The Lincoln Myth (5 page)

C
OPENHAGEN
, D
ENMARK

8:40
P.M
.

M
ALONE PILOTED THE BOAT WHILE
L
UKE
D
ANIELS, HIS CLOTHES
soaked from the end of his skydive, kept low to avoid the briskness that raced across the windscreen.

“You a regular jumper?” he asked.

“I’ve got over a hundred in the logbook, but I haven’t landed in the water for a while.”

The younger man pointed at Kirk, who sat huddled near the stern, and yelled over the motor’s roar, “You’re a pain in my ass.”

“Care to tell me why?” Malone asked.

“What did Stephanie tell you?”

Good move, answering a question with a question. “Just that an agent is missing and this guy may know where he is.”

“That’s right. And this one here ran like a scalded dog.”

“And why is that?”

“ ’Cause he’s a snitch. And nobody likes a snitch.” Luke faced Kirk. “When we get to shore you and I are goin’ to have a chat.”

Kirk said nothing.

Luke stepped closer but stayed down out of the wind, knees flexed in response to the pitch and pound. “Tell me, Pappy, are you really as good as everyone says you are?”

“I ain’t as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.”

“You know the song. I love Toby Keith. Saw him in concert about five years ago. Didn’t take you for a country music man.”

“I’m not sure how to take you.”

“Just a humble servant of the U.S. government.”

“That’s my line.”

“I know. Stephanie told me to say that.”

“You understand,” he said, “that plane of yours was about to be sprayed with automatic rifle fire. Charging so low was foolish.”

“I saw the rifle. But he was standing on a swaying boat, and it looked like you needed help.”

“Are you always that reckless?”

He throttled the engine back as they approached the Copenhagen waterfront.

“You got to admit, that was pretty cool flying. Those wheels weren’t, what, six feet off the water.”

“I’ve seen better.”

Luke grabbed his chest in mock pain. “Oh, Pappy, you cut me to the core. I know you were once a navy top gun. A fighter jock. But give me a morsel. Somethin’. After all, I saved your hide.”

“Really now? Is that what you did?”

In another life Malone had worked as one of Stephanie Nelle’s original twelve agents at the Magellan Billet. He was a Georgetown-trained lawyer and a former navy commander. Forty-seven years old now. But he still had his hair, his nerve, and a sharp mind. His sturdy frame bore the scars of being wounded several times in the line of duty, which was one reason why he’d retired early three years ago. Now he owned an old-book shop in Copenhagen, where he was supposed to stay out of trouble.

“Go ahead. Admit it,” Luke said. “It was going to be tough to get away from those guys. I saved your ass.”

He cut the engine and they eased past the Danish royal residence, then the pier at Nyhavn, swinging starboard into a placid canal. He docked just beyond the Christiansborg Palace near a spate
of outdoor cafés where loud patrons were eating, drinking, smoking. The crowded square fifty yards away was Højbro Plads. Home.

The engine quit and he turned, swinging a right uppercut that slammed into Luke’s jaw, dropping the agent to the deck. The youngster shook off the blow and sprang to his feet, ready for a fight.

“First off,” Malone said. “Don’t call me Pappy. Second, I don’t like your cocksure attitude, it can get people killed. Third, who were those men trying to kill us? And, finally”—he pointed at Kirk—“who the hell is he snitching on?”

He caught the look in the younger man’s eyes, which said,
I so want to jostle with you
.

But there was something else.

Restraint.

Not a single one of his questions had been answered. He was being played and didn’t like it. “Is there really a man missing?”

“Damn right. And this guy can show us the way.”

“Give me your phone.”

“How do you know I have one?”

“It’s in your back pocket. I saw it. Magellan Billet issue. One hundred percent waterproof, which they weren’t in my day.”

Luke found the unit and unlocked it.

“Call Stephanie.”

The number was entered.

He gripped the phone and said, “Take Kirk and wait over by that café. I need to speak with her in private.”

“I’m not real keen on takin’ orders from retired guys.”

“Call it repayment for fishing you out of the water. Now go.”

He waited for an answer to his call and watched as Luke and Kirk hopped from the boat. He wasn’t an idiot. He realized that his ex-boss had schooled this upstart on how to handle him. Probably told him to push, but not push him away. Otherwise a hotshot like Luke Daniels would have been all over him. But that would have been okay. He hadn’t had a good fight in a while.

“How long did it take before you punched him?” Stephanie asked after the fifth ring.

“I actually waited a little longer than I should have. And I just killed two bad guys.”

He told her what had happened.

“Cotton, I get it. You don’t have a dog in this fight. But I really do have a missing man, who has a wife and three kids. I need to find him.”

She knew what would work on him.

He spotted Kirk and Luke fifty yards away. He should have waited until they were inside his bookshop to make the call, but he was anxious to know the situation so he kept his voice low, turning back toward the canal away from the cafés.

“Barry Kirk knows things,” she said in his ear. “I need him debriefed, then help me out here. You and Luke go find my agent.”

“Is this frat boy you sent any good?”

“Actually, he never went to college. But if he had, I assure you he wouldn’t have been in any fraternity. Not the type.”

He figured Luke was maybe twenty-seven, twenty-eight, probably ex-military, as Stephanie liked to draw from their ranks. But his lack of respect and reckless moves seemed contrary to any form of institutionalized discipline.

And he wasn’t a lawyer.

But he knew Stephanie had been gradually relaxing that rule for her agents.

“I imagine he’s a handful,” he said into the phone.

“To say the least. But he’s good. Which is why I tolerate his … overconfidence. Kind of like someone else who once worked for me.”

“Those men were right there,” he said to her. “On the water. Ready for us. That means either they were lucky, Johnny-on-the-spot, or somebody knew you called me. Did your missing man know where Kirk was headed?”

“No. We told Kirk to head to Sweden.”

He knew she was asking herself the same question.

How
did
those men know to be there?

“I assume you’re only going to tell me what you think I need to know.”

“You know the drill. This isn’t your operation. Just see about my man, then you’re done.”

“I’ll handle it.”

He ended the call, hopped onto shore, and walked toward Luke, saying, “You got yourself a partner for the night.”

“Do you have a pad and pen I could borrow so I can take notes on what I learn?”

“You always such a smart-ass?”

“You always so warm and friendly?”

“Somebody’s got to see to it the kids don’t get hurt.”

“You don’t have to worry about me, Pappy. I can take care of myself.”

“Thought I told you not to call me that.”

Luke’s back straightened. “Yeah. I heard you. And I gave you, per my orders, one free punch. There won’t be any more freebies.”

His green eyes threw the kid a challenge.

Which seemed to be accepted.

But not now. Maybe later.

He pointed at Kirk. “Let’s hear what this snitch has to say.”

FIVE

A
TLANTA
, G
EORGIA

2:45
P.M
.

S
TEPHANIE
N
ELLE GLANCED AT HER WATCH
. H
ER DAY HAD
started at 6:00
A.M.
—noon in Denmark—and it was far from over. Of her twelve agents, nine were currently on assignment. The other three were cycled off on downtime. Contrary to spy novels and action movies, agents did not work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Most had spouses and children, lives outside of work. Which was good. The job was stressful enough without compounding it with maniacal obsession.

She’d founded the Magellan Billet sixteen years ago. This was her baby, and she’d nursed it through both adolescence and puberty. Now it was a fully grown intelligence team, credited with some of America’s most recent successes.

Right now, though, only one thought filled her mind.

The agent missing in Denmark.

She glanced at the clock on the corner of her desk and realized she’d skipped both breakfast and lunch. Her stomach was growling so she decided to grab a bite in the building’s cafeteria, three floors below.

She left her office.

Everything was quiet.

By design, the Magellan Billet was sparsely staffed. Besides her twelve operatives, the division employed five office staff and three aides. She’d insisted it be kept small. Fewer eyes and ears meant fewer leaks. Never had the Billet’s security been compromised. None of the original twelve agents remained on the payroll—Malone was the last to leave four years ago. On average she replaced a person a year. But she’d been lucky. All of her recruits had been excellent, her administrative problems few and far between.

She exited through the main door and walked toward the elevators.

The building was located in a quiet north Atlanta office park, home also to divisions of the Departments of the Interior and Health and Human Services. At her insistence the Magellan Billet had been intentionally tucked away, nondescript letters on its door announcing
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT TASK FORCE
.

She pressed the button and waited for the elevator to arrive.

The doors opened and a thin man, with a long sharp face and bushy silver hair, strolled out.

Edwin Davis.

Like her, he was career civil service, starting two decades ago at the State Department where three secretaries had used him to whip their ailing departments into line. He possessed a doctorate in international relations and was blessed with an uncanny political sense. A folksy, courteous man people tended to underestimate, he’d been working as a deputy national security adviser when President Danny Daniels elevated him to White House chief of staff.

She instantly wondered what was important enough for Davis to fly five hundred miles from Washington, D.C., unannounced. Her boss was the U.S. attorney general, and protocol mandated that he be included in any chain of communication from the White House.

Yet that had not happened.

Was this business? Or a social call? Davis
was
a close friend. They’d endured a lot together.

“Were you going somewhere?” he asked.

“To the cafeteria.”

“We’ll both go.”

“Am I going to regret this?”

“Possibly. But it has to be done.”

“You realize the last time you and I stood right here, at this same spot, and had a conversation just like this, we both were almost killed.”

“But we won that fight.”

She smiled. “That we did.”

They descended to the cafeteria and found an empty table. She munched on carrot sticks and sipped cranberry juice while Davis downed a bottled water. Her appetite had vanished.

“How is the president?” she asked.

She and Danny Daniels had not spoken in three months.

“He’s looking forward to retirement.”

Daniels’ second term ended soon. His political career was over. But he’d had quite a ride from a small-town Tennessee councilman to two terms as president of the United States. Along the way, though, he lost both a daughter and a wife.

“He’d like to hear from you,” Davis said.

And she’d like to call. But it was better this way. At least until his term was over. “I will. When the time is right.”

She and Daniels had discovered that feelings existed between them, an attachment perhaps born from the many battles they’d endured. Neither of them was sure of anything. But he was still the president of the United States. Her boss. And it was better they keep some distance. “You didn’t come here just to pass that message along. So get to the point, Edwin.”

A crease of amusement touched her friend’s face. She knew he was nearly old enough for Social Security, but his youthful physique cast the pose of a much younger man.

“I understand you’ve drawn some interest from Capitol Hill.”

That she had.

Six written requests for classified data from the Senate Committee on Appropriations had arrived last week. Which wasn’t uncommon.
Congress routinely sought information from the intelligence community. If the particular department or agency was uncooperative, the “requests” were followed by subpoenas, which could not be ignored without a court fight. Public brawls over classified information were rare. Congress had to be placated. After all, they held the purse strings. So usually disputes were privately compromised. These six, though, had not left room for negotiation.