linen slacks with a matching short-sleeve top. She also had the intense, almost severe air of someone used to being in charge and had something immediate and definitive on her mind.
With her was a handsome man in a tan suit with a light blue shirt open at the collar. He looked to be a little older than she, was well over six feet tall, had dark, close-cropped hair, and appeared to be more than physically fit. He, too, held the aura of authority. It was in the cut of his clothes and the way he carried himself: shoulders back, chest out; his movements smooth and fluid; his presence bordering on the aristocratic. It was a characteristic Marten had seen in some of his clients in Manchester, a studied military bearing born in the career officer ranks of the armed forces. There was something else, too, and it nearly took Marten’s breath away. He was one of the SimCo men he had seen in Father Willy’s photographs transferring weapons to the insurgents in the jungle.
13
“I believe you are Mr. Marten,” the woman said as she reached him.
Marten looked at them warily. “Yes, why?”
“My name is Anne Tidrow. This is Conor White.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I’m a member of the board of directors of the AG Striker Oil and Energy Company,” Anne Tidrow said. “Mr. White is head of the security firm we have retained to safeguard our workers in Equatorial Guinea. We understand that you were caught up in the rebellion in the south where a German priest was killed. Since Striker has many employees in various regions of Bioko, we are naturally concerned for their safety. Anything you could tell us about what you saw or experienced might help us be better prepared to protect our people.”
“I went over the details at great length with army interrogators. Why don’t you ask them?”
“Unfortunately the army does not share that kind of information with us, Mr. Marten,” Conor White said, his accent noticeably British. “Might we have a few moments of your time? And in private, if you don’t mind. This room is filled with large ears, and we wouldn’t want to inadvertently create a climate of fear where there is none. Or at least where we hope there is none.”
Marten hesitated. Here was a situation he could hardly have imagined. The oil company’s chief security contractor, a man photographed supplying arms to the rebels, standing in front of him asking him to give him details of what he knew about the rebellion, and the woman with him, a member of Striker’s board of directors, going so far as to mention Father Willy, though not by name. Maybe the army didn’t share information with SimCo, but Conor White undoubtedly knew about the photographs and possibly knew that Marten had spent time alone with the man who took them. It meant that he, like the army, suspected Marten knew where the pictures were and wanted to retrieve them as quickly and quietly as possible. That explained Conor White and why he was here. What about Anne Tidrow?
It was interesting to wonder why she was even in Bioko, let alone here with White. There was little doubt she knew about the photos, too, or White wouldn’t have dared expose his involvement with the rebels by bringing her along. So why would she be trying to protect SimCo when that was the firm her company had hired to safeguard its employees from the insurgency it was helping to fuel? It was the same question he had asked Father Willy.
“I came in here hoping to find a gin and tonic,” Marten said finally. “Then I ran into my friends, and so far a waiter hasn’t been by.”
“Gin and tonic sounds good,” White said. “Why don’t we see about it at the bar?”
Marten nodded. “Why not?”
7:35 P.M.
Conor White led them to a corner of the bar that was away from the crowd and relatively quiet, seemingly safely devoid of the “large ears” he had referred to. An aging Asian barman wearing a dark toupee, who looked like he’d been there since the building was erected, came over, and White ordered drinks. As he did, Marten pulled back a worn rattan barstool for Anne Tidrow.
“Thank you.” she said, smiling.
“How did you know my name and that I was, as you put it, caught up in the rebellion in the south? Who told you?”
“My people,” White answered for her. “We often monitor army radio communications. It helps us keep up on what’s happening inside the country.”
“It does until you get caught.”
White grinned. “We are not in the business of geting caught, Mr. Marten.”
Just then the barman brought the drinks, and White handed them around.
Anne Tidrow picked up her glass and looked at Marten. “Perhaps you could tell us something of your experiences during the fighting. What went on, what you saw.”
“I wasn’t exactly in the middle of it.” Marten picked up his glass and took a solid pull at his drink. “What I remember was seeing two little native boys come running along a very muddy road in the pouring rain yelling for Father Willy Dorhn, the priest you were referring to. A couple of minutes later I heard gunfire from the village. The next thing, a couple of army trucks full of soldiers showed up. The first one stopped beside Father Dorhn and the boys. Soldiers jumped out. One of them hit the father with a rifle butt hard and knocked him down. Maybe you don’t know, but he was an old man. Another soldier did the same to the boys. One right after the other. I found out later all three of them died. The soldiers in the second truck came after me.” Marten paused; then his eyes came up to hers and held there. “What else do you want to know?”
“Did you get to the village beforehand?” Now it was Conor White asking the questions. “By that I mean were you there earlier, before the rebels came?”
“I never said the rebels came. I’d met Father Willy several hours earlier, and he took me into the rain forest to show me some native plants. I’m a landscape architect. That’s why I came to Bioko. To study the local flora for some clients back home. It was afterward, when we came down out of the jungle and were nearing the village, that all the trouble started. The father told me to run, and I did.”
“Were you in his church? His living quarters?”
“Why?”
“Mr. White is just trying to get some sense of what was going on before the rebels attacked.” Anne Tidrow took a sip of her drink and set the glass on the bar.
“You people keep telling me the rebels attacked. I never saw a rebel. Only soldiers.”
“But you were in his church and his living quarters,” Conor White pressed him.
“I met him in the village square, if that’s what you want to call it.” Marten deliberately locked eyes with White. “First it was the rebels. Now you’ve asked me twice if I was in the priest’s church or his living quarters. Just what is it you’re trying to find out?”
“If he was encouraging the rebellion. If you saw anything that might indicate that.”
“No. I didn’t.”
“It might interest you to know the savagery has escalated greatly in the last weeks. The army is literally slaughtering suspected insurgents as well as their families, the elderly and women and children included, and afterward burning their villages to the ground. In response the people are butchering soldiers and bystanders alike. It is becoming very dangerous to have our people here, both mine and the employees of Striker Oil.”
