Steve Berry - The Alexandria Link

He cursed himself.

Haddad’s gun was on a table in the room. He hadn’t brought it with him. Real smart. He’d have to improvise.

The men stopped at the door. The one with the gun knocked, then stepped to one side. The other pretended to be a steward, the tray balanced high on one hand.

Another knock.

Maybe Pam was still on the phone with Gary? Which would give him the moment he needed.

“Room service,” he heard the man say.

Unlike American hotels, where peepholes were standard, the British did not usually provide them, and this hotel was no exception. He could only hope Pam would not be foolish enough to turn the knob.

“I have a food order for you,” the man said in a raised voice.

A pause.

“A gentleman placed the order.”

Damn. She could readily believe he might have ordered while she was sleeping. He had to act. He raised the ice bucket to shield his face and started down the hall.

“The food is for this room,” the man was explaining.

He heard locks releasing.

Peering around the raised bucket he saw the armed man notice him. The gun was immediately shielded. Malone used that moment of relaxation to his advantage and slung the ice and bucket into the armed man’s face, then planted his right fist into the jaw of the man with the tray. He felt bone crack and the man slammed to the carpet, the tray and its contents scattered.

Ice Man recovered from the initial shock and was raising his gun when Malone pounded two blows to the head and jammed a knee into the chest.

The assailant crumpled downward and lay still.

The room door opened.

Pam stared at him.

“Why would you open that door?” he asked.

“I thought you ordered food.”

He grabbed the gun and stuffed it in his belt. “And I wouldn’t have told you?” He quickly searched both men but found no identification.

“Who are they?” Pam asked.

“That’s the one following you in the airport.”

He grabbed String Bean’s arms and dragged him into their room. He then gripped the other man’s legs and pulled him inside. “You’re a stubborn woman.” He kicked the door shut.

“I was hungry.”

“How’s Gary?”

“He’s doing well. But I didn’t get to say much.”

One of the men started moaning. They’d be conscious soon. He grabbed the leather satchel and Haddad’s gun. “Let’s go.”

“We’re leaving?”

“Unless you want to be around when they wake up.”

He saw that prospect was not appealing to her.

“You have a gun,” she reminded him.

“Which I don’t want to use. This isn’t the Wild West. We’re in a hotel, with people. So let’s do the smart thing and leave. There are plenty more hotels in this town.”

She grabbed the shawl and gently wrapped her shoulders. They left the room and quickly caught the elevator. Downstairs, they exited into a chilly night. He surveyed his surroundings and concluded it was going to be tough to know if they were being followed. Simply too much to watch. The nearest Tube station was two blocks away, so he headed for it, determined to keep a lookout.

His mind churned.

How had the man from Heathrow found them? Even more troubling, how did the man pretending to be a steward know that he wasn’t in the room?

A gentleman placed the order .

He faced Pam as they walked. “Did you tell that guy through the door that you didn’t order anything?”

She nodded. “That’s when he said you did.”

Not entirely correct. He’d said a gentleman placed the order.

But still. Lucky guess?

No way.

WASHINGTON, DC

9:00 PM

STEPHANIE LED CASSIOPEIA THROUGH THE QUIET NEIGHBORHOOD. For the past few hours they’d stayed hidden in the suburbs. She’d made one call to Billet headquarters from a pay phone at a Cracker Barrel restaurant and learned that there had been no contact from Malone. Not so from the White House. Larry Daley’s office had called three times. She’d told her staff to say that she’d get back to him at her first opportunity. Aggravating, she knew. But let Daley wonder if the next time he saw her jovial face, it would be live on CNN. That fear should be enough, for now, to keep the deputy national security adviser in check. Heather Dixon and the Israelis, though, were another matter.

“Where are we going?” Cassiopeia asked.

“To deal with a problem.”

The neighborhood was heavy with beaux arts architecture that had been fashionable, she realized, with the nineteenth-century industrialists who’d first populated the tree-lined avenues. Colonial row houses and cobblestoned walks only added to the wealthy mien in the night air.

“I’m not one of your agents,” Cassiopeia said. “I like to know what I’m getting into.”

“You can leave whenever you want.”

“Nice try. You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”

“Then stop asking questions. You quiz Thorvaldsen like this?”

“Why don’t you like him? In France you stayed at his throat.”

“Look where I am, Cassiopeia. Cotton’s in a mess. My own people want me dead. The Israelis and Saudis are both after me. You think it’s wise I like anyone?”

“That’s not an answer to my question.”

No, it wasn’t. But she couldn’t voice the truth. That through his association with her late husband, Thorvaldsen had come to know her strengths and weaknesses, and near him she felt vulnerable.

“Let’s just say that he and I are far too well acquainted with each other.”

“Henrik’s worried about you. That’s why he asked me to come. He sensed trouble.”

“And I appreciate that. But it doesn’t mean I have to like him.”

She spotted the house, another of the many symmetrical brick residences with carvings, a portico, and a mansard roof. Lights burned only in the downstairs windows. She scanned the street.

Still quiet.

“Follow me.”

ALFRED HERMANN RARELY SLEPT. HE’D CONDITIONED HIS mind long ago to operate on less than three hours’ rest.

He was not old enough to have personally experienced World War II, though he harbored vivid childhood memories of Nazis parading through the streets of Vienna. In the decades after, he’d actively battled the Soviets and challenged their puppet regimes that had dominated Austria. Hermann money dated from the Hapsburgs and had managed to survive two centuries of volatile politics. During the past fifty years the family fortune had grown tenfold, and much of that success could be traced to the Order of the Golden Fleece. To be intimately associated with such a select group from around the world came with advantages that his father and grandfather had never enjoyed. But to be in charge-that provided even greater benefits.

His tenure, though, was coming to an end.

At his death, his daughter would inherit everything. And the thought was not comforting. True, she was like him in some ways. Bold and determined, and she appreciated the past and coveted, with an enthusiasm similar to his own, that most precious of human commodities-knowledge. But she remained unpolished. A work in progress. One he feared might never be completed.

He stared at his daughter who, like him, slept little. He’d named her Margarete, after his mother. She was admiring the model of the Library of Alexandria.

“Can we find it?” she quietly asked.

He stepped close. “I believe Dominick is near.”

She appraised him with keen gray eyes. “Sabre is not to be trusted. No American should be.”

They’d had this discussion before. “I trust no one.”

“Not even me?”

He grinned. They’d had this discussion before, too. “Not even you.”

“Sabre has too much freedom.”