The Thieves of Faith
Michael St. Pierre [2]
Richard Doetsch
Dell (2006)
* * *
Rating: ★★★★☆
Tags: Fiction, Thrillers
Fictionttt Thrillersttt
* * *
*Beneath the Kremlin lies a shocking ancient truth.
And it's about to be stolen.…
* Since the times of Ivan the Terrible, generations of Russian leaders have turned the Kremlin into a fortress within a fortress, stocking its labyrinthine underground with secret vaults, elegant chambers, and priceless treasures. Now a master thief has the ultimate motivation to stage an assault on the Kremlin's inner sanctum. Two lives depend on it. Thousands of years of religious faith hinge on it. And a man's conscience, skill, and passion will not let him fail.
For Michael St. Pierre, history's most daring heist is only one piece of an intricate puzzle reaching from an ancient monastery in Scotland to a hideaway in Corsica—where a madman has built an empire of terror. Haunted by his own family secrets, and surrounded by the precious few people he can trust, Michael will take on a mission that will make him the most hunted man in the world. But when an astounding truth, buried deep beneath the Kremlin, erupts with shattering force, he may unleash a relic too dangerous to possess.…
Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
The Italian Dolomites
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
About the Author
Also by Richard Doetsch
Copyright
For Virginia,
my best friend.
I love you with all my heart.
When I hold you in my arms, and you embrace me in return,
it is the purest of moments…It is perfection…It is my home.
Thank you for making our life exceed my dreams.
Acknowledgments
Life is far more enjoyable when you work with people you genuinely like and respect. It is my distinct pleasure to thank the following people:
Gene and Wanda Sgarlata, for their continued support and without whose friendship you wouldn’t be reading these words. Irwyn Applebaum for launching a dream; Nita Taublib for running the show; Kate Miciak for shepherding my career and teaching me more than she’ll ever know. Josh Pasternak for appearing out of nowhere with inspiration, guidance, and enthusiasm. I’m so glad to be working together. Madeline Hopkins, whose skillful line edits catch me where I fall. Joel Gotler for that expert West Coast advice. Maria Faillace and everyone at Fox 2000 for creating the initial and continued excitement in the Thieves series.
And head and shoulders above all, Cynthia Manson. It is a rare day when you find a true friend in this world and to find one to work with is truly magical. Thank you for your innovative thinking, continued faith, and sheer tenacity.
Thank you to my family: Richard for your creative spirit, strength of character, and sense of humor in the face of adversity. Marguerite for your persistent approach to life, caring heart, and never-ending sense of style no matter the circumstance. Isabelle for your laugh, your perfectionism in all things big and small, and your constant sense of wonder at the world around you. My dad for always being my dad and teaching those lessons that I’ve finally come to understand after all these years.
Most importantly, thank you, Virginia, for putting up with my unending middle-of-the-night work habits. You are my muse, the song within my soul, you are the reason for everything good in my life. You fill me with laughter, joy, and love. You forever make my heart dance.
Finally, thanks to you, the reader who has never heard of me but purchased The Thieves of Faith. I hope I exceed your expectations. And to those who took a chance in buying The Thieves of Heaven, thanks for coming back for seconds.
The Italian Dolomites
Reaching for Heaven, snow-capped and sheer, majestically looking down on Cortina valley in northeast Italy, the Belluno Dolomites cast a massive shadow thirty miles to the horizon, blanketing the valley, depriving it of the last bits of the midwinter sun.
The small chalet sat at the foot of the mountain, its log walls drawn from the surrounding pine-tree forests, its thatched roof more waterproof than any modern design. But for minor repairs, the cabin had remained unchanged for a century and a half. The furniture, rough hewn, crafted from the same pine forests, was minimal and spartan. The simple cabin possessed no modern comforts: its water came from a well, its heat from a large fireplace, its light from antique oil lamps. In fact, there was no telling it was the twenty-first century but for the laptop computer and the satellite phone on the wooden dining table. The screen was open to a portfolio at Safra Bank in Luxembourg. Genevieve Zivera opened each account, examining it with a clockmaker’s precision, noting that each of her accounts, again and again, had been emptied.
The man hiked four miles up the back side of the valley, his snowshoes floating on the three-foot-deep powder. The winds out of the east, while robbing him of his warmth, conveniently wiped his tracks from existence. His white snowsuit concealed his body, and his backpack was pulled tight for support. His breath exploded in heavy clouds from his mouth through a dense black beard that was growing thick with icicles. His long black hair stuck out of the back of his white woolen cap and whipped about in the ever-increasing winds. He did not stop once on his three-hour journey through the winter forest, finally emerging above the tree line into an open glade beneath the gray razor-like mountains. He had timed his climb perfectly—the sun was just setting, and he would have just enough time to set to work and escape under cover of darkness. The dangers of hypothermia, frostbite, and death paled next to being caught. His task could never be known to anyone.
Genevieve’s cabin h
ad become her retreat from the world. For longer than she could remember, she had come here to clear her mind, to commune with her heart. She was isolated, without distraction, and it was how she always found solutions to the troubles that plagued her. She would hike the coarse mountain terrain, burdened by anxiety, by the obstacles that life would bring, weighed down by seemingly insurmountable problems. And after a single week she would descend with not only a clear head and heart, but solutions, answers, and a newfound determination. It was a rebirth every time. A renewing of her mind, body, and spirit. A rediscovery of hope.
She was three days into her stay and had resolved all of the problems she brought with her up the mountain. All but one, and he was a far greater problem than she could ever have imagined in all her years. For she refused to yield to him, she refused to provide him with that which he most desperately sought. He had tried charm and money, gentle persuasion and veiled threats, outside pressure and out-right intimidation. And through it all, she refused to capitulate.
And so he struck at her using his influence, his power, and his wealth to dismantle her life without regard for those affected. He wiped her vast source of funds away. Her bank accounts emptied, her orphanage was then disbanded, the children abruptly dispersed to a world of foster care. And yet she would not fold; her will could not be bent.
And then he came, in the middle of the night. He ransacked her home and when he didn’t find what he was looking for, he burned it to the ground. Her life was on the verge of financial, physical, and mental bankruptcy.
It was only a matter of time. For now, he hunted her without rest, relentless in his pursuit.
As the bearded man placed the last of the explosive charges in the mountain’s rocky face, the snow momentarily stopped, the curtain of clouds parting to reveal a sliver of blue sky. He looked down on the valley below as the last remnants of the evening sun shone through and painted the world a golden hue. The vistas ran to the horizon, peaceful and pure, an uninterrupted wilderness. But for the small chalet in the distance, there was no sign of civilization as far as the eye could see. And then the winds picked up, the curtain of clouds drew to a close, allowing night to creep in over the land, and the snow returned with a vengeance.
The man loaded his pack and checked his watch. He pulled out a small device, held awkwardly in his gloved hands. He rolled the small timer until the red LEDs shined 20:00. He pushed a button in the side. Moments later, within the carved-out notches of the rock face, spread at twenty-meter intervals, the seven charges glowed red. The first display read 20:00 while each successive charge increased its time by two seconds, their crimson glow already disappearing under a mist of new snow.
The man took one last look at the cabin and headed back over the ridge.
For the first time in her life, Genevieve knew fear: not fear of capture, not fear of death, but fear that the man would find what he was looking for, what he thought of as his birthright. For what he sought could not be purchased, could not be acquired, and he would stop at nothing to attain it. He was truly the last person on earth who should ever possess such knowledge, a secret long hidden from the world.
She knew the man. She knew of the atrocities he had committed, of the violations he had perpetrated against those closest to him, all in service to his growing ambitions.
And so she had turned in the one direction she had hoped to avoid, already regretting the appeal to her friend. It was far from a simple request; in fact, it was a request to do the impossible. It violated her moral and ethical being but she knew that sometimes even the darkest of deeds were needed to battle a greater evil.
She had nothing she could use as payment, nothing of value; all she had left were simple words. She pled to his heart, to his soul. For she knew that there were some secrets that should never be known. Some secrets were never meant to be found, never meant to be learned.
As the cold winds of night howled through the sharp craggy towers of the Dolomites, a storm rolled in, a blizzard out of the heavens assaulting the mountaintops, smothering them in fresh cover. There was stillness, a quiet, as the soft powder fell, absorbing what few noises echoed among the peaks.
And then, without warning, thunder tore the night apart: a series of explosions in succession along the sheer rock of the Belluno Dolomites. And as the force ripped through the mountain’s face, sheets of rock were rended from their holds, dislodging ice and snow as they tumbled.
As the echoes bounced among the mountains, finally dying off, absorbed by the falling snow, a new thunder began. And while the first had been deafening, it paled in comparison to this sudden roar. It grew with each moment, like an approaching train, louder and louder, ripping the fabric of the night apart.
And as the wave of snow washed down the mountain-side, engulfing all in its path, tearing trees from their roots like weeds before the sickle, there was the fortune that this particular section of the mountain had remained mercifully undeveloped. There were no villages in its path, no skiers forced to seek shelter; there was only one simple cabin, one hundred and fifty years in age. And it wouldn’t be missed.
Chapter 1
Michael St. Pierre ran at a full tilt up rue de Mont-Blanc in Geneva, Switzerland, dodging cars and buses, streetlamps, and the homeless.
It was two in the morning, Thursday. The late winter snow unexpectedly blew in from the mountains and blanketed the already slick streets of Geneva in a fresh white covering. The storybook buildings, their colors muted by the fresh precipitation, raced by him in a blur as he ran harder than he had ever run before. It had only been forty-five seconds since he left the comfort of modern heat and the feeling had already drained from his ears. His deep blue eyes teared from the wind, each flake of snow like a razor digging into his face as his shock of brown hair whipped about in the chill nighttime air.
The heavy black bag on his back conspired to throw his balance off as he turned down the darkened street and cut through the vacant alleyways, working his way toward the historic district. He became lost in the shadows, his dark, tight coveralls blending with the night as his staccato bursts of breath echoed off the surrounding buildings.
He finally emerged at the back of 24, rue de Fleur. The nondescript five-story town house appeared vacant for the night. But Michael knew better than most that things of significance and value were often hidden behind the unexpected and mundane.
As the snow died off, Michael dug his fingers into the spaces between the granite blocks, testing his grip, thankful for his textured gloves that provided extra hold. He looked up toward the roof, the snow flurries making it seem as if the climb led into a ghostly white netherworld.
Michael focused his rambling mind, shutting out all distractions. He had less than a minute before the fireworks started; he had less than a minute to fulfill her dying wish.
Michael cinched the pack tight to his back and began his climb.
“Nascentes morimur—from the moment we are born, we die,” the priest said as his dark hair was wind-whipped about his face. He was tall, his shoulders wide. His rough hands gripped a rosary, his thumb rubbing the first nub above the cross. Father Simon Bellatori looked more like a grizzled army colonel than a man of the cloth, his deep Italian voice sounding more appropriate delivering orders than benedictions. “Some think of the body as a prison binding us to our mortal existence while our souls are eternal, simply waiting to be released from this earthly flesh. Some think of life as finite but those with faith, those who believe, are filled with hope and the promise of Heaven. For that is where eternal life truly exists, that is where our sister Genevieve will forever reside.”
The small group stood in an ancient graveyard on the outskirts of Rome. The gray Italian winter chilled Michael as he looked out toward the city, toward the Vatican in the distance. He bowed his head as he stood graveside listening to his friend’s prayers. While the few mourners in attendance clutched missalettes and mass cards, Michael’s hand was wrapped in a death grip around a manila envelope.
It was emblazoned with a blue cruciform and had arrived exactly one week ago.
She had handed it to him seven days earlier as he opened his front door. She was seated on the front step of his house belly-rubbing Michael’s large dogs, Hawk and Raven, who had greeted her in their usual barking frenzy.
“Well, good morning, sleepyhead,” Genevieve said, looking up at him with a warm smile. She was dressed in a long white coat, her dark hair swept up in a bun. A single strand of pearls wrapped her wrist while an antique crucifix graced her neck. She was polished and refined, which made Michael grin even wider as he glanced at her on the snowy ground snuggling up to his two Bernese mountain dogs.
Michael stepped outside into the cool winter morning. “If I knew you were coming…”
“What, you would have shaved, cleaned the house?” Genevieve said in her soft Italian accent.
“Something like that.” Michael sat down beside her. “Can I make you breakfast?”
She looked at him. Her eyes were warm but they couldn’t hide sadness, an emotion Michael had never seen in his friend.
They had met on the occasion of Michael’s wife’s death. Genevieve had been sent by Father Simon Bellatori, the Vatican’s archive liaison, to express the condolences of the Vatican and the Pope himself for the death of Mary St. Pierre.
The fact that Genevieve owned an orphanage was more than ironic; it was no coincidence that Simon had sent her. Michael was orphaned at birth and though he was adopted by loving parents who had since passed on, he felt a kindred spirit to those who had been abandoned…and those who opened their hearts and cared for the lost.
Genevieve and Michael’s relationship had grown over the past six months. Michael found her to be like an older sister; she understood his anguish, his pain. Her words of comfort were always brief and subtle, knowing that each individual experienced loss differently, grieving in his or her own way. She never passed judgment on Michael for his past, saying that sometimes we are blessed and burdened with unconventional talents and it is to what end we use those talents that defines us. Michael was amazed at her perspective; her outlook on life was always positive no matter the circumstance. She feared nothing and managed to find goodness in even the darkest of souls.
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