by Steve Berry
Schüb still held the gun, his face a shifting kaleidoscope of intense emotion.
He could sympathize.
There comes a time when everything must end. Eight years ago it had been his career. Ever since, he’d harbored a bitterness for Chris Combs.
Now that was gone.
It was Schüb’s time to purge.
“Good luck to you,” he said.
“You, too. My men have been told not to disturb you. They will deal with all of this. The house will be burned. I’m assuming they will keep the gold, which seems appropriate. With all that was done to amass this wealth, it ends up meaning nothing, carried off by insignificant souls.”
Wyatt left and walked through the twisting galleries to the base of the spiral staircase leading up.
The past few hours had certainly been eye opening.
A shot thudded, like a balloon popping beneath a blanket.
He envisioned the scene. Gerhard Schüb had done exactly as had his natural father. He’d ended his life with his own hand. But where Hitler died a coward to avoid the repercussions from what he’d wrought, the son took his life in an act of desperation. Normally suicide would be deemed a weakness, the result of a sick mind or an abandoned heart.
Here, it was the only means to stop it all.
Everything had a conclusion.
Which brought him to the question Chris Combs had posed. Why not Cotton Malone? Why aren’t you pissed at him? Combs was right. Malone had brought the charges.
Could he have killed Combs?
Definitely. Schüb simply saved him the trouble.
Then the old man had done what needed to be done.
Just as he must.
Cotton Malone?
A job waiting for him back home might well provide the means to finally repay that debt. Another director, Andrea Carbonell of the National Intelligence Agency, had called, wanting to hire him. She’d offered big money and told him enough about the assignment for him to sense an opportunity.
Chris Combs.
One down.
Cotton Malone.
One to go.
Read on for an excerpt from
THE
COLUMBUS
AFFAIR
by
STEVE BERRY
Published by Ballantine Books
ONE
Tom Sagan gripped the gun. He’d thought about this moment for the past year, debating the pros and cons, finally deciding that one pro outweighed all cons.
He simply did not want to live any longer.
He’d once been an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times, knocking down a high six-figure salary, his byline generating one front-page, above-the-fold story after another. He’d worked all over the world—Sarajevo, Beirut, Jerusalem, Beijing, Belgrade, Moscow. His confidential files had been filled with sources who’d willingly fed him leads, knowing that he’d protect them at all costs. He’d once proved that when he spent eleven days in a D.C. jail for refusing to reveal his source on a story about a corrupt Pennsylvania congressman.
The congressman went to prison.
Sagan received his third Pulitzer nomination.
There were twenty-one awarded categories. One was for distinguished investigative reporting by an individual or team, reported as a single newspaper article or a series. Winners received a certificate, $10,000, and the ability to add three precious words—Pulitzer Prize winner—to their name.
He won his.
But they took it back.
Which seemed the story of his life.
Everything had been taken back.
His career, his reputation, his credibility, even his self-respect. In the end he came to see himself as a failure in each of his roles—reporter, husband, father, son. A few weeks ago he’d charted that spiral on a pad, identifying that it all started when he was twenty-five, fresh out of the University of Florida, top third in his class, with a journalism degree.
And his father disowned him.
Abiram Sagan had been unrelenting. “We all make choices. Good. Bad. Indifferent. You’re a grown man and made yours. Now I have to make mine.”
And that he had.
On that same pad he’d jotted down the highs and lows that came after. His rise from a news assistant to staff reporter to senior international correspondent. The awards. Accolades. The respect from his peers. How had one observer described his style? Wideranging and prescient reporting conducted at great personal risk.
Then, his divorce.
The estrangement from his only child. Poor investment decisions. Even poorer life decisions.
Finally, his firing.
Eight years ago.
And since then—nothing.
Most of his friends had abandoned him, but that was as much his fault as theirs. As his depression deepened, he’d withdrawn into himself. Amazingly, he hadn’t turned to alcohol or drugs, but neither had ever appealed to him. Self-pity was his intoxicant.
He stared around at the house’s interior. He’d decided to die here, in his parents’ home. Fitting, in some morbid way. Thick layers of dust and a musty smell evidenced the three years the rooms had sat empty. He’d kept the utilities on, paid the meager taxes, and had the lawn tended just enough so the neighbors wouldn’t complain. Earlier, he’d noticed that the sprawling mulberry tree out front needed trimming and the picket fence painting. But he’d long ignored both chores, as he had the entire interior of the house, keeping it exactly as he’d found it, visiting only a few times.
He hated it here.
Too many ghosts.
He walked the rooms, conjuring a few childhood memories. In the kitchen he could still see jars of his mother’s fruit and jam that once lined the windowsill. He should write a note, explain himself, blame somebody or something. But to whom? And for what? Nobody would believe him if he told them the truth.
And would anyone care when he was gone?
Certainly not his daughter. He’d not spoken to her in two years. His literary agent? Maybe. She’d made a lot of money off him. Ghostwriting novels paid bigtime. What had one critic said at the time of his downfall? Sagan seems to have a promising career ahead of him writing fiction.
Asshole.
But he’d actually taken the advice.
He wondered—how does one explain taking his own life? It’s, by definition, an irrational act, which, by definition, defies rational explanation. Hopefully, somebody would bury him. He had plenty of money in the bank, more than enough for a respectable funeral.
What would it be like to be dead?
Are you aware? Can you hear? See? Smell? Or is it simply an eternal blackness? No thoughts. No feeling. Nothing at all.
He walked back toward the front of the house.
Outside was a glorious March day, the noontime sun bright. He stopped in the open archway and stared at the parlor. That was what his mother had always called the room. Here was where his parents had gathered on Shabbat. Where Abiram read from the Torah. The place where Yom Kippur and Holy Days had been celebrated. He stared at the pewter menorah on the far table and recalled it burning many times. His parents had been devout Jews. After his bar mitzvah he, too, had first read from the Torah, standing before the room’s twelve-paned windows, framed by damask curtains his mother had taken months to sew. She’d been talented with her hands. What a lovely woman. He missed her. She died six years before Abiram, who’d now been gone for three.
Time to end the Sagan clan.
There were no more.
He’d been an only child.
He studied the gun, a pistol bought a few months before at an Orlando gun show. He sat on the sofa. Clouds of dust rose then settled. He recalled Abiram’s lecture about the birds and the bees as he’d sat in the same spot. He’d been what—twelve? Thirty-three years ago, though somehow it seemed like last week. As usual, the explanations about sex had been short, brutish, and efficient.
“Do you understand?” Abiram asked him. “It’s important that
you do.”
“I don’t like girls.”
“You will. So don’t forget what I said.”
Women. Another failure. He’d had precious few relationships as a young man, marrying the first girl who’d shown serious interest in him. There’d been a few since the divorce, and none past the downfall. Michele had taken a toll on him, in more ways than just financially.
“Maybe I’ll get to see her soon, too,” he muttered.
His ex-wife had died two years ago in a car crash.
Her funeral marked the last time he and his daughter had spoken, her rebuke still loud and clear.
Get out. She would not want you here.
And he’d left.
He stared again at the gun, his finger on the trigger. He steeled himself, grabbed a breath, and then nestled the barrel to his temple. He was left-handed, like nearly every Sagan. His uncle, a former professional baseball player, told him as a child that if he could learn to hurl a curveball he’d make a fortune in the major leagues. Left-handers were rare. But he’d failed at sports, too.
He felt the metal on his skin. Hard. Unbending.
Like Abiram.
And life.
He closed his eyes and tightened his finger on the trigger, imagining how his obituary would start. Tuesday, March 5th, former investigative journalist Tom Sagan took his own life at his parents’ home in Mount Dora, Florida.
A little more pressure on the trigger and—
Rap. Rap. Rap.
He opened his eyes.
A man stood outside the front window, close enough to the panes for Tom to see the face—older than himself, clean-cut, distinguished—and the right hand.
Which held a photograph pressed to the glass.
He focused on the image of a young woman, bound and gagged, lying down, arms and feet extended as if tied.
He knew the face.
His daughter.
Alle.
Read on for an excerpt from
The
King’s
Deception
by Steve Berry
Coming 2013
Published by Ballantine Books
LONDON
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21st
6:25 P.M.
Cotton Malone stepped up to the Customs window at Heathrow Airport and presented two passports—his own and his son Gary’s. Positioned between himself and the glass-enclosed counter, however, stood a problem.
Fifteen-year-old Ian Dunne.
“This one doesn’t have a passport,” he told the attendant. then explained who he was and what he was doing. A brief call to somebody led to verbal approval for Ian to re-enter the country. Which didn’t surprise Malone. He assumed that since the Central Intelligence Agency wanted the boy here they’d make the necessary arrangements with the British.
He was tired from the long flight, though he’d caught a few hours of sleep. His knee still hurt from the kick Ian had delivered in Atlanta, before trying to flee from that airport. Luckily, his own fifteen-year-old, Gary, had been quick to tackle the little Scot before he escaped the concourse.
Favors for friends.
Always a problem.
This one for his former-boss, Stephanie Nelle, at the Magellan Billet.
“You’re headed that way,” Stephanie said, her voice tinny but still commanding over the phone.
“And how does anyone know that?”
“It’s the CIA, Cotton. Langley called me directly. Somehow, they were aware that you’re in Georgia. All they want is for you to escort the boy back to London and hand him over to the Metropolitan Police. Then you and Gary can head to Copenhagen. In return, they’ve purchased first class tickets all the way home to Denmark.”
Not bad. His own tickets were coach.
“Seems like a simple request,” she said.
Four days ago he’d flown to Georgia for two reasons. The State Bar of Georgia required twelve hours of continuing legal education from all of its licensed lawyers. Though he’d retired from the Navy and the Magellan Billet, he still kept his law license active, which meant he had to satisfy the annual education mandate. Last year he’d attended a sanctioned event in Brussels, a three day meeting on multi-national property rights. This year he’d chosen a seminar in Atlanta on international law. Not the most exciting way to spend two days, but he’d worked too hard for that degree to simply allow it to lapse.
The second reason was personal.
Gary had asked to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with him. School was out for the week and his ex-wife, Pam, thought an overseas trip a good idea. He’d wondered why she was so reticent, and found out last week when Pam had called his bookshop in Copenhagen.
“Gary’s angry,” she said. “He’s asking a lot of questions.”
“Ones you don’t want to answer?”
“Ones I’m going to have a tough time answering.”
Which was an understatement. Six months ago she’d revealed a harsh truth during another call from Atlanta to Denmark. Gary was not his natural son. Instead, Gary was the product of an affair some sixteen years past. For Malone, the news had been both crushing and disturbing. He could only imagine what it had been for Gary.
“Neither one of us were saints back then, Cotton.”
She liked to remind him of that—as if somehow he’d forgotten that their marriage ultimately ended because of mutual lapses. He’d been foolish enough to think all of those demons had been dealt with last year during the divorce.
Now she’d sprung something new on him.
“Anything else you’ve not told me?”
“Gary wants to know about his birth father.”
“So would I.”
She’d told him nothing about the man, and refused his requests for information.
“He has no involvement here,” she said. “He’s a total stranger to all of us. Just like the women you were with have nothing to do with this, either. I don’t want to open that door. Ever.”
“Why did you tell Gary about this? We agreed to do that together, when the time was right.”
That decision had been made back in October, when Pam was in Copenhagen with Gary.
“I know. I know. My mistake.”
But not out of character. She liked to be in control. Of everything. Only she wasn’t in control here. Nobody was, actually.
“He hates me,” she said. “I see it in his eyes.”
“You turned the boy’s life upside down.”
“He told me today that he might want to live with you.”
He had to say, “You know I would never take advantage of this.”
“I know that. This is my fault. Not yours. He’s so angry. Maybe a week with you would help ease some of that.”
He’d come to realize that he didn’t love Gary one drop less because he carried no Malone genes. But he’d be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t bothered by the fact. Six months had passed and the truth still hurt. Why? He wasn’t sure. He’d not been faithful to Pam while in the Navy. He was young and stupid and got caught. She supposedly forgave him, but now he knew that she’d had an affair of her own. Would she have strayed if he hadn’t?
He doubted it. Not her nature.
So he wasn’t blameless for the current mess.
He and Pam had been divorced over a year, but only back in October had they made their peace. Time and circumstances had a way of making that happen.
Now this.
One boy in his charge was angry and confused.
The other seemed to be a delinquent.
“Ian Dunne was born in Scotland,” Stephanie said. “Father is unknown. Mother abandoned him early. He was sent to London to live with an aunt, who wasn’t much of a parent. He drifted in and out of her home, finally running away. He has an extensive arrest record—petty theft, trespassing, loitering, that kind of thing.”
“And why is the CIA involved?”
“One of their people was shoved, or jumped, into the path of oncoming Underground train about a
month ago. Dunne was there, in Oxford Circus. Witnesses say he might even have stolen something from the dead man.”
“Is he a suspect?”
“Just a person of interest they want to talk to.”
Not good, but also not his concern. In a few minutes his favor for Stephanie Nelle would be over, then he and Gary would catch their connecting flight to Copenhagen and enjoy the week, depending of course on how many uncomfortable questions his son might want answered. The problem was the Denmark flight departed not from Heathrow, but Gatwick, London’s other major airport, an hour’s ride east. Their departure was several hours away, so it wasn’t a problem. He would just need to convert some dollars to pounds and hire a taxi.
They left Customs and claimed their luggage.
Both he and Gary had packed light.
“The police going to take me?” Ian asked.
“That’s what I’m told.”
Gary appeared bothered. “What will happen to him?”
He shrugged. “Hard to say.”
And it was. Especially with the CIA involved.
He shouldered his bag and led both boys out of the baggage area.
“Can I have my things?” Ian asked.
When Ian had been turned over to him in Atlanta, he’d been given a plastic bag that contained a Swiss Army knife with all the assorted attachments, a pewter necklace with a religious medal attached, a pocket mace container, some silver shears, and two paperback books with their covers missing. Ivanhoe and Le Morte D’arthur. Their brown edges were water stained, the bindings veined with thick white creases. Both were thirty-plus-year-old printings. Stamped on the title page was ANY OLD BOOKS, with an address in Piccadilly Circus, London. Malone employed a similar branding of inventory, his simply announcing COTTON MALONE, BOOKSELLER, HOJBRO PLADS, COPENHAGEN. The items in the plastic bag all belonged to Ian, seized by Customs when they took him into custody at Miami International, after trying to enter the country illegally.