The Hadrian Memorandum Read Online Free PDF Page A

his dream Marten smiled. “Cousin Jack” was no ordinary cousin, nor was he a relative at all. He was a man he’d been as close to as one human could be to another; a man who had saved his life and whose life he had saved during a near-weeklong hellish journey in Spain some sixteen months before. He was also a man he’d never really expected to see again. “Cousin Jack” was John Henry Harris, the president of the United States.
    Earlier that same morning Marten had left his home in Manchester and taken a flight to London, then driven a rental car into the countryside. President Harris was in England to meet with the British prime minister but had set aside time to meet privately with his old friend. The encounter, as Marten well knew, was not without purpose. Their Spanish adventure, in Barcelona and then at the monastery at Montserrat, had been perilous at best, and so his summons to meet “Cousin Jack” alone at Fifield, a beautiful but isolated estate, gave him good cause for unease.
    “You want to know what this is about?” the president asked when the pleasantries and reminiscences were over.
    “Yes.” Marten smiled carefully. “I want to know what this is about.”
    “You’ve heard of the German novelist Theo Haas.”
    “The Nobel Prize winner? Of course. I’ve read him and read about him. He’s a brilliant, cantankerous, eighty-year-old troublemaker.”
    “Yes,” the president said, smiling, “he is. That aside, he was in Washington three days ago and met with one of his most ardent fans, Representative Joe Ryder of New York. Ryder is the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is the main investigative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.”
    “I know.” Marten smiled as well. “The Internet works in Manchester the same as most everywhere else. I keep an eye on the national news. I haven’t forgotten where I was brought up.”
    “Then you would also know that Ryder is focused on the billions of dollars we are spending in Iraq. He’s particularly interested in the cost overruns by a Texas-based oil field management and exploration company called AG Striker and a chief Striker subcontractor, a private military security firm called Hadrian. Both are working under long-term State Department contracts and have been paid hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars for their services, a lot of it in vague, unsubstantiated cross-billings. Ryder’s job to is clarify those expenditures, but he can’t because the agreements are ‘classified.’ ”
    “Not to you.”
    “No, not if I press it.” The president put down his fork and took a sip of mineral water. “The public expects its president to be informed, but I have to be careful not to stir up a hornet’s nest if it’s not warranted.”
    Marten stared at him. “What are you getting at?”
    “In his meeting with Congressman Ryder, Theo Haas suggested that something might be going on between AG Striker and Hadrian that is apart from the situation in Iraq. He was referring to a Striker oil operation in Equatorial Guinea.” President Harris reached into his jacket and took out a folded piece of paper.
    “Joe Ryder gave me this.” He handed it to Marten. “It’s a copy of a letter Haas received from his brother, Father Willy Dorhn, a German priest who lives on the island of Bioko, which is part of Equatorial Guinea. In the letter Father Willy describes the changes he has seen in the country over the past few months. His main reference is to a rapidly escalating and violent civil unrest on the mainland, the brutal reaction to it by the regime in power, and the fear that it will soon spread to Bioko. At the same time, more and more people from Striker Oil are arriving there, and a private British military security contractor called SimCo has been brought in to protect them.” The president stopped. “Read it yourself.”
    Marten studied him, then took a sip of water and looked at the letter. He