The History Thief: Ten Days Lost (The Sterling Novels)

by Joseph Nagle

  The elevator door opened to the slight, overhead chime; his eyes did too.

  Stanford walked down a quiet hallway until he stood just opposite a heavy, secured door. On the wall was a list of the room’s occupants.

  Eyeing the list, he stopped and read one of the names: Mr. Augustus X. Tennille—Section Chief.

  Stanford swiped his card across the digital card reader; a tiny, round light switched from red to green.

  He walked in and quickly scanned the room. Two men were hunched over a terminal and had heard him enter.

  There would be few words exchanged between him and the two men.

  The two men felt secure in the annals of the CIA—they had no reason to fear the man walking toward them.

  There was no sense of danger, as there shouldn’t have been. They were inside the safest building in the country—safer than the White House. They were inside the CIA’s headquarters. They were annoyed by the intrusion more than anything.

  The section chief stood and stared at Stanford; his eyes were those of a confused man.

  Stanford looked at the section chief; he pointed the gun his way and said, “Augustus, things aren’t going as planned.”

  The chief reached into his coat.

  Jorge looked from Stanford to his chief; then it hit him. He spat out at the chief, “You—you are a part of this?”

  There wouldn’t be time for an answer.

  Stanford’s movements were swift and well trained. The silenced bullets fired with no measurable time between what it took for one round to exit and the other to be chambered.

  His aim was better than precise; it was perfect.

  One bullet entered the section chief’s forehead. His fall was awkward. His body fell backward but twisted at the waist. His head struck the corner of a desk, which contorted his upper body even further away from his lower half. A horrible gash split across the side of his temple. His hand was still in his coat reaching for his weapon. It didn’t matter: he was already dead.

  The bullet that entered Jorge struck exactly dead center of his heart.

  Violently, he was rocketed off of his feet. His body fell heavily to the floor. So quick were Stanford’s shots that not even a look of surprise was on either fallen man’s face.

  Stanford stood stoic for a moment and then bent to the ground to retrieve the spent casings. His weapon was still pointed instinctively at the downed men. Standing with the two casings in his hand, he slipped them into his pocket along with the weapon. He estimated that it would be morning before their bodies would be found, giving him just enough time to erase the card reader logs and the digital video still being recorded of the room’s activities.

  It paid to be one of the best hackers in the world.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  BELÉM TOWER

  LISBON, PORTUGAL

  It was fortified, that much York could see. The rest of the early sixteenth century Manueline structure, with splashes of other forms of architecture, was lost on the young Green Beret.

  But not on Michael.

  This was his academic field of expertise.

  Special operations was his career, but his private love was history, in particular, the history of the Middle East. When the Middle East is discussed, most think solely of Israel, Palestine, and the Islamic and Arab nations.

  But the Middle East had been much more, at one time stretching across the Mediterranean and throughout the ports of Spain and Portugal.

  Although the influence on the tower is attributed primarily to the time King Manuel the First reigned, there were, nonetheless, Moorish hints throughout. Its architect, Francisco de Arruda, was affected by his prior work completed in North Africa—in Morocco—and it showed in Belém Tower. Subtly included in its design, the arched windows and ribbed cupolas both whispered of Islam.

  Michael walked slowly, almost nonchalantly, down the wooden walkway that connected the boardwalk to the tower. He thought about how the warping, dull wood failed in every way possible to blend in with the magnificently carved lioz limestone of the four-story tower.

  The prematurely salt-aged wood creaked loudly as the two men walked toward the tower. Behind them, the shrill of joyous, screaming young boys and girls filled the air, followed by parental threats in multiple languages, which, undoubtedly, if translated, were shouts to slow down, stop running, and be careful!

  Michael’s head hurt. It pounded, really, and he wasn’t sure if the throbbing was from his face smashing against the steering wheel of a stolen car or from the withdrawal of alcohol. He tried to ignore it, which wasn’t so difficult given that the fiery pain in his thigh overpowered it to some degree. Further helping to mask the hammer against his head, his chest throbbed from having had a long, thick hypodermic needle plunged into it.

  He was—officially—a wreck.

  The two men walked underneath a circling swarm of gulls as they neared the entrance to the tower. Once inside, Michael picked up his pace as he headed straight for the north side of the tower.

  York said nothing as he followed Michael.

  They were in the casemate of the bastion. Sixteen cannons—iron guns—filled the emplacements of the irregularly shaped, hexagonal room. The room was just above the water and basked in both the light shining through the casemate and the light reflecting off the water and through the emplacements.

  The light-colored lioz cast an odd, greenish glow into the room.

  Michael stopped moving. They were dead center.

  Outside, still on the bench near the boardwalk, Charney was flirting dangerously with the still-seated young woman. The two were laughing, and he had inched closer.

  His phone rang.

  “Excuse me for a moment,” he said as he pulled out his phone and looked at its screen.

  His eyes bulged slightly at what he saw. Jumping to his feet, he quickly ran off. The young woman was confused; not ready yet to feel slighted.

  She hadn’t a clue, of course, just how lucky she had been.

  Charney made his way toward the tower, staring back and forth at his phone and the tower’s entrance.

  The tracking device he had placed inside of Michael’s pocket had stopped sending a signal. The ring of his phone had been a warning.

  Inside of the bastion, Michael had walked toward a wall and slowly traced his fingers across its cold surface. It felt wet to his touch.

  York only watched, but hovered close by.

  Michael said nothing and just continued to walk slowly, his hand all the while on the tower’s wall.

  York couldn’t take the silence. “What the hell are we doing here, Doc?”

  “You know, kid, this limestone is rare. Close to one hundred million years old.”

  So, thought York.

  Michael continued as he walked. “It is quite compact and abundant with fossils. You can’t see them, but they are there. This is the only place in the world that you can find this type. Lioz is what they call it.”

  “Doc, I don’t mean to be rude, but so what! We need to get moving. There has to be a team on the ground by now.”

  Michael smiled, but that was as much acknowledgement that he would give. “The limestone—this limestone—can only be made in a very specific ecosystem: shallow seas with warm and clear water. It had to be the right combination of temperature, seasonal changes, plant life and sodium content; the perfect combinations, really, to attract and proliferate a delicate society of organisms—organisms with calcium carbonate skeletons.”

  “Shit, Doc, I think that lump on your head is affecting your brain; you ain’t making any sense!”

  Michael stopped moving.

  “Come here.”

  York hesitated for a moment but then complied.

  “Put your hand on the wall, kid.”

  Michael did the same thing.

  The two men stood appositional to the wall; both of their hands were on it.

  “Okay, Doc, I’m playing your game. Now what?”

  “Look carefully
at the wall. Do you see it—do you see them?”

  “See what, Doc?”

  York’s impatience started to seep through; Michael could see it wrap across his face. Michael waited a moment more.

  Finally unable to hold his patience, and much like the puerile children running down the wooden walkway, York threw a fit.

  “Jesus Christ, Doc! I have barely escaped two hostile countries with my life, watched my team and my commander die, been blamed for the assassination of the next president, and now I’m stuck with a man who is clearly one drink away from a twelve-step program who can’t seem to,” York held up his first finger and pointed at it, “a, not get hurt in the most ridiculous ways, and b, is taking me on a fucking tour of a goddamn castle that is sitting in the middle of a rotten fish-smelling river!”

  York’s chest was heaving, and his face had grown red.

  Michael smiled coyly and then reached out and grabbed York by the shirt collar. In one swift motion, he threw him violently against the wall, pinning his back to it.

  “Ow!” York painfully spat out. “What gives, Doc?”

  Michael leaned in and growled, “I asked if you could see them, kid!”

  “Huh? I don’t know what you’re talking about—see what?”

  Michael grabbed York and spun him around. His voice was low, his mouth near York’s ear. “Put your hand back on the wall.”

  York did.

  “If you can’t see them, then maybe you can feel them.”

  York hesitantly moved his hand over the limestone; the pocks of the wall undulated across his fingertips.

  “That’s it, kid. Seeing isn’t always done with your eyes. Now you can feel them. Those little bumps are the pieces of shells long ago fossilized. Your fingers are running over the hard substance that was once an organism living nearly one hundred million years ago. Those tiny, nonexistent, and seemingly weak creatures have just saved your life.”

  “What?” Michael let York go, and he slowly turned around. Standing face-to-face with the CIA officer, he continued, “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course you don’t understand. Why would you? You are impetuous and impatient. Big biceps might get you up that rope, but they won’t save you against a smarter enemy. You have been taught to use more of your brawn than your brain. That stops now. If we are going to make it out of this, you will need to tap into that—what so far can be best described as worthless—brain of yours.”

  Michael casually looked over his shoulder.

  Charney walked into the bastion.

  The two men stared briefly at one another. Charney quickly looked away.

  Michael turned his attention back to York.

  “Lioz limestone, as I said earlier, exists only because something else once lived. The calcium carbonate that was left from its demise is a substance so hard that it could be used to make this tower; a symbol from an era that existed over four hundred years ago—get your head around that, kid. Not only is it solid enough to last so long, it is also very, very good at blocking the signals of cell phones and anything else that sends or receives a signal.”

  Michael reached into his pocket and pulled out the bug. He showed it to York whose eyes had grown wide.

  “Look over my right shoulder, kid. What do you see?”

  York did and then he replied, “I see a man. He’s looking at one of the cannons. His nose looks a bit busted.”

  “That man, kid, is the same man that I ran into when I was on my way out of the back door of the coffee shop. I’m the one who busted his nose. That man is also the same man that you and I both ran past when we left the hotel. He was sitting at the café smoking a cigarette and drinking espresso. At his feet was a pile of cigarette butts. He had been there for some time. He’s also the same guy that was in a cab much like ours that followed us here.”

  Michael paused.

  “Kid,” he continued, “that man is following us.”

  Michael dropped the bug to the ground and placed his heel over it. With a simple twist, he crushed it.

  “What are we going to do?”

  Michael didn’t hesitate; his mind had already created the battle plan.

  “You take his right flank; I’ll approach from the left. Be casual. Don’t spook him. I want some answers.”

  Michael turned and followed the wall casually as he closed the distance between himself and Charney.

  So much for giving me the signal to begin, thought York, as he started to move toward Charney’s right flank.

  Charney stood taller. He sensed movement. He saw the CIA officer and the Green Beret split up.

  Divide and conquer, eh? Charney eyed the two men through his periphery; a young boy, no older than five, ran awkwardly by. Charney reached out and snatched the child by his hooded sweatshirt.

  Both York and Michael stopped.

  Kneeling to the child, Charney put his hand almost affectionately around the boy’s neck and then looked at both of the men.

  He shook his head slowly back and forth as if to say no—not now, not here. Michael edged slightly closer to test the man. Charney gave the boy’s neck a firm squeeze and didn’t release. The child’s muffles were silenced by the chokehold; his face was turning a deep shade of crimson.

  Michael held out his hands to concede.

  Charney stood and backed his way through the bastion’s entrance. He let the child go, sending him sprawling across the limestone floor.

  Michael bolted to the entrance, but the man was already gone.

  Back inside, York picked up the young boy from the floor. But the child screamed and fled.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  SOUTH PARKING LOT

  CIA HQ

  The parking lot near the south entrance of the CIA’s headquarters was nearly empty. The night was typical for Virginia; Samantha L. Hightower shivered slightly from the damp air.

  She fumbled through her purse and couldn’t find her keys.

  “Damn it,” she mumbled.

  Stopping for a moment, she mentally retraced her steps, trying to remember where they were. She remembered having pulled out a small tube of ChapStick earlier; the keys had been in the way.

  Ms. Samantha realized that she had set them on the desk of her workstation.

  Crap, she thought, now I have to go back and get them.

  It wasn’t so much that she was bothered by the extra few minutes it would take to walk back to the arched doorways of the headquarters, or the time it would take to clear security, wait for the elevator, walk the long hall to the reinforced, secured door, or the distance she would cover retracing her steps back to her car.

  Returning to the room after having been ordered to leave bothered her.

  Ms. Samantha contemplated calling for a cab, and even had her cell phone in hand, but then thought about the fifty-dollar or so fare it would cost for the ride home. She would have to pay as much to get back tomorrow.

  Better suffer the wrath of the section chief than be out a hundred bucks.

  She turned and walked back toward the headquarters building.

  Inside, Ms. Samantha made her way back to the unassuming door; sliding her security badge next to the electronic reader, she heard the three steel tumblers slide from their locked position. With a slight sound of released pressure, the door cracked open slightly.

  As she walked through the room, the quiet unnerved her.

  Her entire career had been spent with the CIA, a large part of it as an active field officer with the Clandestine Services (formerly called the Directorate of Operations).

  She had seen much in her career.

  Her senses were on fire.

  Something was wrong.

  Out of instinct, she reached for her weapon.

  It wasn’t there. She almost felt embarrassed. After being removed from the field, she had no need to carry a weapon; the CIA had taken it from her.

  She slowly set down her purse; simultaneously her eyes panned the room. Across the room she saw the section
chief’s body. A normal woman, a man even, would have jumped or let out some sort of shriek at the sight, but Ms. Samantha was not a normal woman. Her actions were methodical, almost surgical; this was not the time for emotion. She let the scene digest. The damage caused by the shot to the head was apparent. There was no way the man was alive.

  Her eyes moved across the room.

  Nearby, the feet of Jorge Garrido stuck out from behind one of the desks.

  Before making her way to the bodies, she finished reconnoitering the room. The assailant might still be inside. She traced her careful stare up and into the chief’s office and then reversed course to make sure that she hadn’t missed anything.

  It took only a few moments. She was satisfied that she was alone.

  Quickly, she hit the panic button underneath the nearest workstation.

  The protocols were set into action. Emergency lights lit brightly; an ominous, overhead alarm sounded, and, Ms. Samantha knew, the entire campus of the CIA was being locked down. Soon, operatives of the Special Activities Division would swarm the campus; they would encapsulate the grounds in an annular fashion and quickly tighten the noose.

  They would be entering the room with their MP5s pointed internally. She knew that in less than sixty seconds, they would fill the room and force her to the ground.

  Time was not her ally. With the section chief clearly dead, she ran to Jorge to evaluate his wounds.

  On her knees at his side, she saw the bullet hole through the clothing over his chest, but curiously there was no blood. She ripped open his shirt and saw why.

  Jorge was wearing a very thick and large religious symbol of San Juan Bautista—Saint John the Baptist—which was attached to a chain around his neck.

  The bullet was embedded in the emblem.

  Feeling for a pulse, there was none.

  Ms. Samantha ripped open Jorge’s shirt and saw a tremendous amount of bruising. Gingerly, she felt the area. It was tender and moved easily against her touch.

  The ribs surrounding the impact of the bullet had been shattered, and his xiphoid process—the place just over the heart where the ribs meet at the center of the chest—was more than soft to the touch: it was obliterated.