The Admiral's Mark

He shook his friend’s hand and thanked him again.

“No problem, mon. I glad you come. We solve everything.”

Not quite everything, but enough.

He handed Dubois $500. “Fix that engine, okay?”

“Ah, mon. This be too much. Way too much.”

“It’s all I have or I’d give you more.”

They said their goodbyes and he entered the terminal, checking in for his flight.

Matt Schwartz waited for him just before the security checkpoint.

“I didn’t think you’d let me leave without saying goodbye,” he told the Israeli.

“Did you find the page?”

He nodded.

“I thought you might. We wondered why you went back out on the boat.”

“What happened to Simon?”

“Went straight to the airport and is long gone.”

“Probably thinking that I had help in the citadelle.”

“That was the idea. Can I have the page?”

“I assume you’re not going to let me leave with it?”

“Payment for the favor I did you with Dubois.”

He reached into his back pocket and removed the curled page, still in its plastic bag. He’d broken the bottle to free it. The sheet was filled with nineteen lines of writing in faded black ink, along with the mark of the Admiral, just as Simon had described.

“Can we at least be provided with a copy?” he asked.

“I don’t suppose you would take my word that none of this is important to anything related to America.”

“It’s not my nature.”

“Then that copy you made on the way here should alleviate all of your government’s fears.”

He assumed Schwartz knew they’d stopped at the hotel on the way to the airport.

He handed the page over and said, “Any idea what this is? I speak several languages, but I can’t read it. Simon said it was Old Castilian.”

The Israeli shrugged. “Our people will translate it, as I’m sure will yours.”

“Simon killed a man for it.”

“I know. Which makes us all wonder. But people higher up than me will deal with this now.”

He understood. “Being at the bottom of the pile does come with disadvantages.”

Schwartz smiled. “I like you, Malone. Maybe we’ll see each other again.”

“Maybe so.”

The Israeli gestured with the bag. “Something tells me we’ve not seen, or heard, the last of Zachariah Simon.”

He agreed.

“All we can hope,” Schwartz said, “is that next time he’s someone else’s problem.”

“You got that right.”

And he headed for home.

About the Author

Steve Berry is the New York Times bestselling author of The Columbus Affair, The Jefferson Key, The Emperor’s Tomb, The Paris Vendetta, The Charlemagne Pursuit, The Venetian Betrayal, The Alexandria Link, The Templar Legacy, The Third Secret, The Romanov Prophecy, The Amber Room, and the short stories “The Balkan Escape” and “The Devil’s Gold.” His books have been translated into forty languages and sold in fifty-one countries. He lives in the historic city of St. Augustine, Florida. He and his wife, Elizabeth, have founded History Matters, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving our heritage. To learn more about Steve Berry and the foundation, visit www.steveberry.org.

Read on for an excerpt from

THE

COLUMBUS

AFFAIR

by

STEVE BERRY