The Hadrian Memorandum (11 page)

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, before the police investigation began in earnest and witnesses in both the park and at the Brandenburg Gate began describing him in detail. There was something else, too. It wouldn’t be long before the police would discover that Theo Haas and Father Willy were brothers and immediately wonder if the two murders were connected. If that were made public, Anne Tidrow, Conor White, and the E.G. army’s hawk-faced officer would no longer be guessing why he had come to Berlin. They would know for certain.

What that meant, the police notwithstanding, was that very soon it would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for him to leave Germany, let alone Berlin, without one of them close on his tail. And that he couldn’t permit under any circumstance because now he did know, or at least thought he knew, where the pictures were.

Sitting on the park bench in the Platz der Republik, watching him the way Father Willy had in the rain forest, trying to judge whether or not to trust him, Theo Haas had, in a very roundabout way and in the manner of his brother, pointed him in the direction of the photographs: “Livros usados, Avenida Tomás Cabreira,” he’d said with a smile. “The town of Praia da Rocha in the Algarve region of Portugal. A man named Jacob Cádiz. He collects things.” Seconds later, before Marten had the chance to question him further, the firecrackers had gone off. A second beat after that the curly-haired man struck and Haas was dead.

5:47 P.M.

Marten finished packing his suitcase and zipped it closed. There would be no official checkout, no formal notice of leaving, nothing, just go and let the hotel track him down later. One final glance around to make sure he’d left nothing behind, then he went to the door, opened it, and froze.

“I believe this is yours, Mr. Marten.” Anne Tidrow stood alone in the hallway. Immediately she pressed the hundred-euro bill he’d given to their taxi driver into his hand. “I can afford my own cab fare. May I come in?”

“I—” Marten hesitated.

“Thank you,” she said and stepped into the room, closing the door behind them.

He stared at her. “Now what?”

“I have another taxi waiting. It’s at the side door. I suggest we use it, and sooner rather than later.”

“We?”

“After you left the cab, the driver turned his radio from country music to the news. It seems your murdered friend was not just an author but the famed Nobel laureate Theo Haas. A Nobel laureate who was last seen alive talking to someone in Platz der Republik who, according to witnesses, looked a lot like you. I’m sure that once our driver friend realizes it, he will be more than happy to describe that person to the police, then tell them who was with him and where he took them. Would you like me to explain it further?”

“No.” Marten said. The police had moved more quickly and efficiently than he’d thought they would. It wouldn’t be long before they’d know who he was and would be right here in this room collecting evidence. Like it or not, he and Anne Tidrow were suddenly joined at the hip. Worse, she had her teeth into him and wasn’t about to let go, no matter the consequences. It gave him little choice but to go along with her.

“Just where is this other taxi taking us?” he said.

“My hotel.”

“How do you know that afterward this driver won’t inform the police?”

“Because I’m paying him five hundred euros not to.”

5:50 P.M.

27

HOTEL ADLON KEMPINSKI, ROOM 647. 6:15 P.M.

Marten stood near the window staring out. Not a hundred yards away, backlit by the late-afternoon sun, was the Brandenburg Gate with a number of police vehicles still clearly in sight. That they’d come back to the same area they had left barely an hour earlier was something he hadn’t realized when they arrived because they’d come in through the luxury hotel’s rear entrance on Behrenstrasse and then taken a back stairwell to avoid using the elevators.

He turned to look at Anne. She had her suitcase open on the bed and was hurriedly packing it. “Some choice of hotels. I count four police cars and three police motorcycles, and that’s just those I can see.”

She stopped and looked at him. “How did I know you were going to come this way? I just wanted a place reasonably close to yours.”

“You should have stayed in Malabo. Better yet, Texas.”

She smiled. “Look at it this way, darling. By now the authorities will have detained anyone they wanted to question, meaning that before long most of them will leave the area.”

“Then what?”

“We go and get the photographs.”

Marten suddenly flared. “You never let up, do you? Somehow you’ve convinced yourself that I know where they are and what’s in them.”

As quickly her eyes narrowed and she pushed back. “Stop playing games with me, Nicholas. You were going out the door with your suitcase when I showed up at your hotel. If the pictures were anywhere nearby you would have simply gone to get them and then come back to your room with nobody the wiser. That means they aren’t in Berlin, maybe not even in Germany. But wherever they are, you were on your way to get them.”

“I had my suitcase because I was going home,” he said quietly.

“You were going home this morning, too, remember? You came to Berlin instead.”

“I came to Berlin to see Theo Haas. He’s dead. What else was I supposed to do? Believe it or not, I have a job waiting. My employers as well as my clients can be exceptionally demanding.”

“Not as demanding as the police. They’ll want to know why you met with Haas, and they won’t buy your fairy tale about discussing park design. Once you tell them the real reason, and you will, they’ll want to know what the photographs were of, and you’ll have to tell them that too. Then we’ll have the beginning of a major international incident and because of it the pictures, wherever they are, will be recovered. The police will see to it.

“You’re not doing this on your own, darling. Not here, and you weren’t in Bioko, either. If those photographs become public, whoever hired you won’t like it, and neither will I. So cut the bullshit about not knowing. We don’t have time for it. There may be a way out of this yet, but you can’t do it without me, and you’re not getting me without the pictures.”

Marten had no idea what “a way out of this” meant. He knew that if he had to, he could get help by calling President Harris and telling him what was going on, but that was something he had to save as a last resort because if he did call him the president would do everything he could to get him out of there. That meant pulling strings, which was something that in itself could set off an international incident no matter how discreetly it was done, simply because of who Theo Haas was. Both the Berlin police and the German public would be outraged to learn that the chief suspect in his murder had been suddenly let go under pressure from the American government.

And one way or another they would learn, if by no other means than the long, invasive tail of the Internet. If that happened, pundits, bloggers, and almost anyone else would have a field day tracing the diplomatic maneuver to its “suspected” source. Even if it couldn’t be proven the damage would have been done and what Anne Tidrow said about “whoever hired you won’t like it” would be a helluva lot more than accurate because it would appear to the world that the president of the United States was trying to cover up a murder. Moreover, it could lead to the ultimate exposure of the photographs, which, when made public, would make it look as if the motive behind it had been to protect both Striker Oil and Hadrian. Clearly that was a scenario Marten couldn’t let play out. So once again, and for now at least, he had little choice but to let Anne Tidrow run the show.

He plunked down on the edge of the bed. “What are we supposed to do while we wait for the police to go their merry way?”

“Turn on the television. Maybe you can learn what they’re doing. If they’re checking passengers leaving from airport, bus, and train terminals. If they’re searching cars leaving the city.”

“I don’t speak German.”

“You’ll get the idea. It’s television, it’s not that hard.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Take a shower.”

“A shower?” Marten was incredulous.

“Most of last night was spent on an airplane. Today was spent chasing after you. I have the feeling tonight is going to be pretty damn long as well. So if you don’t mind, I’d like to get cleaned up before it begins.” Abruptly she went into the bathroom and closed the door.

“How do you know I won’t just leave?” he called through it.

“Because I’d call the police if you did.”

“They’d get you, too.” There was no reply.

He raised his voice. “I said they’d get you, too.” Still no reply.

Then he heard the shower running.

6:25 P.M.

6:37 P.M.

Marten was sitting in a chair staring at the television when the bathroom door opened and Anne came back into the room, her dark hair twisted up in a towel, a thick white terrycloth robe pulled around her, her eyes on the TV screen.

“Did you learn anything?” she said.

Marten said nothing, just continued to watch the screen. She took a step closer. Whatever channel he was tuned to was broadcasting live remotes, cutting between stand-up reporters on the green of the Platz der Republik, the Brandenburg Gate, and Polizeipräsidium Berlin, police headquarters, on Platz der Luftbrücke. An on-camera correspondent outside of the Polizeipräsidium suddenly put a hand to his earphone, as if listening to a special instruction from the studio, then quickly gave an introduction to whatever was next. The video feed abruptly cut to a media room somewhere inside the building where a tall, steely, black-eyed man with a shaved head, wearing a black leather jacket, white shirt, and a tie, approached a bank of microphones.

“Ever hear of a Berlin detective called Hauptkommissar Emil Franck?” Marten asked without looking at her.

“No.”

“Well, that’s him. A few minutes ago I saw him on a video that was recorded at the Platz der Republik. He seems to be their top homicide cop and is heading the investigation.”

“What have they said so far?”

“That I’m the guy they’re looking for.”

“What?” Anne was flabbergasted.

“At least as far as I can tell.”

“How can they know for sure? All they had was a description.”

“Somebody took my picture with a cell phone.”

“Christ!”

“Amen.”

“Do they have your name?”

“If they do, they haven’t said.”

Hauptkommissar Franck reached the microphones and looked directly into the camera. He spoke first in German and then in English and in a voice that was icy and without emotion.

“This is the man wanted for questioning in the tragic and shocking daylight murder of Theo Haas. We are asking the public’s help in finding him.”

A blurry image of Marten in the melee near the Brandenburg Gate popped on the screen. Franck’s voice was heard giving a telephone number and e-mail address.

“Recognize me?” Marten’s concentration was on the TV.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Immediately the same phone number and e-mail address appeared on the screen. After a long moment the picture faded to black. Several seconds later a photograph of Theo Haas appeared. Superimposed over it were the words VERBRECHEN DES JAHRHUNDERTS.

“Crime of the century,” she translated. “Crime of the fucking century.”

Marten turned to look at her. “For some reason I don’t think the rather generous bribe you gave the taxi driver who brought us here is going to be enough to keep him from suddenly going to the police.”

“Neither do I.”

28

Marten stood up quickly. “It’s only a matter of time before they show up here. If I leave now, go out the back entrance the way we came in, you can deny it all. Tell them you met me on the plane from Bioko, we did a little flirting, and you followed me to Berlin for the fun of it. You had no idea I was going to meet with Theo Haas, let alone be around when he was killed. Moreover, you can describe the real killer to them. You know what he looked like as well as I do. Others had to have seen him, too, people the police may have already questioned and you can bring that up, it’ll give you credibility. You’re a wealthy American who sits on the board of a large Texas oil company. They’re not going to do much of anything to you, especially once you convince them you just got caught up in an unfortunate coincidence and have no idea where I’ve gone. And it’ll be the truth because you won’t.”

“It won’t work.” Anne was looking directly at him.

“Why? In ten seconds I’m out the door and vanished.”

“Not without me.”

Marten glared at her. “Don’t start that again, not now. Not with this Hauptkommissar Franck on the trail. You get caught with me, you’ll be locked up for as long as I am.”

“I want the photographs, Mr. Marten. I’ll take my chances. Besides, as I said, there may be a way out of this yet, but you’ll need me or it won’t happen.”

“How?”

“As my mother used to say, that’s for me to know and you to find out.”

Marten watched her carefully, then gave in. “Once again, I seem to be at your mercy.”

“Then let’s get to it.” Immediately she dug in her suitcase, pulled something out, and tossed it to him. “It’ll help cover you up. A little anyway.”

Marten caught it and looked at it—a
Dallas Cowboys baseball
cap.

He looked at her as if she were crazy. “This isn’t going to help.”

“It’s better than nothing, darling. Now collect your things, take a pee, and we’ll get the hell out of here.”

Abruptly Anne threw off her robe. Marten saw a flash of taut body, beautiful breasts, and pubic hair, and then she was pulling on underwear, jeans, sweater, and the jeans jacket and running shoes she’d worn earlier.

Three minutes later they were walking out the Hotel Adlon’s rear entrance, then turning onto Wilhelmstrasse in the direction of Unter den Linden and the Spree River. Marten wore the
Dallas Cowboys
cap and pulled his suitcase behind him like a tourist. Anne carried an over-the-shoulder bag taken from her luggage. In it were last-minute basics: clean underwear, toiletries, passport, credit cards, money, BlackBerry. Her suitcase had been intentionally left in the room with the rest of her clothes, making it look as if she fully expected to return.

7:07 P.M.

HOTEL ADLON KEMPINSKI, OFFICE OF THE CONCIERGE. 7:28 P.M.

“We have over three hundred rooms and seventy-eight suites. It is not possible to know the physical description of every guest.” Paul Stonner, the Hotel Adlon’s proud, dark-suited, bifocal-wearing concierge, stood across from the shaved-headed, six-foot-six Erster Kriminalhauptkommissar Emil Franck in his private office. With Franck were his colleagues Kommissars Gerhard Bohlen and Gertrude Prosser. Bohlen was forty-one, skeleton thin, deadly serious, and married. Prosser was thirty-eight, a sturdy, handsome blonde whose only marriage was, and always had been, to the department. Gerhard and Gertrude. Franck often referred to them as “the two Gs.” Both were top homicide investigators.

“Herr Stonner,” Franck said coldly, his coal-black eyes barely pinpoints in his head, “you are going to bring your employees in here, and we are going to do our best to find a match. Our man here will describe them exactly as he has to you and to us.”

Franck looked to fifty-year-old Karl Zeller, the white-haired taxi driver who had driven Marten and Anne Tidrow from the Hotel Mozart Superior and delivered them to the Adlon’s rear entrance, by his records, at precisely 6:02 P.M.

“We will be very happy to help as we can, Hauptkommissar,” Stonner said respectfully, “but how do you know these people were guests of the hotel?”

“We don’t, Herr Stonner, but we are going to find out.”

7:32 P.M.

The two walked quickly down Schiffbauerdamm, the roadway on the far side of the River Spree from Unter den Linden. Marten’s suitcase was long gone, weighted down with chunks of concrete taken from a construction Dumpster near the Reichstag and tossed into the river. His own essentials—passport, driver’s license, credit cards, cash, and the dark blue throwaway cell phone he’d used to call President Harris—he carried on his person.

7:34 P.M.

The river and city still glimmered in the warm glow of the long summer day. In a way the daylight helped because it enabled them to blend in with the tourists crowding the streets and cafés that sat on the quay above the Spree, where people could look out at the maze of tour boats plying the water. After sunset the crowds would lessen, making them more visible to the police who seemed to be everywhere—on street corners, on motorcycles, in patrol cars—in a massive search for the still-unnamed man whose blurred photograph Hauptkommissar Franck had shown on television.

In the half hour since they’d left the Adlon, Marten had said little, just turning this way and that at Anne’s direction. Clearly she knew the city, at least this part of it, and was seemingly intent on taking them to some destination in particular. Just where that was and who would be waiting when they arrived were questions that made him as uneasy as the two that remained from earlier: how she had known where he was staying in Berlin and where he’d gone when he went to meet with Theo Haas. And then there was the business with the shower before they’d left the Adlon and the phone call she’d made from behind its closed door. At this point they all troubled him. As if he didn’t have trouble enough.

“Where are we going?” he said abruptly.

“It’s not far.”

“Wherever it is, it’s taking too long. We’re giving the police too much time.”

“I said, it’s not far.”

“What’s not far? Bar, restaurant, another hotel, what?”

“A friend’s apartment.”

“What friend?”

“Just a friend.”

“The one you called when you went in to take a shower?”

“What do you mean?”

“The shower was an excuse. The real reason you went in there was to make a call without me hearing.”

“Darling,” she smiled, “I wanted to get cleaned up, nothing more.”

“Your BlackBerry was on the bed before you went in. It wasn’t there afterward.”

Anne’s smile faded. “Alright, I did make a call. It was to my friend. To help us.”

“Then why the secret?”

“It was personal. Do I have to explain everything?”

“Just get us there.”

“We—” She hesitated.

“We—what?”

“Have to wait.”

“For what?”

“She has to make arrangements.”

“Arrangements?”

“Yes. She’ll call me when it’s ready.”

“Who the hell is ‘she’?”

Anne’s eyes flashed with anger. “Understand something. The police are everywhere. There is no other place for us to go.”

Marten didn’t like it. Any of it. He pressed her hard. “Verbrechen des Jahrhunderts.”

“What?”

“Verbrechen des Jahrhunderts. Crime of the century. That’s what you translated from the television. You understand German. You know your way around the city. You had me followed from the airport. That’s how you knew where I was staying. You had somebody watching the hotel, telling you the moment I left it and which way I had gone. It’s how you found me in the park. Then with the police swarming all over you suddenly have to take a shower. And now we’re going to a ‘friend’s’. A woman who has to make ‘arrangements’ first. What kind of friend is she, darling, when everyone in the city is looking for me, and probably by now for you as well? You told me to stop playing games; now it’s your turn. You’re not just Striker Oil. You’re something else. Who? What?”

Ahead was Weidendamm Bridge where Friedrichstrasse crossed the river. Stairs led up to it.

“Take the stairs,” she said quietly.

“I asked you a question.”

Just then two Berlin policemen went by on motorcycles, slowing as they did. A half block later, they stopped and looked back, one of them speaking into a microphone mounted to his helmet. Abruptly Anne took Marten by the hand and pulled him around.

“Kiss me.” She looked into his eyes. “And act like you mean it. Do it now.”

Marten glanced at the police and then did. She kissed him back, long and hard.

The motorcycle cops watched, then rode off.

“The stairs,” she said again and steered him toward them

7:40 P.M.