The Hadrian Memorandum - Allan Folsom [44]
Marten glanced at the driver, then looked back to Anne and lowered his voice, uncertain the music would mask their conversation. “You followed me from Malabo to Paris to Berlin and now to here. Why?”
Anne looked to the driver and gave him a big smile. “I like it. Turn it up!”
He grinned back and did as she asked; the music blared.
Immediately Anne turned to Marten. “I want the photographs. And don’t say ‘what photographs?’ ”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do. And you know where they are. The old man told you.”
Marten smiled evenly. “Too bad your hearing wasn’t as good as your eyesight. The subject of photographs never came up.”
Just then Garth Brooks’s “Friends in Low Places” boomed from the taxi’s radio, and Anne leaned in close. “I want the pictures, Mr. Marten. I’ll pay you what you want for them.”
“Whatever these pictures are, they obviously mean a lot to you. Why?”
“Don’t play with me,” she snapped. “You know what the pictures are of and who is in them. I want them back because the safety and well-being of our people in Equatorial Guinea depends on it.”
“Which people are ‘our people,’ Ms. Tidrow? The fellow chasing me through Charles de Gaulle Airport? The Striker Oil board of directors? SimCo mercenaries? Certainly not your friend President Tiombe or his army that is slaughtering people by the hundreds even as you and I cruise around Berlin.”
“Striker Oil employees, Mr. Marten. People who work for us have always been treated as family. We guarantee their security anywhere they are working.” She softened a little. “Please, Mr. Marten. The photographs are very important to me personally. I want them back.”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then why did you tell me you were going to London and you came here instead? A few hours later you met with the old man in the park. That meeting was about the photographs. Who he is, or rather was, I don’t know. Whoever he was, he told you where to find them. I don’t know who you work for or why. But whatever they’re paying you I’ll pay you a lot more.”
“Let me tell you something about the ‘old man,’ Ms. Tidrow,” Marten said quietly. It was clear that neither she nor Conor White had yet made the connection between Father Willy and Theo Haas. It meant they were guessing that he knew about the photographs and where they were. “He was a rather famous German author who had written, among many things, several very good books on the design of city parks. You verified that I was a landscape architect, so it shouldn’t surprise you that I changed my plans and came to Berlin when he agreed to see me at the last minute. I met him in the park so that he could discuss his work.”
“I don’t believe you, Mr. Marten.” What little softness there’d been was suddenly gone.
“That’s unfortunate, but you don’t have much choice.”
Just then the taxi pulled sharply to the curb and stopped. Immediately Anne turned to the driver. “What is it?”
The driver turned down the music, looked in the mirror, and smiled. “Where you asked to be taken, madame. The Hotel Mozart Superior.”
In that next breath, Marten leaned forward and handed him a hundred-euro bill. “Please take the lady back to her hotel, or wherever she’s staying.”
Quickly he opened the door and looked to Anne. “Thanks for caring, darling. I’ll get rid of her myself. Long legs, big tits, and all.”
Then he was out of the cab and entering the Hotel Mozart Superior. A second later the taxi pulled away.
5:38 P.M.
26
It took Marten four minutes to get to his room and start putting his things together. Anne Tidrow’s arrival had been a surprise, but nothing like the sudden murder of Theo Haas. Her personal motivations aside, her quick wit, spiriting him out of there when the crowd was pointing him out to the police thinking he was the man they were looking for, had been deeply appreciated. The trouble was, Haas had been a national icon and the hunt for his killer and anyone connected to him would be massive. He had to get out of Berlin and Germany as quickly as possible,