The Thieves of Faith

by Richard Doetsch

  “Did you really believe they could cure him?”

  Raechen looked directly at Michael. “In the face of death, we cling to hope however small it may be.”

  The words rang so true in Michael’s ears. As he looked down at the man, he saw himself. He understood Raechen probably more than anyone. When Mary was sick, he stopped at nothing to save her and that is what this man before him was doing. “What is your son’s name?”

  “Sergei.”

  Michael immediately regretted asking the question; it humanized Raechen. You never think of criminals as human, yet they are. All someone’s children, someone’s parents. They are seen with different eyes by the people they love. And it pained Michael now to look at this man, not as someone who tortured him, as someone who would not stop at killing him; he was looking at the man as a father trying to save his child.

  The Russian doctors were playing on Raechen’s heartstrings; they had found the ultimate motivator. As loyal as one is to one’s country, nothing will trump love. Nothing will get in the way, nothing will come before the ones we care about. These doctors, Julian Zivera, they were as evil as could be, manipulating others’ feelings to satiate their evil greed.

  Raechen’s son never had a chance.

  “My father’s name is Stephen. And I only met him a few days ago. Now, he is being held, he is being ransomed, entirely unaware that they will kill him even if I successfully rescue Zivera’s mother.”

  “It was more than her that you were hired to deliver, though, am I right? That is why they have taken the young woman.”

  Michael’s thoughts ran back to Susan; not only were his father and Genevieve in mortal danger, but so was she. He held three lives in his hands.

  “What does she have that they want? What did you steal?” Raechen asked.

  Michael had already offered up more information than he should have and remained silent.

  Raechen’s face softened. “I must tell you. Twenty years ago, I would have hung you upside down and slowly poked holes in your body to watch the blood pour from your wounds until I got my answers. But that was the old Russia and, quite honestly, I really don’t care whatever else you were looking for. My son is dead. Not literally yet, but his last hope has slipped away.”

  “We’ve both been used. Our hearts leveraged, bent to others’ wills. These doctors, I’m sorry they are dead, but they would have betrayed you in the end as surely as Julian Zivera and Nikolai Fetisov betrayed me. It’s a terrible thing to give false hope.” It so enraged Michael that there were those who felt the world existed solely to help them achieve their own desires. Too often the powerful manipulate the hearts and desires of others to achieve their own goals. Whether it is the captains of industry taking advantage of people’s greed and their thirst for money; preachers and evangelists bartering salvation; doctors and snake oil salesmen promising miracle cures and life extension; or the worst of all, those who manipulate the frailty of the human heart.

  “My son will be dead soon and in a better place,” Raechen said as he sat on the floor, handcuffed, shot, and bleeding. Michael could see the hope, the optimism for his son’s survival vanish from his eyes. Though Raechen had beaten Michael, though he had every intention to torture him and Susan, Michael felt an overwhelming sympathy for the man. For his son. For the cruelty of fate and the havoc it can play on families.

  “I’m sorry.” Michael paused, seeing Raechen’s pain, the pain of loss, of feeling powerless to save the one you love. A pain he knew too well. And a pain he wasn’t prepared to go through again. If Michael had any chance of saving his father and finding Susan, he had to get out of here.

  Michael quietly leaned over and gagged Raechen, regretting his actions. He tied up the Russian’s legs with wire and tethered his arms to the base of the heavy desk that was covered in monitors. He checked Raechen’s watch; it was after three, the tours ended at five. They were Michael’s only hope for escape.

  Michael turned back to Raechen. “I’m truly sorry for you…and I’m sorry for your son.”

  And Michael walked out the door.

  The elevator carried Michael up six stories to ground level. He held one gun close to his side while tucking the other in the waistband at the small of his back. As the doors opened, he was greeted with Russian abstract paintings adorning the interior of a large hall, a modern world tucked within the walls of an ancient one. He was in the newest of the Kremlin’s numerous buildings: the Palace of Congresses, the former shouting arena of Communist rhetoric. Of course, the shouting now came through the throats of rock stars and opera singers. But there were no performances today, only tourist groups and guards. Michael covered the gun in his waistband with his jacket. He pulled a tourist map out from his pocket, buried his face in it, and stepped from the elevator. People were milling about; some listened to the tour guides’ dissertations while most looked around and spoke quietly among themselves. He pulled out Raechen’s cell phone and dialed Busch. Four times it rang before it kicked to voice mail.

  “Paul, I hope to God you’re alive. I’m in the center of the Kremlin, in the Palace of Congresses. I am going to try and get out with one of the tour groups. Fetisov has Susan—”

  Two guards on patrol rounded a corner and took casual notice of Michael. He slammed the phone shut, smiled at the guards, and jogged toward a swarm of fifty tourists, quietly joining them at the rear. The group was a mix of Europeans; a variety of languages echoed off the cavernous walls of the building’s vestibule. Michael gravitated toward a group of eight couples and two women—British and American—all babbling about where to eat. They were led by a female guide who chattered on in English, spoken with a severe Russian accent. Michael lost himself in his map and waited for the group to continue on.

  They rode the escalators up to ground level and exited the Palace of Congresses into the late afternoon sunshine. It was the first daylight Michael had seen since the dawn rush hour, and while it stung his eyes he embraced it and hoped he would be able to feel its warmth from the other side of the Kremlin wall.

  The group walked as one across the wide sidewalks past the Arsenal across the Kremlin grounds, and made their way to the courtyard of churches. Michael had failed to fully appreciate their beauty when he, Susan, and Nikolai toured the grounds. The golden domes shimmered in the bright light of day, an explosion of colors and design so uniquely Russian that nowhere the world over had it been mimicked. Their beauty did not leave an impression the first time he saw their magnificent display; this time, right now, it was all the more grand. Being pursued had a way of focusing Michael’s senses, his memory, his thoughts. He could vividly recall every job he had ever done, every step of escape, and right now he wished he wasn’t creating more of those memories.

  The group was halfway across the courtyard when the alarms sounded, loud and cutting. The tour group jumped as one as a collective fear ran through them. Guards and army personnel seemed to emerge from every door, from around every corner. A force one hundred strong materialized from the walls as if they were lying in wait for this moment.

  There was no doubt in Michael’s mind what set off the disturbance. It was him. Michael casually moved toward the middle of the pack. He feigned surprise at the disturbance but he didn’t need to feign his fear. The crowd remained frozen, unsure if panic would turn the running guards on them.

  Soldiers shouted to one another as they all headed toward the Palace of Congresses. Michael could hear one of the students translating the running soldiers’ words. “They are looking for a man who poses great danger. Tall, dark hair. Hell,” the student said as he looked around at the large group, “that could be all of us.” Some of the students found the joke amusing but the elders did not as they remembered the oppression and fear that emanated from within the compound where they now stood, a memory from the not-too-distant past.

  Michael would never get out the front gate now, or any gate for that matter. The guards would be checking everyone, questioning them all about t
he American with the thick brown hair. Michael was trapped and if he was caught, the implications would not only affect him: his father would die. And so would Susan.

  Michael knew there was only one way out: his original escape point. He and Busch had resolved that if anything went wrong they would exit through the hidden bowels of the Kremlin. But to get there, Michael would have to make it clear across the sixty-eight-acre site back to the Arsenal, to the one elevator that would take him to the medical lab and the opening to the cavern entrance. But, as he knew so well, the Arsenal was the staging ground, the center of operations for the Presidential Regiment, the Kremlin Guard, a force composed of Russia’s most elite troops, commanded by a leadership schooled in the ways of old. To evade them, Michael would have to enter their sanctum; he would have to enter the hornets’ nest in order to escape.

  If he could make it down the elevator to the medical facility, the guards would never be able to track him through the old tunnels and caverns. They probably didn’t even know they existed. Michael had committed the exit pathways to memory. The mazelike design would be his ally and his pursuers’ downfall. But he had to get there first.

  A contingent of guards had surfaced to supplement the ones already dispatched and they were all heavily armed, hungrily searching for the person who had violated their capitol. Michael had borne witness to the determination and anger that the U.S. Secret Service and Capitol Police had demonstrated when the U.S. Capitol had been violated. These soldiers would be no less severe; they would shoot to kill if the occasion arose.

  Michael knew he couldn’t make a run for it; he would be a sure lone target and would be dead before he made it fifty feet. He needed a cover.

  And then, without warning, a small explosion echoed off the far walls of the Kremlin, black smoke rising up in the distance. Fear dissolved to panic. The tour guide was young and useless, unprepared for a situation such as this. She became lost in her own hysteria, running off without any care for her charges.

  Michael looked around. The explosion was no coincidence. He picked up his cell phone and feigned a call. Several Englishmen looked at him. Michael nodded his head, turning away from the group. “OK,” he said to no one. “I know where that is.” And he slammed the phone shut.

  “Listen to me,” he said, turning to the tightly bunched group. “We need to get to a safe point. I suggest we get out of the open.”

  They all looked to Michael, unfamiliar with this man. “My wife, she said the Palace of Congresses is still open. We could wait this out there.”

  They all continued to look at him as if he were crazy.

  “Suit yourself,” Michael said. He turned and began walking.

  The group looked to one another for a leader, for someone who could provide an alternate solution, but no one rose to the occasion. Michael continued to walk and then, as if they were all tuned in to the same command, they followed him. Twenty of them. The English and Americans. Michael turned to look back and seeing their approach, slowed his pace. He melded into their masses and they moved off as one toward the Palace of Congresses. It was two hundred yards away and directly across from the Arsenal.

  The guards were now in a frenzy. Scores of them ran off toward the point where the black smoke floated upward, while others had the presence of mind to keep searching for the one dark-haired man.

  Michael’s group walked en masse past the Central Executive Military School, the Senate building, and across a large courtyard, all silent, but their eyes speaking volumes of fear. Michael kept his eyes ahead, the de facto leader of a group who were his unwitting protectors. The smoke continued to rise in the direction of the easterly wall, somewhere off by the Spasskaya Tower. Michael recognized help when he saw it. Busch was somewhere around, but as Michael looked about he saw no one familiar.

  And then they were there, in Senate square: the two guards from the Palace of Congresses, the two guards who saw him on the phone. They remembered and they were walking straight for Michael.

  “Ostanovka,” the lead guard shouted.

  The group stopped as one.

  Both guards raised their rifles for emphasis. “Halt,” the guard repeated in English.

  The entire group of twenty became paralyzed. All except Michael. His eyes danced about the grounds looking for a way out. But there was nowhere to go. He couldn’t risk the guards opening fire, one of the tourists would surely be hit. Michael turned to the group. “Walk as far away from me as you can.”

  Michael turned back to the guards, who were twenty yards off now. He raised his hands halfway up. The two guards remained focused on him as the tourists scattered away from their line of sight, leaving Michael alone in the now-vacant Senate square, the ancient yellow buildings silently looking down on him, as if holding him in contempt.

  Michael couldn’t afford to be captured again. His luck was up; there was no way he would escape once more. It wouldn’t be just Raechen this time, Michael would have the whole of the Russian government coming down on him for killing their doctors, raiding their historic artifacts, bombing the Kremlin. The lead guard withdrew his radio and spoke into it. Michael realized there was no time for thought, only action.

  And he took off. He ran harder than he had ever run in his life.

  His back grew cold; it was a target and he was waiting to be struck down by a hail of bullets.

  The guard dropped his radio; they both raised their rifles and began shouting.

  Michael didn’t need a translator to know what they were saying. He ran harder.

  The two guards looked at one another. They would have to decide what to do, they were out of touch with their command. They both wrapped their fingers about the triggers of their Kalashnikov rifles. They raised them in unison and each lined Michael up in their gun sight.

  Michael pushed his legs past the burning point, his lungs ready to explode. The Arsenal was twenty yards off now. He might just make it. But his back grew colder. He knew it was coming.

  And there were two shots. Close together, their echo reverberating between the buildings. Michael winced and stumbled but he did not fall. He came to a sudden stop. He checked his body, running his hands about, looking for blood, thinking his nerves suppressed the pain, but there were no wounds. As he turned around he saw the two bodies: the two Russian guards lying in the courtyard, their unfired rifles at their sides. They were both dead before they hit the ground. One clean shot each, straight through the forehead. Michael looked for where the shots emanated from but saw nothing.

  Michael shook off the moment and turned back toward Senate square. And there he was, his pistols already stowed. He stood six two, his face covered in a thick black beard that blended with his dark hair. It almost gave the impression of a homeless man. He had let his hair grow since the last time Michael saw him four months earlier; it now fell just below his collar. But if he had let his hair go, he had not let his physical condition go south. He was trim and fit, his clothes hanging loosely over his taut body. Simon had forgone his priest’s collar, opting for a pair of dark pants and a dark blue Oxford University sweatshirt.

  “Nice outfit,” Michael said as he and Simon began walking briskly toward the main gates.

  “Makes me look like a student, don’t you think?” he said in his Italian accent. Simon passed Michael a baseball cap. “Put it on.”

  “Aren’t you about twenty-five years late for college?” Michael said as he put the cap on, tucking his hair behind his ears. “Nice touch with the smoke bomb.”

  “As I recall, distraction was one of your gimmicks. Sorry I’m late.”

  They rounded the corner and were greeted by a mass of panicked, swarming tourists all pushing and shoving in a vain effort to escape the unknown crisis.

  “How long you been here?”

  “A few hours. I figured you’d show yourself eventually.”

  “You’re lucky they didn’t pick you up, looking like that.”

  Simon rubbed his beard. “It’s not that bad. It’s m
y idea of living on the edge.”

  Michael smiled as they worked their way into the masses.

  Simon kept his hand low as he surreptitiously passed a pistol. “Gun?”

  “You know I hate these things,” Michael said as he rejected the gun with a wave of his hand.

  “Anti-gun attitudes are only for those who have the luxury of not being in life-or-death situations.”

  Michael held up a corner of his shirt, revealing his pistols.

  “You may want to use them next time,” Simon said as they continued to flow into the crowd, losing themselves within the sea of people. “Of all the places to rob, Michael.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t pick the White House.”

  Though it had been months since they had seen each other, there was no time that Michael would have been more happy to see him than now.

  With all of the confusion, the masses of tourists were filling the square trying to get out through the main tourist access over Troitsky Bridge. A contingent of guards and Kremlin administrators were shouting orders in various languages that everyone would be searched and that this would take some time. But their efforts were lost among the shouting, confused swarm of tourists. Michael and Simon worked their way through and held to the side of the crowd, which had grown by the hundreds and which had fortunately gathered right next to the archway leading into the Arsenal. There were three uniformed soldiers guarding the entrance, their weapons drawn as a warning to the foolish.

  “Any ideas?” Michael said as he leaned toward Simon, trying to make himself heard over the cacophony of panicked tourists.

  Simon nodded and walked into the undulating mass of people, Michael on his tail, heading in five people deep. People were pushing and shoving, voices in all languages growing impatient and nervous as if something terrible was about to befall them. All eyes were fixed on the exit, on the guards at the main gate pulling each person aside, studying their faces, patting them down, never apologizing for the inconvenience.