The Charlemagne Pursuit (Cotton Malone 4)

So he wrenched the door handle up and slid the panel open, simultaneously swinging himself out into the frozen air.

Crimson Coat, caught off guard, was thrown from the car, his body smacking the trestle's leading edge. Malone gripped the door handle in a stranglehold. His assailant fell away, crushed between the car and the trestle.

A scream quickly faded.

He maneuvered himself back inside. A cloudy plume erupted with each breath. His throat went bone-dry.

The woman struggled to her feet.

He kicked her in the jaw and returned her to the floor.

He staggered forward and stared toward the ground.

Two men in dark overcoats stood where the cable car would stop. Reinforcements? He was still a thousand feet high. Below him spread a dense forest that ambled up the mountain's lower slopes, evergreen branches thick with snow. He noticed a control panel. Three lights flashed green, two red. He stared out the windows and saw another of the towering trestles coming closer. He reached for the switch labeled ANHALTEN and flipped the toggle down.

The cable car lurched, then slowed, but did not fully stop. More Isaac Newton. Friction would eventually end forward momentum.

He grabbed the envelope from the beside the woman and stuffed it under his coat. He found the gun and slid it into his pocket. He then stepped to the door and waited for the trestle to draw close. The car was creeping but, even so, the leap would be dicey. He estimated speed and distance, led himself, then plunged toward one of the crossbeams, gloved hands searching for steel.

He thudded into the grid and used his leather coat for cushion.

Snow crunched between his fingers and the beam.

He clamped tight.

The car continued its descent, stopping about a hundred feet farther down the cable. He stole a few breaths, then wiggled himself toward a ladder rising on the support beam. Dry snow fluttered away, like talcum, as he continued a hand-over-hand trek. At the ladder, he planted his rubber soles onto a snowy rung. Below, he saw the two men in dark coats race from the station. Trouble, as he'd suspected.

He descended the ladder and leaped to the ground.

He was five hundred feet up the wooded slope.

He trudged his way through the trees, finding an asphalt road that paralleled the mountain's base. Ahead stood a brown-shingled building hemmed by snow-covered bushes. A work post of some sort. Beyond was more black asphalt, cleared of snow. He trotted to the gate leading to the fenced enclosure. A padlock barred entrance. He heard an engine groaning up the inclined road. He retreated behind a parked tractor and watched as a dark Peugeot rounded a curve and slowed, inspecting the enclosure.

Gun in hand, he readied himself for a fight.

But the car sped away and continued upward.

He spotted another narrow path of black asphalt that led through the trees, down to ground level and the station.

He trotted toward it.

High above, the cable car remained stopped. Inside lay an unconscious woman in a blue coat. A dead man wearing a crimson coat waited somewhere in the snow.

Neither was his concern.

His problem?

Who knew his and Stephanie Nelle's business?

FOUR

ATLANTA, GEORGIA

7:45 AM

STEPHANIE NELLE GLANCED AT HER WATCH. SHE'D BEEN WORKING in her office since a little before seven am, reviewing field reports. Of her twelve lawyer-agents, eight were currently on assignment. Two were in Belgium, part of an international team tasked with convicting war criminals. Two others had just arrived in Saudi Arabia on a mission that could become dicey. The remaining four were scattered around Europe and Asia.

One, though, was on vacation.

In Germany.

By design, the Magellan Billet was sparsely staffed. Besides her dozen lawyers, the unit employed five administrative assistants and three aides. She'd insisted that the regiment be small. Fewer eyes and ears meant fewer leaks, and over the fourteen years of the Billet's existence, to her knowledge, never had its security been compromised.

She turned from the computer and pushed back her chair.

Her office was plain and compact. Nothing fancy-that wouldn't fit her style. She was hungry, having skipped breakfast at home when she awoke, two hours ago. Meals seemed to be something she worried about less and less. Part of living alone-part of hating to cook. She decided to grab a bite in the cafeteria. Institutional cuisine, for sure, but her growling stomach needed something. Maybe she'd treat herself to a midday meal out of the office-broiled seafood or something similar.

She left the secured offices and walked toward the elevators. The building's fifth floor accommodated the Department of Interior, along with a contingent from Health and Human Services. The Magellan Billet had been intentionally tucked away-nondescript letters announcing only JUSTICE DEPARTMENT, LAWYER TASK FORCE-and she liked the anonymity.

The elevator arrived. When the doors opened, a tall, lanky man with thin gray hair and tranquil blue eyes strolled out.

Edwin Davis.

He flashed a quick smile. "Stephanie. Just the person I came to see." Her caution flags raised. One of the president's deputy national security advisers. In Georgia. Unannounced. Nothing about that could be good.

"And it's refreshing not to see you in a jail cell," Davis said.

She recalled the last time Davis had suddenly appeared.

"Were you going somewhere?" he asked.

"To the cafeteria."

"Mind if I tag alo

ng?"

"Do I have a choice?"

He smiled. "It's not that bad."

They descended to the second floor and found a table. She sipped orange juice while Davis downed a bottled water. Her appetite had vanished.

"You want to tell me why, five days ago, you accessed the investigatory file on the sinking of USS Blazek?"

She concealed her surprise at his knowledge. "I wasn't aware that act would involve the White House."

"That file's classified."

"I broke no laws."

"You sent it to Germany. To Cotton Malone. Have you any idea what you've started?"

Her radar went to full alert. "Your information network is good."

"Which is how we all survive."

"Cotton has a high security clearance."

"Had. He's retired."

Now she was agitated. "Wasn't a problem for you when you dragged him into all those problems in central Asia. Surely that was highly classified. Wasn't a problem when the president involved him with the Order of the Golden Fleece."

Davis' polished face creased with concern. "You're not aware of what happened less than an hour ago at the Zugspitze, are you?"

She shook her head.

He plunged into a full account, telling her about a man falling from a cable car, another man leaping from the same car, scampering down one of the steel trestles, and a woman found partially unconscious when the car was finally brought to the ground, one of the windows shot through.

"Which one of those men do you think is Cotton?" he asked.

"I hope the one who escaped."

He nodded. "They found the body. It wasn't Malone."

"How do you know all this?"

"I had the area staked out."

Now she was curious. "Why?"

Davis finished his bottled water. "I always found it odd the way Malone quit the Billet so abruptly. Twelve years, then just got out completely."

"Seven people dying in Mexico City took a toll on him. And it was your boss, the president, who let him go. A favor returned, if I recall."