The Charlemagne Pursuit (Cotton Malone 4)

"Not me, but they work for me. I know all about you, Charlie."

He said nothing, but her having the phone number and knowing his alias were major problems. Actually, catastrophic. "What do you want?"

"Your ass."

He chuckled.

"But I'm willing to trade yours for someone else's."

"Let me guess. Ramsey?"

"You are a bright guy."

"I don't suppose you plan to tell me who you are?"

"Sure. Unlike you, I don't live a false life."

"Then who the hell are you?"

"Diane McCoy. Deputy national security adviser to the president of the United States."

EIGHTY

MALONE HEARD SOMEONE SCREAM. HE WAS ON THE FLIGHT DECK talking with the crew and rushed to the aft doorway, staring down into the tunnel-like interior of the LC-130. Dorothea was across the aisle, beside Christl, who was struggling to free herself from the harness and shrieking. Blood gushed from Christl's nose and stained her parka. Werner and Henn had come awake and were unbuckling themselves.

With open palms, Malone slid down the ladder's railings and rushed toward the melee. Henn had managed to yank Dorothea away.

"You crazy bitch," Christl screamed. "What are you doing?"

Werner took hold of Dorothea. Malone dropped back and watched.

"She slugged me," Christl said, dabbing her sleeve onto her nose.

Malone found a towel on one of the steel racks and tossed it to her.

"I should kill you," Dorothea spit out. "You don't deserve to live."

"You see," Christl yelled. "This is what I mean. She's nuts. Totally nuts. Crazy as hell."

"What are you doing?" Werner asked his wife. "What brought this on?"

"She hated Georg," Dorothea said, struggling in Werner's grasp.

Christl stood, facing her sister.

Werner released his hold on Dorothea and allowed the two lionesses to appraise each other, both seemingly trying to calculate a hidden purpose in the other. Malone watched the women, dressed in identical thick gear, their faces identical, but their minds so different.

"You weren't even there when we finally buried him," Dorothea said. "All the rest of us stayed, but not you."

"I hate funerals."

"I hate you."

Christl turned toward Malone, the towel pressed to her nose. He grabbed her gaze and quickly saw the threat in her eyes. Before he could react, she dropped the towel, whirled, and smacked Dorothea in the face, sending her sister careering back into Werner.

Christl cocked her fist, readying another blow.

Malone caught her wrist. "You owed her one. That's all."

Her whole countenance had darkened and a fiery gaze told him that this was none of his business.

She wrenched her arm free and snatched the towel from the floor.

Werner helped Dorothea down. Henn just watched, like always, never saying a word.

"Okay, enough prizefighting," Malone said. "I suggest all of you get some sleep. We have less than five hours to go and I plan to hit the ground running when we land. Anybody who bitches or can't keep up stays at the base."

SMITH SAT IN HIS KITCHEN AND STARED AT THE PHONE LYING ON the table. He'd doubted the caller's identity so she'd given him a contact number, then hung up. He grabbed the unit and punched in the number. Three rings and a pleasant voice informed him that he'd dialed the White House and wanted to know how to direct his call.

"Office of the National Security Adviser," he said in a weak voice.

She connected him.

"Took you long enough, Charlie," a woman said. The same voice. "Satisfied?"

"What do you want?"

"To tell you something."

"I'm listening."

"Ramsey intends to terminate his relationship with you. He has big plans, major plans, and they don't include you being around to possibly interfere with them."

"You're barking up the wrong tree."

"That's what I'd say, too, Charlie. But I'll make it easy for you. You listen and I'll talk. That way if you think you're being recorded it won't matter. Sound like a plan?"

"If you got the time, go ahead."

"You're Ramsey's personal problem solver. He's used you for years. Pays you well. In the last few days you've been a busy guy. Jacksonville. Charlotte. Asheville. Am I getting warm, Charlie? Do you want me to name names?"

"You can say whatever you want."

"Now Ramsey has given you a new assignment." She paused. "Me. And let me guess. Has to be done today. That makes sense since I shook him down yesterday. He tell you about that, Charlie?"

He did not reply.

"No, I didn't think so. See, he's making plans and they don't include you. But I don't plan to end up like the others. That's why we're talking. Oh, and by the way, if I was your enemy the Secret Service would be at your door right now and we'd have this talk in a private place, just you and me and somebody big and strong."

"That thought had already occurred to me."

"I knew you'd be reasonable. And just so you understand that I really do know what I'm talking about, let me tell you about three offshore accounts you have, the ones Ramsey makes his deposits into." She rattled off the banks and account numbers, even passwords, two of which he'd changed only a week ago. "None of those accounts is really private, Charlie. You just have to know where and how to look. Unfortunately for you, I can seize those accounts in an instant. But to show you my good faith, I haven't touched them."

Okay. She was the real deal. "What do you want?"

"Like I said, Ramsey has decided that you have to go. He's made a deal with a senator, one that doesn't include you. Since you're practically dead anyway, what with no identity, few roots, no family, how hard would it be for you to permanently disappear? Nobody would ever miss you. That's sad, Charlie."

But true.

"So I have a better idea," she said.

RAMSEY WAS SO CLOSE TO HIS GOAL. EVERYTHING HAD GONE AS planned. Only one obstacle remained. Diane McCoy.

He still sat at his desk, a swig of chilled whiskey resting nearby. He thought about what he'd told Isabel Oberhauser. About the submarine. What he'd retrieved from NR-1A and kept ever since.

Captain Forrest Malone's log.

Through the years he'd occasionally glanced at the handwritten pages, more out of morbid curiosity than genuine interest. But the log represented a memento from a journey that had profoundly changed his life. He wasn't sentimental, but there were times that deserved remembering. For him, one of those moments came under the Antarctic ice.

When he followed the seal.

Upward.

He broke the surface and swung his light out of the water. He was in a cavern formed of rock and ice. Maybe a football field long and half that wide, faintly illuminated in a gray-and-purple silence. To his right he heard the bark of a seal and saw the animal leap back into the water. He pushed his face mask to his forehead, spit the regulator from his mouth, and tasted the air. Then he saw it. A bright orange conning tower, stunted, smaller than normal, distinctive in shape.

NR-1A.

Holy Mother of God.

He treaded water toward the surfaced boat.