The Hadrian Memorandum - Allan Folsom [103]
“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