The Thieves of Faith

by Richard Doetsch

  As they stepped into the room Michael and Susan held out their flashlights but suddenly froze in their steps. The room was covered in a fine dust that kicked up in the wake of their stride. And they saw something they didn’t expect, something fresh, unmistakable. Footprints had entered the room and moved about, back and forth, as if left by a confused tourist. The single set meandered about the entire room before finally doubling back and heading out the door. They were evenly paced, their stride short, left by someone cautious. They seemed to stop in front of every artifact. Meticulous but with confused purpose.

  “Do you think he got it?”

  “It wasn’t in his bag. I doubt Lexie knew what to look for.”

  “Do you?”

  Michael looked at her but said nothing as he walked into the treasury. He played his flashlight on the far wall, the mounds of gold refracting the beam around the room, bathing it in a sunlight hue.

  Michael walked around, intently looking at everything along the wall.

  “Paul is in such danger,” Susan whispered.

  Michael stopped his tour and turned to her, calling across the room, “I know, but we have to stay focused down here.”

  “I thought he was your friend,” Susan said, already regretting her words.

  Though Michael stood forty feet away, his eyes ripped into her before he turned away. The fear Michael felt for Busch was overwhelming. He tried to suppress it, to banish it from his mind, for it was crippling to think that his best friend was unwittingly walking into mortal danger and Michael had no means to warn him. Michael wasn’t sure if Fetisov had an ulterior plan or was working under the direction of Zivera. But whatever the case might be, he was useless to his friend down here and the only way he could help him was to finish the task at hand and figure out a way to get back to the surface.

  “This is billions of dollars we are looking at,” Susan said, trying to change the subject. She picked up a golden scepter, its head crowned in diamonds, examining it closely. She put it down and picked up a golden helmet, its rim trimmed in animal fur that had grown brittle with age. “Why would Ivan seal this all up, why wouldn’t he have left it for his children?”

  “He killed his favorite son, Ivan, in a fit of rage. He hated his other children and felt none of them worthy.”

  “What a waste. Do you realize what Russia could do with all of this?”

  “I think Ivan had a pretty good reason to hide this.”

  Michael stopped at a pile of jewels that had to be a foot high, heaps of necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. He picked up a ruby necklace from the top of the pile. It was not the largest piece of jewelry but it was close. Michael figured at least seventy-five million for the exquisite neckwear. He thought of Busch and his daily lotto runs, his longing to be able to better provide for his family and have enough money to enjoy life every day. The man had continually looked out for Michael, he literally had risked his neck on more than one occasion, and all Michael could offer were words of thanks. It was more than a fitting reward, considering he had once again put his best friend in danger. Michael looked at the necklace once more, well aware of the last time he took something that was not part of his plan; it cost him three years in prison. Stick to the plan, he always said. But he knew the necklace in his hand was better than any lotto ticket. Michael knew a fence who could cash him out and set it up so Busch could get the money without even a tax consequence.

  Michael tucked the necklace in his satchel and continued walking.

  He finally arrived at the back corner where, upon a series of shelves, lay eleven ornate boxes. Michael stood there staring as Susan came to his side and saw the conspicuous dust mark of a missing box.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered.

  Michael briefly glanced at her before turning back to the eleven remaining. Each box was the same size: about ten inches by eight inches by six inches deep; around the size of two books stacked together. Each was ornate yet uniquely original, made of gold, with intricate carvings depicting landscapes. Michael examined each one up close. The craftsmanship was detailed and old; it was not Russian, nor was it Greek or Italian in design. The craftsmanship was older than history. From a time well before the thought of man’s empires even existed, crafted in a day when only one true empire was known: the empire of God, the Kingdom of Heaven. The sides of each case were the same: stacks of gold rope entwining the box, coming together in the front where there was a small key slot. The scenes on the top of each were random depictions of nature: rivers, birds, animals, trees.

  Susan stood over Michael’s shoulder. “What if Lexie took the real box or…took whatever was inside?”

  Michael picked up one that portrayed a majestic lion on his hind legs. Its jaws open, fangs bared, dominant and ready for attack.

  “Is that it?” she asked.

  Michael put it down and picked up the least dramatic one: a field of flowers and trees with a sun setting in the distance. As he looked at the golden box, he was humbled that something so small could be held in such reverence. But beyond that, the box literally meant the life of his father. Michael finally nodded to Susan.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Don’t you want to open it just to be positive?”

  Michael looked at the slotted keyhole; it was beyond simple, a lock from a much simpler age. A technological miracle for its time but simplistic for a child today. And as he examined the lock he thought better of it, he knew what he was looking for, the map was clear on the box’s design. And besides, he had no info on the interior of the box that could help confirm its validity beyond its exterior appearance. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “All right. Whatever, as long as you’re sure,” Susan said. She turned and walked back to the door. “Can we get out of here?”

  Michael didn’t move. He closed his eyes.

  “What are you waiting for?”

  “I’m thinking,” he said quietly as he stood in front of the shelf of golden cases lost in thought.

  Susan stopped and took one last look at the treasures around her, at the jewels, the gold, an accumulation of riches that would be the greatest find in history if they revealed it to the world.

  After almost a minute, Michael tucked the box in his satchel and turned to Susan. “We have a problem.”

  Susan turned to him from across the room, pulled from her bejeweled daydreams. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about air.”

  “Air?”

  “We don’t have enough in our tanks to get out of here. A minute or two at best.”

  “How can that be?”

  “We pretty much used it when you got sucked down the pipe.”

  Susan put her hand on her head, as if she had a sudden headache. “We only need to get to the surface. That shouldn’t take more than a minute.”

  “First off, it took us fifteen minutes against the current to climb the rope from the bottom to here. It’s about the same distance to the surface.”

  “There has got to be another way out of here, a door, a tunnel, something,” Susan said optimistically.

  “No. These walls are thirty feet thick at their most vulnerable point. The passageways were sealed by Ivan’s men. And they did a thorough job.”

  Susan thought for a moment. “Air. There is air in here, it has to be coming from somewhere. Maybe we could climb out a shaft or something.”

  Michael looked up. There were two-inch slits in the stone ceiling. “I don’t think we could fit through there on our skinniest days.”

  “So we’re trapped?”

  Michael nodded. “We’re trapped.”

  Chapter 41

  It was a cacophony of motion, doctors stampeding the door, tugging on it to no avail. Cries of help in unintelligible Russian, coughing and screams. As the current ran through the magnesium strip at one thousand degrees, it vaporized and released the potassium nitrate, sugar, and desflurane into the air. The pungent tan gas quickly f
illed the observation room, floating upward before curling back down upon itself. Bodies began disappearing in the fog, frantic hands—seemingly disembodied—uselessly pounded the window. And then motions started to slow, the gas doing its job, bodies rolling out of the smoke, against the glass, only to slide down and out of sight. All unaware they would not be leaving this earth as they feared, but would only be losing consciousness for a brief period of time.

  Busch felt an enormous sense of guilt as he watched the chaos, hoping his actions were not a greater offense than the wrong they were trying to right. He turned to see Skovokov standing motionless in the middle of the operating room, surrounded by his nurses and assistants. Nikolai had corralled them, waving his gun about, its appearance having the desired effect as he spun left to right, holding them at bay. Their whimpers and subtle cries for help reminded Busch of tearful children lost in a department store in search of their mothers, but their Russian pleas for help fell useless on Busch’s untrained ear.

  And through it all, Genevieve lay in repose, her cross about her neck, a white sheet draped over her torso; she gave off the only sense of peace in the operating room. He found it so incongruous with the mayhem taking place around him. Now hooked up to the monitors, her vital signs were steady and even; she possessed the only calm heartbeat in the room.

  The screams in the operating theater all but stopped. But for an occasional moan, the entire area fell silent. You could smell the fear in the air—doctors unaccustomed to violence thrust into its very heart, suddenly, unexpectedly, facing their worst nightmares. Busch looked at Skovokov, the lead doctor, the man in charge who was instantly torn from his perch. Busch thought on the irony of the moment: the man who had Genevieve kidnapped, who was about to carve into her living flesh without remorse, now faced the cold stare of death he was trying so hard to defeat. But throughout these chaotic moments Skovokov’s eyes didn’t look at Nikolai, didn’t look at Busch. They stayed glued to the large window of the smoke-obscured viewing area as if salvation could somehow be found within.

  And it was a moment, the silence putting Busch on edge. He didn’t know why but he felt an anticipation in the room as if something was about to happen. He looked at Nikolai but he was unaware, he didn’t appear to feel anything as he motioned the doctors and nurses against the back wall. Busch studied Skovokov’s face, he could see it in the doctor’s eyes, he felt the overwhelming expectation of the moment hanging at a precipice. And it was as if he planned it.

  The smoke began to clear within the viewing room, wafting back and forth, giving the theater behind the glass an eerie illusion of being an aquarium. But there was no movement. Busch was sure that the gas had done its trick, rendering all observers unconscious upon the floor.

  The cloud had settled to a fog, misty tendrils curling about. And then suddenly, they began to move, stirred up by movement. Out of the mist, a ghost appeared, standing without any hint of motion. It stood six feet tall, its shoulders bursting the seams of its doctor’s whites. Eyes were obscured behind a wraithlike mask: darkened lenses, a small respirator covering its mouth and nose. And everyone was looking at him, the doctors, the nurses, Nikolai—confusion twisting his face. But it was Skovokov who chilled Busch’s heart, for he saw emotions on the Russian’s face that portended disaster: relief and salvation.

  By the time Busch turned back, the ghost had raised both arms, each hand holding a large pistol, the sleeves of his white jacket hiked up over tattooed forearms. Busch dove left as the first bullet exploded from the double-fisted gunman.

  But to Busch’s surprise the glass didn’t shatter. It merely shook with the force of the bullet, sounding like a sledgehammer against steel. The only damage: a small nick, hardly a scratch. And then another single shot and the loud concussion of the shaking glass. Busch watched as the nick grew to a scar. The man’s aim, dead on to his first shot. And then another shot and another, and spider cracks began appearing in the bulletproof glass.

  To Busch’s utter shock, bullets started to fly, their report deafening, but they weren’t coming from the viewing theater, they were coming from Fetisov as he sprayed his gun back and forth into the team of doctors. The famous Russian doctor Vladimir Skovokov spun in place in a stutter-like dance, his eyes filled with defiant confusion as he crumbled to the ground. Fetisov was in a frenzy, his expression blank, his eyes void of emotion, as he continued to rapid-fire his pistol into the medical team, ejecting and loading cartridges without hesitation. The doctors fell one by one to the cold white floor. They each jerked and fluttered in the throes of death, their tattered lab coats gone crimson, their faces unrecognizable in the aftermath of Fetisov’s killing spree.

  The whole situation had gone from bad to disaster in the blink of an eye. Busch watched helplessly as Nikolai assassinated the doctors before him. And all the while, Genevieve’s body lay upon its gurney in quiet repose.

  And the masked man within the smoky theater hadn’t moved but for his trigger finger, each shot continuing to ring out, the glass chipping, cracking; it was only a matter of seconds before he would be through. With a simple grace, the man ejected spent clips and slammed in new ones without missing a beat.

  As the last doctor fell to the floor of the operating room in a twitching heap, Busch looked down at Genevieve, at her sedated body upon the gurney. He withdrew the syringe from his pocket and, without pause, raised it high in the air.

  “What are you doing?” Fetisov yelled in shock.

  Busch glanced at the Russian, looked toward the man rapid-firing into the disintegrating window, and committed himself. With all of his might he slammed his fist down, thrusting the syringe into Genevieve’s chest, puncturing through her chest casing, into her heart. His thumb simultaneously compressed the plunger, driving in the dose of adrenaline.

  Genevieve’s eyes instantly flashed open, wide in shock. She shrieked as Busch withdrew the needle, her body rocketing upright from the gurney. Confusion ripped her face as she looked at the bloody mayhem upon the floor, at the gunman not twenty feet away shooting at the glass. Uncomprehending her situation, of her near brush with an amoral doctor’s scalpel. “What’s happening?”

  Busch stared into her eyes to calm her. “No time to explain, but I need you to trust me. I’m here with Michael.”

  “Where’s Michael?” Genevieve’s body trembled, her breathing coming in fits from the adrenaline that coursed through her veins.

  “He’s in the Liberia.”

  Genevieve grabbed Busch’s wrist. “Albero della Vita? He’s getting the box?”

  “Don’t worry, yeah.”

  “Don’t open it. Tell him. You have to tell him, it can never be opened. He has to destroy it. It must be dropped in the deepest depths of the sea.” Genevieve shook Busch’s arms with all of her strength. “Do you understand?!”

  “Talk about this later,” Fetisov said alluding to the gunman who continued firing at the glass. He grabbed Genevieve’s gurney, forced her to lie down, and raced out of the room. “We’ve got to go.”

  But before Busch could react, before he could get out the door, a single shot exploded in the hall. Fetisov stumbled back through the doorway, falling at Busch’s feet. Busch heard a large commotion in the hallway, the sound of running beginning to fade. Busch ran to the doorway, gun at the ready.

  He peered around the corner to see Genevieve’s pleading eyes looking back at him as everything slipped into slow motion and catastrophe: three men dressed in dark jumpsuits had snatched the gurney and were running toward the lobby. Busch lowered his pistol, afraid that he would hit Genevieve, and raced down the corridor. To his shock, he watched as the men rolled her into the open doorway of the waiting elevator. He raced for the doors only to see them come together, sealing him off from any chance of saving her.

  “The depths of the ocean,” Genevieve screamed from the rising elevator as her voice faded away.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Busch ran back down the hall to the operating room. He leaned down o
ver Fetisov’s body, his half-mast eyes staring up at the ceiling. He lay there moaning, struggling for breath. His lab coat, with a single bullet hole, showed no signs of blood. He struggled to sit up, propping himself up on his hands. Busch supported his back, thumping his knuckles on Nikolai’s Kevlar vest.

  “Lucky son of a bitch.” Busch leaned back against the doorjamb trying to contain his rage as he looked in at the heap of bloody bodies on the floor of the operating room. He glared at Nikolai. “What the hell was that? Nobody was supposed to die.”

  The gunshots clanging on the theater glass continued unabated, almost rhythmically, the shooter calmly firing away.

  The noise was deafening as it assaulted Busch’s confused mind. He struggled to stay focused. “We need to get topside quick.”

  Fetisov stumbled to his feet. “Where’s Genevieve?”

  “How did they get down here?” Busch said as he brought his full height to bear over the Russian. “You were supposed to have shut down the elevator.”

  “Where’s Genevieve?” Fetisov repeated in a daze without fear of the six-foot-four American.

  “She’s gone.”

  And then the sound of breaking glass shattered the moment; the man in the theater had finally shot his way out.

  Chapter 42

  The display on the small dive computer read three minutes. A small LED was flashing in the corner. Michael put the dive computer down and stared at the rippling water in the small cistern before him. Ten feet beneath the surface was a ferocious surge of water that could only lead to death.

  “We’d be sucking wind like a racehorse trying to climb against that raging tide.”

  “Couldn’t we breathe shallow, hold our breath for part of the way?”

  “We went through most of the air making the climb up from the bottom of the pipe. I figure we’ve got an almost equal distance to the top with the same required effort.” Michael looked around the room, the glow sticks’ light beginning to fade. “No matter what we do we’re going to need a lot more air.”