“Faro,” he said again, then slid past them and into his seat and buckled in. Seconds later the first, then the second and then the third of the Falcon’s turbofan jet engines came to life. Almost immediately the plane started to move.
White clipped on his headset, listening to the conversation between his pilot and the tower; then he looked to Patrice. “Get in touch with Spitfire/Madrid. Tell them we want an SUV waiting on the Faro tarmac when we get there.”
“Yes, sir.” Patrice nodded and slid a cell phone from his pocket.
“Where’d you get the info, Col o nel?” Irish Jack grinned with the kind of enthusiasm he always had when he knew action was near. “Same little bird that’s been feeding us all along?”
“Same little bird, Jack. Same little bird.” White sat back as the Falcon banged over the tarmac toward the runway. Irish Jack liked to use playful, almost childlike descriptions of people or things. Where that came from he didn’t know, probably his youth. That aside, White was well aware that both Irish Jack and Patrice knew it was Sy Wirth who had been communicating with him all along.
That was alright for them, but for White the bigger question was, where was Wirth getting his information? Just who was this third party he’d brought into the picture, and how was he keeping tabs on Marten and Anne with such speed and accuracy? Whoever it was was either extremely sophisticated or highly connected, or both. He didn’t like it, and it made him think once again that Wirth, with his blind, self-confident arrogance, had blundered into something far over his head. If so, he was being dragged face-first into it as well. But at this point there was nothing he could do about it because whoever it was held all the cards. Right now he was the tail on the dog.
7:53 A.M. SPANISH TIME
64
PORTUGAL, FARO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. 6:55 A.M.
Marten and Anne entered the terminal separately, mingling with the passengers from arriving commercial flights he’d hoped would be there. He looked behind him. Through the glass doors he could see Brigitte move the Cessna off to refuel for her return flight to Germany. Whether she had alerted anyone on the ground was impossible to know.
6:57 A.M.
Marten was a dozen paces behind Anne with travelers in between as they approached the green nothing to declare archway and the exit door beyond it leading to the arrivals hall. Here and there armed Portuguese Airport Authority police stood in pairs watching the flow of travelers. Marten kept moving, paying them no attention. Ahead, he could see Anne doing the same. Then she was there, passing under the archway and walking into the arrivals hall. Seconds later he passed through it himself unchallenged. Simple as that, just as Brigitte had said.
7:00 A.M.
Marten caught up to Anne near the main entrance, blending in with the controlled chaos of morning travelers coming and going and keeping a watchful eye on another pair of airport police standing just inside the doors, one of them with his hand on the leash of a large black Labrador. Sniffer dog, Marten thought, looking for travelers carrying drugs or explosives.
They had no luggage at all; everything was carried on their person, the same as it had been after they’d left the Hotel Adlon in Berlin. Anne had her basics—toiletries, change of underwear and sleeping T-shirt, passport, credit cards, money, BlackBerry and phone charger—in her shoulder bag. Marten’s passport, his toothbrush, the dark blue throwaway cell phone, and his wallet with his British driver’s license, credit cards, and cash were neatly distributed between his jeans and his summer-weight sport coat.
“Where do we go from here?” Anne said quietly and with a furtive glance toward the police and their dog.
Marten steered her toward the main entrance. “Out the front door, then look for a bus into the city.”
“Bus?”
He looked at her sardonically. “Don’t tell me you’re above using public transportation.”
She shot him an indignant glance. “My father and I rode buses for years when we were traveling and trying to build the business. There was no money for anything else. But in case you’ve forgotten, buses are narrow enclosed places filled with people who just might watch TV or surf the Net or read newspapers. I have to think that by now your friend the Hauptkommissar will have spread your name and picture all over the EU. Maybe mine, too.”
Marten ignored her protest. “After the bus we’re going to need a car.”
“Are you going to rent it or steal it?”
“You are going to rent it.”
“Me?”
Marten glanced at her. “I can’t risk using a credit card and having my name show up in some kind of commercial data bank,” he said quietly. “Anyone looking for me would know exactly where I am.”
“What about anyone looking for me?”
“We’ll have to take that chance.”
Again came the indignant look. “We will?”
“Unless you want to walk. Where we’re going isn’t exactly around the corner.”
They were still in the crowd when they moved past the police and the sniffer dog and out into bright sunshine. Two police cars were parked on the far side of a center island directly across from them, with three uniformed officers standing nearby chatting and keeping their eyes on the terminal entrance.
“There are car rental agencies here at the airport.” Anne moved a step ahead of Marten. “It’s crazy to risk being seen on a bus.”
“True. But not so crazy when one considers that airport rental agencies and taxicabs are the first place anyone following us will look.” Marten nodded toward a city bus as it pulled to the curb not twenty yards in front of them. “They’ll look but they won’t find. By the time they think to check the agencies in the city we’ll be long gone.” He glanced back at the police. “I hope.”
“To where?”
Marten shook his head. “Not yet, darling.”
“You still don’t trust me, do you?”
“No.”
7:10 A.M.
65
FARO, MONTENEGRO DISTRICT. STILL SUNDAY, JUNE 6. 8:12 A.M.
Nicholas Marten stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked across the street to a small tree-lined park and sat down on a bench. In the distance church bells tolled for Sunday Mass. Somewhere nearby was the faint odor of cultivated garlic. Marten looked around for the decorative plant, curious as to what variety it was and where it was. Farther down two elderly men played chess under a large almond tree that he estimated was at least forty years old.
For a moment he did nothing but sit there. Finally he turned and looked across the narrow street behind him to the Auto Europe rental car office where Anne was, and had been for more than ten minutes, hopefully just because that was how long it took to rent a car, not because the use of her credit card had attracted the police as she had feared. He turned back, then stood and strolled deeper into the park. He’d been casual enough for long enough. He glanced at his watch.
8:18 A.M. IN FARO.
3:18 IN THE MORNING IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
CAMP DAVID, MARYLAND. ASPEN LODGE,
THE PRESIDENTIAL CABIN. 3:20 A.M.
A musical ringtone jolted President John Henry Harris from a deep sleep. It took a moment before he realized the sound was coming from the slate gray cell phone on the table at his elbow. The phone he had long prayed would ring. He stared at it almost in disbelief, then snatched it up and clicked on.
“Nicholas!” he blurted. “Are you alright? Where are you?”
“Faro, Portugal.”
“Portugal?”
“Is it safe to talk? Are you alone?”
“Yes.” The president sat up quickly.
“I don’t have much time.”
“Go ahead.”
“You know about Theo Haas, about the Berlin police?”
“Of course.”
“I didn’t kill him. A young man did. I chased after him. He got away in a crowd. People thought I was running from the murder scene.”
“I believe you. It’s alright.”
r />
“Just before Haas was murdered he gave me a clue as to where the photographs were or might be. A man named Jacob Cádiz, in the Portuguese beach town of Praia da Rocha. There’s a woman involved.”
“I know. Anne Tidrow. Striker Oil. Her father founded the company. For a time she was in the CIA.”
“You do your homework.”
“I try.”
FARO.
Marten turned his back as two cyclists in bright jerseys moved past him to join a group of six other riders waiting at the far end of the park.
“She’s with me now, across the street, with luck renting us a car. Next comes the crazy part. I’m not so sure she isn’t still with the Agency. Her old connections got us out of Berlin and then Germany courtesy of a former operative who arranged for a private plane. We were being tracked, and our pilot may well have tipped off whoever’s on our tail to where we landed. Meaning that at this point, I don’t know who’s who or what’s what with anyone.”
“Does Ms. Tidrow know about this Jacob Cádiz or Praia da Rocha?”
“Not yet.”
“Can you get rid of her? Go there on your own?”
“That’s part of the problem. She says she’s concerned with her father’s reputation and the reputation of the company. That she doesn’t like where its directors have taken it, especially in Iraq and with the Hadrian company. The photographs and the company’s culpability in the civil war in Equatorial Guinea pushed her over. While we were in Berlin she agreed to meet with Joe Ryder after we recover the photos and tell him what she knows about the Striker/Hadrian situation in Iraq and Equatorial Guinea. That is, if we get them, if they’re there at all. There’s another thing, too. She learned something from a former CIA operative in Germany that shook her up and that she won’t talk about. Whatever it is it may be even more valuable than the photographs. I’d like to think the Agency is very quietly trying to protect its friends at Striker and Hadrian and at the same time trying to prevent what could turn into a major international incident. But somehow I think it’s more than that, and she knows what it is. All of them are reasons why I can’t just walk away from her.
“Then there’s the flip side. It could all be a game just so I’d keep her with me. If so, and she set me up? You understand? We get the pictures, then the CIA swoops in, and she and they and the photos are gone and I’m hung out to dry for the murder of Theo Haas.”
“Nicholas, you don’t have to put yourself at risk any more than you already have. Leave her and get the pictures and get out of there.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I just can’t,” Marten said definitively, then glanced at the old men playing chess and then at the Auto Europe car rental agency across the street where Anne was.
“Does she know of my involvement in this?”
“No.”
Suddenly the door to the Auto Europe agency opened and Anne came out. She shaded her eyes from the sun and looked around, clearly wondering where he was. Marten stepped back into the shadow of a large stand of tall conifers that seemed the centerpiece of the park.
“What is it?” Harris said at his silence.
“Nothing.” Marten watched her for the briefest moment, then turned back to the phone. “Call Joe Ryder and tell him what’s going on. When I have the pictures, or don’t, I’ll let you know. In the meantime find some place where Anne and I can meet with Ryder that won’t draw attention. A good-sized city somewhere near here would be best. A place we can get lost in if someone’s following us. I know it means pulling Ryder out of Iraq, but he can travel a lot easier than we can.”
“It’s going to take a little while to put all this together. Let me call you this time. I don’t like not being able to reach you anyway. Give me your cell number.”
Anne crossed the street and was coming into the park. Marten moved farther back into the conifer grove. The last thing he needed was for her to see him on the phone and then to question him about it, wanting to know who he’d been talking to and why. Immediately he turned his attention back to the president.
“Better let me do the calling. I run into trouble, someone else gets the phone, and you call? If it’s the Agency there’s every chance they’ll trace it straight to you even if you hang up right away.”
“Give me an hour.”
Anne passed the old men playing chess and was approaching the trees where he was. She was noticeably concerned and looking around, as if she were afraid that he’d run out on her.
“One last thing.” A jagged intensity came into Marten’s voice. “Have you seen the latest regional CIA briefing video on Equatorial Guinea?”
“No.”
“Find a way to get it without the request seeming to come from you. Then watch it alone. That’ll answer why I’m doing what I am. You won’t need more.”
Anne was almost there, thirty feet away at most.
“I have to go, my friend. I’ll let you know what happens.” With that Marten clicked off and slid the phone into his jacket, then walked out from the behind the trees to meet her.
8:53 A.M
66
“I trust you got a car.” Marten took the initiative the moment he reached her. If she’d seen him talking on the phone or even sliding it into his jacket he didn’t want her asking who he was talking to and why. Better to keep the conversation on her and what was going on and hope she wouldn’t bring it up.
She nodded toward the rental agency. “It’s parked in front.”
“No questions about you? Who you were? How long you wanted the car? Where you planned to go?” He started them down the path and toward the street where the rental was.
“I said I was a tourist. I wanted it for a day or two, maybe more. That was it.” Suddenly her eyes flashed and she pressed him. Hotly. “Where the hell were you? I was looking all over. You were in this rush to get out of Faro, then you disappear into the woods. What were you doing, climbing trees?”
“I was looking for something.” Marten glanced around. The old men were still playing chess. Farther down a pair of young lovers lay in the grass, seemingly with no care in the world but themselves. A man of forty or so in jeans and a light sweater played with a small leashed monkey near the park’s entrance. For now, that was all.
“Looking for what?”
“Huh?” he brought his attention back to her.
“You said you were looking for something. What was it?”
“Garlic.”
“Garlic?”
“Ornamental garlic plants, Tulbaghia violacea. They’re growing here somewhere. I smelled them, I just couldn’t find them.”
Anne was incredulous. “We’re trying to get out of here and you’re looking for plants?”
“You may remember that flora interests me a great deal. It’s my profession. The reason I was in Bioko. It’s also a world I’d be very happy to get back to, and the sooner the better. So yes, garlic. You don’t believe me, take a deep breath, tell me what you smell.”
“You’re serious.”
“You act as if I’m making it up. Go ahead, sniff.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”
“Sniff.”
“Fuck,” she said and then inhaled.
“What do you smell?”
“Garlic.”
Marten grinned. “Thank you.”
9:30 A.M.
The car was a silver Opel Astra with an automatic transmission. Marten took the N125 highway toward Portimão, some forty miles west. If Hauptkommissar Franck had put out an EU all points bulletin to apprehend Anne, or if her bank accounts were being electronically monitored, so far nothing had happened in the short time since she’d used a credit card at the car rental agency. And if whoever was following—CIA operatives or Conor White and maybe this Patrice—they hadn’t made themselves known either, at least that he was aware of. Still, he kept close watch on the rearview mirror.
“Okay. There’s just the two of us, we have a car, and we’re on
our way,” Anne said abruptly, the light banter of before gone. “Where the hell are we going?”
Marten knew he had stalled as long as he could. “Rental agent give you a map?”
“Yes.”
“Open it and look for Praia da Rocha. It’s a beach town near Portimão.”
“Praia da Rocha.”
“You know it?”
“No.”
“Neither do I.”
9:35 A.M.
67
LEARJET 55, ON APPROACH TO FARO INTERNATIONAL
AIRPORT. AIRSPEED 190 MPH. ALTITUDE 2,420 FEET.
SAME TIME.
After thirty years of police work Hauptkommissar Emil Franck’s connections across Europe ran deep. Some were legitimate, some criminal, others somewhere in between. Marten’s Cessna had barely touched down at Faro when Franck learned about it from the Policia Judiciária at the airport, who quickly made several calls spreading the information. It worked like a charm.
A cousin of Judiciária police inspector Catarina Melo Tavares Santos was a desk employee of the Auto Europe branch in Faro’s Montenegro district. Santos’s physical description of Anne Tidrow fit perfectly with the woman who had rented a silver Opel Astra barely half an hour before. She’d had to wait fifteen minutes until her supervisor went on break before she could access the rental records and confirm the identity of the Opel’s renter. At the same time, she noted the car’s license number, then went outside, clicked on her cell phone, and spoke directly with her cousin. It was Inspector Santos who was on the phone with Hauptkommissar Franck now.
“New silver Opel Astra, four door, license number 93-AA-71,” Santos said, “rented in Montenegro at 8:57 A.M. by one Anne Tidrow of Houston, Texas. Marked down for an open-ended rental. Suggested time frame, twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”
“Destination?”
“None was given, sir.”
“Obrigado, Inspector,” he said. “Obrigado.” Thank you.
Franck clicked off and looked at Kovalenko. “They are thirty minutes to an hour ahead of us,” he said with a quiet confidence that bordered on condescension. “A car will be waiting when we touch down. I suggest whatever call you need to make, you do it now. Moscow must be waiting to hear from you.”