The History Thief: Ten Days Lost (The Sterling Novels) (20 page)

“Shit!” he muttered a bit too loudly at the interruption.

“What is it, Stanford?” asked one of the many CMOs clustered around the television.

“Nothing,” Stanford lied. “I just have to get back to work. And so should the rest of you shirkers.”

Stanford shot a sarcastic smile at the few heads that turned his way and then quickly made his way back to his office and shut the door. Once behind his desk, he accessed his computer and opened a program that he had designed—a program that only he used. His skill in infrastructure development for the programming of information systems—better known as hacking—was his one true calling, the only thing that he was really good at doing. The program that Stanford had designed was in a computer language that he had developed while earning his PhD at Harvard. It was a language that only he knew and was the beauty of his program.

Although the CIA has the most advanced computer systems in the world, even their relentless scans for anything invasive could not find Stanford’s program—you can’t find what you don’t know yet exists. Stanford knew this and had exploited the one small back door that still existed in the CIA’s computer networks.

“What the hell are you up to, Dr. Sterling?” Stanford said as he studied the computer screen.

Stanford put on a Plantronic wireless headset and tweaked the programming parameters slightly. Soon, he was listening to the conversation between Michael and York. Across his computer monitor, small green lines flowed from left to right, marking the inflections, intonations, and tone of the speakers’ voices. The data being collected was being used to search for a match among the many files in the CIA’s extensive database: a database wholly built by and shared with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

Terabytes of voice data were being scanned at a blinding speed. Millions of scattered voiceprints were being filtered against the incoming data for an exact match. Stanford knew the voice of his director but had to be sure. The other voice was an unknown, not that it mattered: the data processing capabilities of the CIA and NRO were unmatched.

An unquantifiable amount of analysis had occurred in the blink of two eyes. Stanford was staring at two photos that had just popped up on his screen: the faces of SSG Jonathon York, Weapons Sergeant, 7th Special Forces Group, and Dr. Michael Sterling, Deputy Director of Operations, CIA—his boss—stared back at him. A professional and personal biography of each man adorned his respective photo.

Stanford was shocked that he was listening to SSG York. The Green Beret was supposed to be dead, along with the rest of his team.

Damn,
thought Stanford,
this is going to be a problem.

As the conversation persisted, Stanford listened intently. The further along that it went, the more Stanford’s eyes widened. He could hardly believe what he was hearing.

Pulling a cell phone from his coat pocket, Stanford dialed a number on the untraceable line. After the third ring, a man answered. “Yes?”

“We don’t have it—make sure that Thief gets it.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the man. There was no trace of surprise in his voice.

PART II

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

DUOMO DI TORINO
TURIN, ITALY

C
harney stared at the white marble façade of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. The low light of the evening did little to suppress the color of the edifice; even in the dark of evening, he was impressed by its symmetry and cleanliness.

The building glowed.

Slowly he walked up the wide stairway and into the cathedral’s parvis. Hovering in front of him and overhead were the tympanum and three relief-decorated doorways. The quiet elegance of the Renaissance-inspired exterior spoke little to the value of what lay inside. The cathedral had stood on these grounds for over five centuries and took the place of three paleochristian churches, but it has been only since 1578 that the true importance of the cathedral emerged.

Pausing for a moment, he slowly scanned his surroundings. It was late, and the grounds were empty. The air had an unnerving stillness that set the stage for what was to come. Over his left shoulder, Charney glanced at the cathedral’s bell tower, known as Saint Andrew’s. It stood alone and separate from the building. It was made of a different stone and during a different time. Its imposing height reigned over the cathedral and reminded him of Notre Dame. It wasn’t Notre Dame, but it was impressive nonetheless: only this one wouldn’t fall. This cathedral and its bell tower may last another five centuries.

Its undoing wasn’t his task, but what this cathedral held was.

Charney pushed on the main door; he wasn’t surprised that it was open. Entering a church at any time was a right for Italians.

Inside, the air was stagnant and cold, but he was met with extended frescoes and an impressive, spacious nave. Susa—stony columns—stood throughout and, even from his vantage point, he could see that the dominant features of its interior were made in the distinct shape of the Latin cross.

He secreted down the main aisle; the centuries-old artwork hovered all around him. He ignored its ubiquitous, overbearing nature. His purpose was his only focus.

A muffled noise caught his attention. Facing it, Charney saw a flickering light in one of the cathedral’s thirteen chapels. He walked toward it, careful not to make a sound. As he approached, the shadow of a man danced along the wall. Peering in, Charney saw the cathedral’s priest kneeling in prayer.

He was an old, diminutive man.

Charney smiled. He said nothing, but only stared at the quasi-prostrate man. It amused Charney that this man was on his knees, hunched over and close to the ground, begging his god for something. He didn’t know for what the old man was praying, but he knew what it soon would be.

The priest’s eyes were closed, and his lips moved as he mouthed his prayer. Charney quietly closed the distance to the old man; with the same deftness, his hands circled the priest’s throat and clamped down viciously. The priest had no idea what sort of demon stood behind him; fear coursed through his old, thin veins until it reached his diminished heart. He wanted to shout, but no air could escape over the force crushing his larynx. He reached back to his attacker but his movements were uncoordinated, his body was frail.

There was simply nothing the priest could do but struggle with the possibility of death.

Charney could sense the old man’s thoughts were draining away; the priest’s eyes bulged and rolled backward into his head.

Slowly, Charney released his grasp; a slow, weak stream of air entered the priest’s lungs. Charney stood over him for a moment, making sure that the priest was not yet dead.

That would take the fun out of what would come next.

He picked up the old man and dragged him to the sealed chapel adjacent to where they were.

Charney dropped the priest heavily to the floor, unconcerned for his welfare. He stared through the thick, polycarbonate double doors of the sealed chapel.

The priest began to stir.

Charney looked down at him.

The old man rolled to his knees and tried to stand. Charney let him.

A few moments passed, and the priest’s vision began to clear. He stared at his attacker but didn’t say a word.

“Give me your hand, Priest,” Charney icily commanded.

The priest didn’t move.

“Your hand! Now!” shouted Charney.

The priest saw the coldness in his attacker’s eyes. He obliged and extended out his right hand.

Charney snatched it and roughly placed it onto the digital hand-pad that adorned the wall. A low, green light cascaded from around the edges of the priest’s hand as the security device scanned the unique striations of his palm and fingers.

A quiet chime emitted, signaling for the code.

“Give me the code, Priest! Do it now! Don’t make me cut your fingers off one at a time!”

The priest calculated the command but didn’t attempt to stall. His voice was pained; he was surprised that he didn’t recognize its sound when he said, “One-five-seven-eight is the code. But it will only open the door. I do not have access to the vault. Only the Vatican does.”

Charney smiled but said nothing. He entered in the code, unaware of its double entendre. He discerned a small click as the mechanical lock turned. He pushed on the door, and it opened.

He turned to the priest and grabbed him by the top of his cassock. Pulling him inside the chapel, he threw him to the ground.

“Sit there, Priest; don’t move.”

The old man did as he was told, afraid to speak. He was doing exactly as he had been instructed long ago.

Charney reached into his shoulder bag and retrieved a roll of gray duct tape. In a matter of moments the priest’s mouth was taped shut. Charney then flipped the priest over and hog-tied his hands to his feet.

Then he went to work.

The chapel’s sole content dominated the center of the room. Charney stood over the Shroud of Turin and gazed in at the yellowed piece of long cloth. He cared little about its importance in the Christian world. He cared not of the debate that surrounded its validity. He cared only about the fee he would be paid to steal it.

Another five million.

The shroud was placed inside of a hermetically sealed aluminum block. The block was carved from a single piece of aluminum and had neither welded spots nor weak points. The crystal lid through which visitors could peer was twenty-nine millimeters thick and bulletproof. Its nearly nine hundred pounds of weight was counterbalanced by an internal pressure mechanism. Removing it under the present circumstances would be impossible.

Charney wasn’t worried. Often, security measures are overdone, and their defeat is usually much simpler when appearances seem to state otherwise.

His mind fleeted to Samothrace and where she rested at the Louvre.

After the Shroud of Turin, she was next, and would be his last.

Shaking from his mind the thoughts of his final conquest, he reached once more into his bag and removed a small, round Teflon container. It was only a centimeter in height but nearly ten centimeters in diameter. He handled it carefully and placed it on one end of the crystal-topped vault. The outside edge on one side of the Teflon container was slightly raised. He grabbed a smaller vial from his bag and from it squeezed the fast-acting glue onto the raised edge. Slowly, he placed the glue-covered edge facedown on top of the crystal lid. He held it tight for a moment, just long enough for the glue to adhere to the crystal.

Then, he slowly twisted the Teflon container; a small amount of hydrofluoric acid rushed into the tiny chasm between where the round container was sealed and the crystal. The sealed edge held in the acid.

Although a weak acid, it reacted ferociously with silicon dioxide: the main component of crystal.

Charney was careful to not let the vapor come near his eyes, knowing all too well that it could quickly destroy his corneas.

In moments, the crystal was dissolved. Charney pulled a small hammer from his bag and knocked away the Teflon container.

Immediately, air from inside of the highly pressurized container rushed powerfully through the hole. The vacuum effect sucked up the corner of the shroud, which was now poking through the ten-centimeter-wide, man-made oculus.

Charney grabbed the shroud and pulled it carefully through the hole, rolled it up, and shoved it into his bag.

Turning to the broken old priest, the two men stared at one another in silence. The old man was surprised at how easily the man had been able to defeat the protective mechanisms and get the shroud; he wondered what would come next.

His answer soon came.

Charney pulled a grenade from his bag; it was identical to the one he had used in Paris. Inside of the ancient explosive device was the same type of three-point caltrops that had taken the life of the impetuous Sous-Lieutenant Bonaparte under the Pont Neuf.

Charney pulled the pin and carefully placed the grenade under the priest’s stomach so that the spoon was lodged firmly in place. He said, “If I were you, Priest, I would change my prayer. Pray that when they find you, they remove the tape from your mouth first.”

The priest’s eyes shook from fear, and he offered futile protests through the layers of duct tape.

“Careful, Priest, you don’t want to move too much.”

The old man’s eyes strained, and he immediately stopped moving.

On his way out of the chapel, Charney closed the door and reset the lock. He smiled at the priest and left.

He was closer to his masterpiece, closer to Samothrace.

Nearly five hundred and twenty-two kilometers away, a red light blinked in conjunction with a low-pitched chime at the console of the tired Vatican policeman. It was a safeguard, a warning signal that the sealed chapel for the shroud had been opened.

His head had been slowly dropping; he had been fighting with near futility to stay awake. The night shift was never with drama.

The policeman struggled to focus his blurry eyes, and thought to himself: this can’t be right.