The Hadrian Memorandum - Allan Folsom [12]
Marten put up his hands in protest. “Mr. President, I’m honored at the suggestion, but I’ve got five very demanding accounts breathing down my neck.”
“Father Dorhn has been in Equatorial Guinea for fifty years.” The president ignored his objection and speared a neatly sliced piece of Irish potato. “If anyone knows what’s going on there he does, and from his letter he seems to know quite a lot.”
“Either that,” Marten pushed back, “or Theo Haas is just worried about him and wants someone to do something about it. Or maybe, as he said, he just has the mind-set of a novelist and is trying to create a story where there is none. He doesn’t have his rascally reputation for no reason.”
President Harris grinned. “My sense is that you’re right. Probably what you’ll end up with is a week’s all-expenses-paid vacation at an island paradise.”
Marten put down his fork and stared at the president. “Aw, come on, cousin, you can find somebody else.”
“As competent and trustworthy as you?”
“There are hundreds, probably thousands of people as competent and trustworthy as me. Probably even more competent and trustworthy.”
The president looked up and let his eyes find Marten’s. “Perhaps, my dear friend, but I don’t know them.”
7
BIOKO. 12:20 P.M.
Marten felt harsh sunlight cross his face. A second later there was a jarring bump, and his body flew upward only to be caught in a restraint of some kind and forced back down. Abruptly he awoke and through the fog of a deep, exhausted sleep saw that the cuts and scrapes on his right leg and left arm had been bandaged. Immediately there was another jolt, and his head cleared enough to realize that he was in a moving vehicle. Startled, he looked up and found staring at him perhaps the most captivatingly beautiful woman he had ever seen. With medium-length dark hair tucked behind her ears, a little turned-up nose, and dazzling green eyes, she was petite, sexy, and impish in a way that was wholly natural.
“This road is filled with potholes,” she said in accented English. “You have been sleeping. You were quite tired.”
Marten tried to shake off the lingering stupor and looked around. They were in the backseat of a battered, mud-splattered Toyota Land Cruiser that was traveling rapidly over a rutted dirt road. Two young, uniformed black men rode in front, one driving, the other sitting next to him. Marten looked over his shoulder. A second Land Cruiser was following close behind. It was dirty and plastered with mud as well. To the right, he could see open swampland dappled with splotches of bright sun that cut through an overcast sky. To the left, steep hills rose up sharply to disappear in a thick blanket of low-hanging mist.
“My name is Marita Lozano.” The young woman smiled. “I am a physician. My companions in the car behind are medical students. We have come to Bioko from Madrid to give AIDS education to the people in the southern part of the island. As you probably know, a civil war has broken out here. The army ordered to us to return to Malabo immediately.”
“The army?” Marten was suddenly alarmed.
“They stopped our cars a short time ago and told us to follow them.”
Marten looked past the uniformed men in front and through the dirty, mud-streaked windshield to see an Equatorial Guinea army Humvee of sorts kicking up mud and gravel some thirty yards ahead of them. Uniformed soldiers were seated inside, while another, standing, manned a roof-mounted machine gun.
Marten looked back to Marita. “Did they see me?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “They seemed to think you were one of us, and I let them. I simply said you were tired and were sleeping.”
“They didn’t ask for identification?”
“Only mine. Our guides told them who we were and what we were doing here.” She smiled gently and with it came the perky impishness he’d seen before. “I knew you had been caught up in the fighting in the south