The Thieves of Faith

by Richard Doetsch

  Julian looked at the box that Genevieve now held. “What is in that box?”

  “You know what it is, you knew what it contained, and yet you chose to ignore the warnings. It contains the power to grant eternal life, but as you can see”—Genevieve looked about the room, at the carnage surrounding them—“it is not how you imagined. It is death, pure and simple. Releasing man from his earthly bonds so he may experience his fitting and just reward, be it above or below. It is evil and darkness, it is a pathway to the gates of Hell for those undeserving of Heaven. It delivers one to his rightful eternity.”

  “Why am I not dead?” Julian pleaded with confusion as he looked at the bodies around him. “What am I? Why am I not dead?”

  Genevieve leaned down and removed her cross, the swordlike cross that she had worn around her neck, from Julian’s hand. She looked at it a moment then looked back at Julian. “Sometimes the greatest powers are not money and violence; they are hidden in the simplest of things, the smallest of things.” Genevieve lifted the cross to her throat, where it had hung for so many years, and tied it, reaffixing it about her neck. “The holiest of things.”

  “Am I still dying?”

  Genevieve smiled. “Everyone dies, Julian, it is how we choose to live, how we value life, that determines our fate. No man truly knows how long he has and yet he would sacrifice his own pleasure, he would sacrifice his own satisfaction, never living in the moment, forsaking quality for quantity. You have turned your back on family, faith, hope, and, above all, love. You are the epitome of greed. And yet despite what has happened here, what has happened in your life, there is no remorse in you, no regret for those you have killed. And as such, when you do finally die, which could be decades from now, you will be trapped in a forever night, having forsaken your soul. You will be trapped for eternity in the place you fear most.”

  “What of forgiveness?” Julian pled, his mind on the verge of collapse. “What of Heaven?”

  “To know forgiveness is to know contrition, to know sacrifice. Things that are alien to you, Julian. As for Heaven, it is the most beautiful of places; you have been allowed to glimpse it, to feel its love and warmth, so you may know what you have forsaken, what you will never have. You may try to forestall it, but death will come to you one day, and until that time you will know what awaits you, you can contemplate an eternity of suffering. I’m sorry.”

  Julian sat there listening to the voice in his head, to the proclamation of his sentence to the darkness, the nothingness that had haunted his dreams since he had died that day on the playground. The void he had so desperately wanted to evade would embrace him at his death. Julian’s fear twisted his mind, turning it upon itself, paralyzing him until what was left of his sanity washed away. And as it did, Julian’s fear was suddenly replaced with anger; it rose up in him, empowering him, once again filling his heart with the rage that had sustained him for so many years. “You are not here. You’re dead, I saw you, I saw your body.”

  “Did you?” Genevieve asked, her image seeming to waver. “Do you see me now?”

  Julian erupted out of the chair, charging at and grabbing his mother about the neck, his mind finally cracked, his sanity split in two. He squeezed, violently shaking her body to and fro, screaming, “What are you?”

  And, like that, she was gone, her body dissolving in the bright morning light. Julian stood there, uncomprehending. He crumpled to the ground finally falling apart, his mind incoherent, his insanity all-consuming.

  Julian’s eyes flashed open, echoes of his nightmare still ringing in his head. He lay among the guards, all dead, their bodies contorted and scarred. He rose to his feet, trying to remember his dream, trying to remember what had happened here as the sun began to light the horizon.

  He saw Raechen’s body, the man who came to kill him, dead behind his desk. And like a memory that was just out of reach, he tried again and again to recall what had happened.

  The fog was slowly lifting from his mind, but it failed to shed any light on what had occurred. All he could remember was that he was sitting in his chair, the box in his lap.

  And he realized the box and its key were gone; he looked about the room but they were nowhere to be found. He looked everywhere, shielding his eyes from the morning sun that was emerging from below the horizon, pouring through the large windows of the library.

  He ran to Raechen’s body and pried the two long-nosed pistols from his frozen grip. He walked out into the mansion hallway and was greeted by a similar sight. Bodies everywhere, by the windows and doors where they had taken up position to protect Julian and his box from the outside world…only the real threat was already in the house. He didn’t need to look any further to know that his entire staff was dead.

  He stepped back a moment, both literally and figuratively. He had lived through all of the darkness, through all of the death. He was still alive. And he knew in that moment, the box was far more powerful than he had ever truly grasped. No matter what it would take, he would find it.

  And he already suspected where it was.

  He raced down the hallway and crashed through the side door into the cool summer morning. The rays of the early sun painted his white helicopter a golden hue. And off to the side he saw them, the man and the woman hunkered down against the metal wall at the rear of the landing pad as if in hiding, all the while unaware of his approach.

  As desperate as his situation had become, Julian had found hope.

  Chapter 70

  The sudden silence seemed to tear apart the early morning. After hearing the bloodcurdling screams coming from within the walls of the mansion, Michael felt truly haunted. He had never heard such sounds of terror and agony before. After all of the gun battles, the raging firefight that kept Michael, Simon, and Busch at bay, a sudden calm filled the grounds.

  The hail of gunfire had held them back, never allowing them anywhere near the mansion. Now, it was as if their opponents never existed. And the absence of battle filled Michael with an even greater fear.

  He didn’t need to ask to know what had happened; there was no doubt Julian had opened the box. Now, Michael thought it only a matter of time before they would all succumb to the same fate as those whose last words were nothing but screams, whose last thoughts were only of fear.

  And as Michael turned to look for Simon and Busch, she was there, standing three feet in front of him. After all of the horrors that Michael had just heard, after all of the panicked screams of death, it was the sight of Genevieve that terrified him the most. For here was a woman he saw on the security monitor, her lifeless body cold and blue, unquestionably dead, yet she now stood before him as if her death had been merely a dream. But as she stepped closer, a calm overcame Michael. Genevieve’s face was radiant in the early morning hour, her eyes clear and alive. A soft glow seemed to flow from her. In her hand she held the golden box. Michael could see his orange paint markings that marred its golden texture. Without a word she reached out her hand. Michael took the box and held it close.

  “You know what you must do,” Genevieve said. “I cannot do it but you can. The deepest depths, Michael, the deepest depths of the ocean where it can never be found again.”

  Michael stood there in awe, without fear, with a total understanding, staring at the woman he saw die at the hand of her son, who he had tried to save ten stories beneath the Kremlin, who had been his friend. But he did not question the moment as he looked at the cross about her neck, as he looked at the box in his hands, for there was no doubt in his mind as to what she truly was.

  And without another word, he watched as she dissolved into the early morning light. Michael felt as if he had awoken from a long sleep, his mind unfocused as he stared at the box in his hand.

  A distant call pulled Michael from his fog, back to the moment. And a mass of confusion erupted. The beating of an engine’s roar rose up to erase the calm from the morning, only to be punctuated by screams.

  Michael turned to see Busch and Simon charging f
or Susan, who was frantically waving her arms. Michael broke into a headlong sprint, cutting through trees, catching up to Busch and Simon, all of them arriving at Susan’s side to find her shaking, her face streaked in tears.

  And the roar of the helicopter, its low thump woven into the engine’s high-pitched scream, deafened them all from hearing Susan’s frantic words.

  They all turned to see the white helicopter dive out over the cliff and race off into the morning. Michael didn’t need to hear what Susan was saying.

  Julian had Michael’s father.

  Chapter 71

  Gian Beliana’s fishing boat cut across the late-afternoon sea. It was the first and only lease the Corsican fisherman had ever made. He had had no intention of ever letting anyone set foot on the source of his livelihood and had balked at Michael’s request to borrow his boat, but the 120,000 euros that Susan offered would not only cover his costs and profits for a year, but would leave him enough money to buy another boat, allowing him to call himself captain of a fleet of two ships.

  It was a sixty-eight-foot Hatteras with twin diesels, its gear stored below, the nets and rods affixed port and starboard for the fifty-mile ocean journey. Michael stood on the flybridge, wheel in hand, as the wind whipped his curly brown hair about his face. His eyes were tired, his face exhausted, but he felt nothing but determination as he remained on course for the heading that Julian had given Susan.

  Julian had taken them by surprise, Raechen’s twin pistols fixed upon them. Susan was inconsolable at her failure to protect Stephen, freezing up in the moment, the gun that Michael gave her hanging useless at her side until Julian snatched it away. She watched, helpless, as Stephen was led away, tied up, and thrown into the helicopter. He tossed out the simple note that gave a latitude and longitude with the simple words: Bring the box, come alone. Or Dad dies.

  Michael tried to put all feelings aside, knowing they would cloud his judgment, his focus from the task at hand. He did not come this far to lose Stephen Kelley, to lose a father he had only just found.

  He stared at the golden box, Albero della Vita, the Tree of Life, on the dash in front of him, having borne witness to the aftermath of its power. Knowing that he was bringing it to the last person on earth who should possess it, the only person who knew its true contents and abilities, made his entire body shudder.

  Busch came up the stairs from the galley, his blond hair catching the breeze as he stood next to Michael. “So?”

  “Twenty more miles; we should be there just after dark.”

  “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

  Michael briefly looked over at Busch and then back at the empty horizon.

  “Sorry I asked.”

  Simon sat in the bow, a cadre of weapons laid out before him. Rifles, pistols, the last of his incendiary bombs, three hunks of Semtex. He checked and loaded the weapons before storing them all in a watertight bag.

  “How do we know where Julian is holding him?” Busch asked.

  “We don’t,” Michael said.

  “How do we know he’s even on the boat?”

  “We don’t.”

  “What do we know?”

  “Not much.”

  “Good.” Busch nodded. “I just wanted to make sure we knew what we were getting into.”

  The sun was well below the horizon, the moon already climbing into the night sky, its ghostly white glow bouncing off the waves, painting a pale roadway for Michael to follow. And Julian’s yacht came into view. Not a yacht really; God’s Whisper was truly a ship. An enormous craft, over three hundred and fifty feet long. Its dark blue hull rose out of the sea five stories, its bridge and portholes aglow in orange light. The ship was an ostentatious display of wealth, with numerous lounges and decks, all for a man who possessed no family or friends to enjoy such expensive amenities with. Michael estimated the ship’s value at over two hundred million dollars, and that did not include the various tenders, nor Julian’s helicopter that sat on the forward deck looking like a giant bug at rest.

  Michael’s heart sank, he was not prepared for a ship of this size; it was massive beyond description and held enough rooms that Michael could look for a straight week before he found his father.

  And he felt a hand come to rest on his shoulder. “Don’t worry.”

  Michael turned to Simon.

  “It doesn’t matter how big it is, the plan will still work.”

  As Michael approached the boat, Busch and Simon went below.

  Michael pulled along the starboard side of the ship, where a large ten-by-twenty-foot hatch in the side of the boat opened to reveal two men with guns. Michael cut the engine of the Hatteras and silently glided in. He threw a rope to one of the guards, who pulled the boat tight alongside. He grabbed the golden box, threw it in the satchel at his side, and walked to the port side of his boat.

  The two guards leapt aboard and silently forced Michael up against a wall, frisking him. They reached for his bag but he pulled it away.

  “We need to see it or you’re not boarding,” the skinny guard said with a French accent.

  Michael opened the bag to reveal its sole content. The guards finally nodded and Michael went to step from the boat. But the guards did not join him. They walked down the central stairs into the galley. Michael said nothing, trying to calm his nerves as he heard doors open and close, intermittent shouting back and forth between the two. And they came back up, not a word spoken or an eye met.

  Michael stepped onto the ship, the skinny guard right beside him. But the other guard remained behind. He went to the wheel and started the Hatteras up, its warm engine immediately kicking in. He turned the wheel forty-five degrees, slid the throttle up one notch, and as the fishing boat set off for the open sea, he took three quick steps and leapt back onto God’s Whisper. Michael watched helplessly as the boat pulled away, but was relieved that Simon and Busch were not found.

  But his relief soon dissolved as he realized that both guards were enraptured with the departing boat, their eyes glued to it as if it were about to take flight. An anticipation hung in the air. And then the fishing boat exploded in an enormous ball of flame, its hull splintering outward like torn paper. Michael jumped in his skin at the blast, he watched the remains of the boat quickly sink away, leaving flotsam and jetsam under a blanket of dissipating smoke. He scanned the waters but there was no sign of Busch or Simon anywhere.

  The two guards turned to Michael with broad smiles. The lead guard took him by the arm and directed him into the ship.

  The uppermost floor of the ship was accessible by both the elevator and the stairs. The salon was the primary entertaining area and melded into the outdoors with the star-filled sky as its background. It was furnished like a mountain retreat, a décor that stood in sharp contrast to the seafaring nature of the world around them. Thick double-wide chairs covered in dark fabrics and a white pine bar with matching chairs filled the rear wall. Antler lighting, brass wall sconces, and a fireplace added to the almost Nordic ambiance. No expense was spared pulling the décor together.

  Julian sat in a large Adirondack chair in the outdoor portion of the rear salon. A host of lounge chairs and tables scattered the deck. The ship’s rope was coiled and lay in the corner.

  Michael walked out into the large open salon, his satchel clutched closely to his side, the ever-present guard right behind him.

  “So, which box have you brought me this evening?” Julian asked as he sat on the deck confident, emboldened.

  “Where is my father?”

  “So, already calling him Dad, huh?”

  “Where is he?”

  “Let me see the box.”

  “When I see my father.”

  “Michael.” Julian smiled. “I really don’t think you are in a position to give orders now, are you? I’d like to see the box.”

  “What’s the hurry? Where do you think I’m going to go? You’ve got what, a crew of twenty guards protecting you?”

  “Fifteen, actually.
This ship needs only two to operate, the rest is computerized.”

  “Fifteen guards protecting you,” Michael said as he looked at his escort.

  Julian continued to smile. “Smart man, you are. I underestimated you, but you have deeply underestimated me.”

  “What are you going to do with this?” Michael said as he held out his bag. He walked about the room, looking around, finally walking out on deck toward Julian, the stars filling the sky from horizon to horizon. He looked out over the rail, at the dark sea five stories below, hoping that his friends had survived the destruction of their only means of escape.

  “Let me see the box,” Julian said.

  Michael briefly opened his satchel and flashed its only contents at Julian. “I want to see my father, I want to know that he is alive.”

  Julian laughed. “You don’t make demands of me.” Michael gripped the rail, turning his back to it, feeling the coolness against his skin. He looked at Julian and, without warning, dangled the bag over the rail of the ship.

  “You won’t.” Julian smiled.

  “I will if I don’t see my father. How do I know you haven’t killed him already?”

  “You won’t drop it.”

  “Thirteen thousand feet deep, over two miles. You’ll never find it.”

  The two men stared at each other, both stubborn, both defiant, both hate-filled. Each held the other man’s desire, both possessing the ability to shatter each other’s quest, both possessing the ability to destroy what the other man wanted. It was a test of wills, a challenge to see who would break first.

  Finally, Julian turned to his guard and nodded.

  The skinny guard stood at the edge of the starboard opening, watching as the last flaming remnants of the fishing boat flicked out and sank away. He stared up at the moon as he threw his rifle over his left shoulder.