by Steve Berry
* * *
Malone met the unit at a prearranged point on the highway north of the capital. It consisted of six soldiers and two officers, all dressed in nondescript civilian clothing. Colonel Rick Cobb was in charge, a slender man with reddish-blond hair and deep-set green eyes. Malone explained what he wanted the unit to do, then left them on the side of the road as he drove off for Rampur.
* * *
At precisely noon Malone strolled back into the ruins. A pall of impenetrable mist shrouded the precipice and shielded the cliffs overhead. He stepped with caution, waiting to see what would happen.
Bin Laden appeared, just like yesterday. Today, Malone wasn’t going to chitchat. “Ready to go?”
“As promised.”
He withdrew his Glock.
“That’s not necessary.”
“Makes me feel better.”
His prisoner shrugged. “Then, by all means.”
“Your friends here today?”
“Until we’re safely away. Then they’ll be gone.”
It took twenty minutes to hike down to Malone’s car, the going slow because of bin Laden’s cane-assisted gait. Before loading the Arab into the passenger’s seat Malone frisked him. Bin Laden seemed to expect the violation and did not resist.
They left Rampur and started the drive back for the capital. About halfway, Malone spied the same battered cars on the side of the highway. He eased onto the shoulder and parked behind them.
The doors to both opened and the American unit poured out.
“Friends of yours?” bin Laden calmly asked.
“Your keepers.”
“The deal was I surrendered only to you.”
“I lied.”
* * *
Malone left the following day. President Sharma attempted no contact, but he expected none. The announcement that Osama bin Laden had been captured would come through the White House, and the American military would receive full credit. Contrary to what bin Laden may have thought, Malone neither expected nor desired public acknowledgment.
Nor, he knew, did Sharma.
Both their jobs were done.
* * *
Two weeks passed with no announcement. Malone was dispatched to Germany, then to Bulgaria, Australia and Norway. After another two months and still nothing, he decided to see what was happening. Stephanie Nelle was likewise curious, so she made an official inquiry.
“Cotton, they don’t know what we’re talking about,” she told him over the phone from Billet headquarters.
He was between planes in London. “Stephanie, I drove the SOB in my car. He was sitting beside me. I turned him over to an army colonel.”
“I gave them the name of the officer. Rick Cobb. He’s a colonel, assigned to special forces, but that day he was on leave in the United States. Nowhere near you. That’s been verified.”
“You get a description of him?”
She told him, and it in no way matched the man to whom he’d handed over bin Laden. “What the hell’s happening here? They playing games with us?”
“Why? The president would give his left nut to have bin Laden in custody.”
Malone heard what bin Laden said to him. These others want to prevent such a glorious ending for me.
“I need to talk to Sharma. I’ll get back to you.”
Malone found an Internet portal in a business alcove of the international terminal. There, he connected his laptop and sent an e-mail, which he knew was precisely how Sharma liked to communicate. The president hated telephones—uncontrollable—and preferred to retain a hard copy of all his messages. So Malone kept his message simple:
MY GIFT IS GONE.
His plane was not for another two hours, so he sat and waited. Interestingly, the response came in less than ten minutes.
REVISIT THE RUINS.
Malone knew that was all he was going to get. Obviously, Sharma had been expecting contact. Malone had been on his way back to Atlanta for three days of rest before his next assignment.
Not anymore.
* * *
Late autumn had a firm grip on the Pan Mountains as Malone parked at the base of the ridge that led up to the Rampur ruins. The air was a solid forty degrees cooler than it had been three months ago, and snow draped the surrounding peaks in long veils.
He reached beneath his parka and withdrew his Glock. He had no idea what was waiting for him, but he had to follow Sharma’s lead.
He climbed in measured steps, careful on the frozen earth. He entered the site and allowed his senses to absorb the same barren desolation. He pressed on and explored, his mind alert.
Automatic gunfire startled him.
Bullets ricocheted off boulders.
“Far enough, Malone,” a man said in English. “Let your gun hit the ground.”
He released his grip and turned. “Colonel Rick Cobb” hopped down from a narrow cliff and descended the stacked boulders.
“I was told you returned to the country yesterday,” Cobb said. “So I knew you’d be here today.”
“I like to be punctual.”
“Funny, too. What a guy.”
“And you are?”
“Colonel Rick Cobb. Who else?”
“You know I don’t buy that.”
“That’s all you’re going to get.”
“Okay, Colonel Rick Cobb, you plan to tell me what happened to bin Laden?”
“How about I show you?” Cobb motioned with the rifle. “That way.”
Malone walked past more mounds of rubble and turned a corner. A cold breeze raked his limbs and dried his lips. He spotted a blackened splotch of earth near where an outer wall once stood. Weather was rapidly erasing the traces, but it was clear something had been burned there recently.
“All that’s left,” Cobb said. “Shot him myself, right about where you’re standing, then we burned the murdering asshole till there was nothing left.”
“And the purpose of that?”
“Damn, you have to ask? He killed Americans. He was an enemy of the state.”
“You’re no soldier.”
“Soldiers have rules, and rules have a nasty way of interfering with what’s right. I work outside the rules.”
“Bin Laden said you were after him. He told me you wanted him dead, but for no one else to know. Care to tell me the point?”
“Come on, you’re a bright guy. America is spending tens of billions of dollars on the war on terror. More money than anyone can even comprehend. It’s like manna, my friend—straight from heaven.”
Malone was glad his suspicions now seemed confirmed. “And there are a lot of corporations getting rich.”
“Now you’re thinking. Have you looked at the stock prices for some of the defense contractors? Through the roof. Lots of smaller companies are making a fortune, too. Can’t let that end.”
“And you work for them?”
“They all got together and decided to hire one team. The best in the business. Hell, we developed a better intel network than the government. Took us over a year, but we finally got close to bin Laden. We damn near got him twice. About eight months ago, though, he dropped from everybody’s radar. Gone. We were beginning to worry, until you called in.”
“We contacted the military that day, through official channels, not you.”
Cobb nodded. “That you did. But we have friends real high on the food chain. After all, this is a gold mine for the military, too. Nobody wants this gravy train to end. So they called us and, luckily, we were nearby.”
“So you brought him back here and killed him.”
“Good a place as any. His people ran like scalded dogs after you two drove off. I sent a few additional men to keep an eye on this place. So instead of driving south to the Afghan border, we just doubled around and came here. Over and done with it in two hours. His body burned fast.”
Something else he wanted to know. “Why use real military-personnel names? We checked, there’s a Colonel Rick Cobb.”
The
man shrugged. “Makes it easier to move around. Damn computers allow everybody to be monitored. We choose the guys on leave. Our friends at the Pentagon kept us informed. Like I said, can’t let the gravy train end.”
“Why would it?”
“Get real. You know the answer. Americans have short memories. They get blown up on 9/11, they invade a few places, kick some butt, then capture Saddam. Next thing they want is it all to end. Public opinion is already fading. Politicians are feeling the heat. That means budget cuts, priorities shifting—all bad things for my employers. Last thing they need is for bin Laden to be corralled. No. Keep him out there. Make him a threat. Let ’em wonder. Stalin did the same thing with Hitler after World War II. He knew the bastard was dead, but fueled everyone’s fear that the devil may still be alive and kicking. All to keep his enemies off guard.”
“So you now control bin Laden’s existence.”
“Every damn bit of it. And we plan on making him quite the badass.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you. I have a message. My employers want you to stop snooping around. Leave it be.”
“Why would I?”
“’Cause you got squat to show for anything. What are you going to do? Claim you captured bin Laden? You’d sound like a nut. No body, no photo. There’s nothing left of him for any DNA match with one of those twenty or so kids he supposedly fathered. It’s over. Let it be. Move on.”
“And if I don’t?”
“We’re not in the habit of killing our own, but we’re not opposed to it either.”
“You’re no better than he was.” He started to leave, but Cobb quickly blocked the way. “I’d move if I were you.”
The gun came level. “You a tough guy, Malone?”
“Tough enough I don’t need a rifle to protect myself from you.”
He stood rock still. He wasn’t going to let Cobb know for a second he was scared. But who wouldn’t be? The dark end of a rifle barrel was not a pleasant sight.
Cobb lowered the gun.
Malone had guessed right. They wanted him alive. Who better to start the ball rolling than some American agent who claimed bin Laden surrendered to him and that there was some sort of conspiracy designed to conceal bin Laden’s death. The military would deny the assertions and, in the process, supercharge the world’s fear of bin Laden. He’d have nothing for proof and they’d have the terror of the past.
Easy to see who’d win that battle.
“Go on, Malone. Get out of here. Go tell the world what you know.”
Not a chance.
He slammed the heel of his boot into Cobb’s right knee. The move clearly caught the man off guard. Maybe he’d thought him incapable? He heard bone break and he planted a fist into the jaw. Cobb cried out in agony as he crumpled to the ground, clutching his wounded leg. Malone lifted the rifle from the ground.
“I’ll say it again. You’re no better than he was. He killed for Allah. You do it for profit.”
“The…devil…got his due.”
Malone slung the rifle out into the open air, beyond the crumbled wall, and left.
* * *
Malone zipped his suitcase shut and checked out of his hotel. Downstairs, he stepped out into the frigid evening and searched the crowded street for a taxi to the airport. One appeared and he quickly climbed into the back seat. The driver eased his way through stop-and-start traffic. Darkness came quickly this time of year to central Asia and night had enveloped the city by the time they stopped at the terminal. He handed the driver forty rubles and was about to leave when the man said in Russian, “Mr. Malone, my president has something for you.”
He stared at the driver from the rear seat as the man handed him a brown envelope.
“He also said to wish you well.”
Malone thanked the man and added another twenty rubles for his trouble. Sharma’s reach was extensive, he’d give the man that. Through the envelope he felt the distinctive outline of a CD. Inside the terminal he checked his bag, then, with his carry-on draped over his shoulder, headed for the gate. There, he opened the envelope and saw that it contained a disk, along with a note. He read the message, then inserted the CD into his laptop.
On the screen appeared a video. He watched while the phony colonel named Cobb shot Osama bin Laden. Then, with the help of the other paramilitary members, whose faces Malone recognized, Cobb burned the body. The screen went dark, then a new video began. This one featured him and Cobb hours earlier. Malone found his earphones and switched on the audio. The sound of their voices was excellent and their entire encounter, including Malone’s assault, was recorded.
Then the screen went black.
He shook his head.
Yossef Sharma had been watching. Though he was the head of a nation that possessed no means of adequately protecting itself, the president was a clever man. He’d wanted the United States to have bin Laden because that’s what bin Laden wanted. But that had not happened. So Sharma had delivered another gift. One that Malone would this time personally hold on to until the moment was right. A little legwork would be needed, but it shouldn’t be hard to track down Cobb, his cohorts and their employers. After all, that was the Magellan Billet’s specialty.
He read again the note that had been included with the disk.
MAKE SURE ALL THE DEVILS GET THEIR DUE.
Damn right.
He stood and headed for his plane.
* * * * *
Author Biography
Steve Berry is a New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of fifteen novels, including the Cotton Malone thrillers. His books have been translated into forty languages with twenty million copies in fifty-one countries. Steve was born and raised in Georgia, and graduated from the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University. He was a trial lawyer for thirty years and held elective office for fourteen of those years. He is a founding member of International Thriller Writers—a group of more than 3,600 thriller writers from around the world—and served three years as its copresident. To learn more, visit steveberry.org.
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ISBN-13: 9781488094644
The Devils’ Due
Copyright © 2006 By Steve Berry
First published as part of an anthology of works entitled Thriller in 2006.
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