The History Thief: Ten Days Lost (The Sterling Novels)

by Joseph Nagle

  The priest’s eyes were closed, and his lips moved as he mouthed his prayer. Charney quietly closed the distance to the old man; with the same deftness, his hands circled the priest’s throat and clamped down viciously. The priest had no idea what sort of demon stood behind him; fear coursed through his old, thin veins until it reached his diminished heart. He wanted to shout, but no air could escape over the force crushing his larynx. He reached back to his attacker but his movements were uncoordinated, his body was frail.

  There was simply nothing the priest could do but struggle with the possibility of death.

  Charney could sense the old man’s thoughts were draining away; the priest’s eyes bulged and rolled backward into his head.

  Slowly, Charney released his grasp; a slow, weak stream of air entered the priest’s lungs. Charney stood over him for a moment, making sure that the priest was not yet dead.

  That would take the fun out of what would come next.

  He picked up the old man and dragged him to the sealed chapel adjacent to where they were.

  Charney dropped the priest heavily to the floor, unconcerned for his welfare. He stared through the thick, polycarbonate double doors of the sealed chapel.

  The priest began to stir.

  Charney looked down at him.

  The old man rolled to his knees and tried to stand. Charney let him.

  A few moments passed, and the priest’s vision began to clear. He stared at his attacker but didn’t say a word.

  “Give me your hand, Priest,” Charney icily commanded.

  The priest didn’t move.

  “Your hand! Now!” shouted Charney.

  The priest saw the coldness in his attacker’s eyes. He obliged and extended out his right hand.

  Charney snatched it and roughly placed it onto the digital hand-pad that adorned the wall. A low, green light cascaded from around the edges of the priest’s hand as the security device scanned the unique striations of his palm and fingers.

  A quiet chime emitted, signaling for the code.

  “Give me the code, Priest! Do it now! Don’t make me cut your fingers off one at a time!”

  The priest calculated the command but didn’t attempt to stall. His voice was pained; he was surprised that he didn’t recognize its sound when he said, “One-five-seven-eight is the code. But it will only open the door. I do not have access to the vault. Only the Vatican does.”

  Charney smiled but said nothing. He entered in the code, unaware of its double entendre. He discerned a small click as the mechanical lock turned. He pushed on the door, and it opened.

  He turned to the priest and grabbed him by the top of his cassock. Pulling him inside the chapel, he threw him to the ground.

  “Sit there, Priest; don’t move.”

  The old man did as he was told, afraid to speak. He was doing exactly as he had been instructed long ago.

  Charney reached into his shoulder bag and retrieved a roll of gray duct tape. In a matter of moments the priest’s mouth was taped shut. Charney then flipped the priest over and hog-tied his hands to his feet.

  Then he went to work.

  The chapel’s sole content dominated the center of the room. Charney stood over the Shroud of Turin and gazed in at the yellowed piece of long cloth. He cared little about its importance in the Christian world. He cared not of the debate that surrounded its validity. He cared only about the fee he would be paid to steal it.

  Another five million.

  The shroud was placed inside of a hermetically sealed aluminum block. The block was carved from a single piece of aluminum and had neither welded spots nor weak points. The crystal lid through which visitors could peer was twenty-nine millimeters thick and bulletproof. Its nearly nine hundred pounds of weight was counterbalanced by an internal pressure mechanism. Removing it under the present circumstances would be impossible.

  Charney wasn’t worried. Often, security measures are overdone, and their defeat is usually much simpler when appearances seem to state otherwise.

  His mind fleeted to Samothrace and where she rested at the Louvre.

  After the Shroud of Turin, she was next, and would be his last.

  Shaking from his mind the thoughts of his final conquest, he reached once more into his bag and removed a small, round Teflon container. It was only a centimeter in height but nearly ten centimeters in diameter. He handled it carefully and placed it on one end of the crystal-topped vault. The outside edge on one side of the Teflon container was slightly raised. He grabbed a smaller vial from his bag and from it squeezed the fast-acting glue onto the raised edge. Slowly, he placed the glue-covered edge facedown on top of the crystal lid. He held it tight for a moment, just long enough for the glue to adhere to the crystal.

  Then, he slowly twisted the Teflon container; a small amount of hydrofluoric acid rushed into the tiny chasm between where the round container was sealed and the crystal. The sealed edge held in the acid.

  Although a weak acid, it reacted ferociously with silicon dioxide: the main component of crystal.

  Charney was careful to not let the vapor come near his eyes, knowing all too well that it could quickly destroy his corneas.

  In moments, the crystal was dissolved. Charney pulled a small hammer from his bag and knocked away the Teflon container.

  Immediately, air from inside of the highly pressurized container rushed powerfully through the hole. The vacuum effect sucked up the corner of the shroud, which was now poking through the ten-centimeter-wide, man-made oculus.

  Charney grabbed the shroud and pulled it carefully through the hole, rolled it up, and shoved it into his bag.

  Turning to the broken old priest, the two men stared at one another in silence. The old man was surprised at how easily the man had been able to defeat the protective mechanisms and get the shroud; he wondered what would come next.

  His answer soon came.

  Charney pulled a grenade from his bag; it was identical to the one he had used in Paris. Inside of the ancient explosive device was the same type of three-point caltrops that had taken the life of the impetuous Sous-Lieutenant Bonaparte under the Pont Neuf.

  Charney pulled the pin and carefully placed the grenade under the priest’s stomach so that the spoon was lodged firmly in place. He said, “If I were you, Priest, I would change my prayer. Pray that when they find you, they remove the tape from your mouth first.”

  The priest’s eyes shook from fear, and he offered futile protests through the layers of duct tape.

  “Careful, Priest, you don’t want to move too much.”

  The old man’s eyes strained, and he immediately stopped moving.

  On his way out of the chapel, Charney closed the door and reset the lock. He smiled at the priest and left.

  He was closer to his masterpiece, closer to Samothrace.

  Nearly five hundred and twenty-two kilometers away, a red light blinked in conjunction with a low-pitched chime at the console of the tired Vatican policeman. It was a safeguard, a warning signal that the sealed chapel for the shroud had been opened.

  His head had been slowly dropping; he had been fighting with near futility to stay awake. The night shift was never with drama.

  The policeman struggled to focus his blurry eyes, and thought to himself: this can’t be right.

  Quickly, he picked up the phone and dialed his commander.

  When his call was answered, the policeman said, “Sir, sorry to wake you, but we have a problem.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  OLD FRIENDS, NEW

  PROBLEMS

  OAKTON, VIRGINIA

  Michael could feel his heart beating faster. It had been three years since he and York had last spoke. At that time, York had been a young Army private and assigned to NORAD. There, he was a part of a small joint task force that operated the CORe center: a highly classified organization housed deep in Cheyenne Mountain of Colorado Springs, Colorado—in NORAD—that monitored and tracked worldwide insurgent activity with a clust
er of powerful reconnaissance satellites.

  Then, York had been a young, insolent soldier who had been counting down the days until he was freed from the Army. However, an attack by Hezbollah on the Umayyad Mosque in Syria, where Michael had been on assignment, had thrown the two of them improbably together. York’s main responsibility at CORe had been live tracking via satellite. During the attack, York had expertly guided Michael from the mosque and to an extraction point. Along the way, York’s keen senses, natural tracking abilities, and adept instincts had saved Michael’s life.

  Barely twenty-four hours after the attack on Umayyad—while Michael was in Rome—York’s skills had been put to the test once more. Via satellite, he had helped Michael track the man responsible for the attack on Umayyad.

  York had saved Michael’s life again. It was from those experiences that York found his calling and had committed to special operations; it was from those experiences that Michael knew he could trust the young soldier.

  “Professor,” York’s voice was soft and to the point, “I need your help. My commander is hurt; he took a bullet to his kidney. I’ve stopped the bleeding with a coagulant, but he needs medical attention.” York peered over at his commander; Scott’s face was an uneasy shade of gray; his eyes seemed a bit shallower than earlier.

  Michael asked, “Can you travel?”

  “I’ll do what I have to, but we have to get out of here. I can’t trust anyone back at Salerno. The laptop that held the intel was destroyed, but I made a backup of the hard drive. I have it with me. I need your help, sir.”

  “What’s the nearest border to your location, York?”

  “Pakistan—east of us, sir; you’re not suggesting I go there, are you?”

  “No, York, but listen carefully. Do you have transportation?”

  York apologetically eyed the old Afghani man. He hated the thoughts he was having but hoped that the man would understand. Answering Michael’s question, York said, “Yes, I have a truck.”

  Captain Scott’s eyes acknowledged what York had said. Immediately, he began to scan the Afghani man’s home for anything that they could use to tie up the man.

  “Good,” said Michael. “On the southern border, there is a small city called Zahedan; it’s in Iran. Follow the Pakistani border south. Find Zahedan on a map and get to it. When you are there, go to the Rasouli Bazaar. There is a brickmaker; he is a friendly. Tell him that you need to ship two hundred and seventeen new bricks by boat. You got that, York?”

  “Yes, sir. I got it: Rasouli Bazaar; new bricks by boat.”

  “No, goddamn it! Two hundred and seventeen, York! Two hundred and seventeen new bricks by boat. Don’t fuck it up, York. My contact will shoot you faster than you can finish your sentence!”

  “Okay, take it easy. Two hundred and seventeen, I got it!”

  “Listen, I will only say this once: the brickmaker will only get you what you need to get out of country. The rest is up to you. Get to Mumbai, Juhu Beach. Look for a gate to the Theological Society. There will be a guard; tell him you want Dr. Hora. Tell Dr. Hora that I sent you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir. Mumbai, Juhu, Theological Society, Hora. I got it. Then what?”

  Michael didn’t answer; he was walking through a long hallway in his home that connected his kitchen to his front room. Michael stared out of the window; what he saw left him without words, causing him to pause. The neighborhood was inappropriately quiet.

  Down his driveway and across the street, he saw that his neighbor’s curtains were tightly shut. The sun was beating intensely onto the large picture window that dominated the front of the man’s house.

  After moving into the neighborhood, Michael and Sonia had made the customary introductory rounds to meet their new neighbors. It doubled as a means for Michael to reconnoiter those that lived by him and to be neighborly—to seem normal. They both had learned right away just how much the man across the street loved roses. Everywhere they went in his home, they were met with paintings, pictures, drawings, and books adorned with or about roses. Even the porcelain cups that the man used to serve hot tea to his new neighbors were painted with a rose emblem.

  Most impressive, if not a bit strange, the front portion of the man’s home had been converted into a quaint sunroom and indoor rose garden. He had been more than excited to show Michael and Sonia each and every variety that he had; in particular, he fawned in a drooling fashion over his meticulously maintained clusters of yellow Harrison’s roses.

  Michael had learned that his neighbor’s curtains were always open when the sun shined, lest the roses be forced to suffer from strangulated photosynthesis.

  The sun was beating down brightly on his neighbor’s window.

  The blinds were drawn shut.

  Michael’s senses lit up; he drew in a short breath, held it, and gazed from home to home; from bush to tree. It didn’t take long. Two doors down, and to the right of his neighbor’s home, the roofline wasn’t as uniform as it had been before.

  To the untrained eye, nothing would have seemed amiss. Michael’s eye was not untrained. Michael moved away from his window and put his back against the wall.

  On the roof was a spotter.

  York asked once more, “Sir, are you still there? What do I do next?”

  Michael’s response was pithy. “Get to Mumbai, York. I will be in touch.”

  Without saying another word, Michael ended the call.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CIA HEADQUARTERS

  LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

  After Stanford heard the phone call end, he returned his attention to Dr. Sterling and York’s positions. He typed feverishly away on his keyboard. Unseen and hovering in low Earth orbit, an NRO satellite was instructed to lock in on the source of the phone call.

  “Damn!” Stanford said out loud. “This isn’t good! How is this possible?”

  Stanford picked up his cell phone from the desk and dialed another number. A man on the other end of the line answered. “What is it, Stanford.”

  “Sir, the mission failed. Two men survived. The packages are with one of them.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Of course I am sure, you arrogant prick. “Yes, sir; what’s left of the Alpha team—a staff sergeant named York and Captain Scott, the team’s commander—are heading to Zahedan; it’s just over the border and in Iran. Sterling gave them a contact there. He’s helping them get to Mumbai; he’s putting them in touch with a company asset, at a CIA safe house. York downloaded the package onto a memory stick.”

  “And the other item?”

  “Presumably still with York, sir,” answered Stanford.

  Ignoring the last response, the man asked, “Do you know exactly where in Mumbai?”

  “Juhu Beach, the Theological Society. I am targeting the precise location now,” Stanford pounded a few more commands into the computer. A map of India materialized with a crosshair indicator blinking over the western edge of Mumbai. Stanford zoomed in; a GPS photo of Juhu Beach showed the precise location of the Theological Society’s entrance.

  “Found it, sir. It’s right on the Indian Ocean, making the likely mode of travel via water. Also, the captain is hurt; he can’t make the trip by foot, and there is a doctor at the safe house. My bet is that they will be getting there by boat and at night. I can get a team to Zahedan. We have assets in-country, we can intercept them there: the team can be there within an hour and eliminate them by the end of the day.”

  “No. I don’t want a covert op in Iran, Stanford. There’s too much risk of interference with the Taliban, and, if they do get across the border, they will have a hell of a time blending in with the locals.”

  “Sir, I highly suggest you let the team get them in Iran. I know the risk, but you should let the team take them out. Every hour that goes by and those two aren’t dead, the level of risk grows.”

  Ignoring Stanford’s suggestion and comment, the man asked, “And Sterling, where is he now?”

  “At his ho
me, sir. What are my orders?”

  “Bring Sterling in. Do it now.”

  “Yes, sir. But what about York and Scott?”

  “Activate a team in Mumbai. Kill Scott; keep York alive.”

  “Just Scott, sir? What about York? He’s not supposed to be alive.”

  “I don’t believe that I stuttered. No mistakes. I want this mess cleaned up, and I want you to make sure it happens. Things have changed; I need York alive. Do you understand your orders?”

  Stanford hesitated for a moment; the man sensed as much and he repeated, this time with a palpable ire in his voice, “Did I make myself clear?”

  Stanford replied calmly, “Yes, sir. I understand my orders.”

  “Good. Now, about Sterling: get him in custody—unofficially—call me the moment you do, and, Stanford—”

  “Sir?” Stanford questioned.

  “Use a heavy force: Sterling is quite good.”

  Stanford had anticipated as much. The men were already in place. He didn’t need to wonder why the plan was being changed. His suspicions had been aroused in the days prior, but now it made even more sense: the crown and the shroud, the intel that York had.

  Stanford knew: they must have found him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  WHEN THINGS GO POP

  OAKTON, VA

  The Special Activities Division (SAD) team member couldn’t believe what he had been ordered to do. His breathing was coming fast as he ran up the long flight of stairs in the expansive suburban home. At the top of the stairs, he turned the corner and brushed up against the thick stalk of a small rosebush.

  “Shit,” he spat out loud.

  The heavy thorn of the rosebush left a long scrape against his left forearm. Small droplets of blood were beginning to form.

  Without missing a step, he ran down the hallway and into the bedroom at its end. Making his way to the far side of the bedroom, he opened a window, climbed through it, and found the perfect spot on the roof.

  The mission’s instructions had been received barely twelve minutes ago. He had done a double take when he had read the target’s name: the deputy director of National Clandestine Services, Dr. Michael Sterling.