Steve Berry - The Charlemagne Pursuit

Danny Daniels.

RAMSEY LEFT THE DARK HIGHWAY AND DROVE INTO THE WOODS, toward the Maryland farmhouse where he'd met Charlie Smith a few days ago.

Bailey Mill, Smith had called it.

He hadn't liked Smith's tone. Smart-ass, cocky, irritating-that was Charlie Smith. Angry, demanding, belligerent? No way.

Something was wrong.

Ramsey seemed to have acquired a new ally in Diane McCoy, one that had cost him twenty million dollars. Luckily, he'd stashed much more than that in various accounts across the globe. Money that had fallen his way from operations that either ended prematurely or were aborted. Thankfully, once a CLASSIFIED stamp was placed on a file, little in the way of a public accounting ever occurred. Policy required that whatever resources had been invested be returned, but that wasn't always the case. He needed funds to pay Smith-capital to finance covert investigations-but his need was becoming more finite. Yet as that need tightened, so did the risks.

Like here.

His headlights revealed the farmhouse, a barn, and another car. Not a light on anywhere. He parked and reached into the center console, removed his Walther automatic, then stepped out into the cold.

"Charlie," he called out. "I don't have time for your crap. Get your ass out here."

His eyes, attuned to the darkness, registered movement to his left. He aimed and ticked off two shots. The bullets thudded into the old wood. More movement, but he saw that it wasn't Smith.

Dogs.

Fleeing the porch and the house, racing off toward the woods. Like last time.

He exhaled.

Smith loved to play games, so he decided to accommodate him. "Tell you what, Charlie. I'm going to flatten all four of your tires and you can freeze your ass off here tonight. Call me tomorrow when you're ready to talk."

"You're not a bit of fun, Admiral," a voice said. "Not a bit at all."

Smith emerged from the shadows.

"You're lucky I don't kill you," he said.

Smith stepped from the porch. "Why would you do that? I've been a good boy. Did everything you wanted. All four dead, nice and clean. Then I hear on the radio that you're going to be promoted to the Joint Chiefs. Just movin' on up, to the east side. To that deluxe apartment in the sky. You and George Jefferson."

"That's unimportant," he made clear. "Not your concern."

"I know. I'm just hired help. What's important is that I get paid."

"You did. Two hours ago. In full."

"That's good. I was thinking of a little vacation. Someplace warm."

"Not until you deal with your new task."

"You aim high, Admiral. Your latest goes straight into the White House."

"Aiming high is the only way to achieve anything."

"I need double the usual price for this one, half down, balance on completion."

Didn't matter to him how much it cost. "Done."

"And there's one more thing," Smith said.

Something poked into his ribs, through his coat, from behind.

"Nice and easy, Langford," a woman's voice said. "Or I'll shoot you before you move."

Diane McCoy.

MALONE CHECKED THE PLANE'S CHRONOMETER-7:40 AM-AND gazed out the flight deck at the panorama below. Antarctica reminded him of an upturned bowl with a chipped rim. A vast ice plateau almost two miles thick was bordered for at least two-thirds of its circumference by black jagged mountains lined with crevasse-ridden glaciers that flowed toward the sea-the northeast coast below no exception.

The pilot announced that they were making a final approach to Halvorsen Base. Time to prepare for landing.

"This is rare," the pilot said to Malone. "Superb weather. You're lucky. Winds are good, too." He adjusted the controls and gripped the yoke. "You want to take us down?"

Malone waved him off. "No thanks. Way beyond me." Though he'd landed fighter jets on tossing carriers, dropping a one-hundred-thousand-pound aircraft onto perilous ice was a thrill he could do without.

The brawl between Dorothea and Christl still concerned him. They'd behaved themselves the past few hours, but their bitter conflict could prove vexing.

The plane began a steep decline.

Though the attack had raised warning flags, something else he'd witnessed caused him even more concern.

Ulrich Henn had been caught off guard.

Malone had spotted the momentary confusion that swept Henn's face before the mask rehardened. He clearly hadn't expected what Dorothea had done.

The plane leveled and the engine's turbines slackened.

The Hercules was equipped with landing skis and he heard the copilot confirm that they were locked. They continued to drop, the white ground growing in size and detail.

A bump. Then another.

And he heard the scrape of skis on crusty ice as they glided. No way to brake. Only friction would slow them. Luckily there was plenty of room to slide.

Finally the Hercules stopped.

"Welcome to the bottom of the world," the pilot told everyone.

Davis did, too.

Daniels motioned for them to stay put. "It's late and we're all tired. Sit." He grabbed a chair. "Thank you, Colonel. Would you make sure we're not disturbed?"

Gross disappeared toward the front of the warehouse.

"You two look like hell," Daniels said.

"Comes from watching a man's head get blown off," Davis said.

Daniels sighed. "I've seen that myself, once or twice. Two tours in Vietnam. Never leaves you."

"A man died because of us," Davis said.

Daniels' lips tightened. "But Herbert Rowland is alive because of you."

Little consolation, she thought, then asked, "How are you here?"

"Slipped out of the White House and rode Marine One straight south. Bush started that. He'd fly all the way to Iraq before anyone knew. We have procedures in place to accommodate that now. I'll be back in bed before anyone knows I'm gone." Daniels' gaze drifted toward the refrigerator door. "I wanted to see what was in there. Colonel Gross told me, but I wanted to see."

"It could change how we view civilization," she said.

"It's amazing." And she could see that Daniels was genuinely impressed. "Was Malone right? Can we read the books?"

She nodded. "Enough to make sense."

The president's usual boisterous bearing seemed in check. She'd heard he was a notorious night owl, sleeping little. Staffers constantly complained.

"We lost the killer," Davis said.

She caught the defeat in his tone. So different from the first time they'd worked together, when he'd tossed out an infectious optimism that had driven her into central Asia.

"Edwin," the president said, "you've given this your best shot. I thought you were nuts, but you were right."

Davis' eyes were those of someone who'd given up expecting good news. "Scofield's still dead. Millicent is still dead."

"The question is, do you want their killer?"

"Like I said, we lost him."

"See, that's the thing," Daniels said. "I found him."

RAMSEY SAT IN A RICKETY WOODEN CHAIR, HIS HANDS, CHEST, AND feet bound with duct tape. He'd contemplated attacking McCoy outside but realized that Smith was surely armed-and he could not elude them both. So he'd done nothing. Bided his time. And hoped for a fumble.

Which may not have been smart.

They'd herded him into the house. Smith had lit a small camping stove that now provided weak illumination and welcome heat. Interesting how one section of the bedroom wall was swung open, the rectangle beyond pitch-black. He needed to know what these two wanted, how they'd joined forces, and how to appease them.

"This woman tells me that I've been added to the expendable list," Smith said.