The Hadrian Memorandum

“Yes,” he said quietly.

“I’m with GOE,” Branco said. “Where are the rabbits?”

“Anne and Ryder got away on the last train out. The RSO is dead. So is Irish Jack. Patrice is with me.”

“Where is Marten?”

“Somewhere here in the dark.”

“I’ve made a deal with the police. I’m going to get you out. But I can’t do that with all the people there. I want you to let them go.”

“Branco, they’re our protection. Hostages if we need them.”

“The police know we’re in touch. Once the people are out, they’ll send in an automated Metro car. They’re clearing two stations. They’re expecting I’ll bring you out at the second. We’ll go out at the first. I want to tell them you’ve agreed to let the people go. Once they see they are out they’ll pull back. We’ll come in and they’ll send the rail car.”

“Just you.”

“Yes. Altogether there are four of us.”

“What about the lights?”

“What do you want?”

“Marten’s here. I want him myself. You understand? I want him. Not you, not your men. Not even Patrice. Turn the lights on, get the people out, then turn them back off. ”

“I understand.”

“No! Not just understand. I want your word on it.”

“You have it.”

“Tell the GOE they can have their citizens.”

122

Marten was crouched by the rails near the platform when the lights suddenly came back on. The unexpected brightness startled him, the same as it startled the others. A wave of nervous cries swept through the station. He stepped carefully over the third rail and slipped under the platform overhang, hopefully out of sight from above. Suddenly came the sound of a bullhorn.

“THIS IS THE POLICE.” The amplified male voice echoed through the cavernous station as it had before, first in Portuguese and then English. “EVERYONE WILL STAND UP AND RAISE YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD, THEN WALK SLOWLY TOWARD THE EXIT AT THE FAR END OF THE STATION. LEAVE ANY PERSONAL BELONGINGS BEHIND. DO IT NOW!”

Marten was stunned. What tactic was this? What was going on? They couldn’t have captured White and Patrice without his hearing. And neither man was about to walk out with his hands over his head. Instead they would take hostages, and the GOE would know that. His hand slid over the Glock and he crouched further down. The best he could do was stay where he was. He could hear people starting to move and assumed they were doing as they had been told, the GOE screening them as they came out.

Maybe White and Patrice were already gone and the police knew it. Escaped through the tunnels and out through a maintenance shaft. They knew Anne and Ryder had made it onto the train and assumed they would be going to Ryder’s plane, the same place White and Patrice would go. And there would be nothing he could do about it because he would be trapped there with GOE sweeping the area the moment the people had left. He took a deep breath and waited, wholly unsure what to do.

Suddenly the station went dark again and the emergency lights came back on.

Christ, he thought. Now what?

“It’s just us now, Mr. Marten.” Conor White’s British- accented voice suddenly came through the radio earpiece he had forgotten he still wore. His manner was calm, even gentle. “I’d like to know who you are. Complex chap, I think. English landscape architect with an American accent. Quite the expert with a handgun. Killing people is relatively easy, but far different when they are trying to kill you first, like Branco’s men in the Jaguar.”

Marten came alert. Who was Branco? Then he thought of the man in the Hotel Lisboa Chiado who’d been playing Anne’s brother just before White came in. Clearly one of his team.

“Carlos Branco. The bearded fellow driving the Alfa Romeo. One of two cars pursuing the ambulance before the incident with the fire truck.”

Marten took out the earpiece and listened in the dark, hoping he could hear White speaking and get some sense of where he was.

“You arranged for the fire alarm to be pulled just after you left the hospital. You nearly had Anne and Congressman Ryder killed in the process. Clever but foolish. You are not perfect.”

Marten could hear White’s voice through the earpiece but that was all. There was nothing else to suggest he was close by. Nevertheless, he was here somewhere. The business with the lights and letting the people go free meant he’d made some sort of deal with the police. Though it was hard to believe after he had just killed six of their men. On the other hand, he had to remember there was a strong possibility White was CIA. Meaning a dark political hand might well be maneuvering behind the scenes. There was something else he dared not forget. White hadn’t received the Victoria Cross and his string of combat medals because he was timid. There was every reason to believe he had gotten out of worse situations than this on guile and guts alone. And then there was Patrice, who would be every bit as dangerous as White himself.

“Marten, why don’t you come out and we can have a little chat about all this.”

Marten put the earpiece back in, then eased up and peered over the top of the platform. The people were gone; so were the police. What was left was at once eerie and gruesome.

A long empty platform with the bodies of four dead bystanders sprawled across it, and with the corpses of Irish Jack near the tunnel entrance and Agent Grant not far away. All of it lit by a wash of emergency lights with the newspaper kiosk near the center and the entrances/exits at either end.

“Coming out, Marten?”

He checked the clip in the Glock, then felt in his pocket for the backup. The magazines held fifteen shots. Four had already been fired from the clip in the gun-one by Kovalenko when he’d killed Hauptkommissar Franck, the other three by himself as he fought against the men in the Jaguar. That meant he had eleven shots left before changing magazines.

“I’m waiting, Marten.”

He pulled up his sleeve, touched the KEY TO TALK button on the radio unit, and spoke into its tiny microphone.

“You first.”

123

Marten saw the four step into the light just inside the platform entrances. Two at either end. One of them wore a stylish black suit, had gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard, and was clearly the leader. Unsuprisingly he looked like the man in the Hawaiian shirt and jeans who had pretended he was Anne’s brother at the Hotel Lisboa Chiado the night before. There was little doubt he was Carlos Branco. The others, his