The Hadrian Memorandum - Allan Folsom [201]
Marten looked at him directly. “That was pretty much what Anne said when she gave me the film of the Memorandum and why she did what she did to find it and photograph it in the first place. I seriously doubt that even as a member of the Striker board of directors she had any idea that the company was involved in the war. She did know she was violating the law and at the same time betraying the Agency, her country, her company, and herself when she hacked in and copied the document. Believe me when I tell you the whole process devastated her. But she was looking for anything she could find that might slow down the war and stop the slaughter. Any one of us would have done the same thing, you included.”
“I understand that, Nick, and fully appreciate what she did. But what happens to her is not up to me.”
“You can put in a good word.”
“Yes, and I will.”
Marten took another drink, put the glass down, then stood and crossed to the fireplace to stare into it. “CIA practices aside, right now you need Abba’s unconditional trust and support more than ever, but you can’t let it appear that, other than leading the cause for humanitarian aid, the U.S. is soliciting it. Correct?”
Harris nodded.
“May I offer a suggestion?”
“Of course.”
“First, I would like you to promise me something.”
“What?”
“It has to do with a personal pledge I made in Lisbon.”
EPILOGUE
PART ONE
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22. 10:35 A.M.
Marten stood with a three-man survey team as they mapped the landscape of a forty-acre parcel of forest and meadow a private organization wished to turn into a park as a gift to the city. The day was sunny and warm with big puffy clouds overhead. The surveyors moved off and down a long grade, carrying their transits, tripods, bipods, levels, and other equipment, giving him a moment alone. As he watched them he realized there was really no need for him to be there at all. They were measuring raw land, nothing more. They certainly didn’t need a landscape architect looking over their shoulder; his work would come after theirs was completed and he had their drawings. It made him realize, too, that he had been pretty much doing this kind of thing since he’d come back from New Hampshire. Keeping inordinately busy. Working, then going home to work some more, meticulously poring over everything he had done that day and planning for the next, and on top of it sketching out ways the firm might expand into other areas of the new “greening” world.
He saw women from time to time and enjoyed their company, but with no real enthusiasm for a lasting relationship. One time Lady Clementine Simpson had come up from London to visit old friends from her days there as a university professor. She’d abruptly awakened him in the middle of the night with a sharp knock on the door, the same as she had several years before when she’d suddenly arrived to announce that her marriage was over and ask if she could spend the night. Two days later she went back to London; then she and her husband reconciled and they returned to Japan where he was still the British ambassador. This time she not only woke him but brought the proud news that she was pregnant. Discussion of that and its consequences lasted until five in the morning, when she’d suddenly stood up, kissed him, and told him she still loved him and probably should have married him, then abruptly left to catch the