The Hadrian Memorandum Part 45

"One thing more," Branco said. "You're going to have more media crowded outside this station than you've ever seen. Clear two stations down the line. Then I want an automated Metro car brought in. White has two men with him. We're going to take them out in that car. At the end we'll hand them over to you. No media. No gang of police. Just a handful of your men and a couple of waiting ambulances."

The commander stared at him, then finally nodded. "Done," he said.

Conor White was pushed back in the darkness against the tunnel wall, his eyes, his senses, trying to feel out where Marten was, when he felt his cell phone vibrate. That the phone system worked this far underground startled him, and for a moment he did nothing. Finally he slid it from his belt and looked at it. In an instant he knew who was calling and clicked on.

"Yes," he said quietly.

"I'm with GOE," Branco said. Branco said. "Where are the rabbits?" "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 I want him. Not you, not your men. Not even Patrice. Turn the lights on, get the people out, then turn them back off. " 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 a.s.sumed 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 a.s.sumed 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. he thought. Now what? 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. 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." "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 b.u.t.ton 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 compatriots, were armed with submachine guns, Uzis it looked like, and were clearly cut in the mold of the gunmen he had encountered in the Jaguar the night before. Curiously they did nothing but stand there. Maybe that was their intent, simply to block the exits and make certain he didn't get away. The fact that they were there and armed meant they had the blessing of the GOE. Something that, in turn, suggested that they, too, were somehow connected to the CIA.

Suddenly he realized something else: White knew Anne and Ryder had gotten out on the last train. That Branco was here meant he and White had communicated. In the process Branco would have learned that Anne and Ryder were gone.

"Marten ... " White's voice rattled through his earpiece. ... " White's voice rattled through his earpiece.

Marten stuck the Glock in his belt and took out the cell phone. He prayed that it would work in here and that Anne was somewhere where she could take a call. Fearfully he punched in the number she'd given him. He let out a breath as he heard it ring through. An instant later she clicked on.

"Where are you? Are you alright? We've just left Baixa/Chiado station and are in a taxi to the airport."

"Don't go near Ryder's plane," he said emphatically.

"Why?"

"White's people are here. The police let them in. It means the Agency knows you and Ryder are out and is a.s.suming you're on your way to his plane. Can you arrange for another aircraft? You, not Ryder. They'll have his phone bugged. Maybe yours, too. Use a pay phone. Call somebody you know in the oil business or some other deep-pockets people you travel with. Can you do that?"

"Yes, I think."

"Then do it. Go somewhere, a park or something, and stay there until it's ready. When it is, get the h.e.l.l to it and out of Lisbon."

"What about you?"

"I don't know about me. It doesn't matter." Marten glanced around. Branco and his men hadn't moved.

"Marten." Conor White was beginning to sound impatient. Conor White was beginning to sound impatient. "If we have to come get you we will." "If we have to come get you we will."

"Anne, do as I told you." Marten was resolute. "We had a lot of fun together. Maybe sometime we will again." With that he clicked off and slid the phone into his jacket. Then he lifted the Glock, hit the KEY TO TALK b.u.t.ton and spoke into the microphone.

"Like I said, Colonel, you first."

Conor White glanced across the tunnel entrance at Patrice, or what little he could see of him in the dark. Suddenly there was the glint of a light on the rails behind them. Two pinpoints of light were coming down the tunnel in their direction. The automated Metro car Branco had promised. White looked at Patrice, then back down the tunnel. Something didn't feel right, but he didn't know what it was. Again came the feeling of impending doom. The otherworldly sense of Marten as a demon come to destroy him came flooding back. He had to be crushed and crushed now. A foot put on his neck and a bullet through his brain.

Marten saw the approaching lights too, then heard White's voice.

"I'm coming out, Marten. A big fat target for you. Come get me."

Marten could hear the icy confidence in his voice, the professional soldier anxious to do his murderous work once again. At the same time, he saw the faces of Marita and her medical students. Saw Raisa in her red hair and pink robe. Next came Bioko and the bodies of the native woman and her children, their throats cut, floating in the branches of the dead tree; Father w.i.l.l.y and the young boys clubbed to death by Tiombe's soldiers; the grotesque photographs of White and Patrice and Irish Jack lunching with General Mariano in the jungle; the soldiers with the flamethrowers and the naked man as he was burned alive. Then the Rossio Metro station and the GOEs as the balaclava-hooded White and his killers ambushed them outside. Agent Grant as he was gunned down on the platform scant moments earlier. Never in his life had he felt such contempt for a human being as he did now for Conor White.

"Make your move, you son of a b.i.t.c.h!" he spat into the microphone as the rail car neared, its approaching headlamps far too bright and garish for the scene. Suddenly a shadow dashed from the tunnel in front of it, jumped up on the platform, and ran across it. He raised the Glock and fired once, then a second time. Both shots missed, his rounds ricocheting off the concrete walls. The train came closer. Suddenly its lights revealed someone crouched in the tunnel entrance. Patrice. An instant later the same lights fell on him. Patrice swung the M-4. Marten hit the ground between the tracks as a burst from the M-4 chewed up the base of the concrete platform where he'd been. Once again he raised the Glock and squeezed the trigger.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The gunshots were ear shattering. Patrice was caught square in the face and chest and toppled backward into the tunnel. A blue arc of electricity sparked as he fell across the third rail. A split second later a burst of 9 mm slugs from White's MP5 danced over his head, spraying off the tunnel walls. Then the train was on top of him. He pushed down, hugging the ground between the rails. With a nearly silent whoosh the car went over him, inches above his head. In a second he was up and at the edge of the platform. He pulled himself up, then rolled to one side and into deep shadow. Glock at the ready, he got to one knee and looked around. Where the h.e.l.l was White? Where had his shots come from?

There was a screech of brakes and the train stopped. One man stood inside it, a machine pistol in his hand. The doors slid open and he stepped out.

Kovalenko.

"Get the h.e.l.l out of the light," Marten yelled. "You're going to get killed!"

"f.u.c.k you! Where's my memory card?"

"I don't have it!" Marten's eyes darted over the area. Where was White? Where had he gone? He shifted the Glock to his left hand and raised his right, pushed the KEY TO TALK b.u.t.ton, and spoke into the microphone in his sleeve.

"White," he said softly. "I'm here, near the tunnel. Come get me." Quickly he shifted the Glock back, holding it in a two-hand grip and slowly moving it back and forth over the area, his eyes alert, looking for any movement at all. He saw nothing but a faintly lit empty station with the bodies of Irish Jack and Agent Grant sprawled barely twenty feet apart and close at hand.

"Tovarich," Kovalenko said quietly and nodded toward the newspaper kiosk.

Marten moved forward. If White was there, he couldn't see him. Kovalenko came in from the side, the machine pistol up, his finger on the trigger. Suddenly Marten stopped.

There he was.

Inside the kiosk, his body in a sharp contrast of black and white, apparently sitting on a stool or something like it, staring blankly into the dark of the station.

Marten raised the Glock, unsure what was happening. Kovalenko eased closer. Slowly White turned his head toward Marten.

"He's dead," he said quietly. "He's dead," he repeated, then looked off once again.

Marten inched forward. What was going on? Was White playing some kind of trick?

"Careful, tovarich," Kovalenko warned.

"Throw the gun out!" Marten barked.

White didn't react.

"Throw the gun out! Now!"

Kovalenko looked to the left and saw Carlos Branco coming toward them in the dim light, a Beretta automatic in his hand. His men moved in from either side. All three carried Uzis.

Marten glanced at them, the Glock still trained on Conor White. "Stay back or I'll shoot him right now!" he ordered.

Branco stopped. So did his men.

White sat motionless, staring into the distance.

Marten glanced at Kovalenko. "Cover me."

Kovalenko nodded. Marten waited a half beat, then rushed the kiosk, fully expecting White to make a sudden move. But he didn't. Then Marten was in the kiosk and on top of him. All he saw was a tableau-White sitting in the center of the kiosk, half his face in light, the rest in deep shadow, a newspaper in his hands, the MP5 and a 9 mm SIG SAUER semiautomatic resting on a stack of magazines next to him. It might as well have been a still photograph.

Marten pushed the Glock against White's head, then eased over and carefully slid the weapons out of reach. He was still expecting a trick, a sudden move. None came. White just sat there staring at nothing, his chest rising and falling as he breathed. In a heartbeat the fight, the life, everything, seemed to have gone out of him. Marten lowered the Glock.

Kovalenko stepped in beside him. "What the h.e.l.l happened?"

Marten shook his head. "Don't know."

" 'He's dead.' What was he talking about? The guy you shot in the tunnel?"

"Maybe."