The Lincoln Myth (Cotton Malone 9)

He looked up from the sheet. What a strange lament. And a message? Passed down from president to president? One withheld by Buchanan until now?

He rubbed his weary eyes and brought the second sheet closer. Its ink had faded, the script more stylish and difficult to read.

Signatures graced the bottom.

He scanned the entire page.

Then read the words again.

More carefully.

Sleep was no longer important.

What had Buchanan written?

All is not as it seems.

“This cannot be,” he muttered.

ONE

OFF THE COAST OF DENMARK

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8

7:40 P.M.

ONE GLANCE AND COTTON MALONE KNEW THERE WAS TROUBLE.

The Øresund, which separated the northern Danish island of Zealand from the southern Swedish province of Scania, usually one of the busiest waterways in the world, was light on traffic. Only two boats in sight across the gray-blue water—his and the fast-approaching profile of the one slicing toward them.

He’d noticed the craft just after they’d left the dock at Lands-krona on the Swedish side of the channel. A red-and-white twenty-footer with dual inboards. His boat was a rental, secured at the Copenhagen waterfront on the Danish side, a fifteen-footer with a single outboard. The engine howled as he plowed through the moderate surf, the skies clear, the crisp evening air devoid of breeze—lovely fall weather for Scandinavia.

Three hours ago he was working in his bookshop at Højbro Plads. He’d planned on dinner at the Café Norden, as he did almost every evening. But a call from Stephanie Nelle, his former boss at the Justice Department, changed all that.

“I need a favor,” she said. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t an emergency. There’s a man named Barry Kirk. Short black hair, pointy nose. I need you to go get him.”

He heard the urgency in her request.

“I have an agent en route, but he’s been delayed. I don’t know when he’ll get there, and this man has to be found. Now.”

“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me why.”

“I can’t. But you’re the closest to him. He’s across the water in Sweden, waiting for someone to come get him.”

“Sounds like trouble.”

“I have an agent missing.”

He hated to hear those words.

“Kirk may know where he is, so it’s important to secure him quickly. I’m hoping we’re ahead of any problems. Just bring him back to your shop and keep him there until my guy comes for him.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“One more thing, Cotton. Take your gun.”

He’d immediately gone upstairs to his fourth-floor apartment above his bookshop and found the knapsack beneath his bed, the one he always kept ready with identification, money, a phone, and his Magellan Billet–issued Beretta, which Stephanie had allowed him to keep when he retired.

The gun now nestled against the small of his back, beneath his jacket.

“They’re getting closer,” Barry Kirk said.

Like he didn’t know that. Two engines were always better than one.

He held the wheel steady, his throttle three-quarters of the way engaged. He decided to max out the power and the bow rose as the V-hull gained speed. He glanced back. Two men occupied the other boat—one driving, the other standing with a gun.

This just kept getting better and better.

They were not yet halfway across the channel, still on the Swedish side, heading diagonally southwest toward Copenhagen. He could have taken a car, crossing the Øresund Bridge that connected Denmark to Sweden, but that would have taken an extra hour. Water was faster and Stephanie was in a hurry, so he’d rented the bowrider runabout from the same shop he always used. Far cheaper to rent than to own a boat, especially considering how little he ventured out on the water.

“What do you plan to do?”

A stupid question. Kirk was definitely annoying. He’d located him pacing the docks, exactly where Stephanie had said he’d be waiting, anxious to leave. Code words had been arranged so they both would know they’d found the right person. Joseph for him. Moroni for Kirk.

Odd choices.

“Do you know who those men are?” he asked.

“They want to kill me.”

He kept the boat pointed toward Denmark, its hull breasting the waves with jarring lunges, throwing spray.

“And why do they want to kill you?” he asked over the engine’s roar.

“Who are you, exactly?”

He cut a quick glance at Kirk. “The guy who’s going to save your sorry ass.”

The other boat was less than thirty yards way.

He scanned the horizon in every direction and spotted no other craft. Dusk was gathering, the azure sky being replaced by gray.

A pop.

Then another.

He whirled.

The second man in the pursuing boat was firing at them.

“Get down,” he yelled to Kirk. He ducked, too, keeping their course and speed steady.

Two more shots.

One thudded into the fiberglass to his left.

The other boat was now fifty feet away. He decided to give his pursuers a little pause. He reached back, found his gun, and sent a bullet their way.

The other boat veered to starboard.

They were more than a mile from the Danish shore, nearly at the Øresund’s center. The second boat looped around and was now approaching from the right on a path that would cut directly in front of them. He saw that the pistol had been replaced with a short-barreled automatic rifle.

Only one thing to do.

He adjusted course straight for them.

Time for a game of chicken.

A burst of gunfire cut across the air. He dove to the deck, keeping one hand on the wheel. Rounds whizzed by overhead and a few penetrated the bow. He risked a look. The other boat had veered to port, swinging around, preparing to attack from the rear, where the open deck offered little cover.

He decided the direct approach was best.

But it would have to be timed just right.

He kept the boat racing ahead at nearly full throttle. The second craft’s bow still headed his way.

“Keep down,” he told Kirk again.

No worry existed that his order would be disobeyed. Kirk clung to the deck, below the side panels. Malone still held his Beretta but kept it out of sight. The other boat narrowed the distance between them.

And fast.

Fifty yards.

Forty.

Thirty.

He yanked the throttle back and brought the engine to idle. Speed vanished. The bow sank into the water. They glided for a few yards then came to a stop. The other boat kept coming.

Parallel.

The man with the rifle aimed.

But before he could fire, Malone shot him in the chest.

The other boat raced past.

He reengaged the throttle and the engine sprang to life.

Inside the second craft he saw the driver reach down and find the rifle. A big loop brought the boat back on an intercept course.

His feint worked once.

But would not again.

Nearly a mile’s worth of water still lay between them and the Danish coast, and he could not outrun the other vessel. Maybe out-maneuver, but for how long? No. He’d have to stand and fight.

He stared ahead and grabbed his bearings.

He was five miles or so north of Copenhagen’s outskirts, near the spot where his old friend Henrik Thorvaldsen had once lived.

“Look at that,” he heard Kirk say.

He turned back.

The other boat was a hundred yards away, bearing down. But out of an ever-dimming western sky a high-wing, single-engine Cessna had swooped down. Its trademark tricycle landing gear, no more than six feet clear of the water’s surface, raked the other craft, its wheels nearly smacking the driver wh

o disappeared downward, his hands apparently off the wheel as the bow lurched left.