The Hadrian Memorandum Part 27

"Then why him?" Marten indicated Kovalenko, then looked back to Franck. "Who else does the Hauptkommissar work for? Mother Rus sia? Hadrian? SimCo? Or is it Striker Oil?"

"The photographs, please." Franck lifted the Heckler & Koch and started toward them.

"The Hauptkommissar and I met in Berlin." Kovalenko started forward as well. "Later we had a dialogue with an old friend of Ms. Tidrow. You seem to have found our transmitter. By shutting it down you succeeded in helping to throw off the others following you. There are others, you know. They may well be on their way here now." Kovalenko's eyes went to Franck and then back to Marten. He kept moving, slowly, carefully, keeping pace with the German.

"Your photographs seem to be quite a popular attraction. The reason why we are here so soon and the others are not is that the Hauptkommissar is highly respected inside the European Union, especially where the police are concerned. We knew you were on approach to Faro quite some time before you landed. We knew you had rented a car in the city. What make, what color, its registration number." Again Kovalenko looked to Franck, then back to Marten. "You shouldn't have driven so many times along Avenida Tomas Cabreira or parked your car where you did. The local police are very good at following up on things. They told us where you went. The postmaster helped with the rest."

Suddenly Anne understood why there were no police. "Nicholas," she said, "the Hauptkommissar is CIA."

Kovalenko half-smiled. "Is that true, Emil? You have another employer?"

"Only those you know." Abruptly Franck twisted the submachine gun toward Anne. "Please step away from Mr. Marten."

Marten started to move between Anne and the German.

"Don't, tovarich," Kovalenko warned. Suddenly he was sliding a Glock automatic from his waistband.

Marten froze where he was.

"The photographs, please." Franck was right in front of him, the machine gun leveled at his chest. "You are wanted for the murder of Theo Haas. You were found here and refused to surrender. No one will be surprised that you were shot because of it."

"Give him the pictures, tovarich," Kovalenko said quietly. "Do it."

Franck saw the Russian suddenly step behind him. In a millisecond everything that had happened since they'd met in Berlin flashed across his mind in a h.e.l.lish collage. Kovalenko's every move, every gesture, even his att.i.tude had been ch.o.r.eographed to perfection: the arrogance, the measured antagonism, the egotism and compet.i.tiveness that seemingly came with the job; the constant references to, and deferral to, Moscow; the fear of reprisal, his personal conceit. All were in character and were expected and put him off guard. They knew he was a double agent and probably had for decades, even before the Berlin Wall came down.

A split second later the Glock in Kovalenko's hand came to a rest behind his ear. The steel felt cold. He wanted to do something, but it was too late. Until our true fate catches up and then-that's that. Until our true fate catches up and then-that's that. He thought of his wife and children. Prayed they would be alright without him. Then he heard a He thought of his wife and children. Prayed they would be alright without him. Then he heard a pop pop and there was a flash of searing white light. and there was a flash of searing white light.

The body of Hauptkommissar Franck dropped to the ground as if some terrible force of gravity had overwhelmed it. Marten and Anne jumped at the suddenness of it.

"Ms. Tidrow was quite correct, tovarich, the Hauptkommissar was CIA." Kovalenko kept the Glock in his hand. He was calm, wholly matter-of-fact, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. His tone and his manner were the same as they had been years before when he'd done very nearly the same thing from point-blank range and in front of Marten in St. Petersburg, Rus sia.

Immediately he retrieved Franck's machine gun, loosened its strap, and threw it over his shoulder. Done, he looked to Marten.

"If you would help me please, tovarich." He twisted the Glock toward Franck's body. "I'm afraid you will have to carry him yourself."

Marten stared at him, then handed Anne the photographs, picked up Franck's body, and carried it toward the Peugeot.

Kovalenko opened the trunk, and Marten laid Franck inside. He looked at him just as Kovalenko closed the lid. The once fearsome uber-cop with the shaved head, leather jacket, and immense reputation was now stone dead with half of his skull blown away. A mutilated corpse, nothing else. Murdered where he had stood. How many times had he seen that as a homicide investigator in L.A.? Someone who had been alive one minute was lifeless the next. Yet this was different. Franck had not been killed at random, or because he was a gang member, or for money or drugs or over a woman, but for something much larger. The same something Father w.i.l.l.y and Marita and her students and G.o.d only knew how many hundreds or thousands of Equatorial Guineans had been killed for. Maybe Theo Haas, too, but he still wasn't sure about that. The trouble was, he had no idea what that something was.

Oil?

Maybe.

At the moment it was the G.o.d of everyone on the planet. But something didn't fit. SimCo was arming the rebels, not trying to protect Striker's workers from them.

"The photographs, tovarich." Kovalenko turned the Glock automatic toward Anne and the envelope in her hands. "Any number of interested parties thought he might have mailed them. They were right. Let's get out of this sun and see what they are."

Marten looked at him and then at the Glock. "After all this time you need that with me?"

Kovalenko smiled. "For now, tovarich, I think it is best."

12:35 P.M.

72.

Ninety seconds later they were inside the house, the front door closed, standing in the hallway. Franck's submachine gun was slung over Kovalenko's shoulder, the Glock still in his hand. Anne and Marten stood in front of him, the envelope open, the photos spread out on the wooden table. Marten turned them over one by one.

"Him," Kovalenko said suddenly and pointed a finger at a photo of Conor White. "This man is Conor White."

"I know," Marten said.

"He's one of those following you."

"As I suspected."

"You know him, then?"

"I met him in pa.s.sing." Marten glanced at Anne.

"Be very careful, tovarich. He is a highly decorated former British combat officer with a great deal to lose personally if these"-he touched the stack of photos-"are made public."

"I know that, too."

Anne was staring at Kovalenko. "Who else is following us?"

"Two of his fighters." Kovalenko reached out a finger and pushed aside the photos until he found the one he wanted, the one showing Patrice and Irish Jack in a helicopter doorway. "These."

Anne exchanged glances with Marten, then looked back to Kovalenko. He wasn't telling her everything. "You said 'others.' Who are they? Your people? Who and how many?"

"As far as I know, only one, Ms. Tidrow. The head of your own company."

"Sy Wirth?"

Kovalenko nodded. "He is, or at least was, traveling separately and feeding information about your position to White and his men. Where any of them are now I don't know."

"Where did Wirth get this timely information he was pa.s.sing on?" Marten said, then deliberately looked at Anne.

"Don't even think it," she snapped. "I haven't talked to him since we were in Malabo." She nodded at Kovalenko. "Why don't you ask him how he knows all this."

Kovalenko smiled easily. "Moscow."

There was no smile from Marten. "I should be surprised, but I'm not. I suppose Moscow knew about Jacob Cadiz, too."

"It took a little time, but yes."

"Why would Father w.i.l.l.y send the photographs to him and not his brother? Was he that close a friend?"

Kovalenko c.o.c.ked his head and grinned. "You honestly don't know."

"Know what?"

Kovalenko's free hand swept around, indicating the house. "This is the place Theo Haas came to work and get out of the Berlin cold and the public spotlight of a n.o.bel laureate. He didn't want people coming around bothering him, so he used the name Jacob Cadiz. He spoke Portuguese well; few people knew." Abruptly his expression changed. He put the photos aside and picked up the folded white envelope with the camera's digital memory card inside. "What is this?"

Marten didn't answer.

Kovalenko unfolded it and slid out the card. "Ah," he said, smiling, "the cake's frosting." Suddenly his eyes found Marten's. "You've looked at its contents."

"Some, not all."

"Where is the computer you were using to view it?"

"In the other room," Marten said quietly, still trying to understand what Kovalenko was doing here and why Moscow was involved.

"I was a.s.signed before I knew you were in the middle of it," Kovalenko said as if he had read Marten's thoughts. "Moscow has been watching the developments in Equatorial Guinea closely. She is always intrigued when a Western oil company shows undue interest in an area and begins building up its operation there, especially in West Africa, where there are potentially large untapped reserves. If something should prove of value it would be strategically unfortunate if other countries, especially the Chinese, got to bid on it first. I'm sure you can appreciate that kind of thinking. It's merely good business."

"So one would think."

73.

12:54 P.M.

Marten glanced at Kovalenko, then powered up Jacob Cadiz's computer and slid the memory card into its port. Anne was in a chair to his right. Kovalenko sat on a stool to one side and behind them, the Glock in his hand, Franck's Heckler & Koch machine gun still dangling from his shoulder.

"Let's see what we have, tovarich," he said as the screen came to life. Marten touched the mouse, and a photograph popped up on the monitor. It had been taken with a long lens and apparently from a hidden vantage point in the brush. It was a portrait of a bizarre picnic in the jungle. Six white wicker chairs were pulled up to a long table covered with a white linen cloth, two on either side, one at either end. Fine china, silverware, and expensive winegla.s.ses sat atop the table. White-gloved soldiers in the dress uniform of the Army of Equatorial Guinea stood by as waiters. Another of them carved a huge roast on a serving table nearby. Two more, in full dress and seemingly of high rank, were seated along one side of the linen-covered table. Opposite them were Conor White's lieutenants, Patrice and Irish Jack, dressed in their trademark tight black T-s.h.i.+rts and camouflage pants. Several more SimCo mercenaries stood in the background, their muscular arms crossed over their chests. All had buzz cuts and wore wraparound sungla.s.ses and had automatic pistols strapped to their thighs.

Conor White himself wore a tailored white suit with an open-collared starched white s.h.i.+rt and sat at one end of the table. Another man sat at the far end, his back to the camera.

"Go to the next," Kovalenko said.

Marten touched the mouse, and the next photo came up. In it the other man was revealed. He was older, had jet black eyes, and wore the dress uniform of an Equatorial Guinean army general.

"Mariano," Marten said, surprised.

"Generalissimo Mariano Vargas Fuente. You know him?" Kovalenko marveled.

"I had the pleasure of being interrogated by a unit of the Equatorial Guinean army. He sat in on the party."

"You were lucky not to be butchered on the spot. He's Chilean. Was once an officer in the Directorate of National Intelligence under Augusto Pinochet. He was personally responsible for the death squads and the unspeakable horrors they committed. Thousands of people vanished under his watch, and then he suddenly-"

"Disappeared into the jungles of Central America," Marten finished for him. "Or so I was told. How did he get to Equatorial Guinea and when?"

"He was living under an a.s.sumed name in southern Spain. That was until your friend Conor White recruited him for the Equatorial Guinean army."

"White?"

"Yes, but secretly. President Tiombe thinks he did it alone. Sought out Mariano and paid him a fortune to run the E.G. counterinsurgency."

"Why?" Marten was mystified.

"For Mr. Tiombe to demonstrate to the people that this is how he handles troublemakers."

"He doesn't know White set it up?"

"Probably not."

Marten looked sharply to Anne. "Did Striker Oil order White to arrange the Mariano contract?"

"I don't know. Maybe it was Sy Wirth's doing with Loyal Truex pulling strings. Maybe White did it for his own reasons. However it happened, I had no knowledge of it."

"There seems to be a lot you don't know about your own company."

"That's why I'm here with you, darling, to find out." Anne's stare could have split Marten down the middle.

"Tovarich," Kovalenko said, mildly amused at their spat. "It makes no difference who ordered it. The thinking behind it was tactical. Fire up the insurgency through the army's brutal repression of it. Slaughter or terrify anything that moves, and do it theatrically. Men, women, children, the elderly, even animals. Burn them alive if you can. It brings the rebels together with astonis.h.i.+ng fervor. Word of it would give the insurgents sympathy from the outside. If the world were to-"

"Burn them alive?" Marten cut him off sharply. "You've seen the CIA briefing video."

"True." Kovalenko nodded. "Haupkommissar Franck worked both sides of the fence at the same time, for us and for the CIA. We knew, of course. So while he watched us, we watched him. The minute he learned that the priest killed in Equatorial Guinea was Theo Haas's brother, he requested the video briefings and began viewing them. The transmissions were simple enough for us to intercept and copy. I must tell you in all candor that we, too, were appalled by what we saw and what General Mariano was able to carry out so efficiently. Yes, we could leak the video, but who knows if blogs or other Internet aficionados don't already have it in hand? So why not let one of them take credit and keep us out of it. Besides, even if the video is never released, Tiombe's reign is nearly ended. Abba's rebel forces are too strong and impa.s.sioned for him to survive."

Marten stared at Kovalenko. What the h.e.l.l was so important in Equatorial Guinea that it would make White recruit someone like General Mariano and at the same time draw the attention of both the CIA and Russian intelligence, or whoever Kovalenko was working for-which was something he had never been able to find out, not even years before when their lives had been so profoundly intertwined.

Oil, as he had thought earlier?

Maybe. But oil was being found almost everywhere in West Africa, so that in itself it didn't seem enough to warrant attention like this. There had to be something more. Something else.

"You are puzzled, tovarich," Kovalenko said. "You would like some explanation as to what all this is centered on."

"Yes."

Kovalenko gestured with the Glock. "I think Ms. Tidrow might enlighten you. In this case I would believe what she tells you." He looked at Anne and smiled gently. "It's alright, you can tell him. We know."

Anne's eyes locked on Kovalenko's. There was no doubt at all that he did know and that Moscow knew, so there was no point in keeping it from Marten, not now.

"In that case, I will," she said and turned to him. "A little more than a year ago Striker engineers discovered a ma.s.sive oil reserve beneath the one we were already drilling. It's huge, probably fifty times bigger than the entire Saudi field, comparable in size to the North American Great Lakes, with a refining capacity of more than six million barrels a day, or roughly four times that of the Saudis. It's large enough to supply oil to three-quarters of the world for the next century.

"As soon as the find was confirmed, Sy Wirth called a meeting at Striker's Houston headquarters. Loyal Truex was there representing Hadrian as Striker's top security contractor. So was I and a handful of others, including Arnold Moss, our chief counsel. The general consensus was that the find was worth billions, if not trillions. But there was something else-it could be an enormously strategic energy supply for the United States, freeing us from any reliance at all on OPEC. Truex warned that it wouldn't be long before the CIA learned about it and did something to bring their protective influence to bear." Anne glanced at Kovalenko as if to say, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Immediately she looked back to Marten.