The Cotton Malone Series 7-Book Bundle

by Steve Berry

  “You are a ruthless woman. More than that, you’re a ruthless woman with a plan.”

  She shrugged. “The world is a complicated place. Oil prices go up and down with no reason or predictability. Either inflation or recession runs rampant across the globe. Governments are helpless. They either print more money, which causes more inflation, or regulate the situation into another recession. Stability seems a thing of the past. I have a way to deal with all those problems.”

  “Will it work?”

  “I believe so.”

  His swarthy face seemed as strong as an iron, his eager eyes finally conveying decisiveness. This entrepreneur, affected by the same dilemmas that she and the others faced, understood. The world was indeed changing. Something had to be done. And she might have the solution.

  “There is a price of admission,” she said. “Twenty million euros.”

  He shrugged. “Not a problem. But surely you have other revenue sources?”

  She nodded. “Billions. Untraced and untouched.”

  He pointed to the oracle. “Go ahead, make your marks and let’s learn the answer to your question.”

  She gripped the pencil and slashed five rows of vertical lines, then counted each row. All even numbers. She consulted the chart and saw that the answer was Q. She turned to the appropriate page and found the message that corresponded.

  She resisted the urge to smile, seeing that his passions were now thoroughly aroused. “Would you like me to read it to you?”

  He nodded.

  “‘Examine strictly the disposition of thy intended partner and, if it is in accord with thine own, fear not but happiness will attend you both.’”

  “Seems the oracle knows what I’m to do,” he said.

  She sat silent and allowed the drone of jet engines to sweep through the cabin. This skeptical Italian had just learned what she’d known for all of her adult life—what her Corsican mother and grandmother had taught her—that the direct transmission of provenance was the most empowering form of knowledge.

  Mastroianni extended his hand.

  They shook, his grip light and sweaty.

  “You may count me a part of whatever you have in mind.”

  But she wanted to know, “Still don’t like me?”

  “Let’s reserve judgment on that one.”

  ELEVEN

  Malone decided a stroll in the plaza would clear his head. Court had started early and not recessed till well after the noon hour. He wasn’t hungry, but he was thirsty, and he spotted a café on the far side of the expanse. This was an easy assignment. Something different. Observe and make sure the conviction of a drug-smuggler-turned-murderer happened without a hitch. The victim, a DEA supervisor out of Arizona, had been shot execution-style in northern Mexico. The agent had been a personal friend of Danny Daniels, president of the United States, so Washington was watching carefully. The trial was in its fourth day and probably would end tomorrow. So far, the prosecution had done a good job. The evidence was overwhelming. Privately, he’d been briefed about a turf war between the defendant and several of his Mexican competitors—the trial apparently an excellent way for some of the reef sharks to eliminate a deep-water predator.

  From some nearby belfry came the fiendish clamor of bells, barely discernible over Mexico City’s daily drone. Around the grassy plaza, people sat in the shade of bushy trees, whose vibrant color tempered the severity of the nearby sooty buildings. A blue marble fountain shot slender columns of foamy water high into the warm air.

  He heard a pop. Then another.

  A black-skirted nun fifty yards away dropped to the ground.

  Two more pops.

  Another person, a woman, fell flat.

  Screams pierced the air.

  People fled in every direction, as if an air-raid warning had been issued.

  He noticed little girls in sober, gray uniforms. More nuns. Women in bright-colored skirts. Men in somber business suits.

  All fleeing.

  His gaze raked the mayhem as bodies kept dropping. Finally, he spotted two men fifty yards away with guns—one kneeling, the other standing, both firing.

  Three more people tumbled to the ground.

  He reached beneath his suit jacket for his Beretta. The Mexicans had allowed him to keep it while in the country. He leveled the gun and ticked off two rounds, taking down both shooters.

  He spotted more bodies. Nobody was helping anyone.

  Everybody simply ran.

  He lowered the gun.

  Another crack rang loud and he felt something pierce his left shoulder. At first there was no sensation, then an electric charge surged through him and exploded into his brain with a painful agony he’d felt before.

  He’d been shot.

  From a row of hedges a man emerged. Malone noticed little about him save for black hair that curled from under the rakish slant of a battered hat.

  The pain intensified. Blood poured from his shoulder, soaking his shirt. This was supposed to be a low-risk courtroom assignment. Anger rushed through him, which steeled his resolve. His attacker’s eyes grew impudent, the mouth chiseled into a sardonic smile, seemingly deciding whether to stay and finish what he started or flee.

  The gunman turned to leave.

  Malone’s balance was failing, but he summoned all his strength and fired.

  He still did not recall actually pulling the trigger. He was told later that he fired three times, and two of the rounds found the target, killing the third assailant.

  The final tally? Seven dead, nine injured.

  Cai Thorvaldsen, a young diplomat assigned to the Danish mission, and a Mexican prosecutor, Elena Ramirez Rico, were two of the dead. They’d been enjoying their lunch beneath one of the trees.

  Ten weeks later a man with a crooked spine came to see him in Atlanta. They’d sat in Malone’s den, and he hadn’t bothered to ask how Henrik Thorvaldsen had found him.

  “I came to meet the man who shot my son’s killer,” Thorvaldsen said.

  “Why?”

  “To thank you.”

  “You could have called.”

  “I understand you were nearly killed.”

  He shrugged.

  “And you are quitting your government job. Resigning your commission. Retiring from the military.”

  “You know an awful lot.”

  “Knowledge is the greatest of luxuries.”

  He wasn’t impressed. “Thanks for the pat on the back. I have a hole in my shoulder that’s throbbing. So since you’ve said your peace, could you leave?”

  Thorvaldsen never moved from the sofa, he simply stared around at the den and the surrounding rooms visible through an archway. Every wall was sheathed in books. The house seemed nothing but a backdrop for the shelves.

  “I love them, too,” his guest said. “I’ve collected books all my life.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Have you considered your future?”

  He motioned around the room. “Thought I’d open an old-book shop. Got plenty to sell.”

  “Excellent idea. I have one for sale, if you’d like it.”

  He decided to play along. But there was something about the tight points of light in the older man’s eyes that told him his visitor was not joking. Hard hands searched a suit coat pocket and Thorvaldsen laid a business card on the sofa.

  “My private number. If you’re interested, call me.”

  That was two years ago. Now he was staring at Henrik Thorvaldsen, their roles reversed. His friend was the one in trouble.

  Thorvaldsen remained perched on the edge of the bed, an assault rifle lying across his lap, his face cast with a look of utter defeat.

  “I was dreaming about Mexico City earlier,” Malone said. “It’s always the same each time. I never can shoot the third guy.”

  “But you did.”

  “For some reason, I can’t in the dream.”

  “Are you okay?” Thorvaldsen asked Sam Collins.

  “I went
straight to Mr. Malone—”

  “Don’t start that,” he said. “It’s Cotton.”

  “Okay. Cotton took care of them.”

  “And my shop’s destroyed. Again.”

  “It’s insured,” Thorvaldsen made clear.

  Malone stared at his friend. “Why did those men come after Sam?”

  “I was hoping they wouldn’t. The idea was for them to come after me. That’s why I sent him into town. They apparently were a step ahead of me.”

  “What are you doing, Henrik?”

  “I’ve spent the past two years searching. I knew there was more to what happened that day in Mexico City. That massacre wasn’t terrorism. It was an assassination.”

  He waited for more.

  Thorvaldsen pointed at Sam. “This young man is quite bright. His superiors don’t realize just how smart he is.”

  Malone spotted tears glistening on the rims of his friend’s eyes. Something he’d never seen before.

  “I miss him, Cotton,” Thorvaldsen whispered, still staring at Sam.

  He laid a hand on the older man’s shoulders.

  “Why did he have to die?” Thorvaldsen whispered.

  “You tell me,” Malone said. “Why did Cai die?”

  Papa, how are you today?

  Thorvaldsen so looked forward to Cai’s weekly telephone calls and he liked that his son, though thirty-five years old, a part of Denmark’s elite diplomatic corp, still called him Papa.

  “It’s lonely in this big house, but Jesper keeps things interesting. He’s trimming the garden, and he and I disagree on how much cutting he should do. He’s a stubborn one.”

  “But Jesper is always right. We learned that long ago.”

  He chuckled. “I shall never tell him. How are things across the ocean?”

  Cai had asked for and received assignment to the Danish consulate in Mexico City. From an early age his son had been fascinated with Aztecs and was enjoying his time near that long-ago culture.

  “Mexico is an amazing place. Hectic, cluttered, and chaotic, while at the same time fascinating, challenging, and romantic. I’m glad I came.”

  “And what of the young lady you met?”

  “Elena is quite wonderful.”

  Elena Ramirez Rico worked for the federal prosecutor’s office in Mexico City, assigned to a special investigative unit. Cai had told him some about it, but much more about her. Apparently, his son was quite taken.

  “You should bring her for a visit.”

  “We talked about that. Maybe at Christmas.”

  “That would be wonderful. She would like the way Danes celebrate, though she might find our weather uncomfortable.”

  “She’s taken me to many archaeological sites. She’s so knowledgeable about this country’s history”

  “You seem to like her.”

  “I do, Papa. She reminds me of Mother. Her warmth. Her smile.”

  “Then she has to be lovely.”

  “Elena Ramirez Rico,” Thorvaldsen said, “prosecuted cultural crimes. Mainly art and artifact thefts. That’s big business in Mexico. She was about to indict two men. One a Spaniard, the other a Brit. Both major players in the stolen artifact business. She was murdered before that could happen.”

  “Why would her death matter?” Malone asked him. “Another prosecutor would have been assigned.”

  “And one was, who declined to pursue the case. All charges were dropped.”

  Thorvaldsen studied Malone. He saw that his friend fully understood.

  “Who were the two men she was prosecuting?” Malone asked.

  “The Spaniard is Amando Cabral. The Brit is Lord Graham Ashby.”

  TWELVE

  CORSICA

  Ashby sat on the sofa, sipping his rum, watching the Corsican as Archimedes continued its cruise up the coast, following Cap Corse’s rocky east shore.

  “Those four Germans left something with the fifth,” Ashby finally said. “That has long been rumor. But I discovered it to be fact.”

  “Thanks to information I provided, months ago.”

  He nodded. “That’s right. You controlled the missing pieces. That’s why I came and generously offered what I knew, along with a percentage of the find. And you agreed to share.”

  “That I did. But we’ve found nothing. So why have this conversation? Why am I a captive?”

  “Captive? Hardly. We’re simply taking a short cruise aboard my boat. Two friends. Visiting.”

  “Friends don’t assault each other.”

  “And neither do they lie to each other.”

  He’d approached this man over a year ago, after learning of his connection with that fifth German who’d been there in September 1943. Legend held that one of the four soldiers Hitler executed encoded the treasure’s location and tried to use the information as a bargaining chip. Unfortunately for him Nazis didn’t bargain, or at least never in good faith. The Corsican sitting across from him, surely trying to determine just how far this charade could be taken, had stumbled upon what that ill-fated German had left behind—a book, an innocuous volume on Napoleon—which the soldier had read while imprisoned in Italy.

  “That man,” Ashby said, “learned of the Moor’s Knot.” He pointed to the table. “So he created those letters. They were eventually discovered by that fifth participant, after the war, in confiscated German archives. Unfortunately, he never learned the book’s title. Amazingly, you managed to accomplish that feat. I rediscovered these letters and, the last time we met, provided them to you, which showed my good faith. But you didn’t mention anything about knowing the actual book title.”

  “Who says I know it?”

  “Gustave.”

  He saw the shock on the man’s face.

  “Have you harmed him?” the Corsican asked again.

  “I paid him for the information. Gustave is a talkative individual, with an infectious optimism. He’s also now quite rich.”

  He watched as his guest digested the betrayal.

  Mr. Guildhall entered the salon and nodded. He knew what that meant. They were near. Engines dulled as the boat slowed. He motioned and his acolyte left.

  “And if I decipher the Moor’s Knot?” the Corsican asked, after apparently connecting the dots.

  “Then you, too, shall be rich.”

  “How rich?”

  “One million euros.”

  The Corsican laughed. “The treasure is worth a hundred times that.”

  Ashby stood from the sofa. “Provided there’s one to find. Even you admit that it may all be a tale.”

  He stepped across the salon and retrieved a black satchel. He returned and poured out its contents on the sofa.

  Bundles of euros.

  The bureaucrat’s eyes widened.

  “One million. Yours. No more hunting for you.”

  The Corsican immediately leaned forward and slid the book close. “You are most persuasive, Lord Ashby.”

  “Everyone has a price.”

  “These Roman numerals are clear. The top row are page numbers. The middle set, line numbers. The last show the position of the word. Angling ties the three rows together.”

  He watched as the Corsican thumbed though the old book, locating the first page, 95, line 4, word 7. “Santa. Which makes no sense. But if you add the two words after, it does. Santa Maria Tower.”

  The steps were repeated four more times.

  Santa Maria Tower, convent, cemetery, marker, Ménéval.

  Ashby watched, then said, “A well-chosen book. Its text describes Napoleon’s exile on St. Helena, along with his early years on Corsica. The correct words would all be there. That German was smart.”

  The Corsican sat back. “His secret has stayed hidden for sixty years. Now here it is.”

  He allowed a friendly smile to sweeten the atmosphere.

  The Corsican examined the euros. “I’m curious, Lord Ashby. You’re a man of obvious wealth. You certainly don’t need this treasure.”

  “Why would you
say that?”

  “You search simply for the joy of it, don’t you?”

  He thought of his careful plans, his calculated risks. “Things lost interest me.”

  The ship slowed to a stop.

  “I search,” the Corsican said, holding up a wad of euros, “for the money. I don’t own such a big boat.”

  Ashby’s worries from earlier, on the cruise south from France, had finally receded. His goal was now in sight. He wondered if the prize would be worth all this trouble. That was the problem with things lost—sometimes the end did not justify the means.

  Here was a good example.

  Nobody knew if six wooden crates were waiting to be found and, if so, what was actually inside them. It could be nothing more than silver place settings and some gold jewelry. The Nazis were not particular about what they extorted.

  But he wasn’t interested in junk. Because the Corsican was wrong. He needed this treasure.

  “Where are we?” he was finally asked.

  “Off the coast, north of Macinaggio. At the Site Naturel de la Capandula.”

  Cap Corse, above Bastia, was dotted with ancient watchtowers, empty convents, and Romanesque churches. The extreme northern tip comprised a national wilderness zone with few roads and even fewer people. Only gulls and cormorants claimed it as home. Ashby had studied its geography. The Tour de Santa Maria was a ruined three-story tower that rose from the sea, a mere few meters from shore, built by the Genoese in the 16th century as a lookout post. A short walk inland from the tower stood the Chapelle Santa Maria, from the 11th century, a former convent, now a tourist attraction.

  Santa Maria Tower, convent, cemetery, marker, Ménéval.

  He checked his watch.

  Not yet.

  A little longer.

  He motioned at the Corsican’s glass. “Enjoy your drink. When you’re done, there’s a tender ready to take us ashore. Time for us to find Rommel’s gold.”

  THIRTEEN

  DENMARK

  Sam watched Thorvaldsen with concern, recalling what one of his Secret Service instructors had taught him. Stir a person up and they think. Add anger and they usually screw up.