The Patriot Threat

by Steve Berry

  Mellon handed over the dollar. “This is for you.”

  He saw that Mellon had drawn two triangles atop the Great Seal’s reverse face. “A pentagram?”

  “It’s six pointed.”

  He corrected himself. “A Star of David. Is this intended to mean something?”

  “It’s a clue from our history. There were men in our past who knew that a man like you—a tyrannical aristocrat—would one day come along. So I thought it fitting that history”—Mellon pointed to the bill—“and that anomaly begin your quest. As you can see, the formation of the two triangles joins five letters. O S A M N. It’s an anagram.”

  Roosevelt studied bill. “Mason. They form the word Mason.”

  “That they do.”

  Against his better judgment he had to ask, “What does it mean?”

  “The end of you.”

  Mellon held a military bearing, standing tall, head still cocked down, as if openly mocking his commander in chief’s inability to stand. A hissing log from the fire burst from the flames and spat at them.

  “A strange coincidence, to use a phrase, by which such things are settled nowadays.” Mellon paused. “Lord Byron. I thought it apt here, also.”

  His guest moved toward the door.

  “I’m not through speaking with you,” Roosevelt called out.

  Mellon stopped and turned back. “I’ll be waiting for you—Mr. President.”

  And he left.

  THE

  PRESENT

  ONE

  VENICE, ITALY

  MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10

  10:40 P.M.

  Cotton Malone dove to the floor as bullets peppered the glass wall. Thankfully the transparent panel, which separated one space from another floor-to-ceiling, did not shatter. He risked a look into the expansive secretarial area and spotted flashes of light through the semi-darkness, each burst emitted from the end of a short-barreled weapon. The glass between him and the assailant was obviously extra-resistant, and he silently thanked someone’s foresight.

  His options were limited.

  He knew little about the geography of the building’s eighth floor—after all, this was his first visit. He’d come expecting to covertly observe a massive financial transaction—$20 million U.S. being stuffed into two large sacks destined for North Korea. Instead the exchange had turned into a bloodbath, four men dead in an office not far away, their killer—an Asian man with short, dark hair and dressed as a security guard—now homing in on him.

  He needed to take cover.

  At least he was armed, toting his Magellan Billet–issued Beretta and two spare magazines. The ability to travel with a gun was one advantage that came with again carrying a badge for the United States Justice Department. He’d agreed to the temporary assignment as a way to take his mind off things in Copenhagen, and to earn some money since nowadays spy work paid well.

  Think.

  He was outgunned, but not outsmarted.

  Control what’s around you and you control the outcome.

  He darted left down the corridor, across gritty terrazzo, just as another volley finally obliterated the glass wall. He passed a nook with a restroom door on either side and kept going. Farther on a maid’s cart sat unattended. He caught sight of a propped-open door to a nearby office and spied a uniformed woman cowering in the dark interior.

  He whispered in Italian, “Crawl under the desk and stay quiet.”

  She did as he commanded.

  This civilian could be a problem. Collateral damage was the term used for them in Magellan Billet reports. He hated the description. More accurately they were somebody’s father, mother, brother, sister. Innocents, caught in the crossfire.

  It would be only a few moments before the Asian appeared.

  He noticed another office door and rushed inside the dark space. The usual furniture lay scattered. A second doorway led to an adjacent room, light spilling in through its half-open door. A quick glance inside that other space confirmed that the second room opened back to the hall.

  That would work.

  His nostrils detected the odor of cleaning solution, an open metal canister holding several gallons resting a few feet away. He also spotted a pack of cigarettes and a lighter on the maid’s cart.

  Control what’s around you.

  He grabbed both, then tipped over the metal container.

  Clear fluid gurgled onto the hall floor, spreading across the tile in a river that flowed in the direction from which the Asian would come.

  He waited.

  Five seconds later his attacker, leading with the automatic rifle, peered around a corner, surely wondering where his prey might be.

  Malone lingered another few seconds so as to be seen.

  The rifle appeared.

  He darted into the office. Bullets peppered the maid’s cart in deafening bursts. He flicked the lighter and ignited the cigarette pack. Paper, cellophane, and tobacco began to burn. One. Two. He tossed the burning bundle out the door and into the clear film that sheathed the hall floor.

  A swoosh and the cleaning liquid caught fire.

  Movement in the second room confirmed what he’d thought would happen. The Asian had taken refuge there from the burning floor. Before his enemy could fully appreciate his dilemma Malone plunged through the doorway, tackling the man to the ground.

  The rifle clattered away.

  His right hand clamped onto the man’s throat.

  But his opponent was strong.

  And nimble.

  They rolled, twice, colliding with a desk.

  He told himself to keep his grip. But the Asian pivoted off the floor and catapulted him feetfirst into the air. His body hinged across his opponent’s head. He was thrust aside and the Asian sprang to his feet. He readied himself for a fight, but the “guard” fled the room.

  He found his gun and approached the door, heart pounding, lungs heaving. Remnants of the liquid still smoldered on the floor. The hall was clear and wet footprints led away. He followed them. At a corner, he stopped and glanced around, seeing no one. He advanced toward the elevators and studied the transom, noticing that the position-indicator displays for both cars were lit 8—this floor. He pressed the UP button and jumped back ready to fire.

  The doors opened.

  The right car was empty. The left held a bloodied corpse, dressed only in his underwear. The real guard, he assumed. He stared at the contorted face, obscured by two gaping wounds. Surely part of the plan was not only to eliminate all of the participants, but to leave no witnesses behind. He glanced inside the car and spotted a destroyed control panel. He checked the other car and found that it had also been disabled. The only way out now was the stairs.

  He entered the stairwell and listened. Someone was climbing the risers toward the roof. He vaulted up as fast as caution advised, keeping an eye ahead for trouble.

  A door opened, then closed.

  At the top he found an exit and heard the distinct churn of a helicopter turbine starting from the other side.

  He cracked open the door.

  A chopper faced away, tail boom and fin close, its cabin pointing out to the night. The rotors began to wind fast and the Asian quickly loaded on the two large sacks of cash, then jumped inside.

  Blades spun faster and the skids lifted from the roof.

  He pushed open the door.

  A chilly wind buffeted him.

  Should he fire? No. Let it fly away? He’d been sent only to observe, but things had gone wrong, so now he needed to earn his keep. He stuffed the pistol into his back pocket, buttoned it shut, and ran. One leap and he grabbed hold of the rising skid.

  The chopper powered out into the dark sky.

  What a strange sensation, flying unprotected through the night. He clung tightly to the metal skid with both hands, the chopper’s airspeed making it increasingly difficult to hang on.

  He stared down.

  They were headed east, away from the mainland, toward the water and the island
s. The location where the murders had occurred was on the Italian shore, a few hundred yards inland, a nondescript office building near Marco Polo International Airport. The lagoon itself was enclosed by thin strips of lighted coast joined in a wide arc to the mainland, Venice lying at the center.

  The chopper banked right and increased speed.

  He wrapped his right arm around the skid for a better hold.

  Ahead he spied Venice, its towers and spires lit to the night. Beyond on all sides was blackness, signaling open water. Farther east was Lido, which fronted the Adriatic. His mind ticked off what lay below. To the north, ground lights betrayed the presence of Murano, then Burano and, farther on, Torcello. The islands lay embedded in the lagoon like sparkling trinkets. He curled himself around the skid and for the first time stared up into the cabin.

  The “guard” eyed him.

  The chopper veered left, apparently to see if the unwanted passenger could be dislodged. His body flew out, then whipped back, but he held tight and stared up once more into icy eyes. He saw the Asian slide open the hatch with his left hand, the rifle in his right. In the instant before rounds rained down at the skids, he swung across the undercarriage toward the other skid and jerked himself over.

  Bullets smacked the left skid, disappearing down through the dark. He was now safe on the right side, but his hands ached from gravity’s pull. The chopper again rocked back and forth, tapping his last bits of strength. He hooked his left leg onto the skid, hugging the metal. The brisk air dried his throat, making breathing difficult. He worked hard to build up saliva and relieve the parching.

  He needed to do something and fast.

  He studied the whirling rotors, blades beating the air, the staccato of the turbine deafening. On the roof he’d hesitated, but now there appeared to be no choice. He held on tight with his legs and left arm, then reached back and unbuttoned his pant pocket. He stuffed in his right hand and removed the Beretta.

  Only one way left to force the chopper down.

  He fired three shots into the screaming turbine just below the rotor’s hub.

  The engine sputtered.

  Flames poured out of the air intake and exhaust pipe. Airspeed diminished. The nose went up in an effort to stay airborne.

  He glanced down.

  They were still a thousand feet up but rapidly losing altitude in something of a controlled descent.

  He could see an island ahead of them. Scattered glows defined its rectangular shape just north of Venice. He knew the place. Isola di San Michele. Nothing there but a couple of churches and a huge cemetery where the dead had been buried since the time of Napoleon.

  More sputtering.

  A sudden backfire.

  Thick smoke billowed from the exhaust, the scent of sulfur and burning oil sickening. The pilot was apparently trying to stabilize the descent, the craft jerking up and down, its control planes working hard.

  They overtook the island flying close to the dome of its main church. At twenty feet off the ground success seemed at hand. The chopper leveled, then hovered. Its turbine smoothed. Below was a dark spot, but he wondered how many stone markers might be waiting. Hard to see anything in the darkness. The chopper’s occupants surely knew they still had company. So why land? Just head back up and ditch their passenger from the air.

  He should have shot the turbine a few times more.

  Now he had no choice.

  So he let go of the skid.

  He seemed to fall for the longest time, though if memory served him right a free-falling object fell at the rate of thirty-two feet per second, per second. Twenty feet equaled less than one second. He hoped that the ground was soft and he avoided stone.

  He pounded legs-first, his knees collapsing to absorb the shock, then rebounding, sending him rolling. His left thigh instantly ached. Somehow he managed to hold on to the gun. He came to a stop and looked back up. The pilot had regained full control. The helicopter pitched up and maneuvered closer. A swing to the right and his attacker now had a clear view below. He could probably limp off, but he saw no good ground cover. He was in the open, amid the graves. The Asian saw his predicament, hovering less than a hundred feet away, the downwash from the blades stirring up loose topsoil. The helicopter’s hatch slid open and his attacker one-handedly took aim with the automatic rifle.

  Malone propped himself up and aimed the pistol using both hands. There couldn’t be more than four rounds left in the magazine.

  Make ’em count.

  So he aimed at the engine.

  The Asian gestured to the pilot for a retreat.

  But not before Malone fired. One, two, three, four shots.

  Hard to tell which bullet actually did the trick, but the turbine exploded, a brilliant fireball lighting the sky, flaming chunks cascading to the ground in a searing shower fifty yards away. In the sudden light he spotted hundreds of grave markers in tightly packed rows. He hugged the earth and shielded his head as the explosions continued, a heaping mass of twisted metal, flesh, and burning fuel erupting before him.

  He stared at the carnage.

  A crackle of flames consumed the helicopter, its occupants, and $20 million U.S. in cash.

  Somebody was going to be pissed.

  TWO

  PORT OF VENICE

  11:15 P.M.

  Kim Yong Jin stood on one side of the bed, holding the intravenous bag. His daughter Hana watched him from the other side.

  “I imagine this is something you have seen before,” he quietly asked her in Korean.

  By this he meant the strong asserting themselves over the utterly weak. And yes, he knew she’d borne witness to that too many times to count.

  “No comment?” he said.

  She stared at him.

  “No, I suppose not. The fish would never get into trouble if he but kept his mouth shut. Right?”

  She nodded.

  He smiled at her intuition, then returned his attention to the bed and asked, “Are you comfortable?”

  But the older man lying before them did not reply. How could he? The drug had paralyzed every muscle, numbing nerves, freeing the mind. A tube from the IV bag Kim held snaked a path down into a vein. A valve allowed him to control the flow. No danger existed of anyone ever knowing that it had been administered since their captive was a diabetic, one more needle mark hardly noticeable.

  “I don’t suppose it matters if he’s comfortable or not,” he said. “Silly question, actually. He’s not going anywhere.”

  Indifference in the face of dominance was a trait he’d inherited from his father—along with sparse hair, excess weight, a bulbous head, and a private passion for decadent entertainment. Unlike his father, who managed to succeed his own father and lead North Korea for nearly a quarter century, Kim had been denied that opportunity.

  And for what?

  Visiting Tokyo Disneyland?

  Two of his nine children had wanted to go. So he obtained false Portuguese passports and tried to gain entry. But an observant border officer at Narita International Airport caught the deception and he was detained. To secure his release, his father had been forced to personally intervene with the Japanese government.

  And it cost him.

  He’d been disinherited, dropped from the line of succession.

  Where before he’d been the eldest son, entitled to the reins of power, afterward he was disgraced. And twelve years ago, when his father finally died, Kim’s illegitimate half brother had taken his place as head of the military, chairman of the National Defense Commission, and supreme leader of the Workers’ Party, wielding absolute control over Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

  What was the wisdom?

  Only a bad plowman quarrels with his ox.

  He glanced around at the suite.

  Not as luxurious as his penthouse two decks above, but still way above average. He and Hana had just spent ten days cruising the Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas, stopping in Croatia, Montenegro, Sicily, and Italy, waiting for t
he old man lying before them to make a move.

  But nothing substantial had occurred.

  So now, on the last night, as the ship sat docked in Venice and the several thousand on board were ashore enjoying the sights, they’d come to pay Paul Larks a visit. All it had taken was a knock on the door and Larks had been easily subdued.

  “Mr. Larks,” Kim said in a congenial voice, “why are you on this trip?”

  “To right a wrong.”

  The voice was strained, but the answer definitive. That was the thing about the drug. Truth was all the brain could reveal. The ability to lie ceased to exist.

  “Which wrong?”

  “One my country has done.”

  Another annoying aspect was that usually only the question asked was answered, nothing much was ever volunteered.

  “How long have you possessed the documents that right this wrong?”

  “Since I worked for the government. I found them during that time.”

  This man had once served as an undersecretary of the American Treasury Department, having been quietly forced out less than three months ago.

  Kim asked, “Was that before or after you read the book?”

  “Before.”

  He, too, had read The Patriot Threat by Anan Wayne Howell. Self-published two years ago, with no fanfare or notoriety. “Is Howell correct?”

  “He is.”

  “Where is Howell?”

  “I’ll meet him tomorrow.”

  “Where?”

  “I was told he would find me after I left the ship.”

  “Did you not come here to meet with Howell during the cruise?”

  “That was the original plan.”

  A curious reply. “Were you to meet anyone else?”

  “The Korean. But we thought it best not to do that.”

  “Who is we?”

  “Howell and I.”

  He was puzzled. “Why?”

  “It’s better if we keep this among Americans.”

  Now he was agitated. He was the Korean. “Where are the documents that right the wrong?”

  Larks had carried a black Tumi satchel around since the first day of the cruise. On deck. To meals. Never had it left him. Yet it was nowhere in the suite. Hana had already searched.