The Hadrian Memorandum - Allan Folsom [41]
“Yes?” came a grumble in German.
“My name is Marten, Nicholas Marten. I’m trying to reach—”
“You’ve got him,” Theo Haas said sharply in English.
“I would like to meet with you. Could I come to your apartment?”
“Across from the Tiergarten. Platz der Republik. The grassy park in front of the Reichstag. Five o’clock. I’m an old man in a green cap and carrying a walking stick. I’ll be sitting on a park bench near Scheidemannstrasse. If you’re not there by ten minutes past I will leave.”
There was an abrupt click as he hung up and the phone went dead.
“Well,” Marten said out loud and with relief. At least no one else had gotten to him. Not yet anyway.
PLATZ DER REPUBLIK. 4:45 P.M.
Marten came into the park early, determined not to miss Haas through some happenstance beyond his control. In front of him the Platz der Republik sprawled for nearly a quarter of a mile and was filled with seemingly hundreds of people taking advantage of a warm early-summer afternoon. To his right was the massive edifice that was the historic Reichstag, Germany’s parliament building. He vaguely remembered that it had been burned down, purportedly by the Nazis in 1933, and was then rebuilt and reoccupied by the parliament in 1999 as a symbol of German unity following the Cold War. The words carved above its main facade in 1916 had been restored as well—DEM DEUTSCHEN VOLKE (“To the German people”). Maybe the historical significance of it was something Haas was trying to impress on Marten and the reason he chose to meet in its shadow. Or maybe it had no meaning at all. What was curious was why he had chosen to meet outdoors in public rather than in the privacy of his home, especially when he knew that what Marten had to tell him concerned his brother. He was known for being a “character,” and so maybe it was a whim, or maybe he simply didn’t want strangers in his home.
4:50 P.M.
Marten reached the far end of the park and turned back, staying close to the pathway that ran near Scheidemannstrasse. He looked carefully at every bench he passed, most of which were occupied, and then beyond them to the crowd in the park and what suddenly seemed like the impossible chore of sorting through them to find an old man in a green cap with a walking stick.
4:55 P.M.
He arrived at the Reichstag building and turned back, retracing his steps. Still no green cap, no old man with a walking stick.
4:57 P.M.
He stopped at the far end of the park and once again turned back. What if Haas didn’t show up? All he could do was call him and hope to hell he answered and that someone else hadn’t gotten to him in the meantime. It made him think of the ten-minute timetable Haas had given him. Why had he done that? Once again he wondered why the old man had insisted they meet in a place as public and crowded as this. Maybe it was simply that he felt safer meeting a stranger that way, especially in view of what had happened to his brother in Bioko. Still, a quiet restaurant or café would have accomplished the same thing.
Again Marten looked around. Still nothing. Then from the corner of his eye he saw a taxi suddenly turn out of traffic on Scheidemannstrasse and pull to the curb. A moment passed, and the rear passenger door opened and an old man in a green cap carrying a walking stick got out. He closed the door with a ferocious bang and started into the park and toward a nearby bench. It was exactly five o’clock. Theo Haas had arrived.
24
Anne Tidrow had been a good twenty yards behind Marten when he entered the park. She stayed with him until he reached the far end and turned back. At that point she stepped behind a group of chattering tourists and waited to see where he would go next.
She’d followed him to the Platz der Republik by cab, watching him turn the corner from Friedrichstrasse onto the boulevard Unter den Linden and walk several more city blocks until he reached the historic Brandenburg Gate. There, he’d turned right and then left before