COPENHAGEN
10:30 PM
DE ROQUEFORT APPROACHED THE BOOKSHOP. THE PEDESTRIANS-ONLY street out front was deserted. Most of the district's many cafes and restaurants were blocks away--this part of the Stroget closed for the night. After tending to his two remaining chores, he planned to leave Denmark. His physical description, along with those of his two compatriots, had now most likely been obtained from witnesses in the cathedral. So it was important that they linger no longer than necessary.
He'd brought all four of his subordinates from Roskilde with him and planned to supervise every detail of their action. There'd been enough improvising for one day, some of which had cost the life of one of his men earlier at the Round Tower. He did not want to lose anyone else. Two of his men were already scouting the rear of the bookshop. The other two stood ready at his side. Lights burned on the building's top floor.
Good.
He and the owner needed to talk.
MALONE GRABBED A DIET PEPSI FROM THE REFRIGERATOR AND walked down four flights of stairs to the ground floor. His shop filled the entire building, the first floor for books and customers, the next two for storage, the fourth a small apartment that he called home.
He'd grown accustomed to the cramped living space, enjoying it far better than the two-thousand-square-foot house he'd once owned in north Atlanta. Its sale last year, for a little over three hundred thousand dollars, had netted him sixty thousand dollars to invest into his new life, one offered to him by, as Stephanie had early chided, his new Danish benefactor, an odd little man named Henrik Thorvaldsen.
A stranger fourteen months ago, now his closest friend.
They'd connected from the beginning, the older man seeing in the younger something--what, Malone was never sure, but something--and their first meeting in Atlanta one rainy Thursday evening had sealed both of their futures. Stephanie had insisted he take a month off after the trial of three defendants in Mexico City--which involved international drug smuggling and the execution-style murder of a DEA supervisor who happened to be a personal friend of the president of the United States--had resulted in carnage. Walking back to court during a lunch break, Malone had been caught in the crossfire of an assassination, an act wholly unrelated to the trial, but something he'd tried to stop. He'd come home with a bullet wound to his left shoulder. The final tally from the shooting--seven dead, nine injured, one of the dead a young Danish diplomat named Cai Thorvaldsen.
"I came to speak with you in person," Henrik Thorvaldsen had said.
They were sitting in Malone's den. His shoulder hurt like hell. He didn't bother to ask how Thorvaldsen had located him, or how the older man knew that he understood Danish.
"My son was precious to me," Thorvaldsen said. "When he joined our diplomatic corps I was thrilled. He asked for the assignment to Mexico City. He was a student of the Aztecs. He would have made a worthy member of our Parliament one day. A statesman."
A swirl of first impressions raced through Malone's mind. Thorvaldsen was certainly high bred with an air of distinction, at once elegant and rakish. But the sophistication was in stark contrast to a deformed body, his spine humped in a grotesque exaggeration and stiff, shaped like an egret. A leathery face suggested a lifetime of impossible choices, the wrinkles more like deep clefts, the crow's-feet sprouting legs, liver spots and forked veins discoloring the arms and hands. Pewter-colored hair was piled thick and bushy and matched the eyebrows--dull silver wisps that made the older man look anxious. Only in the eyes was there passion. Gray-blue, strangely clairvoyant, one flawed from a star-shaped cataract.
"I came to meet the man who shot my son's killer."
"Why?" he asked.
"To thank you."
"You could have called."
"I prefer to face my listener."
"At the moment, I prefer to be left alone."
"I understand you were nearly killed."
He shrugged.
"And you are quitting your job. Resigning your commission. Retiring from the military."
"You know an awful lot."
"Knowledge is the greatest of luxuries."
He was not impressed. "Thanks for the pat on the back. I have a hole in my shoulder that's throbbing. So since you've said your peace, could you leave?"
Thorvaldsen never moved from the sofa. He simply stared around at the den and the surrounding rooms visible through an open archway. Every wall was sheathed in books. The house seemed nothing but a backdrop for the shelves.
"I love them, too," his guest said. "My home is likewise full of books. I've collected them all my life."
He could sense that this man, sixty-plus years old, was given to grandiose tactics. He'd noticed when answering the door that he'd arrived via a limousine. So he wanted to know, "How did you know I speak Danish?"
"You speak several languages. I was proud to learn that my native tongue was one."
Not an answer, but had he really expected one?
"Your eidetic memory must be a blessing. Mine has gone the way of age. I can hardly remember much anymore."
He doubted that. "What do you want?"
"Have you considered your future?"
He motioned around the room. "Thought I'd open an old-book shop. Got plenty to sell."
"Excellent idea. I have one for sale, if you'd like it."
He decided to play along. What the hell. But there was something about the tight points of light in the old man's eyes that told him his visitor was not joking.
Hard flinty hands searched a suit coat pocket and Thorvaldsen laid a business card on the sofa.
"My private number. If you're interested, call me."