTLY 1:00 A.M.

Nicholas Marten turned the key in the lock and let himself into the apartment. Save for a small lamp still on in the entryway, the place was dark. He set the umbrella on the floor, locked the door behind him, then went into the kitchen. A big red 0 glowed on the answering machine. Ryder had not called.

He was bone tired, his feet rubbed raw from shoes and socks soaked through by the rain. His walk had not taken the thirty minutes he’d imagined but closer to fifty, as twice he’d had to take cover to avoid patrolling police and twice more had to find other routes because of heavily manned roadblocks. Whatever had happened to Anne, wherever she was or had gone, he no longer let concern him. He’d done all he could to find her and bring her back. It hadn’t worked, so there was nothing else. All he wanted now was a warm shower and sleep.

He walked down the hallway and past the darkened bedroom toward the bathroom as if in a dream, taking off his clothes as he went. The only thing he kept with him, and it was almost an afterthought, was the Glock.

He went into the bathroom and turned on the overhead lights. They were tiny, dim halogen fixtures, maybe fifty of them mounted in the ceiling. Some kind of special effect designed to warm the hard polished marble of the walls, bath, shower stall, and counter-tops. A tasteful, if overly conscious, effort to exude sex from every pore in the room.

The shower stall was directly in front of him. To the right was a large Jacuzzi tub, an extension phone on the wall beside it. It was then he decided to abandon the shower idea and instead soak in a steaming tub, maybe even fall asleep there. If Ryder called, the phone was in reach. The same for Anne, in the event she called, too, which he doubted. Still, she did have the number. She’d told him so when she’d left.

He turned on the water, adjusted the temperature, and let it fill the tub.

1:07 A.M.

Marten set the Glock on a marble ledge just above the tub, then took a hand towel and slid into the water. It was warmer than he’d expected, and it took him a moment before he felt comfortable. Then he lay back and let out a sigh. A moment later he closed his eyes and put the towel across them, blotting out the world. One deep breath and then another. Where was he? How had he come to be here? Why had he come to be here? Sleep was all he wanted.

“I’ve been waiting for you. I was worried.”

Anne’s voice rocked him. He pulled the towel from his face and sat up, thinking it was a dream. It wasn’t. She stood next to the tub beside him, one of Raisa’s expensive bathrobes pulled around her. “I fell asleep waiting. I didn’t hear you come in. Then I heard water running and saw the light on. Where have you been? What about Joe Ryder?”

He stared at her in amazement. The fact that he was naked never entered his mind. “How long have you been here?”

“An hour or so.”

He sat up angrily. “Yeah, well, fuck. Conor White and your Patrice found out you were at the hotel. They went there looking for you.”

“How do you know?”

“I was there. White had the others waiting outside, for Chris-sake. I killed two of them.”

“What?”

“Kovalenko’s Glock. They came after me. So I shot them. One right after the other on a street near the hotel. Then I walked off still looking for you. I’ve been dodging the Lisbon police ever since.” Suddenly his anger deepened. “I’m out there in the rain with the police and you’re in here fucking sleeping.” He picked the hand towel up again, put it over his eyes, and leaned back in the water.

“I’m tired. Go back to sleep or whatever the hell you were doing. I need to think and try to put this all together, if that’s even possible. Maybe at some point you’ll do me the courtesy of telling me what was so damn important that you had to go out and get all this started. It might help, but I doubt it.”

“I want to have sex with you.”

He took the towel from his eyes and looked up at her. “What?”

“I said I want to have sex with you,” she said again and slipped out of the robe. Without a word she slid naked into the water, opening her legs around him and fitting into the confines of the tub.

“Hey.” He looked her in the eyes. “I’m mad at you. You did a hugely stupid thing going out like that. I nearly got killed because of it. You think I’m just going to forget about it and have sex with you?”

“I’m still mad at you for nearly strangling me in Berlin, but that has nothing to do with now.” She ran a hand along his thigh under the water, then leaned forward. “Kiss me,” she whispered. “Like you did in Berlin. In the middle of the street with the police watching. I liked it.”

“You’re nuts.”

“Kiss me.”

“Aw, Jesus, Anne.”

The bedroom was dark, the bed wet from their bodies come straight from the bath. Marten made a sound as her lips encircled his penis. Slowly she began to move her head up and down the length of him; in time she let her hand join in, using it as well as her lips. He watched her for a moment, then leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. Lights from a passing car on the street below moved across it and then were gone, the ceiling dark again. Fire was rising inside him.

“Jesus, Anne,” he murmured.

She kept going, slowly. Her tongue circling the top of his erection, then bringing her mouth back over the top of it and taking it far down into her throat. He was going to explode and knew it. He tried to push her head away. He didn’t want to come now, not yet. She fought him off and kept on, hunching up a little as his hips began to rise, her breasts sliding across his thighs, her nipples as hard and erect as he was. He heard her moan. An animal sound. Then everything rose up at once. He tried to hold back. It didn’t work and he erupted. Still she didn’t stop. Soon pain overrode pleasure and he had to forcefully move her head away.

“It hurts,” he breathed.

She stopped and looked up and smiled seductively. “But it hurts good, doesn’t it?”

He saw her get up and go into the bathroom. There was a toilet flush and then running water, and then she came back with a warm towel to clean him. Afterward she moved up into his arms in the dark and kissed him. They lay that way for a long time, the only sound their breathing, which seemed to rise and fall in unison. Finally she slid her hand down and made him hard again, then looked into his eyes.

“It’s your turn,” she whispered. “Go down on me and then fuck me. Fuck me hard. And for a long time.”