The Jefferson Key by Steve Berry

AND STEPPED INTO UNION Square. Not as bustling as Times or Herald, or as high-toned as Washington, to him Union possessed its own personality, attracting a more eclectic crowd.
    He’d watched as Cotton Malone had been wrestled into custody inside Grand Central, then led from the terminal. But he wouldn’t stay a captive long. Not once Danny Daniels learned that one of his fair-haired boys had been involved—and Malone was definitely a member of that exclusive club.
    He crossed 14th Street and walked south, down Broadway, toward the Strand—four floors of overstock, used, rare, and out-of-print books. He’d chosen the location for the meeting in deference to his adversary, whom he knew loved books. Personally, he despised the things. Never read a novel in his life. Why waste time on lies? Occasionally he did consult a nonfiction volume or two, but he preferred the Internet or simply asking someone. What all the fascination was with words on paper he’d never understand. And why people would hoard the things by the ton, treasuring them as they would a precious metal, made no sense whatsoever.
    He caught sight of his contact.
    She stood on the sidewalk, perusing carts of dollar books that lined the Strand’s Broadway storefront. Her reputation was one for being sharp-eyed, distant, and coy. A bit difficult to work with. Which was in stark contrast with her physical appearance, her curvy figure, black hair, dark eyes, and swarthy complexion representative of a Cuban ancestry.
    Andrea Carbonell had commanded the NIA for more than a decade. The agency was a holdover from the Reagan years, when it had been responsible for some of the country’s best intelligence coups. CIA , NSA , and just about every other agency had hated them. But the NIA’s glory days were over, and now it seemed just another annoying multimillion-dollar line item in the black-ops budget.
    Danny Daniels had always preferred the Magellan Billet, headed by another one of his fair-haired favorites, Stephanie Nelle. Her twelve agents had accomplished many of the country’s recent successes—ferreting out the treason of Daniels’ first vice president, stopping the Central Asian Federation, eliminating the Paris Club, even effecting a peaceful transition of power in China. And all without ever contracting for any services from Wyatt. The Magellan Billet worked internally with no outside help.
    Except for Cotton Malone, of course.
    Nelle hadn’t seemed to mind recruiting her glamour boy when necessary. He knew that Malone had been involved with nearly all of the Billet’s notable efforts. And, according to his sources, had worked for free.
    The idiot.
    Wyatt had received his call from Andrea Carbonell three weeks ago.
    “Do you want the job?” she asked him
.
    “What you’re asking may not be possible,” he told her
.
    “For you? No way. Everything is possible for the Sphinx.”
    He hated the nickname, which referred to his tendency toward silence. He’d long ago acquired the skill of being in a conversation, saying nothing, yet appearing fully part of it. The tactic unnerved most listeners, nudging them to talk more than they ever would ordinarily
.
    “Is my price acceptable?” he asked
.
    “Perfectly.”
    He kept walking, passing the dollar carts, knowing that Carbonell would follow. He turned the corner and headed east on 12th Street for half a block, ducking inside the doorway of a closed business.
    “Daniels is fine,” Carbonell said as she drew close.
    He was glad to hear that. Mission accomplished.
    “How close were you going to cut that?” she asked.
    “Where is Daniels?”
    He saw she did not appreciate the inquiry, but then again he didn’t appreciate her tone.
    “At JFK . Inside Air Force One. I heard before I got here he’s about to make a statement. Let the world see he’s okay.”
    He decided to answer her question now. “I did my job.”
    “And that meant involving Cotton Malone? The Secret Service grabbed him in Grand