The Informationist: A Thriller (7 page)

The yellow vaccination record brought a smile. The doctor’s stamps and signatures were all obvious forgeries. The entire stamp-filled booklet had no doubt been purchased somewhere along the journey in order to facilitate border crossings, a fake so similar to those that she used to carry.

She took his passport and flipped through the pages. The little book was nearly full. Most of the countries he had passed through had required an entire page for the issuing visa alone, not counting entry and exit stamps. Munroe lost herself in the pages tracing his journey from South Africa to Kenya and back again, following the trail of exit and entry stamps until they led to Namibia. She went slowly, flipping front to back through the pages, sometimes losing a thread in the muddle and then picking it back up again a few pages later.

She became aware of the time when Frau Berger excused herself and returned downstairs.

Following the trail from Namibia was difficult. There were no exit
stamps. The nearest chronological entry stamp was into Angola, and from there she traced the trail to Gabon and then to Equatorial Guinea. There was an unused visa for Cameroon.

Munroe closed her eyes and ran her fingers over the postage-size stamps that had been affixed to the passport on the Cameroonian visa. He had not used it. He had gone into Gabon, gone into Equatorial Guinea, and returned to Gabon, but not Cameroon. Why? The information screamed in the silence. It was there, somewhere.

She removed a small digital camera from around her neck and took photographs of every passport page, both tickets, and for good measure she also got photos of the medication wrapping and of the illegible pieces of paper. She took one of the pills out of the wrapping and dropped it into a small Ziploc bag. Frau Berger might notice, but by then she would be gone with everything she needed.

Munroe returned the items to the envelope and then placed the envelope in the drawer that Frau Berger had taken it from. She closed Kristof’s door loudly, hoping it would give notice that she was on her way down. From the kitchen came the smell of bread baking, and the woman greeted her at the bottom of the stairs.

“Frau Berger, I must be getting home,” Munroe said. The woman’s hands rested on the banister rail, and Munroe placed one of her own hands on them. “I don’t know if there are answers or not,” she said, “but I promise you that I am going to do everything I can to discover what happened to Kristof in Africa, and perhaps with that information you can find some peace.”

The woman smiled. Her eyes were red, and Munroe knew that while she had been busy upstairs scouring the items for information, Frau Berger had been downstairs trying unsuccessfully to hold back the tears.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Munroe had photo enlargements made of the passport pages, and while she waited for their development, purchased a large map of Africa. Before returning to the hotel, she located a lab to analyze the tablet she’d taken.

Back in the hotel room, Munroe shoved furniture away from the wall in front of the bed, and there she taped the map and beside it the enlargements.
Using the trail from the passport and filling in the blanks with Burbank’s reports, she marked Emily’s path across Africa.

She traced the steps methodically, double-checking as she went. Just as it had the previous evening, the trail brought her from Gabon through Oyem to the Mongomo crossing in Equatorial Guinea and back to Oyem. The trail ended with an exit stamp out of Libreville. But there was one glaring omission: There was no exit stamp from Equatorial Guinea.

Munroe circled the Oyem/Mongomo crossing in red and then stopped.
Mongomo
. She shook her head.

It couldn’t be
that
easy.

She went back through the transcripts of Kristof Berger’s conversation with the investigators. She ignored the English translations and read directly from the German.
Where the money was buried
.

Could it be so simple?

She stabbed her pen into the dot that marked the city and then lay back on the bed with her arms behind her head. She stared at the map.
Mongomo
.

She checked her watch. In two hours Houston would begin to wake, and she would be forced to make the obligatory phone call to Burbank’s office to notify him of her next step. She picked up the phone and dialed Breeden’s number.

The voice on the other end was groggy, Breeden’s usual breathlessness noticeably absent.

“I’ve picked up a few leads,” Munroe said, “and I’ll be moving soon. I need you to do something for me.”

“Sure.”

“Going back about five or six years, I gave you an envelope and asked you to keep it for me. How quickly can you get it?”

“Sometime this morning.”

“I need it sent to me overnight.”

“Consider it done,” Breeden replied. “Contact me if there’s anything else—you know I’m here if you need me.”

“Thanks,” Munroe said. “I’ll be in touch.”

Munroe returned to the lab, and when she located the technician with whom she’d originally spoken, he handed back the photograph of the wrapping and the sample she’d given him and, in exchange for
payment, a two-page printout. “In layperson’s terms,” he said as he handed it to her, “it’s mefloquine hydrochloride. This particular tablet is sold under the trade name Lariam—it’s an antimalarial typically used to treat against
Plasmodium falciparum
and also sometimes used as a prophylactic.”

It sounded right; after Emily’s bout with malaria, she’d been taking prophylactics. Lariam was what they’d used back then in chloroquine-resistant falciparum-endemic areas, and if there was ever a place that fit that description, the coastal region of West Central Africa was it. Lariam. The drug wasn’t prescribed as much these days—the side effects could be brutal: homicidal tendencies, hallucinations, and psychotic episodes, among others. The worst of the effects were supposedly rare, but the odds didn’t matter much when it was you or your loved one who was transformed into a raving psychotic. It would be a plausible explanation for Kristof’s behavior, except that all indicators pointed to his breakdown’s occurring long after he would have stopped taking the drug.

At the hotel Munroe put in the call to Burbank’s office, and instead of being passed to his executive assistant as expected, was transferred directly to Richard Burbank. “Michael,” he said in a half-chopped way that left the impression that someone else had been cut off as he switched lines to take the call, “I hadn’t expected to hear from you so soon. Is it good news?”

“It’s a little early to say,” she replied. “I’ve done all that I can here in Europe, and I’m leaving for Africa in a couple of days—as per our agreement, I’m informing you of my plans.”

“Where specifically are you headed?” he asked.

“I’m starting with Cameroon and Gabon,” she said, “and I’ll narrow the search from there.”

“Cameroon. Gabon.” His voice had a razor quality to it. “As far as we know, Emily never even got out of Namibia. Why aren’t you heading to Namibia?”

Munroe’s mouth tightened into a forced smile as if she were face-to-face with her client, and she waited before replying. “Mr. Burbank,” she said, “you hired me to do this job because so far nobody else has been able to do it. I’m reporting to you on my progress because
my contract requires me to. Beyond that, either you allow me to do my job without micromanaging me or find someone else to locate your daughter.”

“You’re right,” he said. “I apologize. Obviously I’m anxious about this whole thing. When do you expect to leave?”

“I’m booked to fly out in two days.”

“I want Miles Bradford to accompany you,” he said. The request did not surprise her. That he made it so early into the assignment did.

“I’ll wait for him in Douala,” Munroe replied. “He’s going to need visas. There’s not enough time for him to get them and meet up with me here before my flight out.”

“Cancel the flight. He’ll be in Frankfurt in less than a week. You said Gabon and Cameroon—he’ll have the visas. The two of you fly to Africa together.”

Munroe shut her eyes, gripped the phone, and waited half a beat. “If it must be done that way, so be it. It’s your expense account, Mr. Burbank, and it’s your time.” She replaced the phone receiver and swore under her breath.

She tossed a few belongings into a backpack and slipped the Do Not Disturb sign on the door. On her way out of the hotel, she paid for the next five days and left instructions for packages and messages to be held until she returned. It was Burbank’s time and Burbank’s dollar. He could bankroll a snowboarding trip in the Alps while she waited for babysitter Miles fucking Bradford to arrive.

From Frankfurt’s Hauptbahnhof she took the next express train bound for Zurich.

I
T WAS AN
early afternoon four days later when Munroe returned to Frankfurt. The FedEx envelope from Kate was waiting, as was a fax from Burbank’s office with Miles Bradford’s flight arrival information.

In her room Munroe sat on the edge of the bed with the envelope in her hands. She tapped it against her knuckles, stared at it, and then, unable to bring herself to open it, tossed it on the bed and went to the window to watch the river and the boats and the happy couples strolling along its manicured banks.

Against this picturesque display, she deliberated rescinding the contract. Doing so would mean failure, but failure was always an eventuality. The nonstop success would hit a bump sooner or later, and if there was going to be a washout, this would be a good time to have it happen.

Returning to the past was inevitable. Somehow in the last nine years she’d managed to stay upright on a tightrope stretched between brilliance and insanity, the blackness of the abyss always with her, leaving her sometimes wondering if letting go might in the end be easiest of all.

Work had kept her sane, kept the line taut. It wasn’t fear that held her back from Burbank’s assignment or where it would lead, nor was it the contents of the envelope, symbols of the past that they were. It was uncertainty: If the line should snap, on which side of the abyss would she land? She’d planned to return when she no longer cared.

Munroe walked to the bed, picked up the envelope, and ripped away the plastic ribbon of sealant. Maybe she’d always care, maybe there was never going to be a good time, maybe she’d be running forever. Carpe diem. She emptied the contents onto the bed and ran her fingers over three pieces of history: a Cameroonian residency card, a vaccination card, and a forged Spanish passport.

O
f the eight people Richard Burbank had provided personnel files on, Munroe had to agree that Miles Bradford was best suited for the job—especially when it came to the mechanics of it all. His file, thick with details of a job history that had taken him through countries as diverse and hazardous as those she’d worked, was sparse when it came to personal information. There was little provided of use in building a composite of who the man was. This she knew: Miles was in his mid-thirties and former Special Forces. He now handled high-stakes private security.

“Mercenary” was the only word she had for a man like him, a former soldier who hired out his skills. And like the Cameroonian documents stuffed into her backpack, the word brought with it much unwanted baggage.

Munroe arrived at Frankfurt’s airport before Bradford’s flight touched down. Blending with others who waited, she stood opposite a large plate-glass wall that separated the waiting area from the luggage collection. She spotted Bradford as soon as he entered the hall. Short-cropped hair betrayed a tinge of red, his eyes were murky green, and he was average height with above-average looks. His overcoat outlined a well-built physique, and he moved with the relaxed assurance of a man who knew where he was going and was in no hurry to get there.
A small wheeled overnight bag trailed behind him, and he didn’t stop at the luggage carousel.

Munroe left the area before he could spot her; he knew who he was looking for as well as she did. He would contact her at the hotel, and she would be away when the call came. He would wait for her—he had no choice—and that was how it should be.

She returned his call in the late afternoon, offering a plastic apology and arranging to meet him for dinner at Gargantua in the Westend, where she’d made reservations.

She wasn’t being deliberately cruel in setting the first meeting there, but she was deliberately testing him. If he came by taxi, he would find it easily enough. But if he set out on foot, taking the local transportation as she would have been wont to do, it would prove to be an exasperating task. Restaurant Gargantua, with all its five stars, was situated minutes from the city’s famed Palmengarten and the English-style Grüneberg Park, quietly tucked away within a house in a tree-lined residential neighborhood of prewar flats.

Munroe was seated and waiting at the appointed time, and when Bradford arrived a few minutes late, she stood to shake his hand. She wore a close-fitting black dress and four-inch heels that gave her a two-inch height advantage. Wrapped around her neck was a delicate beaded scarf that hung down against her bare back. It was an outfit that caused heads to turn, an image men desired to display on their arm as a trophy and then take home to conquer again in bed. She was as opposite from the photos and the information in her file as could possibly be managed, and it was intended as a willful statement.

His handshake was firm and confident. Not once did his eyes leave her face to wander down the length of her body. “Miles Bradford,” he said, and as she sat, he seated himself opposite with the same calm, relaxed air with which he’d strolled through the baggage area. “It’s an honor to finally meet you.”

She placed her chin on folded hands and echoed his words, “To
finally
meet me …”

“I’ve been an admirer of yours for years,” he said. “I was a security consultant for Radiance when you were working Macedonia and then
later for Terra Corp right after you’d wrapped up in Uzbekistan—both brilliant pieces of work, I might add.”

“Thank you,” she said, and picked up her water glass, swirling it before taking a sip. “Information and security.” She paused. “You must be at the top of your game if the same companies are hiring the both of us.” And then, “I hope you had no trouble finding this place—it’s somewhat tucked away.”