Three Tales From the World of Cotton Malone (4 page)

He gave her a slight bow. “Most respectful.”

This man had saved her life. She owed him.

“Thanks,” she said. “For everything.”

He pointed to what she thought was west. “Village is not far. You can make it there on foot and find your way back to Sofia. I go this way.” He pointed south. “My wife waits for me.”

“You must love her so much.”

“I do. She is with child. My child. I hope it is a son.”

He extended a hand, which she shook.

“Too bad about tomb,” he said. “Probably destroyed.”

She shrugged. “Not necessarily. It's been there a long time. We'll come back and dig it out.”

He nodded. “Good-bye. Take care.”

She watched as he trotted off toward a thick stand of trees. She couldn't just let him leave. “Comrade Sokolov.”

He stopped and turned.

“I can get you out of the country,” she said. “You'll need some money. I can make it easier.”

He shook his head. “Getting away from those men inside mountain. That was what I need your help for. I am okay. We both get what we want.”

That they did.

“You take care, too,” she said to him.

He smiled. “Who knows? Maybe one day you return favor.”

Maybe so, she thought.

Bulgaria has always interested me. It's a fascinating country tucked against the Black Sea, deep in the Balkans. I visited in 2007 and decided that one day it would appear in a story. Though its debut has come in a piece of short fiction, the locale will definitely return in a future novel.

Thracians are intriguing. The culture existed, as depicted in the story. It rose, thrived, then was absorbed by conquerors. Unfortunately, Thracians developed no written language and left only their tombs as reminders of their existence. Several hundred of those tombs have been located, many containing a vast array of gold and silver objects. The Valley of the Thracian Kings, in central Bulgaria, is real and worth a visit. This tomb, in the southern Rila mountains, was my concoction. But it is accurately depicted, as is the surrounding geography.

This story is a prequel.

When Lev Sokolov trots off after Cassiopeia Vitt thanks him for saving her life, his final comment to her is prophetic.

Five years later they will meet again.

That tale is told in
The Emperor's Tomb
.

S
ANTIAGO
, C
HILE

W
EDNESDAY
, M
AY
2

T
HREE
W
EEKS
A
GO

Jonathan Wyatt decided to wait before killing his target.

He'd followed Christopher Combs all across Chile, from one isolated village to the next, up into the mountains and back to the capital, wondering what the lying SOB was doing. To avoid exposure he'd stayed loose, well back from Combs, not making contact with any of the people his adversary had visited. Now his target was safely ensconced in an executive suite at the Ritz-Carlton—five hundred U.S. dollars a night, which raised a whole host of questions considering Combs' government salary—the reservation confirmed for the next ten days. To add a further insult, Combs was currently lying in the hotel's spa having the kinks in his fifty-eight-year-old back worked out.

Be patient.

That's what he'd told himself for the past eight years.

But it was hard.

Wyatt had been known within the intelligence community as a man of few words. He spoke sparingly, on purpose, which many times
forced others to talk too much. Silence was an acquired art he'd mastered, and he knew what they'd called him behind his back.

The Sphinx.

But he hadn't cared.

And it mattered no longer.

His twenty-year career as an intelligence operative had ended eight years ago.

Thanks to Christopher Combs and Cotton Malone.

The latter brought the charges against him, which the former had assured would be quashed, calling the administrative hearing a mere formality. Two men had died in a bad situation. Malone blamed him for the deaths, calling them unnecessary and sacrificial. He'd resented both allegations. He and Malone had found themselves trapped, under fire, with three agents nearby who could help. He was the senior in charge so he made the call to bring them in, but Malone had objected. So he'd coldcocked Malone with the butt of his revolver and ordered them in anyway.

Malone filed an indictment.

And he hated him for it.

The glory boy of the Magellan Billet and Stephanie Nelle, its director. He'd heard the tales of commendations Malone refused, and
how he could do little to no wrong. Ex-navy commander. Lawyer. Pilot. You name it, Malone could do it.

He'd even made a convincing witness against him.

And the admin board—empowered apparently to second-guess people in the field—heard the testimony of Malone and three others, then ruled that he had indeed acted recklessly.

He was summarily fired with a loss of all benefits.

Chris Combs had been his immediate supervisor. An assistant director soon to be, as Combs had privately boasted, a director. To be sure, Wyatt had verified that Combs was definitely next in line for promotion. He'd worked under Combs for five years, his own successes surely helping to fuel the other's rise. Combs had repeatedly expressed his gratitude and told him that he'd need an assistant director. Twenty years of experience certainly qualified Wyatt. Moving up had always been in the back of his mind.

So the message had been clear.

We rise together.

But at the admin hearing, instead of backing him up, Combs sold him out, testifying that, in his opinion, a finding of recklessness was warranted.

Combs garnered his directorship.

Wyatt had been pink-slipped, spending the past eight years working contract jobs for various intelligence agencies in need of his experience but not his liability. They paid great, but were no substitute.

He wanted his career back. But that was gone.

Revenge?

Seemed that was all he had left.

And he'd been patient. Watching Combs. Waiting for the right moment.

Like now.

Combs had taken two weeks' leave and flown alone to Chile. Doing something outside the agency.

What exactly? He actually wanted to know.

So while Combs enjoyed himself at the Ritz-Carlton, and before he killed the bastard, he decided to find out.

He slowed the rental car as he drove into Turingia. The tiny Chilean hamlet's claim to fame was a popular thermal spring. Placards announced that asthma, bronchitis, digestive disorders, even dry skin could be cured—all of course for a price.

He navigated around a busy central plaza.

An ocher-colored church rose at one end, flanked by an arcade of shops, the quaintness stained only by gangly electric-wire poles. A residential section, west of town, looked more like the English countryside with timbered houses, angled roofs, and flowery trees. He knew about the old woman because a few days ago he'd followed Combs to her house. She lived amid a stand of tall araucaria, their puffy pine boughs stretching toward the sky. The house was a two-story structure longing for paint, its gabled tin roof thick with rust. Two horses grazed within an enclosure. He eased the car down a bumpy lane and parked near a fence trellised with morning glories.

The front door was answered by a birdlike woman with burnished gray-gold hair. Forked veins lined her spindly arms, and liver spots dotted her wrists. She appeared to be pushing seventy, but there was a spry look in her hazel eyes. When he introduced himself her eyebrows rose in apparent amusement and she threw him a smile that featured teeth like a jack-o'-lantern.

She invited him inside, her English laced with German. He sat on a settee upholstered in pink velveteen, while she reclined in an oversized chair draped with a flowered slipcover.

He learned her name was Isabel.

“And what is it you want?” she asked him.

“You had a visitor a few days ago.”

“Oh, yes. He was a lively one.”

“What did he want?”

She studied him with a calculating gaze, a tremor rocking her right eye. Her breaths came in low wheezes. Only the tick of a clock disturbed the tranquility.

“The same as you, apparently,” she said. “You seem like a lively one, too.”

She was playing him. Okay. He could do the same. “Have you lived here a long time?”

“All my life. But my family is from Heidelberg. My parents came here after the war. My father erected this house. Built with one-third heart, one-third hands, one-third understanding.”

He smiled, trying to place her at ease.

“An old German wisdom,” she noted.

“Was your father a solider?”

“Heavens, no. He worked for the postal service. He felt that Germany would never be the same after the war, so he left. I daresay he was right.”

He decided to return to what he wanted to know. “What did Mr. Combs want with you?”

“He showed me two photographs, a man and a woman, and wanted to know if I knew the faces. I told him they once lived near Lago Todos los Santos, at the Argentina border.”

“Why were those pictures so important to him?”

The corners of her eyebrows turned down. “Why is his business yours?”

He decided honesty might work best. “He and I have a debt to settle.”

“I can see that. You try hard to conceal your thoughts, but in your face, your eyes, your meaning is clear. The Brown Eminence was the same.”

He did not understand.

“In France, centuries ago,” she said, “there was the Red Eminence. Cardinal Richelieu, the king's chief minister. Richelieu's assistant, Father Joseph, was known as the Gray Eminence. Like his superior, he was a shadowy figure, both adept at managing power. Red and gray referred to their robes.” She paused. “Brown was the color of Nazi uniforms. Martin Bormann was the Brown Eminence.”

He thought about what he knew of Martin Bormann. Which wasn't much. Hitler's private secretary. The gatekeeper to the Führer. Second most powerful man in the Third Reich.