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

by Joseph Nagle

  Both men landed on the building’s central air conditioning units. The impact caused the galvanized aluminum of the industrial-sized units to crush inward but had cushioned their fall.

  The Doc was the first to rise.

  The senator looked unconscious.

  York watched as the Doc shook Senator Faust onto his feet and smiled when he saw the Doc grab the man by the back of his hair as he dragged him from the rooftop. The helicopter news crew tried in vain to stay with the Doc, and they were able to do so for only a few short blocks. He was just too good. The Doc and the senator disappeared into the street life and the coming dark of the night.

  York threw back the second round of whisky; this time he was able to take it more like a man and less like a boy, wincing only slightly this time.

  Danielle stood and brought the bottle to the Green Beret. She poured a fresh belt of whisky. He took it, this time without hesitation. He swallowed the booze and actually enjoyed it as it burned going down his throat.

  As Danielle stood at his side, she answered his question, “Oui, Monsieur York, we are expecting more people—two to be precise.”

  Almost prophetically, there was a heavy knock at the door.

  PART III

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  IN A DARK ROOM

  CIA HQ

  Garrido was alone and hadn’t left Langley.

  Deep in the sub-basement of the CIA’s headquarters, Garrido watched the CNN footage of Dr. Michael Sterling’s kidnapping of Senator Faust and their dramatic escape.

  The world may have known that it was the senator falling from the window, but was in the dark about the other man—about Michael. Inside of the hotel, the press conference hadn’t started when Michael had burst through the doors. The cameras had not been turned on. The only footage of the abductor was when he had fallen alongside the senator, from the fourth floor window, along with some grainy hotel camera shots, where Michael had been sure to keep his head down.

  But Garrido knew it was the Doc.

  He shook his head along with a smile.

  Slowly, he rubbed his badly damaged hands with ice. Garrido’s thoughts were singular: he thought about Portugal and wondered what the connection was between Michael’s jaunt through the city to the crown and the shroud; and then there was Operation Merlin and the Iranians. The connection wasn’t being made.

  A few hours ago, Lou had taken his own life. It would take less than a day for the CIA’s coroner (who would silently curse the strange uptick in internal deaths) to find the Sodium Pentothal mixed with cyanide in Lou’s system.

  Garrido wasn’t worried: there was no way to connect him with the death. Stanford wasn’t the only officer able to tap into and erase any telling recordings.

  Garrido unknowingly watched the same footage as the missing Green Beret watched in Paris. He smiled each time he saw the Doc fall from the window and rise with a fistful of the senator’s hair in his hand.

  At least he now knew who was at the center of this mess: Senator Matthew Faust.

  And then it hit him.

  Garrido bolted upright, throwing his feet heavily to the floor from the desktop where they had rested moments ago.

  Garrido spat out to no one in particular: “You are in a dark room, Garrido; a dark room with no door, and all that you have is a dead, obsolete operation.”

  That was what Lou had condescendingly shouted out before he died. Garrido smiled. That’s it!

  Garrido laughed out loud. “Lou, you son of a bitch!”

  Garrido knew; he knew exactly what was happening, why the Order wanted the crown, why they needed the shroud. Operation Merlin made perfect sense. Instantly, he knew why the Doc had been sent to Portugal.

  The room was quiet, and Garrido had found a new energy. Moments ago, he had been confined by confusion, but now his mind raced. Standing, he walked toward the television and stopped just short of it. He watched the loop of the Doc two more times and then shut it off.

  A new darkness fell over the room; the room’s only source of light came from the LCD of his computer screen. Turning, he moved quickly back to the desk and punched away at the keyboard. It was a simple task that he undertook. There was one safe house in Paris that was under the protection of the Doc. Everyone knew about it, and Garrido calculated that the Doc had figured out the same thing he just had.

  He would bet his salary on it: the Doc wanted to be found.

  After a moment of a painful flurry—his hands hurt like hell as he typed away—he found it: 67 Rue du Chabrol, #4. Contact: Danielle Juneau. Her picture adorned the right-hand corner of the screen.

  Under the name, photo, and address was a videoconference phone number with the necessary code to make the call. Garrido tapped the code into the digitally encrypted video conferencing system, entered the video conference number, and then he stared at his computer screen, waiting for the call to be answered. If he could have crossed his swollen fingers, he would have.

  Three rings went by, and there was no answer. Then a fourth and fifth ring; still there was no answer.

  Garrido felt his forehead grow hotter; a small bead of sweat trickled down the side of his cheek as he waited.

  Come on! Answer!

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  HIS MASTERPIECE

  THE LOUVRE—PARIS,

  FRANCE

  It was just beyond dusk; the time was a perfect blend of failing light and impending darkness. Dusk played tricks with eyesight; Charney used this to his advantage.

  Had it been completely dark, the blinking lights of the hovering helicopter would have been easily seen against the static light of the stars; and certainly had there been more light above him, the crowds below would have been able to see the canopy of the falling man once his parachute had deployed.

  Instead, the world below would be blind to the aerobatic assault taking place; all would go about and continue on with their evening affairs, having no idea what was falling from above. Unbeknownst to the populace below, the History Thief was in a free-fall above the city.

  His sights were on his masterpiece, housed in the vast confines of the Louvre below him.

  At the right altitude—nearly eighteen thousand feet above Paris—Charney dropped from the small helicopter, rushing toward the city’s rooftops at near terminal velocity.

  He would wait to pull his chute; there was no reserve, nor would there be a second chance. Either it would open, or he would die in dramatic fashion.

  The wind rushed past his face and roared over his ears. Patiently he waited to pull the chord. Glancing at the soft green glow of his altimeter, he saw that he was seconds away. He maintained his position; the sky was pounding across his torso. At the right moment and with well-trained precision, he steered his body toward the Pavillon Daru—to the south side of the Louvre.

  Below was Samothrace; her stony wings spread wide as she appeared to move through the air perched on the bow of a ship. He envisioned that he was doing the same: cutting through the sky; celebrating his victory as she was; thrusting his chest forward in that same victorious manner as he transported from one place to another, to another time. His black jump suit billowed theatrically much like the sheer marble drapery that wrapped Samothrace.

  He closed his eyes for a moment; he enjoyed the temporal separation from everything physical.

  Perfect, though Charney.

  His altimeter vibrated against his wrist. When he opened his eyes, he was close to the earth; his trajectory had him in the precise spot.

  Pulling the ripcord, the ram-air canopy snapped open, decelerating his body exponentially. The chute was less opaque and more transparent, making him near invisible to any of the populace below that might have enjoyed a random gaze into the darkening sky.

  The Denon Wing of the Louvre was approaching; Charney steered the chute expertly toward one of its stained cupolas. The winds were light, making his turns without issue. He brought his path into an arc and curled around to the south side of the wing, j
ust above the base of the Escalier Daru—the Daru Staircase.

  The rooftop was lined with carved stone from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Started by Catherine Medici in 1560, but finished by Louis VIII in 1643, the stones were used to house and protect the Hellenistic-era Parian masterpiece.

  The chiseled stones were an abstract mixture of light-colored sand and weather-darkened veins. Charney reached his toes delicately downward toward them as the rooftop approached.

  The landing was gentle; he quickly deflated the chute and, arm-over-arm, reeled in the canopy in order to avoid it sucking him to the ground below.

  He was fast. The harness, canopy, and pack were off of his body and cast aside, but only temporarily—he would need them again when finished. Near where he landed, an iron, digitally secured control box routed numerous cables for the museum’s closed circuit television security system (CCTV).

  He had memorized the code for the box—it, too, had been supplied, as requested by his benefactor.

  Inside of the iron box was a maze of intertwined cables and wires. It took a few moments to find which one he needed; it was labeled with a simple DP. Charney quickly exposed bare the copper wire that was inside the protective rubber sheath. Tapping into the CCTV was a simple affair; he attached one end of two small leads to the copper and inserted the USB of the other end into a small laptop. The diminutive four-inch LCD screen glowed to life, and he soon saw what the camera inside recorded: the entire hallway leading to the Escalier Daru. He watched as the camera panned the length of the stairs and felt a twinge of excitement as the shadowed outline of Samothrace materialized. Punching a series of commands, he recorded the scene for half a minute and then fed a looping image of the recorded scene into the CCTV system.

  He would be invisible while at work.

  Creeping back to the cupola, he peered downward and inside of the hallway. A low light bathed the Daru Staircase; he could no longer see her, but he knew at the top of staircase she stood.

  There she waited for him, beckoned for him.

  He was so close; for the first time, the excitement of the conquest reverberated through him as his heart beat much faster; his breathing was suddenly fast and shallow.

  Control, he had to remind himself.

  It felt like the first time.

  He glanced at his watch. He had precisely four minutes to get into the Louvre.

  From his pack, he pulled out a small pneumatic tool and a thick, square metal plate. Four successive pulls of the tool’s trigger, and the plate was anchored into the stone of the roof by four bolts. Welded atop the plate was a thick D-ring to which he attached a fast rope.

  Charney glanced at his watch and then down into the Louvre.

  Three minutes.

  He removed a Trango fast rope descender from his bag and affixed it to the fast rope. Within moments, the opposite end was attached to his rappelling harness.

  Dropping into a prostrate position, he rapped his knuckle lightly on the glass to gauge its thickness.

  On his belt were the tools of his trade; without looking he reached for the stainless steel CRL 320 glasscutter with his right hand and removed it from its sheath.

  With his left hand he removed a large industrial suction cup from his cargo pocket.

  He first put the suction cup on the glass; depressing a small button, a tiny electronic motor removed all air between the rubber of the cup and the glass.

  The vacuum created a pressure that flattened and sealed the suction cup as firmly as cement to the cupola’s thick glass. With a second, shorter rope, he affixed the handle of the suction cup to the D-ring mounted into the stone.

  Next, he carefully placed the edge of the nickel-plated cutting heads of the glasscutter atop the cupola. It had six different cutting heads. He chose the sixth one—capable of cutting through glass greater than one-half inch thick.

  A trickle of sweat lined the part of his forehead nearest his hairline. He ignored the growing beads and ran the glasscutter along the edges of the frame until he felt the glass give.

  The rope to which the suction cup was attached sped through the cupola, falling three feet and then snapping taut. A small stream of anxiousness ran through Charney as he waited for the sound of crashing glass.

  It never came.

  Neither did any alarm. The blueprints—his nonnegotiable request from his benefactor—had outlined every aspect of security on the wing, and on these cupolas there was none.

  In fact, all of the alarms were wired to each piece of artwork and to the building’s doors and the windows along its walls. It wasn’t an oversight on the security planner’s part to not arm the cupolas; they just simply believed that malicious activity in the Louvre was better monitored at the source of that maliciousness, and not at the heavy glass of the cupolas.

  And there was no alarm on Samothrace; it was believed that no one could steal a multi-ton, larger-than-life-sized statue.

  Charney looked through the new opening of the cut glass and watched for a moment as the heavy pane oscillated slightly three feet below.

  He smiled.

  One more glance at his watch—thirty seconds.

  The time ticked by, and he held his breath.

  At the precise moment outlined in the information given to him on the USB flash drive, a shadow flickered across the staircase.

  One of the Louvre’s night watchmen was whistling nonchalantly a random series of notes belonging to no recognizable song while using his flashlight more to illuminate his path than to study his surroundings for anything amiss.

  Charney watched as the man descended the lengthy staircase; he now stood with his feet at the edge of the stone where a moment ago there had been glass.

  He waited and watched.

  The night watchman walked below, oblivious to the dark-clothed man and pane of glass dangling above.

  Staring straight down through the cupola, with the fast rope held tight between his gloved fingers, Charney lowered himself until his body formed the ninety-degree shape of the letter L.

  As he released his grip slightly, the fast rope moved over the leather of his gloves. Charney continued to lower himself slowly until he was past the hanging piece of glass. At that moment, when safely beyond the glass, he dropped deftly and quickly behind the night watchman.

  There had been little palpable sound; none, anyway, that would have warned the night watchman of any impending danger. Only a slight splash of air fell across the watchman’s neck. It was surprising enough to stop him in his tracks, but not enough to ripple through him the fear that he should have felt.

  Instead, he was nervous.

  It was of no matter. He was only a watchman; his name was Claude Berengér, and he was a simple man resigned to live out his days wandering the halls of the Louvre for a meager living. He wielded a flashlight and a radio as weapons: the first was used to light his way in the darkened halls and the second to pass the time, uttering crude jokes with the other watchmen. His life was mostly carefree and void of any real responsibility. He wasn’t a man trained in anything of real importance; he certainly wasn’t trained to defend himself from an impending attack.

  When the air brushed across his neck, it meant little more than having been a distraction from the norm. When the slight sound of the fast rope echoed behind him, it didn’t register danger.

  It had been planned, and he had been paid handsomely for his minor part. All that had been required was to let the thief knock him unconscious and to make his chain of keys easily accessible to the man. The task to which he agreed had been worth the one hundred thousand euros he was offered. It would be his way to an early retirement and required only a splitting headache.

  Claude didn’t care about the priceless artwork that he guarded. That day had ended long ago. No longer did he have pride in his work. He was tired as much as he was resigned—every day. He was more than happy to have accepted their offer.

  Claude knew that it was time. Reaching into his pocket, he
pulled out the chain of keys and let them dangle at his side.

  Then he braced himself for the blow, squeezing his eyes tightly shut.

  But when the leather of the glove reached across his neck, he had scarcely the time to calculate the coming of his own death.

  It was quick and to the fortune of both men.

  To the night watchman, the dark spaces within the many crevices and angles of the Louvre’s hallway faded even darker.

  With a loud crack, Claude’s knees buckled, and he slumped to the floor, his neck broken. His hand fell to his side, and the keys pinged loudly against the floor. Charney grabbed them along with dead man’s radio and went to work.

  Charney had to work fast—really fast. He had every detail planned down to the minute.

  Nearby was a storage room, just as had been outlined in the blueprints on the USB flash drive. Running to it, he tried one key and then the next. It was the fourth key that unlocked the door.

  Scanning its interior, he saw that everything he had asked for was there.

  Running back to the dead man’s body, he dragged it into the voluminous storage room, casting it into one of the corners. The room was cluttered with cleaning supplies, rags, various tools, and equipment. Three large boxes of light colored oak glistened brightly in contrast to the dark walls and floor of the room. He opened each of them. Taking a quick inventory, he was relieved that everything had been provided.

  But no smile of satisfaction was on his face.

  Time would not be his ally. He would have slightly longer than one hour to complete his task; it would take all of his skills to make his masterpiece a reality. The night watchman would be expected back at his post in that time.

  His movements were efficient and supported by the supplies provided.

  The first box contained rolls of rubber tracks that, when unrolled across the floor of the Louvre, resembled those for a small train. The next box contained narrow black hose—yards of it. In one of the room’s corners was an old sink used to clean dirty rags. On its faucet he clamped the brass-tipped end of the hose. With expediency he bolted up the Daru Staircase, unfurling hose with each stair climbed.