The Hadrian Memorandum Part 17

"Yes. You?"

"I'll be better when we're moving again. Where do we go from here?"

"Where is here, this house?"

"Potsdam. About a half hour outside of Berlin. It's Erlanger's home. He took a big chance bringing us to it. He'll still help, but we have to set things up as quickly as possible and get out. So, as I said, where do we go from here? Where are the photographs? Neither I nor Erlanger can do anything more until you give me a destination."

"Does Erlanger know about the pictures?"

"No."

Marten closed the door. "The whole trip, while I was twisted up in the dark in that little compartment over the wheel well, I was thinking of the cost."

"Of what?"

"The photographs. How many people are dead because of them. Bioko, Spain, Berlin. Who knows who'll be next or where it will happen?" He crossed to the window and looked out.

"What are you getting at?"

"That the best thing would be to get in touch with Hauptkommissar Franck and tell him where they are." He turned to look at her. "Let the German government have them and do what they think is right."

"That's not a very good conclusion."

"Maybe not. But under the circ.u.mstances it will do."

Suddenly Anne flared. "Where are the pictures, Nicholas?"

"I want the war stopped, Anne," Marten snapped back, his eyes riveted on her. "At the very least slowed to a crawl. The photographs will do that. The world media will pounce. Reporters, camera crews, everything. And not just to Equatorial Guinea but to Houston, where they will be all over Striker management, and to SimCo headquarters in England. There'll be tough questions about what's going on. Blogs and talk shows will pick it up. Politicians will get involved because they'll have to. And the subject won't disappear the way it always seems to about the Congo or Darfur or other African theaters of horror because an American oil company and its private military contractor are at the center of it."

"I want the killing stopped as much as you do. I told you that before."

"You also said you wanted the photos so you could threaten to turn them over to the Ryder Commission if your friends at Striker and Hadrian and SimCo didn't stop arming the insurgency."

"Yes."

"How do I know your real goal isn't simply to protect Striker? Get the pictures and destroy them."

"It's not."

"How do I know?"

Anne glared at him. "I'll ask you what I did yesterday. How much do you want for the photos? Name your price, anything you want."

"Anything?"

"Yes."

"I want you."

"Me?"

"Yes," he said quietly.

Anne was astounded. "For Christ's sake, Nicholas, after everything this is about s.e.x? You want to f.u.c.k me? Is that your price? Jesus G.o.d!"

"I don't want to f.u.c.k you you," he said as quietly as before. "I want you you to f.u.c.k your company." to f.u.c.k your company."

"What the h.e.l.l does that mean?"

"Conor White is prominent in a number of the photos."

"So. You've actually seen them." Anne smiled lightly as if she'd just achieved some sort of cruel victory.

"Some, not all." Marten stepped closer to her, as if to underscore the gravity of what he was telling her. "The point is Conor White is easily identifiable. Maybe you don't want to destroy the pictures, but he does because he's got a h.e.l.luva lot to lose if they're made public. Who he kills or how he gets them doesn't seem to make much difference. One way or another he's already responsible for the deaths of Father w.i.l.l.y and his brother, to say nothing of my Spanish friends. If you have the photos, Striker board member or not, CIA or not, he'll kill you as quickly as he will me."

Anne's eyes darted over his face. "I still don't know what you want me to do."

"If I bring you with me and we get the pictures, we take them to Joe Ryder himself. You tell him who you are and who Conor White is and that you want to do anything you can to stop the flow of weapons to the rebels, hoping that the State Department can then pressure Tiombe into ordering his fighters to stand down.

"Of course, that will lead to his wanting to know more, and you'll tell him about SimCo as a front company for Hadrian, which in turn will make him go after the Striker/Hadrian enterprise even harder than he already is. If he can prove Hadrian and SimCo are providing arms to the rebels at Striker's behest, your Mr. Sy Wirth and the other decision makers at Striker, as well as Conor White and the people running Hadrian, will be in for a very ugly time. Prison wouldn't be out of the question for anyone, you included. You said 'anything,' Anne. That's the price, otherwise-"

Abruptly there was a knock at the door. Erlanger's voice came through it. "I have coffee. Should I leave it outside?"

"Give us a minute, Hartmann," Anne said and looked back to Marten. "Otherwise, what?"

"Otherwise I'll think you want the photos to protect your company and its investments in Equatorial Guinea. I'll a.s.sume they sent you because you're a very attractive woman and you might use that against me-the way you already have, taking off your robe in the hotel, kissing me in the middle of the street with the police watching, sitting in nothing more than panties and a T-s.h.i.+rt with your nipples showing through as you told me the story of your life. And because you were CIA you would know better than most what the h.e.l.l you were doing and how to do it. You would have been trained for it."

For a moment Marten thought he was going to get slapped, but it didn't happen. Anne just stood there, breathing softly, staring at him in silence.

"That's the deal," he said finally. "Understand it?"

"Yes."

"Tell me you agree."

"How do you know you can trust me even if I do?"

"Because you just might be telling the truth about doing this for your father-for his memory, for the reputation of the company he built, and because you loved him. And because there's always Hauptkommissar Franck if you're not."

He could feel her nails come up. Her stare cut him in two, but she said nothing. Finally, she nodded almost imperceptibly.

"No, say it," he pressed her.

"I agree."

"To everything."

"To everything."

He looked at her for a long moment, judging her, deciding the next step. "We'll need a plane," he said finally. "Twin engine, civil aviation. Preferably a jet, a turboprop will do. Fifteen-hundred-mile range."

"The pilot will have to file a flight plan. He'll need to know where we're going."

"Tell him Malaga, on the south coast of Spain."

"Malaga?"

"Yes," he lied.

11:12 A.M.

46.

BERLIN, 11 GIESEBRECHTSTRa.s.sE. 12:55 P.M.

The meeting place was an expensive third-floor apartment in a building in the western part of the city near Kurfurstendamm. History books would reveal that in the 1930s it had been a high-cla.s.s brothel called Salon Kitty. In the Second World War it was still a brothel but used by the SD-the Sicherheitsdienst, the n.a.z.i security service-for espionage, primarily the secret recording of private conversations between chic prost.i.tutes, foreign diplomats, and German dignitaries who might become traitors. At the moment the s.p.a.ce was being used for a conversation between two people unconcerned with that distant past-Sy Wirth and Conor White.

"How many men do you have with you?" Wirth sat back from a small table where coffee and an arrangement of fresh fruit had been laid out.

"Two," White said.

"Skilled?"

"The best."

"Are two enough?"

"For now."

"Where are they?"

"Outside, in the rental car."

Wirth reached over and lifted a silver coffee urn and poured himself a cup, gesturing to White to do the same.

"No thanks."

"Spain went poorly," Wirth said.

"You mean that we learned nothing about the photographs."

"Yes."

"We did as you asked. They had no idea what we were talking about. They and those we employed, a limousine driver and a local gunman, took the truth of what happened there into eternity." White looked to the Striker chairman for any sign of remorse, or sense that he'd made a mistake ordering the operation. As he expected he saw none.

"Then this Nicholas Marten is the only one who knows."

"Ask Anne."

Sy Wirth glared at him, clearly not happy being talked back to. "Anne's not here. I'm asking you."

"If the pictures exist, Marten knows where they are. That's what she said. Otherwise she wouldn't still be with him."

Suddenly Wirth s.h.i.+fted gears. "What went wrong at the airport in Paris when they arrived from Malabo? Anne had him in sight when the others lost him. Then she lost him, too. Except several hours later she found him here in Berlin."

"Apparently she lost him on purpose so she could go after him herself."

"Why would she do that?"

"Maybe she doesn't think the rest of us are capable. Maybe some other reason. I don't know."

Sy Wirth took a sip of coffee and held the liquid in his mouth, as if he were using the moment to think; then he set the cup down. "When was the last time you spoke with her?"

"This morning."

"What did she say?"

"Essentially what she sent in her text message yesterday-that she was in Berlin with Marten and not to come after her, and not to believe anything we saw in the media. As far as I know she's not been publicly identified. Or has she?"

"Not that I'm aware of. Not yet."

"Then the police must be on to both of them or they would have had her picture all across the German media, the way Marten's is." White kept his manner purposely calm. He was still upset with himself for telling Wirth to "ask Anne." His profound dislike of the Texan had ruled for the moment, and he didn't like it. He wouldn't make the same mistake again.

Wirth glanced at his watch and then stood. "I have to go. Bring your men here and wait for my call. Hopefully I'll have some idea where Anne is and if Marten is still with her."

"You will," White said flatly.

"Yes."

For the next few seconds White said nothing; then he stood as well, all six feet four of him. "Where will this information come from?" he said respectfully.

"That's my business."

"You've hired a third party."

"No, Mr. White. I've simply made an arrangement."

"I see."

Now they were back to the beginning and White's deepest fear: that a man too rich, too powerful, and too single-minded, who was used to micromanaging everything, had suddenly distrusted everyone around him and turned elsewhere for solutions. That might be alright in a business deal; all you could lose was money. But in a situation like this he would be venturing into very cold and dangerous waters, and in doing so trusting people far more experienced, self-serving, and ruthless than he. It was a blueprint for disaster, and he was risking everything because of it.

You stupid b.a.s.t.a.r.d, White wanted to say. He didn't.