The Thieves of Faith

by Richard Doetsch

  “I know enough,” Susan raged on, barely controlling her anger. “You care about nothing but yourself, you have no sense of morality. I could see why Stephen would deny knowing you.”

  Michael’s eyes narrowed. “Morality? Listen, for someone sleeping with her boss—”

  Susan slapped Michael across the face. Hard. He didn’t flinch. At first it shocked him and then it enraged him. The room fell silent. She drew back her hand again and swung it around but this time, Michael stopped it, catching her hand in his. He waited a moment and through gritted teeth said, “Listen, I’m sorry about your boyfriend—”

  “He is not my boyfriend.” Susan violently yanked her hand away from Michael and walked across the library. She took a long breath, leaned against the desk, and stared at the picture on the shelf of the young man in a suit standing next to Stephen Kelley.

  “Do you know what it is like to lose someone?” Susan asked, continuing to stare at the picture.

  “Are you kidding me?” Michael said, his own wounds now exposed.

  “To have someone you love suddenly torn from your life, ripped from this earth?”

  Michael just stared at her, unwilling to go into the death of his wife.

  “It’s been almost nine months. Peter was one of those people that could just do it all. Modestly brilliant. Finished high school at sixteen, Harvard at nineteen, Yale Law at twenty-two. But that is all inconsequential next to his heart. He never thought of himself, always putting others first. When his mother died, he was fourteen. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, he let the pain of loss help him to grow and he became even closer to his father. He wasn’t arrogant, didn’t even know the word ‘pride,’ always said we instead of I, never took credit, always shared or deflected it.” A melancholy smile arose on Susan’s face.

  “He was being groomed to take over his father’s business. He followed in his footsteps, spent two years at the DA’s office; in less than five years he had worked in every legal division of his dad’s firm, knew everything better than his mentors. And yet he shunned the titles that his father thrust upon him, deferred credit to those who made lesser contributions. He was one of the truly selfless people in this world.”

  Susan paused a moment, her eyes focused on the pictures of Peter that scattered the shelves. “Every April, Stephen and Peter would stand on Main Street in Hopkinton in the middle of a pack of twenty thousand. Four hours and twenty-six miles later they’d cross the finish line in Boston, side by side, as father and son.” Susan finally looked back at Michael, a sad smile on her face. “And the funny thing…Peter never told his father, he hated running more than anything else.”

  Michael and Busch silently watched the roller coaster of emotions play through Susan’s words.

  “Peter left work late one night, after helping a first-year associate with a brief.” Susan paused, she hung her head, her eyes welling up. “Car hit him head-on, his father could hardly identify the body.

  “Stephen’s pride, his reason for living, his only son died that day. And now you, the antithesis of Peter, the representation of everything he was not, arrive on the front step of this very house, the house that Peter grew up in.”

  Michael said nothing as the phrase cut through his heart.

  “That poor man has spent nine months grieving his son; you’d be cold if you had such a loss. He was just getting it back together.”

  “And what are you? The loyal employee looking to fill the void in her boss’s life?” Michael asked.

  “Actually, no. I was looking out for him as if he was my flesh and blood. Stephen’s my father-in-law. Peter Kelley was my husband.” The tears silently streamed down Susan’s cheeks. “And now, they’re probably going to kill Stephen even if you do what they say.”

  “Probably,” Michael said. He watched the shock of the remark register through the sorrow on Susan’s face. As angry as she made him, he pitied her, he empathized with her pain, her loss. It was a wound that would never truly heal and cause a host of emotions to rise without warning. He looked to Busch, who hung his head, and finally looked back at her and spoke softly. “But I’m not going to let that happen.”

  Busch watched the change in Michael’s demeanor.

  Michael sat on the couch and proceeded to tell Susan exactly what was going on. Michael explained the ransom, the antique box sought by an obsessive, the bounty for the return of Stephen. He told her about Genevieve and Julian, he told of the complications that he would face in the Kremlin. He explained it all. Everything right down to their slim chances.

  “I have to go with you,” Susan said.

  “You have no idea what is involved here.”

  “And you do?” Susan’s tough attitude returned.

  “Far more than you,” Michael answered with a bit of shock.

  “I can’t sit by while you try to get him back.”

  “What could you possibly have to offer?” Michael asked.

  “You may have a map, you may have a great deal of research on where you need to go, but you are lacking in the things I could provide.”

  “What is that?”

  Susan just tilted her head and smiled.

  Chapter 16

  The Boeing Business Jet skidded down the runway, coming to a stop adjacent to a caravan of black SUVs. The private airstrip on the Mediterranean island of Corsica was within the compound known as God’s Truth. It was one of the few private airstrips in Europe, its permit granted on the heels of a heavy donation to the French government.

  Corsica was a jewel in the Mediterranean with a fabled history. The fifty-four-hundred-square-mile island, just west of Italy, was the famed birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte. Due to its strategic location, the mountainous island had fallen under a variety of leaderships from Carthage to the Romans to the Vandals to the Byzantine Empire in 522. Then on to the Arabs, Lombards, and Moors—the country still bearing the Moor’s-head emblem upon its flag—before it found stability with the Genoese in 1284, who, in turn, upon bankruptcy, sold it to France in 1768. Unspoiled by modern development, the island had remained a combination of beaches and forested wilderness that clung to its natural beauty; a perfect location for God’s Truth to conduct its business away from the modern world’s prying media eyes. Its twenty-five-thousand-acre compound stretched from the seaside cliffs to the base of the seven-thousand-foot Monte Cinto and was embraced by the surrounding mountainous forests that were more akin to northern European climates than the Mediterranean beaches of the Corsican coastline.

  Julian emerged from the jet, glancing up at the stars, never taking them for granted, as they represented to him the unknown, mysteries to be unlocked. He headed down the ramp followed by two bodyguards and entered the first SUV. The guards flanked the door and looked up as Stephen Kelley was led from the jet, the black bag over his head but without restraints: his three escorts knew there was no escape. They led him down the ramp, deposited him in the second SUV, and the caravan drove off.

  They circled around the jet and raced for the far gate. It was gold-plated, fifty feet across, and swinging open to welcome its owner. The road of the compound was muted red clay bordered by cobblestone for its three-mile length. It wound through an ancient forest that had been invaded by construction. Julian looked out the SUV’s smoked windows at the myriad buildings. His medical research team was second to none, attracting the greatest minds of the day not only through a highly generous compensation package but with its cutting-edge facilities and freedom to explore even the most out-of-the-box theories. Julian prided himself on the think-tank mentality of his organization. Creative medicine, creative finance, creative religion. He didn’t believe in the staid and traditional. For too long, man had followed the same map. Julian reveled in the exploration of new routes, for they could yield manna from Heaven much as Columbus’s search for a new route to India yielded the unintentionally found New World.

  Julian’s home sat above the compound like a lord overlooking his minions. But it was so much more
than just a home. It was where he conducted business, entertained dignitaries, preached to his followers. It was the center of his empire and the center of his heart. The castle-like structure rose four stories, made from field and quarry stone. Built in 1690, it had served as the summertime palace of the rulers of Genoa, who donated it to the Church in 1767 just before Corsica was purchased by France. It was a last-minute deal by the Genoans to undermine the French while hoping to buy their way into Heaven.

  God’s Truth had acquired what became a monastery and modernized its interior while respecting its heritage. It was over seventy-five-thousand square feet, including ballrooms and vast dining rooms, dungeons and movie theaters, watch towers and a restaurant-sized kitchen. It looked out over the Mediterranean, its rear facade blending into the cliff face, sitting two hundred feet above the crashing waves that lapped at the sea wall. On approach from the ocean, it appeared as if God had carved the great castle on the sixth day of Creation for Himself.

  Julian’s SUV pulled under the porte cochere. He emerged and entered his home through the twenty-foot-high wooden doors, their two-inch planking held together by three-inch metal bands that looked as new today as they had when they were formed three hundred years earlier. He headed across the marble foyer and straight to his library, which was tucked back in the southwest corner of his bastion. It was his fortress of solitude, where he did his best thinking, where he felt comfortable in the embrace of his deep rich mahogany walls and his five-thousand-volume collection of books. There was a commotion in the foyer as the three guards guided Stephen Kelley up the grand staircase to the fourth floor, but Julian paid it no mind as he poured himself a Johnnie Walker Blue, its rare whiskey blend soothing as it floated down his throat.

  He had been gone two days. He usually didn’t involve himself in the more clandestine operations of his organization except to give orders, but this was different: this was the most personal of quests.

  The Eternal and The Bequest were both rendered five hundred years in the past. Julian was enraptured by his mother’s fables. He had listened to her stories in his youth about the painting on his wall; stories of angels and Eden, of life and death, Heaven and Hell, of the truth hidden within our souls. Of The Eternal’s long lost sister painting that had vanished from a French collector’s home, whisked away on a World War II night. They were paintings created by a heart touched by God. On a canvas whose heart contained a devil’s secret.

  But as he grew into his teens, she sold off The Eternal to pay for the care of the children, to fund the orphanage’s operation, all of which he never questioned. He believed her with all his heart, the painting was long gone, the cruelest of fates. He never thought to question her; she had never lied to him, never deceived him. After all, she was his mother.

  But as one grows, one learns that there are some truths that are fables and some fables that are truths. For Julian discovered a truth, had come upon it two years earlier during a simple doctor’s visit, when suspicions were raised about his heritage. After a record search and a healthy cash payment, he confirmed the truth: Genevieve did not bear him. He was merely another child dropped on her doorstep, abandoned at birth. His mother had lied to him, always assuring him that he was her only true child, held in higher esteem than any of the others. The nights that she tucked him in, the special times alone away from the orphans, a bond between mother and son. All a lie, all a ruse.

  Julian never understood why. But if she lied about that, it brought everything else into question. His life, his background, who his true family was, and everything she had ever told him. He thought about The Eternal, how it was gone from his world, how it no longer hung in his mother’s home. Now that he knew she was capable of such a great deception, he didn’t question his conclusion: somehow he knew…she never sold the painting.

  Mixed emotions, rage had filled him. But it was her lie, the fable of his birth, that made him conclude that if some truths were fables then some fables might, in fact, be truths.

  And so Julian brought his resources to bear in a quest. He began his search in earnest, a simultaneous venture to find both Govier paintings. Tens of millions spent on an obsessive pursuit, for reasons only he knew.

  Julian walked to his oversized desk, opened the center drawer, and pulled out an accordion folder. He thumbed through reams of documents on his mother: bank statements, phone records, photographs. Genevieve had been under his continual surveillance for two years, right up until the time of her disappearance. Though they no longer spoke, Julian knew everything about her: her business, her friends, her bank accounts, even the names of each of the children she was raising. So when it came time to pressure her into revealing where the painting from his youth truly was, he knew every point to press. And when she remained silent, refused to cooperate, to speak to the son she hadn’t spoken to in years, he dismantled her world quicker than anyone could have imagined. And yet his mother did not fold, she did not cave. She merely fled to the mountains where she died—but her death was simply another fable.

  And while he suspected that she still possessed The Eternal, or at least knew of its whereabouts, turning her world upside down in his search, it was the sister painting, The Bequest, that appeared first; found on the black market, it subsequently drew his greater focus.

  And as Julian ruminated on the matter, he looked up at the enormous portrait that hung above the car-sized fireplace. His mother looked out on the world with those caring eyes, the same eyes that comforted Julian in his youth. But to him, during the last two years, those eyes changed; they were deeper, more mysterious, carrying a world of secrets, a world of betrayal. Where they had been a window before, allowing her caring soul to shine forth, they had grown dark, as if a shadow fell across them, across her soul, hiding her true self from the world. They were inexplicably linked: the paintings, the golden box, and Genevieve. Julian didn’t know how but he had his suspicions; she wasn’t just hiding her maternal fallacy, hiding away pieces of fine art, she was hiding away secrets that ran deeper than anyone could fathom.

  She had died on the mountain in Italy. But that was just another one of her stories. His men had seen her. They saw her terrified eyes as they stood before their pickup trucks, their rifles raised, the gun sights fixed on the Buick as it raced down a bridge toward them. They had watched as she crashed through the rail, hitting the water in a cascade.

  Julian raised his glass in a silent toast to his mother, to her beauty, her intelligence, to her secretive nature. She was taken from him, kidnapped before his men could kidnap her, but that would only delay their reunion. Despite all her lies, all her deceit, Julian loved her as all sons love their mothers. He wanted her back, he needed her back, and what her kidnappers didn’t know was they crossed a very dangerous line.

  He heard the ransom demand and laughed; he thought about it for the duration of his flight from the United States. He had no intention of paying it within five days; he had no intention of paying it at all. In fact, he couldn’t; despite his billions, it was the one ransom he did not possess. But that was of no matter, it would not change the outcome, in spite of the threat to his mother’s life, there was no question, no doubt in his mind, that he and his mother would be reunited. The kidnappers tried to play his heartstrings but he knew that game better than anyone, he had years of practice bending people to his will, playing their emotions, making them see the light; after all, he was a preacher, he was a man of God.

  And with God on his side he would get his mother back, then he would kill those who dared to cross him, he would find their families, their children, their friends…and he would kill them all.

  Chapter 17

  Stephen Kelley stepped out on the balcony and looked out at the sea, its vast expanse accentuating his insignificance. As he looked about the topography he was unable to discern his location, but the steep cliff face below his windows and the crystal-blue water confirmed one thing: he was not in America.

  He thought his life had skidded out of
control even before today’s events. He thought his existence surely could not be any worse than it had been. His son Peter, the source of his greatest pride, had been taken from him nine months earlier.

  And now Stephen sat here as ransom, as bait, his life in the hands of the son he abandoned at birth. A son who grew into a criminal.

  Kelley carried the heaviest of burdens for giving up his first child. He had not done it out of fear or selfishness. In fact, it was an act of great selflessness. He and his first wife, Jane, were childhood sweethearts, both from troubled homes, who had been striving to break the mold, the curse of their lineage. Though they were both from the street, they still worked hard in school and were looking forward to attending college once they were able to scrape the money together. Jane’s unexpected pregnancy had, as could be expected, startled them. They were both Catholic and viewed abortion as a non-option. They quickly married without a single member of their families willing to attend, and moved into a small apartment on West Broadway on the south side. Stephen worked days at the docks loading and unloading ships and spent his nights at the local gym as a sparring partner for the upcoming Golden Glove contenders. Jane waitressed double shifts right up to her due date. They were both socking away the money and come fall, Stephen would start his education at Boston College. The plan was for Stephen to get his degree first and upon his completion, Jane would follow. They would juggle baby responsibilities and work. They were in love and though they knew the coming years would be difficult, they were looking forward to the arrival of their baby. Somehow they would make it all work, a life for themselves and their unborn child.

  On March 15, Jane had gone into labor early in the morning as predicted, and everything was on track. But it all changed that afternoon. Stephen was there in the delivery room, the nurses imploring Jane to breathe and push. They could see the crown of the baby’s head. The mixed emotions that Stephen felt watching his wife in such agony, in such pain, to bring their child into the world were like nothing he had ever experienced.