The Hadrian Memorandum Part 28

"He meant it was important for us to take the first step and get them on board right away. Sy didn't like it at all. He wanted no part of government interference on any level and said it was Truex's job, not the CIA's, to guard the find. The meeting ended on that note. As chairman and CEO of a closely held company like Striker he all but controls the board of directors and whatever else happens in the company. So if he wanted the find kept inside the company, it would have been. But now it seems clear the CIA was made aware of it anyway, maybe by Sy himself at some point, or Truex, I don't know. Who did it and when doesn't make any difference. The fact is the Agency is apparently doing everything it can to take command of the situation, including the retrieval of the photographs." Again Anne looked at Kovalenko. "How Moscow found out, I don't know either."

Marten was dumbstruck. So it was oil, an ocean of it.

"That's why no operatives from the Equatorial Guinean army followed me from Malabo," he mused out loud. "They were under Mariano's control and on the same side as SimCo, so they let Conor White do it instead." Suddenly he pushed back from the computer console and stood up.

His eyes went from Anne to Kovalenko, and then he looked away, trying to put it all together, to shape it into some coherent whole. Finally he stood and crossed the room to stand with his back to them.

"Tiombe controlled everything for years. Took the profits from the pumped crude and built riches for himself and his family while letting the people wallow in poverty. Finally they got angry and started to make demands on the government with Abba as their leader. Tiombe didn't like it and sent his troops in and the war began. Then Striker, already with leases in the area, had this ma.s.sive find." Abruptly he turned to face them.

"Why risk losing it to Tiombe, who might cancel the leases and throw them out of the country while he worked on a better deal with some bigger player?" Deliberately he looked to Kovalenko. "Maybe a country like China instead of a midlevel American oil company. Better to have the CIA in your pocket and help Abba. Send in Conor White and his mercenaries with armaments; become his friend and ally while at the same time secretly setting up Mariano on the other side to brutalize the army's response, thereby firing up the rebels even more and, who, in turn, bring in hundreds more fighters."

Marten came back across the room. His voice and manner, cold and cynical. "In two months or three or four, Tiombe is gone and Abba is in place, highly beholden to both SimCo and AG Striker. At White's suggestion, and Abba's agreement, the army will be dissolved, replaced by SimCo mercenaries, who will begin to mold Abba's ragged fighters into a national police force. Another couple of months and the people start to share in the oil wealth so long denied them. A little of it, anyway, but much more than they ever would have had under Tiombe. Clean water starts to flow. New roads, hospitals, decent housing, and schools are announced. A few months later construction begins. Then the big find is revealed, with the geologic details provided for authentication. Once that happens the shock wave will be enormous, politically, economically, and emotionally, as the West, especially, breathes a collective sigh of relief. Right?"

Kovalenko nodded. "And no outsider can touch it-not Sh.e.l.l, not Exxon/Mobil, not Rus sia, not China, not anyone-because Equatorial Guinea is a sovereign nation and because no one can compete with the power that much oil will bring. Overnight, tiny, poverty-stricken Equatorial Guinea will become the paradigm for a modern, peaceful, very successful third world country.

"The catch is that no matter what the public perceives, in essence, the country, its leaders, its army, its grateful population, and its biblical sea of petroleum will be owned not by its inhabitants but by Striker Oil, and will continue to be owned by it for the next hundred or more years."

Marten looked to Anne. "Is that what your father had in mind for the company's future? Fiscal growth through slaughter. Expansion by flamethrower."

Anne's eyes, her entire being, suddenly turned to fire. "You son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h b.a.s.t.a.r.d," she hissed.

"I simply asked you a question."

"No," she snapped. "It's not what my father had in mind!"

"The world changes, tovarich," Kovalenko interrupted, "and not always for the better." Immediately he stood up. "Time is short and I must leave. You have come a long and perilous way for the photographs, and so you may have them. I will take the memory card." Again he gestured with the Glock. "Would you please remove it from the computer and hand it to me?"

Marten looked at the gun. "If that's what you want, that's what you get," he said flatly, then went to Jacob Cadiz's desk, leaned in, and popped the memory card from the external port that rested on top of the CPU unit. He glanced at Anne, then looked at Kovalenko.

"Maybe you'd like it better if I put it in the envelope it came in." Marten's tone was acidic, even sardonic. "Make it neat and tidy and easy to carry so you won't lose it."

"Thank you, tovarich. You are most considerate."

Marten shuffled through the pile of photographs, found the letter-sized envelope the memory card had been in, and dropped the card into it. Folding it, he snapped an elastic band around it and handed it to the Russian. "Sealed with a kiss," he said.

Kovalenko smiled broadly and stuffed it into his pocket. "As always, it was good to see you, tovarich. Though too many years have pa.s.sed. Your dear sister, Rebecca, is well and still in Switzerland?"

"Yes."

"Give her my regards. Perhaps one day we will all holiday together."

With a nod at Anne, Kovalenko started for the door.

"One more thing, tovarich," Marten called after him. "Why did you kill the Hauptkommissar when you could have strung him along for years longer?" Kovalenko turned back, the Glock still in his hand. "You had an unknowing mole in both the CIA and the Berlin police," Marten said. "He would have continued to be of immense value."

"Once we had the photographs he was to kill you and Ms. Tidrow," Kovalenko said quietly. "It was his a.s.signment. It would have been bad manners for me to let that happen. Don't you agree?"

Abruptly he slid the Glock into his belt, then took Franck's Heckler & Koch machine gun from his shoulder and leveled it at them. Marten's eyes went to it; so did Anne's.

"So you do it, instead of him," Marten said coldly. "Then everyone's out of the picture."

"After all we have been through together, tovarich? You embarra.s.s me with your distrust." The roundish, bearded Russian gave a great teddy bear grin. "What I think is that you will have trouble still. Especially from this Conor White. More so now that the photographs are in your possession." Immediately his free hand went to his belt. He lifted the Glock from it and tossed it to Marten, then slid an ammunition clip from his jacket pocket and flipped it to him as well. "Fifteen-round magazine. A similar magazine is in the pistol, except that one round has been used. It means you have twenty-nine shots left." He paused and let his eyes go to Anne; then they came back to Marten. "Your rental car-four-door silver Opel Astra, license plate number 93-AA-71. The Portuguese police have that information."

"As the late Hauptkommissar said."

"They will not be watching now because he had called them off. But be very careful where you go next, tovarich." Kovalenko let the slightest grin escape. "I trust we remain the best of friends and that you will not use my own weapon against me. If you did you would then have two bodies to explain." He nodded at Anne, then, just like that, turned for the door and was gone.

They watched through the window as he walked up the gravel driveway to the Peugeot with Franck's body in the trunk. A moment later he got in, started the engine, and drove off.

Marten waited until he disappeared from view at the top of the driveway, half expecting a phalanx of police to suddenly materialize and start down toward them. It didn't happen. Most likely because Franck, as Kovalenko had said, had called them off. He gave it another thirty seconds, then went down the hallway and began gathering the photographs.

Anne was watching the driveway. "Conor and his men won't be far behind."

"White's not our only concern." Marten slipped the pictures into the plastic wrapping and then into the envelope. "Kovalenko's got to leave the car somewhere. Once Franck's body is found, every cop in Europe will be looking for us thinking we killed him. And there won't be a lot of confusion about where to start. Right here."

1:21 P.M.

74.

STILL PRAIA DA ROCHA, THE SANTA CATARINA FORTRESS.

SAME TIME.

The old fort was at the eastern end of Avenida Tomas Cabreira and on the banks of the Rio Arade near its mouth, where it emptied into the sea. It had been constructed in 1621 to defend the cities of Silves and Portimo from Moors and Spanish pirates. Now it was little more than a tourist attraction, a series of ancient stone buildings and a small chapel devoted to St. Catherine of Alexandria, its terrace giving sweeping views of the Atlantic, the river, and Praia da Rocha's beaches and sandstone cliffs. It also was a place for Josiah Wirth and Conor White to meet while they tried to put together what went wrong and if there was yet a way to do something about it.

Some fifty yards distant, Patrice and Irish Jack sat in a black Toyota Land Cruiser in the fortress's parking lot watching them. They could see Wirth pacing back and forth on the terrace talking vigorously into his BlackBerry while White stood patiently nearby, the bright suns.h.i.+ne reflecting like a s.h.i.+mmering wall off the sea behind them.

Irish Jack lifted a pair of binoculars and pointed them in their direction. Immediately both men came into close focus. A second later, Wirth clicked off the Blackberry and stared off in disgust.

"Maybe your friend has nothing to report, Mr. Wirth, and that is the reason he hasn't been in contact." Conor White was deliberately composed and accommodating, desperately trying to remain civil to a man he wholly detested. "Maybe his people were on top of Marten and he sidestepped them, like he did all of us in Malaga. Maybe he's still somewhere here in Praia da Rocha. Try your friend again. He might be in a dead zone, or something's wrong with his cell. Maybe by now he has it working and knows something."

"He isn't in a dead zone for more than an hour. There's nothing wrong with his cell, either. He's not taking my calls because he doesn't want to."

"Then something went wrong with Anne and Marten."

"Nothing went wrong," Wirth spat angrily, then lifted the BlackBerry again and walked off to stare out at the Atlantic where a dozen or more sailboats were pa.s.sing by in some sort of regatta.

White could see him punch in a number, then wait while it rang through. Seconds later he clicked off, then clicked on again and apparently tried another number.

What happened between the time Wirth had given them Praia da Rocha as Marten's destination and the time they arrived to take care of him, there was no way to know. But at this stage Wirth was clearly in a state of what White called controlled emotional upheaval. Not much different from the behavior he'd observed over the few months he'd known him. Yet his emotional state now was the worst he'd seen and the cracks were beginning to show. Clearly he felt he'd been double-crossed, cut out of the picture at the last moment. Not only was he outraged that it had happened, he didn't know what the h.e.l.l to do about it.

Before, when they'd been close on Marten's tail, when they'd finally learned where he'd landed and then gone, there had been every expectation that they would soon recover the photographs and their fears would come to an end. Seemingly that was no longer the case. If whoever this third party was that Wirth had engaged to track Marten down had intercepted him along the way and retrieved the photos, he/she/they would have known something of what was in them from the beginning. Meaning they had planned all along to recover them for their own purposes. Meaning, too, that White's long-held fear that the Striker chairman had gotten in far over his head had suddenly become a horrendous reality. If he'd hated Josiah Wirth before, he hated him more now than anyone he'd ever met. And that included his father.

"Conor," Wirth called sharply, then turned and came excitedly toward him. "An envelope has been sent to my hotel in Faro."

"The photographs?" White felt a jolt of impossible hope, as if some wild ray of good fortune had suddenly and unbelievably s.h.i.+ned down from above. Maybe there was a chance yet. Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe Wirth wasn't the fool he thought.

"All I was told was that an envelope was being messengered to the hotel." Wirth started for the parking lot and the black Land Cruiser. "We won't know what's in it until we get there."

1:42 P.M.

75.

LIVROS USADOS GRANADA. 1:47 P.M.

Stump Logan was behind the checkout counter as they came in. They were hot and sweaty and looking as if they had just walked a considerable distance in the midday heat and done so quickly.

"I wonder if we might use your office for a few minutes," Marten said intensely, squinting a little as his eyes adjusted from the bright sun outside to the relative darkness of the store. Anne was just behind him.

"My office," Logan said flatly, peering through his thick gla.s.ses, first at Marten, then at Anne, and then back to Marten. Marten had a large padded envelope tucked under his arm. Something he hadn't seen on the couple's first visit.

"Actually I think Anne would like to use the restroom first," Marten said. "That is, if you have one."

Logan studied him a moment longer, then looked at Anne. "All the way to the back and down a flight of stairs into the bas.e.m.e.nt. It's not much, but it works."

"Thank you." Anne glanced at Marten and went off in the direction the book dealer had sent her.

Logan lifted the gla.s.ses and looked at Marten intently. "You're in trouble."

"More than a little. I'm afraid we need your help, and badly."

Just then a middle-aged couple came in and began to look over the books in the front of the store. "Why don't you see to them," Marten said quickly. "If it's alright, I'll wait in your office."

Logan nodded toward the back. "You know where it is."

"Thank you."

Marten walked off. Other than the couple who had just entered there were no other customers. The only employee he saw was the thirty-something woman with short dark hair and a light summer dress who'd been at the checkout counter when they'd come in the first time. She was on the far side of the room with her back to him, intent on rearranging a display of books.

It had all been planned. They'd left the rented Opel in a parking area near the beach, then walked to the only refuge they knew, Logan's bookstore. The whole way they'd looked for both the police and Conor White, who they knew had to be closing in on them in one way or another. The idea had been to get to Logan's store as quickly as possible, then get him alone, tell him as much of the story as was necessary, and ask for his help. They were taking a chance, but there was nowhere else to go, and he'd helped before. Now they were praying he'd do it again, if for no other reason than his past relations.h.i.+p with Theo Haas and Father w.i.l.l.y. The idea of sending Anne to the restroom had come to Marten as they entered-give him a chance to work Logan singly, man on man, before she came fully into the picture. At least that was what he'd told her. What he really wanted was to find a way to be alone for a few minutes so that he could call President Harris and tell him where he was and what had happened. He hadn't been sure how he would do it, but then the middle-aged couple had come in and the problem had been solved, at least for the moment.

Just ahead was the door to Logan's office. Marten opened it and went in.

1:59 P.M.

8:59 A.M. IN CAMP DAVID, MARYLAND.

President Harris had been sequestered in a small study off his bedroom for the last two hours. Note pad and pencil at his sleeve, he was taking yet another maddening pa.s.s, trying to cut fat from the proposed new federal budget when the slate gray cell phone on the table next to him rang. It startled him, and for a moment he did nothing; then it rang again. Immediately he realized what it was, and picked up.

"Where are you? What happened? Are you alright?" he spat emotionally, the words run together like a jet stream of consciousness.

"Praia da Rocha. The back office of a used-book store."

In ninety seconds Marten told him everything. Recovering the photographs. Striker's ma.s.sive oil find in Bioko and Moscow's knowledge of it. That Anne was still with him. Kovalenko's arrival with Franck and subsequent killing of him. That Franck had been working for the CIA. His own fear that a huge police dragnet would be put out for him once Franck's body was found. Everything, that was, but the business about Kovalenko and the camera's memory card. That was something that could wait for later.

"What about Joe Ryder?" Marten asked at the end. Marten asked at the end.

"He's left Iraq and is on his way to Rome and then Lisbon, where he'll meet you," the president said. "He'll be at the Four Seasons Ritz, but not until tomorrow morning at the earliest. He has a dinner tomorrow night with Lisbon's mayor. The whole thing has been played as a courtesy call on his way back to Was.h.i.+ngton. The mayor's wife and Ryder's support the same international charity, so it's a logical cover. It's a long way from Iraq to Portugal, so you should have more than enough time to get to Lisbon even if you have to slow it down. The question is, police or not, can you do it? Can you get there?"

"What about a safe house?"

"One has been set up for you in Lisbon, a small apartment in the old part of the city, the Bairro Alto"-Harris picked up a notebook from the table and opened it-"number seventeen Rua do Almada. Ask for a woman named Raisa Amaro. She lives in a flat on the first floor. She knows you're coming. It's not fancy, but it'll do until Ryder arrives. Go there and stay there. He'll know where you are and how to get in touch. So again, can you get there? If you don't think so, I'll try to arrange something else."

"We'll get there."

"Good. Call me the minute you're safe. I'll take the information you gave me and work on it. If the oil field is what you say it is, the find is hugely strategic. No matter what you think of them, Striker's done a great job of keeping it quiet. Still, the handling of the rest from here on in, your end to mine, has to be done with extreme caution. None of this can get out."

"Cousin," Marten warned, Marten warned, "don't go near the CIA. Something is still very wrong." "don't go near the CIA. Something is still very wrong."

"The Lisbon station chief already knows Ryder's coming. But that's all he knows. Ryder will be under the protection of the State Department's Regional Security Office. The RSO will coordinate his movements, but they won't know about you or Ms. Tidrow. Joe Ryder's pretty resourceful. He'll find a way for you to meet him alone."

"Thank you, my friend," Marten said quietly, gratefully. Marten said quietly, gratefully.

"You're the one to thank, cousin. Take d.a.m.n good care of yourself. Good luck and G.o.dspeed."

2:06 P.M.

Marten clicked off just as Logan's door opened. Anne came in, followed by Stump Logan.

Anne looked at the cell phone in Marten's hand, then at Marten. "Are we disturbing something?"

"An old girlfriend."

"An old girlfriend? Right now, in the middle of all this?"