The History Thief: Ten Days Lost (The Sterling Novels) (3 page)

Behind the men was a Judas Cradle, a pyramid-shaped device that sat atop the floor, surrounded by chains that hung from the ceiling and the wall. Its victims would be lowered by the chains until the orifice of choice mated with the point of the pyramid; the chains would be used to raise and lower the victim and to manipulate varying degrees of pressure. Next to the Judas Cradle, also attached to the ceiling, was a wooden pulley through which hung a thick rope—the Strapado. It could dislocate a man’s shoulder in moments. Sebastian could see a number of small, handheld minatory devices scattered about on a nearby table, each a unique implement of pain.

Although strong in conviction and a uniquely fearless young king, Sebastian felt a terror to which he was unaccustomed; he knew what would come, and, his voice shaking, he questioned the men, “You have fed me, cleansed me, and brought me back from death for this?”

The answer came from another voice, one that didn’t belong to the men before him. Darius had returned with two men in tow: one was wearing the traditional dress of a Catholic monsignor; the other was dressed more ornately. The men standing before Sebastian all looked toward the entryway and then simultaneously lowered their chins in reverence.

The ornately dressed man in the doorway spoke slowly and methodically; his voice was that of an old man. “We have not brought you back from your death, Sebastian, but have only delayed its inevitable occurrence. You claim to carry the blood of Christ through your veins; if this is true, then death should be of no consequence to you. Certainly, you will be resurrected. If not, then you are nothing more than a heretic.”

The voice drifted absolute through the room, and the man who had spoken walked to a spot that allowed Sebastian to see him. As he hovered before the bound king, the man coolly stared into his eyes. He was diminutive, hunched slightly at the shoulders by his age, and wore a beard of thinning gray, almost white, hair that told of his seventy-five years. Recognition of the man ignited a fire of disbelief in the young king.

Pope Gregory XIII smiled at Sebastian and said, “The Order of Christ no longer exists, Sebastian; it was ordered to be dissolved by Clement, nearly three hundred years ago. Your heresy against the Church ends from this moment. You will tell the Church the names of every man that believes he is a part of it. You will tell the Church where to find these men, and you will tell the Church where to find the treasury of the Order of Christ.”

Sebastian was frozen; he was unable to speak as he realized where he was.
I am at the Vatican! The pope knows that I am the master of the Order!

Sebastian eyed the old pontiff and dryly asked, “You want the Order’s treasury? You hold me for a ransom? This is about money?”

The pope ignored Sebastian; turning slowly, he faced the monsignor and said, “You have until the tenth day, Monsignor, not one day more.”

With another bow, the monsignor replied to the departing pope, “Yes, Your Holiness.”

Without saying a word, the monsignor waited until Pope Gregory was gone and then walked toward the table at the back of the room. Standing before it, he indecisively gazed from one device to the next. Silently, he chose the one that he would start with; slowly, he reached out and picked up a small pear-shaped instrument. He wiped the thin layer of dust that covered the top half of it, and when he was satisfied that it was ready for use, he walked back to Sebastian.

Stopping just short of the young king, he decided to have a second look and held the innocuous tool skyward so that it was immersed in the sunlight flowing through the oculus. The small device glistened as the monsignor studied it; he turned it around and around in his hands and then twisted the corkscrew-handle at its base, ensuring that it properly worked. With each twist, the Papal Pear—as it was fittingly named—spread apart at its base, much akin to the blossoming of a large, three-petal flower. With each successive twist of the handle, the three petals of the bulbous and rounded bottom of the Pear spread further and further apart. The monsignor smiled as he twisted the handle in the opposite direction; the petals closed and returned to their original positions.

The monsignor turned once more to Sebastian.

With a firm voice that conveyed authority, he ordered the men in the room, “Turn him around and pull down his trousers!”

Before Sebastian had time to scream, much less protest, he was violently released from his straps and thrown onto his front side, the straps returned tighter than they had been before. One of the men ripped his trousers down to his ankles. Without so much as a question, and nary a warning, the interrogation began with pain: Sebastian felt the Papal Pear rip into his backside and heard the grating sound of the metal knob as the monsignor slowly turned it. Never had Sebastian imagined such hurt could exist.

Through the tenth day of his captivity, the torture continued; on each of those days, Sebastian was skillfully pushed to the edge of death. Each day was the same: the men entered and debated about which device to use. They squabbled as much as they worked; their questions were always the same: Who else belonged to the Order, where were they, where was the
Hand of Christ
? For ten days, Sebastian told them anything that sounded like the truth, but they persisted.

Each night was no different than the one before it. The same man that had fed and bathed him before would arrive with his bucket and clean Sebastian’s fresh wounds. Each night the man worked diligently: he carefully washed Sebastian’s mutilated body, applied a cooling ointment to his burns, sewed shut any fresh gashes, set any dislocated joints, and splintered his broken bones. Each night he worked without speaking a single word, but his compassion showed in the manner with which he tended to Sebastian. His hands were kind, his movements gentle; his eyes spoke of sorrow and pain for the captive.

However, on the tenth night, as Sebastian hovered in the realm between the living and the dead, the man broke his silence and spoke in a raspy whisper. “My King, I am Dario Faustino; I am a member of the Order, of your Order. I have been inside these walls since my birth, put here as an agent; my father was Domenico Faustino of Monterotondo. He served your grandfather in battle against Suleiman.”

Slowly, Sebastian turned his disfigured face toward the man. His left eye no longer sat in its rightful place, and his right eye was swollen nearly shut. Where there should have been two neat rows of teeth were random dark pockets of nothing between the few allowed to remain. The face of the handsome young king no longer belonged to the man who now wore this hideous one. Sebastian tried to speak, but could only muster the strength to slip one word through his cracked lips: “Why?”

Dario stared deeply into his king’s face, a heavy flow of tears streaming down the sides of his face. He said, “The Vatican is nearly bankrupt, and the pope knows the value of your treasury; you have no son, and he wants to rid the world of you, of us, forever. He wants the wealth that the Order guards. You will not be able to escape from here, my king.”

Sebastian painfully closed the lid to his one remaining eye, inhaled as deeply as possible, and spoke the final two words of his young life: “Kill me.”

There was no argument against his master’s command; Dario reached into his bucket and pulled out the blood-soaked rag. Balling it into his left fist, he raised it to the mouth of King Sebastian the First; with his right hand he caressed the side of the king’s face and said, “Forgive me, my Lord.”

Sebastian felt Dario shove the rag into his mouth; he was too weak to writhe. Giving in to his death, he allowed his body to go weak and was surprised at how calm he felt. The world around him began to vanish; the pain began to fade. Within moments, he was at peace.

Dario waited until the twitching in Sebastian stopped. Once he was certain that death had come, he pulled the rag from Sebastian’s mouth, gazed at his dead king’s once-youthful face, and prayed. When he was done, and just as he had done the previous nine nights, he dutifully cleaned every drop of blood from Sebastian’s body and wrung them into his bucket.

He wouldn’t tell the others of Sebastian’s death; he would let them find his body in the morning. The window of time between now and then might just be enough for him to complete his task. From around Sebastian’s neck, he took the royal medallion and dropped it into the left pocket of his robes. Touching the face of his king once more, Darius softly said, “Rest well, my king.”

Quickly, he left.

PART I

CHAPTER ONE

WALDORF ASTORIA
HOTEL MANHATTAN

T
he primaries were over; the results long ago had been calculated.

He had lost.

The jubilant, energetic air that had been in the hotel room throughout the evening was now stifling and hot. Gone were the throngs of powerful men and women. Gone were their attempts to get into his good graces. Gone were their well wishes and manufactured smiles. Gone, too, were the hopes and aspirations of the lone man that was left in the room.

Suddenly, no one wanted to be near him.

Strewn about the floor were streamers and half-dead red, white, and blue helium-filled balloons that struggled to stay afloat. On every confetti-covered table, there were multiple glasses. Some were for bourbon and Scotch, others for chardonnay and merlot.

The ones for champagne were still in their boxes that sat untouched behind the room’s bar.

The atmosphere had been burning with excitement and hope; it had been electric, but now it was dead. It was how Senator Matthew Faust—the room’s only remaining occupant—felt.

He looked around at the mess and sighed heavily. But his concern wasn’t for the disarray. It was for something else, something far worse.

He had promised them a certain victory, but it was his defeat that had come.

The shrill ring of the phone interrupted the still of the room.

Senator Faust was startled when it rang, but he wasn’t surprised that the call had come so soon. He knew who it would be. He knew that they wouldn’t wait to contact him. They, too, had been watching the primaries. They had been watching as their investment in him vanished.

Uneasily, he stood and walked to the phone. Part of him hoped that the ringing would stop; another part—the more rational one—knew that it wouldn’t.

Sighing again, this time a bit more heavily, he picked up the phone and in a quiet, dejected manner said, “Hello.”

The man on the other end wasted no time; his accent was unique, and Faust had a hard time placing it—
Iranian,
he thought. The caller’s words were methodic and slow. “Faust, you’ve lost the primaries. You’ve cost us fifty million of your American dollars. Per our agreement, you have only one option: repay us, with interest, in one week.”

“One week? How am I supposed to raise that kind of money in a week?” Slivers of cold dripped down his spine; the room around him felt heavy, ready to collapse upon him.

“How you do it is your problem, Senator,” the man replied coldly. “Unless you can figure out a way to become president, we expect our investment returned in one week. And, Senator?”

Even though he had remained seated, Senator Faust felt his legs give out. He responded sheepishly, “Yes?”

“If you don’t, we will find you. We will get to you. We will kill you—slowly.”

The connection went dead.

Senator Matthew Faust just stood. The phone was still in his hand and pressed firmly to his ear. For the first time in a long time, Senator Matthew Faust—Chip as he was known to his friends—felt powerless.

There were only two things that he could do: put a pistol to his head, or make a call. He chose the latter, too much of a coward to partake in the former.

Senator Faust’s hands were trembling as he dialed a number—a number he had hoped he would never use. They had approached him on more than one occasion; each time he had politely declined their offer. But they had persisted and, guided by his ego, he had gloated in their need of him.

Now, it was different.

He needed them.

Somehow he knew that they had known this day would come.

A weak voice answered after the fourth ring, a bit anticlimactic given his desperation and their power. “Yes?”

The man’s slightly French accent always grated on Faust, but he gathered his strength. Forcibly exhaling, his pride constricting, he flatly uttered the phrase they had taught him. “It’s become dark outside; I need some help finding my way.”

There was a slight pause before the man replied, “Trouble with the Iranians, oui, Faust?”

Faust didn’t answer.

The man on the other end of the line said matter-of-factly, “Senator, there is no turning back. If you choose to accept our offer, to accept the position for which you have been selected, to which we will appoint, quitting will never be an option. Do you understand?”

Senator Faust closed his eyes, but he already knew what his answer would be. Nearly ten years ago, they had made him a novice in their organization, a rank that allowed him to quit should he choose. It was a rank without responsibility. A novice was nothing—an initiate with potential, nothing more. The choice to join, however, required absolute loyalty, complete devotion.