The Lincoln Myth Read Free Page B

threat.
    What to do?
    Malone fired twice. Missed.
    A third shot hit the other craft.
    The man darted right, deciding the boat now posed the greater problem. Malone’s fourth shot found the man’s chest, which propelled the body over the side and into the water.
    The plane roared by, its wheels low and tight.
    Both he and Kirk ducked.
    He grabbed hold of the wheel and slowed the throttle, turning back toward their enemy. They approached from the stern, his gun ready. A body floated in the water, another lay on the deck. Nobody else was on board.
    “Aren’t you a ton of trouble,” he said to Kirk.
    Quiet had returned, only the engine’s throaty idle disturbing the silence. Water slapped both hulls. He should contact some local authority. Swedes? Danes? But with Stephanie and the Magellan Billet involved, he knew partnering with locals was not an option.
    She hated doing it.
    He stared up into the dim sky and saw the Cessna, now back up to a couple thousand feet, making a pass directly over them.
    Someone jumped from the plane.
    A chute opened, catching air, its occupant guiding himself downward in a tight spiral. Malone had parachuted several times and could see that this skydiver knew the drill, banking the canopy, navigating a course straight for them, feet knifing through the water less than fifty yards away.
    Malone eased the boat over and came up alongside.
    The man who hoisted himself aboard was maybe late twenties. His blond hair appeared more mowed than cut, the bright faceclean-shaven and warmed by a wide, toothy smile. He wore a dark pullover shirt and jeans, matted to a muscular frame.
    “That water is cold,” the young man said. “Sure appreciate you waiting around for me. Sorry I was late.”
    Malone pointed to the fading sound of a prop as the plane kept flying east. “Someone on board?”
    “Nope. Autopilot. But there isn’t much fuel left. It’ll fall into the Baltic in a few minutes.”
    “Expensive waste.”
    The young man shrugged. “The dude I stole it from needed to lose it.”
    “Who are you?”
    “Oh, sorry about that. Sometimes I forget my manners.”
    A wet hand was offered.
    “Name’s Luke Daniels. Magellan Billet.”

TWO

    K ALUNDBORG , D ENMARK
    8:00 P.M .
    J OSEPE S ALAZAR WAITED WHILE THE MAN GATHERED HIMSELF . His prisoner lay semi-conscious in the cell, but awake enough to hear him say, “End this.”
    The man lifted his head from the dusty stone floor. “I’ve wondered … for the past three days … how you can be so cruel. You are a believer … in the Heavenly Father. A man … supposedly of God.”
    He saw no contradiction. “The prophets have faced threats as great as or greater than those I face today. Yet they never wavered from doing what had to be done.”
    “You speak the truth,” the angel told him.
    He glanced up. The image floated a few feet away, standing in a loose white robe, bathed in brilliance, pure as lightning, brighter than anything he’d ever seen.
    “Do not hesitate, Josepe. None of the prophets ever hesitated in doing what had to be done.”
    He knew that his prisoner could not hear the angel. No one could, save for him. But the man on the floor noticed that his gaze had drifted to the cell’s back wall.
    “What are you looking at?”
    “A glorious sight.”
    “He cannot comprehend what we know.”
    He faced his prisoner. “I have Kirk.”
    He hadn’t received confirmation yet on what happened in Sweden, but his men had reported that the target was in sight. Finally. After three days. Which was how long this man had lain in this cell, without food or water. The skin was bruised and pale, lips cracked, nose broken, eyes hollow. Probably a couple of ribs broken, too. To increase the torment a bucket of water lay just beyond the bars, within sight but not reach.
    “Press him,” the angel commanded. “He must know that we will not tolerate insolence. The people who sent him must know we will fight. There is much to be done and they