The Patriot Threat

by Steve Berry

  The director could see he was outgunned, so he nodded his assent, then he and Carol Williams left the gallery.

  “Make sure we’re alone,” she called out to Chick-fil-A Man, who nodded, then followed the others out.

  “They gone?” Danny asked.

  She still lay on the floor. “Yep.”

  “Open that sucker up.”

  SIXTY-THREE

  CROATIA

  Malone watched as the first man from the train joined his compatriot in the station and they realized that Kim was armed and on the move.

  “Everyone down,” he screamed in English as he found his own weapon.

  The few people on the platform who understood him looked his way, saw the gun, then fled toward the station doors. Kim also reacted to the warning, jamming the barrel of his gun into Howell’s ribs. Malone gave that act some respect, but the two Koreans seemed not to care. They’d taken cover behind a metal bench and aimed their weapons. Their mission did not include returning either Kim or Howell alive.

  And here was a golden opportunity.

  * * *

  Isabella spotted Kim and Howell fifty feet away, the station platform dim, people fleeing. Both she and Luke were exposed with no cover. But Kim’s attention had been drawn in the opposite direction.

  To Malone.

  Whom she saw had drawn his gun.

  Hana Sung, though, was staring straight at her and Luke.

  A row of luggage carts stood lined to their left, which offered some protection.

  She leaped that way as Sung aimed her gun and fired.

  * * *

  Malone had seen Isabella and Luke exiting the train, and while the father worried about him, the daughter was shooting at them, rounds popping out in rapid succession.

  A woman screamed.

  Another man yelled.

  In Korean.

  Kim turned his attention away from Malone and toward the other two. More Korean words passed between them. Isabella and Luke had lunged for cover behind a row of luggage carts. Kim forced Howell ahead, toward the doors that led from the platform to the station, using his captive as a shield. It would only be an instant before Luke and Isabella started firing. He hoped they realized that Howell was in a bad predicament.

  “Luke,” he yelled. “Two more to your left. Both armed.”

  Bullets came his way from the Koreans as they now realized his presence. Luckily he’d found cover behind one of the iron pedestals that held the ceiling aloft. Rounds pinged off the metal, tossing sparks, ricocheting in every direction.

  He steadied himself and prepared to return fire.

  * * *

  Kim’s heart fluttered with panic. Alarm burned at the back of his ears. This town was a trap, one set by both the Americans and North Koreans. He had to flee. Hana had occupied the man and woman from the train, and the two Koreans were shooting at someone else off to his right. Unfortunately he had to cross that line of fire to escape. His left arm wrapped Howell’s neck, the gun still tight to the man’s ribs.

  One of the Koreans stopped firing and turned back his way.

  Anan Wayne Howell was of no use to him any longer. He’d been played on the train. Surely Howell had been told not to mention that he knew Jelena was dead, but the younger man’s emotions had gotten the best of him. Still, though Howell was of no value in one respect that did not mean he was completely useless.

  He pivoted left and placed Howell between him and the rising danger.

  A shot came his way and thudded into Howell’s chest.

  The man’s breath left him in a gasp and the body jerked from the impact. Another round and a second bullet slammed into Howell.

  Neither penetrated through to Kim.

  He released his grip on the American.

  * * *

  Malone winced as Howell was shot twice.

  He fled his cover, aimed at the Korean shooting, and took him down with one shot. The second man then went on the offensive, firing Malone’s way, which caused him to dive to the concrete floor.

  Rounds whizzed past him and dinged off the train.

  He rolled and used another iron pillar for cover.

  The last he saw, Kim and Hana Sung were fleeing the platform into the station.

  And the remaining Korean followed.

  * * *

  Isabella crouched beside Luke, their position not the best in the world. They had some cover, but not much. Rising up and shooting would involve exposure, but she saw that Luke was willing to risk it. So was she. A lot of rounds were being expended. Their eyes met and signaled that they would do it together. Luke nodded and up they went.

  The platform had gone quiet.

  A body lay on the concrete near the train, a second off to the left in the shadows.

  “Malone,” Luke called out.

  “Here.”

  And she saw a dark figure emerge from behind one of the support pillars. He held a gun at his side and rushed toward the man down near the train.

  They did the same.

  It was Howell.

  Luke rolled him over. Howell was breathing, but spewing blood with each exhale, more fluid pouring from two chest wounds.

  “Hang in there,” Luke said. “We’ll get you some help. Stay with us.”

  Her heart sank.

  “Kim used him as a shield,” Malone said.

  “We had some issues on the train,” she noted. “All hell broke loose just before we got to the station. Three more are dead on board.”

  “The daughter was holding a stack of papers,” Malone said.

  She’d seen them, too.

  “I’m going after them,” he said. “You two get some help. Don’t let him die.”

  And Malone ran off.

  * * *

  Hana followed her father as they rushed from the train station and onto the street. She’d seen many a town just like this in China and North Korea. Compact and quiet, the paths through it narrow and angular with abrupt endings. Even worse, they knew nothing of the local geography. Above them stood the chief glory, a cathedral with twin bell towers and ornamental windows, its brightly lit belfries framed by the night, then blurred by the fog.

  “We go that way,” her father said.

  And he ran up the inclined cobblestones toward the church, turning a corner and disappearing into the darkness.

  She glanced behind them and noticed no one.

  All of the commotion remained inside.

  In the distance she heard sirens.

  And knew what that meant.

  * * *

  Malone ran through the station toward its street exit. The few attendants on duty were all in a panic, providing enough confusion for him to make his way through the building. He slipped the gun, still in hand, beneath his jacket. Outside, in the mist, he spotted Kim and his daughter rounding a bend, headed up an inclined way between the closed shops toward the cathedral. He saw nothing of the second Korean who’d also left the platform. He doubted he’d fled, so he told himself to proceed with caution.

  Sirens in the distance were drawing closer, maybe only a few blocks away.

  He hustled off in Kim’s direction.

  * * *

  Isabella could see that Howell was in a bad way. Two slugs to the chest could do a great deal of damage. Luke cradled Howell in his lap, the man’s eyes open, his breathing labored, blood still spewing with each exhale. That meant a lung had been pierced. One of the station workers had called the police and an ambulance. Several of the passengers from the train stood off to the side, watching. She wondered if there was a doctor anywhere among them, but her callouts in English for one had gone unanswered.

  “Hang in there,” Luke told Howell again. “Stay with me. Help is coming.”

  Luke’s gaze up to her asked if that were true, but she could only shake her head and hope.

  “Malone shouldn’t have gone alone,” she said. “One of the guys shooting at us is out there, too.”

  “I agree,” Luke said. “Go
.”

  She hadn’t expected that.

  “I’ll stay here with Howell. Go. Help Malone.”

  She did not need to be told twice, leaving the platform and entering the station. Her gun was inside her coat pocket where she’d concealed it when she and Luke had rushed to Howell. Out the front doors and she caught a glimpse of Malone through the fog, fifty yards away, rushing up an inclined street. The sirens were nearly here, the night air overhead strobed by red glows drawing closer.

  She headed after Malone.

  Another figure appeared.

  To her right. Thirty yards away. Holding a gun and advancing. It had to be the second Korean she’d seen escape the platform during the gunfight. She stopped, gripped her weapon with both hands, and yelled, “Stop. Now.”

  Her target hesitated an instant, turned her way, then decided to risk escape, rushing off down the street. The night and the mist complicated things, but the uphill path slowed him just enough. She led him like a bird in flight, then fired. The round slammed into him, jarring his balance. He whirled and tried to swing his gun around.

  She shot him again.

  He dropped to the cobbles.

  * * *

  Malone heard a bang and turned.

  Twenty yards back a man holding a gun staggered in the street.

  A second bang and the form collapsed.

  He rushed back, his own weapon ready, and saw Isabella, just outside the train station, poised to fire.

  She lowered her pistol.

  A police car appeared behind her, wheeling to the station. Another followed. Uniformed officers emerged. One saw her with the gun and drew his own. Malone was far enough away that he could slip back into the darkness, but Isabella stood exposed in the penumbra of light from the station’s exterior. She wisely remained frozen, her gun still aimed his way, her back to the police. All of the officers had now drawn pistols and were screaming orders her way.

  Isabella saw him.

  “Go,” she said loud enough for him to hear. “Get out of here.”

  Her gun clattered to the street and her arms were raised in surrender. Slowly, she turned and faced the police, who advanced her way with their own weapons still trained.

  No one had seen him.

  She’d covered his back and taken one for the team.

  Which allowed him a chance to get Kim.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  WASHINGTON, DC

  Stephanie wedged the screwdriver into the circular indentations. With the hammer she tapped the metal tip until it was embedded a good inch, then she worked the handle back and forth. The old wood gave way. She yanked the screwdriver out and repeated the process around the circle, then rested the metal tip at the center. Three taps and she pierced the plug. Chunks of it gave way and fell to the floor. Joe Levy had bent down and was watching her.

  “Just bust it out,” he said.

  “I agree with him,” Danny said through the phone.

  She knew he could better see what she was doing from the camera’s vantage point on the floor, where chips of a two-hundred-plus-year-old frame lay scattered. She took their advice and worked the screwdriver left and right. The plug was obliterated and its remaining pieces rained down. She folded her finger up into the cavity and freed more remnants until an opening about three inches wide was revealed.

  “I wish we had a light,” she said.

  “We do,” Joe said, pointing to the phone.

  He was right. She reached for the unit and activated the camera flash, pointing the bright rays up into the darkness.

  “There’s something there,” she said. “At the edge of the frame. The cavity beyond is wider than the opening.”

  She laid the phone back down, reached up with two fingers, and felt paper. She found an edge and maneuvered whatever it was to the center where she could see an envelope. She folded it along its length and brought it down. The exterior was brown with age, not unlike the facsimile the Smithsonian had fashioned for her earlier. On the outside was typed

  A strange coincidence, to use a phrase,

  by which such things are settled nowadays

  She showed the words to the phone camera.

  “Lord Byron,” Danny said. “From Don Juan. Like Roosevelt said on the tape.”

  She remembered.

  “’Tis strange, but true. For truth is always strange. Stranger than fiction,” Danny said through the phone. “More from Byron. Which definitely applies here.”

  “I never knew you were a poetry buff.”

  “I’m not. But Edwin is.”

  Something hard was inside the envelope, and she opened the flap to see a skeleton key. She displayed it for the camera. There was also a single page, tri-folded. She slipped it out. “I doubt Mellon thought it would be eight decades before this was read.”

  The paper seemed in good shape, helped by the fact that it had rested sealed inside the frame, the painting itself always in a climate-controlled environment, especially since 1941. What better place to preserve something than within the National Gallery of Art?

  “What are you waiting for?” Danny asked her.

  She stood from the floor.

  Levy grabbed the phone and aimed its camera over her shoulder. She carefully opened the page, the fibers still resilient, its typed ink readable.

  I recently acquired this painting just for this quest. Its symbolism was too tempting to resist, so I thought it would make an excellent repository. It hung in my Washington apartment until the day I died. I waited for you to send an emissary, but none arrived. So I still await you, Mr. President. How did it feel to step to my tune? That’s what you made me do the last three years of my life, and each day I sat in court I pondered how I would repay you. I won that fight and knew that the day we spoke at the White House. But I assumed you knew the same thing. A part of me realized that you would never go looking so long as I remained alive. Never would you give me the satisfaction of knowing that you might believe what I say, or that you feared me. But you reading these words is proof of both. Please recall that I told you that the page of numbers I left would reveal two American secrets, either of which could be the end of you. The first concerns Haym Solomon. This country does owe his heirs a huge debt. I removed all documentary evidence of that from the government archives in 1925, thereby preventing Congress from making any repayment. I freely admit that I used that knowledge to maintain a hold on my cabinet appointment. It was a difficult choice those three presidents faced. Spit in the face of a patriot, or authorize a billion-dollar repayment. I did no different though than anyone else before, or after me. Power must be taken and kept or it will be lost. I now leave the Salomon documents to you. It will be interesting to see what you do with them. That choice will be yours alone. I doubt you are the champion of the common man that you want so many to believe you to be. The other secret is far more potent. The Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution is invalid. This was known in 1913, but purposefully ignored. Proof of that also helped maintain my hold on power. I still have that evidence. What you do with that will be equally interesting. Everything is waiting for you, Mr. President, as am I.

  She finished reading the note out loud, her mouth close to the phone, her voice low.

  “Joe, I see why you were willing to keep this to yourself,” Danny said. “Looks like the possible just became reality.”

  “Unfortunately,” Levy said.

  Her mind was racing. “Could you go get Carol Williams?”

  Levy handed her the phone and hurried off.

  “What do you want to do?” she asked Danny.

  “We’re thinkin’.”

  That meant Edwin Davis was also watching. Good. His level head could come in handy.

  “Anything from Cotton?” he asked.

  “Not a word. But he could have his hands full.”

  She heard footsteps and quickly pocketed the note and key. Levy reentered the gallery with Carol Williams. She caught the quick glances the younger woman gave to the bits of fr
ame on the hardwood floor.

  “Believe me,” she said, “it’s not damaged. Your Mr. Mellon wanted that done. It’s easily repaired.”

  She recalled something they’d discussed earlier. “You told me that Mellon is buried in Virginia. So they had the funeral in Pittsburgh, then brought him south for burial?”

  Carol shook her head. “That’s not what happened. He died in New York and they returned the body to Pittsburgh. Flags were flown at half-mast and the service itself took place in the East Liberty Presbyterian Church, where he’d worshiped as a boy. It was all a bit unusual for the Mellons. Normally they paid their last respects at the home of the deceased. The casket stayed closed. At his request.”

  Which immediately raised questions in her mind, as she knew it would in Danny’s.

  “Three thousand people came. There were so many flowers that the local florist had to send to Chicago for more roses and chrysanthemums. I read some of the newspaper articles. Even President Roosevelt sent flowers.”

  She realized how hollow that gesture had been.

  “His casket was taken to Homewood Cemetery. The family had a mausoleum there. He was laid to rest with his brother.”

  “So how did he end up in Virginia,” she asked.

  “His son died in 1999. He had the Virginia connection. The son lived a long time, surviving them all. So before he died he had his mother, sister, wife, and father all brought to the church in Upperville. Like I told you before, a reunion in death for a family that had never been united in life.”

  “That means,” Danny said through the phone, “in 1937 Mellon was in Pittsburgh.”

  She got it.

  The sound of the president of the United States’ voice clearly unnerved Carol.

  “You know where I need to go,” she said.

  “It’s less than two hundred miles,” Danny said. “I can have you there in under two hours.”

  “I want to come, too,” Levy said.

  Danny chuckled. “I thought you might. You’ve been along this far, so why not.”

  SIXTY-FIVE

  CROATIA

  Kim kept to a steady pace up the barren street, careful on the slick stones. Unfortunately, he wore leather as opposed to rubber soles, which ordinarily he preferred. He was grateful for the fog, though, which was moderately close to the ground, thicker up the lengths of the weathered houses that encased the narrow way. If this path accommodated any traffic it was surely only one-way.