The Hadrian Memorandum - Allan Folsom [114]
“I was assigned before I knew you were in the middle of it,” Kovalenko said as if he had read Marten’s thoughts. “Moscow has been watching the developments in Equatorial Guinea closely. She is always intrigued when a Western oil company shows undue interest in an area and begins building up its operation there, especially in West Africa, where there are potentially large untapped reserves. If something should prove of value it would be strategically unfortunate if other countries, especially the Chinese, got to bid on it first. I’m sure you can appreciate that kind of thinking. It’s merely good business.”
“So one would think.”
73
12:54 P.M.
Marten glanced at Kovalenko, then powered up Jacob Cádiz’s computer and slid the memory card into its port. Anne was in a chair to his right. Kovalenko sat on a stool to one side and behind them, the Glock in his hand, Franck’s Heckler & Koch machine gun still dangling from his shoulder.
“Let’s see what we have, tovarich,” he said as the screen came to life. Marten touched the mouse, and a photograph popped up on the monitor. It had been taken with a long lens and apparently from a hidden vantage point in the brush. It was a portrait of a bizarre picnic in the jungle. Six white wicker chairs were pulled up to a long table covered with a white linen cloth, two on either side, one at either end. Fine china, silverware, and expensive wineglasses sat atop the table. White-gloved soldiers in the dress uniform of the Army of Equatorial Guinea stood by as waiters. Another of them carved a huge roast on a serving table nearby. Two more, in full dress and seemingly of high rank, were seated along one side of the linen-covered table. Opposite them were Conor White’s lieutenants, Patrice and Irish Jack, dressed in their trademark tight black T-shirts and camouflage pants. Several more SimCo mercenaries stood in the background, their muscular arms crossed over their chests. All had buzz cuts and wore wraparound sunglasses and had automatic pistols strapped to their thighs.
Conor White himself wore a tailored white suit with an open-collared starched white shirt and sat at one end of the table. Another man sat at the far end, his back to the camera.
“Go to the next,” Kovalenko said.
Marten touched the mouse, and the next photo came up. In it the other man was revealed. He was older, had jet black eyes, and wore the dress uniform of an Equatorial Guinean army general.
“Mariano,” Marten said, surprised.
“Generalissimo Mariano Vargas Fuente. You know him?” Kovalenko marveled.
“I had the pleasure of being interrogated by a unit of the Equatorial Guinean army. He sat in on the party.”
“You were lucky not to be butchered on the spot. He’s Chilean. Was once an officer in the Directorate of National Intelligence under Augusto Pinochet. He was personally responsible for the death squads and the unspeakable horrors they committed. Thousands of people vanished under his watch, and then he suddenly—”
“Disappeared into the jungles of Central America,” Marten finished for him. “Or so I was told. How did he get to Equatorial Guinea and when?”
“He was living under an assumed name in southern Spain. That was until your friend Conor White recruited him for the Equatorial Guinean army.”
“White?”
“Yes, but secretly. President Tiombe thinks he did it alone. Sought out Mariano and paid him a fortune to run the E.G. counterinsurgency.”
“Why?” Marten was mystified.
“For Mr. Tiombe to demonstrate to the people that this is how he handles troublemakers.”
“He doesn’t know White set it up?”
“Probably not.”
Marten looked sharply to Anne. “Did Striker Oil order White to arrange the Mariano contract?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it was Sy Wirth’s doing with Loyal Truex pulling strings. Maybe White did it for his own reasons. However it happened, I had no knowledge of it.”
“There seems to be a lot you don’t know about your own company.”
“That’s why I’m here with you, darling, to find out.