by Steve Berry
“And how did you know I would call?”
“Because you’re an anxious old bitch who likes to be in control.”
She chuckled. “That I am. Your men did a good job. Malone is dead.”
“I prefer to wait till they report that fact to me.”
“I’m afraid that’s going to be impossible. They’re dead, as well.”
“Then you’re the one with a problem. I have to have confirmation.”
“Have you heard anything about Malone in the last twelve hours? Any reports of what he might be doing?”
No, he hadn’t.
“I saw him die.”
“Then we have nothing more to say.”
“Except you owe me an answer to my question. Why did my husband never come back?”
What the hell? Tell her. “The submarine malfunctioned.”
“And the crew? My husband?”
“They didn’t survive.”
Silence.
Finally, she said, “You saw the submarine and the crew?”
“I did.”
“Tell me what you saw.”
“You don’t want to know.”
Another long pause, then, “Why was it necessary to cover this up?”
“The submarine was top secret. Its mission was secret. There was no choice at the time. We couldn’t risk the Soviets finding it. Only eleven men aboard, so it was easy to conceal the facts.”
“And you left them there?”
“Your husband agreed to those conditions. He knew the risks.”
“And you Americans say Germans are heartless.”
“We’re practical, Frau Oberhauser. We protect the world, you folks tried to conquer it. Your husband signed on for a dangerous mission. His idea, actually. He’s not the first to make that choice.”
He was hoping this would be the last he heard from her. He didn’t need her aggravation.
“Good-bye, Admiral. I hope you rot in hell.”
He heard the emotion in her voice, but could not care less. “I wish only the same for you.”
And he clicked off.
He made a mental note to change his cell phone number. That way he’d never have to talk to that crazy German again.
CHARLIESMITH LOVED A CHALLENGE. RAMSEY HAD DELEGATEDhim a fifth target, but made clear that the
job had to be done today. Absolutely nothing could arouse suspicions. A clean kill, no aftertaste. Usually that would not be a problem. But he was working with no file, only a few scant facts from Ramsey, and a twelve-hour window. If successful, Ramsey had promised an impressive bonus. Enough to pay for Bailey Mill, with plenty left over for remodeling and furnishing.
He was back from Asheville, at his apartment, the first time home in a couple of months. He’d managed a few hours’
sleep and was ready for what lay ahead. He heard a soft chime from the kitchen table and checked his cell phone ID.
Not a number he recognized, though it was a Washington-area exchange. Perhaps it was Ramsey calling from an
anonymous phone. He’d do that sometimes. Theman was eaten up by paranoia.
He answered.
“I’m calling for Charlie Smith,” a woman’s voice said.
The use of that name brought his senses alert. He used that label only with Ramsey. “You got the wrong number.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Afraid so.”
“I wouldn’t hang up,” she said. “What I have to say could make or break your life.”
“Like I said, lady, wrong number.”
“You killed Douglas Scofield.”
A cold chill swept through him as realization dawned. “You were there, with the guy?”
“Not me, but they work for me. I know all about you, Charlie.”
He said nothing, but her having the phone number and knowing his alias were major problems. Actually, catastrophic.
“What do you want?”
“Your ass.”
He chuckled.
“But I’m willing to trade yours for someone else’s.”
“Let me guess. Ramsey?”
“You are a bright guy.”
“I don’t suppose you plan to tell me who you are?”
“Sure. Unlike you, I don’t live a false life.”
“Then who the hell are you?”
“Diane McCoy. Deputy national security adviser to the president of the United States.”
EIGHTY
MALONE HEARD SOMEONE SCREAM.HE WAS ON THE FLIGHT DECKtalking with the crew and rushed to the
aft doorway, staring down into the tunnel-like interior of the LC-130. Dorothea was across the aisle, beside Christl, who was struggling to free herself from the harness and shrieking. Blood gushed from Christl’s nose and stained her parka.
Werner and Henn had come awake and were unbuckling themselves.
With open palms, Malone slid down the ladder’s railings and rushed toward the mêlée. Henn had managed to yank Dorothea away.
“You crazy bitch,” Christl screamed. “What are you doing?”
Werner took hold of Dorothea. Malone dropped back and watched.
“She slugged me,” Christl said, dabbing her sleeve onto her nose.
Malone found a towel on one of the steel racks and tossed it to her.
“I should kill you,” Dorothea spit out. “You don’t deserve to live.”
“You see,” Christl yelled. “This is what I mean. She’s nuts. Totally nuts. Crazy as hell.”
“What are you doing?” Werner asked his wife. “What brought this on?”
“She hated Georg,” Dorothea said, struggling in Werner’s grasp.
Christl stood, facing her sister.
Werner released his hold on Dorothea and allowed the two lionesses to appraise each other, both seemingly trying to calculate a hidden purpose in the other. Malone watched the women, dressed in identical thick gear, their faces identical, but their minds so different.
“You weren’t even there when we finally buried him,” Dorothea said. “All the rest of us stayed, but not you.”
“I hate funerals.”
“I hate you.”
Christl turned toward Malone, the towel pressed to her nose. He grabbed her gaze and quickly saw the threat in her eyes. Before he could react, she dropped the towel, whirled, and smacked Dorothea in the face, sending her sister careering back into Werner.
Christl cocked her fist, readying another blow.
Malone caught her wrist. “You owed her one. That’s all.”
Her whole countenance had darkened and a fiery gaze told him that this was none of his business.
She wrenched her arm free and snatched the towel from the floor.
Werner helped Dorothea down. Henn just watched, like always, never saying a word.
“Okay, enough prizefighting,” Malone said. “I suggest all of you get some sleep. We have less than five hours to go and I plan to hit the ground running when we land. Anybody who bitches or can’t keep up stays at the base.”
SMITH SAT IN HIS KITCHEN AND STARED AT THE PHONE LYING ONthe table. He’d doubted the caller’s
identity so she’d given him a contact number, then hung up. He grabbed the unit and punched in the number. Three rings and a pleasant voice informed him that he’d dialed the White House and wanted to know how to direct his call.
“Office of the National Security Adviser,” he said in a weak voice.
She connected him.
“Took you long enough, Charlie,” a woman said. The same voice. “Satisfied?”
“What do you want?”
“To tell you something.”
“I’m listening.”
“Ramsey intends to terminate his relationship with you. He has big plans, major plans, and they don’t include you being around to possibly interfere with them.”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“That’s what I’d say, too, Charlie. But I’ll make it easy for you. You listen and I’ll talk. That way if yo
u think you’re being recorded it won’t matter. Sound like a plan?”
“If you got the time, go ahead.”
“You’re Ramsey’s personal problem solver. He’s used you for years. Pays you well. In the last few days you’ve been a busy guy. Jacksonville. Charlotte. Asheville. Am I getting warm, Charlie? Do you want me to name names?”
“You can say whatever you want.”
“Now Ramsey has given you a new assignment.” She paused. “Me. And let me guess. Has to be done today. That
makes sense since I shook him down yesterday. He tell you about that, Charlie?”
He did not reply.
“No, I didn’t think so. See, he’s making plans and they don’t include you. But I don’t plan to end up like the others.
That’s why we’re talking. Oh, and by the way, if I was your enemy the Secret Service would be at your door right now and we’d have this talk in a private place, just you and me and somebody big and strong.”
“That thought had already occurred to me.”
“I knew you’d be reasonable. And just so you understand that I really do know what I’m talking about, let me tell you about three offshore accounts you have, the ones Ramsey makes his deposits into.” She rattled off the banks and account numbers, even passwords, two of which he’d changed only a week ago. “None of those accounts is really private, Charlie. You just have to know where and how to look. Unfortunately for you, I can seize those accounts in an instant. But to show you my good faith, I haven’t touched them.”
Okay. She was the real deal. “What do you want?”
“Like I said, Ramsey has decided that you have to go. He’s made a deal with a senator, one that doesn’t include you.
Since you’re practically dead anyway, what with no identity, few roots, no family, how hard would it be for you to permanently disappear? Nobody would ever miss you. That’s sad, Charlie.”
But true.
“So I have a better idea,” she said.
RAMSEY WAS SO CLOSE TO HIS GOAL.EVERYTHING HAD GONE ASplanned. Only one obstacle remained.
Diane McCoy.
He still sat at his desk, a swig of chilled whiskey resting nearby. He thought about what he’d told Isabel Oberhauser.
About the submarine. What he’d retrieved from NR-1A and kept ever since.
Captain Forrest Malone’s log.
Through the years he’d occasionally glanced at the handwritten pages, more out of morbid curiosity than genuine interest. But the log represented a memento from a journey that had profoundly changed his life. He wasn’t sentimental, but there were times that deserved remembering. For him, one of those moments came under the Antarctic ice.
When he followed the seal.
Upward.
He broke the surface and swung his light out of the water. He was in a cavern formed of rock and ice. Maybe a football field long and half that wide, faintly illuminated in a gray-and-purple silence. To his right he heard the bark of a seal and saw the animal leap back into the water. He pushed his face mask to his forehead, spit the regulator from his mouth, and tasted the air. Then he saw it. A bright orange conning tower, stunted, smaller than normal, distinctive in shape.
NR-1A.
Holy Mother of God.
He treaded water toward the surfaced boat.
He’d served aboard NR-1, one of the reasons why he’d been chosen for this mission, so he was familiar with the sub’s revolutionary design. Long and thin, the sail forward, near the front of a cigar-shaped hull. A flat fiberglass superstructure mounted atop the hull allowed the crew to walk the length of the boat. Few openings existed in the hull, so that it could dive deep with minimal risk.
He floated close and caressed the black metal. Not a sound. No movement. Nothing. Only water slapping the hull.
He was near the bow, so he drifted down the port side. A rope ladder rested against the hull—used, he knew, for ingress and egress to inflatable rafts. He wondered about its deployment.
He grabbed hold and tugged.
Firm.
He slipped off his fins and slid the straps across his left wrist. He clipped the light to his belt, gripped the ladder, and hauled himself from the water. On top, he collapsed to the decking and rested, then slipped off his weight belt and air tank. He swiped cold water from his face, braced himself, regripped his light, then used the sail fins like a ladder and hoisted himself to the top of the conning tower.
The main hatch hung open.
He shuddered. From the cold? Or from the thought of what waited below?
He climbed down.
At the ladder’s bottom he saw that the flooring plates had been removed. He shone his light across where he knew the boat’s batteries were stored. Everything appeared charred—which might explain what had happened. A fire would have been catastrophic. He wondered about the boat’s reactor but, with everything pitch dark, apparently it had been shut down.
He moved through the forward compartment to the conn. The chairs were empty, the instruments dark. He tested a few circuits. No power. He inspected the engine room. Nothing. The reactor compartment loomed silent. He found the captain’s corner—not a cabin, NR-1A was too small for such luxuries, just a bunk and a desk attached to the bulkhead.
He spotted the captain’s journal, which he opened, thumbing through, finding the last entry.
Ramsey remembered that entry exactly. Ice on his fingers, ice in his head, ice in his glassy stare. Oh, how right Forrest Malone had been.
Ramsey had handled that search with perfection. Anyone who could now be a problem was dead. Admiral Dyals’
legacy was secure, as was his own. The navy was likewise safe. The ghosts of NR-1A would stay where they belonged.
In Antarctica.
His cell phone came alive with light, but no sound. He’d silenced it hours ago. He looked. Finally.
“Yes, Charlie, what is it?”
“I need to see you.”
“Not possible.”
“Make it possible. In two hours.”
“Why?”
“A problem.”
He realized they were on an open phone line and words needed to be chosen with care.
“Bad?”
“Enough I need to see you.”
He checked his watch. “Where?”
“You know. Be there.”
EIGHTY-ONE
FORT LEE, VIRGINIA
9:30 PM
COMPUTERS WERE NOTSTEPHANIE’S STRONG POINT, BUTMALONEhad explained in his e-mail the
translation procedure. Colonel Gross had provided her with a high-speed portable scanner and an Internet connection.
She’d downloaded the translation program and experimented with one page, scanning the image into the computer.
Once she applied the translation program, the result had been extraordinary. The odd assortment of twists, turns, and curlicues first became Latin, then English. Rough in places. Parts missing here and there. But enough for her to know that the refrigerated compartment contained a treasure trove of ancient information.
• • •
Inside a glass jar suspend two piths by a thin thread. Rub a shiny metal rod briskly on clothing. There will be no sensation, no tingle, no pain. Bring the rod close to the jar and the two spheres will fly apart and stay apart even after the rod is withdrawn. The force from the rod flows outward, unseen and unfelt but there nonetheless, driving the piths apart. After a time the piths will sink, driven so by the same force that keeps everything that is tossed into the air from remaining there.
• • •
Construct a wheel, with a handle at its rear, and attach small metal plates to its edge. Two metal rods should be fixed so that a spray of wires from each lightly touches the metal plates. From the rods a wire leads to two metal spheres.
Position them one-half commons apart. Twirl the wheel by the handle. Where the metal plates contact the wires, flashing will occur. Spin the wheel faster and blue lightning will leap and hiss from the
metal spheres. A strange smell will occur, one that has been noticed after a fierce storm in lands where rain falls in abundance. Savor it and the lightning, for that force and the force that drives the piths apart is the same, only generated in differing ways. Touching the metal spheres is as harmless as touching the metal rods rubbed to the clothing.