Allan Folsom - The Hadrian Memorandum

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.

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.

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.