by Allan Folsom
Emil Franck turned his laptop off and then back on and waited for it to reboot, just as he had done moments earlier. The green dot giving the Cessna’s position had suddenly disappeared from the screen, and he held his breath, hoping the problem was with the laptop’s software. Up front, he could see Kovalenko talking excitedly to the pilots and knew the software had nothing to do with it. They’d had the Cessna on their screen, too, and called for Kovalenko seconds after it had vanished from Franck’s. Clearly something major had occurred. Abruptly Kovalenko left the pilots and came toward.
“Marten’s aware that he’s being tracked,” he said. “The Cessna was on approach, then suddenly veered off in a cloud deck and reported radio trouble. There is something of a disorder in the Málaga tower as a result.”
“The transmitter was new. It was functioning perfectly.”
“And then it went dead. Almost at the exact same moment the pilot aborted her landing. Either it was found and disabled or simply stopped working at a con ve nient moment. But whatever happened makes no difference. The Cessna is gone. Málaga tower is attempting to locate it by its transponder reading, but it will take time. Maybe a few minutes, maybe a few hours. Who knows?”
Kovalenko suddenly leaned in close, his face inches from the German detective’s, his eyes seeming to pull back into his skull in a way that was wholly unnerving. “Hauptkommissar, that little tracking device, no bigger than your pinky finger—its condition and where it was placed on the aircraft were your responsibility.”
“I neither selected it nor placed it. I simply ordered it done and it was.”
“It was your responsibility, Hauptkommissar. The Cessna is gone. So is Marten.”
“Then I will find him.”
“If he’s not already on the ground somewhere and vanished. Then where will we be, Hauptkommissar, you and I? Most particularly to Moscow.”
Franck’s black eyes flashed angrily at Kovalenko’s attempt to shift the blame to him, but he said nothing. Instead he stood up and slid a cell phone from his jacket, then punched in a number.
“At this point they won’t have much fuel remaining,” he said quietly, then turned to the phone as a male voice answered. “This is Franck. I want an immediate Europe-wide aeronautical APB on a Cessna 340, fuselage registration D-VKRD, last seen approaching AGP, Málaga Airport, Spain. Contact me with the coordinates the moment the aircraft’s transponder signal is located or when the pilot requests permission to land, whichever is first. I want information only. No contact is to be made with the aircraft itself. All agencies are requested to stand by for further instructions. No action is to be taken without my permission. Confirm.”
“Roger, copy. Confirmed, sir.”
Franck clicked off without another word, then looked to the Russian. “If, as you suggest, Nicholas Marten manages to land somewhere without our knowledge, then recovers the photographs and disappears into the mist, we would be dealing with the concept of fate we discussed earlier. Yours and mine especially, as far as Moscow is concerned. To paraphrase you, Kovalenko—we go about the business at hand until our true fate catches up and then—that’s that. Put more directly, unless something happens within a very short time, we will both soon be dead.”
5:31 A.M.
60
CESSNA, D-VKRD. AIRSPEED 190 MILES PER HOUR.
ALTITUDE JUST OVER 11,200 FEET. 5:57 A.M.
“Where are we?” Marten was talking to Brigitte without looking at her, his eyes on the sparkling lights of a city below.
“Passing over Gibraltar. Following the coastline west, as you asked.”
“Good.”
“It would be helpful if you told me where you want to land.”
“I’ll tell you when we get there. The same as I’ve I said all along.”
“Yes, sir.”
It was still nearly an hour to sunrise. Faro, Marten had to remember, was in Portugal, not Spain, and the time zone there was an hour earlier, meaning it was now approaching five in the morning Portuguese time. From what he remembered of the Google map he’d studied earlier, Gibraltar was probably a hundred and fifty miles from Faro in a direct line. By following the coast they could easily add another forty or fifty miles to the trip. Meaning it would be sometime after six when they reached Faro, and that was important. If they arrived too early, the airport terminal would be relatively quiet, making it difficult for two people arriving by private plane to walk in off the tarmac unnoticed. Faro was the hub airport for the popular Algarve region of southern Portugal, and the later they got there, the better the opportunity they would have to mix in with the tourists and business people arriving or departing on early-morning flights. The trouble was, by taking a longer route, fuel became a problem, and they were low on it as it was.
Marten glanced at the gauge on the instrument panel. It read close to empty.
The last thing he wanted was to put down somewhere between where they were and Faro, because the minute he gave the order to land, Brigitte would have to contact the tower, and once they were down they would be vulnerable. Never mind that the people in two planes he suspected had followed them to Málaga might still be on their tail; if Brigitte was a CIA plant arranged through Erlanger in Berlin, she might well silently alert someone on the ground and an operation to tail them would be in force when they arrived. That kind of chance he was prepared to take in Faro because he knew exactly where they were going afterward; he’d just have to hope they could find a way to leave the airport quickly and unnoticed. But landing at an unknown airport along the way was no good. He looked to Brigitte.
“How soon before we need fuel?”
“An hour. A little more if we throttle back and slow down.”
“Then slow us down,” he said without hesitation. If they made it to Faro they would be landing on fumes, but it was a chance he was willing to take.
“I hope you know what you’re doing.” Anne’s voice rang out from behind him.
He turned to look at her. She was sitting back, her arms folded over her chest. “I’m not exactly in the mood to end up in the Atlantic.” She smiled demurely.
“If it makes you feel any better, neither am I.”
“How comforting.” She smiled again.
“Isn’t it?”
6:00 A.M.
61
STRIKER OIL GULFSTREAM G550. SOMEWHERE OVER
NORTHERN SPAIN. AIRSPEED 510 MILES PER HOUR.
ALTITUDE 31,300 FEET. 6:14 A.M.
“I understand, Conor, there was nothing you could do,” Sy Wirth said with uncharacteristic calm, his ear to his Conor White–only, blue-tape BlackBerry. “I assume you’re still on the ground at Málaga?”
“Yes, sir,” White’s voice came back. “There’s a lot of traffic. The tower is having difficulty picking up the transponder signal from the Cessna. It’s a complicated procedure that’s out of my hands. Even my man in air traffic can’t force it. I’ve pushed him as hard as I can. We’re cleared for takeoff the moment we isolate the signal.”
“I’ll call you back.” Abruptly Wirth clicked off, set the blue-tape BlackBerry on the worktable in front of him, and picked up his other BlackBerry. Immediately he punched in a number and waited for it to connect through.
“I know, Josiah, they’ve lost the signal. My people are on it.” Despite the hour Dimitri Korostin was right there, clearly expecting his call. “It’s much too early to have to deal with your problems. You’re making me begin to think an Andean gas field is hardly worth it.”
“A field the size of the Santa Cruz–Tarija is worth as many problems as you have to solve. That is, if you still intend to deliver as promised. So fuck you, and find out where the hell Marten’s plane is.”
“Fuck you, too. I’ll let you know when I have something.” With that the Russian clicked off.
Sy Wirth set the BlackBerry down and poured himself a cup of coffee from the thermos the flight attendant had provided. When he had it, he sat back and tried to relax. He could worry, but it
wouldn’t help. Dimitri’s people were in the air and on Marten’s tail. So far, and despite Marten’s clever maneuverings, they’d tracked him every step of the way, so there was no reason to believe they wouldn’t pick him up again soon. There was little doubt Conor White and his team would find him in due course, too, but Dimitri’s people would find him faster and with a lot less noise.
Unfortunate as losing the Cessna’s signal was, it was strangely working in his favor and was why he hadn’t raised his voice to White. Why upset someone who’s helping you without knowing it? By pressing his man in Málaga air traffic control, he was unconsciously leaving a big fat footprint for the authorities to follow once the business with Marten was done. The same hefty footprint he’d left in Madrid when he hired the limousine and driver to pick up the Spanish doctor and her medical students at the airport and take them to the isolated farmhouse, and then later when he used the Falcon charter to take him from Madrid to Berlin and now back to Spain.
When all was said and done—when Dimitri’s people had delivered the photographs and gone, and from Dimitri’s reputation and actions so far there was little reason to think they wouldn’t succeed, with Marten and Anne dead in the process—the person left twisting in the air would be Conor White. And there would be nothing he could say without incriminating himself further. Even if he pointed the finger at Wirth, claiming he was the mastermind of all this—of arming the rebels and then of directing the search for the damning photographs, which included the interrogations in the farmhouse outside Madrid—his case would fall apart because there would be no photographs and any claim of direct communication between the two of them would 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 MÁLAGA.
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.
1: Prepare to quickly and publicly disavow any connection to Conor White, Marten, and Anne once the photos are recovered. Whatever happens, White acted wholly on his own, or—(check with Arnie) as previously discussed re: separate clandestine Hadrian/SimCo relationship—with no involvement by Striker whatsoever. White should immediately and very publicly be terminated (he will go to jail anyway) and SimCo reorganized for continued operation in E.G. (Side note: SimCo’s a good operation with personnel already in place in E.G. No need to completely dismantle it.)
2: As above, prepare quick, smart, well-placed p
ublic relations spin, esp. in D.C., to make Striker look like the victim in the White/Hadrian debacle.
3: Prepare to dissolve all business in Iraq. Or ga nize legal defense team against any and all ensuing actions by White, Loyal Truex/Hadrian, and the Ryder Commission.
4: Analyze Striker worldwide operations, prepare to reconfigure to make E.G. and the Bioko field the centerpiece within 6–12 months.
5: Prepare—
Suddenly his everyday BlackBerry chimed. Immediately he picked up.
“Faro, Portugal,” Dimitri Korostin’s voice spat at him. “They landed about five minutes ago.”
“Your people are there?”
“We have an agreement, Josiah. I deliver as promised, no matter what you may think.”
“Thank you, my friend.”
“Fuck you, too!”
Dimitri clicked off; so did Wirth. A moment later he picked up the blue-tape BlackBerry and speed-dialed Conor White’s number.
“Yes, sir.” White’s voice came back. “I’m still on the ground in Málaga. No update on Marten as yet.”
“Call me back. The connection’s breaking up.”
“Yes, sir.”
Eight seconds later Sy Wirth’s everyday BlackBerry chimed and he picked up, the one with blue tape silent at his elbow.
“Conor, they’ve landed in Faro, Portugal,” he snapped quickly and with urgency. “You get off the ground now, you can be there in less than an hour. Call me when you touch down. I should have more for you by then.”
“Faro. Yes, sir.”
Wirth clicked off, and a smile crept over his face. At long last the game was coming to an end.
7:47 A.M.
SIMCO FALCON, MÁLAGA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.
SAME TIME.
“Faro.” White stood in the cockpit doorway, the BlackBerry still in his hand. “Fast as this thing will go. Give me a wheels-down ETA as soon as you have it.”
Abruptly he turned and went back into the cabin. Patrice and Irish Jack were waiting for him.
