touched. And he’d been right-whatever it was, the heart of it had been fear. Of what, he didn’t know, but clearly it was important. It didn’t surprise him that she didn’t want to discuss it, but maybe there was another way to come at it, especially if he could learn a little more about her.
“What if we just talk about something else?”
“Why?”
Marten grinned. “Well, it’s going to be a long night, and I don’t think Brigitte brought along a stack of magazines.”
Anne leaned back in her seat and studied him. “What would you like to talk about?”
“Don’t know.” He said with a shrug. “You said you’d been married. How’s that for starters?”
“Twice.”
“Twice?”
“Don’t look so shocked. I’ve got friends who would think that’s nothing more than spring training.”
“I’m not shocked, just surprised.”
“At what?”
“Your lifestyle doesn’t seem to reflect home, hearth, and motherhood once, let alone twice.”
“If you’re asking if I have a home, yes, I do. As for children, no, I don’t. Neither husband was suited to be a father, and I don’t think I’d have made much of a mother, either. Besides, I couldn’t have them.”
“That’s more than I needed to know.”
“So now you do. And now it’s your turn. How many times have you been married?”
“Never.”
“Why is that? You’re not a bad-looking guy.”
“Thanks.”
“It wasn’t a compliment, it was a question.”
“The only two women I ever really cared enough about to go down that road with did other things.”
“Like what?”
“One I met in England. She suddenly ran off and married the British ambassador to Japan.”
“The other?”
Marten hesitated, then stared into some private distance that was his own.
“Well?” Anne pushed him a little, hoping to hear some kind of colorful, lurid gossip. She got something else entirely.
“She died a little more than a year ago. She was young and married. Her husband and son had been killed in a plane crash a few weeks earlier. We grew up together. We were childhood sweethearts. I loved her very much.”
“I’m sorry.” Anne was taken aback, embarrassed by what she had done. “I didn’t mean to intrude like that.” Suddenly she became gentle and very human. It was a side of her he hadn’t seen before.
“You couldn’t have known.”
“May I ask what happened?”
“She was…” Marten looked off again, the pain and loss and anger still there. “Murdered.”
“Murdered?”
“She was purposely given an incurable staph infection. It’s a long, complicated story. Thankfully for her it’s over.”
“But it’s not for you.”
“No.”
For a long moment Anne said nothing, just let him sit there in the privacy of his thoughts that she knew were millennia away. The only sound was the hum of the Cessna’s engines.
“What was her name?” she said finally.
“Caroline.”
“She must have been beautiful.”
“She was.”
10:02 P.M.
52
BERLIN. THE APARTMENT AT 11 GIESEBRECHTSTRASSE.
10:47 P.M.
“We’re leaving now, Mr. Wirth. I’ll confirm when we’re airborne.” Conor White clicked off his BlackBerry, then clicked back on and punched in a number.
Across from him, Patrice and Irish Jack were already on their feet, putting away the cards they’d been playing, packing up, getting ready to leave.
“This is White.” He spoke into his BlackBerry. “File a flight plan for Malaga, Spain, and get clearance for takeoff. Wheels up in forty minutes.”
“Malaga?” Sennac said, his eyebrows raised, his Quebecois accent pronounced as always.
Irish Jack grinned. “Good pubs, good babes, good beaches. Merrily we roll along.”
“Jack,” White cautioned, “we’re not on holiday.”
“Aw, don’t spoil the fucker for us, Colonel.” He winked at Patrice. “What we got to do won’t take but a short few minutes. Will it now?”
“It shouldn’t,” White said deliberately and with none of the Irishman’s humor. “And won’t.”
“You’re right, Col o nel, it won’t.” Patrice glanced at Irish Jack, a warning to back off the levity. They’d known White’s obsession with recovering the photographs from the beginning. If they needed a reminder they needed only to remember what happened in the farm house outside Madrid. The grilling of the young Spanish doctor and her medical students had gone on to the point where White had had enough. Removing his balaclava and telling them to remove theirs had been a signal that they would give them one last chance to cooperate and that would be it. Killing one captive in front of others was an age-old means of attempting to terrify those left into divulging information when they had so far refused to provide. It hadn’t worked, and White ended it on the spot. Afterward he’d sincerely apologized to the three horrified students who remained, saying he had taken up too much of their time, and told the limo driver to take them back to their homes and parents in Madrid, knowing full well Patrice had rigged the limousine to explode twelve minutes after the engine was started. Seconds after they’d gone, White went into the barn where the Spanish gunman who’d brought him there waited with the car, and shot him where he stood.
For a professional soldier like Conor White to be fixated on accomplishing a mission was one thing. The depth of his passion was something else entirely. He’d told his men soon after the
