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

by Joseph Nagle

  “Claude, where the hell are you, man? In the WC? Another night of bad sausage, eh?” The voice on the radio—another of the Louvre’s lonely night watchmen—chuckled. “When are you going to learn not to eat bad meat? I have a new joke for you; give me the answer after you flush: what’s the last thing that goes through a fly’s mind when he hits your windshield at one hundred kilometers per hour?”

  Charney couldn’t resist, not that it mattered: they would soon send someone to look for the dead man anyway.

  Depressing the radio’s talk button, Charney answered the joke: “His ass.”

  The night watchman at the other end of the radio was confused; the voice was not Claude’s. He spat out, “Claude? Who is this? Claude, come in! Claude?”

  Charney smashed the radio forcibly into the hard top of the pavement and then kicked the pieces into a nearby drain.

  He knew that the call would come. He had timed it perfectly. Returning to the dumpster, he struck a match and tossed it atop his clothes and chute. The flames lapped higher as Charney trotted from the fire. He had to get to his motorcycle and to his home before the driver of the DHL truck arrived.

  The smile on Charney’s face never eroded.

  Soon the world would know.

  The impossible had been made possible: the History Thief had stolen Samothrace.

  He picked up his pace.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  KEEPING HER SANITY

  DR. SONIA STERLING, MD

  Dr. Sonia Sterling sat with her back against the cold wall of the stone room. Her throat hurt as much as her shoulder and head, but not nearly as much as the pain throbbing in her leg. As a doctor, she knew that her biggest concern wasn’t the series of physical ailments, but the ones that would come from her mind. Shock is easy to detect by those on the outside, but its onset can defeat even the sharpest mind belonging to its victim—including hers. Sonia worked to remember this.

  But her breathing was coming in pants, and her focus was dwindling. She still had enough of her senses left to recognize the warning signs. Jumping to her feet, she spoke out loud to herself, not caring how mad it made her appear.

  “Keep it together, girl,” she said. “Keep it together; you’ve been through worse.”

  That comment made her laugh, and she corrected herself. “No, you haven’t,” she chuckled. “And now you are talking to yourself…and laughing at your own jokes.”

  Sonia knew that it was best to get her blood flowing, so she jumped in place to warm up her sore and stiff muscles. She knew that the blood would start pumping with more vigor as her heart rate rose, matching her need for more oxygen; her veins and capillaries would begin to dilate to accommodate the faster-moving, oxygenated blood. Her body temperature would rise accordingly, sending that heat and extra flow of needed fuel to her brain, where she needed it most.

  Out loud, she recited the alphabet; then she recited it again, but backward. When finished, she rapidly recounted simple mathematical calculations:

  “Two to the second power is four. Two to the third power is eight,” she recited.

  She took this as far as she could and then began reciting the bones of the body, starting from the furthest metatarsal.

  On and on she went, working to keep her mind sharp, her blood flowing, and shock at bay. At least she had something to do to pass the time. She didn’t want to focus at all on what might come next.

  And then she heard it—at least, she thought she had. She stopped moving and speaking, and listened. The sound had been slight, but she was sure that she had heard something.

  But there was nothing.

  Silence rang loud through her mind.

  A tear tried in vain to work its way out, but she forced it to stay in; she wasn’t yet ready to fold.

  Shaking off the moment, she told herself that she must have been hearing things and began again her series of medical regurgitations and mathematical equations. She focused harder and bounced atop her toes with more force.

  And then it came again.

  This time she was sure of it.

  She froze.

  Someone was there.

  Sonia wasn’t sure if she should shout or not. Better to be safe, she thought as she held in her shouts. Grabbing hold of a handful of courage, Sonia ran to the door, putting her left eye as close as possible to the small crack between the door and the floor.

  Patiently, she lay on the floor, hoping to see something, anything. She didn’t have to wait long. A series of fast-moving shadows split the bright white of the floor. First they moved left, and then they went right.

  Sonia shot up into a seated position and pushed herself across the floor and away from the door; her heart beat hard and fast. Her eyes were wide with fright. She felt a shiver ripple through her, and she wrapped her arms around her body tightly.

  After a few moments, regaining a bit of her lost confidence, she crawled slowly across the floor and peered once more through the crack. What she saw sent a jolt of fear ripping through her torso. Screaming out of instinct, she fell backward and awkwardly. Her injured shoulder struck the floor, forcing out another, more painful scream.

  From where she lay, she could see the feet of her abductor at the door’s edge. She started to sob as the tears streamed down her cheeks; this time she couldn’t hold them in, and, through them, she weakly asked, “Why?”

  On the other side of the door, her abductor smiled and walked away, content that Dr. Sonia Sterling was still under his control.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  WHERE THERE’S A THIEF

  PARIS, FRANCE

  York stared at the screen of the safe house’s LCD television. On it, images of the day’s news from CNN flashed incessantly across its screen.

  Reports about the stolen Crown of Thorns, the destruction of Notre Dame, and the assassinations of the president of France and Senator Door were relentless. A parade of experts, religious fanatics, and anyone with an opinion feverishly debated connections between these events and the dramatic disappearance of the Shroud of Turin and Senator Faust’s abduction.

  Some saw a connection; others didn’t.

  But only moments ago, a CIA officer—Jorge Garrido—had been on the screen, saying that the Order was back and that they were supplying Iran and al-Qaeda with the parts necessary to construct nuclear weapons. York eyed Danielle, who drifted nearer to the table where the bottles of opened liquor stood. She glided nonchalantly—if not apathetically—as if she had not just heard the same thing he did.

  York was confused. Priceless religious artifacts had been stolen, world leaders assassinated, and less than half a day ago, he and Michael had desecrated the final resting place of a long-dead queen, looking for some ancient piece of paper, and now this.

  Nuclear weapons and terrorists.

  The world was frenzied.

  What the fuck is going on? York thought as he tried in vain to make any kind of connection.

  He eyed Michael, who now sat in the leather chair opposite of the senator. The two men faced one another, their knees practically touching, but sat as if neither man knew the other was there.

  Michael looked calm, relaxed even.

  Maybe it was the booze.

  Throwing his head back slowly, York exhaled deeply and rubbed his eyes. He was tired and growing frustrated by everything. Staring upward, he saw that the ceiling was high with coffers of ornamental sunken domes. They looked old but well kept; bits of light from the room’s two lit lamps refracted off of the flakes of gold and silver in the domes’ details. Returning his gaze downward, he took in the rest of the apartment. In the corners he saw thick, intricately carved wooden pillars with formidable marble bases. On the far wall was an unused fireplace traced by an iron balustrade; it was large—too large—a man could lay prostrate in its base with room to spare; it was then that he noticed just how voluminous the room was.

  Who was this Danielle? he questioned silently.

  His eyes were drawn to her; he watched
as she moved seductively across the dusty wooden floor, easily keeping his attention; the cavernous distance between the room’s four walls amplified her light footsteps. York’s eyes latched onto her as her robe billowed loosely behind. Nearby, Michael coolly crossed his legs, and the sound of the soft material used to make his slacks rubbed smoothly in the quiet. York turned his head toward him and stared for far longer than he had wanted.

  Michael ignored him.

  York couldn’t take it any longer and impatiently blurted too loudly, “Would someone please tell me what is going on here? Who in the hell are the Watchmen?”

  The question provoked little emotion in or response from any of the room’s occupants.

  York emphatically thrust his hands out to his sides as if to say well?!

  Breaking the silence, Michael asked, “Would you like to answer the kid’s question, Senator?”

  Senator Faust said nothing, but he knew the answer, and he knew that Michael did too.

  With a condescending tone, Michael answered for the senator. “I guess our good senator here, for once in his stumping-filled, sycophantic, ass-kissing life, has nothing to say.” Michael looked at York and then continued, “Kid, the Watchmen are the people that make sure that men like the senator and other members of the Order are kept under control. When the Order surfaces, it is the sworn mission of the Watchmen to intervene, to put a stop to whatever ridiculous plan they have concocted to gain some measure of power and control.”

  “So that guy, Garrido, is in the CIA and the Watchmen, too?”

  “It would seem that way. The Watchmen do the same thing as these guys,” Michael pointed flippantly toward Faust. “They get themselves clandestinely into organizations and positions of influence.”

  “And that doesn’t bother you?” questioned York.

  It certainly did bother Michael, and his response didn’t hide it.

  “Kid, there is nothing more that I would like to do with both of these self-righteous, backward-thinking organizations than to drop them all in the middle of the ocean with no boat and tell them to paddle like a dog and hope for the best.”

  “But you can’t, can you, Dr. Sterling?” Faust couldn’t raise the courage to look at Michael when asking his question, but his words still raised more than a slight ire in Michael, who eyed with a bit of fire the return of the solipsistic man.

  Returning his eyes to his glass of freshly poured vodka, Michael raised it to his lips and took a slow slip. He allowed the contradiction of the chilled vodka’s burn to drizzle slowly down his throat, enjoying it first before responding to the senator’s question. When the sensation no longer brought him the right measure of satisfaction, he raised one corner of his mouth into a crooked smile and said, “Kid, you are going to find a rag and shove it down the senator’s windpipe. I have no desire to hear his voice; when you are sure that it is as far as it can go, you will put him into that closet over there.”

  Michael held out his right hand which held his drink; with the index finger of the hand that palmed the glass, he pointed toward a tall wooden door across the room and directly behind the senator. As if on cue, Danielle was already there, reaching out to open it.

  “And once he’s in there,” Michael continued, “I am going to put my foot so deep into his left side that his kidney is going to bleed for a week.” Michael looked at the senator with a controlled anger and growled, “That will be for my wife, Senator; she should have never been brought into this.”

  When Michael finished his sentence, the senator did finally look at the intelligence officer and deputy director of the CIA and said, “You have absolutely no clue what is going on, do you, Dr. Sterling?”

  And then he laughed. It was a deep, throaty laugh that filled the wide-open spaces of the apartment.

  Continuing, the senator coughed out with a growing fervor, “Even with all of your education and experiences, you are still in the dark. You tiny little parasites haven’t the cognitive ability to comprehend who we are, what we are! You need us; you always have! Without our control and guidance throughout the centuries, you would be nothing more than hordes of barbaric tribes still chasing your food and still believing it’s best to kill or be killed. You’d still be shouting your prayers at the sun and the moon and begging a ball of fire and a rock for protection and forgiveness! We created this world; we have given you—all of you!—the opportunity to live your short, meaningless lives in relative peace and comfort! We have kept you safe from your worst enemies—each other!”

  The senator was in a near scream; his face was red with new vigor as he shouted, “Life as you know it would have never occurred without the Order! Men like you,” Faust motioned to both Michael and York, “are nothing more than our workhorses: smart enough to believe that you are necessary, but still credulous enough to be yoked to do our bidding. You keep the streets cleaned of the urchins that won’t fall into place. And the best part of this—nay, the most comical part—is that you’ve been sold a bill of nationalistic, flag-waving goods mixed with your god of choice for your entire lives, and you don’t even know it!”

  The two men, Dr. Michael Sterling and Senator Matthew Faust, stared intensely at one another. The silence between the two was deafening.

  Michael spoke first: he saw the chance to get some answers, and he took it: “And Merlin? Tell me, Senator, why would the Order give the building blocks for a nuclear weapon to terrorists, to jihadists?”

  Faust calculated his response; one option was to say nothing. He looked around the room and saw the Green Beret boring a hole through him, his fists clenched, waiting for the answer, but wanting to pounce on him. Danielle even appeared curious, too, and had moved closer to the men.

  Another option was to tell them—to tell them everything. Why not, he thought. His career, his life as he knew it, was over. If these men didn’t kill him, the Order certainly would, if not some raghead. He had failed; there was no way that he would become president, unless…

  Faust smiled at the simplicity of his plan, believing that it had a chance to work.

  “Dr. Sterling,” Faust said from behind his clenched teeth, “you are so preoccupied with Merlin that you can’t see past that bloody operation. Merlin is just a means—a means that you haven’t yet understood. Your problem is that you are asking the wrong question.”

  “And what is the right question?” growled Michael.

  “My, Dr. Sterling, it surprises me that you don’t know. You were an interrogator at one point in your career, were you not?”

  Michael stared blankly back at the senator.

  “It seems that you have forgotten the most basic of your interrogatives—what, Dr. Sterling, what is the word that you should be using—what is Operation Merlin?”

  “How about you tell me?” spat Michael.

  Senator Matthew Faust only smiled. He appeared almost comfortable. “Dr. Sterling, you were responsible for Merlin, for giving the plans for a nuclear weapon to al-Qaeda. Or have you forgotten: it was your name, York’s too, that was on the intelligence found in that cave in Afghanistan, the intelligence that Senator Door was going to go public with. So you killed her, you and your Green Beret boy-toy here. If necessary, your question—what, that is—will be answered in due time. It would seem that you are between a rock and a hard place.”

  For some reason this made the senator smile and laugh a bit. His laugh brought on a bit of sharp pain, so he shifted in his chair, trying to maintain any semblance of momentary comfort, but every time he moved, the pain ran through the hole in his hand and the bruises on his body. Even with the pain, he felt an amount of confidence beginning to return, and it was his turn to jump on it.

  Michael sat back in his own chair, listening to the senator; he would let the diatribe run its course.

  “You have no connection between me and Merlin, Dr. Sterling. None!” Faust shouted. “In fact, it is quite the opposite, isn’t it?”

  It was then that Michael reached into his coat and pulled out Justine
’s phone. He loosely palmed it, toying with it. “Senator—” Michael paused. “You know, I have a hard time calling you that. You are the furthest thing from a public servant. So listen, Matthew, and listen well. I have no doubt that the contents of this phone, as well as its use, can easily be connected to you. In fact, I will go out on a limb and say that there are by far more pieces to the puzzle you have created that can be put together by my folks at Langley that will not only connect you to Merlin—to Door’s death—but will put you in the center.”

  Faust’s face went white. He tried to hide it, and in most situations, he could. But this time was different. He hadn’t calculated what a physical connection between him and Justine could lead to; the stakes were too high, and no poker face could hide his fear.

  Michael saw this.

  It made him smile.

  “You see, Matthew, the very thing you egotistical, back-slapping idiots of the Order tried to use to corral us cattle will be your undoing.” Michael stopped for a moment and grimaced. York edged closer, wanting to help him. Michael shook his head, stopping York from coming any closer. Finishing his sentence, Michael said, “Technology, Faust—that which the Order uses to keep us parasites under control—will be your downfall. Ironic, isn’t it?”

  Faust thought about this for a moment. He knew that Michael was right. That phone would connect more dots than a child’s puzzle. Justine was his focal; she knew and did everything and anything for him. But he had broken the simplest of rules, the one that a man always breaks—never get emotionally involved. She had been scorned and, as she lay dying, she had given Michael the one thing that could connect him with Door’s death.

  Faust thought for a bit longer and then leaned forward; he had one card left to play. “I see that little device they put in you is just about at the end of its life, Dr. Sterling.” Faust chuckled sarcastically and said, “You know what they call it, Dr. Sterling?”

  Michael didn’t respond and only narrowed his eyes as he listened.

  In a whisper that only Michael could hear, Faust gave him the answer, “They call it the Heart Attack.” The senator cracked his own slight smile as he said, “It’s a bit comical, you see. They call it that because when it detonates, it tears a hole in your artery. It’s pretty neat, really, when you think about it. Your artery rips, and you will bleed out in less than five minutes. Your heart reacts by shutting down, by going into cardiac arrest. I’ve been told that most autopsies won’t find the cause, because the coroner stops once he sees the telltale signs. No reason to open up and inspect the inside of your thigh. You’ll have died from a heart attack—that’s what the official record will say.”