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

by Joseph Nagle

  Sonia’s face ran through his mind. He downed another long swallow of the vodka; this one seemed to have a more noticeable effect. He watched as her face faded.

  York didn’t know what to say. Michael wasn’t finished.

  “You know, kid, I think I forgot to mention that I might have just died here a moment ago, but if you’re curious—no, I wasn’t bathed in a warm, tranquil blanket of light, and I wasn’t hovering peacefully above my body. And, to make matters worse—if it can possibly get any worse—they have shot the same device into my wife—” Michael’s energy was returning, his voice was becoming stronger, and he was speaking loudly as he finished his sentence.

  Michael paused at a now-surprised York.

  “So forgive me, kid, if I feel the need to take a big swig of alcohol. Yes, it numbs the pain; yes, I surely have a problem, so if you feel the need: have an intervention! Call those religious nut-jobs at AA! Shit, you can preach to me about the devastating effects of alcohol abuse for all I care! But I’ll just take my chances, given that I may have seen my wife for the last time, and this just might be my last day or two on our big, blue, fucked-up planet!”

  York’s own anger dissipated, forgotten. He may have even been slightly embarrassed. Michael couldn’t tell.

  “I’m sorry about your wife, Doc.”

  York reached over and took the bottle, put it to his lips, tilted his head back, and took his own deep pull.

  His reaction was slightly different: he spat out a couple of contorting coughs in reaction to the cheap booze; his face instantly flushed red as he wiped at the vodka drizzling down his chin.

  Michael smiled and chuckled painfully. “It gets easier, kid. Trust me.”

  And that’s how it starts.

  York glared at the CIA officer; his only response was “Stop calling me kid. Now tell me what the hell is going on.”

  Clearly the vodka had already lowered his inhibitions.

  The question lingered for a moment, reminding Michael that things were far from over.

  “Help me up, kid,” Michael said, ignoring York’s wishes.

  The two men both got to their feet; York realized that this was the first time he had ever been face-to-face with the CIA officer. Michael was everything that he had imagined: tall, broad-shouldered, and capable in appearance.

  Michael was thinking the same thing about York.

  The two men sized up each other’s strengths; without realizing it, they were doing what they were trained to do: to evaluate their tactical position in all situations.

  “Let’s get out of here. I have a feeling that we won’t be alone for too much longer.”

  Before they left, Michael stopped at the marble table that sat low and out of place in front of the room’s small and cheap futon. He slid away one of its heavy tiles, exposing a small compartment underneath. In it were a stack of euros, a number of passports from different countries, and three pistols. Michael grabbed the money, an ID, and two of the guns. Splitting the stack of euros in half, he pocketed his half and gave the other half to York, along with a pistol and a passport.

  The two men left, careful to be silent and unseen as they made their way from the hotel.

  Outside, Charney was sipping his espresso and enjoying his cigarette. At the side of his small bistro table, a growing stack of cigarette butts had started to accumulate.

  His head had fallen backward so that he could enjoy the sun when the two men whisked by, one of them awkwardly.

  Charney nearly spilled his espresso. Dr. Sterling and York had caught him by surprise—the men moved with stealth. He silently cursed himself for losing his focus.

  Turning in his seat, Charney had just enough time to see them before they turned the corner. The one that moved with an impeded gait turned and looked back toward him just as they vanished around the corner. Instantly Charney knew: this was Dr. Michael Sterling; he was easy to recognize. He was a bit larger than the other—the Green Beret—but not by much, and it was the look on his face that made his identity obvious.

  Weathered and distant.

  Careful and confident.

  Aware.

  Although the distance between him and the two special operations professionals was growing, Charney recognized that look. It was one that only a man who carried the same face would recognize. It was the face of a man that carried no fear.

  Reaching up to his jaw line, Charney scratched at his chin for a moment. The stubble of a long day had started to grow and was rough to his touch. He thought briefly about the two men.

  Michael’s stride was obviously off; he was hurt. Must have been a consequence of the accident; this would help.

  Charney stood up from the chair, threw a ten-euro note on the table, and followed the men.

  With each step, Michael felt his body righting itself. His mind was clearing, and his stride getting stronger. As the drug cleared from his system, the pain in his leg returned. He knew he was limping, but there was nothing to do about it otherwise. The painful reminder that his life was on a countdown had to be pushed aside.

  York broke the silence as the two walked fast. “Where are we going, Doc?”

  Michael didn’t answer, scanning from left to right and down the street. They walked on, and then York got his answer.

  “Here, kid. Here is where we are going.”

  The two men stood outside a buzzing coffee shop. They walked in; both immediately reconnoitered the layout. It was a wide-open floor plan, laid out like a large square. In one corner were the restrooms, and in the other was the serving counter, behind which a small handful of baristas moved in a blur.

  The air was dry and permeated with the low-hanging, slow-moving clouds of cigarette smoke. The smell of human body odor was noticeable and mixed pungently with the tobacco.

  The crowd was eclectic, but had more young faces than old. A longhaired, lazy dog sat near the door, waiting for his owner.

  Newspapers covered some of the faces, while others were paired in conversation. Mostly, however, a large number of the patrons tapped furiously away on their laptops.

  “Perfect,” said Michael quietly.

  “Perfect for what?” asked York.

  Michael led York to an open table. It was nearest to the door, which relieved Michael. “Never put your back to a crowd and have an easy path of escape: rules number one and two.”

  Sitting at the table, Michael could see an emergency exit next to the restrooms. He nodded toward it. “Have an alternate method for escape: rule number three. Go get us a couple of espressos, make mine a quad,” Michael said, and then looked at the Green Beret. “You like espresso, right?”

  “Not sure; never had it.”

  “Start.” Michael’s response was pithy, but he had a point. In the business of intelligence, it pays to blend in and to be alert. Espresso accomplishes both. “You may want to make yours a single shot, lots of sugar,” Michael said, grinning—rookie.

  York returned a look that could have been accompanied by only an expletive, but he held it in and walked to the counter. Michael crossed his legs and regretted doing so: a hot flash of pain seared the inside of his thigh. Carefully he uncrossed them, placing both feet firmly on the ground.

  Karma’s a bitch, Michael thought, as he tried to hide the grimace on his face. I should go easier on the kid.

  With his elbows planted firmly on his knees, slightly doubled over, he waited for the pain to subside. While doing so, he saw his opportunity.

  York returned with the espressos and sat the small porcelain cups onto the table. Slight wisps of steam floated upward. He watched as Michael put a couple of raw cubes of sugar into the java along with the small curl of lemon peel that adorned the cup.

  Mimicking his elder, York copied Michael’s movements and plopped in some sugar and the lemon peel, saying, “Hell, I thought the lemon was just to make the saucer look pretty.”

  The two men sipped without speaking. A few slow minutes crawled by, and York finally asked, “You goi
ng to tell me when we’re going to put your plan into action?”

  Michael eyed the young troop; he replied, “What makes you think I have any sort of plan to put into action?”

  York put down the freshly emptied cup, looked at Michael, and responded to his question. “When we walked in, you eyed every corner of this place. You chose this table because it was near the front door, but also because it gives you a direct line of sight to the back exit. You can see everyone walking in and out. You also sat in that seat,” York point emphatically to the chair Michael was in, and continued, “because you can see out of the window and out into the street, which makes any surprises from the outside difficult. And, finally, you keep eyeballin’ that four-eyed, approximately five-foot-six, one-hundred-forty-five-pound euro-dork with the tiny laptop, bad skin, and Flock-of-Seagulls haircut sitting ten meters to my six.”

  Michael was impressed.

  “So tell me, Doc,” York said as he leaned in, “what’s the plan?”

  His espresso was going cold. As much as he loved the hot, bitter taste of espresso, a hated side effect was how fast its heat dissipated. With one swallow, Michael finished what was left of his four shots and quietly sat the cup down.

  Behind York, the young man Michael had been watching closed his laptop and stood.

  It was the moment for which he had waited. The euro-dork had an oversized cup of coffee on his table, and eventually his bladder would have to answer to the diuretic effects of the java.

  Michael’s eyes never left the boy when he said to York, “Go outside and get us a cab.”

  Like a good soldier, York stood.

  So did Michael.

  As York pushed open the coffee shop’s front door, he turned and caught a glimpse of the boy walking into the restroom.

  The plan was about to begin.

  Michael followed.

  In the restroom, the young man walked into a stall, but before he could close it, Michael grabbed the door.

  The boy wanted to shout, but the human mind can be a bit slow when untrained. He opened his mouth, but no sound exited. There was a blur in front of him; it took a moment to realize that the large man in front of him—Michael—had him by his throat.

  Michael squeezed harder; in moments the boy’s eyes rolled backward. He did try to fight back, albeit in a weak manner. He was small, and his body had never seen the inside of a weight room. As the boy lost consciousness, Michael grabbed hold of his limp body and eased him downward, sitting him on the toilet.

  He grabbed the laptop and whispered, “Sorry, man.”

  Michael spun around to leave. He opened the bathroom door just as another man entered. The two bumped into one another, startling both. It was enough time for the man to see behind Michael. He saw the slumped body of the young man. Michael saw that he saw this.

  In his business, Michael had learned that decisions in the field should be instant and never second-guessed. The man had no opportunity to ask questions or to mutter a single word.

  Michael lashed out and upward with the small laptop, connecting its hard edge with the man’s nose. Immediately blood flowed down the stunned man’s face. Loud techno music was playing overhead and drowned out what little sound the man could make.

  Michael spun him around and shoved him quickly backward to the rear exit, which was only a few feet away. Through the door he pushed the man; the moment it closed, the man screamed.

  Sorry that he had to do this to an innocent man, Michael threw a right cross that connected with the man’s temple. He fell to the ground.

  Inside, an old man had been reading the London Times. He sat nearest to the bathroom. He, too, had reconnoitered the coffee shop upon his entry, but for different reasons. At his age, nature called much more frequently and when least expected. Sitting as close to the bathroom as possible was a necessity.

  Outside, his dog waited patiently for both his master and the occasional toss of bits of croissant from the coffee shop’s patrons.

  The old man had just looked over his shoulder and out at his dog. Everything was okay with the canine as was to be expected. Turning his head back toward his newspaper, he saw a man lash out with a laptop at another man.

  He was old, but his eyes fortunately had not met the typical ocular degeneration of a man his age.

  He was startled by what he had seen and jumped instinctively to his feet—a movement that wasn’t fast enough, given his age and bad hips. He shouted out and pointed.

  “Thief! Thief! Help him, someone, help him!”

  A few men jumped up and ran in the direction that the old man pointed. Out the back door, one of them stumbled over Michael’s victim and fell roughly to his face.

  Michael was already gone.

  Inside, the old man had shuffled toward the commotion and saw that the restroom door was open. Looking in, he saw the young man who was now waking. The boy looked around and was groggy.

  The old man was confused.

  Another man wasn’t.

  Outside, still on the ground but waking also, Charney sat up to a growing crowd of onlookers and the curious.

  A dull throb echoed from his left temple. He reached up to his nose and felt the blood. When he touched it, he cringed. Blood covered his fingers; one of the baristas handed over a towel.

  Taking it, he wiped his bloodied fingers and then his nose.

  He started to chuckle, to the confusion of the crowd, and then said out loud, “That man is damn good!”

  The crowd became even larger and more confused.

  Charney stood, dropped the towel to the ground, and casually walked away.

  He wasn’t worried about Michael and York getting away. Quite to the contrary—sometimes success requires sacrifice. His sacrifice was the bloodied nose and headache. The success, however, was the small tracking device that he had placed in Michael’s pocket during their brief interaction.

  Charney distanced himself from the coffee shop and took out his smart-phone. Tapping the screen, he entered a few simple commands. The screen now displayed a map, upon which was a small blue dot.

  “Hello, Dr. Sterling,” said Charney, “let’s just see where you are headed, shall we?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  DEAD FISH & TRACKING

  CHIPS BELÉM TOWER

  LISBON, PORTUGAL

  Michael quickly walked around the corner and immediately saw the cab. An old white Mercedes 190E, replete with rusted wheel wells, one door of a differing color, and multiple dings and dents. A mixture of black and gray exhaust seeped from the tailpipe.

  York opened the door from the inside and slid over in the back seat to make room for Michael. The cab was musty and stank of stale cigarettes and years of unclean, sweaty Portuguese men. The Plexiglas divider was etched with the tags of too many names and expletives to count. Time had aged the protective divider, making it less than opaque, if not cloudy.

  “Drive,” commanded Michael.

  “Where to?” replied the driver.

  “Belém Tower,” answered Michael. The early sixteenth-century Manueline structure was to Lisbon what the Eiffel Tower was to Paris. It was the only tourist attraction that Michael could remember in the city—the only one that could offer a moment of help.

  It was also in the open.

  Michael looked at York, who stared back quizzically, and shrugged. “Just buying us some time.” He flipped the laptop over on his lap and opened it. Since it was already on, there was no password request, to his relief.

  In the coffee shop, Michael had noticed that a small antenna with a blinking blue light was plugged into one of the laptop’s USB ports. It was for cellular Internet.

  York watched as Michael pulled up an Internet page. Within moments the recognizable logo of the Central Intelligence Agency flashed across the screen. Michael logged into the secured system, using his personal username and password.

  “What the hell are you doing?” asked a confused York.

  His question was ignored.
/>   “Doc, they’ll know you are logged in! They will ping the IP and find us within minutes!”

  Michael lowered his voice so the driver couldn’t hear and said, “That’s the point, kid. Do you still have that flash drive?”

  York dug into his front pocket and pulled out the memory stick. He handed it to Michael. He wasn’t sure what the endgame was, but he didn’t like it.

  Sticking the flash drive into one of the ports, Michael murmured, “Now let’s see what this is all about.”

  Michael opened up numerous files and scanned them feverishly.

  York watched from his left side, trying to digest everything as fast as Michael was.

  Without removing his eyes from the screen, Michael said out of the corner of his mouth, “Tell me about Afghanistan.”

  York was more concerned about their current situation. “You’ve got to shut that thing down; they’re going to find us! Crap, they probably have a bunch of your agents on their way to us right now!”

  Michael’s eyes morphed into fire; he shot a heated glare at the young soldier. “I will not ask the same question twice. You are about two seconds from being thrown out of this cab, and I don’t mean when it has come to a stop. And they are officers—they are called officers. What are we in, a bad spy movie!? Why does everyone always get that wrong? Now, tell me about Afghanistan.”

  York felt his skin go hot. He clenched his teeth and his nostrils flared, but he backed down. He knew that he had to trust Michael. Through teeth still clenched, he outlined the events that had occurred in Afghanistan:

  “My team was southwest of Jalalabad; at the foot of the White Mountains. Our objective was an al-Qaeda cell, to capture its leader if possible, and to secure any intelligence. It was a hard and long climb to its entrance; the location was unmapped, and I had to use satellite imagery of the locale’s rock just to keep us on the right path. When we got to the top of the climb, the cave was empty. They had bugged out but returned when we were inside. The team was pinned down, and the firefight was fierce; we lost a few men during the fight. We called in for heavies. They arrived and finished the fight. But the extraction team—”York paused. His teammates had been more than just coworkers: they were friends; they were family.