Read Online The Informationist: A Thriller by Taylor Stevens - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Taylor Stevens
Ads: Link
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 exitstamps. 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
She became aware of the time when Frau Berger excused herself and returned downstairs.
Following the trail from Namibia was difficult. There were no exitstamps. 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
Similar Books
