by Allan Folsom
“Yes, Hauptkommissar, they must be.” Kovalenko’s eyes zeroed in on Franck’s. “Breathlessly.”
9:43 A.M.
PORTIMÃO. 10:18 A.M.
Marten turned the Opel south, circumventing the city. He’d judiciously watched the rearview mirror for most of the trip. If they were being followed there was still no sign of it. Nor had there been any close-in air traffic, helicopters or civilian aircraft, to suggest they were being watched from above. Satellite tracking was always a possibility via the car’s GPS system, but satellite operators would have had to have been alerted, and that was something that took time and required several layers of authorization before it would be put into effect. The thing was, at this point, they seemed to be ahead of their pursuers, and so the complications almost didn’t matter. He was too close to the end to do anything but go for it and hope everything worked out. Still, he knew he had to be ever cautious of Anne and remember how much was at stake all the way around. If he could wish for anything now it would be a gun, the more powerful the better.
10:20 A.M.
The distance from Portimão to Praia da Rocha was short, two miles at best. They were traveling south under a high sun. Mist rolling in from the sea intensified the brightness and gave everything a dangerous glare, making it hard to see without squinting. To their left was the wide estuary of the Rio Arade that flowed from the inland mountains to Portimão and from there into the Atlantic between Praia da Rocha on the western shore and Ferragudo on the eastern. They were almost there, and Marten felt his pulse rise in anticipation. All they had to do now was drive into the city and, with luck, locate Avenida Tomás Cabreira and then this Jacob Cádiz at a livros usados, which Marten had roughly translated as a used-book store.
10:32 A.M.
Avenida Tomás Cabreira turned out to be Praia da Rocha’s main drag. It was jammed with hotels and shops and restaurants and overlooked jagged sea cliffs and a beach far below that was dotted with rows of bright umbrellas and an uncountable number of semi-dressed beachgoers.
10:50 A.M.
They had driven the avenue itself twice and now were doing it again. What they saw this time was what they had seen before. Traffic, tourists, the Hotel da Rocha, the Hotel Jupiter, restaurant La Dolce Vita, restaurant A Portuguesa, restaurant Esplanada Oriental, bars, outdoor cafés, curio shops, a bank, a pharmacy, and several bakeries. But no bookstores, new or used.
“Used books. You’re sure?” Anne asked.
“That’s what Theo Haas told me.”
“No name for it.”
“All he said was livros usados, Avenida Tomás Cabreira.’ ” Marten knew he couldn’t expect to just show up and go right to it. Still, it should have been easy enough to find on a main street like Tomás Cabreira. But clearly it wasn’t here. So where was it? Closed? Moved to another location? Or had it never been here? Had Haas wholly distrusted him and sent him on a road to nowhere? If so, had he come all this way for nothing? Were the photographs still somewhere in Berlin?
“Christ,” Marten swore under his breath. He glanced around. A group of teenagers waved cheerfully, no doubt tickled by what seemed to be lost tourists who were chugging down the street for the third time in less than ten minutes. The driver of a car behind them honked impatiently, then suddenly sped up, passed in traffic, and cut sharply in front of them. Still no used-book store. Marten looked at his watch: 10:55 A.M.
The longer it took to unravel the puzzle, the more important time itself became. Slowed as they were and with no goal in sight, they were giving whoever was following them every opportunity to find out where they had landed and then pick up their trail. If they were CIA they would have had assets on the ground to begin with. Assets who could easily tap into car rental agency records, find Anne’s name and what make of car she had rented and its license number. Once they had that, finding them would relatively easy; then all they had to do was lie back and watch until they recovered the photos. Then what? If one of them happened to be Conor White, they could look to the same fate that had befallen Marita and her medical students in Spain. More than ever he wished he had a gun.
“Pull over,” Anne said suddenly.
“Why?”
“Just pull over.”
Marten did, sliding to a stop in a bus zone. Without a word she got out and approached two elderly men chatting outside a bar. They looked at her and then at each other, then back to her. The first man, plump, with a wrinkled hat and a dark suit with even more wrinkles, smiled. Then a finger came up and he pointed behind them and up a narrow alley. Anne grinned and nodded, then patted him gently on the cheek and came back to the car.
“It’s called “Granada.” Up the alley in the back.”
“How the hell did you do that?”
“You may remember I was in El Salvador, darling.” She slid in next to him. “A little Spanish goes a long way in this world, even in Portugal. Besides, a good CIA op, retired or not, can sell almost anything to anyone. It’s in their blood.”
“What did you sell?”
“A smile . . . from a not so unattractive forty-two-year-old woman.”
10:59 A.M.
68
HOTEL LARGO, FARO, PORTUGAL. 11:02 A.M.
Ten minutes earlier Sy Wirth had checked in, gone to his room, and immediately put in a call to Dimitri Korostin only to get the Russian’s voice mail. It was the fourth call and voice mail response in the thirty-odd minutes since his Gulfstream had touched down at Faro International Airport. Each time he’d left word for Korostin to call him back immediately. So far he’d had no reply.
He called again. Once more he got the voice mail. This time he left no word, just clicked off. This was crazy. They’d been in contact ever since he’d left Berlin. Now, at the most crucial moment of all, there was nothing but silence.
Conor White’s Falcon had landed, and he and the others were at the airport waiting for word and ready to go. But to w here? Korostin’s men should have long ago been on the ground. By now, theoretically at least, they would know where Marten was. But theoretically was just that, nothing. He couldn’t send White after Marten if he didn’t know where he had gone. And he couldn’t know that without Korostin telling him. The whole thing was very nearly a replay of what had happened when Marten dodged them all at the airport in Málaga, disabling the hidden transmitter and flying off for parts unknown. Now he was on the ground somewhere here with all kinds of land routes open to him. If they’d lost him this time there was every chance he would recover the photographs and disappear into the countryside. Then what? Sit back and wait for the pictures to be made public?
Then, and maybe darker still, there was Korostin himself. He knew how important the pictures were. What if his people already had Marten? If they retrieved the photographs and looked at them out of sheer prurient interest expecting to see illicit sex, it wouldn’t take long for them to realize what they really had, and Wirth would never know until it was too late. By then Korostin would have not only the pictures but also the Santa Cruz–Tarija gas field. Depending on what he did with the photos—turning them over to the Russian government would be the worst—he might very well lose the Bioko field as well.
He went into the bathroom and washed his hands and face, then stared at himself in the mirror. What had he done? The idea that Korostin might somehow double-cross him had never entered his mind. This was his own doing. His alone. Even his chief counsel, Arnold Moss, had no idea he’d made a deal with Korostin. Only Conor White knew someone else was involved, but he had no idea who it was.
Wirth cursed himself with every word he knew. Why he had so blindly trusted the Russian? Inviting him to secretly partake in the greatest triumph of his life had been insane. It was like taking a lover and trusting her with all kinds of intimate secrets only to have her destroy your marriage and family and afterward run off with the company.
Half panicked and full of rage, he went back into the other room and picked up the BlackBerry, determined to try Korostin again. No
sooner was it in his hand than it rang.
“Yes,” he snapped.
“Josiah, you call me every five minutes. You’re giving me a headache. Where the hell are you?” Dimitri Korostin’s voice rumbled through the receiver.
“Faro. Where the hell are your people?”
“There and gone.”
“To where? Do they know where Marten is?”
“They have rented a car and left the city. That’s all I know. When I have more I will tell you.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“Josiah, it’s all I have. Trust me.”
“Trust you?”
“Yes, trust me.” Korostin paused. “I think maybe you are getting nervous again. Don’t, there is no need.”
“The terms of our contract, Dimitri. I am to be there when the pictures are recovered. They are to be brought directly to me unopened.”
“I think I was right about the pictures compromising you. Very personal, yes? You and a woman. Or several women. Or men? Doing what, Josiah? We’re all human. We do things. We aren’t perfect. What makes these photographs so special you can’t live another hour without them?”
“That’s my business.”
“Josiah, you will be there when the pictures are recovered. They will be delivered to you right away. The terms of the contract. You have my word.”
There was a click and Wirth’s BlackBerry went dead.
11:15 A.M.
Sy Wirth sat at a corner table in the hotel’s Santo Antonio restaurant staring blankly out over the harbor. The two BlackBerrys were on the table in front of him, the one with the blue-tape closest. A waiter came and took his order—coffee and fresh fruit. Maybe he was being crazy. Maybe Dimitri had been right when he told him to calm down. There was a big payoff for him, so why would he double-cross Wirth, especially as he had promised during their meeting in London that the Santa Cruz–Tarija gas field could be the first of many deals they might work on together. Why would he do something stupid and jeopardize the future? Moreover, the photographs would have to be in some kind of package, meaning that he and his men might not even look at them. Just deliver them as promised. They would know what they were because Marten would have them in his possession.
So take it easy, he told himself. Calm down. So far everything they had plotted from Berlin to here, even with the delays, had worked. Now came the waiting game; it happened in almost every business transaction, and as anxiety-provoking as it was, it wasn’t unreasonable.
He glanced at the blue-tape BlackBerry. Conor White was nearby and waiting. He could wait a few minutes longer.
Wirth picked up the other BlackBerry, hit the speed dial, and called Arnold Moss’s personal cell phone. It was almost five twenty in the morning in Houston. Whether Moss was up or not made little difference. If things were going to come off as planned, at some point soon White would go into action, and Wirth needed to officially cover the state of affairs. It was something his general counsel would understand immediately and afterward dictate for transcription to be included in the Striker corporate record under MINUTES OF THE DAY.
“Good morning, Sy.” Moss picked up at once. If he’d woken from sleep it wasn’t evident. “Where are you?”
“Faro, Portugal.”
“I thought you were headed to Barcelona.”
“I was. Conor White called several hours ago telling me he was on his way here and asked me to meet him. I’ve only just arrived. He said it was urgent but didn’t say why or what it was. From the sound of his voice I’d say it was more than urgent, it was critical. Frankly I’m hesitant to call him because I don’t know what’s going on. I’d rather have him come to me and explain it.”
“You think Hadrian should be advised?”
“Probably. But again I don’t know. Hadrian and SimCo have their own arrangements. If what’s going on here has to do with Striker, I’m completely in the dark about it.”
“Have you heard from him since you arrived?”
“No. Not yet.”
“If he asked you to meet him the way he did, I’d say Hadrian should be advised right away. Let them get in the middle of it, or at the least advise us as to what’s going on. Want me to call Loyal Truex?”
“No, I’ll do it. He still with Joe Ryder in Iraq?”
“Yes.”
“Go back to whatever you were doing, Arnie. I’ll be in touch later.”
“Good luck.”
“Indeed.”
Wirth clicked off just as his breakfast came.
“Will there be anything else, sir?” his waiter asked.
Wirth looked up. “Not just now, thank you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Wirth watched him go, then picked up the BlackBerry, looked at it, and set it back down. Loyal Truex was in Iraq. Wirth’s story would be that he had tried to get through to him but couldn’t get a connection and so would try again later. Meaning no call would be made to Truex until the photographs had been recovered and Nicholas Marten and Anne Tidrow were dead, with Conor White and his men in the custody of Portuguese authorities charged with their killing and the suspicion of their involvement in the Madrid farmhouse murders. All of it topped, as Wirth would put it to Truex, by the chilling sense that because White had asked him to meet him there and because of what had happened to Anne, he’d meant to kill him, too. That way, and quite clearly, Truex would have been informed of the extent of Conor White’s derangement.
11:09 A.M.
69
PRAIA DA ROCHA, LIVROS USADOS GRANADA. 11:12 A.M.
Bright and steamy hot outside, inside the Granada used-book store was dark and cool with classical music playing softly in the background. There were five small, interconnecting rooms, each with floor-to-ceiling shelves and large floor bins, all of them crammed to overflowing with thousands of used books in a dozen or more languages.
A thirty-something woman with short dark hair and wearing a light summer dress was behind the checkout counter as Anne and Marten came in. Beyond her Marten could count eight people scattered throughout the rooms, browsing, reading. If there were more he couldn’t see them.
He casually slipped a Livros Usados Granada business card from a wooden holder near the door and was about to approach the woman at the checkout counter when a roly-poly man in thick glasses with a great mane of gray hair appeared from a back room. He was probably in his late fifties and wore a black short-sleeved polo shirt with LIVROS USADOS GRANADA stenciled in white over the left-hand breast pocket. Marten could see two worn volumes tucked under his arm as he passed from one room to the next coming toward them. When he reached the adjoining room, he stopped to converse with a slim blond woman in white jeans.
Anne nodded toward him. “Cádiz?” she mouthed.
“Maybe,” Marten said quietly. “Watch the door,” he warned, then went into the other room.
Entering, he looked around absently, then poked through some books in a center-of-the-room bin while the man and the blond woman carried on a conversation in Portuguese. Finally the woman decided she wanted neither book, thanked the man, who by now clearly appeared to be the proprietor, and promptly left. He watched her go, then turned to take the volumes back to wherever he had gotten them. As he did, Marten approached him. “Excuse me, do you speak English?”
The man turned back. “What is it you want to know?” he said quietly in what sounded like everyday American English.
“Are you Jacob Cádiz?”
“Why?” He looked at Marten carefully.
“A friend sent me to find him.”
“Man or woman?”
“A man.”
“My name is Stump Logan. Originally from Chicago. What do you want with Jacob Cádiz?”
“As I said, a friend—”
“Who?” Logan cut him off. “What’s his name?”
“Does Cádiz work here?”
“What is your friend’s name? Why did you come to my shop looking for Cádiz?”
Marten glanced at A
nne, standing near the cashier in the outer room. Roly-poly and bespectacled or not, Stump Logan was no pushover. And he wasn’t just a guy transplanted from the Windy City. His edge, the way he looked at you, gave him the feel of a rough-hewn social worker or maybe an old Chicago cop, or something in between. Whatever it was, Marten felt he had to take the chance and tell him the truth. He looked around and then back to Logan.
“My name is Nicholas Marten. Theo Haas gave me Cádiz’s name and pointed me here to your store. I was with him in Berlin just before he was killed. The police think I did it, but I didn’t. I knew his brother, too, Father Willy Dorhn. I met with him just a few days ago in Bioko. I was there when an army patrol killed him. Theo sent me here to find Jacob Cádiz. He said he would have something I might find useful. It has to do with the civil war in Equatorial Guinea.”
Stump Logan stared at Marten for a long moment, reading him. Suddenly he nodded toward Anne. “She with you?”
“Yes.”
“Get her and come with me.”
Stump Logan’s backroom office was as full of books as the rest of his shop—piled on shelves, on the floor, everywhere and anywhere there was room. Still he had managed to squeeze in an old steel desk and chair and two folding chairs in front of it. Logan ushered Marten and Anne toward them, studying one and then the other as they sat down.
“I knew Theo for thirty years,” he said finally. “He wouldn’t have told you to look up Cádiz on a lark. What he sent you to find I don’t know.” Logan reached for a note pad, scrawled an address on it, and gave it to Marten. “Number 517 Avenida João Paulo II. Follow it to the end, then look for an old wooden gate and a gravel drive down to the beach. That’s Cádiz’s house. He won’t be there. How you get in is your business.”
“Thank you, Mr. Logan. I mean it sincerely.” Marten stood, and Anne got up with him. “If anybody comes, we were never here.”