by Steve Berry
“But it explains why we’re speaking at this godforsaken hour.”
He tried again. “Have you solved the cipher?”
“We have the key.”
He didn’t know whether to believe her or not. “I want it.”
“I’m sure you do. But I’m not currently in a position to give it to you. I’ll admit that I was planning on taking Knox hostage, using him as a bargaining chip. Maybe even just killing him and be done with it. But your quartermaster moved fast and we took casualties. That’s the price my people pay for their failure.”
Had any corsair or buccaneer regarded his crew with the same callous disrespect, he would have been marooned on the first island encountered.
And she called him a pirate.
“Don’t forget,” he said, “I have what you really want.”
He’d moved on Stephanie Nelle only because Carbonell had specifically asked him to. If she was to be believed, Nelle had been asking questions about Carbonell, investigating her relationship with the Commonwealth or, more specifically, her relationship with Hale. None of the other three captains knew of her existence, or at least that’s what he’d been led to believe. Carbonell had become aware of a meeting Nelle had arranged with a terminated NIA agent, one who harbored no loyalty to his former boss. She’d provided him the Delaware location and Knox had snatched Nelle at the scene, under cover of darkness, no witnesses, quick and clean. She’d wanted him to hold her discreetly for a few days. He could not have cared less. Just a favor done. But with all that had happened over the past few hours, the circumstances had altered.
NIA was no longer a friend.
“How is your guest?” she asked.
“Comfortable.”
“Too bad.”
“What is it you want with her?”
“She has something I want and will not voluntarily relinquish it.”
“So you thought I’d trade Nelle for Knox?”
“Worth a try.”
“I want the cipher key,” he made clear. “If you’re not interested, I could make some arrangements with Stephanie Nelle. I’m sure she’d love to know why I have her. She looks the bargaining type.”
The silence on the other end of the line confirmed that his suspicions had proven correct. That was something she feared.
“Okay, Quentin. Things have obviously changed. Let’s see what you and I can now agree to.”
MALONE TURNED OFF THE HIGHWAY AND ENTERED THE GARVER Institute. Edwin Davis had told him that the facility was a well-financed think tank that specialized in cryptology, the harder the better, and was privy to some sophisticated encryption programs.
It had taken a little longer than he thought to drive the forty miles south from DC into rural Maryland. A storm was shifting north from Virginia. Wind whipped the foliage into a torrid fury. No security of any kind guarded the entrance and none was visible in the lighted parking lots. A depth of trees provided a margin of privacy from the highway. Davis had explained that the lack of any overt security kept the place anonymous. Of the five bland corporate rectangles, four were black stains on the night, one was lit. Daniels had said that a Dr. Gary Voccio was waiting. A password had been provided by the NIA that would gain him access to the solution.
He wheeled into the parking lot and stopped the car, then stepped out into the night, silent save for some distant thunder.
Back in the fray. Seemed he could not escape.
A car suddenly screeched from the far side of one of the buildings. No headlights, its engine revving. The vehicle veered right, hopping a curbed median and careening across the empty lot.
Heading straight for him.
An arm extended from the front passenger-side window.
Holding a gun.
TWENTY-SEVEN
WHITE HOUSE
CASSIOPEIA WAS LED BY EDWIN DAVIS UPSTAIRS TO THE second-floor residence that contained the First Family’s private living space. A safe retreat, Davis had said, guarded by the Secret Service. Perhaps the only place in the world where they can actually be themselves. She was still trying to gauge Davis. She’d watched him as the staff greeted Daniels. How he’d kept out of the way. Off to the side. There, but not overtly so.
They came to the top of the stairs and stopped in a lighted hallway that extended from one end of the building to the other. Doorways lined either side. One was guarded by a woman who stood straight against the ornate wall. Davis motioned to a room across the hall. They stepped inside and he closed the door. Pale walls and simple draperies were warmed by the golden glow of lamps. A magnificent Victorian desk sat atop a colorful rug.
“The Treaty Room,” Davis said. “Most presidents have used this as a private study. When James Garfield was shot, they turned this into an icehouse with some crude air-conditioning machines, trying to make him comfortable as he lay dying.”
She saw he was anxious.
Odd.
“The Spanish-American War ended here when President McKinley signed the treaty on that table.”
She faced Davis. “What is it you have to say?”
He nodded. “I was told you were direct.”
“You’re a little on edge and I’m not here for a tour.”
“There’s something you need to know.”
Danny Daniels woke from a sound sleep and smelled smoke.
The darkened bedroom was thick with an acrid fog, enough that he choked on his next breath, coughing away a mouthful of carbon. He shook Pauline, waking her, then tossed the covers away. His mind came fully awake and he realized the worst.
The house was on fire.
He heard the flames, the old wood structure crackling as it disintegrated. Their bedroom was on the second floor, as was their daughter’s.
“Oh, my God,” Pauline said. “Mary.”
“Mary,” he called out through the open doorway. “Mary.”
The second floor was a mass of flames, the stairway leading down engulfed by fire. It seemed the whole house had succumbed save for their bedroom.
“Mary,” he yelled. “Answer me. Mary.”
Pauline was now beside him, screaming for their nine-year-old daughter.
“I’m going after her,” she said.
He grabbed her arm. “There’s no way. You won’t make it. The floor is gone.”
“I’m not going to stand here while she’s in there.”
Neither was he, but he had to use his brain.
“Mary,” Pauline shrieked. “Answer me.”
His wife was bordering on hysterical. Smoke continued to build. He bolted to the window and opened it. The bedside clock read 3:15 AM. He heard no sirens. His farm sat three miles outside of town, on family land, the nearest neighbor half a mile away.
He grabbed a lungful of fresh air.
“Dammit, Danny,” Pauline blurted out. “Do something.”
He made a decision.
He stepped back inside, grabbed his wife, and yanked her toward the window. The drop down was about fifteen feet into a line of shrubs. There was no way they could escape out the bedroom door. This was their only avenue out and he knew she would not go voluntarily.
“Get some air,” he said.
She was coughing bad and saw the wisdom in his advice. She leaned out the window to clear her throat. He grabbed her legs and shoved her body through the open frame, twisting her once so she’d land sideways in the branches. She might break a bone, but she wasn’t going to die in the fire. She was no help to him here. He had to do this on his own.
He saw that shrubbery broke her fall and she came to her feet.
“Get away from the house,” he called out.
Then he rushed back to the bedroom door.
“Daddy. Help me.”
Mary’s voice.
“Honey. I’m here,” he called out to the fire. “Are you in your room?”
“Daddy. What’s happening? Everything’s burning. I can’t breathe.”
He had to get to her, but there was no way. The second-floor hall was gone, fift
y feet of air loomed between the doorway and his daughter’s room. In a few more minutes the bedroom where he stood would be gone. The smoke and heat was becoming unbearable, stinging his eyes, choking his lungs.
“Mary. You still there?” He waited. “Mary.”
He had to get to her.
He rushed to the window and stared below. Pauline was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he could help Mary from the outside. There was a ladder in the barn.
He climbed out through the window and stretched his tall frame downward, gripping the sill. He released his grip and fell the additional nine feet, penetrating the shrubbery, landing on his feet. He pushed through the branches and ran around to the other side of the house. His worst fears were immediately confirmed. The entire second floor was engulfed, including his daughter’s room. Flames roared out the exterior walls and obliterated the roof.
Pauline stood, staring upward, holding one arm with the other.
“She’s gone,” his wife wailed, tears in her voice. “My baby is gone.”
“That night has haunted him for thirty years,” Davis said, his voice a whisper. “The Daniels’ only child died, and Pauline could not have any more.”
She did not know what to say.
“The cause of the fire was a cigar left in an ashtray. At that time Daniels was a city councilman and liked a good smoke. Pauline had begged him to quit, but he’d refused. Back then, smoke detectors were not commonplace. The official report noted that the fire was preventable.”
She comprehended the full extent of that conclusion.
“How did their marriage survive that?” she asked.
“It didn’t.”
WYATT ENTERED THE SECOND-FLOOR OFFICE OF DR. GARY Voccio, who’d answered the intercom and released an electronic lock only after being provided the appropriate password. The doctor greeted him from behind a desk cluttered with paper and three active LCD monitors. Voccio was in his late thirties with a Spartan vigor and reddish hair cut in a boyish fringe. He appeared disheveled, shirtsleeves rolled up, eyes tired.
Not the outdoor type, Wyatt concluded.
“I’m not a night person,” Voccio said as they shook hands. “But the NIA’s paying the bill, and we aim to please. So I waited.”
“I need everything you have.”
“That cipher was a tough one. It took nearly two months for our computers to crack the thing. And even then, it was a little luck that did the trick.”
He wasn’t interested in details. Instead he stepped across the cluttered office to the plate-glass windows, which offered a view of the front parking lot, wet asphalt glistening beneath the sodium vapor lights.
“Something wrong?” Voccio asked.
That remained to be seen. He kept his eyes out the window.
Headlights appeared.
A car turned from the entrance lane, wheeled into the vacant lot, and parked.
A man emerged.
Cotton Malone.
Carbonell had been right.
Another car materialized from his left. No headlights. Speeding straight for Malone.
Shots were fired.
HALE LISTENED TO ANDREA CARBONELL. HER TONE WAS NOT THAT of someone cornered, more the frivolity of somebody genuinely bemused.
“You realize,” he said, “that I can easily turn Stephanie Nelle loose after I make some arrangements with her. She is, after all, the head of a respected intelligence agency.”
“You’ll find her difficult to work with.”
“More than you?”
“Quentin, only I control the key to the cipher.”
“I have no idea if that is true. You’ve already lied to us once.”
“The mishap with Knox? I was simply hedging the bet. Okay. You won that round. How about this. I’ll provide the key to you. And once you find those missing two pages, then we’ll both be in a better position to negotiate.”
“I assume that, in return, you would want what I have stored eliminated?”
“As if that’s a problem for you.”
“I’m not immune to that particular charge, even if I find the missing pages.” He knew she was aware that the letter of marque did not protect against willful murder.
“That hasn’t seemed to bother you in the past, and there’s a man at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean who would agree with me.”
Her comment caught him off guard, then he realized. “Your informant?”
“Spies do come in handy.”
But she’d tossed him a bone. He now knew where to look. And she knew what he’d do.
“Cleaning up loose ends?” he asked.
She laughed. “Let’s just say I can be quite generous when I want to be. Call it a demonstration of my good faith.”
The hell with Stephanie Nelle. Maybe she was more valuable dead. “Give me the key. Once I have those two pages in hand, your problem will go away.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
WHITE HOUSE
CASSIOPEIA ENTERED A CASUAL SPACE ADJACENT TO THE PRESIDENTIAL
master bedroom, the room decorated as a cozy den. Perched on a settee, upholstered in a bright chintz print, sat Pauline Daniels.
The female Secret Service agent outside had closed the door behind her.
They were alone.
The First Lady’s dull blond hair fell in wisps over dainty ears and a short brow. Her features cast a more youthful appearance than the early to midsixties she had to be. Octagonal glasses without rims fronted attractive blue eyes. She sat in an unnatural pose, back straight, veined hands folded in her lap, wearing a conservative wool suit and flat-soled Chanel ballet slippers.
“I understand you want to question me,” Mrs. Daniels said.
“I’d prefer we just talk.”
“And who are you?”
She caught the defensive edge in the question. “Someone who doesn’t want to be here.”
“That makes two of us.”
The First Lady motioned and Cassiopeia sat in a chair facing the sofa, two meters separating them, like some sort of demilitarized zone. This was uncomfortable on a multitude of levels, not the least of which was what Edwin Davis had just told her about Mary Daniels.
She introduced herself, then asked, “Where were you when the attempt on the president’s life happened?”
The older woman stared down at the rug on the wood floor. “You make it sound so impersonal. He’s my husband.”
“I have to ask the question, and you know that.”
“Here. Danny went to New York without me. He said he’d only bea few hours. Home by midnight. I didn’t think a thing about it.”
The voice remained distant, far off.
“What was your reaction when you heard?”
The First Lady glanced up, her blue eyes focused. “What you’re really asking is, was I glad?”
She wondered about the bluntness, searching her memory, recalling nothing in the press about any animosity, whether perceived or real, between the first couple. Their marriage had always been regarded as strong. But if this was the direction the woman wanted to go, then, “Were you glad?”
“I didn’t know what to think, especially during those first few minutes after it happened, before we were told he was okay. My thoughts were… confused.”
An uneasy silence passed between them.
“You know, don’t you?” the older woman asked her. “About Mary.”
She nodded.
The face remained frozen, a mask of indifference. “I never forgave him.”
“Why did you stay?”
“He’s my husband. I swore for better or worse. My mother taught me those words meant something.” The First Lady sucked in a deep breath, as if steeling herself. “What you really want to know is, did I tell anyone about the trip to New York.”
She waited.
“Yes. I did.”
MALONE DOVE BEHIND HIS PARKED CAR AND REACHED FOR THE
semi-automatic the Secret Service had provided. He’d expected something, but not necessarily t
his fast. The car speeding toward him slowed as the gun projecting from the open window fired three rounds. The weapon was sound-suppressed, the shots popping more like those of a cap pistol than the bangs of a high-caliber weapon.
The car wheeled to a stop fifty yards away.
Two men emerged, one from the driver’s side, the other from the rear passenger door. Both armed. He decided not to give anyone time to think and shot the man closest to him in the thigh. The body dropped to the ground, his victim crying out in pain. The other man reacted, assuming a defensive position behind the vehicle.
The rain quickened, drops stinging his face.
He glanced around to see if there were any more threats and spotted none.
So instead of aiming for the man with the gun, he pointed his weapon at the open driver’s-side door and fired into the car.
HALE HUNG UP THE PHONE. OF COURSE, HE DID NOT BELIEVE A word Andrea Carbonell had said. She was buying time.
But so was he.
He was bothered by the fact that she knew about the earlier murder at sea. There was indeed a spy among them.
Which had to be dealt with.
He mentally assessed Adventure’s crew. Many of them performed other tasks around the estate, some in the metallurgy workshop where Knox had surely fashioned his remote-controlled weapons. Each man derived a designated share of the Commonwealth’s annual spoils, and it pained him to think that one of them had betrayed the company.
Justice must be done.
The Articles provided an accused a trial before his peers with the quartermaster presiding and crewmen, captains included, serving as jury. A simple majority vote would determine his fate, and if he was found guilty, the punishment was not in doubt.
Death.
Slow and painful.
He recalled what his father had told him about a convicted traitor from decades ago. They’d resorted to the old ways. About a hundred of the crew assembled to deliver one blow each from a cat-o’-nine-tails. But only half were able to inflict the punishment before the man died.
He decided not to wait for the quartermaster.
Though it was approaching midnight, he knew his secretary was down the hall. Never would he retire before Hale.