The Hadrian Memorandum - Allan Folsom [146]
“No!” Wirth screamed. “No! No! No!”
There was a wild scuffling of feet as he was wrestled toward the rail. He tried to kick, bite, fight back. Anything to get free. Nothing worked. He felt himself hoisted up and saw Conor White step out of the car and come toward him. Then he was standing next to him, the number 2, Ticonderoga 1138 pencils in his hand. He held them in front of his face and snapped them in half.
“Watch,” he said and let the pieces fall away. They drifted down as if in some kind of super-slow motion to vanish in the darkness below.
“You won’t hear them hit. You won’t hear anything, Mr. Wirth.”
“No, no—please! Don’t do this. Please don’t! Help! Help! God please help me! Please!” Wirth beseeched any man, god, or spirit for the first time in his life.
None answered.
“I asked you not to beg, Mr. Wirth.”
Suddenly he was hoisted over the rail. The hands that held him let go. There was a rush of cool air and the sensation of falling from a great height. He heard himself scream. Then he glimpsed the lights of the city. For a long moment he felt as if he were flying. A majestic bird in a world he’d never known. Then the blackness below rose up around him and he plunged headlong into it.
12:57 A.M.
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,