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

by Joseph Nagle

  Door paused and then stood over Faust, an oppressive gesture and reminder of who was really in command. He spun the half-melted ice cubes in his glass in front of Faust’s nose; it was a signal to Faust to stay obedient, and one to himself to refill it; he made his way to the plane’s bar.

  As he poured himself another belt, Door continued, “The marriage, like all marriages at the time, was nothing more than a business transaction. Porte was made the Duke of Mazarin and had his eyes set on becoming the chief minister of France—the king’s right-hand man, if you will. You see, Faust, Hortense was the favorite niece of Cardinal Mazarin. The cardinal was extremely wealthy and up until his death was the chief minister of France—”

  At that moment, a brief bout of turbulence shook the plane. Door grabbed the silver rail of the bar, careful not to spill his drink. Within moments it was over.

  Returning to the seat opposite Faust, Door continued, “Hortense inherited the cardinal’s wealth, and soon after his death, that wealth became Porte’s—her husband’s—and included the magnificent Palais Mazarin in Paris and countless pieces of fine art. The problem was, however, Hortense was a bit too young and overly lascivious and a bit of an obvious flirt. Men and women loved her. My great-great-great-something uncle was a bit of a jealous man and, not to mention, a bit of a nut-bag—certifiable is probably a more appropriate description. The man was mentally unstable and preoccupied with removing anything remotely sexual from his domain! Christ, he wouldn’t let milkmaids touch the tits of cows; he even knocked out all of his female servants’ front teeth so men wouldn’t find them attractive!”

  “Jesus,” mumbled Faust.

  “And, taking a page right out of the Vatican’s playbook, he scratched off, chipped away, or painted over what the bastard called dirty bits of priceless pieces of work. Hortense wasn’t allowed to be in a room with another man, and the guy couldn’t have been any more unstable—he’d send out bloodhounds at night to scour the grounds for Hortense’s hidden lovers, who didn’t exist, of course! The poor thing! Porte forced her daily to stay knelt in prayer for six hours.”

  Senator Matthew Faust listened intently, unsure where Door was headed. His legs felt stiff and so he stood, albeit uneasily, to stretch them.

  Door looked at the senator and continued, “It couldn’t have been a worse matchmaking. Turns out, Hortense was a goddamn carpet-muncher; she was having a lesbian affair, and when Porte found out, he went into a rage and sent them both to a convent for their immorality. I can’t think of a better place for two young girls to explore their sexuality than a damn convent! Their affair continued, more unbridled than before. The girls plagued the nuns with endless pranks and finally ran away from the convent by scaling the inside of a chimney. Back home on my uncle’s estate, he beat Hortense incessantly and often. Eventually, she escaped and was placed under the protection of King Louis XIV.”

  Door paused and lowered his eyes in an angry glare at Faust and then growled. “My uncle was a businessman, and like all businessmen, you leverage your wealth; you borrow money or use assets as collateral in order to build more wealth. In the late 1500s, his father was loaned a sum of money; that loan was managed well and was nearly paid off. That loan was held by the master of The Order of Christ—it was an honorable transaction between a man of business and a once-pious organization.”

  King Sebastian, thought Faust, the last master of the Order of Christ.

  His next thought was spoken out loud: “The church kidnapped and killed the last master—they killed King Sebastian—didn’t they?”

  Door’s body temperature rose a bit as he outlined more; he was red in the face as he spat, “The church claimed they did it for god, but they just tortured, killed, and then robbed Sebastian of the treasury he guarded! They did it for money! The goddamned Vatican punished my uncle—my family—for his ways! The cardinal’s favorite niece garnished their protection. The church used its mighty sword to cut away Porte’s wealth; my family’s wealth, Faust! They crushed the Order in 1578 and stole everything from them! The Vatican took from Sebastian all of the notes held by the Order, notes that are still being repaid to this day! And the Order—the bloody, cowardly Order sat back and did nothing!”

  Door’s face had turned a bright red; he could feel his own temperature rising and paused to regain his composure.

  It seemed unfathomable. “Why not just stop paying?” asked Faust.

  At this, Door let out a low, short laugh. “Stop paying? You really don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into, do you? Faust, if I were to stop paying, I wouldn’t get ten feet out of my front door before a bullet would split my skull. You asked about the History Thief, Matthew, so here it is: since then, my family has been in debt to the Vatican. For centuries we’ve quietly appealed to the Holy Father to forgive us of that debt. Every time, and with each new pope, we’ve been refused! They charge us, to this day, immense interest on that debt for Porte’s treatment of that little whore—the cardinal’s favorite niece! But I’m not the only one who wants that note back.”

  “The Order?” asked Faust.

  “You’re goddamned right, the Order! My debt and all of the other debt the Vatican holds belonged, at one time, to the Order. With the note returned, my family’s honor and debt would just transfer from one corrupt organization to another. When they contracted the thief to steal those old relics, I saw my chance. I was able to contact him and gave him one more job to do. That thief’s last job was to steal the parchment Sterling found; that parchment led to the location of my family’s note. I was so close, Faust, so fucking close!” screamed Door behind a shaking fist.

  Senator Matthew Faust sat back down and was eye-to-eye with Door when he asked, “You brought Dr. Sterling into this to get into the Vatican’s Secret Archives, didn’t you? You knew that he would be the only one that could piece it all together; you wanted him to find the note so that you could destroy it.”

  In response, Door outlined, “Matthew, my family has been in debt to the church for over four centuries! That note—that debt—has been held over our heads for far too long; it promised the holder of that note half of any of my family’s earnings until relinquished. Can you believe that, Matthew, half of everything earned, and in perpetuity, as punishment for backhanding a skanky woman! Who makes a deal like that? I am almost ashamed to say I was ever related to Porte, and I’ll be goddamned if I’m giving up half of my profits from our mining operation in Afghanistan!”

  Door took the last pull of his Scotch, squinting his eyes as it trickled hot down his throat. “Damn, that’s good!” he bellowed as he set the emptied glass on the table. “Matthew, I made it my life’s purpose to end this dishonor to my family name.”

  It was becoming clear to Faust who added, “You couldn’t beat them.”

  Door finished the sentence through a wicked smile, “So I joined them.”

  “But you weren’t satisfied being just a member of the Order, were you?”

  “No, Faust; no, I wasn’t. The Order is antiquated; a bunch of old men who can’t get over pagan rituals and old methods of taking power. They still waste time by trying to find some physical proof of Christ’s existence—what nonsense! It’ll never happen! The Order is backward-looking; they need a leader, not a historian at its helm.”

  Faust interrupted, “You want to control the Order! What have you done?! There’s no way that…”

  “Oh relax, Matthew,” Door interjected, “have another drink. You are too damned high strung. All that I have done is to hedge my bets. I have taken care of the bloody Order. We are safe. The old man’s—our wonderful Primitus’s—short and ill-conceived reign will come to an end and quite soon, might I add. A very well-placed tip to the authorities will lead them to the old man and that crazed scientist. They are finished. Their days of collecting old relics and trying to find bones are over. When it’s finished, I won’t need that note any longer.” Door leaned in and heavily cupped both sides of Faust’s face. “I am the Order’s new
Primitus.”

  CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR

  NO TURNING BACK

  Michael looked at York; he could see it chiseled across his protégé’s face: he was ready.

  “Give it to her, kid.”

  York complied. There were no words. She only nodded as she turned from the two men to walk away.

  Michael faced York; his tone was paternal as much as it was that of a mentor. “This is where the hard decisions come in; it’s not always happy endings and moral lessons—there’s no turning back from where we are going. Are you ready?”

  York understood. “He’s responsible for the deaths of those people in Notre Dame, for my team. He said he was going to kill my wife; yours, too.”

  Michael furrowed his brow. “But are you ready?”

  “Yes, sir, I am.”

  CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE

  JUDGMENT DAY

  The two would-be leaders of the free world were sitting quietly on the leather seats of the private plane. Senator Matthew Faust was doing his best to understand everything he’d just heard. Across from him was Francis Q. Door; he sat with his eyes closed. Faust watched him, studying him for a moment. Faust was sure that it was the man’s arrogance that made his bronzed skin so taut.

  As if sensing Faust’s stare, Door opened his eyes and smiled at the senator, making him feel small and uneasy.

  At that moment, the flight attendant returned; she was carrying a tray.

  “Oh, wonderful,” said Door, “I’m starving. What’s on the menu?”

  But the moment his last word was spoken, he realized that she wasn’t carrying food.

  “What the hell is this?!” shouted Door as he went rigid in his seat.

  Faust wanted to stand but he felt a bit weak from the mixture of booze and pain medication.

  “Take it,” commanded the flight attendant as she thrust forward the tray with her left hand; in her right hand was a small pistol, which was now aimed steadily at Door’s face.

  “What’s the meaning of this?! Who are you?”

  “Take it,” she repeated calmly, “and press play.”

  Door didn’t move.

  She cocked back the hammer of the pistol with her thumb; her eyes bore a serious gaze into the industrialist’s—he reached out and took the recorder from atop the tray.

  “Press play,” she commanded again.

  Door fumbled with it, but managed to depress the play button. If what he heard had been meant to frighten him, he didn’t show it; but what he saw next did.

  Down the hallway of the plane, and behind the flight attendant, Door saw the cockpit door open and two men step out.

  He nearly dropped the recorder at the sight of them.

  “How can it be?” asked Senator Faust with a quiver in his voice.

  Dr. Michael Sterling and SSG Jonathon York both, with pistols aimed—one at Senator Faust, the other on Francis Q. Door—entered the plane’s private salon.

  No one spoke as the recorder played. As Door and Faust listened to the taped conversation they just had, Michael stepped forward and squeezed the button that turned off the recording.

  “I’ll hand it to you, Sterling, you are one resourceful and relentless son of a bitch!” said Door almost admiringly.

  Over the barrel of his pistol, Michael bore an angry glare into the man. “You two have one option: turn on that recorder and confess; start with Operation Merlin and where that cargo plane with the nukes is going to land and when! Finish with the assassinations of your wife and the president of France.”

  “Turn ourselves in? You’ve got to be out of your mind, Sterling,” shouted Door.

  Michael leaped forward and, with his free hand, grabbed the cocksure man by his throat, shoved him against the plane’s bar, and squeezed. He watched as Door’s eyes rolled backward as the blackness from the loss of consciousness set in. Door’s knees weakened; it was then that Michael shoved the pistol between the man’s teeth and pushed him painfully to his knees.

  Door’s eyes fluttered, and he gagged on the barrel as Michael screamed at him. “Over the past three days, my house has been shot up, a small bomb was placed in my artery, I was drugged, a needle was buried into my heart, and my wife was kidnapped, dragged across the fucking ocean, and made playmate to a goddamn sociopath! Do you know what it’s like to see the woman you love with a knife at her neck and a fucking gun at her temple?!”

  Michael cocked the pistol. “So, if you want to die, then die you will—pulling this trigger will make things much easier! Start talking, you pretentious prick! You have three seconds! Three, two…”

  York smiled.

  Faust wanted to vomit.

  Sheila stared blankly.

  Michael shoved the pistol deeper into the man’s throat; tears streamed down Door’s cheeks as his shaking eyes bulged from their sockets.

  “One!”

  Door started to shout gurgled, indecipherable words and feverishly slapped Michael’s legs over and over again.

  Michael pulled the weapon from Door’s throat. Immediately Door collapsed with his hands on the floor. His body contorted oddly from the gag-reflex having been so tested. A bit of sputum hung from his chin. Wiping it awkwardly away, Door slowly pulled himself to his feet; Michael re-aimed the weapon at his head.

  “Where is that plane?!” Michael shouted.

  Door straightened out his clothing and leaned against the bar. His hands were shaking.

  Michael pushed his weapon into Door’s forehead; Door raised his hands in submission.

  He then poured himself another belt of Scotch before he said, “Dr. Sterling, I don’t know. I really don’t. That’s the truth.”

  It was the truth.

  Francis Q. Door didn’t know where the Antonov cargo plane would land, only when. Looking at his watch, he said, “All that I do know is that it’s due to land in three hours, at 5:00 a.m.”

  “Oh, give me a fucking break,” shouted York as he ran at Door.

  His movements were quick and to the surprise of everyone in the plane. At the bar, York snatched up the small fork that rested inside of a glass filled with olives. The fork firmly in his hand, it traveled in a strong arc at the industrialist.

  Door tried to scream, but nothing would come out except for an odd, long groan.

  The fork was plunged deeply into the man’s wrist—tongs deep.

  “Now tell the rest of the story or I find another fork!” screamed York at Door.

  If Michael disapproved of his interrogation tactic, he didn’t show it.

  Door slumped against the bar; his lips quivered.

  York yanked out the fork to Door’s screams. “Talk!”

  Door painfully spat out, “Abu Mohammed Ibrahim! It’s Ibrahim—he’s accepting delivery. That’s all I know, I swear! That was the deal—provide the technology and the uranium-enriching parts. The rest—exchange of money, delivery location—it was to be handled privately, to make sure that nothing got in the way of the delivery. I didn’t want to know.”

  York looked at Michael. “Ibrahim was our target in Afghanistan; it was at his cave where my men were attacked. The handoff must be nearby.”

  Pain set in; Door grabbed at his wrist and nearly fell to the floor but caught himself. His voice was shaking, but he laughed like a madman when he said, “You can’t change what’s already in motion. You’ve lost, I’m afraid. It’s not that I need to confess, it’s that…it’s that you do!”

  Door used what little leverage and bravado he had left. He stood more upright but held his wrist tightly. “The Order is everywhere. We still have people throughout the coveted halls of Langley, in Congress, too. I can make you a hunted man, Sterling, you and York. I’ve already done it once and will do it again! You had the motive to kill my wife! She was the head of the Oversight Intelligence Committee, and she wanted to hang your ass on a line for Operation Merlin’s failure! She wanted to gut your budget and bring your black operations into the public’s eye—that’s right, Sterling! I saw those reports, to
o. You’re the one with the motive and resources to have her assassinated!”

  Door waved his uninjured hand flippantly toward the Green Beret and smiled arrogantly at him. “In this plane are the next president and vice president of the United States! Who the fuck do you think you are, you arrogant bastard, to tell me—me!—how it’s going to be! Stay out of our way, and we’ll have that intelligence erased; you’ll have your wonderful record restored.”

  Door was nearly thumping his chest as his vitriol rose. He picked up a linen cloth and wrapped it tightly around his bleeding wrist. “This is how it’s going to be, Sterling. You three are going to put your weapons away and take a seat. Hell, have a drink if you want. But when this plane lands, you are going to disappear—all of you! Take a vacation, retire, or just disappear—take your pick, Sterling, but if I so much think you are anywhere near DC, I’ll make sure that the intelligence is brought under a spotlight and have your ass hunted into extinction. You’re not going to kill me, Sterling—you don’t have it in you; you have too many morals, don’t you?”

  Senator Matthew Faust was in shock. A moment ago, he was sure that Sterling—or York—was going to end Door’s life, but now, even after having had a fork shoved into his wrist, Door was working to turn the situation back to their favor.

  Michael lowered his weapon.

  Door smiled and smacked his lips. “Good boy.”

  “All of this just to get at those ore deposits in Afghanistan. Tell me this, Mr. Vice President, how did you find out about Operation Merlin?” Michael asked.

  Door thought about the question for a moment and wagered that his answer didn’t matter. “My wife, rest her soul,” he mocked, “was a bit careless with her work; she often brought it home. As the head of the Intelligence Oversight Committee, she had access to a fair number of things. Truth be told, she wanted to put your ass through a ringer—it made you the perfect patsy!”