The Hadrian Memorandum - Allan Folsom [121]
“Yes, we do,” he said emphatically. Immediately he turned back to Logan. “That meeting may well change the course of the war. But none of it will happen if the police have us in custody.”
“You want me to help you get to Lisbon.”
“Yes.”
Logan glanced at Anne, then looked back to Marten. “Suppose you did kill the policeman. Theo Haas, too. Maybe even Father Willy. What if everything you’ve told me is a lie? I help you and the police find out, then what?”
“That’s something you have to decide for yourself. Theo Haas put this whole thing in motion to begin with because he was concerned for his brother’s safety and because of what he had uncovered in Bioko. He’s the reason I went there to meet with Father Willy and why I came here looking for Jacob Cádiz. It’s also the reason I was followed to his house by both the German policeman and the man who ended up killing him, a high-level Russian security operative. They were supposed to be on the same page but weren’t.” Marten pushed harder. “What I’m telling you is the truth. If it wasn’t, Ms. Tidrow and I could just as easily have tried to get to Lisbon on our own. We came to you because you knew Theo Haas and Father Willy and what kind of men they were. You’ve lived here a long time, you know how things operate. We’ve got to get out before the police close in or we won’t get out at all, and everything we’ve worked for, what Father Willy died for, will have been for nothing. Please, I’m begging you. Can you help us? Will you help us?”
Stump Logan took off his thick glasses and wiped his eyes, then put them back on. “It might be a grave error on my part, Mr. Marten,” he said finally. “But yes, I will try to help you.”
2:13 P.M.
76
FARO, HOTEL LARGO. 2:30 P.M.
Sy Wirth and Conor White came in the front entrance and went straight to the front desk, leaving Patrice and Irish Jack to wait outside in the black Toyota SUV. At this point Wirth had wholly abandoned the idea of keeping his distance from White. Too much was at stake, emotionally and physically, if the package Korostin had promised contained the photos and the camera’s memory card as he hoped—as the Russian had indicated when he’d so surprisingly and belatedly reached him as he stood with White at the Santa Catarina fortress in Praia da Rocha.
“You will find the terms of the contract have been fulfilled, Josiah,” he’d said with quiet assurance. “Everything is in a large envelope that is on its way by messenger to your hotel in Faro now. Things didn’t quite work out as planned. I apologize. We’ll do better the next time.” That he’d clicked off with no mention of either Marten or Anne didn’t matter. If the contract had been fully executed, the whole thing would be over anyway. What had happened to the others would be irrelevant. He would immediately destroy the photographs and the memory card, and they could all breathe a monstrous sigh of relief. Afterward White and his men would simply fly back to Malabo, and he would return to Houston.
“I’m Mr. Wirth, room 403. You have a package for me,” he said to a tallish red-haired woman behind the front desk.
“Yes, sir.” She turned and disappeared into a back room.
Wirth glanced at Conor White. Then the woman came back carrying a large padded envelope and handed it to him.
“How was it delivered?” he asked.
“I believe a taxi driver brought it, sir. I was at lunch at the time. I can check on it for you.”
“No matter,” he said and with a nod at White walked off toward the elevators.
Wirth pushed the button, the elevator door slid open, and he and White entered. Immediately he pushed the fourth-floor button and the door started to close. Suddenly it pulled back and a young couple entered. The man held the hand of a little boy. His wife, or at least the woman with him, was noticeably pregnant. Both smiled and nodded politely as they entered. Neither man responded.
They rode up in silence. Second floor. Third. The car stopped at the fourth, and they all got off. Wirth let them walk off down the corridor in front of them; then he and White followed. At room 403, Wirth stopped