Korostin at the Dorchester Hotel in London in exchange for finding and returning the photographs and the memory card.
“What is it?” Conor White was staring at him.
Wirth’s eyes came up to meet his. “I thought I was dealing with a friend. I wasn’t.”
“You said something about a Russian. What did you mean?”
Wirth glared at him. “I said nothing about a Russian. Nothing at all.”
“Are the Russians involved?” This time White didn’t hold back anything. “Is that what happened?”
Wirth didn’t reply.
“Do they have the photographs?”
“I don’t know.”
Suddenly Conor White’s vast experience and education-at Eton, Oxford, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, his long career as a frontline British combat officer and then a top-level professional mercenary soldier-came fully into play. Wirth’s blundering had struck an immediate and terrifying chord, the stakes of which, even moments earlier, he could never have imagined.
“Mr. Wirth,” he said emphatically, “I suggest you try to reach Anne and find out where she is. If she’s with Marten, if she’s not. Maybe she’ll answer, maybe she won’t. But if we can find out what happened, we may well learn something about the rest of it. In the meantime one of us needs to call Loyal Truex and tell him what the hell’s going on. God help us if the Russians have the photographs, because if they do they will have all the evidence they need to prove what they may have already guessed about what Striker is doing in Bioko.
“We’re talking about a massive amount of oil, Mr. Wirth. Massive. They will want it, all of it, if for no other reason than to keep it out the hands of the West. Once they start formulating a plan and communicating between themselves, the Chinese will find out. And they will want it, too. Either or both will create some kind of excuse for an armed intervention into the insurrection, basically to get hold of the country for themselves. They do that and it will be seen as a bona fide threat to U.S. national security, and Washington will have no choice but to try and stop them.” White paused as a chilling apocalyptic anger raged through him. “You might have damn well planted the seeds for a major war, Mr. Wirth. Major.”
3:08 P.M.
77
3:34 P.M.
Stump Logan turned the battered green-and-white 1978 Volkswagen bus onto the A2, the Auto-estrada do Sul, and headed toward Lisbon, by now less than a hundred miles to the north. Logan had reasoned that it was best they get out of not only Praia da Rocha but the whole Algarve region before Hauptkommissar Franck’s body was found. Fortunately it was Sunday afternoon, and hundreds of people would be leaving the beach communities for the trip back to the cities, Lisbon especially. So he left his employees to watch the store, packed up everyone pretty much on the spot, and joined the traffic exodus heading north out of the Algarve.
“Packed up everyone” was an all-inclusive term. By that Logan meant himself, Anne and Marten, and his five dogs, which for all intents were his family. Two sat in the shotgun seat next to him; a white Westie and a golden retriever/poodle mix. Behind him, on the floor between Anne and Marten and the large envelope Marten so carefully guarded, was Bruno, a coal black 130-pound two-year-old Newfoundland who affectionately rested his not so inconsiderable head in Marten’s lap. The last of the five were an aging Old English sheepdog called Bowler, who kept to open space behind the seats where Anne and Marten sat, and Leo, a young, frisky eighty-pound Bouvier des Flandres, whose self-appointed duty seemed to be a constant patrol between Anne and Marten and Bruno, and Bowler behind them.
3:40 P.M.
Anne heard her BlackBerry ring for the fourth time in the last half hour. The previous three had been from the same number-Sy Wirth’s BlackBerry-and she simply hadn’t answered. Each time she’d drawn a look from Marten, but he’d made no comment. The latest call was again from Wirth; this time it was a text message.
Anne. Sy. Very concerned about your safety. I’ve tried calling with no luck. Where are you? Are you alright? Extremely important I speak with you. Please get in touch immediately.
She looked at Marten and showed him the screen. “He’s the one who called before. I didn’t answer because I knew who it was. He’s the last person I want a conversation with.”
“But this time you clicked on.”
“I knew it was text. I wanted to see what he said.”
“Can he find you because of it?” Marten said.
“No. I switched off the GPS feature from the application settings before I left Paris. If I wanted them to know where I was, I wanted to be the one who told them.”
“Do you know where Wirth is now?”
She shook her head. “I tried earlier, but it didn’t work. So I imagine he did the same thing.”
Just then Leo, the Bouvier, poked his head over Bruno’s head, which was still parked in Marten’s lap, and looked up at him, seemingly intent on knowing what was going on.
“Fellas, it’s getting crowded. Go play somewhere else, huh?” Marten said and pushed both dogs away. As he did, he felt the press of the Glock automatic Kovalenko had given him, which he’d tucked into his waistband under his jacket before they left Cadiz’s house. He glanced at Stump Logan at the wheel, then looked to Anne and lowered his voice. “Wirth will know we landed at Faro. By now he’s getting desperate, wondering what happened after that. It’s why he’s trying to reach you, hoping you’ll tip your hand. I think we have to assume White and this Patrice and probably the other fellow, Irish Jack, are with him.”
“Police!” Stump Logan warned suddenly. Marten looked up to see the bookseller’s eyes glued to the rearview mirror. Both he and Anne turned to look behind them and saw two helmeted, uniformed police on the motorcycles coming up fast.
“Relax and watch your speed,” Marten said evenly, then turned to innocently ruffle Bruno’s head, an everyday dog lover stroking man’s best friend. Anne eased around, then looked over at Marten and smiled as if she were enjoying his interplay with the dog.
Seconds later the police were abreast of them, one on either side. The rider on the left glanced in as he rode. The rider on the right did the same. It went on that way for what seemed an eternity. Finally Marten looked over and nodded politely at the rider on the right. In the next instant and almost as one, they accelerated off to disappear in the flow of traffic ahead.
Logan looked in the mirror. “Lucky,” he said, “very lucky.” Then he clipped on the headset to an iPod he had next to him, tuned in to something, and drove on.
Anne and Marten exchanged glances but said nothing. The police might have sped off, but their sudden arrival and close scrutiny were deeply troubling. There was no way to know if Franck’s body had been found and if the authorities were already looking for them, the motorcycle officers part of a much larger dragnet. Even if they weren’t, it was only a matter of time before it happened. What made it worse, and Marten hadn’t even thought about it until now, was that the Glock Kovalenko had given him was the weapon used to kill the Hauptkommissar. Not only did he have it on his person, with the lone fatal shot fired from the otherwise full magazine, his fingerprints were all over it.
