“Shouldn’t we be leaving?” she asked.
Danny stood. “I need to get back to the White House, before things get going for the day there.”
His voice had grown low and tired.
“Here’s the deal, Stephanie. Mellon fashioned some sort of hunt. Something that would be, to use his words, the end of FDR. He provided the code and a starting point, but FDR, being the arrogant prick he was, crumpled it up and threw it away. We now know that crumpled sheet still existed in April 1945, when FDR died, and that it was given to Morgenthau at Treasury.”
She heard what he hadn’t said. “But it wasn’t among the papers you read yesterday.”
He shook his head. “No, it wasn’t.”
Which begged several other questions. But she held those for now and asked, “Why would Mellon hide something away that was so potentially harmful, and then give FDR a way to find it? If he hated the president, just use it and be done with it.”
“It’s like what Finley wrote in his diary. Mellon was a patriot. He hated FDR, but not America. He hid away what he had, then gave his enemy a way to find it solely for torment. He actually wanted FDR to find it. Surely, if it’s as bad as Mellon said, Roosevelt would have destroyed it. No harm done, except that FDR would have skipped to Mellon’s beat. For men with egos like those two, that was more than enough satisfaction. Today we do the same thing. We torment our enemies in the media, or on the Internet, or the social networks. We let ’em twist in the wind, just enough to drive ’em nuts.”
And she had no doubt that Danny spoke from experience.
“But Mellon overestimated his importance,” she said, “and FDR didn’t take the bait.”
“Not soon enough, anyway, as Tipton told us earlier. It seems that on the day he died, nine years after the fact, FDR had finally decided to pay attention. The problem for us is that it’s still out there, waiting for our enemies to find.” He paused, seemingly in thought, then asked, “You really think what’s on that paper is a code?”
“It sure sounds like it, and makes sense.”
“Then we have to find that missing crumpled sheet.”
THIRTY-ONE
ADRIATIC SEA Malone watched as Kim left with the black Tumi case. He debated what to do. Go after it? Or stay here? Howell’s face was thick with concern. Clearly, whatever had just happened was way over that man’s head. Since there was no place for Kim to go aboard the ferry, he decided to stick with Howell and see what could be learned. He rose, walked across the room, and sat at Howell’s table.
“Who the hell are you?” Howell eyed him with an innate suspicion. Then recognition came to the younger man’s face. “Ah, crap. You’re government. What? IRS? FBI?”
“Neither. But I am a guy who can help. What just happened?”
“Does the whole damn world know what I’m doing? How did you find me?”
They were attracting attention.
“Keep your voice down, okay? And don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. What did Kim want?”
“Who’s Kim?”
“The guy who was just here. Kim Yong Jin.”
“Who is that?”
“Not someone you want to mess with.”
“You here to take me in?”
“That was the original plan, but things have changed. Paul Larks is dead.” He saw that Howell had not known that. “Kim killed him.”
Howell appeared both frustrated and scared. “This is getting way out of hand. You may not believe this, but I have no idea who that Korean is. He and I emailed some, but he used an alias. What does he want with me?”
“Actually, I can believe all of that. But I need to know what’s in that satchel?”
“Look … what’s your name?”
“Cotton Malone.”
Howell threw him an odd look. “How’d you get a tag like that?”
“Long story, and we don’t have the time. Answer my question.”
“That guy Kim has Jelena, my girlfriend. He said he’d kill her if I didn’t hand over the satchel. She’s an innocent here. We met in Croatia. That’s where I’ve been hiding. She was just doing me a favor. Larks bought my ticket for that cruise, but I changed it into her name.”
He doubted Larks bought anything. More likely Kim had financed the whole venture as a way to gather the players in one place.
“What’s in the satchel?” he repeated.
“Proof of a conspiracy that will bring America to its knees.”
“That’s a bold statement.”
“Who do you work for?’
“Justice Department.”
“I can’t let anything happen to Jelena. She doesn’t deserve this. He said he was coming back after he looked over the documents.”
He zeroed tight on Howell’s eyes and said for the last time, “Tell me what’s in that satchel.”
*
Kim entered the cabin Hana had booked for them. It came with twin beds and a small bathroom with shower. They were both traveling on false passports, under aliases, which he’d obtained in Macao. He liked the ability to move about the world unobstructed and, compared with the time he’d tried to gain entry into Japan years ago, the state of the art in forgeries was far superior. Besides, no one paid him any attention.
“How is our guest?” he asked.
Hana pointed to the bed where the woman lay, laboring under the effects of the same drug used on Malone and Larks. He found it so much easier to travel with drugs as opposed to guns. No one ever questioned them. Most people today carried small pharmacies around with them.
“She was no trouble,” Hana said.
They were two decks down from the dining salon, toward the bow. He saw she noticed the satchel, and he smiled at their success.
“Time for us to see if all this was worth it.”