end only in a trace back to the general number at Hadrian headquarters in Virginia. An allegation of a clandestine meeting between the two of them at the former bordello in Berlin would be indefensible as well. The apartment had been rented by phone and charged to a SimCo account in England under the name Conor White. On the morning of the day in question Josiah Wirth had been in a meeting with the Russian oil oligarch Dimitri Korostin at the Dorchester Hotel in London. It was true he had gone to Berlin later and taken a suite at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, but that had been to meet with an associate of Korostin’s who had had to cancel at the last minute. He hadn’t even been aware that White was in the city. Sometime after one the next morning he’d left the German capital in the company Gulfstream for a series of business meetings in Barcelona.
It was on the way there that he would hear about the tragedy in whatever town or city where Dimitri’s people caught up with Anne and Marten, and where White and his gunmen would be found by the local authorities and accused of their murders. Authorities who would have gone there on a tip from the Spanish police, who would have been anonymously alerted to White’s probable complicity in the Madrid farmhouse murders and have been warned that he was on his way to wherever this place was to settle some grievous personal account with Striker board member Anne Tidrow.
Depending on the timing, Wirth would either go to the location directly from Barcelona or divert his flight en route, shocked and outraged at White’s involvement with what had happened there and at the Madrid farmhouse and mourning the death of a dear colleague who was the daughter of Striker’s late and much loved found er.
Wirth took another sip of coffee and looked out the window to see the first streaks of day beginning to brighten the eastern sky. Suddenly he felt exhausted, as if all of the anxiety, intensity, and travel of the past days had caught up with him. He’d slept little and knew he would need all the clearheaded energy he could muster when things began to happen. If he could sleep now, even for twenty minutes, it would be a godsend. He put the cup down and lay back, closing his eyes. Just relax, he told himself. Don’t think about anything. Don’t think about anything at all.
6:28 A.M. SPANISH TIME
62
CESSNA, D-VKRD. AIRSPEED 130 MILES PER HOUR.
ALTITUDE 4,500 FEET. 6:15 A.M. PORTUGUESE TIME.
Marten glanced at Brigitte and then looked back at Anne. She was watching him without expression, as if she were fed up with his maneuverings and seriously wondering if he really did know what the hell he was doing. He turned back, saying nothing. This was no time to get into it again. Not when they had come this far and were so close to their objective. Or at least what he hoped what their objective would be.
A short while earlier they had passed into Portuguese airspace and were hugging the coastline, where the sunrise was providing a stunning view of the numerous beach communities dotting the Algarve region. Faro would be one of them. By his calculation, ten to fifteen minutes ahead at most.
“Mr. Marten-” Brigitte said over the drone of the engines.
“Fuel, I know.”
“We have to put down, and soon.”
“I understand,” he said, knowing they were lucky to have come as far as they had. He was still concerned about giving Brigitte their destination too soon for fear she would somehow signal ahead and operatives would be waiting for them when they arrived, but unless he wanted to land on one of the beaches along the way, he had no choice but to tell her now. “Can we make it to Faro?”
“Yes, sir. I think so.”
“Then do it.”
“Faro?” Anne said behind him.
He turned to look at her. “Yes, darling, Faro,” he said, smiling warmly. “Anything else?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Good.”
There was a roar of engines as Brigitte swung the Cessna out over the sea, radioing the Faro tower with a request to land. Seconds later she looked to Marten. “Portugal has no passport control for flights originating inside Europe.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Once we reach the terminal you’ll go directly inside, pass through the Nothing to Declare door, and walk into the arrivals hall. Then you’re out and gone, and I refuel and fly back to Germany. It’s as simple as that.”
So Brigitte did know something of their situation. At least enough to know Marten might be concerned about having to show identification when they landed and be thinking what to do about it when they did. The question was, was she being helpful? Or purposely trying to lull him into a sense that he had nothing to worry about after they’d landed, and in doing so throw him off guard for whoever might be waiting to follow them?
“I hope it’s as simple as that,” Anne said.
Marten looked over his shoulder. “So do I.”
6:22 A.M. PORTUGUESE TIME
63
STRIKER OIL GULFSTREAM G550. NEARING MALAGA.
AIRSPEED 470 MPH. ALTITUDE 28,300 FEET.
7:35 A.M. SPANISH TIME.
Sy Wirth had slept soundly for an hour, then suddenly woke with a start and immediately picked up his BlackBerry, trying to reach Korostin. He got only the Russian’s voice mail. Angry, he started to call Conor White, then decided against it. There was no reason. If Korostin knew where the Cessna was, he would have alerted him. If he didn’t know, there was little chance White would either. If he did, he would have already been in touch. So there was nothing to do but wait; one of the things he hated most.
Finally he got up and went to the lavatory. Afterward, he came back and sat down, then abruptly took a yellow legal pad from his briefcase, picked up a freshly sharpened number 2 Ticonderoga 1388 pencil, and scrawled a brief memo to himself for a dialogue later in the day with Striker’s chief counsel, Arnold Moss.
