The Thieves of Faith

by Richard Doetsch

  “You’ll never find her,” Michael said.

  Raechen walked to the door, opened it, and turned back to Michael. A smile broke out on Raechen’s face; it was not a smile of joy, it was a smile of victory. “I already have,” Raechen said as he closed the door behind him.

  As the door clicked shut behind Raechen, Michael’s mind kicked into overdrive. He wasn’t going to waste his time on pity or fear. He had only one thought. If he had any chance of saving Susan, he had to get out of here.

  He looked at the cuffs about his arms, spun around in the chair looking at the room, looking for solutions. The images of him and Susan continued on the televisions and computer monitors. He did everything to avoid seeing them; he had to stay focused, he couldn’t afford to let his heart get in the way.

  He looked at the arms of the chair he was strapped to. Each arm, the entire chair for that matter, was thick and heavy. Not some flimsy, easily breakable chair like you would find in an antique shop in France. Raechen wasn’t stupid; he knew what he was doing when he locked Michael down.

  But he didn’t know Michael.

  Michael tried to reach his breast pocket. He needed his sunglasses and he needed them now, but the cuffs held his hands just out of reach.

  Michael tilted the chair back and forth, finally falling over to the floor. He landed sideways, his head smacking the ground. He ignored the pain and rocked over until he was prone on the floor, the chair, handcuffed to him, covering his back. He angled his body forward until the sunglasses spilled from his breast pocket on the floor in front of him. Michael maneuvered his body and picked the glasses up in his left hand. He opened them and carefully angled the frames to the ground, pressing until the right earpiece snapped off the lenses. Michael carefully picked up the ear stem: it was four inches long and less than an eighth of an inch wide. Its thickness was perfect.

  He extended his left arm, pulling the handcuff tight against the arm rail. Slowly, moving in fractional amounts, Michael moved the thin strip of metal toward the handcuff. But not toward the key slot. Fallacy of fallacies. While many handcuff keys were universal, picking a cuff lock was not as easy.

  Michael bypassed the keyhole and manipulated the thin metal strip toward the slight opening where the teeth end of the cuff inserted into the female end, locking the cuffs in place. The thin strip of metal just fit into the frame of the cuff. With a dexterous motion, Michael pressed the strip farther into the female end until he heard a click, the lock that fell against the teeth was pressed up, and the cuff fell away, freeing his hand. Michael made quick work of the other cuff, removed the handcuffs from the other chair, and stuffed the four sets of restraints in his pocket. He didn’t have an immediate need for them but suspected he would regret leaving them behind. He righted the chair and pulled it in front of the main console. He flipped the switch that Raechen used and the plethora of images froze, locked on Susan. Michael couldn’t help staring. He studied her face; the smile she wore came through her eyes. Michael felt a warmth run through him. She cared for him.

  He flipped the switch and suddenly the screens were filled with varying images of the Kremlin, both interior and exterior. Churches, offices, palaces, and jail cells. Michael watched as tour groups were led through the Armory, while a second group could be seen exiting the Cathedral of the Assumption. The image on each monitor cycled through a series of ten viewpoints each. This vantage point provided him insight into the entire complex. The Russian labels under each monitor were useless to Michael but it didn’t take him long to figure out what each monitor represented.

  As Michael looked about, he realized that this must have been an old security point. The media only came through on VHS, there were no DVD players or drives in the computers. And the computers…well, they were pushing ten years of age. This was not the primary security point, it wasn’t even a secondary point. It was a casualty of time and lack of funding.

  Michael sat back and watched the monitors. The one in the second row center left was alive with activity; guards ran in response to orders being given somewhere off camera. Michael watched as three black Suburbans loaded up with a contingent of armed men. Finally, the man giving the orders stepped into view. It was Raechen. The mini caravan rolled out of the garage and disappeared from the monitor’s image. Michael sat back, trying to take all the images in, looking for the three black trucks, and they were finally there on the lowermost monitor. The same heavy gate he saw part of while he sat in the ZiL opened and the three trucks tore out into the bright sunshine of the Moscow day.

  Michael turned his attention to the cabinets; rummaging through, he found no weapons, only books, papers, and charts—all in Russian; pencils, pens, and tape. If he was going to save Susan he would need more than a few office supplies. He found a large spool of electrical wire, unwound fifty feet, and added it to his makeshift arsenal.

  Michael slowly opened the door into the white hallway. It was beyond quiet; there was no sign of anyone. He ventured out into the hall and moved to the first door down the line. He opened it only to be greeted by a completely vacant room, no furniture, windows, or carpets. Michael checked the eight other doors only to be met by the same sight. The floor was ghostly vacant but for the abandoned security room.

  Michael headed back down the hallway to the elevator. It was the only way in or out; without a set of stairs, the floor was truly a firetrap. Against his better judgment, Michael hit the button and fell back to the video room. The whine of the machinery kicked in. Michael heard the approach of the cab and hoped that he was not bringing someone to his vacant floor. The chime pinged and the door opened. Michael peered out to find the elevator vacant. He sprinted down the hall and stepped in; holding the door open, he hit the uppermost button only to confirm his suspicions. The button did not light up; the uppermost floors were keyed off.

  Michael was beginning to understand why Raechen hadn’t thrown him back in a cell; there was truly nowhere to go except back down toward Ivan’s torture cell and Raechen’s armed guards.

  Dmitri Grengenko joined the Red Army dreaming of action and mayhem in the Spetsnaz, Russia’s special forces. A farm boy from Kursk Oblast, he had come of age during the Afghanistan war back when the Soviet Union was a power to be reckoned with, back when the Red Army struck terror in the heart of its enemies. He trained hard, sniper school, war college, dreaming of ascending the heights of military greatness, to be part of the great army that fought back Napoleon, defeated Hitler’s forces in World War II, and crushed all comers with a swift decisive blade.

  Now he sat one hundred feet under ground with the cliché tin cup of vodka-laced coffee at a small wooden table, his position nothing more than a jail guard for a lone American prisoner by the name of Michael St. Something. Dmitri’s dream shattered like the USSR did after perestroika, forgotten like the twenty-six million Soviets who died in World War II. Reduced to idle chatter and cards with his fellow soldier, Pelio Kestovich, Dmitri longed for battle, the chance to show his talent, his hand-to-hand skills. To do honor to the memory of his parents, to put all that training to use in service of Mother Russia.

  Neither he nor Pelio understood why they had been posted in the bowels of the earth, unsure if it was punishment or just bad luck. The black section had been closed for years, or at least before either of them had even enlisted. They heard rumors of its operations, as was customary of all Communist-era divisions, but did not believe in its mythic existence until they were assigned to work for IIya Raechen—a man whose reputation outdid that of the Devil himself.

  The ping of the elevator stirred Dmitri out of his daydreams and brought him and Pelio to full attention. They hoisted up their rifles, ready to greet their interim commander. Standing ramrod straight, they watched as the doors slid open, both ready to impress Raechen, but he was not there. In fact, no one was there. The doors opened to reveal a vacant cab in the center of which was a single wooden chair. And without fanfare the doors closed. The elevator hummed as it disappeared. The two
guards looked at one another and, in almost perfect synchronization, sat back down.

  But the door pinged again. They both popped up out of their seats, in perfect formation, only to be greeted by an empty elevator cab again. This time they exchanged glances before watching the doors close, the elevator’s hum dying off as it rose away.

  They both took their seats again only to be warned yet anew by the elevator chime. This time they reluctantly stood as the empty elevator opened once again. They both smiled as the doors closed. But now, Dmitri did not sit. He left his comrade and walked to the malfunctioning elevator to await its inevitable arrival. And like clockwork the elevator chimed once more.

  As the doors opened, Dmitri looked at the single wooden chair in the middle of the cab and it occurred to him that the chair before him looked far more comfortable than the metal one he had been occupying for the last eight hours. He slung his rifle over his shoulder, stepped in the cab, and grabbed the chair.

  Dmitri never saw the prisoner, Michael St. Something, tucked in the corner, waiting to pounce. The wire noose slipped over his blond, buzz-cut head and was drawn tight around his neck, but instead of instinctively grabbing at his throat, Dmitri lashed out at his assailant. His punches sent Michael crumbling back against the elevator wall. Michael threw three punches in quick succession but they barely fazed the soldier. Dmitri didn’t bother with his gun as he looked at Michael; he knew it would be only moments before he beat him into submission. He smashed his fist into Michael’s head, sending him tumbling to the floor where he writhed, his legs flailing about.

  Dmitri felt a slight tug at the noose around his neck as Michael kicked the wooden chair out of the elevator. He paid Michael’s action no mind as the elevator doors closed and the cab began to rise. He grabbed Michael by the neck, hoping his stale cabbage breath assaulted the American’s senses. He drew back his hand, ready to deliver his final blow. He shifted his weight back, preparing to concentrate his two hundred and forty pounds into the end of his fist, when he was violently jerked backward. The wire noose about his neck grew suddenly taut, cutting off his air.

  And then it all came together. The wire was tied to the chair that the American had kicked from the cab and, as the elevator rose, it became a deadly anchor. The force of the rising elevator pinned him down and he knew it would be his last thought as the wire grew tighter, digging into his skin. Suddenly it yanked him to the floor of the cab. Dmitri began to struggle and scream, but the elevator paid him no mind as it rose higher. He was violently wrenched neck-first against the elevator doors as the elevator cab continued up, his face gone to crimson. And the wire dug in, deeper and deeper, cutting into his skin; he frantically clawed at the noose but it was useless. The elevator began to whine against the impediment; stuck, its motor began to smoke, but the machine prevailed. With a violent, loud snap the wire tore through Dmitri’s neck, through his spine, severing his head from his body in a grotesque pop.

  Michael looked down at the mayhem: the body and the head lay in a giant puddle of gore. Blood continued to pump from the neck as the body reflexively twitched. He quickly picked up the guard’s rifle from the growing pool of blood, chambered a round, and pushed the button of the lowermost floor again. He held the gun high, his finger on the trigger. There was no question in his mind where the other guard would be standing, having witnessed the beginning of Michael’s fight with his partner, not to mention the curious chair that was attached to a wire.

  As the elevator doors parted, Michael’s suspicions were correct. Pelio never knew the fate of his partner as the bullet exploded out of the back of his head.

  Michael wedged the chair in the elevator track, freezing the door in place. He threw both bodies and the detached head into a vacant cell, forcing down the bile that ran up in his throat—he would never be comfortable with killing. He stripped them of their pistols and rifles, radios and keys, and closed the door. He returned to the elevator, pulled out the bloodied floor rug, and used the vodka and the guards’ shirts to wipe the human mess from the elevator cab walls.

  Michael rode the elevator up two floors and headed back to the security monitor room. He checked the monitors but saw no sign of the Suburbans.

  He inventoried his supplies. Two loaded pistols, two extra clips, two rifles. A ring of keys—besides the elevator key, who knew what worlds they unlocked. Two virtually useless radios as he had no idea of the language. Two knives, his weapons of choice as their use went far beyond a weapon. The electrical wire, six Kremlin tourist maps, and some paper. Michael stored the two rifles in a cabinet, righted the chair, and sat in it. He tucked one of the pistols in his waistband, covering it with his shirt. He took the other and sat on it. He cuffed the chair arms then took a roll of tape and wrapped it several times around the teeth of the cuffs. He tested them, ensuring they slid in and out of their counterparts without catching.

  He would wait for Raechen’s return with Susan, but this time he would meet him on his own terms.

  Chapter 47

  Susan got off the elevator at Le Royal Meridien National and raced down the hall to her suite, her still-damp hair pulled back into a ponytail. She entered the living room and poured herself a drink from the bar. She was concerned for Michael. He had yet to call to let her know what was going on. All she knew was that Genevieve was gone, whisked away before Busch and Nikolai could get her out of the Kremlin. She prayed Michael was all right and thought—with his background—he somehow would be.

  She removed the box from her bag and placed it on the coffee table. It had no equal. Its gold radiated throughout the room, reflecting and accentuating the morning sunlight that poured into the hotel suite. And as she admired it, she realized that this was the price to be paid for Stephen’s safe return. He had been there for her like a father, all the while dealing with his own loss stoically, on his own. He never let her down and she wasn’t about to allow him to die. She would protect this box and never let it go until Stephen was safely returned.

  Susan walked back to the suite entrance, double-bolted the door, picked up the box, and headed into the bathroom. She turned on the shower, laid the box on the counter, and covered it with a towel. She stripped off her clothes and stood there naked, waiting for the shower to heat up. She looked at her body in the mirror, at the bruises and scrapes that now marred her once-perfect flesh. Not that she ever thought of herself as perfect, it’s just she had never been beaten so badly. Even when she was a tomboy, fighting on the Central Park playground, she was usually the one causing the bleeding, rarely the recipient of injury. She turned and looked at her back. It had taken the brunt of the force when she was sucked down the drain tube and slammed into the pile of bodies and bones that lay upon the grate. She tore off the bandage, and ran her fingers along the jagged stitches on her shoulder, wincing at the pain. Though she feigned strength when Michael stitched her up—he had an excellent bedside manner—the action was excruciating.

  And she finally realized she hurt, from head to toe, and knew that it would be worse the next morning. She stepped into the shower and let the hot water run through her black hair and down her shoulders. It was a mixed blessing; it eased her sore muscles yet stung the open scrapes, wounds, and particularly the stitches.

  She lathered up and pondered the last several days. She had never met a man like Michael. He was so contrary to everything she ever looked for in a man. And was such a contradiction to his half-brother. Though they had never met, she sensed Michael and Peter would have bonded. They were both good men, they just had a different approach to life.

  And she thought again of Michael’s kiss. Of his lips upon hers. They were tender and caring. She had not felt a warmth like that through her body since before Peter died. Her preconceived notions of Michael were all wrong: he was not selfish; in fact, he was anything but.

  She stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in a large towel. She uncovered the gold box and looked at it again. It was one of the most beautiful pieces of art she had ever
seen. The detail was almost lifelike: animals running about, birds floating through the air. The sun in the top left corner truly glowed. Yet, that this simple object would be exchanged for Stephen riled her. How could anything be worth more than a human life? She failed to understand how anyone could not hold life as the most precious of gifts.

  There are pivotal moments in life that everyone experiences, a crossroads, an epiphany, a point where we evaluate and reassess our goals. As Susan looked at the box, she realized that the things that were important to her no longer held the same weight. She had been chasing a career without regard to where it was taking her. It wasn’t that she would leave her job, it simply meant it would no longer be the center of her existence. It had become the fortress around her heart, a place where she could bury her feelings without facing them. Where eighteen-hour days kept her in a false reality, one where she didn’t have to deal with the rest of her life. A place to hide away from the risk of opening her heart to someone else. She had worn her anger at losing her husband on her sleeve, lashing out at anyone who challenged her, her tomboy ways rising up from her youth. It saddened her that only an extreme circumstance could bring her back, make her see clearly.

  She had spent the last year thinking of herself and her loss. Peter was gone. She had to move on with her life. Life was about living and now she found in Michael someone else she could care about. It did not mean that she was leaving Peter or loved him less. It was just time to end her mourning.

  She dried herself off and dressed in a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. She loved knockabout clothes, an indulgence she rarely allowed herself. It was always suits and dresses, skirts and blouses constricting her movement, her life, and her comfort.