The Thieves of Faith

by Richard Doetsch

  After a moment, someone in doctor’s whites entered the operating room. He was walking slowly but with purpose. He seemed to be listening, closing his eyes for short spells as he took long, unhurried steps. The reed-thin man looked to be in his mid sixties, though Busch couldn’t be sure. His face was craggy, acne-scarred. His stern black eyebrows gave him an authoritarian presence, one that he seemed to project even to an empty room. He walked about, occasionally touching the equipment, examining a drawer full of surgical tools. He was like an actor walking the stage hours before the curtain. Shaking off the jitters, trying to come to terms with his nerves. But this man’s eyes were confident, he carried his body with assurance. There was no doubt: this was the man in charge of the operation.

  He turned right toward the window. Busch and Nikolai reflexively ducked, though the man couldn’t see into the darkened room. He tilted his head, staring at his reflection as Busch had stared just moments before. He was studying himself, pulling in his shirt collar, straightening his tie.

  “It’s Skovokov,” Nikolai whispered. “He’s an arrogant kozel.”

  Skovokov stared at the glass and subtly smiled, chilling Busch’s heart. This was a man who was enamored with his own brilliance, for surely he was not proud of his scary visage that reflected back at him. Nikolai spoke. “Any doctor who desires an audience while he works deserves to be destroyed by his own ego.”

  Busch looked at him, unsure of what he meant by “destroyed.”

  Skovokov turned away from the glass and walked out of the operating room. Both Nikolai and Busch breathed a sigh of relief—

  Then the door to the theater opened. Busch and Nikolai splayed themselves on the upper tier floor. Busch could just see Skovokov enter the room. He walked in several steps and turned to observe his operating area, his stage.

  Busch held his breath, his mind reeling off prayers for deliverance from this moment.

  Skovokov stood at the window, looking out, his right hand in his pocket, his left hand busily scratching the back of his head. Busch could see the glint of a wedding ring and briefly pondered who could possibly love a man like this.

  And just as suddenly, Skovokov walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

  Busch and Nikolai waited three minutes before opening the door just a crack. The air was silent, there was no one about. Nikolai ventured out into the hall and heard the fading whine of the elevator.

  “He’s gone.”

  Nikolai followed Busch down the hall and paused as Busch opened up the half-height elevator door. Busch flipped on his flashlight, hunched his six-foot-four frame, and hopped into the elevator pit. Nikolai jumped in behind him. They both looked up as the elevator cab rose into the darkness of the shaftway. Suddenly, ten feet above their heads, the series of lasers flashed on, moving higher, following the escaping elevator cab. And as the cab was swallowed by the dark, the shaftway became a crisscross mosaic of intersecting red beams.

  “I would say that is not the best route for escape,” Fetisov said.

  Busch turned his attention to the electrical panel and opened it up.

  “You sure you know what you’re doing?” Nikolai asked. “This isn’t exactly your background.”

  Busch ignored Nikolai as he examined the inner workings of the system. “You’re sure they are bringing Genevieve down at six-fifty?”

  “Yeah.” Fetisov nodded. “How do you know what switch we are going to need to throw later?” Nikolai persisted.

  “Listen, you don’t question me and I won’t question how you were able to get all the supplies, particularly the Semtex. And how about all of your intel—Lord knows where that came from.”

  Nikolai thought a moment, then smiled. “Fair enough.” And he took a step back. Busch ran his finger down the schematics taped to the wall and nodded his head. He turned back to the panel, thumbed a large red switch, and smiled with the satisfaction of finding what he was looking for. “This is the one. Just flip it and the cab shuts down.”

  “I guess Michael was right,” Nikolai said as he watched.

  “About?” Busch closed the elevator panel, took one last look upward at the unending barrier of lasers, and climbed out of the elevator pit.

  “Two things, really,” Nikolai said as he followed Busch. “That you may be big but you aren’t dumb.” Nikolai climbed out of the pit and closed the door.

  “Gee, thanks,” Busch said as he shook his head.

  They silently headed down the hall to the air vent tucked two feet below the ceiling. Nikolai pulled it off the wall.

  Busch came up from behind and gave him a leg up into the vent hole. Busch grabbed the edge and squeezed his large body up through the small vent. “And the second thing?” Busch’s voice echoed within the vent shaft.

  “He asked me not to say.”

  Busch glared at him as he pulled and affixed the grate back into place. “Huh? That’s bullshit.”

  Nikolai laughed. “That’s exactly what he said you’d say.”

  Chapter 36

  Michael watched in horror as Susan disappeared, literally, down the drainpipe. Violently yanked into the darkness.

  Without thought, Michael tied back onto the guide line and released himself from the safety line. He did not bother with the descender brake, allowing himself to be sucked with the current down the pipe, the tube walls whizzing by his periphery. He kept his body stiff, his feet pointed for aerodynamics like a luge rider as he raced down the line. His chin remained tucked into his chest to light the way with his helmet lamp but all he saw was darkness. He knew that his line stopped at two hundred and fifty feet—which was one hundred and twenty feet from the cistern entrance. The hash mark lines at ten-foot intervals blurred by. He wasted no time thinking about the what-ifs, only focusing on getting to the end of the line in time to save Susan.

  And then, up ahead, he saw her, pinned against a mass of white sticks and stones. Her body quivered against the current, her regulator out of her mouth, whipping around her body like a headless snake, her right hand frantically trying to grab it. Michael snatched his kernmantle line with his descent brake, slowing himself to a stop inches above her. He grabbed his backup octopus regulator and stuffed it in her mouth. He looked in her panicked eyes as she gulped for air. As her breathing slowed, he caught the regulator that whipped around her head and handed it to her. He held up his hands, motioning calm. He began patting her body, checking her for injuries, and that’s when he noticed them. She was laying on two lifeless divers, their bodies pinned against what he thought was a mass of sticks, but they were not sticks; they were bones, hundreds of them, layers and layers. Tibias, femurs, skulls, all caught against what must be a grate at the end of the pipe. They were stripped clean of flesh and clothing, many of the bones worn down by the constant current. Michael couldn’t imagine how many bodies there were but whoever was sucked down here had no means of escape, held under by the incredible force of the suction.

  Michael turned his attention back to the divers, their eyes glazed in death, their air tanks depleted. A thin rope, an end frayed, danced about next to the bodies as if mocking them in death. Michael’s fear factor went through the roof, not because of where he and Susan were, not because they were in the presence of death, but because he recognized one of the men. It was Lexie, Fetisov’s nephew. Around his waist was a saddlebag, bulky and torn from impact on the pile of bones. It wasn’t a large tear but it was enough for its contents to reflect Michael’s helmet light. It was filled with gold. Michael pulled it off Lexie and squeezed it into his own dive bag.

  Susan slowly turned her head; her body tensed as she realized what she was touching. She grabbed Michael and pulled herself to him. Michael looked her in the eyes and pointed up through the still-rushing waters at the angled pipe. She slowly nodded back in agreement.

  Michael hooked Susan to the line and strapped a safety harness to her. He peered up the pipe, one hundred and twenty feet to safety, and, with all of his strength, pulled. After each
pull, he released his brake chuck and dragged it up the line, unconsciously repeating the strenuous motion. The raging water pressed against his body, resisting his every movement. It was like trying to run into a gale wind, push a tackle sled, crawl through heavy mud. He was not only fighting the terrific current, he was pulling Susan and Lexie’s heavy bag of gold along with him. Though Susan was trying her best to pull herself up the line, she offered little assistance. She was weakened by her treacherous journey down the tube, her body slamming into the bed of bodies and bones.

  Each pull of Michael’s arm took all his strength, his muscles burning, his breathing through his regulator rapid, the large exhaust bubbles sucked downward. Foot by foot, hash mark by hash mark, he climbed. Fifty feet into his journey, he felt as if he couldn’t go on, but knew that was not an option for him or for Susan. At the seventy-five-foot mark, he felt his load lighten as Susan began to pull her weight. At the hundred-foot mark, Michael could see the dark shadow of the cistern entrance up ahead. And with renewed hope, he made the last twenty feet.

  Michael pulled himself into the safety of the adjacent pipe and attached his safety line to the grate once more, checking it four times to be sure it would hold him and Susan. He turned and pulled her into the secure surroundings of the cistern’s pipe. They released themselves from the guide line, and kicked up the pipe.

  They broke the surface and, with tired arms, Michael hauled himself out of the pool. He reached back and with his last bit of energy pulled Susan from the water. They both fell onto the stone floor, spitting out their regulators, gulping the air. They lay there for what seemed to be eternity, their eyes closed, their bodies aching.

  “Thank you,” Susan whispered.

  Michael said nothing. He hated being right. Though Susan’s near death was an accident, she had yet to realize the situation they were now in. It took them fifteen minutes to make the one-hundred-and-twenty-foot climb, they had spent five minutes at the bottom of the tube and during the entire ordeal, their breathing was nothing short of gasping. They had almost depleted their air tanks.

  If and when they completed their task here, they had an equally difficult climb to get out of the pipe, all of it against the raging waters. Michael figured it would take almost the same amount of time to get themselves back to safety: fifteen minutes. He checked his dive computer: They had less than three minutes of air…if they were lucky.

  He decided he wouldn’t tell Susan yet, no need for premature panic. He would stay focused on the moment and let his mind tackle their air problem later. He stood and stripped off his dive gear. Susan followed suit, twisting her body to and fro; she was obviously badly bruised and would be lucky if nothing was broken. Michael pulled out some glow sticks, cracked them, and threw them about the cavern. As the orange luminescence rose, the room experienced its first sunrise.

  “I’m sorry,” Susan said.

  “Why don’t you stay here, rest?” Michael said as he pulled out and studied the map again. The cistern was clearly marked, standing at the end of a long hallway that led to three rooms marked Liberia. Michael was more than amazed that they had made it this far. Though he hadn’t voiced it to Susan, he had given himself less than two-to-one odds of reaching this point. Looking back now, he was glad his optimism had suppressed those doubts and fears. He only hoped he had enough optimism left to figure out a way back to the surface.

  Susan continued removing her dive gear. “I’m sorry. I won’t screw you up again.”

  Michael looked at her. As angry as he was, he was impressed she had yet to complain about the pain. He imagined her body must have been going pretty fast when she slammed into the pile of bones. Despite the pain, she still found it in herself to make a good portion of the climb against the raging waters. Michael had a newfound respect for Susan. “You OK?” He took a step closer to her as he saw some blood escaping at the bottom of her shirt. As he moved in closer, he could see a trail of blood leading up to her shoulder.

  “I’ll be fine.” She nodded and stood up. “That pile of bones, though…Those bodies…”

  “I know.”

  “Do you think they were looking for the Liberia?”

  Michael lifted up the dive bag he took off of Lexie and dumped its contents out on the floor. Though there were less than thirty different pieces, the value was beyond anything either Michael or Susan could imagine. Jewelry, cups, a box, utensils, all formed out of gold. Some covered in precious gems, others intricately carved. And all of it from an era long forgotten.

  “I think found is the operative word here.”

  “How did they—?”

  “It was Lexie. What a fool. His rope snapped.”

  “If Lexie was down here then…” Susan eyes grew wide with fear. “Paul.”

  “Yeah,” Michael said, realizing that if Lexie tried to get in here, it was surely on Fetisov’s orders. And if that was the case, then Fetisov, no doubt, was going to try to betray Busch. “Let me take a look at that shoulder.”

  “What about Paul?”

  “There is nothing we can do for him from here. Don’t worry, he can take care of himself.” Michael hoped that was the case. His suspicions of the Russian were confirmed. There was no doubt that Busch was in danger, Michael just hoped he realized it before it was too late.

  Susan reluctantly lifted her shirt up to reveal a blood-soaked back.

  “Not so bad,” Michael said as he directed the light from his helmet on her marred flesh. The blood was pouring from a large slice along her left shoulder; mixed with water it gave the impression of a mortal wound, but Michael knew that wasn’t the case. “Why don’t you take a seat?” Michael reached into his dive bag and pulled out a small medical kit. He found a needle, thread, and some alcohol. “I can’t promise pretty.”

  “You know what they say about scars?” Susan asked as she sat down on the stone floor, hugging her knees up to he chest.

  Michael walked behind her and crouched down, examining the gash in her back more closely. “No, what?”

  “Better on the outside than on the inside.”

  “This may sting a bit.” He poured the alcohol over her shoulder and immediately blew on it, the way his mother did when she put peroxide on his scrapes as a child. Susan didn’t flinch a bit. Michael was impressed. He knew it was agony, he had been down this road of field dressing more times than he wished to admit. “You OK?”

  “I’m good,” Susan said softly. Her eyes were closed, her breathing controlled.

  Michael wiped off the area and threaded the needle. He dipped it in the alcohol and placed his hand on her shoulder just above the wound. “You ready?”

  “Sew away, doc.”

  Michael gently slipped the needle through her skin, through the wound, and out the other side. He pulled the string tightly, joining the rended flesh together. Susan’s breathing remained steady and controlled despite the pain Michael knew she was feeling. He couldn’t help being impressed. “So do you travel a lot?” Michael hated the question but he wanted to try and keep as much focus away from the stitching as possible. He looped the string around and inserted the needle again.

  “Not recently. I was in Rome about a year ago.”

  “Really? Me, too. Business or pleasure?” Michael pulled her skin together tightly and sent the needle back through her flesh.

  “A bit of both. And you?” she asked without even a wince.

  “Strictly business.” And he wasn’t lying. He had spent a week at the Vatican, nearly losing his life pulling off a pretty audacious heist.

  “That’s too bad. The Vatican is absolutely awe inspiring. If you ever go back, you should see it.”

  Michael smiled. “I’ll put it on my agenda.”

  Michael had ten stitches in her, halfway done. He tied off the stitch, threaded some more thread, and began anew.

  Susan looked about the thirty-foot-square room, her helmet light moving with her head, alighting torch sconces around the perimeter walls, small vent holes cut in the grani
te ceiling to carry away torch smoke, inlaid shelves cut into the walls with nothing on them. In fact, there was absolutely nothing in the room but their dive gear and the small pile of gold, all of which cut harsh shadows on the far granite wall. “How old do you think this room is?” Susan asked as she continued to look about.

  “At least five hundred years. Sofia Paleolog had it built before Ivan was even born.”

  “This can’t be the way she came in, though.”

  “No, there were other entrances but they were sealed up by Ivan. This was a private bath or cistern for the princess.” Michael finished the last stitch, tied off the string, and dabbed the wound with her shirt. “You’re a good patient.”

  She looked over her shoulder at him. “Admit it, I was your first, wasn’t I?”

  “Besides taking care of myself?” Michael smiled. “Yeah.”

  “This is going to make such a good story when I wear a strapless gown to some ABA function.”

  Michael placed a large bandage over the wound. “All set for the next disaster.”

  Susan scooted herself around and faced Michael. It was a long moment.

  As Michael looked back he found himself getting lost in her eyes, he felt the heat rising in his cheeks.

  “Thank you,” she finally said, her sincerity making her appreciation sound like an apology.

  Michael smiled and nodded.

  Michael stood, picked up a dive bag, pulled out a medium-sized satchel, and threw it over his shoulder. He pulled out a flashlight, turned it on, and removed his helmet. He headed for the doorway on the far side of the room as he looked at his watch. “We’ve got to go.”

  Susan took off her helmet and followed Michael out of the cistern into a long hall of dark red brick. It was narrow, no more than three feet wide, and had a low ceiling. They followed it for fifty feet before it jogged left, heading deeper into the cavern. The floor had a slight descent to it. As they walked, Michael noticed the moisture in the air seemed to dissipate, the atmosphere becoming almost arid. They had walked for at least a minute, Michael’s flashlight leading the way, when they finally arrived at what appeared to be a large foyer that fell off into darkness in both directions. Before them was a single door made of heavy cedar planks with wide iron straps binding them together. The lock was centered in the doorway, with a large keyhole. It was an ancient design, one that Michael had studied, consisting of four door-length-sized bolts that ran through the door into the granite. Nearly impenetrable at the time by anything short of a small army.