The Cotton Malone Series 7-Book Bundle

by Steve Berry

  Which may not have been smart.

  They’d herded him into the house. Smith had lit a small camping stove that now provided weak illumination and welcome heat. Interesting how one section of the bedroom wall was swung open, the rectangle beyond pitch-black. He needed to know what these two wanted, how they’d joined forces, and how to appease them.

  “This woman tells me that I’ve been added to the expendable list,” Smith said.

  “You shouldn’t listen to people you don’t know.”

  McCoy stood, propped against an open windowsill, holding a gun. “Who says we don’t know each other?”

  “This isn’t hard to decipher,” he said to her. “You’re playing both ends against the middle. Did she tell you, Charlie, that she shook me down for twenty million?”

  “She did mention something about that.”

  Another problem.

  He faced McCoy. “I’m impressed you identified Charlie and made contact.”

  “Wasn’t all that hard. You think no one pays attention? You know cell phones can be monitored, bank transfers traced, confidential agreements between governments used to access accounts and records that no one else could get to.”

  “I never realized I interested you so.”

  “You wanted my help. I’m helping.”

  He yanked on his restraints. “Not what I had in mind.”

  “I offered Charlie half the twenty million.”

  “Payable in advance,” Smith added.

  Ramsey shook his head. “You’re an ungrateful fool.”

  Smith lunged forward and raked the back of his hand across Ramsey’s face. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”

  “Charlie, I swear to you, this you’re going to regret.”

  “Fifteen years I’ve done what you asked,” Smith said. “You wanted people dead. I made them dead. I know you’ve been planning something. I could always tell. Now you’re moving to the Pentagon. Joint Chiefs of Staff. What’s next? No way you’ll be satisfied and retire out. That’s not you. So I’ve become a problem.”

  “Who said that?”

  Smith pointed at McCoy.

  “And you believe her?”

  “She makes sense. And she did have twenty million dollars, because I now have half of it.”

  “And we both have you,” McCoy said.

  “Neither one of you has the guts to murder an admiral, the head of naval intelligence, nominee for the Joint Chiefs. Going to be tough to cover that one up.”

  “Really?” Smith said. “How many people have I killed for you? Fifty? A hundred? Two hundred? I can’t even remember. Not a one of which has ever been tagged murder. I’d say cover-up is my specialty.”

  Unfortunately the cocky little weasel was right, so he decided to try diplomacy. “What can I do to assure you, Charlie? We’ve been together a long time. I’m going to need you in the years ahead.”

  Smith did not answer.

  “How many women did he kill?” McCoy asked him.

  Ramsey wondered about that question. “Does it matter?”

  “Does to me.”

  Then he realized. Edwin Davis. Her co-worker. “This about Millicent?”

  “Did Mr. Smith here kill her?”

  He decided to be honest and nodded.

  “She was pregnant?”

  “That’s what I was told. But who knows? Women lie.”

  “So you just killed her?”

  “Seemed the simplest way to end the problem. Charlie here was working for us in Europe. That’s when we first met. He handled the job well, and he’s been mine ever since.”

  “I’m not yours,” Smith said, contempt in his voice. “I work for you. You pay me.”

  “And there’s lots more money to be made,” the admiral made clear.

  Smith stepped toward the open panel in the wall. “Leads down to a concealed cellar. Probably came in handy during the Civil War. Good place to hide things.”

  He caught the message. Like a body.

  “Charlie, killing me would be a really bad idea.”

  Smith turned and aimed his gun. “Maybe so. But it sure as hell will make me feel better.”

  Malone left the bright sunshine and entered Halvorsen Base, followed by the others. Their host, waiting for them on the ice when they’d deplaned into a blast of frigid air, was a swarthy, bearded Australian—stocky, robust, and seemingly competent—named Taperell.

  The base comprised an assembly of high-tech buildings buried beneath thick snow, powered by a sophisticated solar and wind-of-the-art, Taperell said, then added, “You’re fortunate today. Only minus thirteen degrees Celsius. Bloody warm for this part of the world.”

  The Aussie led them into a spacious wood-paneled room, filled with tables and chairs, that smelled of cooking food. A digital thermometer on the far wall read nineteen degrees Celsius.

  “Hamburgers, chips, and drinks will be here in a tick,” Taperell said. “I thought you’d need some tucker.”

  “I assume that means food,” Malone said.

  Taperell smiled. “What else, mate?”

  “Can we get going as soon as we eat?”

  Their host nodded. “No worries, that’s what I was told. I have a chopper ready. Where you headin’?”

  Malone faced Henn. “Your turn.”

  Christl stepped forward. “Actually, I have what you need.”

  Stephanie watched as Davis stood from his chair and asked the president, “What do you mean, you found him?”

  “I offered the vacancy on the Joint Chiefs to Ramsey today. I called him and he said yes.”

  “I assume there’s a good reason you did that,” Davis said.

  “You know, Edwin, we seem to stay twisted around. It’s like you’re the president and I’m the deputy national security adviser—and I say that with a special emphasis on the word deputy.”

  “I know who’s the boss. You know who’s the boss. Just tell us why you’re here in the middle of the night.”

  She saw that Daniels didn’t mind the brash insolence.

  “When I went to Britain a few years ago,” the president said, “I was asked to join a foxhunt. Brits love that crap. Get all dressed up, early in the morning, mount a smelly horse, then take off following a bunch of howlin’ dogs. They told me how great it was. Except, of course, if you’re the fox. Then, it’s a bitch. Being the compassionate soul that I am, I kept thinking about the fox, so I passed.”

  “Are we going hunting?” she asked.

  She saw a twinkle in the president’s eye. “Oh, yes. But the great thing about this trek is, the foxes don’t know we’re coming.”

  Malone watched as Christl unfolded a map and spread it out on one of the tables. “Mother explained it to me.”

  “And what made you so special?” Dorothea asked.

  “I assumed she thought I’d keep a level head, though apparently she believes me to be a vengeful dreamer out to ruin our family.”

  “Are you?” Dorothea asked.

  Christl’s gaze bore into Dorothea. “I’m an Oberhauser. The last of a long line, and I plan to honor my ancestors.”

  “How about we focus on the problem at hand,” Malone said. “The weather is great out there. Weneed to take advantage of that whilewe can.”

  Christl had brought the newer map of Antarctica that Isabel had tempted him with in Ossau, the one she’d failed to unfold. Now he saw that all of the various continental bases were denoted, most along the coast, including Halvorsen.

  “Grandfather visited here and here,” Christl said, pointing to spots marked 1 and 2. “His notes say that most of the stones he brought back come from Site 1, though he spent a great deal of time at Site 2. The expedition brought a cabin, disassembled, to erect somewhere to firmly stake Germany’s claim. They chose to build the cabin on Site 2, here, near the coast.”

  Malone had asked Taperell to stay. He now faced the Aussie and said, “Where is that?”

  “I know it. About fifty miles west of here.”
>
  “It’s still there?” Werner asked.

  “Deadset,” Taperell said. “She’ll be right—wood doesn’t rot here. That thing would be like the day they erected it. And especially there—the entire region is designated a protected area. A site of ‘special scientific interest’ under the Antarctica Conservation Act. You can only visit with an okay from Norway.”

  “Why is that?” Dorothea asked.

  “The coast belongs to seals. It’s a breeding area. No people allowed. The cabin sits in one of the inland dry valleys.”

  “Mother says that Father told her he was taking the Americans to Site 2,” Christl said. “Grandfather always wanted to return and explore more, but was never allowed.”

  “How do we know that’s the spot?” Malone asked.

  He caught mischief in Christl’s eye. She reached back into her pack and retrieved a thin, colorful book titled in German. He silently translated. A Visit to Neuschwabenland, Fifty Years Later.

  “This is a picture volume published in 1988. A German magazine sent a film crew and a photographer. Mother came across it about five years ago.” She thumbed through, searching for a particular page. “This is the cabin.” She showed them a striking, two-page color image of a gray wooden structure set within a black rock valley, streaked with bright snow, dwarfed by bare gray mountains. She turned the page. “This is a shot of the inside.”

  Malone studied the picture. Not much there. A table with magazines scattered on top, a few chairs, two bunks, packing crates adapted into shelving, a stove, and a radio.

  Her amused eyes met his. “See anything?”

  She was doing to him what he’d done to her in Ossau. So he accepted her challenge and carefully scanned the picture, as did the others.

  Then he saw it. On the flooring. Carved into one of the planks.

  He pointed. “The same symbol from the book cover found in Charlemagne’s tomb.”

  She smiled. “This has to be the place. And there’s this.” She slid a folded sheet of paper from the book. A page from an old magazine, yellowed and brittle with a grainy black-and-white image from inside the cabin.

  “That came from the Ahnenerbe records I obtained,” Dorothea said. “I remember. I looked at it in Munich.”

  “Mother retrieved them,” Christl said, “and noticed this photograph. Look on the floor—the symbol is clearly visible. This was published in the spring of 1939, an article Grandfather wrote about the previous year’s expedition.”

  “I told her those records were worthwhile,” Dorothea said.

  Malone faced Taperell. “Seems that’s where we’re going.”

  Taperell pointed to the map. “This area here, on the coast, is all ice shelf with seawater beneath. It extends inland about five miles in what would be a respectable bay, if not frozen. The cabin is on the other side of a ridge, maybe a mile inland on what would be the bay’s west shore. We can drop you there and pick you back up when you’re ready. Like I said, reckon you’re in luck with the weather, it’s a scorcher out there today.”

  Minus thirteen degrees Celsius wasn’t his idea of tropical, but he got the point. “We’ll need emergency gear, just in case.”

  “Already have two sleds prepared. We were expecting you.”

  “You don’t ask a lot of questions, do you?” Malone quizzed.

  Taperell shook his head. “No, mate. I’m just here to do my job.”

  “Then let’s eat that tucker and get going.”

  EIGHTY-FOUR

  FORT LEE

  “Mr. President,” Davis said. “Would it be possible for you to simply explain yourself. No stories, no riddles. It’s awfully late, and I don’t have the energy to be patient and respectful.”

  “Edwin, I like you. Most of the assholes I deal with tell me either what they think I want to hear or what I don’t need to know. You’re different. You tell me what I have to hear. No sugarcoating, just straight up. That’s why when you told me about Ramsey, I listened. Anybody else, I would have let it go in one ear and out the other. But not you. Yes, I was skeptical, but you were right.”

  “What have you done?” Davis asked.

  She’d sensed something, too, in the president’s tone.

  “I simply gave him what he wanted. The appointment. Nothing rocks a man to sleep better than success. I should know—it’s been used on me many times.” Daniels’ gaze drifted to the refrigerated compartment. “It’s what’s in there that fascinates me. A record of a people we’ve never known. They lived a long time ago. Did things. Thought things. Yet we had no idea they existed.”

  Daniels reached into his pocket and removed a piece of paper. “Look at this.”

  “It’s a petroglyph from the Hathor Temple at Dendera. I saw it a few years ago. The thing’s huge, with towering columns. It’s fairly recent, as far as Egypt goes, first century before Christ. Those attendants are holding what looks like some kind of lamp, supported on pillars, so they must be heavy, connected to a box on the ground by a cable. Look at the top of the columns, beneath the two bulbs. Looks like a condenser, doesn’t it?”

  “I had no idea you were so interested in things like this,” she said.

  “I know. Us poor, dumb country boys can’t appreciate anything.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that—”

  “Don’t sweat it, Stephanie. I keep this to myself. But I love it. All those tombs found in Egypt, and inside the pyramids—not a single chamber has smoke damage. How in the crap did they get light down into those places to work? Fire was all they had, and lamps burned smoky oil.” He pointed at the drawing. “Maybe they had something else. There’s an inscription found at the Hathor Temple that says it all. I wrote it down.” He turned the drawing over. “The temple was built according to a plan written in ancient writing upon a goatskin scroll from the time of the Companions of Horus. Can you imagine? They’re saying right there that they had help from a long time ago.”

  “You can’t really believe Egyptians had electric lights,” Davis said.

  “I don’t know what to believe. And who said they were electric? They could have been chemical. The military has tritium gas-phosphor lamps that shine for years without electricity. I don’t know what to believe. All I know is that petroglyph is real.”

  Yes, it was.

  “Look at it this way,” the president said. “There was a time when the so-called experts thought all of the continents were fixed. No question, the land has always been where it is now, end of story. Then people started noticing how Africa and South America seem to fit together. North America, Greenland. Europe, too. Coincidence, that’s what the experts said. Nothing more. Then they found fossils in England and North America that were identical. Same kind of rocks, too. Coincidence became stretched. Then plates were located beneath the oceans that move, and the so-called experts realized that the land could shift on those plates. Finally, in the 1960s, the experts were proven wrong. The continents were all once joined together and eventually drifted apart. What was once fantasy is now science.”

  She recalled last April and their conversation at The Hague. “I thought you told me that you didn’t know beans about science.”

  “I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t read and pay attention.”

  She smiled. “You’re quite a contradiction.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” Daniels pointed at the table. “Does the translation program work?”

  “Seems to. And you’re right. This is a record of a lost civilization. One that’s been around a long time and apparently interacted with people all over the globe, including, according to Malone, Europeans in the ninth century.”

  Daniels stood from his chair. “We think ourselves so smart. So sophisticated. We’re the first at everything. Bullshit. There’s a crapload out there we don’t know.”

  “From what we’ve translated so far,” she said, “there’s apparently some technical knowledge here. Strange things. It’s going to take time to understand
. And some fieldwork.”

  “Malone may regret that he went down there,” Daniels muttered.

  She needed to know, “Why?”

  The president’s dark eyes studied her. “NR-1A used uranium for fuel, but there were several thousand gallons of oil on board for lubrication. Not a drop was ever found.” Daniels went silent. “Subs leak when they sink. Then there’s the logbook, like you learned from Rowland. Dry. Not a smudge. That means the sub was intact when Ramsey found it. And from what Rowland said, they were on the continent when Ramsey went into the water. Near the coast. Malone’s following Dietz Oberhauser’s trail, just like NR-1A did. What if the paths intersect?”

  “That sub can’t still exist,” she said.

  “Why not? It’s the Antarctic.” Daniels paused. “I was told half an hour ago that Malone and his entourage are now at Halvorsen Base.”

  She saw that Daniels genuinely cared about what was happening, both here and to the south.

  “Okay, here it is,” Daniels said. “From what I’ve learned, Ramsey employed a hired killer who goes by the name Charles C. Smith Jr.”

  Davis sat still in his chair.

  “I had CIA check Ramsey thoroughly and they identified this Smith character. Don’t ask me how, but they did it. He apparently uses a lot of names and Ramsey has doled out a ton of money to him. He’s probably the one who killed Sylvian, Alexander, and Scofield, and he thinks he killed Herbert Rowland—”

  “And Millicent,” Davis said.

  Daniels nodded.

  “You found Smith?” she asked, recalling what Daniels had originally said.

  “In a manner of speaking.” The president hesitated. “I came to see all this. I truly wanted to know. But I also came to tell you exactly how I think we can end this circus.”

  Malone stared out the helicopter’s window, the churn of the rotors pulsating in his ears. They were flying west. Brilliant sunshine streamed in through the tinted goggles that shielded his eyes. They girdled the shore, seals lounging on the ice like giant slugs, killer whales breaking the water, patrolling the ice edges for unwary prey. Rising from the coast, mountains poked upward like tombstones over an endless white cemetery, their darkness in stark contrast with the bright snow.