by Steve Berry
“You approve?” he asked.
“I liked the other look.”
He shrugged. “Maybe next time. What’s happening?”
“I have somebody watching the hotel. They’ll call if Malone moves.”
“Nothing more from the Israelis?”
“Their man tore off from here.”
He looked around. Maybe he’d just wait for Haddad to return. That seemed the easiest course. He definitely needed everything off Haddad’s computer, but he didn’t want to take the machine. Too cumbersome. A copy would be better, and he noticed a flash drive lying among the clutter. He grabbed the gadget and snapped it into an empty USB port.
He checked the drive. Empty.
A few clicks of the mouse and he’d copied all the files from the hard drive.
Then he noticed something else, beyond the monitor.
A tiny red light.
He stared closer through the mess of paper and spotted a pocket tape recorder lying on the table. He lifted the unit and noticed no difference in the coating of dust that frosted the desktop. Which meant the unit had been laid there recently. The tape was spent, but the power remained on.
He flicked REWIND.
His operative stood silent.
He engaged PLAY.
The entire encounter between Malone, Haddad, and eventually the Israelis had been recorded. He listened in amazement to Haddad’s murder. The last thing he heard was Cotton Malone’s declaration that he intended to kill the son of a bitch.
He switched off the machine.
“Haddad’s dead?” the woman said. “Killed here? Why isn’t this a crime scene?”
“I assume the Israelis cleaned up before the police arrived.”
“Now what?”
“We have Malone. Let’s see where he leads.”
THIRTY-ONE
MALONE LEFT THE ROOM AND WALKED DOWN THE HALL. HE’D earlier noticed an ice machine, which was surprising. More and more American conveniences seemed to be invading European hotels.
He was angry at himself for placing Pam in danger. But at the time, what choice had there been? He couldn’t have left her at Heathrow with a man following. And who was he? Perhaps involved with those who’d taken Gary? That seemed logical. But he still knew precious little.
The Israelis had reacted promptly to Haddad’s signal that he was alive. Yet Pam was right. With Haddad dead, their interests were protected, their problem solved. Still, Pam had been the one followed. Not him.
Why?
He found the ice machine and discovered that it wasn’t working. Though the compressor churned, no ice filled the bin. Much like America, too, he thought.
He pushed through the stairway door and descended one floor.
There the machine was brimming with ice. He stood in a cubicle off the hall and filled his bucket.
He heard a door to one of the rooms slam shut, then voices. He was still scooping ice when two men passed the alcove, talking excitedly. He turned to leave and caught the facial profile of one of the men, along with his lanky frame and sunburned skin.
String Bean. From Heathrow.
Here, one floor down from where they were staying.
He retreated into the alcove and peered around the doorway, watching as the men entered the elevator.
Heading up.
He bolted for the stairwell door and leaped up the risers. He eased open the door just as the elevator dinged and the two men strolled from the car.
He slipped out the door and carefully peered down the corridor. He watched as one of the men scooped a used room-service tray from the carpet and balanced it on one hand. The other man withdrew a short-barreled revolver. They were headed straight for the room where Pam was waiting.
He cursed himself.
Haddad’s gun was on a table in the room. He hadn’t brought it with him. Real smart. He’d have to improvise.
The men stopped at the door. The one with the gun knocked, then stepped to one side. The other pretended to be a steward, the tray balanced high on one hand.
Another knock.
Maybe Pam was still on the phone with Gary? Which would give him the moment he needed.
“Room service,” he heard the man say.
Unlike American hotels, where peepholes were standard, the British did not usually provide them, and this hotel was no exception. He could only hope Pam would not be foolish enough to turn the knob.
“I have a food order for you,” the man said in a raised voice.
A pause.
“A gentleman placed the order.”
Damn. She could readily believe he might have ordered while she was sleeping. He had to act. He raised the ice bucket to shield his face and started down the hall.
“The food is for this room,” the man was explaining.
He heard locks releasing.
Peering around the raised bucket he saw the armed man notice him. The gun was immediately shielded. Malone used that moment of relaxation to his advantage and slung the ice and bucket into the armed man’s face, then planted his right fist into the jaw of the man with the tray. He felt bone crack and the man slammed to the carpet, the tray and its contents scattered.
Ice Man recovered from the initial shock and was raising his gun when Malone pounded two blows to the head and jammed a knee into the chest.
The assailant crumpled downward and lay still.
The room door opened.
Pam stared at him.
“Why would you open that door?” he asked.
“I thought you ordered food.”
He grabbed the gun and stuffed it in his belt. “And I wouldn’t have told you?” He quickly searched both men but found no identification.
“Who are they?” Pam asked.
“That’s the one following you in the airport.”
He grabbed String Bean’s arms and dragged him into their room. He then gripped the other man’s legs and pulled him inside. “You’re a stubborn woman.” He kicked the door shut.
“I was hungry.”
“How’s Gary?”
“He’s doing well. But I didn’t get to say much.”
One of the men started moaning. They’d be conscious soon. He grabbed the leather satchel and Haddad’s gun. “Let’s go.”
“We’re leaving?”
“Unless you want to be around when they wake up.”
He saw that prospect was not appealing to her.
“You have a gun,” she reminded him.
“Which I don’t want to use. This isn’t the Wild West. We’re in a hotel, with people. So let’s do the smart thing and leave. There are plenty more hotels in this town.”
She grabbed the shawl and gently wrapped her shoulders. They left the room and quickly caught the elevator. Downstairs, they exited into a chilly night. He surveyed his surroundings and concluded it was going to be tough to know if they were being followed. Simply too much to watch. The nearest Tube station was two blocks away, so he headed for it, determined to keep a lookout.
His mind churned.
How had the man from Heathrow found them? Even more troubling, how did the man pretending to be a steward know that he wasn’t in the room?
A gentleman placed the order.
He faced Pam as they walked. “Did you tell that guy through the door that you didn’t order anything?”
She nodded. “That’s when he said you did.”
Not entirely correct. He’d said a gentleman placed the order.
But still. Lucky guess?
No way.
THIRTY-TWO
WASHINGTON, DC
9:00 PM
STEPHANIE LED CASSIOPEIA THROUGH THE QUIET NEIGHBORHOOD. For the past few hours they’d stayed hidden in the suburbs. She’d made one call to Billet headquarters from a pay phone at a Cracker Barrel restaurant and learned that there had been no contact from Malone. Not so from the White House. Larry Daley’s office had called three times. She’d told her staff to say that she’d get back to him at her
first opportunity. Aggravating, she knew. But let Daley wonder if the next time he saw her jovial face, it would be live on CNN. That fear should be enough, for now, to keep the deputy national security adviser in check. Heather Dixon and the Israelis, though, were another matter.
“Where are we going?” Cassiopeia asked.
“To deal with a problem.”
The neighborhood was heavy with beaux arts architecture that had been fashionable, she realized, with the nineteenth-century industrialists who’d first populated the tree-lined avenues. Colonial row houses and cobblestoned walks only added to the wealthy mien in the night air.
“I’m not one of your agents,” Cassiopeia said. “I like to know what I’m getting into.”
“You can leave whenever you want.”
“Nice try. You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”
“Then stop asking questions. You quiz Thorvaldsen like this?”
“Why don’t you like him? In France you stayed at his throat.”
“Look where I am, Cassiopeia. Cotton’s in a mess. My own people want me dead. The Israelis and Saudis are both after me. You think it’s wise I like anyone?”
“That’s not an answer to my question.”
No, it wasn’t. But she couldn’t voice the truth. That through his association with her late husband, Thorvaldsen had come to know her strengths and weaknesses, and near him she felt vulnerable.
“Let’s just say that he and I are far too well acquainted with each other.”
“Henrik’s worried about you. That’s why he asked me to come. He sensed trouble.”
“And I appreciate that. But it doesn’t mean I have to like him.”
She spotted the house, another of the many symmetrical brick residences with carvings, a portico, and a mansard roof. Lights burned only in the downstairs windows. She scanned the street.
Still quiet.
“Follow me.”
ALFRED HERMANN RARELY SLEPT. HE’D CONDITIONED HIS mind long ago to operate on less than three hours’ rest.
He was not old enough to have personally experienced World War II, though he harbored vivid childhood memories of Nazis parading through the streets of Vienna. In the decades after, he’d actively battled the Soviets and challenged their puppet regimes that had dominated Austria. Hermann money dated from the Hapsburgs and had managed to survive two centuries of volatile politics. During the past fifty years the family fortune had grown tenfold, and much of that success could be traced to the Order of the Golden Fleece. To be intimately associated with such a select group from around the world came with advantages that his father and grandfather had never enjoyed. But to be in charge—that provided even greater benefits.
His tenure, though, was coming to an end.
At his death, his daughter would inherit everything. And the thought was not comforting. True, she was like him in some ways. Bold and determined, and she appreciated the past and coveted, with an enthusiasm similar to his own, that most precious of human commodities—knowledge. But she remained unpolished. A work in progress. One he feared might never be completed.
He stared at his daughter who, like him, slept little. He’d named her Margarete, after his mother. She was admiring the model of the Library of Alexandria.
“Can we find it?” she quietly asked.
He stepped close. “I believe Dominick is near.”
She appraised him with keen gray eyes. “Sabre is not to be trusted. No American should be.”
They’d had this discussion before. “I trust no one.”
“Not even me?”
He grinned. They’d had this discussion before, too. “Not even you.”
“Sabre has too much freedom.”
“Why begrudge him? We give him difficult tasks. You can’t do that and expect him to work as we see fit.”
“He’s a problem—American ingenuity and all that—you just don’t know it.”
“He’s a willful man. He needs purpose. We provide that to him. In return he furthers our goals.”
“I’ve sensed more from him lately. He tries hard to mask his ambition, but it’s there. You just have to pay attention.”
He thought he’d taunt her. “Perhaps you’re attracted to him?”
She scoffed at his question. “That’ll never happen. In fact, I’ll fire him once you’re gone.”
He wondered about her assumption that she would inherit all that he owned. “There’s no guarantee you’ll be Blue Chair. That selection is made among the Chairs.”
“I’ll be in the Circle. I assure you. It’s a simple step from there to where you are.”
But he wasn’t so sure. He knew of her contacts with the other four Chairs. He’d actually encouraged them as a test. His wealth far surpassed that of the others in age, volume, and scope. Financial institutions he controlled were heavily entangled with many members, including three of the Chairs. Never would any of them want others to know of that vulnerability, and the price of his silence had always been their loyalty. He’d manipulated their weaknesses for decades, but his daughter’s attempts had been feeble. So a word of caution was in order. “Once I’m gone, it’s true, Dominick will have to deal with you, as you will with him. But don’t be so quick. Men like him, with little emotion? No morals? A daring heart? You might find them valuable.”
He hoped she was listening but feared, as always, that her ears remained filtered. Her mother had died when she was eight and, in her youth, she’d seemed a product of him—of the rib, she liked to say—yet age had not matured that early promise. Her education had started in France, continued in England, and was completed in Austria, her business experience honed in the boardrooms of his many corporations.
But the reports from there had not been encouraging.
“What would you do if you found the library?” she asked.
He concealed his amusement. She apparently did not want to discuss Sabre or herself anymore. “It’s beyond imagining what great thoughts are there.”
“I heard you speaking yesterday about those. Tell me more.”
“Ah, the Piri Reis Map, from 1513, found in Istanbul. I was running on about that. I didn’t know you were listening.”
“I always listen.”
He grinned at the observation. They both knew it wasn’t so.
“I was telling the chancellor of how the map had been drawn on a gazelle hide by a Turkish admiral who was once a pirate. Full of incredible detail. The South American coastline is there, though European navigators hadn’t yet charted that region. The Antarctic continent is also shown, long before being coated with ice. Only recently, using ground radar, have we been able to determine that shoreline’s contour. Yet the 1513 representation is as good as ours. On the face of the map, the cartographer noted that he used charts drawn in the days of Alexander, Lord of the Two Horns. Can you imagine? Perhaps ancient navigators visited Antarctica thousands of years ago, before the ice accumulated, and recorded what they saw.”
Hermann’s mind swirled with what else may have been lost from the fields of mathematics, astronomy, geometry, meteorology, and medicine.
“Unrecorded knowledge is either forgotten or muddled beyond recognition. Do you know of Democritus? He conceived the notion that all things were made of a finite number of discrete particles. Today we call them atoms, but he was the first to acknowledge their existence and formulate the atomic theory. He wrote seventy books—we know that from other references—yet not one has survived. And centuries passed before other men, in other times, thought of the same thing.
“Almost nothing Pythagoras wrote remains. Manetho recorded Egypt’s history. Gone. Galen, the great Roman healer? He wrote five hundred treatises on medicine. Only fragments remain. Aristarchus thought that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the universe. But Copernicus, who lived seventeen centuries later, is the man history credits with that revelation.”
He thought of more. Erathosthenes and Strabo, geographers. Archimedes, the physicist and mathematic
ian. Zenodotus and his grammar. Callimachus the poet. Thales, the first philosopher.
All their ideas gone.
“It’s always been the same,” he said. “Knowledge is the first thing eradicated once power is attained. History has proven that over and over.”
“So what is it Israel fears?” she asked.
He knew she’d eventually work him around to that subject.
“Perhaps it’s more fear than reality,” she noted. “Changing the world is difficult.”
“But it can be done. Men—” He paused. “—and women have done it for centuries. And violence has not always brought about the most monumental changes. Often it’s been mere words. The Bible fundamentally changed mankind. The Koran likewise. The Magna Carta. The American Constitution. Billions of people govern their lives by those words. Society has been altered by them. It’s not so much the wars as the treaties that follow that truly alter the course of history. The Marshall Plan changed the world more expressly than World War II itself. Words are indeed the true weapons of mass destruction.”
“You dodged my question,” she said in a playful tone, one that reminded him of his long-dead wife.
“What is it Israel fears?” he repeated.
“Why won’t you tell me?”
“Perhaps I don’t know.”
“I doubt it.”
He considered telling her everything. But he hadn’t survived by being foolish. Loose talk had been the downfall of more than one successful man.
“Let’s simply say that the truth is always difficult to accept. For people, for cultures, even for nations.”
STEPHANIE LED THE WAY INTO THE REAR YARD AND WAS STARTLED by its manicured appearance. Flowers abounded. Colorful asters, waxbells, goldenrod, pansies, and mums. A terrace formed a peninsula, its flagstones dotted with wrought-iron furniture, more blooms sprouting from decorative pots.
