The History Thief: Ten Days Lost (The Sterling Novels) (28 page)

Lou said out loud to the empty room, “You’d better make it.”

“I certainly hope you are talking about me, Lou.”

Lou spun around and was face-to-face with Michael.

Both men offered their versions of a smile.

Michael walked in and closed the door. Before he could say anything, Lou asked, “Michael, what the fuck, man? What the hell is going on?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. How long do I have?”

“Four minutes, maybe five.”

“Lou, they’ve taken Sonia!”

“Sonia?” Lou was surprised. “Who has Sonia? What the hell’s going on?”

“Lou, I haven’t a clue, and I can’t waste any time trying to figure it out right now. They have my wife! Now, what have you got for me?”

“You are wanted for the death of Senator Door. You and SSG York, the kid that saved your ass in Damascus a few years back.”

“I figured as much, Lou. York called me just before all this went down. He was on a mission in Afghanistan with his A-team. They found some intel in a cave that links the two of us to the assassinations. They were ambushed but were extracted by three Blackhawks. Once they were airborne, the crews attacked what was left of his team. Killed all of them except York and his commander,” explained Michael.

“A clean-up team?” asked Lou.

“Smells that way,” replied Michael.

Then it hit Lou. “Jesus Christ, Michael: a clean-up team in Afghanistan that posed as American soldiers; three Blackhawks? This shit is slightly beyond my pay grade!”

“They were most likely mercenaries, guns-for-hire,” said Michael.

“Who the hell has the kind of resources to do that? Do you know the logistical nightmare it would take to get three fully armed Blackhawks secretly into Afghanistan, not to mention three squads of mercenaries, with no one having even the smallest clue?”

Michael answered, “Depends on who you paid and how much.” Then he asked, “What else do you have?”

“Before we apprehended you at your house, we were briefed on Door’s death. Turns out that the Crown of Thorns went missing when she was killed.”

“The Crown of Thorns?” Michael was confused.

“Yeah. It belonged to Notre Dame and was kept on the grounds.”

Michael walked slowly around the room for a moment; he was thinking. Then he asked, “A decoy?”

“Can’t be sure,” replied Lou.

“Seems like a pretty noisy way just to steal a relic, don’t you think?”

“If that’s making your
what-the-fuck
light start to blink, listen to this. About thirty minutes ago the Shroud of Turin was stolen. Interpol has linked the two thefts. They found forensic evidence of a twelfth-century grenade at both scenes. They match.”

“Has it hit the press yet, Lou?”

“Not yet, but you know that it won’t be long. Word has it that our counterparts with the DCRI have asked for some time before the info gets leaked.”

“French intelligence, huh?” replied Michael. “Looking to wipe that egg off their faces. How long were they given?”

“Twenty-four hours,” replied Lou.

Michael furrowed his brow tightly, and then said, “So we have a thief hellbent on stealing important religious items, and who gets his balls tickled by doing it in a dramatic fashion. He kills the president of France and an American senator who, it just so happens, was favored to win the US presidency, and both just happen to be at Notre Dame? Jesus, Lou, none of this makes any sense. What do York and I have to do with all of this? What does the senator’s death have to do with the thefts of religious relics?”

Lou’s response was matter-of-fact. “You have everything to do with this, Doc.”

Michael’s head snapped up; there was a bite in his tone when he said, “What the hell are you talking about, Lou?! Just how in the hell do I have everything to do with this?”

“Think about it, Doc. Door was sniffing around Langley, looking for dirt: anything to make a name for herself. She wanted to win the White House and was right on track to do so. She was also the head of the Intelligence Oversight Committee; everyone knows that she was a budget hawk, and that she was trying really hard to make Langley’s black ops budget public. That’s your budget, Doc.”

“And she wanted to cut it,” muttered Michael as he started to put Lou’s logic together.

To say that the senator wanted to just cut Michael’s budget was to put it lightly: she wanted to slice it in half. That meant more than just less funding; it meant that jobs would have to be lost. Even worse, she had wanted to make any black, untraceable budget public.

Michael ran his fingers slowly through his hair, but really wanted to pull some out.
Money,
he thought.
Just once I wish it could be about something else.

Lou continued speaking. “It gets worse, Doc. Word in Division is that she came across info on one of your operations, too.”

Michael looked uneasily at Lou and wondered if he knew.

He asked, “Which operation?” and hoped that Lou didn’t know.

“This is about Merlin, isn’t it, Doc?”

He knew.

“Merlin? Never heard of it.” Michael did his best to seem disinterested, if not apathetic.

“Don’t give me that shit, Doc! We’ve been friends for a long time. Hell, I owe you my life! But this runs deep, and I’m right in the middle of it. So don’t hide behind your fucking clearance and that ‘need to know’ crap! I’m risking more than just my career; I’m looking at treason charges, for Christ’s sake! You know,
aiding and abetting
an enemy of the state. So drop the tired
never heard of it
bullshit! Level with me, Doc.”

Michael calculated the potential outcomes; the result was always the same. Lou was right: he was so deep into the shit that his nostrils were filled with it. Hell, he probably could smell it.

“Okay, Lou,” Michael replied, “but be careful what you wish for. Keep your lip zipped on this.”

Lou nodded.

Michael continued, “Merlin was an operation that went bad. It was before my time as deputy director and belonged to my predecessor. I had nothing to do with its creation.”

“What was Merlin, Doc?”

“Operation Merlin gave Iran the ability to build a nuclear warhead.”

“Nukes? Iran? You gotta be kiddin’ me, Doc?”

“I wish that I was. Remember that nuclear detonation a couple of years ago, outside of Las Vegas?”

Lou’s brow furrowed as he worked to remember. It took only a few moments, “Yeah—yeah, I remember. Some underground detonation, a test by the DOE.”

“No, Lou. It was a real strike from Iran.”

“Get the fuck outta here! Are you yankin’ my chain?” Lou’s face drained of its color as he digested what Michael had just told him.

“It was very real. Forty-eight warheads—Iranian warheads—were headed to the US. But it wasn’t the Iranians that launched them. A group that wanted the nuclear strike to look like an Iranian attack hijacked them; they wanted to draw the US into a full-scale war. But we were able to stop the warheads—all but one. We were fortunate that it hit where it did.”

“So we covered it up? But I don’t understand: why would we give Iran the blueprints for a nuclear weapon?”

“The mission was to give them an erroneous blueprint, to send their nuclear ambitions back a couple of decades. We were sending them down a rabbit hole. But the asset that delivered them turned on us; he gave his Iranian contacts with the IAEA a set of flawed instructions—the ones he was told to give—but he corrected the flaw.”

“Holy shit! This is why Door was gunning for Langley, why she wanted to go public! It was a way to get her ticket to the Oval Office punched.”

Michael shrugged in agreement.

But it had gotten her killed.

Lou thought for a moment; a quizzical look draped across his face, and he asked, “I don’t understand something, Doc. How did she know about Merlin?”

Lou didn’t wait for an answer, he already knew: “She had someone on the inside.”

“It appears that way, Lou.”

“But, Doc, I still don’t understand something,” said Lou.

“What’s that?” asked Michael.

Lou’s question was simple. “Why steal the crown and the shroud? I mean, what the hell does the assassination of a president and a president wannabe have to do with them?”

Michael sat stonefaced for a moment. His mind labored at the question; he wanted to be able to connect the dots; he wanted to have an answer, but there were too many variables, too many trails leading in different directions: York, Afghanistan, a rogue team of American soldiers, assassinations, the kidnapping of his wife, and art theft. And now this: the head of the deputy director of the National Clandestine Services was wanted served up on a platter—his head.

Unable to answer Lou’s question, Michael only said, “I don’t know what the connection is, Lou, but I aim to find out.” Then he asked, “Did you bring me my stuff?”

Lou walked over to a cabinet and opened it. From inside, he grabbed a black duffle bag, threw it to Michael, and said, “It was right where you said it would be. The team didn’t find it when they swept your house.”

“Remind me to retrain my men when I get out of this mess.”

Both men laughed uneasily.

It was time.

Michael looked over at Lou.

Both men knew what would come next.

“Sorry for this, Lou. I wish it could be another way.”

“I know, Doc. I do too. Just make it quick; hurry the hell up and get it over with.”

Michael reached into the black bag and pulled out one of the two Kel-tec P32 pistols. In the same movement, without any warning, Michael slammed the butt of the pistol into Lou’s nose.

Lou stumbled backward; Michael followed with a vicious kick to Lou’s ribcage. Lou felt three of his ribs loudly splinter. He dropped to his knees. Michael followed with a blow to Lou’s left cheek, just beneath his eye. The swelling followed almost immediately. Blood flowed profusely from his nose.

Lou coughed.

Michael stopped.

Blood covered Lou’s teeth; he spoke with some difficulty, “That’s not enough, Doc.”

Lou reached over to the edge of a desk that rested adjacent to the office’s far wall. He grasped it firmly and shouted, “Do it, Doc! Goddammit, do it now!”

Lou closed his eyes; Michael hated what he had to do but didn’t hesitate. A well-trained kick shattered Lou’s radius and ulna just above the wrist. The beaten man slumped to the floor in agony.

Michael bent down to Lou; his instinct was to help his writhing friend, but Lou screamed at him, “Go, Doc! Get the fuck out of here! Figure this shit out; go find your wife!”

Michael spun around, grabbed his bag, and prepared to leave. But before he did, he said, “Thanks, Lou. I owe you big.”

Lou turned his head toward Michael. His eye was already swollen shut, and his arm was resting at a ghastly, unnatural angle. He replied in agony, “Yeah, you do.”

Michael left.

Lou crawled across the room toward a chair, a thin trail of blood following. He cradled his broken arm in his other and painfully sat up onto his knees. He could feel his heart pounding in his throat. His breaths were coming shallow and fast.

He forced himself to stand, but nearly fell into the chair next to the desk.

With his good hand, he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. It took some effort, but he was able to light one.

Exhaling the smoke, he waited. He knew the teams would be there any moment, and he wanted to enjoy what may be his last cigarette for some time.

Smoking wasn’t allowed in the CIA holding cell.

Neither were lawyers.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

JUHU BEACH
MUMBAI, INDIA

Y
ork gazed over at CPT Scott. His commander was asleep, or passed out: he couldn’t tell. The man had lost a lot of blood and was frail. His skin had turned a sickly gray and was clammy to the touch. All through the night they traveled. The harsh waters rocked the boat incessantly. Even York felt a bit queasy. He couldn’t imagine the effect it had on his commander. Through the night he stayed at the helm of the boat, unable to sleep. His only concern was getting to Juhu Beach and to a doctor.

They were running out of time.

The boat they had been given was adequate enough. This surprised York; he had half-expected something much worse. The contact at the Rasouli Bazaar had been dirty and disheveled, but he had come through for them. The two Green Berets traveled as quickly as possible through the night, guided by a small GPS system that was attached to the console next to the boat’s wheel.

The water was still choppy; every undulation slammed the boat’s aluminum hull to the surface. The 1968 dual-fuel boat was twenty-four and a half feet long, but her hull sat only two feet in the water. She wasn’t made for comfort. York wondered how much more pounding the hull of the single inboard engine vessel could take. The man at the bazaar had made sure that the boat was stocked with extra fuel, and they were down to the last ten gallons.