The Jefferson Key by Steve Berry Page A

Central Station. They were led there by a radio alert. You wouldn’t know who provided that information, would you?”
    “Why do you ask questions you already know the answer to?”
    “What if Malone had failed?”
    “He didn’t.”
    She’d hired him to stop the assassination attempt, telling him she could not trust the assignment to anyone in-house. She’d also told him that her agency was on the budgetary chopping block, the official word being that it would be eliminated in the next fiscal year. He had little sympathy for her. He’d been eliminated eight fiscal years ago.
    “I did what you asked,” he said.
    “Not exactly. But close enough.”
    “Time for me to go home.”
    “Don’t want to stick around and see what happens? You realize, Jonathan, that if NIA is hacked from the budget you’ll lose money, too. I think I’m the only one who still employs you on a regular basis.”
    No matter. He’d survive. He always had.
    She motioned at his wristwatch. A Rolex Submariner. “You like it?”
    What was not to like? Gilt-faced. Gold lettering. Accurate to a tenth of a second on a battery that lasted practically forever. A gift to himself a few years ago after a particularly lucrative assignment.
    He stared hard into her dark eyes.
    “Do you know how the Swiss rose to be such superb watchmakers?” she asked.
    He said nothing.
    “In 1541 Geneva outlawed jewelry on religious grounds, so the jewelers were forced to learn a new trade—watchmaking. Over time they became good at it. During World War I, when foreign competition had factories either seized or destroyed, the Swiss thrived. Today they produce half of the world’s watches. The Geneva seal is the gold standard by which all others are judged.”
    So what?
    “Jonathan, you and I are not the gold standard of anything any longer.”
    Her gaze bore into his eyes.
    “But just like those Swiss jewelers, I have an exit strategy.”
    “I wish you well with it. I’m done.”
    “Don’t want to play with Malone anymore?”
    He shrugged. “Since no one shot him, that will have to wait for another day.”
    “You really are nothing but trouble,” she said. “That’s what the other agencies say about you.”
    “Yet they seem to come my way when they get their asses stuck in deep cracks.”
    “Maybe you’re right. Go back to Florida, Jonathan. Enjoy yourself. Play golf. Walk on the beach. Leave this business to the grownups.”
    He ignored her insults. He had her money and he’d done his job. Winning a war of words meant nothing to him. What
did
interest him was that they were being observed. He’d spotted the man on the subway and confirmed his presence when the same face reappeared at street level in Union Square. He was currently positioned on the other side of Broadway, a hundred yards away.
    And not being all that subtle.
    “Good luck, Andrea. Perhaps you’ll fare better than I did.”
    He left her standing in the doorway and did not glance back.
    Twenty yards away a car wheeled around the corner and headed straight for him.
    It stopped and two men emerged.
    “Do you think you could be a good boy and come quietly?” one of the men asked.
    Wyatt was unarmed. Carrying a weapon around the city would have proved problematic, especially in the charged atmosphere he knew would be present after the assassination attempt.
    “Some people want to talk to you,” the man said.
    He turned back.
    Carbonell was gone.
    “We’re not with her,” one of the men said. “In fact, the chat is about her.”

TWELVE

    MALONE WAITED WITH EDWIN DAVIS INSIDE AIR FORCE ONE and watched the spectacle below. The press had been allowed onto the asphalt and were now crowded ten-deep behind a hastily erected rope barricade, cameras pointed toward a crop of microphones that sprouted before Danny Daniels. The president stood tall, his baritone voice booming to the world.
    “What did he mean that
we
have a problem?” Malone asked Davis.
    “The past few months have