Steve Berry - The Alexandria Link

“You have to come now,” he yelled.

She finally seemed to accept that there was no choice. As he’d done, she curled herself out the window and grabbed the cornice. Then she leveraged her body out and hung from her arms.

He saw that her eyes were closed. “You don’t have to look. Just move your hands, one at a time.”

She did.

Eight feet of cornice stretched between where he stood and where she was struggling. But she was doing okay. One hand over the other. Then he saw figures below. In the square. The two men were back, this time with rifles.

He whipped the rucksack around and plunged a hand inside, finding his Beretta.

He fired twice at the figures fifty feet below. The retorts banged off the buildings lining the square in sharp echoes.

“Why are you shooting?” Pam asked.

“Keep coming.”

Another shot and the men below scattered.

Pam found the corner. He gave her a quick glance. “Move around and pull yourself my way.”

He searched the darkness but did not see the gunmen. Pam was maneuvering, one hand clamped onto the cornice, the other groping for a hold.

Then she lost her grip.

And fell.

He reached out, gun still in his hand, and managed to catch her. But they both crumpled to the roof. She was breathing hard. So was he.

The cell phone rang.

He crawled for the rucksack, found the phone, and flipped it open.

“Enjoy yourself?” the same voice from before asked.

“Any reason you had to blow up my shop?”

“You’re the one who said he wasn’t leaving.”

“I want to talk to Gary.”

“I make the rules. You’ve already used up thirty-six minutes of your seventy-two hours. I’d get moving. Your son’s life depends on it.”

The line went silent.

Sirens were approaching. He grabbed the rucksack and sprang to his feet. “We have to go.”

“Who was that?”

“Our problem.”

“Who was that?”

A sudden fury enveloped him. “I have no idea.”

“What is it he wants?”

“Something I can’t give him.”

“What do you mean you can’t ? Gary ’s life depends on it. Look around. He blew up your store.”

“Gee, Pam, I wouldn’t have known that if you hadn’t pointed it out.”

He turned to leave.

She grabbed him. “Where are we going?”

“To get answers.”

DOMINICK SABRE STOOD AT THE EAST END OF HØJBRO PLADS and watched Cotton Malone’s bookshop burn. Fluorescent yellow fire trucks were already positioned, and water was being spewed into the flame-filled windows.

So far, so good. Malone was on the move. Order from chaos. His motto. His life.

“They’ve come down from the building next door,” the voice said through his radio earpiece.

“Where did they go?” he whispered into the lapel mike.

“To Malone’s car.”

Right on target.

Firefighters scampered across the square, dragging more hoses, seemingly intent on making sure the flames did not spread. The fire seemed to be enjoying itself. Rare books apparently burned with enthusiasm. Malone’s building would soon be ash.

“Is everything else in place?” he asked the man standing beside him, one of the two Dutchmen he’d hired.

“I checked myself. Ready to go.”

A lot of planning had gone into what was about to occur. He wasn’t sure success was even possible-the goal was intangible, elusive-but if the trail he was following led somewhere, he would be prepared.

Everything, though, hinged on Malone.

His given name was Harold Earl, and nowhere in any of the background material was there an explanation of where the nickname Cotton had originated. Malone was forty-eight, older than Sabre by eleven years. Like him, though, Malone was American, born in Georgia. His mother a native southerner, his father a career military man, a navy commander whose submarine had sunk when Malone was ten years old. Interestingly, Malone had followed in his father’s footsteps, attending the Naval Academy and flight school, then abruptly changed directions, eventually earning a government-paid law degree. He was transferred to the Judge Advocate General’s corps, where he spent nine years. Thirteen years ago he’d changed directions again and moved to the Justice Department and the newly formed Magellan Billet, which handled some of America ’s most sensitive international investigations.

There he remained until last year, retiring early as a full commander, leaving America, moving to Copenhagen, and buying a rare-book shop.

A midlife crisis? Trouble with the government?

Sabre wasn’t sure.

Then there was the divorce. That, he’d studied. Who knew? Malone seemed a puzzle. Though a confirmed bibliophile, nothing in the psychological profiles Sabre had read satisfactorily explained all the radical shifts.

Other tidbits only confirmed his opponent’s competence.

Reasonably fluent in several languages, possessed of no known addictions or phobias, and prone to self-motivation and obsessive dedication, Malone was also blessed with an eidetic memory, which Sabre envied.

Competent, experienced, intelligent. Far different from the fools he’d hired-four Dutchmen with few brains, no morals, and little discipline.

He stayed in the shadows as Højbro Plads crowded with people watching the firefighters go about their job. The night air nipped his face. Fall in Denmark seemed only a quick prelude to winter, and he slipped balled fists inside his jacket pockets.

Torching everything Cotton Malone had worked the past year to achieve had been necessary. Nothing personal. Just business. And if Malone did not deliver exactly what he wanted, he would kill the boy with no hesitation.

The Dutchman beside him-who’d placed the calls to Malone-coughed but continued to stand in silence. One of Sabre’s unbending rules had been made clear from the start. Speak only when addressed. He hadn’t the time or desire for chitchat.

He watched the spectacle for another few minutes. Finally he whispered into the lapel mike, “Everyone stay sharp. We know where they’re headed, and you know what to do.”

4:00 AM

MALONE PARKED HIS CAR IN FRONT OF CHRISTIANGADE, HENRIK Thorvaldsen’s mansion that rose on the Danish Zealand east coast adjacent to the Øresund sea. He’d driven the twenty miles north from Copenhagen in the late-model Mazda he kept parked a few blocks from his bookshop, near the Christianburg Slot.

After finding their way down from the roof, he’d watched as firefighters tried to contain the blaze roaring through his building. He’d realized that his books were gone, and if the flames didn’t devour every last one, heat and smoke would do irreparable damage. Watching the scene, he’d fought a rising anger, trying to practice what he’d learned long ago. Never hate your enemy. That clouded judgment. No. He didn’t need to hate. He needed to think.

But Pam was making that difficult.

“Who lives here?” she asked.

“A friend.”

She’d tried to pry information from him on the drive, but he’d offered little, which only seemed to fuel her rage. Before he dealt with her, he needed to communicate with someone else.

The dark house was a genuine specimen of Danish baroque-three stories, built of sandstone-encased brick, and topped with a gracefully curving copper roof. One wing turned inland, the other faced the sea. Three hundred years ago a Thorvaldsen had erected it, after profitably converting tons of worthless peat into fuel to produce glass. More Thorvaldsens lovingly maintained it over the centuries and eventually transformed Adelgade Glasvaerker, with its distinctive symbol of two circles with a line beneath, into Denmark ’s premier glassmaker. The modern conglomerate was headed by the current family patriarch, Henrik Thorvaldsen, the man responsible for Malone now living in Denmark.