The 9th Man

Contents
 
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Acknowledgments
 Dedication
 Epigraph
 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
 10
 11
 12
 13
 14
 15
 16
 17
 18
 19
 20
 21
 22
 23
 24
 25
 26
 27
 28
 29
 30
 31
 32
 33
 34
 35
 36
 37
 38
 39
 40
 41
 42
 43
 44
 45
 46
 47
 48
 49
 50
 51
 52
 53
 54
 55
 56
 57
 58
 59
 60
 61
 62
 63
 64
 65
 66
 67
 68
 69
 70
 71
 72
 73
 74
 75
 76
 77
 Writers’ Note
 Discover More
 About the Authors
 
 Also by Steve Berry
 
 Novels
 
 
 Also by Grant Blackwood
 
 Novels
 
 
 
 Navigation
 
 
 
 
 
 Table of Contents
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
 Copyright © 2023 by Steve Berry
 Cover design by Eric Fuentecilla
 Cover photograph of Kennedy by Bettmann/Getty Images
 Cover copyright © 2023 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
 Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
 The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the authors’ rights.
 Grand Central Publishing
 Hachette Book Group
 1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104grandcentralpublishing.comtwitter.com/grandcentralpub
 First edition: June 2023
 Grand Central Publishing is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Grand Central Publishing name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
 The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
 The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to hachettespeakersbureau.com or email [email protected].
 Grand Central Publishing books may be purchased in bulk for business, educational, or promotional use. For information, please contact your local bookseller or the Hachette Book Group Special Markets Department at [email protected].
 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 Names: Berry, Steve, 1955– author. | Blackwood, Grant, author.
 Title: The 9th man / Steve Berry and Grant Blackwood.
 Other titles: Ninth man
 Description: First edition. | New York : Grand Central Publishing, 2023.
 Identifiers: LCCN 2022057906 | ISBN 9781538721070 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781538721063 (ebook)
 Subjects: LCGFT: Thrillers (Fiction) | Novels.
 Classification: LCC PS3602.E764 A614 2023 | DDC 813/.6—dc23/eng/20221212
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022057906
 ISBNs: 9781538721070 (hardcover), 9781538757352 (Canadian edition), 
 9781538721063 (ebook)
 E3-202305023-NF-DA-ORI
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Acknowledgments
 
 Our sincere thanks to Ben Sevier, senior vice president and publisher of Grand Central. Also to Wes Miller, our editor, whom we’ve greatly enjoyed working with. Then to Tiffany Porcelli for her marketing expertise; Staci Burt, who handled publicity; all those who created the cover and made the interior of the book shine; and everyone in sales and production who made sure there was both a book and that it was widely available. Thank you, one and all.
 A deep bow goes to Simon Lipskar and Dan Conaway, our agents and friends, who make everything possible.
 Writing is usually a solitary endeavor. This book was a little different in that we each had to work with the other, as a team. Grant had done that before, cowriting with Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, and James Rollins on full-length novels (scoring a #1 New York Times bestseller for Dead or Alive with Clancy). Steve had only done it with M. J. Rose on the Cassiopeia Vitt novellas. Thankfully, we get along great and the experience was wonderful. So much so that there will be two more Luke Daniels adventures coming.
 But back to that solitary endeavor.
 Let us tell you a story.
 Vera Slonim married Vladimir Nabokov in 1925. He was a promising writer whose poetry she adored, the son of a well-known Russian politician. She was a Jewish lawyer’s daughter. Both fled communist Russia, eventually settling in the United States.
 Their union was special, one that annoyed Nabokov’s relatives since he trusted Vera to do everything. She even wrote to publishers on his behalf and answered all of his calls and correspondence. They kept a common diary in a single book. The Nabokovs always appeared in public together. When Vladimir taught at Cornell University, Vera sat beside him at all of his lectures. They were inseparable. Of course, gossip abounded. Some said Vera was really the writer, not the muse. This came from Vera always being seen behind the typewriter. In reality, Vladimir could write anywhere except sitting at a desk. He liked to say that “the car is the only place in America where it’s quiet.” Vera, who also was his driver, would take him deep into the woods and leave him alone to write.
 Eventually, Vladimir Nabokov became noted for complex plots, clever wordplay, daring metaphors, and lyrical prose. He gained both fame and notoriety with his novel Lolita (1955). This, and his other books, particularly Pale Fire (1962), won him a place among the greatest novelists of the twentieth century.
 But he always made one thing clear.
 
 Without my wife, I would never write a single book.
 
 If not for Vera, Lolita would have been destroyed, since she repeatedly saved the manuscript from the trash cans in which Vladimir would throw it. She was his inspiration, editor, and first reader. Every one of his books was dedicated to her. After his death she spent the rest of her life managing his estate, even at the age of eighty translating one of his works into Russian. As Vladimir Nabokov himself said he would have been nowhere