The Cotton Malone Series 7-Book Bundle

by Steve Berry

“What do you know of us?” Vincenti asked.

  The Italian shrugged. “A bunch of rich people who like to play.”

  The bravado amused Vincenti. Four men stood behind the Florentine, each armed, which explained why the ingrate thought himself safe. As a condition to his appearing, he’d insisted on them coming.

  “Seven hundred years ago,” Vincenti said, “a Council of Ten oversaw Venice. They were men supposedly too mature to be swayed by passion or temptation, charged with maintaining public safety and quelling political opposition. And that’s precisely what they did. For centuries. They took evidence in secret, pronounced sentences, and carried out executions, all in the name of the Venetian state.”

  “You think I care about this history lesson?”

  Vincenti folded his hands in his lap. “You should care.”

  “This mausoleum is depressing. It belong to you?”

  True, the villa lacked the charm of a house that had once been a family home, but tsars, emperors, archdukes, and crowned heads had all stayed under its roof. Even Napoleon had occupied one of the bedrooms. So he said with pride, “It belongs to us.”

  “You need a decorator. Are we through here?”

  “I’d like to finish what I was explaining.”

  The Italian gestured with his hands. “Get on with it. I want some sleep.”

  “We, too, are a Council of Ten. Like the original, we employ Inquisitors to enforce our decisions.” He gestured and three men stepped forward from the far side of the salon. “Like the originals, our rule is absolute.”

  “You’re not the government.”

  “No. We’re something else altogether.”

  Still the Florentine seemed unimpressed. “I came here in the middle of the night because I was ordered to by my associates. Not because I’m impressed. I brought these four to protect me. So your Inquisitors might find it difficult to enforce anything.”

  Vincenti pushed himself up from the chair. “I think something needs to be made clear. You were hired to handle a task. You decided to change that assignment to suit your own purpose.”

  “Unless all of you intend on leaving here in a box. I’d say we just forget about it.”

  Vincenti’s patience had worn thin. He genuinely disliked this part of his official duties. He gestured and the four men who’d come with the Florentine grabbed the idiot.

  A smug look evolved into one of surprise.

  The Florentine was disarmed while three of the men restrained him. An Inquisitor approached and, with a roll of thick tape, bound the accused’s struggling arms behind his back, his legs and knees together, and wrapped his face, sealing his mouth. The three then released their grip and the Florentine’s thick frame thudded to the rug.

  “This Council has found you guilty of treason to our League,” Vincenti said. He gestured again and a set of double doors swung open. A casket of rich lacquered wood was wheeled in, its lid hinged open. The Florentine’s eyes went wide as he apparently realized his fate.

  Vincenti stepped close.

  “Five hundred years ago traitors to the state were sealed into rooms above the Doge’s palace, built of wood and lead, exposed to the elements—they became known as the coffins.” He paused and allowed his words to take hold. “Horrible places. Most who entered died. You took our money while, at the same time, trying to make more for yourself.” He shook his head. “Not to be. And, by the way, your associates decided you were the price they would pay to keep peace with us.”

  The Florentine fought his restraints with a renewed vigor, his protests stifled by the tape across his mouth. One of the Inquisitors led the four men who’d come with the Florentine from the room. Their job was done. The other two Inquisitors lifted the struggling problem and tossed him into the coffin.

  Vincenti stared down into the box and read exactly what the Florentine’s eyes were saying. No question he’d betrayed the Council, but he’d only done what Vincenti, not those associates, had ordered him to do. Vincenti was the one who changed the assignment, and the Florentine had only appeared before the Council because Vincenti had privately told him not to worry. Just a dog and pony show. No problem. Play along. It would all be resolved in an hour.

  “Fat man?” Vincenti asked. “Arrivederci.”

  And he slammed the lid shut.

  THREE

  COPENHAGEN

  Malone watched as the flames descending the staircase stopped three quarters of the way down, showing no signs of advancing farther. He stood before one of the windows and searched for something to hurl through the plate glass. The only chairs he spotted were too close to the fire. The second mechanism continued to prowl the ground floor, exhaling mist. He was hesitant to move. Stripping off his clothes was an option, but his hair and skin also stank with the chemical.

  Three thuds on the plate-glass window startled him.

  He whirled and, a foot away, a familiar face stared back.

  Cassiopeia Vitt.

  What was she doing here? His eyes surely betrayed his surprise, but he came straight to the point and yelled, “I need to get out of here.”

  She pointed to the door.

  He intertwined his fingers and signaled that it was locked.

  She motioned for him to stand back.

  As he did, sparks popped from the underside of the roaming gizmo. He darted straight for the thing and kicked it over. Beneath he spotted wheels and mechanical works.

  He heard a pop, then another, and realized what Cassiopeia was doing.

  Shooting the window.

  Then he saw something he’d not noticed before. Atop the museum’s display cases lay sealed plastic bags filled with a clear liquid.

  The window fractured.

  No choice.

  He risked the flames and grabbed one of the chairs he’d earlier noticed, slinging it into the damaged glass. The window shattered as the chair found the street beyond.

  The roving mechanism righted itself.

  One of the sparks caught and blue flames began to consume the ground floor, advancing in every direction, including straight for him.

  He bolted forward and leaped out the open window, landing on his feet.

  Cassiopeia stood three feet away.

  He’d felt the change in pressure when the window shattered. He knew a little about fires. Right now flames were being supercharged by a rush of new oxygen. Pressure differences were also having an effect. Firefighters called it flashover.

  And those plastic bags atop the cases.

  He knew what they contained.

  He grabbed Cassiopeia’s hand and yanked her across the street.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Time for a swim.”

  They leaped from the brick parapet, just as a fireball surged from the museum.

  FOUR

  SAMARKAND

  CENTRAL ASIAN FEDERATION

  5:45 A.M.

  Supreme Minister Irina Zovastina stroked the horse and prepared herself for the game. She loved to play, just after dawn, in the breaking light of early morning, on a grassy field damp with dew. She also loved the famed, blood-sweating stallions of Fergana, first prized over a millennia ago when they were traded to the Chinese for silk. Her stables contained over a hundred steeds bred both for pleasure and politics.

  “Are the other riders ready?” she asked the attendant.

  “Yes, Minister. They await you on the field.”

  She wore high leather boots and a quilted leather jacket over a long chapan. Her short, silver-blond hair was topped by a fur hat fashioned from a wolf she’d taken great pride in killing. “Let’s not keep them waiting.”

  She mounted the horse.

  Together, she and the animal had many times won buzkashi. An ancient game, once played across the steppe by a people who lived and died in the saddle. Genghis Khan himself had enjoyed it. Then, women were not even allowed to watch, much less participate.

  But she’d changed that rule.

  The spindly-le
gged, broad-chested horse stiffened as she caressed his neck. “Patience, Bucephalas.”

  She’d named him after the animal that had carried Alexander the Great across Asia, into battle after battle. Buzkashi horses, though, were special. Before they played a single match years of training accustomed them to the game’s chaos. Along with oats and barley, eggs and butter were included in their diet. Eventually, when the animal fattened, he was bridled and saddled and stood in the sun for weeks at a time, not just to burn away excess kilos, but to teach him patience. Even more training came in close-quarter galloping. Aggression was encouraged, but always disciplined so that horse and rider became a team.

  “You are prepared?” the attendant asked. He was a Tajik, born among the mountains to the east, and had served her for nearly a decade. He was the only one she allowed to ready her for the game.

  She patted her chest. “I believe I’m properly armored.”

  Her fur-lined leather jacket fit snugly, as did the leather pants. It had served her well that nothing about her stout frame was particularly feminine. Her muscular arms and legs bulged from a meticulous exercise routine and a rigid diet. Her wide face and broad features carried a hint of Mongol, as did her deep-set brown eyes, all thanks to her mother, whose family traced their roots to the far north. Years of self-imposed discipline had left her quick to listen and slow to speak. Energy radiated from her.

  Many had said that an Asian federation was impossible, but she’d proven them all wrong. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Karakalpakstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan were no more. Instead, fifteen years ago, those former Soviet republics, after briefly trying independence, merged into the newly formed Central Asian Federation. Nine and a half million square kilometers, sixty million people, a massive stretch of territory that rivaled North America and Europe in size, scope, and resources. Her dream. Now a reality.

  “Careful, Minister. They like to best you.”

  She smiled. “Then they better play hard.”

  They conversed in Russian, though Dari, Kazakh, Tajik, Turkmen, and Kyrgyz together were now the official Federation languages. As a compromise to the many Slavs, Russian remained the language of “interethnic communication.”

  The stable doors swung open and she gazed out onto a flat field that stretched for over a kilometer. Toward its center, twenty-three mounted horsemen congregated near a shallow pit. Inside lay the boz—a goat’s carcass, without a head, organs, or legs, soaked in cold water for a day to give it strength for what it was about to endure.

  At each end of the field rose a striped post.

  The horsemen continued to ride. Chopenoz. Players, like herself. Ready for the game.

  Her attendant handed her a whip. Centuries ago they were leather thongs tied to balls of lead. They were more benign now, but still used not only to spur a horse but to attack the other players. Hers had been fashioned with a beautiful ivory handle.

  She steadied herself in the saddle.

  The sun had just topped the forest to the east. Her palace had once been the residence of the khans who ruled the region until the late nineteenth century, when the Russians had invaded. Thirty rooms, rich in Uzbek furniture and Oriental porcelain. What was now the stables had then housed the harem. Thanks to the gods those days were over.

  She sucked a deep breath, which carried the sweet scent of a new day. “Good playing,” the attendant said.

  She acknowledged his encouragement with a nod and prepared to enter the field.

  But she could not help wondering.

  What was happening in Denmark?

  FIVE

  COPENHAGEN

  Viktor Tomas stood in the shadows, across the canal, and watched the Greco-Roman museum burn. He turned to his partner but did not speak the obvious.

  Problems.

  It was Rafael who had attacked the intruder, then dragged the unconscious body into the museum. Somehow, after their surreptitious entrance, the front door had become ajar and, from the second-floor railing, he’d spotted a shadow approaching the stoop. Rafael, working on the ground floor, had instantly reacted, positioning himself just inside. True, he should have simply waited and seen what the visitor’s intentions had been. But instead, he’d yanked the shadow inside and popped the side of the man’s head with one of the sculptures.

  “The woman,” Rafael said. “She was waiting, with a gun. That can’t be good.”

  He agreed. Long dark hair, shapely, dressed in a tight-fitting body-suit. As the building caught fire, she’d emerged from an alley and stood near the canal. When the man appeared in the window, she’d produced a gun and shot out the glass.

  The man, too, was a problem.

  Fair-haired, tall, sinewy. He’d propelled a chair through the glass then leaped out with surprising agility, as if he’d done that before. He’d instantly grabbed the woman and they’d both plunged into the canal.

  The fire department had arrived within minutes, just as the two emerged from the water and blankets were wrapped around them. The turtles had clearly performed their tasks. Rafael had christened them with the label since, in many ways, they resembled turtles, even possessing the ability to right themselves. Thankfully, no remnant of the devices would remain. Each was made of combustible materials that vaporized in the intense heat of their destruction. True, any investigator would quickly label the blaze arson, but proof of the method and mechanism would be impossible to determine.

  Except that the man had survived.

  “Will he be trouble?” Rafael asked.

  Viktor continued to watch the firemen battle the blaze. The man and woman sat on the brick parapet, still wrapped in their blankets.

  They seemed to know each other.

  That worried him more.

  So he answered Rafael’s inquiry the only way he could.

  “No doubt.”

  Malone had recovered his wits. Cassiopeia huddled in a blanket beside him. Only remnants of the museum’s walls remained and nothing of its inside. The old building had burned quickly. Firemen continued to mind the blaze, concentrating on confining the destruction. So far, none of the adjacent buildings had been affected.

  The night air reeked of soot, along with another smell—bitter, yet sweet—similar to what he’d inhaled while trapped inside. Smoke continued to drift skyward, filtering the bright stars. A stout man in dingy yellow firefighting gear waddled over for the second time. One of the crew chiefs. A city policeman had already taken a statement from both he and Cassiopeia.

  “Like you said about the sprinklers,” the chief said in Danish. “Our water only seemed to spark it up.”

  “How’d you finally control it?” Malone asked.

  “When the tanker ran out of juice, we dipped our hoses into the canal and pumped straight from it. That worked.”

  “Salt water?” All of Copenhagen’s canals connected to the sea.

  The chief nodded. “Stops it cold.”

  He wanted to know, “Find anything in the building?”

  “No little machines, like you told the police. But that place was so hot it melted the marble statues.” The chief ran a hand through his wet hair. “That’s a powerful fuel. We’ll need your clothes. May be the only way to determine its composition.”

  “Maybe not,” he said. “I took a dip in that canal, too.”

  “Good point.” The chief shook his head. “The arson investigators are going to love this one.”

  As the fireman lumbered off, Malone faced Cassiopeia and plunged into an interrogation. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “You weren’t supposed to be here till tomorrow morning.”

  “That’s not an answer to my question.”

  Wet tangles of thick dark hair hung past her shoulders and roughly framed her alluring face. She was a Spanish Muslim, living in southern France. Bright, rich, and cocky—an engineer and a historian. But her presence in Copenhagen, a day earlier than she’d told him, meant something. Also, she’d come armed and dressed fo
r battle—dark leather pants and a tight-fitting leather jacket. He wondered if she was going to be difficult or cooperative.

  “Lucky I was here to save your hide,” she said to him.

  He couldn’t decide if she was serious or teasing him. “How did you know my hide needing saving?”

  “Long story, Cotton.”

  “I’ve got the time. I’m retired.”

  “I’m not.”

  He heard the bitter edge in her voice and sensed something. “You knew that building was going to burn, didn’t you?”

  She did not look at him, just stared off across the canal. “I actually wanted it to burn.”

  “Care to explain that one?”

  She sat silently, absorbed in thought. “I was here. Earlier. I watched while two men broke into the museum. I saw them grab you. I needed to follow them, but couldn’t.” She paused. “Because of you.”

  “Who were they?”

  “The men who left those machines.”

  She’d listened as he’d given his statement to the police, but he’d sensed the whole time that she already knew the story. “How about we cut the crap and you tell me what’s going on. I almost got killed over whatever it is you’re doing.”

  “You should ignore open doors in the night.”

  “Old habits are hard to break. What’s going on?”

  “You saw the flames. Felt the heat. Unusual, wouldn’t you say?”

  He recalled how the fire had descended the stairs then stopped, as if waiting to be invited further. “You could say that.”

  “In the seventh century, when the Muslim fleets attacked Constantinople, they should have easily routed the city. Better weapons. A mass of forces. But the Byzantines had a surprise. They called it liquid fire, or wild fire, and they unleashed it on the ships, totally destroying the invading fleet.” Cassiopeia still wasn’t looking at him. “The weapon survived in various forms to the time of the Crusades, and eventually acquired the name Greek fire. The original formula was so secret that it was held personally by each Byzantine emperor. They guarded it so well that, when the empire finally fell, the formula was lost.” She breathed deeply as she continued to clutch the blanket. “It’s been found.”