The Hadrian Memorandum - Allan Folsom [90]
A few insignificant words passed between them, and then it was his turn to go into the terminal. He’d used the restroom, then found a cafeteria area with Wi-Fi hookups and given the lone young man he found working at a laptop twenty euros to borrow it for a few moments—“to check my e-mail and stuff.” In those minutes he’d done what he’d not had the chance to do since Theo Haas had been murdered, clicked on Google Maps and pinpointed the location of the town Haas had pointed him toward, Praia da Rocha, in the Algarve region of Portugal’s south coast. He’d found it nestled among the myriad of small beach communities near the city of Portimão. The nearest major airport was in Faro, which was close to the Spanish border and probably not two hundred miles from Málaga. Importantly, there were rental car facilities at the airport, most of which opened at six in the morning.
Faro was close enough to Málaga for Brigitte to radio a last-minute amended flight plan to Málaga air traffic control saying her passengers had requested she give them a tour of the coastline and would return to her original flight plan when they had finished. Not an unusual request for civil aviation traffic. So, if he chose to bypass Málaga, Faro would be the clear option. Anne could rent a car, and they could take what on the Google map appeared to be no more than a thirty-minute drive to Praia da Rocha. So he had a workable alternative, but he would wait until they were approaching Málaga before he made a final decision.
55
1:53 A.M.
“We have clearance for takeoff?” Marten was looking at Brigitte as he climbed into the Cessna. She was sitting at the controls studying navigational charts under a high-intensity cockpit light. Behind her, he could see Anne watching from the darkened cabin.
“Yes, sir,” Brigitte said.
“Then let’s go.”
“Yes, sir,” she said again.
Marten slid past her on his way to his seat. As he did he saw the two women exchange glances.
“What was that for?” he said as he buckled in.
Anne raised an eyebrow. “How long does it take to pee?”
Marten grinned. “Sometimes it works right away and sometimes it takes a little coaxing.”
Brigitte turned out the cockpit light and the lights of the instrument panel in front of her came to life. There was a sharp whine as she touched the ignition. A second later the port engine caught, then the starboard, and with a roar of propellers the Cessna moved off.
Marten waited a moment, then looked to Anne and lowered his voice, the lightheartedness of seconds earlier gone. “I specifically requested a faster plane. We didn’t get it. Whose idea was that, yours or Erlanger’s? Or was it someone else?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I asked you before about what Erlanger said in Potsdam before we took off. You didn’t want to discuss it. With all your connections in Berlin, he, or whoever arranged for the plane, could have found the kind of aircraft I wanted. It didn’t happen. And for one reason. They gave us a two-hundred-mile-an-hour Cessna so they could use a five-hundred-mile-an-hour jet to track us. That way we couldn’t outfly them in the event we changed course. They know the kind of aircraft we’re in, its registration number, who our pilot is, our flight plan, everything. Not to mention this.”
Marten took a small black box from his jacket and held it out to her. “Looks like a Hide-A-Key, doesn’t it?” He slid it open and took out a thin, flat object about four inches long and an inch wide. A tiny red light blinked off and on in the center of it. “I found it under the copilot’s seat. Just clipped in like whoever did it didn’t have much time.”
She looked at it and then at Marten. “It’s a bug, a transmitter.”
“I don’t