The Cotton Malone Series 7-Book Bundle

by Steve Berry

  Tang descended the earthen ramp to the bottom of Pit 3.

  Bright overhead lights illuminated the surreal scene. A stable and a chariot filled the first recess. Two short corridors, one on the left and one on the right of the stable, connected with two deeper chambers.

  He waited until they were both below ground level before addressing the problem with the administrator.

  “I counted on you,” he said, “to make sure the discovery was contained. If you can’t handle the matter, perhaps we need someone else in charge.”

  “I assure you, Minister, it is now contained. I just wanted you to know that its existence has leaked beyond the three who broke through.”

  “Tell me again what was found.”

  “We noticed a weakness.” The director pointed to his right. “There. We thought that was where the pit ended, but we were wrong.”

  He saw a gaping hole in the earthen wall, dirt piled to the side.

  “We have not had time to clear the debris,” the director said. “After the initial inspection, I halted excavations and called you.”

  A jungle of flat cables sprouted from metal boxes and a transformer resting on the ground nearby. He stared at the opening, the bright lights burning on the other side.

  “It’s a new chamber, Minister,” the curator said. “Not known before.”

  “And the anomaly?”

  “It’s inside, waiting for you.”

  A shadow danced along the interior walls.

  “He’s been there all day,” the director said. “Per your order. Working.”

  “Undisturbed?”

  “As you requested.”

  SEVEN

  ANTWERP

  Ni studied Pau Wen, irritated with himself for having underestimated this cagey man.

  “Look around,” Pau said. “Here is evidence of Chinese greatness dating back 6,000 years. While Western civilization had barely begun, China was casting iron, fighting wars with crossbows, and mapping its land.”

  His patience had drained. “What is the point of this discussion?”

  “Do you realize that China was more advanced agriculturally in the 4th century BCE than Europe was in the 18th century? Our ancestors understood row cultivation, why hoeing of weeds was necessary, the seed drill, the iron plow, and the efficient use of the harness centuries before any other culture on the planet. We were so far ahead that no comparison can even be made. Tell me, Minister. What happened? Why are we not still in that superior position?”

  The answer was obvious—which Pau obviously realized—but Ni would not speak seditious words, wondering if the room, or his host, could be wired.

  “A British scholar studied this phenomenon decades ago,” Pau said, “and concluded that more than half of the basic inventions and discoveries upon which the modern world is based came from China. But who knew this? The Chinese themselves are ignorant. There’s a story, recorded in history, that when the Chinese were first shown a mechanical clock by Jesuit missionaries in the 17th century they were awestruck, not knowing that it was their own ancestors who had invented it a thousand years before.”

  “All of this is irrelevant,” he made clear, playing to any audience that might be listening.

  Pau pointed to a redwood desk against a far wall. Items needed for calligraphy—ink, stone, brushes, and paper—were neatly arranged around a laptop computer.

  They walked over.

  Pau tapped the keyboard and the screen sprang to life.

  The man stood straight. He appeared to be in his thirties, his features more Mongolian than Chinese, black hair wrapped in a loose coiffure. He wore a broad-sleeved white jacket trimmed at the collar with pale green. Three other men, dressed in black trousers and long gray garments under short indigo jackets, surrounded him.

  The man shed his robe.

  He was naked, his pale body muscular. Two of the attendants began to tightly wrap his abdomen and upper thighs with white bandages. With their binding complete, the man stood as a third attendant washed his exposed penis and scrotum.

  The cleansing was repeated three times.

  The man sat in a semi-reclining position on a chair, his legs spread wide and held firmly in place by the two attendants. The third participant stepped to a lacquered table and lifted from a tray a curved knife with a cracked bone handle.

  He approached the man on the chair and asked in a clear, commanding voice, “Hou huei pu hou huei?”

  The man remained poised as he considered the question—will you regret it or not?—and shook his head no, without the slightest show of fear or uncertainty.

  The attendant nodded. Then, with two quick swipes of the knife, he removed the man’s scrotum and penis, cutting close to the body, leaving nothing exposed.

  Not a sound was made.

  The two attendants held the man’s shaking legs steady.

  Blood poured out, but the third man worked the wound, causing obvious pain to the seated man. Still not a sound was uttered. Agony gripped the face, but the recipient seemed to gain control and steadied himself.

  Something that appeared to be paper soaked in water was slapped across the wound, several layers thick, until no more blood oozed through.

  The man was helped from the couch, visibly trembling, his face half excited, half afraid.

  “He was walked around the room for the next two hours, before being allowed to lie down,” Pau said.

  “What … what was that?” Ni asked, making no effort to disguise the shock in his voice at the video.

  “A ceremony that has occurred in our history hundreds of thousands of times.” Pau hesitated. “The creation of a eunuch.”

  Ni knew about eunuchs and the intricate role they played in China for 2,500 years. Emperors were deemed recipients of a mystical “mandate of Heaven,” a concept that officially sanctified their right to rule. To preserve an aura of sacredness, the personal life of the imperial family was shielded, lest anyone be in a position to observe their human failings. Only effeminate eunuchs, dependent on the emperor for their lives, were deemed humble enough to bear such witness. The system was so successful that it became ingrained, but such frequent and intimate association allowed eunuchs an easy opportunity. Childless, they should not have coveted political power to pass on to sons, nor should they have had any need for riches.

  But that proved not to be the case.

  Emperors eventually became playthings for these pariahs and they became more powerful than any government minister. Many emperors never even met with government administrators. Instead, decisions were shuttled in and out of the palace by eunuchs, no one knowing who actually received or issued the decrees. Only the most diligent and conscientious rulers avoided their influence, but they were few and far between. Finally, during the early 20th century, as the last emperor was forced from the imperial palace, the system was abolished.

  “Eunuchs don’t exist anymore,” he declared.

  “Why would you think that?”

  Thoughts of being recorded faded. “Who are you?”

  “I am a person who appreciates our ancestry. A man who witnessed the wholesale destruction of all that we have held sacred for thousands of years. I am Chinese.”

  He knew Pau had been born in the northern province of Liaoning, educated in France at a time when young Chinese had been allowed to attend universities abroad. Well read, a published author of six historical treatises, he’d managed to survive all of Mao’s purges, which, Ni assumed, had been no easy feat. Eventually, Pau had been allowed to leave the country—rare beyond rare—taking with him personal wealth. Still—

  “You speak of treason,” he made clear.

  “I speak the truth, Minister. And I think you suspect the same.”

  Ni shrugged. “Then you would be wrong.”

  “Why are you still standing here? Why do you continue to listen to me?”

  “Why did you show me that video?”

  “Faced with death, he who is ready to die will survive while
he who is determined to live will die. That thought has been expressed another way. Shang wu chou ti.”

  He’d heard the phrase before.

  Pull down the ladder after the ascent.

  “The most common interpretation instructs us to lure the enemy into a trap, then cut off his escape,” Pau said. “Different adversaries are lured in different ways. The greedy are enticed with the promise of gain. The arrogant with a sign of weakness. The inflexible by a ruse. Which are you, Minister?”

  “Who is luring me?”

  “Karl Tang.”

  “Actually, it seems more like you are doing the luring. You haven’t answered my question. Why did you show me that video?”

  “To prove that you know little of what’s happening around you. Your self-righteous commission spends its time investigating corrupt officials and dishonest Party members. You chase ghosts, while a real threat stalks you. Even within your sacrosanct world, which prides itself on being the Party’s conscience, you are surrounded. Eunuchs still exist, Minister.”

  “How do you know any of this?”

  “Because I am one of their number.”

  EIGHT

  Cassiopeia Vitt was shoved back into the room that had been her prison for the past two days. Her shirt was soaked, her lungs aching from trying to breathe.

  The door slammed shut.

  Only then was she allowed to remove the blindfold from her face.

  Her cell was perhaps four by two meters, under a staircase, she assumed, as the ceiling sloped sharply. The room was windowless, light coming from a low-wattage bulb that was never extinguished. No furniture, just a thin mattress lying on a plank floor. She’d tried to learn what she could during the limited times she’d been removed. It appeared she was inside a house, the distance from here to the torture room only a few steps and in between them a bathroom that she’d visited twice.

  But where was she?

  Two days ago she had been in Antwerp.

  She bent forward, hands on her knees. Her legs were limp, her heart pounding, and she shuddered.

  Twice she’d been strapped to the board, the towel slapped across her face. She’d thought herself capable of withstanding anything, but the sensation of drowning, while her arms and feet were restrained, her head lower than her legs, was proving too much. She’d read once that mental violence needed no punches.

  She believed it.

  She doubted she could take another session.

  Near the end of the first one, she’d involved Malone, which seemed like a smart play. In the few hours between leaving Pau Wen’s residence and her capture, she easily could have handed the artifact off.

  And they’d apparently believed her.

  Cotton was all she had.

  And she could not give these people what they wanted. Would they kill her? Not likely, at least until they made contact in Copenhagen.

  After that?

  She didn’t want to think about the possibilities.

  She was proud that she hadn’t begged, whined, or compromised herself.

  But she had compromised Cotton.

  Then again, he’d told her many times that, if she ever needed anything, she shouldn’t hesitate. This situation seemed to qualify.

  Over the past two days she’d played mental games, remembering dates in history, forcing her thoughts away. She’d multiplied numbers to the tens of thousands.

  But thoughts of Malone had also kept her grounded.

  He was tall and handsome, with burnished-blond hair and lively green eyes. Once she’d thought him cold, emotionless, but over the past year she’d learned that this was not the case. They’d been through a lot together.

  She trusted him.

  Her breathing settled. Her heart slowed.

  Nerves calmed.

  She stood upright and rubbed her sore wrists.

  Pushing forty years old and in another mess. But usually it beat the heck out of anything else she could imagine doing. Actually, her project to reconstruct a 14th-century French castle, using only tools and materials available 700 years ago, was progressing. Her on-site superintendent had reported a few weeks ago that they were at the 10% point in construction. She’d intended to devote herself more to that endeavor, but a call from China had changed that.

  “They took him, Cassiopeia. He’s gone.”

  Lev Sokolov was not a man prone to panic. In fact, he was a smart, clever, concise individual. Born and raised in the old Soviet Union, he’d managed to flee, escaping to China, of all places.

  “My son was playing at his grandmother’s vegetable stall,” Sokolov said in Russian, voice cracking. “One of his grandmother’s neighbors passed by and offered to bring him back home on his way, so she allowed him. That was eight weeks ago.”

  “What about that neighbor?”

  “We went straight to his door. He said that after giving him money for sweets, he left him at our apartment block. He is a lying bastard. He sold him, Cassiopeia. I know he did. There is no other explanation.”

  “What did the police do?”

  “The government does not want to talk about child stealing. To them it’s isolated and under control. It’s not. Two hundred children disappear here every day.”

  “That can’t be right.”

  “It is. Now my boy is one of them.”

  She hadn’t known what to say.

  “Our options are limited,” Sokolov said, his voice wretched with despair. “The media is too close to the government to do anything. The police will not speak to us. Even parents’ support groups that exist for others like us have to meet in secret. We plastered the province with posters, but the police threatened to arrest us if we kept on. No one wants reminders of a problem that officially doesn’t exist.” He paused. “My wife has fallen apart. She is barely coherent. I have nowhere else to turn. I need your help.”

  That was a request she could not refuse.

  Five years ago Lev Sokolov had saved her life, and she owed him.

  So she’d obtained a thirty-day tourist visa, bought a ticket to Beijing, and flown to China.

  She lay down on the mattress, belly-first, and stared at a wall of unfinished gypsum. She knew every crack and crevice. A spider occupied one corner, and yesterday she’d watched it snare a fly.

  She sympathized with that fly.

  No telling how long until the next time she’d be summoned. That all depended on Cotton.

  She was tired of being caged, but a four-year-old boy was depending on her. Lev Sokolov was depending on her.

  And she’d messed up.

  Footsteps outside the door signaled someone was coming. Unusual. She’d been visited only five times. Twice for torture, a third to leave some rice and boiled cabbage, two more to take her blindfolded to a bathroom a few feet down the hallway.

  Had they discovered Cotton to be a dead end?

  She extended her arms above her head, palms flat on the wood floor, which pulsated with each approaching step.

  Time to do something, even if it’s wrong.

  She knew the drill. The lock would release, the door would open on squeaky hinges, a blindfold then tossed inside. Not until its elastic was firmly around her head would anyone enter. She assumed her captor was armed and he was clearly not alone, as at least two had always been with her. Both times a man had questioned her, the same man who’d spoken to Malone via computer in a clipped voice with no accent.

  A key was inserted in the lock.

  She closed her eyes as the door eased open. No blindfold was tossed inside. She cracked her lids and saw a shoe appear. Then another. Perhaps it was feeding time? The last time food had been left, she’d been asleep, dozing from pure exhaustion. Maybe her jailers thought she was too spent from the ordeal to be a threat?

  She was indeed tired, her muscles aching, limbs sore.

  But an opportunity was an opportunity.

  The man entered the room.

  Pressing her hands onto the floor, she pivoted up and clipped the legs
out from under him.

  A tray with bread and cheese clattered away.

  She sprang to her feet and slammed the sole of her boot into the man’s face. Something snapped, probably his nose. She pounded her heel into his face one more time. The back of his head popped against the floorboards and he lay still.

  Another kick into the ribs made her feel better.

  But the attack had generated noise. And there was at least one more threat lurking nearby. She searched the man’s clothes and spotted a gun in a shoulder holster. She freed the weapon and checked the magazine.

  Fully loaded.

  Time to leave.

  NINE

  COPENHAGEN

  Malone stared at his kidnapper. They’d abandoned the street just as the police arrived, rounding a corner and plunging back into the Strøget.

  “You have a name?” he asked.

  “Call me Ivan.”

  The English laced with a Russian accent made the label appropriate, as did the man’s appearance—short, heavy-chested, with grayish black hair. A splotchy, reddened skink of a face was dominated by a broad Slavic nose and shadowed by a day-old beard that shone with perspiration. He wore an ill-fitting suit. The gun had been tucked away and they now stood in a small plaza, within the shadow of the Round Tower, a 17th-century structure that offered commanding views from its hundred-foot summit. The dull roar of traffic was not audible this deep into the Strøget, only the clack of heels to cobbles and the laughter of children. They stood beneath a covered walk that faced the tower, a brick wall to their backs.

  “Your people kill those two back there?” Malone asked.

  “They think we come to whisk them away.”

  “Care to tell me how you know about Cassiopeia Vitt?”

  “Quite the woman. If I am younger, a hundred pounds lighter.” Ivan paused. “But you do not want to hear this. Vitt is into something she does not understand. I hope you, ex-American-agent, appreciate the problem better.”