The History Thief: Ten Days Lost (The Sterling Novels) (10 page)

Still shivering, he made his way to the front door of his home. As he did, he passed by a window. Outside, the engine of a silver seven-series BMW revved to life. Faust glanced out of the window and toward the car. It was parked at the curb in front of his home; its windows were darkly tinted. It stayed parked for a few long moments.

Faust’s stare never wavered.

The car left.

Faust drew the shades and stared at the closed window for a moment. He felt nervous, if not afraid. He opened his front door, not sure what to expect. He stepped out but was only met with the blue skies of a crisp, comfortable day. To the south, a breeze sent to him the oft-ubiquitous smells of the Potomac. The sun’s rays enveloped the blue granite and Potomac fieldstone of the stone exterior with a comforting hue of soft pastels. The caressing features of the day meant nothing to him.

As he turned to go back into his home, his foot hit something. It was a small box.

Faust eyed it curiously for a moment, half-expecting the worst. He bent to pick it up; it was lighter than he had thought it would be.

In his home, he withdrew a small knife from its cutlery block and inserted the tip into the tape that sealed the box shut.

Opening it, he stared almost quizzically at the lone item it contained.

He removed the photo; it was a Polaroid.
Clever,
he thought.
Polaroids are pre-digital with no electronic, traceable evidence.

Senator Faust studied the photo, but it wasn’t necessary to do so. A smile stretched across his taut, patrician face. He immediately knew what they were going to do, how they would get him into the White House. Opening a drawer, he removed a book of wooden matches and struck one. Holding the flame to the photo’s corner, he watched as the slight flicker grew into lengths of fire.

Dropping the nearly consumed photo into the sink, he watched as the face of Senator Elizabeth Door burned; he watched until the image was nothing more than an unrecognizable lump of molten and charred photo stock.

Standing a bit more upright, Senator Matthew Faust instantly felt more important, more powerful.

CHAPTER EIGHT

6 PLACE DU PARVIS
NOTRE DAME
ÎLE DE LA CITÉ—PARIS

E
yeing the dead soldier one last time, Charney turned away from his victim.

Climbing the stairs that led to the top of Pont Neuf, he passed a number of lower-ranking soldiers who immediately snapped to attention and saluted with their palms facing outward. With a snap of military precision in his arm movements, he returned their salutes with one of his own and then crisply marched away.

He was on the west side of the island, standing before the impressive twin, two-hundred-and-twenty-eight-foot-tall, gothic towers of Notre Dame; they were the most recognizable feature of the cathedral and nearly as iconic to Paris as the Eiffel Tower. The vertical, angular towers had inspired all that is gothic in France since 1163 and were repeated in form on other façades; they commanded a distinct shift from the monotony and cleanliness of Romanesque architecture.

But there was only one Notre Dame.

The twenty-eight statues of the kings of Judah and Israel—the Gallery of Kings—stared down upon Charney from under the balustrade in the very manner that he stared at them: with a quiet respect. His pulse quickened at the sight of them; a slight film of sweat lined the inside of his collar.

These were not the originals.

In past centuries, an erroneous belief among the commoners had grown that the full-bodied carvings represented the French kings that had reigned from Childebert I to Philippe Auguste. To them, the statues were a stark reminder that feudal privileges were saved only for the aristocratic class and the Church. The frustration of the populace, built from centuries of codified oppression, had led to social and an optimistically destructive upheaval: the French Revolution. The original kings had been destroyed in 1789, but they were later rebuilt during one of the cathedral’s reconstructive periods.

His senses told him that those same kings were in heaven—some in hell, maybe—either admonishing or admiring him for the work that he had done, for the work that was still to be done.

He felt a twinge of guilt that they would have to be destroyed once more. They were quite striking and would have been a welcomed addition to his collection of history.

Just above the statues was the West Rose Window—ten meters in diameter and of the most intricate detail. The stained glass dated to the early thirteenth century and had survived turmoil, wars, and the French Revolution.

But it wouldn’t survive today.

Charney smiled at the irony: the theme of the window was human life. He was here to steal that life away.

Standing erect in the crisp uniform of a Gendarmerie Nationale Commandant, Charney brushed dust from his sleeves that wasn’t there and patted his trousers as if the action would make the creases stand out more. He readied to move toward the south tower of the Cathedral. He hadn’t made it more than three steps when he felt a tug on his elbow.

“Hey, Mister,” said the unseen man.

Charney turned and was faced with a young couple wearing the wide smiles of the obvious: Americans and newlywed.

Of course.

“Please,
man-sure
, can I take a picture of you with my wife?” begged the man.

Charney cringed at the crude attempt to pronounce
monsieur
, and he had to maintain his composure at the misuse of the verb that means
to be able
.

Of course, you are able to take a picture. It appears that you are not an invalid, at least for the moment.

It was his ornamental dress that drew their attention to him. The kepi was distinct and acted more as a beacon than as headgear.

He quickly offered the two a polite smile before he said, “Of course you
may
; however, the best spot for a photo is on the Pont de l’Arcevêché; it is on the southwest corner of the bridge.” Charney turned and pointed toward the other side of Notre Dame. He wanted to rid himself of these pests. “It is on the other side of the bridge. I am sure that you will find many of my comrades who will be just as willing to be in a photo with your wife.”

“Thanks, man.
Marshy
,” the American excitedly blurted out.

Marshy?
Charney didn’t think of himself as a petty man, but the bastardization of his language, and of a word as simple as
merci
, grated the space in his mind reserved for the respect of it.

“Monsieur,” Charney called out to the American, “on second thought, one of the more classic places for newlyweds is under the west Rose Window. You must have your photo there. You will cherish it forever, I promise.” Charney motioned the American closer and whispered, “And I will let you on a little secret—it will be one of the best spots to see the president of France. He will be visiting here within the hour.”

“Oh, wow! Thanks,
man-sure
.”

The American grabbed his young wife by the hand and tugged her toward the west entrance of the cathedral.

Charney cracked an evil smile.

With long and purposeful strides, he covered the distance to the south tower in less than two minutes. The Pont Neuf was infested with the hordes that somehow felt connected to the cathedral and with the officials obligated to guard it. His face was hard and creased, and the squint of his eyes spoke of authority. Not one man or tourist stepped in his way.

As many times as he had been inside of the cathedral, he was always overwhelmed by how vast it was: at one hundred and thirty meters long and forty-eight meters wide, it was like an ornate canyon, a labyrinth of history.

He shivered.

To his right, the flowing robes of a fast-moving man caught his attention.
I am in luck
, he thought.

“Father, Father!” called out Charney.

The black-cassocked priest stopped in his tracks and cast a hard glance of impatience at the faux-commandant. “Yes, what is it?”

“Father, if you would indulge me, please; I am looking for something.”

The priest moved closer and irritatingly asked, “Well, don’t hold back, Commandant, what is it that you seek?”

Charney moved closer to the ordained man as well, and when he was close enough to him that he could smell his breath, he growled, “The Crown of Thorns.”

The priest was confused by the response and uttered a small, uncomfortable laugh, but before he could speak, Charney had him by the throat. The intricate carvings that surrounded the priest went black as the colors of the stained glass melted into one. His hold on conscious thought drifted. Charney watched as the man’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and then, before he fell to the ground, he grabbed him and dragged him to the staircase at the base of the south tower.

Charney glanced up and sighed. He dreaded this part, but it was necessary. Putting the priest over his shoulder—as if to intimate the mythical hunchback—Charney carried the man up the four hundred and twenty-two stairs, one agonizing step at a time.

The sweat started to pour, and the farther he rose, the more his legs quivered and burned under the weight of the priest.

Good thing he was a small man
, thought Charney.

Grabbing the railing with his right hand, Charney grimaced with each push up the stairs. The farther he climbed, the narrower the steps became. The wood creaked under their weight, but he knew it would hold. For years, and at ten euros per person, these very stairs had been climbed countless times. At the top, Charney tossed the priest heavily to the wooden floor; the back of his head cracked loudly when it hit.

The priest stirred and groaned; his eyes fluttered open. Above the two men, dangling from the rafters, was the thirteen-ton Emmanuelle bell. In his face was the squared end of Charney’s pistol.

Charney slapped the man with the gun; the priest responded with a shallow gasp.

“Look at me, Priest,” Charney icily commanded.

The priest’s eyes focused in on the man and, cowering from the gun, he asked, “What do you want?” There was fear in the priest’s voice, as if he knew what was to come.

“I have already told you what I want—the Crown of Thorns. Tell me where it is!”

With a raspy voice, he said, “It is kept in the cathedral treasury, everyone knows this!” His voice was weak from both fear and the crushing effects of his attacker’s hands.

Charney hit the priest with the gun again, harder this time—so hard that the priest’s head snapped forcibly and caused him to spit up a bit. A small trickle of blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.

He began to cry.

Charney pushed the tip of the gun’s barrel into the priest’s left eye and barked, “Tell me where it
really
is, Priest.”

Their eyes met. The priest could see something deep within his attacker, something dark. Holding the information back was the right thing to do; he knew it. But the intentions of this man were burning through his veins; he couldn’t fight the urge to tell him what he wanted. So he told him, “It is in the Sainte Chapelle, in the royal chapel.”

But he wouldn’t tell him all of it.

From inside of his coat pocket, Charney pulled out a small roll of gray duct tape. Ripping a piece from it, he slapped it across the priest’s mouth. From another pocket, he pulled out a small blade and then holstered his gun. A break in the clouds threw a momentary flash of sun into the tower; the reflection of the light from the small blade spilled across the priest’s face. He squinted.

Charney set the knife at the priest’s feet and then reached into his pocket. In his hand he held a small device that had a long lever on its side. He pushed a series of numbered buttons, and a green light illuminated. He held the small electronic device in front of the priest and said, “This is a wireless detonator, Priest. I have placed explosives throughout the entire cathedral, underneath most of the buttresses. In the walls, and being pumped through the hypocaust, is an explosive gas. When this lever is released,” Charney pointed to the small, black lever protruding from the detonator’s side, “a signal will trigger the explosives on the buttresses and ignite the gas in the walls. If the lever is released, Notre Dame will fall, and everyone in it will die.”

The priest’s eyes shook as he tried to shout his pleas through the tape.

Charney lunged out and snatched the priest’s left hand; in it, he placed the detonator and closed the man’s fingers around it.

“Hold this tight, priest. Do not let go.”

The tears were ravaging the sides of the priest’s face, and his skin was diaphoretic. He was shaking his head from left to right, and through the duct tape he screamed muffled, futile protests.

Charney reached over and picked up the knife. Without any sort of warning, not a single word, he plunged the two-inch blade of the knife into the man’s liver.