by Steve Berry
The woman threw him a look, as she realized her lost opportunity. He nearly smiled. Even in supposed highbrow accommodations with centuries-old traditions, money talked.
He’d stayed at the Goldener Hirsch before and knew that its restaurant was on the ground floor, on the opposite side of the building. He followed a narrow corridor through arches, past the bar, to its entrance. Once a blacksmith’s shop, it was now regarded as Salzburg’s swankiest place to eat, though he imagined there were other establishments that might challenge the assertion. Austrians tended to dine after seven o’clock, so the clothed tables with sparkling china and crystal were empty.
Except for one, near the center.
Where Salazar sat facing toward him and Cassiopeia away.
He stayed short of the doorway, concealing himself, and studied the Spaniard.
Whatever he chose to do next came with risk.
But he’d come this far.
SALAZAR WAS PLEASED.
He and Cassiopeia had flown by private jet from Denmark to Salzburg, then checked into their suites. The auction was set to begin at 7:00 P.M., so they’d decided to have an early dinner. The event was to be held within the Hohensalzburg, a grim hulk of a fortress resting 120 meters above the city on a pine-clad granite mound. The castle was first built in the 11th century, but another six hundred years had been needed for its completion. Today it was a museum and tourist attraction that offered lovely panoramas. He thought a walk along its parapets before the auction would be perfect, especially considering the evening’s clear skies and seasonable air.
Cassiopeia looked lovely. She’d chosen a black silk pantsuit, low heels, moderate jewelry, and a gold belt that wrapped loosely around her trim waist. He had to catch himself from noticing her décolletage, framed by a low-cut blouse. Her dark hair hung in curled layers past her shoulders, her face cast in muted tones from only a touch of color. Some of the auctions he attended were formal affairs. This one tonight not so much, but he was glad that she’d nonetheless dressed for the occasion.
“Would it be inappropriate to say that you look stunning?”
She smiled. “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
He’d asked the waiter to give them a few moments before offering anything to drink.
“We have time for a leisurely dinner,” he said. “Then I thought we’d take the funicular up the mountainside to the castle. It’s the easiest way to get there.”
“That sounds perfect. Is the book the only thing you’re after at the auction?”
They’d discussed the sale on the plane. The greatest acquisition any collector of Saints’ artifacts could hope for was an original Book of Mormon. An 1830 American edition had been found among the personal effects of an Austrian who’d recently died. Auctions and private sales had been how most of his collection had been acquired, only a few items gifts or heirlooms. He’d known of this sale for some time, wanting to come, then the appearance of the Americans had added a new purpose.
The first agent in the cell had proven tight-lipped.
The second stole his plane and escaped.
The third was some sort of bookseller, working with his enemy, who killed at least two of his men.
And just now entered the restaurant.
Thank you.
“You’re welcome,” the angel said.
MALONE CAUGHT JOSEPE SALAZAR’S INTENSE SCRUTINY. BUT IF the Spaniard recognized him, nothing in the man’s countenance betrayed the fact. The brown eyes remained expressionless. The Danites had surely reported his involvement, but that did not mean Salazar knew his face.
He approached and Salazar said, “May I help you?”
He slid a wooden chair from the adjacent table and, not waiting for an invitation, sat at their table.
“Name’s Cotton Malone.”
CASSIOPEIA HAD BEEN IN TIGHT SPOTS, A FEW EVEN LIFE threatening, but she could not recall one more uncomfortable than this. Her first thought was wondering how Cotton had managed to be here, in Austria, at the Goldener Hirsch. The second was if Stephanie knew. Surely not. Or she would have warned her of the possibility, especially considering the consequences. The third was guilt. Had she betrayed Cotton? Did he think she had? What did he know?
“Is your name supposed to mean something to me?” Josepe asked.
“It should.”
“I’ve never met anyone with the name Cotton. I’m sure there’s a story there. Am I right?”
“A long one.”
She noticed that Cotton had not offered his hand to shake, and she did not like the hard look in his green eyes.
“And who are you?” he asked her.
“I’m not sure that matters, considering that neither one of us seems to know who you are.”
She kept her voice curt.
Face cold.
“I’M AN AGENT FOR THE U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT,” MALONE said.
He hadn’t said those words in four years, not since he tendered his resignation and moved to Denmark.
“Is that said to frighten me?” Cassiopeia asked.
“Ma’am, you’ll have to excuse us. I’m here to talk with Mr. Salazar.”
“Are you telling me to mind my own business?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. It might be better if you waited outside.”
“She’s not going anywhere,” Salazar said, a definite edge to his voice.
Keeping her here was fine by him. He’d missed seeing her. Hearing her voice. But, like her, he had to stay in character, so he asked, “Are you the lady’s protector?”
“What is your business with me?” Salazar asked.
He considered the question a moment, shrugged, and said, “Okay. If you want her here, then we’ll do this your way. Things have changed. Our investigation of you is no longer covert. It’s wide open, in your face. And I’m here to get the job done.”
“That means nothing to me.”
“Should I have the hotel call the police?” Cassiopeia asked Salazar.
“No, I can handle this.” Salazar faced him. “Mr. Malone, I have no idea what you are talking about. Are you saying the U. S. Justice Department is investigating me? If so, that is news. But if that is true, I have lawyers who look after my interests. If you’ll leave your card, I’ll have them contact you.”
“I don’t like lawyers or Mormons,” he said. “I especially don’t like hypocritical Mormons.”
“We are accustomed to both ignorance and bigotry.”
He chuckled. “That’s a good one. If the person is stupid, they won’t even get that you insulted them. If smart, they’ll get angry. Either way, you win. They teach you that in cult school?”
This time, no reply.
“Isn’t that where all Mormons go to learn the party line? Out in Temple Land. Salt Lake City. What are you taught? Just smile, be cool, and tell everyone Jesus loves them. Of course, Jesus will love you even more if you become a Mormon. Read the Book of Mormon and all will be right. Otherwise, you might just freeze to death in the outer darkness. Isn’t that what you call it?”
“There must be an exile for those who choose to follow Satan, in defiance of Heavenly Father’s plan,” Salazar said. “A place for tortured souls, like yourself.”
The mocking tone of the speech annoyed him. “How about blood atonement? Is that part of the grand plan?”
“You obviously read about my church’s history, matters that happened long ago, in another time. We no longer practice blood atonements.”
He pointed to Cassiopeia, who looked great. “Is she wife number one? Three? Eight?”
“We no longer practice plural marriage, either.”
He was pushing buttons, searching for the right one, but Salazar was maintaining a calm, self-confident demeanor. So he tried another tack and asked Cassiopeia, “You do realize that you’re having dinner with a murderer?”
Salazar sprang to his feet. “That’s enough.”
Finally. The right stimulus.
“Leave,�
�� Salazar demanded.
He glanced up. Hate filled the eyes that stared back. But the Spaniard was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.
“I saw the body,” he said, his voice low and soft.
Salazar said nothing.
“He was an American agent. With a wife and kids.”
He threw a final glance at Cassiopeia. Her features had gained a brittle look. Her eyes said, Go.
He slid back the chair and stood. “I took down two of your men and Barry Kirk. Now I’m coming for you.”
Salazar stared back, still saying nothing. Something he learned long ago came to mind. Stir a person up and they could be made to think. Add in anger and they’ll screw up, sure as hell.
He pointed his finger. “You’re mine.”
Then he stepped for the exit.
“Mr. Malone.”
He stopped and turned.
“You owe this lady an apology for your insults.”
He threw them both a look of contempt, then focused on Cassiopeia. “I’m sorry.”
He hesitated.
“If I offended you.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
WASHINGTON, D.C.
STEPHANIE FELT AWKWARD BEING ALONE WITH DANNY DANIELS. They’d neither seen nor spoken to each other in several months.
“How is the First Lady?” she asked.
“Anxious to leave the White House. As am I. Politics ain’t what it used to be. Time for a new life.”
The Twenty-Second Amendment allowed a person to serve only two terms. Nearly every president had wanted a second term, despite the fact that history clearly taught the last four years would be nothing like the first. Either the president became overly aggressive, knowing he had nothing to lose, which alienated both supporters and detractors. Or he became cautious, placid, and docile, not wanting to do anything that might affect his legacy. Either way, nothing could be accomplished. Bucking the trend, Daniels’ second term had been active, dealing with some explosive issues, many of which she and the Magellan Billet had been involved with solving.
“This table,” Daniels said. “It’s really beautiful. I asked. It’s on loan from the State Department. These chairs were made for the Quayles, during the first Bush’s term.”
She could see he was unusually nervous, his booming baritone voice down many decibels, his look distracted.
“I had breakfast prepared. Are you hungry?”
Arranged on the table before them was a place setting each of white Lenox china adorned with the vice president’s seal. Tulip-shaped stemware stood empty, sparkling in bright morning sun that rained through the windows.
“Chitchat is not your specialty,” she said.
He chuckled. “No, it’s not.”
“I’d like to know what this is about.”
She’d already noticed the file on the table.
Daniels opened the folder and lifted out one sheet, which he handed to her. It was a photocopy of a handwritten letter, the script distinctly feminine, the words difficult to read.
“That was sent to president Ulysses S. Grant on August 9, 1876.”
The signature she could read.
Mrs. Abraham Lincoln.
“Mary Todd was a funny bird,” Daniels said. “Lived a tough life. Lost three sons and a husband. Then she had to fight Congress to award her a pension. It was an uphill battle since, while in the White House, she managed to alienate most of them. Just to shut her up, they finally gave her the money.”
“She was no different than any of the hundreds of thousands of other veterans’ widows who were granted a pension. She deserved it.”
“Not true. She was different. She was Mrs. Abraham Lincoln and, by the time Grant was elected president, no one wanted to hear Lincoln’s name. We worship him today like a god. But in the decades after the Civil War, Lincoln was not the legend he ultimately became. He was hated. Reviled.”
“Did they know something we don’t?”
He handed her another sheet, typewritten.
“It’s the text from the copy you’re holding. Read it.”
I have led a life of most rigid seclusion since I left Washington. If my darling husband had lived out his four years, we would have passed our remaining years in a home we both should have enjoyed. How dearly I loved the Soldier’s Home where we spent so much time while in Washington, and I loathe that I should be so far removed from it, broken hearted, praying death to remove me from a life so full of agony. Each morning, on awakening from my troubled slumbers, the utter responsibility of living another day so wretched appears to me as an impossibility. Without my beloved, life is only a heavy burden and the thought that I should soon be removed from this world is a supreme happiness to me. I wonder each day if I should ever regain my health and my strength of mind. Before they leave me entirely, there is a matter of which you must know. With all of the bereavement I have endured my mind had purged the thought, yet it reoccurred the other night as I lay waiting for sleep. Two years into his first term my beloved was given a message from his predecessor, Mr. Buchanan, one that had been passed from leader to leader since the days of Mr. Washington. Those words greatly upset my beloved. He told me that he wished the message had never been delivered. Three more times we discussed the matter and on each occasion he repeated his lament. His anguish during the war was deep and profound. I always thought it a consequence of being the commander in chief, but once he told me that it was because of the message. In the days before he was murdered, when the war was won and the fight over, my beloved said that those disturbing words still existed. He’d first thought to destroy them but had instead sent them west to the Mormons, part of a bargain made with their leader. The Mormons kept their end, as had he, so it was time to retrieve what he had sent them. What to do with it then he did not know. But my beloved never lived to make that decision and nothing was ever retrieved. I thought you might want to know this. Do with the knowledge as you please. None of this matters to me any longer.
She glanced up from the sheet.
“The Mormons still have that information,” Daniels said. “They’ve had it since 1863, when Lincoln made the deal with Brigham Young.”
“Edwin told me about that.”
“Pretty smart move, actually. Lincoln never enforced the anti-polygamy act against the Mormons, and Young kept the telegraph lines and the railroads heading west. He also never sent men to fight for the South.”
“This message passed between the early presidents. Is it real?”
“Apparently so. Something akin to it is mentioned in other classified documents. Ones only presidents can see. I read them seven years ago. The references are fleeting, but there. George Washington definitely passed something down that eventually made its way to Lincoln. Unfortunately, the sixteenth president was killed before he had a chance to pass it to the seventeenth. So it was forgotten. Except by Mary Todd.”
She sensed something else. “What aren’t you saying?”
He opened the file and handed her another sheet of more typed text.
“That’s a clean version of a note included in the classified papers. It’s from James Madison, written at the end of his second term in 1817. Presumably for his successor, James Monroe.”
As to the message sent forward by our first president, I, being the fourth man to hold this honored post do add this addendum, which should likewise be passed forward. Mr. Washington was present that Saturday evening of the great convention. He chaired the extraordinary session and has personal knowledge of all that transpired. Until assuming this office, I was unaware as to what, if anything, had occurred with the result of that gathering. I was pleased to discover that Mr. Washington had ensured that it be passed from president to president. Having never missed a day of the Constitutional Convention, nor at most a casual fraction of an hour in any day, I assumed a seat in front of the presiding member, with the other members on my right and left hands. In this favorable position for hearing all that passed, I noted what was read from the chair or sp
oken by the members. My notes of the great convention were motivated by an earnest desire for completeness and accuracy and, past my death, which hopefully will not occur for a number of years, they shall be published. But all later presidents must know that those notes are not complete. Hidden beneath my summer study is what is needed for a total understanding. If any subsequent holder of this office deems it prudent to act upon what Mr. Washington has allowed to survive, that bounty could prove most useful.
“We’ve had a lot of presidents,” she said, “since Madison. Don’t you think one of them went for a look?”
“This note was never attached to anything, nor passed on. It was apparently secreted away, then found a year ago in some of Madison’s private papers stored at the Library of Congress. No president, except me, has ever seen it. Luckily, the person who found it works for me.” He handed her another item from the file encased with a plastic sheet protector. “That’s Madison’s original note, as handwritten. Notice anything?”
She did. At the bottom.
Two letters.
IV.
“Roman numerals?” she asked.
He shrugged. “We don’t know.”
Daniels was clearly not his usual gregarious self. None of the brash stories or loud voice. Instead, he sat rigid in the chair, his face as stiff as a mask. Was he afraid? She never had seen this man flinch in the face of anything.
“James Buchanan is quoted, just prior to the Civil War, saying he might be the last president of the United States. I never understood what he truly meant by that comment, until recently.”
“Buchanan was wrong. The South lost the war.”
“That’s the problem, Stephanie. He may not have been wrong. But Lincoln came along and bluffed a pair of twos in a poker game where everyone else was holding a much better hand. And he won. Only to have his brains blown out at the end. I’m not going to be the last president of the United States.”
She had to learn more, so she tried a safer subject. “What did Madison mean by his summer study?”