The Hadrian Memorandum - Allan Folsom [74]
10:20 A.M.
10:28 A.M.
Conor White stared absently out the window of the tri-engine Falcon 50 as the chartered jet flew north toward Berlin. Thirty thousand feet below and through a broken cloud deck he could see Geneva and the Jet d’Eau, Lake Geneva’s im mense water fountain, spraying a cannon of water five hundred feet in the air. Yet neither the Swiss city nor the sight of the fountain registered. His thoughts were on Berlin and what would take place when he got there.
The whole thing in Spain had been an unfortunate, messy, and, as it turned out, wholly unnecessary exercise because he realized almost from the start that the Spaniards had no idea where the photographs were, or even what they were. Yet it was a situation he couldn’t walk away from until he knew for certain. He’d pushed it as far as he could, and after that there was no turning back, so he’d finished it with the hope it was something that would not come back to haunt them. Had he had his way in the first place he would have gone after Nicholas Marten directly, but that had not been his assignment; it had been Anne’s. And look what had happened.
As far as he could tell the only thing positive to come from her work was that she had proven that Marten did know where the photographs were. It had been confirmed when she’d called him at the airport in Madrid.
“Where are you?” she’d said. “I just wanted to know where you were if I needed you.”
When he had told her, he’d asked where she was. She had replied that she was in Berlin and warned him not to come there and to disregard anything he saw in the media. It was then he pressed her about Marten, making sure he was with her and asking directly if the photographs existed and if he knew where they were.
“Yes, I think so,” she’d said after an awkward hesitation. She’d affirmed it when he’d pushed her a second time, demanding to know if she was certain.
“Do you think or do you know?” he’d demanded.
“I don’t think, Conor, I know,” she’d snapped, then signed off.
White shook his head. If he had followed Marten, right from the start, by now, police or not, he would have been close on his tail or maybe even had him alone, with Anne nowhere in the picture. Either way the photographs would have soon been recovered and the whole nasty situation quickly resolved. But it hadn’t happened. Instead he was on his way to Berlin not to confront Anne and Marten but to meet with Sy Wirth. For what reason he had no idea, except that Wirth was his employer and was about to act like it. Tell him what to do and how and when to do it.
It was Wirth, he knew, who had had the last word in allowing Anne to follow Marten and sending him to Spain. If he made the same kind of uninformed decisions again, it would be only a matter of time before the police had both Anne and Marten and the photographs. If that happened everything would come apart, and fast.
Abruptly he turned from the window to see Irish Jack and Patrice quietly playing cards across from him. Neatly dressed in jackets and ties as he was, they looked like professional athletes en route to their next game. Which in a way they all were; that is, if he could somehow find a way to keep Sy Wirth out of it. But for the moment, the Texas oilman was calling the shots and White would do his best to accommodate him, graciously and with his best Eton, Oxford, and Sandhurst manners, when they touched down in Berlin.
10:32 A.M.
45
POTSDAM, GERMANY. 10:40 A.M
The van had been stopped for several minutes. From the dark of his hiding place in the compartment over the left rear wheel, Marten wondered what was going on. Erlanger had said something in German, and then the driver and passenger doors had opened and closed. After that there had been nothing. Had they reached their destination or had they been stopped by the police and silently ordered out of the vehicle at gunpoint?
Another minute passed, and then he heard the rear doors open and someone come inside. He held his breath. There was a noise outside the