circling over France at the orders of Moscow waiting for him to retrieve what were thought to be extremely important pictures. How had Elsa put it when reminding him Marten was wanted for the murder of Theo Haas?
Which, other than his official role as the primary German investigator charged with apprehending Marten for Haas’s murder and his connections to the international law enforcement community that might be of help in the event Marten eluded them on the ground, was the reason he was there. Retrieving the photos for Moscow was only part of it. Once done-
1:37 A.M.
Franck glanced at the laptop’s screen. The Cessna was no longer moving. Instead its dot was frozen on the screen inland from the sea near the French city of Bordeaux. He sat up fast. As he did, he saw Kovalenko coming toward him.
“The Cessna has stopped,” he said quickly. “Did the transmitter crash? Did the plane?”
Kovalenko grinned. “Neither, Hauptkommissar. They’ve put down at Bordeaux- Merignac Airport, most likely for fuel. An understandable delay. Nothing has changed.”
“What is our own fuel situation?” Franck said calmly, unhappy with his show of alarm and Kovalenko’s patronizing response.
“For now, more than adequate, Hauptkommissar.”
Franck squinted in the dim cabin light trying to see the Russian more clearly. Deliberately he changed the subject. “You told me you knew Nicholas Marten from before, that he had been a homicide investigator in Los Angeles.”
“I was there investigating a case involving the murder of Russian nationals. We had some dealings together. He had a different name then.”
“Why did he change it and move to another country and take up another profession? Corruption?”
“He’s not a policeman at heart, Hauptkommissar. I think he wanted to wholly extricate himself from that world. He preferred to see the beauty in life instead of bearing such close witness to the horror of what the human race does to itself every day.”
“Yet now he’s going to become part of that same horror.”
“It is his fate, Hauptkommissar.” Kovalanko pointed a finger skyward. “Written long ago in the stars. At least he will have had a few years of peace and, hopefully, joy.”
“You believe in fate, Kovalenko?”
Kovalenko smiled. “If I didn’t, I, too, would be out planting flowers. Who the hell wouldn’t? If it weren’t for fate, everyone in the world would be out planting flowers. It would seem a very reasonable thing to do. Few, like Marten, recognize what’s happening and do something about it. The rest of us merely accept it and simply go about the business at hand.” The humor left Kovalenko’s eyes. “Until, as Marten is about to discover, our true fate catches up.”
“And then?”
“And then-that’s that.”
1:45 A.M.
54
FRANCE, BORDEAUX-MERIGNAC AIRPORT. 1:50 A.M.
Marten crossed the lighted tarmac in the area dedicated to civil aviation. A dozen planes were parked equidistant from each other. All dark. Locked for the night. The thirteenth, the Cessna D- VKRD, was farthest out, its interior lights on. By now it would have been fueled and ready for takeoff. Anne and their pilot, Brigitte Marie Reier, having used the terminal’s toilet facilities and had something to eat, would be in the plane waiting for him.
Before, he’d purposely stayed back, remaining with the aircraft, letting the women go inside first. There’d been no real reason, other than to be polite and wanting to stretch his legs, and to be alone and think. And for a brief time he had, reflecting back on his conversation with Anne.
Memories of his late, beloved Caroline had moved him deeply, as had the horrors of Equatorial Guinea. The deaths that occurred there screamed out, leaving nothing but unfathomable anger and damning hatred for the carnival of perpetrators. All of it complicated by his own mental and physical exhaustion.
The truth was he was coming apart. He’d thought he’d left the savagery of violent death behind when he’d begun his new life in England. Then, from nowhere, he’d been thrust headlong into a world far darker and more monstrous than anything he’d seen on the streets of L.A. Suddenly he was afraid he was no longer capable of operating in it, that the self-protective, steel-edged coping mechanism every homicide cop develops to deal with murder on a daily basis had left him. If he was to continue, he would need that attitude and those skills. Without them, he might very well be killed himself and take Anne along with him. Especially if he had to go up against Conor White and whatever mercenaries he was sure to have accompanying him.
Instinct told him to walk away now. Say to hell with Anne, the photographs, Joe Ryder, even the president. Leave the Cessna where it was without a word or a note or anything. Just find his way back to Manchester and the quiet beauty and emotional safety of his life there. Make believe none of this had ever happened.
He might have done it, too, or at least tried, if he hadn’t suddenly been jolted by the thundering roar of a corporate jet taking off less than two hundred yards from where he stood. He’d watched it disappear into the night sky, its exterior navigational lights quickly fading to nothing. In that moment he heard Erlanger’s words again.
Maybe they’d gotten away with it and maybe they hadn’t.
Immediately he thought of the jet aircraft he’d requested and then of the slow ’54 Chevy of a Cessna they’d been given. Had it been all that was available or was there some other reason?
In the next second he’d gone to the plane and walked around it, looking at the engines and under the wings, then examined the fuselage and tail assembly as best he could in the faint light. Afterward he climbed inside and poked around in the same way, looking under the instrument panel, the seats, the small luggage area, anywhere some kind of electronic transmitting device might have been planted. Then he’d heard the women coming back and quickly finished, stepping out just as they arrived.
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 Portimao. The nearest major airport was in Faro, which was close to the Spanish border and probably not two hundred miles from Malaga. Importantly, there were rental car facilities at the airport, most of
