The Hadrian Memorandum - Allan Folsom [13]
“How do you know all that?” Marten was incredulous. Instinctively he glanced at the guides and then looked back to Marita.
“You told us. Myself and my colleagues; the guides, too. We saw you walking on the beach. You stumbled and fell and didn’t get up. When we got to you, you were quite exhausted and exceedingly dehydrated. A little disoriented and frightened, too, when you saw the guides in their uniforms. Of course you had no way to know who we were.”
Marten studied her carefully. “What, exactly, did I tell you?”
“That your name is Nicholas Marten and you are an English landscape architect in Bioko to study native plant life. You said you met a priest who took you up into the rain forest and showed you some of the flora you were looking for. You were returning to his village when fighting erupted there, the army trucks came, and the priest told you to run and you did.”
Marten stared at her in disbelief.
“You have no memory of telling us, do you?” she said gently.
“No.”
“Whether it’s the truth is not my business.” This time there was nothing gentle in her manner, nor any hint of impishness.
“It is the truth. Just the way I said it.”
“Good, because you will want to repeat it when we get to Malabo.”
“What do you mean, repeat it?”
“The army is going to question us when we arrive. They said so. It’s why they ordered us to follow them.”
“By us, you mean me, too?”
“Yes.”
Questioning by army interrogators was the last thing Marten wanted. It was impossible to know how much they knew of his connection to Father Willy or if they had known about the photographs all along and had been trying to trap him and anyone he might have shown the photos to or told about them. Brutal as they were, they were fighting a war and would do anything to get as much information as they could about what was going on and who was involved with arming the rebellion. Father Willy had been with the natives a long time and that made him a prime suspect in anything that might appear to be supporting the insurgency. The soldiers had seen Marten with him, and Marten had turned and run when they came after him. That in itself would make any question-and-answer session with them long and probably ugly, maybe even fatal.
Abruptly he looked to Marita. “There’s no need for me to make things difficult for you. Why don’t you tell your driver to just pull over when we go around a bend in the road and let me off. They won’t see it happen, and that way I’m out of your hair and you won’t have to answer questions about me when they find out I wasn’t part of your group to begin with.”
“They know how many of us there are, Mr. Marten. If there were to be one less we would have to explain it and they would want to know why and then there would be more trouble all around. Even if we did stop and you got out, where would you go? Into the rain forest? How long would you be prepared to stay there? This is an island, Mr. Marten, and not terribly hospitable, as you already know. Whatever your private circumstances are, I would think it best that you settle them sooner rather than later.”
“You do,” Marten said flatly.
“Yes, I do.”
Marten looked off. He knew she was right and that the best thing he could do would be to face whoever interrogated him and hope he could bluff it through. The idea of calling the president, using the direct-dial twenty-four-hour-a-day number Harris had given him, or calling anyone else for that matter, was not an option. This was not the United States, not Britain, not Europe. Demands to make a phone call would, he knew, be met with laughter and more likely with physical punishment. Maybe worse. He turned back to her. “Alright. I’ll follow your suggestion.”
“That being the case”—Marita grinned a little, and the impishness returned—“please tell me your story again, and precisely as you did before. That way we will all have everything comfortably in mind before you and we and the soldiers meet.”
Marten smiled at her pluck. Here was a