The History Thief: Ten Days Lost (The Sterling Novels) (61 page)

Standing in the door’s frame, Michael stared into the stone room, no longer worried about what awaited him.

Sonia lost her breath as the flickers of the shadows took the shape of a man.

She didn’t have to wonder.

She knew.

Her voice was hoarse, but nonetheless she whispered, “Michael.”

And then her tears came. There were no sobs; only tears as they streamed with speed down her dirtied cheeks.

Michael eyed the situation. There was no time for wasted emotion. He was a special operations officer first. His wife was wrapped firmly in the grasp of the History Thief. Michael recognized him. He was the same man from the café; the same man from Bélem Tower in Portugal.

It was him.

Anger flowed coldly through his body, and he shouted, “There is no way out of here! Let her go, and we’ll walk; we’ll call it a truce! You don’t need to do this!”

Charney smiled coyly. “A truce? So you would like this to be a draw, is that it, Monsieur Sterling; it’s time to negotiate? You think I have allowed you to live only to let you both go?”

The History Thief maintained his grip on Sonia and slowly pulled the vellum from where he had stuffed it into his waistband. He held it in his other hand so that Michael could see it.

Michael knew what it was.

Charney waved it slightly before him. “I believe that you think this belongs to you, no?”

“I don’t care about that piece of weathered crap! Keep it! She’s not part of this, goddamn it! Just release her, and we’ll leave. You’ve won. It’s over, you son of a bitch!”

“Oh, this is far from over, Dr. Sterling—quite far.”

There was no warning. A flicker of silver bounced across Michael’s eyes. Charney pushed the long-bladed knife slowly into Sonia’s neck, far enough to draw blood but not enough to kill. A neat little trickle of blood emerged.

Sonia gasped.

Michael’s heart sank, and his body went weak. Never had he felt so vulnerable and in so much pain. He nearly fell: “Stop! Don’t! Please, don’t do this! She’s not part of this. You have what you want! You have Samothrace and the vellum; you’ve won, just let her go! Please, I’m begging you, just let her go! Let us leave—please!”

Charney’s response was to push the knife a bit deeper. Sonia’s legs no longer worked, and her body went limp, but the History Thief held her tightly, not allowing her to fall.

Michael re-aimed his weapon. He wanted to pull the trigger so badly, but he didn’t have the shot without risking his wife’s life. The History Thief made sure of it, and Michael screamed through a pained voice not unlike a father losing a child. “Goddamn it, please! She’s my wife! What do you want!? Tell me, for Christ’s sake—what in the hell do you want?!”

Charney was calm and resolute. There was no mistaking his conviction when he replied, “Dr. Sterling, tonight I have nearly completed my life’s journey. I have done the impossible. What the world believed impossible was made possible!”

Charney’s eyes were now alive with fire; his face took on a new shape as the deep-rooted insanity that drove him from day to day emerged.

Through screams, flared nostrils, insanity, and spit, the History Thief’s response ricocheted off the old, thick stone: “You, Dr. Sterling,
you
and your soul are what I want!”

Michael didn’t understand.

But Sonia did. She knew all too well the telltale signs of a sociopathic man at his apex. In her world—the world of science and medicine—there were only two possible outcomes for a man with her abductor’s disorder: either dying or being done.

It was that simple.

The History Thief was at his climax. There would be no negotiating, no other outcome.

Someone would die.

Her abductor had no empathy for another human being; he loved to kill, but not for the challenge. He killed because life to him had no meaning; he couldn’t feel emotion. He had nothing. So he killed to try to find something—something palpable; something that he could feel. People that suffered in this manner killed to satiate a seemingly incessant and building hunger to feel—to feel anything. To take the life of another human being was arguably the most intense emotion that one could have. This man walked through life unable to feel even the simplest of emotions, but, like everyone, he craved with a burning desire to feel something.

Sonia knew that he required an injection of emotion, which had to be intense and drug-like. But like any sociopath, his mistake was to confuse a rapid influx of charged adrenaline with emotion. Men like the History Thief resorted to killing as a means to capture, even if for a moment, the essence of life—that rush; killing another human gave him the most carnal and intense rush that one could have: to control completely another human’s destiny; to own them; to rob them of their identity.

But it came with one flaw: killing didn’t satisfy the craving to feel emotion. To the contrary, it only abated it for an unquantifiable, but relatively short-lived period of time. They mistook the highly charged onslaught of the fight-orflight hormone with real emotion. The satisfaction, however, was only temporary. These kinds of men have a cooling-off period where they feel normal and satiated; during which the need to kill disappears. For a moment, they feel normal. But inevitably it comes back, and when it returns, the manner in which they would kill typically grew worse, bolder, and more violent than the last.

It had to.

It was the unabated struggle to have what they never would. They killed until their own life ended or until the pent-up rage no longer came back—whichever came first.

Her diagnosis was simple: her abductor was at the apex of his rage. This was it. After this killing, there would be no more.

Her husband’s death would be his final triumph.

Somebody had to die.

Sonia wasn’t prepared, however, for how he wanted Michael to die.

Charney’s next command sent a chill through both Michael and Sonia that couldn’t be comprehended but validated her diagnosis. It was an ice that ravaged every artery, vain, and tissue.

His words were laced with confidence. The History Thief knew precisely what he wanted and how he wanted it to be. Coldly he stated, “If you want your wife to live, put your gun to your temple, Dr. Sterling, and pull the trigger. Kill yourself, or she dies. It is your choice.”

Michael wasn’t sure that he had heard correctly. He tried to voice his confusion, but wasn’t able to do so.

Charney was impatient. Without any sort of warning, he took the knife and plunged it into Sonia’s shoulder. There would be no negotiating, nor would he let there be any stalling.

“Now, Dr. Sterling! Do it now!” shouted a crazed Charney. “Or I gut her like a pig!”

Sonia’s screams split Michael painfully. He felt so powerless, like a child.

The knife was out of her shoulder and back at her throat; its tip had created another small hole. “I will not tell you again, Dr. Sterling. You will put that weapon against your temple, and you will pull its trigger! Trust me,” he said, pushing the knife in slightly more; Sonia coughed against the pain. “I will kill her.”

“If you do, I will kill you!” screamed Michael.

Shouting back, Charney’s voice boomed. “I am already prepared to die, but I don’t believe that your wife is. Now do it! Pull the trigger!”

Michael looked from the thief to his wife. Never had he felt so hopeless. There were no options. He had no choice.

Sonia’s eyes rolled deeply backward as she vacillated in and out of unconsciousness. She struggled to stay awake. Her eyes met her husband’s.

Tears filled her lids.

They were in Michael’s, too.

Michael slowly turned his weapon toward his head. He buried its bore into his temple. His options were down to none.

Michael pulled back on the hammer, cocking the gun.

Sonia muttered weakly, “No, Michael! Don’t! You can’t! Please…” Her voice faded into sobs. “You can’t!” The tears flowed torridly; her voice eroded quickly as she said between convulsing tears, “You can’t, Michael. Not this way. Please…”

The satisfaction in Charney grew. From Sonia’s explosive pain and Michael’s torment, he felt a rush scourge from his head to his feet that pleased him incessantly. The anticipation was mind-numbing, and his body tingled with pleasure. A man’s life was in his hands, at his command and control. His wife would be crushed. He was about to accomplish the impossible—twice in one day.

He would force a man to take his own life.

He would kill but only by his command and not his hand.

Michael looked at his wife one last time; his mind was clear. His gaze pierced her.

There was only one choice.

Sonia’s vision was blurred as her body and mind failed her. She was not prepared to face her husband’s death, to see him die and at his own hand.

Looking toward the man she loved, Sonia stuttered, “No, Michael, please, no. I can’t watch you do this. Let him kill me.”

Sonia found it increasingly harder to hold the weight of her head against the knife at her neck. She continued weakly, “No, please don’t, Michael. Please!” Her words came out hoarsely, but she forced them to strengthen. Her final words came out in screams.

She felt the weight of her head fall against the knife.

Deeper in it went.

Michael stared into the pain-filled eyes of his beloved. He had no choice. He tried to find whatever strength he had left in him and then uttered his final words to his wife, “Sonia, my sweet little pea, don’t. Don’t do it. I have loved you more than I could have ever imagined. I have loved you for having loved me so much. Please, now, I beg of you, raise your head and look away.”

“No!” screamed the History Thief. “She must watch!”

Charney grabbed Sonia by the jaw and thrust her head upward. “Open your eyes, and watch your husband die!”

Sonia lifted her head away from the blade, but she shook it to the left and right; tears streamed down her face as her soul sank deeply.
No!
She could no longer speak.
Not like this!

It doesn’t matter
, thought Michael,
I am dead anyway
. The pain in his leg was replaced with no feeling whatsoever. Michael knew that in a matter of minutes the device clamped onto his femoral artery would kill him.

At least this way, Sonia would have a chance to live.

Michael was calm. He let out his last breath and squeezed the flesh of his index finger against the trigger. He felt every grating movement of the metal as he pulled the trigger slowly backward.

His only thoughts were of Sonia—her smile; the day that they met; those cold, winter nights sitting side by side in her car unable to say goodnight—lovers intertwined in an embrace; together at graduate school; her never-ending love notes and well-written, innuendo-laced holiday cards; the first time he touched her bare skin; her gentle caress on him. He tried to remember everything he loved about her in his last moment of life.

He wanted to die with only her in his mind.

The gunshot echoed disproportionately between the thick stones of the basement as it bounced from wall to wall. All sound was sucked violently from the room.

And then there was nothing, only the smell of carbon and death.

Sonia screamed but couldn’t hear her own tormented shouts. It wasn’t that her voice had failed her, but that the sound from the shot had caused her eardrums to fail. Not that it mattered: there was no octave for the wave of pain that split her apart.

Her eyes drew wide as she saw her husband.

Charney had a curious look draped over his face. The knife was no longer at Sonia’s neck. Feeling the thief’s grasp weaken, Sonia slipped away and ran to Michael.

Charney muttered almost child-like, “I cannot believe it.” And then he raised his hand, the one that had held the knife. The knife was still there, but his hand was mangled.

A second shot rang out, and it was just as true as the first.

The entry wound from the second bullet was neat, but the exit wound was the opposite.

Charney had no opportunity to say another word.

The knife fell from his hand; another thunderous sound ricocheted from the rocky walls.

The vellum fell softly from Charney’s other hand.

The History Thief was dead before his body had collapsed to the floor.

In death, he did have one thought—it was an image. Hovering before him, just before the bullet had pierced his skull, he had seen Annette; her arms were extended wide, ready an embrace, as if beckoning him toward her. A ubiquitous, bright light bathed her silhouette.

There was a powerful and bright flash. Sound had emptied from both the room and from his thoughts.

Then a second and more brilliant flash filled his eyes.

In that slight moment before death, he had felt one last emotion.

Satisfaction.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

DEAD, NOT DEAD
AULNAY-SOUS-BOIS