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By Root 742 0

stone dead with half of his skull blown away. A mutilated corpse, nothing else. Murdered where he had stood. How many times had he seen that as a homicide investigator in L.A.? Someone who had been alive one minute was lifeless the next. Yet this was different. Franck had not been killed at random, or because he was a gang member, or for money or drugs or over a woman, but for something much larger. The same something Father Willy and Marita and her students and God only knew how many hundreds or thousands of Equatorial Guineans had been killed for. Maybe Theo Haas, too, but he still wasn’t sure about that. The trouble was, he had no idea what that something was.

Oil?

Maybe.

At the moment it was the god of everyone on the planet. But something didn’t fit. SimCo was arming the rebels, not trying to protect Striker’s workers from them.

“The photographs, tovarich.” Kovalenko turned the Glock automatic toward Anne and the envelope in her hands. “Any number of interested parties thought he might have mailed them. They were right. Let’s get out of this sun and see what they are.”

Marten looked at him and then at the Glock. “After all this time you need that with me?”

Kovalenko smiled. “For now, tovarich, I think it is best.”

12:35 P.M.

72

Ninety seconds later they were inside the house, the front door closed, standing in the hallway. Franck’s submachine gun was slung over Kovalenko’s shoulder, the Glock still in his hand. Anne and Marten stood in front of him, the envelope open, the photos spread out on the wooden table. Marten turned them over one by one.

“Him,” Kovalenko said suddenly and pointed a finger at a photo of Conor White. “This man is Conor White.”

“I know,” Marten said.

“He’s one of those following you.”

“As I suspected.”

“You know him, then?”

“I met him in passing.” Marten glanced at Anne.

“Be very careful, tovarich. He is a highly decorated former British combat officer with a great deal to lose personally if these”—he touched the stack of photos—“are made public.”

“I know that, too.”

Anne was staring at Kovalenko. “Who else is following us?”

“Two of his fighters.” Kovalenko reached out a finger and pushed aside the photos until he found the one he wanted, the one showing Patrice and Irish Jack in a helicopter doorway. “These.”

Anne exchanged glances with Marten, then looked back to Kovalenko. He wasn’t telling her everything. “You said ‘others.’ Who are they? Your people? Who and how many?”

“As far as I know, only one, Ms. Tidrow. The head of your own company.”

“Sy Wirth?”

Kovalenko nodded. “He is, or at least was, traveling separately and feeding information about your position to White and his men. Where any of them are now I don’t know.”

“Where did Wirth get this timely information he was passing on?” Marten said, then deliberately looked at Anne.

“Don’t even think it,” she snapped. “I haven’t talked to him since we were in Malabo.” She nodded at Kovalenko. “Why don’t you ask him how he knows all this.”

Kovalenko smiled easily. “Moscow.”

There was no smile from Marten. “I should be surprised, but I’m not. I suppose Moscow knew about Jacob Cádiz, too.”

“It took a little time, but yes.”

“Why would Father Willy send the photographs to him and not his brother? Was he that close a friend?”

Kovalenko cocked his head and grinned. “You honestly don’t know.”

“Know what?”

Kovalenko’s free hand swept around, indicating the house. “This is the place Theo Haas came to work and get out of the Berlin cold and the public spotlight of a Nobel laureate. He didn’t want people coming around bothering him, so he used the name Jacob Cádiz. He spoke Portuguese well; few people knew.” Abruptly his expression changed. He put the photos aside and picked up the folded white envelope with the camera’s digital memory card inside. “What is this?”

Marten didn’t answer.

Kovalenko unfolded it and slid out the card. “Ah,” he said, smiling, “the cake’s frosting.” Suddenly his eyes found Marten’s. “You’ve looked at its contents.”

“Some, not all.”

“Where is the computer you were using to view it?”

“In the