The Hadrian Memorandum - Allan Folsom [171]
“Ms. Tidrow is here, sir. Mr. Ferguson has not yet arrived. Please come with me.”
“Thank you,” Marten said gratefully and followed him across the room and down a side hallway.
10:54 A.M.
Gama opened the door to a small examination room and ushered Marten in. Anne stood there, alone and waiting. He was surprised at the way her face lit up when he came in, as if she had been more than a little worried about him.
“Please excuse me,” Mário said and then left.
“What happened?” Anne asked as the door closed behind him.
“There was an accident. The motorcycle rider chased after you and Tomás in the truck. He was going very fast when he suddenly swerved to avoid something in the street.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t?”
“No.”
“But he’s dead.”
“I didn’t hang around long enough to find out.” Marten changed the subject. “No sign of Ryder.”
“Not yet.” Anne looked at him uncertainly, as if she wanted to tell him something but didn’t quite know how.
“What is it?”
“I—”
“Go on.”
“Earlier, I got a text message from Loyal Truex at Hadrian. I didn’t tell you because we were on the run and there was no reason. But you should know. Sy Wirth is dead. They found his body floating in the Tagus River, downstream, where it meets the Atlantic.”
“So he was here.”
“Apparently.”
“And with Conor White.”
“Probably.”
“White kill him?”
“I don’t think he slipped and fell. Put the pieces together. Sy made a stupid deal with the CIA to protect the Bioko field. Then he and Loyal brought in White and created SimCo. Things were fine until the pictures showed up. Then everything started to come apart. At some point Sy probably pushed too hard like he always did and stepped all over Conor in the process.”
“And that jeopardized the whole operation, and White, maybe at the Agency’s request, got rid of him.”
“I don’t know. I doubt if we’ll ever know. What’s clear is that they—Conor, Loyal, Sy, and the Agency—wanted to recover the pictures from the beginning. Now, they want more.”
“What does that mean?”
“I knew when I hacked in and found the memorandum that at some point they would learn about it. Not who did it, or from where, but that the site had been accessed and on what day and at what time. They know that on that day and at that time I was at the Hotel Lisboa Chiado, where the rooms have Internet access. They may not know I made a copy but will assume I’d tell you and Ryder what I found.
“The pictures were bad enough because they implicate Striker in the war. The memorandum implicates, even criminalizes, the CIA. And not just the Agency but the deputy director personally. Conor White has enough to lose as it is. Now he has this. If he is Agency, or even if he’s not, he’s got to protect it. He can’t go down as the soldier who was supposed to guard something as massive as the Bioko field but lost it and at the same time disgraced the CIA.
“If he was fired up before, it’s double that now. He’ll come after us with everything he has, and there are few better than he is. He knows what he’s doing and how to do it, and he has his people with him. There may well be others, too, like those doing surveillance outside Raisa’s building. High or low, Conor pays people well. But bottom line, he’s the one running things. And if he is CIA, they’re letting him do whatever he wants because it benefits them most of all. What he wants is us dead and every piece of evidence we have recovered and destroyed. He can, and probably will, be very, very violent and won’t shy away from any means necessary to achieve his ends. That’s his training and the reason for all those medals. If he learns where we are he’ll kill everyone in this hospital if has to just to get to us. I—”
Suddenly there was a noise at the door. Immediately Marten’s hand went to the Glock in his waistband. Then the door opened and a man in a tan business suit and carrying a briefcase entered.
“Please don’t, Mr. Marten.” He turned the briefcase toward him. “It’s not necessary. I’m Special Agent Birns, Congressman