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

by Joseph Nagle

  “When did all of this take place?” asked York.

  “Between 1480 and 1492.”

  “Did you say 1492? That’s the year Columbus discovered America.”

  Michael turned toward the young man and flatly asked, “How could he have discovered something that was already inhabited?”

  Michael didn’t wait for an answer, and York didn’t intend to provide one. “The year 1492 was when Columbus set sail for a new route to the Indies; he miscalculated by thousands of miles—he was lost. The guy had no idea that he would run into an entire continent. His voyage, however, was financed by none other than Queen Isabelle.”

  “Doc, why the history lesson?” interjected York.

  “Stamps and coins, kid. Stamps and coins. In 1893, the United States issued three different sets of stamps with Isabella’s likeness appearing on them: a five-cent, fifteen-cent, and four-dollar issue. She was the first woman ever to appear on a US-issued stamp. In that same year, the United States also issued a commemorative quarter with her face on it; again, the first woman ever to appear on our money.”

  “Sounds like a powerful woman.”

  “That she certainly was, kid—her power was just as strong as her husband’s; they had a motto which they ruled by.”

  “What was it?” asked York.

  Michael flipped over the medallion and fingered the engravings. He traced his index finger along the initials of the Catholic Monarchs—over Isabelle’s. He looked out of the window at the fast-moving countryside, and then said, “Tanto Monta—they amount to the same.”

  “Oh, shit!” shouted York.

  “Easy, kid, it’s not that dramatic.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean—look behind us!”

  Michael saw the flashing blue lights in the passenger’s exterior mirror. A police cruiser was trying to catch up to the speeding Bentley.

  “Lose him, kid!”

  York pressed more firmly on the accelerator, and the machine barely registered disapproval as it easily jumped from one hundred and thirty to over one hundred and seventy miles per hour.

  The cruiser was fading, unable to keep up with the high-powered auto.

  “I’m losing him, Doc!”

  “Keep it in your pants, kid. You can’t outrun the radio. Find an exit!”

  At that moment, both men saw it at the same time. It was surreal, happening in slow motion. In the distance, the blue and white police car lifted almost supernaturally from the asphalt. The underside of its carriage was exposed; the car was airborne just before it flipped violently end over end.

  Both men nearly simultaneously blurted, “What the fuck!”

  Michael spun around in his seat, but, as expensive and fine as the car was, the back window was too narrow to see easily through it.

  What he couldn’t yet see was that behind the police cruiser Charney had sped up as the officer had tried in vain to stop the Bentley.

  There was no way that Charney could allow the two men to be diverted from their mission. He needed whatever it was they had been sent to find. He needed it so that he could be paid his asking price: twenty million US dollars and the security plans for the Louvre. They were the key to his masterpiece.

  The policeman had been in his way.

  Charney had sped up from behind and had quickly made his way near the police car. He had rolled down his window.

  His diminutive Glock 27 was only 6.29 inches in length, and its weight barely registered in his hand. The magazine held the standard nine rounds, but he had needed only one.

  A precise shot had pierced the rear passenger-side tire of the police car. At most speeds, a blown tire would be only an annoyance. But when surpassing one hundred and fifty miles per hour, it’s deadly.

  The small explosion of the tire played with the laws of physics, but the car couldn’t win—that’s science. The police car had been sent into a rolling fit.

  Charney sped past the wreckage, smiling.

  Initially unable to see much, Michael focused harder on the wreckage. Bent metal and smoke covered the highway. After a few moments, Michael saw a car pass through the smoke. He couldn’t see the man who was driving, but he was quite sure who it was.

  Michael knew that this man—the man from the hotel and coffee shop, the man from Belém Tower—had every intention of making sure they found the item for which they searched.

  He would be there every step of the way.

  Silently, Michael thanked Charney.

  Charney whispered in return, “You are welcome.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  GETTING ANSWERS

  LANGLEY, VA

  The officer was atop Ms. Samantha’s back, but she could tell he was giving her a modicum of professional courtesy. His knee was planted firmly, just enough to ensure she couldn’t move, not enough to hurt.

  Her eyes stayed affixed to Jorge. He was still; his body showed no sign of life. A small tear trickled from the corner of her eye. Come on! Wake up!

  Jorge was alone; surrounded by nothing, but he heard voices. He had no idea that his heart had stopped and was now fighting for a beat. He had no idea that he was dead. He felt strangely calm.

  In the middle of the room, Jorge’s body lay flat on his back.

  The armed men were securing the room and had cleared the offices. They found no one else but the two dead men and Ms. Samantha.

  It was so quick that Ms. Samantha nearly didn’t understand. Everyone in the room was startled at precisely the same moment. Jorge’s body shot up into a seated position. His eyes were wide and feral. It wasn’t a scream that had startled the armed men and Ms. Samantha: it was the opposite.

  Jorge’s body fought viciously to inhale oxygen. His chest muscles were taut and still contracted from the electricity the AED had pumped them with.

  More than half of the men instinctively swung their weapons at him; the laser scopes affixed to their weapons painted a tight cluster of red dots at center mass of the once-dead man.

  Jorge stared at them in disbelief or in confusion—it was hard to tell. It was a mixture of both.

  He peered at Ms. Samantha as if he didn’t know her.

  Her eyes closed as she whispered a silent thank-you.

  Jorge’s senses were returning, and he started to remember what happened. He looked over his shoulder at the dead section chief. He looked at every armed man in the room.

  A man shouted, “Stand down! Put your weapons toward the floor! Now!” The men complied and parted as he made his toward Jorge.

  It was Richard, a friend from Jorge’s days of training at the Farm. They had started their careers together and shared the occasional beer.

  Richard kneeled next to his friend. He put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Jorge, hey bud,” he said, but Jorge just stared blankly through his friend. Richard snapped his fingers in front of Jorge’s face; he slapped his left cheek lightly. “Hey, man! Stay with me! Look at me, bud.”

  Jorge’s eyes locked on his friend’s. His voice trembled, and he said with some difficulty, “Richard, you look like crap.”

  Richard smiled and relaxed slightly. “Not as bad as you, man. What happened here?”

  Richard’s hand was still on Jorge’s shoulder. Jorge reached up and squeezed his forearm tightly as if to add emphasis to what he would next mutter: “The Doc is innocent.” He then nodded toward Ms. Samantha. “So is she. She saved me; get your men off of her. Help her up.”

  Richard waved at the man whose knee was still in Ms. Samantha’s back. He rose and helped Ms. Samantha do the same.

  The next two hours were filled with a barrage of questions, often repeated, followed by written statements, photographs, and an incessant flow of this kind of badge and that kind of badge. The paramedics had wanted to take Jorge to the hospital, but he refused. He would be fine, he told them, just had some painful ribs.

  He promised his (new) boss that he would go home, get some rest, and get checked out in the morning.

  The room had b
een filled with officials, chiefs, and deputy directors. The CIA has its own coroner, and the section chief’s body was already gone.

  Everyone was gone.

  It was still and cold.

  Jorge walked slowly through the scene of the attack, only just then realizing how big the room was.

  It would have to be locked down for forensics; they would be coming within the hour, but it didn’t matter. They wouldn’t find anything. The tapes were erased, and so was the log of the magnetic card reader. The man was CIA—well trained. There would be nothing in the room that would link him to the crime.

  But Jorge knew who he was.

  Jorge walked to the door, closed it behind him, and secured it.

  In the elevator, he didn’t push the button that would take him to the parking lot, to his car.

  He pushed the button for the fourth sub-basement.

  He wasn’t going home; there was someone he needed to see.

  In front of the holding cell, Jorge punched in his code on the secured room’s keypad. The door hissed open.

  Jorge locked eyes with the lone man in the room.

  Lou stared back without as much as a lone blink; the corner of his mouth turned upward in a sarcastic grin. “I always said that weenie Stanford was a bad shot. I told him: spend more time at the firing range. If I told that ambitious little prick once, I’ve told him a hundred times: make it a headshot. It’s messy, but there’s no second guessing.”

  Jorge angrily stared back at the smug officer but said nothing.

  Lou continued, “You know, I was wondering if you even had the balls to show your face—I knew one of you Watchmen was close by, I just never figured it was you, Garrido.”

  At that moment and without warning, Jorge rushed toward where Lou sat and put the heel of his right boot deeply into Lou’s broken ribs.

  Inside Lou’s chest cavity, the already split bones grated as they moved even further out of place. The sharp edge of a broken rib pushed into Lou’s lung.

  Lou fell sideways from the chair and roughly to the floor. His breath was gone momentarily, and as it came back, he spat a few clumps of clotted, dark blood mixed with a stream of bright-red spittle to the floor.

  Old blood and new.

  As he coughed, he felt the telltale signs of fresh fluid building up in his lungs. Well, that ain’t good, he thought.

  Lou wiped the corner of his mouth with his good hand and eyed the red streak across the back of it. “So, that’s how it’s gonna be, huh? You couldn’t just first ask me what you want to know and then kick me after I told you to piss off?”

  Lou was a bit unsteady and struggled with his balance as he put himself back into the room’s only chair. He had only one good arm but even that one was failing him.

  Jorge screamed at Lou. “The crown! The shroud! Operation Merlin! What’s the endgame, what’s the Order after?! What the hell is this leading to?!”

  Lou’s response was a bit sarcastic when he said, “Take it easy, Garrido. We just want our stuff back, that’s all. It belongs to us, not that filthy, backward church! The crown isn’t what you think, and the shroud—”

  Lou stopped to catch his breath in his failing lungs. His words came in wheezes.

  “—the shroud has never touched the body of Christ. The shroud belongs only to us, to our masters!”

  “And the senator: was she just in the way, or was she a target, too?”

  “Of course she was a target. She was a little too smart for her own good. We tried to get to her, to bring her on board, but she was the furthest thing from a demagogue: the damn broad actually had morals. Can you believe that shit, Garrido? There was one politician in DC that actually believed the crap she spat out! No, we couldn’t get to her. Believe me, we tried.”

  There was actual disgust in Lou’s voice. He spoke with hate. “She was in the way.”

  “So you set up the Doc; you let him escape from custody and sent him to Portugal to make it look like he was on the run? But why? Why not just bring him in? Why is he even a part of this?”

  Lou cocked his head to the side as he digested Jorge’s question. Without looking at his interrogator, Lou questioned passively, “Portugal?”

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t know!” shouted Jorge.

  There was a bit of silence between them. Lou shook his head back and forth as if something had just been revealed to him. When he repeated himself, it wasn’t in the form of a question. It was a matter-of-fact statement: “Portugal.” So that’s where he is.

  Jorge was quiet.

  Lou looked at him and waved his one good hand at Jorge as if he were dismissing a child. “It’s amazing that you haven’t put it together yet—it makes complete sense—we didn’t free him to make him look more guilty; we could care less if he takes the blame or not.”

  “Then what, what are you using him for?”

  “You know, Garrido, you would think you Watchmen would have studied your own history more. Sterling knows more about your past than the lot of you put together. Sterling was freed because he has a very unique set of qualities: he is one of the most renowned experts in religious history, an expertise that only a small handful of people on the planet have, plus the man has the skills to get into places most would say would be impossible. Sterling is just another one of our pawns, and, besides, he owes us for the shit he put us through three years ago!”

  “History?” screamed Jorge. “What does history have to do with this; what is the endgame?”

  Through a sneer, Lou growled one word: “Proof.”

  “Proof? Of what?”

  No answer.

  “And the section chief—why kill your own man?”

  Lou looked up at Jorge uneasily; his eyes shook slightly. “The chief, Stanford killed him?”

  Got you, thought Jorge. “You didn’t know, did you? That’s right: Stanford shot him before trying to kill me. It seems like the Order isn’t even on the same page. The chief is dead. You didn’t know about Portugal. Looks like you are in the middle of a coup to me.”

  Lou’s head slumped lower. It didn’t make any sense.

  “And, Merlin—why is Merlin being reactivated?”

  Without looking up at Jorge, Lou spat out: “We’re done, Garrido. Now get your island ass outta here! I ain’t givin’ you nothin’ more.”

  But Lou knew that his words were futile. Jorge wouldn’t be going anywhere. Jorge had heard enough. His anger could no longer be contained. Lou was in the Order, the section chief, too. They had killed the senator and had tried to kill him.

  Jorge ended his questioning. A verdict had been rendered; punishment was next.

  Rushing at Lou, Jorge’s punch landed square over Lou’s already purpled and severely broken nose. There wasn’t much left to shatter, but Jorge followed the first blow with two more. All three had landed in the same spot.

  Lou’s head snapped backward; his body had nowhere to go. He was too weak to counter. By the time the stars dancing around his head faded, his nose had nearly doubled in size from the instant swelling.

  Bulbous and deformed: that’s how this would end.

  Jorge’s chest was heaving, and his barrage had ceased. He held onto his own ribs as each breath sent a sharp pain through his torso. With some difficulty, he interrogated, “Why is the Doc in Portugal? What did you send him to do? Proof of what? What’s the Order after?”

  No response.

  Lou just stared defiantly, albeit barely. His senses were still in a daze, and his head wobbled slightly as his neck muscles began to fail him. Two streams of blood flowed from his nostrils.

  Jorge spoke calmly when he said, “I know about Merlin, Lou. I’ve seen the schematics for the firing block, for the TBA-480. I know that the Order is in bed with al-Qaeda. Why are you reactivating Operation Merlin? Is this the Order’s objective? Is there a handoff in Portugal?”

  Again, Lou didn’t respond.

  “Come on, Lou! It’s over. You’re done. It doesn’t need to go this far! Now t
ell me why—why is Merlin going live? Is there going to be a strike? What’s happening in Portugal?”

  Lou’s laugh came from his throat and spilled with difficulty from his broken body. His words were raspy, and as they came out, a bit of blood mixed with saliva sprayed from his lips.

  “Merlin? Al-Qaeda?” Lou adjusted himself painfully in his chair. “You are really in the dark—you and your righteous Watchmen. You follow us around the globe; you think that you are the world’s secret police, and all that you can bring me is fucking Merlin and some backward, cave-dwelling terrorists! If we wanted to blow something up, we would. It ain’t as difficult as you think, Garrido.”

  Lou paused to catch his breath.

  “Merlin is nothing!” Lou screamed. “Nothing! It’s an enigma, you prick, a way to keep backward-thinking, atavistic knuckle-draggers scratching their heads. It’s a way to keep the ambitions of those sand-jockeys under control, nothing more. Merlin is just a tool—a goddamn smokescreen. I’d say it’s working, too. Look at you scratching your head; you haven’t the faintest idea what this about.” Lou laughed, but it came out with difficulty, sounding more like a painful exhale.

  Jorge wasn’t sure. Everything pointed to Merlin, to make al-Qaeda nuclear.

  Lou could see the confusion on Jorge’s face. He could see that the man was unsure about what to say, about what to ask, so he helped him. With a dangling finger pointed weakly at Jorge, he showed him what little smile he could. “Look at you, trying to figure it all out, trying to put a puzzle together when you don’t have all the pieces. Every question you think you have just makes you more confused.”