The Hadrian Memorandum - Allan Folsom [75]
“Are you alright?” he said.
Marten heaved a sigh of relief. “Stiff and a little nervous but alright.”
“I’m sorry. We had no choice. It was a means that worked quite effectively getting people out of the Eastern Sector during the Cold War.”
“I could use a toilet, and in a hurry.”
Anne, still in her blond wig and dowdy clothing, was waiting as he climbed from the van. For a fleeting moment she seemed as if she genuinely cared about his well-being and was grateful the trip was over and they had made it safely. As quickly, she was back to business.
“Come into the house,” she said, then led him past some trees and up a gravel pathway to a two-story house that, from the surroundings, appeared to be in a quiet and leafy residential neighborhood.
Marten used the toilet and then opened the door and started down a hallway toward the front door, the way they’d come in.
“Here.” He heard Erlanger’s voice from a room behind him. He turned back and entered a small, wood-paneled office to see Erlanger alone and just getting up from a desk. Behind him was a window that looked out on a small garden.
“Where is Anne?” Marten asked.
“Upstairs. She’ll be down in a moment. Would you like some coffee?”
“Yes, thank you,” Marten said. Erlanger nodded and left.
Marten looked around. The room, like the little he’d seen of the rest of the house as he came in, was comfortable and worn, filled with a large collection of apparently well read books, knickknacks, and family pictures, as if whoever lived there had done so for years and had no intention of moving. Hardly the hideout of a man fearful of the police.
“Feeling better?” Anne suddenly walked into the room. Gone were the dowdy clothes and blond wig; back were her jeans, tailored jacket, and running shoes, her black hair twisted up in a bun at the back of her head. She looked sexy and impatient and dangerous at same time.
“Yes. You?”
“I’ll be better when we’re moving again. Where do we go from here?”
“Where is here, this house?”
“Potsdam. About a half hour outside of Berlin. It’s Erlanger’s home. He took a big chance bringing us to it. He’ll still help, but we have to set things up as quickly as possible and get out. So, as I said, where do we go from here? Where are the photographs? Neither I nor Erlanger can do anything more until you give me a destination.”
“Does Erlanger know about the pictures?”
“No.”
Marten closed the door. “The whole trip, while I was twisted up in the dark in that little compartment over the wheel well, I was thinking of the cost.”
“Of what?”
“The photographs. How many people are dead because of them. Bioko, Spain, Berlin. Who knows who’ll be next or where it will happen?” He crossed to the window and looked out.
“What are you getting at?”
“That the best thing would be to get in touch with Hauptkommissar Franck and tell him where they are.” He turned to look at her. “Let the German government have them and do what they think is right.”
“That’s not a very good conclusion.”
“Maybe not. But under the circumstances it will do.”
Suddenly Anne flared. “Where are the pictures, Nicholas?”
“I want the war stopped, Anne,” Marten snapped back, his eyes riveted on her. “At the very least slowed to a crawl. The photographs will do that. The world media will pounce. Reporters, camera crews, everything. And not just to Equatorial Guinea but to Houston, where they will be all over Striker management, and to SimCo headquarters in England. There’ll be tough questions about what’s going on. Blogs and talk shows will pick it up. Politicians will get involved because they’ll have to. And the subject won’t disappear the way it always seems to about the Congo or Darfur or other African theaters of horror because an American oil company and its private military contractor are at the center of it.”
“I want the killing stopped as much as you do. I told