The Hadrian Memorandum (13 page)

Immediately both men removed their balaclavas and tucked them into their belts.

White moved a little closer. “You now see we are forthright and mean you no harm. All this has come about because of the civil war in Bioko. The photographs are very important to the oil company that employs us. Our job is to recover them, and right away. Once we do you will be free to go.”

Suddenly Rosa looked up and boldly repeated Marita’s words. “We cannot tell you what we don’t know.”

“No, I don’t suppose you can.” White hesitated for a moment, then looked to Patrice. “We need to speed this up.”

“Yes, sir.”

Patrice took a half step to stand right in front of them. He looked from one to the other to the other, turned toward Marita, then abruptly reversed his move and stepped in front of Rosa. A gasp went up from the others as a second later Irish Jack moved behind her to take hold of her shoulders in an iron grip White himself couldn’t escape from.

“Marita!” Rosa cried out.

In the next instant Patrice slid the automatic from his holster and slid it up under her nose.

White’s eyes went to Marita. “Where are the photographs?”

Marita’s eyes went to Rosa in horror, then came back to him. “For God’s sake, we don’t know! We’ve told you that over and over!”

“That’s too bad.”

Conor White nodded at Patrice. Irish Jack stepped to the side and Patrice pulled the trigger. There was an ear-shattering roar and Rosa’s head exploded, her oversized glasses disappearing behind her, her body collapsing like a rag doll across the bench.

White gave them no chance to recover, just walked over to Marita. “The photographs. Where are they?”

Numbed, horrified, Marita simply shook her head.

“You’re still telling me you don’t know?”

“Yes. No. God! We don’t know! Please! My God, please! Please!”

White looked at Gilberto and then Luis and then Ernesto. In the next instant he reached into a holster at the back of his belt and pulled a short-barrel SIG SAUER 9 mm semiautomatic from it. In one fluid motion, he turned and shot Marita point-blank in the head.

8:27 P.M.

31

BERLIN. STILL FRIDAY, JUNE 4. 8:30 P.M.

The tour boat
Monbijou
had left the landing at 8:02, motored up the Spree to a turning point, and was now headed back into a city beginning to come alive for the night. The initial fears Anne and Marten had had about being seated on the upper deck and therefore open to view from shore had been quieted by the sheer number of other passengers surrounding them, easily eighty in all plus two harried, white-jacketed waiters rushing back and forth to the lower deck to retrieve drinks and snacks in an attempt to keep the topsiders happy. If much of Berlin had been psychologically pained by the murder of Theo Haas, that mood wasn’t evident here. In all probability that was because most of the passengers were English-speaking foreigners unaware of the emotional magnitude of the crime and its effect on the city.

Still, Marten was concerned, chiefly about the people seated nearby. He was afraid they might have seen his picture on television or be getting fresh information from the cell phones and other electronic gadgets seemingly everyone had despite the fact they had come on board to relax and enjoy the sights. Yet, so far at least, none had even looked his way, leading him to think that maybe Anne hadn’t been as foolish as he thought when she’d tossed him the
Dallas Cowboys
baseball cap and told him to put it on.

The public aside, or even the police who might be watching through field glasses from the embankment as they passed, the thing that troubled him most was Anne herself. The questions he’d put to her earlier—who she really was and what her motivations were—remained unanswered, primarily because they were in public and trying to keep a low profile. So he’d let it go, at least for now.

For a time he’d simply watched the city as they passed by and thought about what he would do next, a sticky problem in itself because he both needed her and wanted to get rid of her at the same time. Then her BlackBerry had sounded. She’d answered and said quietly, “I am, yes. It’s alright. No, not so far. Not certain just yet. Yes. Okay.”

She’d clicked off immediately and was putting the device in her purse when it rang again. She clicked on, said a generic “Hi,” gave the second caller very nearly the same information as the first, then clicked off and put the phone away. Afterward she’d smiled and kissed his cheek, taking his hand as if they were the lovebirds they’d portrayed to the police on the street. Not once had she mentioned either call.

If Marten had seen the text memo she’d sent earlier to Sy Wirth and copied to Loyal Truex and Conor White, he might have understood.

Meeting with our short-list candidate in Berlin. He is somewhat reluctant to join the firm so will need more time to help persuade him to change his mind. Home office execs joining us here to help in the process would only complicate things. More later.

What it had been was an affirmation that she’d trailed Marten to Berlin, had located him, and wanted no interference from any of them. That she had sent the text
before
the murder of Theo Haas only complicated things, because with Haas’s death everything changed. Suddenly Marten had become a prime suspect in his murder, and very soon, if not already, the police would know she had been with him shortly afterward. Once they had traced them to the Adlon, they would know her identity as well. And what the hell would Messrs. Wirth, Truex, and White do about that once they learned of it?

But Marten had known nothing of that communication at all. What he would know was that in the last minutes she had received two brief calls that she had replied to ambiguously. Who they had been from or what they were about he could only guess, and she intended to leave it that way. Then, just seconds later, her BlackBerry had chimed a third time. She’d taken it from her purse, read a brief text message, then clicked off. What it had been about Marten wouldn’t know, either, but from the way he looked at her, it was clear the run of recent communications was beginning to trouble him enough that she was afraid he might bolt from her the first chance he got. To ease his concern, and hers, she was about to tell him what had been in the text when the world around them suddenly got in the way.

“Would you mind, sir?” one of the white-jacketed waiters, a fiftyish man with curly eyebrows and a mustache, had stopped beside them. He carried a tray on which were balanced a half-dozen large glasses of beer and was looking directly at Marten, who, on the aisle seat, was closest to him.

“For the people next to your wife,” he said with a smile. “Sure,” Marten said, taking one and then another of the glasses. One, two he handed them to Anne, who then passed them on to a middle-aged Australian couple seated next to them.

“Ten euros will make it,” the waiter said.

The Australian woman dug in her purse and handed a twenty-euro bill to Anne, who handed it to Marten, who passed it to the waiter. Change came back the same way, and then a three-euro tip went back to the waiter, who said, “
Dankeschön
,” and moved off to deliver the remaining beverages to a foursome two rows forward.

“Thank you.” The Australian woman smiled at Anne.

“Our pleasure.” Anne returned the smile, then gave it a minute and looked to Marten. Lowering her voice, she gave him the gist of the text message. “Our accommodations are ready, darling. Get off at the next landing.”

8:38 P.M.

32

HOTEL ADLON, ROOM 647. 8:42 P.M.

Hauptkommissar Emil Franck watched veteran police dog trainer Friedrich Handler lead two eager Belgian Malinois into the bathroom, remove their leashes, and show them the bathrobe and towels Anne Tidrow had used after her shower. Both animals nuzzled and sniffed and then for a moment stood motionless. Handler nodded, and as one they backed up, leaving the confines of the bathroom to explore the hotel room itself. In thirty seconds they had covered it, stopping first at the clothes closet, then moving to the chair near the television, then finally sniffing around the bed. An instant later they headed for the door. Handler leashed them again. Then, with a nod from Franck, he opened the door and they went out.

8:47 P.M.

The dogs led them down a set of rear stairs and to the Adlon’s back entrance on Behrenstrasse. Outside, the Malinois turned left and then left again onto Wilhelmstrasse, tugging Handler and Hauptkommissar Franck in the direction of Unter den Linden. In less than a minute they had crossed the boulevard and were going in the direction of the Spree.

“
Hauptkommissar
.” A male voice came through a tiny receiver in Franck’s right ear.

Franck lifted his police radio and slowed, letting Handler and the Malinois move ahead. “Yes.”

“
Hannah Anne Tidrow is on the board of directors of the AG Striker Oil and Energy Company of Houston, Texas. The same AG Striker company that is under contract to the U.S. State Department in Iraq.
”

Franck looked puzzled. “She’s currently on the board?”

“
Yes, sir.
”

“I want to know more about Striker. Where their operations are outside of Iraq. If they have offices in Germany or elsewhere in the EU. Next, do we have a make on her companion?”

“
Not yet, sir.
”

“
Yes, we do
.” Gertrude Prosser’s voice suddenly crackled through his earpiece. “
His name is Nicholas Marten. He’s a landscape architect from Manchester, England. Checked into the Mozart Superior just after one this afternoon
.”

“Landscape architect?”

“
Yes, sir
.”

“Find out where he was before he came to Berlin—if he came directly from Manchester or from somewhere else—and if he has a criminal record. I want to know about the firm he works for. How established they are, what kind of clients they have. All of this is to be kept confidential and within my department only. No information, I repeat, no information is to reach the media. Total blackout.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hauptkommissar,” Handler suddenly called to him.

“Yes.” Franck clicked off and looked up.

Handler and the dogs were stopped at a construction Dumpster thirty feet ahead in a work area near the Reichstag. The Malinois were dancing in circles, confused.

“She stopped here,” Handler said. “Spent a few minutes, then moved on. I don’t know if the man was with her or not.”

“Which way?”

“Toward the river, I think.”

“You think?”

“There’s too much construction debris and a great deal of plaster and cement dust. They’ve lost the scent.”

Franck stared at him, clearly upset.

“I’m sorry, Haupkommissar.”

“It’s alright, Handler. It’s alright. We’ll take it from here. Thank you.”

9:12 P.M.

33

9:45 P.M.

Anne Tidrow and Nicholas Marten walked quickly along Friedrichstrasse. Heads down, they dodged in and out of leisurely strolling pedestrian traffic as best they could without calling attention to themselves. Four minutes earlier they’d disembarked from the
Monbijou
at the Weidendamm Bridge dock on the city side of the Spree, then crossed back over it, going in the same direction they had earlier. The entire route, boat ride included, had consumed nearly two hours, while taking them in what was little more than a large circle that brought them right back into the city and the hornet’s nest that was the police dragnet.

“This is crazy,” Marten breathed as two motorcycle officers cruised slowly past surveying the pedestrians. “How much further?”

“We’re almost—”

“You speak English?” A man with a closely trimmed beard suddenly locked step with them. He was maybe thirty and fashionably dressed in a beige suit and fitted black T-shirt.

They said nothing, just kept walking.

“English, yes? I’m trying to help you,” he insisted.

Anne glanced at him. “What do you want?”

He smiled and lowered his voice.” I got some good stuff. Pure coke, none of this street shit.”

“No, thank you.”

“What about him?” he nodded at Marten. Marten kept his head down and said nothing. “She speak for you?” he pressed.

Still Marten said nothing, just kept walking.

“I’m talking to you, man. Come on, this is good stuff. Not easy to find.”

“Please leave us alone.” Marten glanced at him sharply, then looked away.

Suddenly the man narrowed his forehead. “I’ve seen you someplace before, and not long ago.”

Abruptly Marten stopped, grabbed the man’s collar, and pulled him close. “I’m a cop. A detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. Want me to pull one of the local gendarmes over, let him check you out?”

“Let go of me, man. Let me go!” The man squealed and tried to pull away.

Marten fixed him with a stare, then shoved him backward. “Get the hell out of here. Now!”

The man stared a half second, then turned and walked quickly away in the opposite direction, disappearing in the sidewalk crowd.

Anne looked at him and grinned. “A cop?”

Immediately Marten took her by the arm. “Wherever we’re going, get us there as fast as you can.”

10:10 P.M.

The apartment was utilitarian at best. The top floor of an old three-story brick-building on an alley off Ziegelstrasse. There were two small, meagerly furnished rooms, plus a tiny kitchen and bath. The bedroom was in the back. It had a double bed, a worn overstuffed chair, and a chest of drawers. A small window opened onto an air shaft with an iron fire ladder that led to the roof. The other room, a kind of sitting room/dining room/library, was in the front, where two narrow floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the alley with a glimpse of Ziegelstrasse at the end of it.

The chipped, red-painted cupboard in the kitchen had been recently stocked with a variety of canned soups and meats along with two boxes of dry cereal, a jar of mustard, and one of strawberry jam. The refrigerator held a pound of ground coffee, a small wheel of cheese, a liter of milk, some fresh-sliced ham, several apples, two loaves of dark bread, a half-dozen bottles of mineral water, and eight bottles of Radeberger Pilsner beer. In all, enough to keep them fed, as Anne said, “for several days or more.”

“Several days?” Marten protested as they walked through the darkened front room to take refuge in the back bedroom.

“I’m doing my best to get us out of this mess. It’s not easy. It may take a little time.” Anne turned on a small bedside lamp. Its warm glow was welcome against the dark of the rest of the apartment, purposely kept that way to avoid drawing attention from the alley below. “You might even say thank you, for God’s sake.”

Marten’s reply was slow. “Thank you,” he said finally, then walked off down the hall to stand in the doorway to the front room and stare silently into it, alone with his thoughts.

“You’re welcome,” she said after him, then opened her purse and took out a designer T-shirt and started to undress. She took off her jacket and jeans, then her shirt and bra, folding them all neatly and setting them in a pile on top of the chest of drawers. She’d just pulled on the T-shirt when she felt a presence and turned to find him standing in the doorway looking at her.

“What the hell’s going on?” he said quietly. “Whose place is this? Who are you?”

“I’m tired. I want to sleep,” she said.

“Yeah, well I’m tired, too.”

“Please, not now.”

She was starting past him for the bathroom when he put an arm out and stopped her. “You’ve got ten seconds to answer my questions. You don’t, I’m walking out. I’ll take my chances with the police.” His eyes were fierce and unrelenting, his mind clearly made up.

She stared back at him. “What do you want me to tell you?”

“About the company. About you. All of it.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Try the beginning.”

She watched him a beat longer, then relented. “Alright.” She went back to the bed and sat down cross-legged on it, still dressed only in the T-shirt and panties, the nipples of her breasts protruding smartly through the shirt’s soft cotton. If it was provocative, she didn’t seem to care.

“My father owned Striker Oil. He bought it when it was a small oil services company in West Texas in the 1970s. My mother died when I was thirteen. I was an only child. He raised me himself. Took me all over the world with him while he tried to build the business, which meant anywhere there was oil or oil companies who needed management or exploration services. We nearly went under more than once. Then it caught hold. He took Striker public and did very well. I went to college in Texas and then into business. I got married and divorced. Shortly afterward my father had a stroke and put me on Striker’s board of directors because he knew I would protect the company and because I knew more about it than anybody but him. Then he had a second stroke, and I left my job to take care of him. I stayed with him for four years until he died.” Suddenly she stopped. “Boring, isn’t it? Why the hell don’t we just leave it at that?”

Marten leaned back against the doorjamb. “What happened to the company then?”

She watched him for a long moment. He wanted to know everything and wasn’t about to back down until he had it. If she was going to keep him with her, she had no choice but to continue.

“The people he brought in to run it, namely Sy Wirth and his hand-picked executives, got Wirth elected chairman and chief executive, bought back its shares, and took it private, getting rid of most of the board in the process. Afterward Wirth started developing friendships in Washington, which is how he hooked up with Hadrian to protect our oil field businesses around the world. Then Iraq happened, and he and Hadrian were right there. Almost from the start they were manipulating State Department contracts, hiring all kinds of subcontractors, double billing, using creative bookkeeping, all of it in a way that was almost impossible to track. I didn’t like it and said so. The only reason they kept me on the board was because of my father’s reputation with our employees and suppliers and other companies we did business with. I could yell to the horizon about what they were doing, but I knew it would do no good. They were arrogant and making hundreds of millions, so why should they change, even when they were under the spotlight of Joe Ryder’s congressional committee. Conor White was—”

She stopped again, and he could see the anger rise in her, as if she suddenly realized she was telling too much. “I’m really tired. I want to go to sleep.”

“Not yet.”

She glared at him. “You’re a fucking prick.”

“Maybe. And maybe I just want to know what the hell I’m dealing with. Conor White what?”

“Conor White,” she said deliberately, “was hired to create SimCo as a replacement for Hadrian in Equatorial Guinea so that whatever happened with Ryder’s inquiry into what was going on in Iraq would in no way trigger an interest there.”

“And you knew about it.”

“I knew about it, but I had no idea he was involved in arming the rebels. The man you saw me with on the plane was an in de pen dent auditor I hired to go over our books in Malabo to make certain there was absolutely no connection between the Striker/Hadrian problem in Iraq and what we were doing in Equatorial Guinea. And as far as I know there wasn’t, everything was legitimate. He finished his audit on the same day I learned about the photographs and the death of the priest who took them. I asked Conor about them, and he said they had to have been phonied up, Photoshopped or something, because whatever was supposed to be in them wasn’t true. Still, phony or not, we had to get them back, quickly and quietly, before they became public.

“I didn’t trust him then and I don’t trust him now. I think the photos are real. Otherwise the priest wouldn’t have been killed and the country so violently turned upside-down looking for them. What’s more, I don’t know that what White is doing isn’t at the direct order of Sy Wirth and the people at Hadrian.”

Marten watched her closely; her eyes, the movement of her body, anything that would tell him she was lying. He didn’t find it. Still, she’d given him only part of it; he wanted the rest. “That takes care of the army, SimCo, and the top guns at Striker and Hadrian. Where do you fit in? We’re not here now because you suddenly decided to take a vacation.”

Anne took a deep breath. “I told you before, it was personal. I want the photographs to use against Wirth and Hadrian and Conor White. Threaten to turn them over to the Ryder Commission if they don’t cease arming the insurgency and stop provoking an already terrible war. Maybe even more important to me personally”—her eyes filled with emotion—“I want to save what’s left of the reputation of my father’s company for him. For his memory.

“My mother got very sick when I was three. She was in the hospital for a month. She didn’t recognize me or my father. Nobody knew what was wrong. Finally she came out of it. The experience scared the hell out of me. It did the same to him. I was very young, but I could see it. He was all but lost. I wanted so much to help him, but I couldn’t.

“As I told you, my mother died when I was thirteen. It was brain cancer. She didn’t live long, but it was awful for her and my dad. Like the first time, he tried to protect me from it while he was falling apart himself. How he kept everything together—me, himself, the company—I don’t know. When she died, he and I went on together. It was his life and my life at the same time, and we went on like that until I went to college. But we never lost the closeness, not even later when I got married. I loved him very much. I respected him even more. I was holding his hand when he died.” She paused, then let her eyes find his. “Is that enough explanation for you?”

“Almost.”

Suddenly her anger roared back. “What the hell else do you want to know?”

“Whose place this is. Who you’re relying on to get us out of Berlin. Who you had following me earlier so that you knew where I was and where I went when I left the hotel to meet Haas.”

These were questions from before that so far she’d managed not to answer. But she knew he’d keep asking now until he had an answer, either that or he would simply walk out as he’d threatened.

“Things were arranged through old friends,” she said quietly. “I lived in Berlin for eighteen months some years ago.”

“Doing what?”

She didn’t reply.

“Doing what?” he repeated.

“I was an employee of the U.S. government.”

“As?”

“My job was classified.”

“Classified?”

“Yes.”

“Meaning you were an operative of some kind.”

“I . . . worked for the CIA.”

10:30 P.M.