The Thieves of Faith (58 page)

“I thought you were…” Susan’s voice cracked.

“You, too. Did they hurt you?”

She shook her head.

As he embraced her, a momentary relief washed over him: she was still alive. They held each other close, taking comfort in the moment. It was the first time Michael had truly hugged someone since Mary died. And he felt a warmth, a feeling of comfort, a feeling of peace, a feeling that his heart could open again.

Michael looked about the room. A single ceiling light shined down on the lone table. The variety of birds and animals had all fallen silent as if they sensed their impending demise. On the far side of the room was a large wall of glass, a curtain drawn across it at one end. He finally looked back down at Susan.

Susan lifted her head from his chest and looked up into his eyes. “Stephen?”

“He’s alive, for the moment. He escaped but they grabbed him again.” Michael’s eyes were dire. “It was Martin.”

Susan looked up at Michael, subtly shaking her head, her eyes filled with shame.

“He betrayed us all,” Michael said. “You, me, Stephen.”

“Do they have the real box?”

Michael looked her in the eye, subtly smiling. “You opened the box.”

“I guess you saw that coming.” Susan smiled, embarrassed, knowing that he foresaw her weakness. But she couldn’t stay angry; she was merely glad that he was still alive.

“Susan, they have the box next door in the lab.” Michael released her and began walking about the room, feeling the cages, peering in at the timid animals, checking the light and the electrical outlets. He ran his hand along the glass, its edges recessed into the wall. “We need to get out of here before they open that box.”

“I saw the lab, it’s pretty high-tech, they said it can contain any virus or disease.”

“I’m not worried about that, I’m more worried about the explosion.”

“Explosion? What explosion?”

“The one that’s going to destroy this building.”

“Michael, what did you do? What do they have next door?”

“Five pounds of Semtex wrapped in gold, enough to level these two rooms.” Michael looked at his watch. “And in less than twenty minutes, they’re going to open it and set it off.”

Susan looked at him. “How many boxes did you take out of Ivan’s Liberia?”

“A couple of spares.”

“Does anyone else know?”

“Just you, me, and Dad,” Michael said as he continued to check for a way out.

When Michael had boarded the plane back in Russia, he immediately went to Stephen Kelley’s rear stateroom and set up shop on the small desk. He removed the two golden boxes from his dive bag along with his small toolbox, a medical kit, his cell phone, and a can of orange paint.

He opened Simon’s bag of tricks and began to rummage: incendiary bombs, ammo, Semtex, rifle pieces, two pistols. He quickly set to work. He dismantled the flip phone, removing the battery and hinge circuit. He opened up the gold decoy box and mounted the battery in the concave lid, running the wiring to the hinge where he affixed the flip switch. He tested the circuit, opening and closing the box to ensure a true electrical pathway and confirming the effectiveness of his spring-loaded pressure fuse. He packed as much Semtex into the well of the box as he could, inserted the two leads into the blasting cap, stuffed it into the malleable explosive, and closed the lid. He inserted a screwdriver into the simple lock, locked the box, and put it aside.

Michael pulled over the true box, the Albero della Vita, the Tree of Life beautifully etched in its lid, the one whose nature was far more devastating than the contraption he had just created. He grabbed the white plastic medical box and opened it. It was filled with cotton, bandages, tape, syringes, sutures, ointment, and scissors. He emptied it and held it up, turning it over, examining it closely; it was slightly larger than the gold box but not large enough to contain it. Michael pulled his knife, removed the Red Cross stickers, and cut the box along its seams into six separate pieces. He set to work on the golden box, affixing the plastic along the sides and constructing a false top, one where the lid could be lifted to reveal a one-and-a-half-inch-deep holding space. Michael grabbed the can of orange paint he had used to mark his path in the Kremlin tunnel and sprayed the entire box orange.

As the quick-drying paint set, he affixed the Red Cross stickers. He lifted the lid and covered the false-bottomed box with the cotton and white bandage, he placed in the syringes and other medical supplies, filling the one-and-a-half-inch space to the rim, virtually concealing the truth hidden in the false bottom below. Michael looked at his two creations, both deadly in their own right, unsure of how he would bring them into play. But now, as he sat with Susan in the room next to where the decoy would be opened, he was beginning to have his regrets.

Chapter 64

D
r. Habib took the golden box from Fetisov
and dismissed him with a nod. He walked back into the lab and placed it on the small central pedestal of the containment room that sat thirty feet belowground. The advanced ventilation system was humming as the air handlers kicked in. Hal Jenkins entered the room, dressed in his white suit, his hair disheveled, his eyes still filled with sleep. “So, another wild-goose chase?”

“They interrupted my dream of a fine wine on the beach of Marassia.”

“You have got to get a life, fantasizing about wine is pathetic.” Jenkins pulled out the remote arms and powered them up. He flipped on the overhead lights, which bounced off the golden box that was suddenly lit up as if upon an altar awaiting worship. “That box looks just like the last one.”

“Well, if it’s like the last one, I’ll be back in bed in twenty minutes,” Habib said as he secured the box down. “Where’s Lloyd?”

“Don’t know. But I’m not waiting on his arrogant ass.”

“Good morning, gentlemen.” Julian’s voice came over the speakers.

Jenkins slid his hands into the control gloves and stretched out his arms. The mechanical arms on the other side of the glass responded in kind. He was like an athlete getting ready for the race. He twisted his neck from side to side, to and fro, reaching out his arms, stretching them wide, the mechanical appendages responding in an exact mimic of his movements.

“We’re going to be about fifteen minutes before we get everything powered up down here,” Habib said to the omniscient voice.

“Call me when you’re ready.” Julian’s voice echoed before clicking off.

Habib flipped on the computers, sensors, and analyzers; he started the digital recorders and adjusted the focus on each of the cameras. He took an air reading as a baseline and waited for the computer to respond.

Jenkins’s left mechanical hand reached out and picked up the screwdriver that lay on the counter; he spun it in his robot-like hand, moving it back and forth toward the box’s lock. He twisted it back and forth like a safecracker on a mission. “Tell me when you’re ready.”

Chapter 65

H
ow many years, Martin?” Stephen said as
they walked in the enormous wine cellar, past the polished vats, past the vast collection of wines whose value was beyond compare.

“Standing in your shadow?” Martin said, holding the gun high.

“Shadow?” There was anguish in Stephen’s voice despite the fact that his friend held a gun to his back. “You were the one person who stood by my side since I started the firm.”

“That’s right, since
we
started your firm.”

They continued walking; an uncomfortable silence surrounded them.

“You’ve been with me through everything,” Stephen blurted out in confusion. “You helped carry Peter’s coffin, for Christ’s sake. The words you spoke at his funeral about us, about family and loyalty, was that all bullshit?” Stephen abruptly stopped and spun around. “Tell me you didn’t buy into this guy’s absurd religion?”

Martin laughed as he flicked the gun at Stephen, motioning him to walk. “Hardly. I checked them out a few years ago, thought they were a joke but they never stopped soliciting me. I received an e-mail from God’s Truth; it showed a picture of Genevieve Zivera, the woman who had visited you, said it was Julian’s sick, missing mother. All I did was make the call. I didn’t ask for anything in return. I thought I was doing the right thing.” Martin paused as they continued on. “Then they dangled an offer. The immediate-retirement kind of offer. Take our money and retire or we will retire you. Not much of a choice. But the more I thought about it…Everyone works for you, Stephen, making you rich; it was time I made my own shadow.”

“But Susan, you sold her out?”

“Please, she’s nothing more than a spoiled child.” Martin kept two feet back, gun in hand as he guided Stephen to the stairs at the far end of the wine cellar. They walked down into darkness, arriving at the earthen room that stood in sharp contrast to everything upstairs. It took a moment for Stephen’s eyes to adjust before he realized where they were. The tombs spread out along the wall, lit by a string of overhead lights. The smell of the crypt was ancient, sour, and moldy. But for the lights, it was as if they had walked back in time. They walked past the tombs of Charlotte and Yves Trepaunt, Dr. Robert Tanner, their vintage standing in sharp contrast to the centuries-old graves in this darkened underworld. They finally came to a stop in front of an opened tomb.

Stephen was doing everything in his power not to lash out at the man he had thought was his closest friend. “When you opened my safe and you took the box, did you take my gun? Is that my gun?”

Martin answered by jamming it in his back. “Never felt it from that point of view, did you?”

“That’s my favorite gun, Martin.”

“I’ll be sure to see that you are buried with it. My last act in tribute to you.”

“I get a son back.” Stephen turned around and stared Martin in the eye. “And you send him to his death?”

“Don’t worry, you won’t be separated long.”

Stephen hit him hard, right in the face. And it felt good, just like when he was young, unloading on someone in the ring. He hit the fifty-five-year-old man with all of his anger, all of his rage, at being kidnapped, at losing Michael. Martin tumbled back but he never lost his frame of mind. He rapid-fired the pistol, five shots in mere seconds. At close range. The report echoing about, deafening him. But Stephen kept coming.

“Smart boy, that Michael, putting blanks in the pistols. My son was right, trust no one. He said someone couldn’t be trusted, he said someone had been feeding information to Julian all along the way. I never thought it would be you.” He ripped the gun out of Martin’s hands and hit him again. This time even harder. All of his pent-up rage focused in his fists. Martin tried to fight back but it was useless.

“You tried to kill me, you son of a bitch.”

Stephen lost all composure, his mind slipping away from reason as he pummeled the man who sold him out, who sent Susan and Michael to their probable deaths. And with one final effort, he coiled his arm all the way back and released his entire weight, his entire anger into the killing blow. He hit Martin so hard in the temple, he crushed the temporal bone, shattering it, its fragments exploding forth into Martin’s brain. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Stephen picked up the gun and ejected the clip. He withdrew the cigar case that Michael had given him; Michael was clear that it was only to be opened later. Well, now was later. He opened it and pulled out the gun clip with the real bullets. He jammed it in the handle of the gun and took off.