The Thieves of Darkness

Also by Richard Doetsch

The Thieves of Heaven
The Thieves of Faith
The 13th Hour

A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Doetsch

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Atria Books hardcover edition August 2010

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Designed by Rhea Braunstein

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Doetsch, Richard.

The thieves of darkness: a thriller / Richard Doetsch. — 1st Atria Books hardcover ed.

p. cm.

1. Thieves—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3604.0343T47 2010

813'.6—dc22

2009042667

ISBN 978-1-4165-9895-4

ISBN 978-1-4391-0328-9 (ebook)

For Virginia,
My best friend.
I love you with all my heart
.

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.”

—A
LBERT
E
INSTEIN

“Myths which are believed in tend to become true.”

—G
EORGE
O
RWELL

THE AKBIQUESTAN DESERT

Chiron Prison sat atop a large outcropping at three thousand feet with a commanding view of the rust-colored, rock-strewn desert of Akbiquestan, a small breakaway republic north of Pakistan. Fifty miles from any civilization, the three-story stone structure was carved out of the top of the Hersian Plateau, the lone hint of a landmark in an otherwise flat, barren wasteland. At midnight, with its watchtowers illuminated, it looked remarkably like a crown atop a demon.

The legendary penitentiary had been built in 1860 by the British as a prisoner of war camp to hold and execute those who disagreed with the ways of the Empire. Beyond the addition of electricity, not much had changed in 150 years. The sixty-foot-high building was a giant block of granite capped with castlelike battlements and four octagonal guard towers at its corners. Named for Dante’s chief guardian of the seventh circle of hell, its reputation far exceeded even Dante’s vision. Of late, it sat 30 percent full, with a downsized staff of eighteen guards, men who would likely have been residents if they did not work in the prison. The penal complex was underfunded, and a destination for the type of convict that drew little sympathy from Amnesty International. A stretch at Chiron was a death sentence, even if a prisoner wasn’t technically scheduled for execution. Whether he had been sentenced for five years or thirty, no prisoner ever lived to see parole.

Death came in a variety of ways: execution, either by the electric chair or beheading, depending on the warden’s mood; a guard’s bullet while trying to escape; murder by a fellow convict; or, as was most often the case, the prisoner’s own hand.

There was only one way to get to Chiron, and that was by a hardpack road, six miles long from the desert floor and barely wide enough for a single truck, that meandered up the mountainside.

There had not been an escape from the prison since 1895. If one were lucky enough to somehow breach the three-foot-thick walls, one would be faced with two options: a six-mile run down the access road—which was under the watch of two permanently manned guard towers—followed by a perilous fifty-mile desert journey; or a three-thousand-foot dive off the front cliff, where one could taste the air of freedom for all of twenty-five seconds before being shredded on the razor-sharp rocks at the base. It was one of the few prisons in the world that had no need to be encased within a circumference of razor wire.

Chiron was a destination favored by the world’s more corrupt judicial systems, those that wanted to make people disappear. It was a place where no thought was given to the population, where white-collar, blue-collar, and no-collar were thoroughly mixed, with the hoped-for end result that they would wipe each other out.

Simon Bellatori sat within his eight-by-eight cell, on the earthen floor, scheduled for death at 5:00
A.M
. He didn’t know where the dramatic idea of a dawn execution came from, but he thought the practice inhumane.

It was supposed to have been a simple theft, of a letter from the office of a businessman that had been illegally acquired through auction, a letter of great antiquity written by a Muslim grand vizier to his Christian archbishop brother, a letter never meant to be shared with the world. In the modern world, it was a crime undeserving of a death sentence, but the modern world existed only in dreams within the ancient prison walls.

Simon and his partner were supposed to get in and out and be on time for a late dinner reservation at Damsteeg near Prinsengracht
Canal in the old center of Amsterdam by 9:00
P.M
. But the best-laid plans of mice and men…

Now, as he sat in his cell at Chiron, Simon felt a profound regret for what he had done. Not for the theft or any of the deeds in his past. His remorse was solely for involving his friend, who sat in the neighboring cell, for placing someone he cared about in such danger, for delivering someone who trusted him to death’s door in this godforsaken land.

For tomorrow, come dawn, they would be awakened and marched into the neighboring room, where a man in a medieval hood would lay them across a cypress table, shackle their arms behind their backs, secure their prostrate bodies to the enormous block of wood, and, finally, strap their heads down with necks exposed to the world for the last time.

The room of death would fill with spectators. The guards would march the prison population in to witness the event, to fill them with fear, to paralyze them into compliance in hopes of avoiding a similar fate.

Last, and in a ceremonial fashion, the warden would enter, sit front and center, and glare into the eyes of the condemned, peering into their souls. And with a half-smile, his thoughts no doubt already on breakfast, he would give the signal.

Without further delay, the executioner would grasp a ceremonial saber, raise it high, and with blinding speed, bring it down upon the exposed flesh of their necks, severing their heads from their bodies.

Michael St. Pierre walked into the high-ceilinged great room of his large ranch-style home in Byram Hills, a small town just an hour’s drive from New York City. He threw his mail on the leather couch and poured a set of blueprints from a long cardboard tube onto his pool table. His three Bernese Mountain dogs, Hawk, Raven, and Bear, followed him in and sat at his feet as he unfurled the set of security schematics, smoothing them out upon the green felt surface. He had spent four weeks designing the pin-sized cameras and encrypted video surveillance and alarm system for an art storage facility belonging to a billionaire philanthropist by the name of Shamus Hennicot.

Michael understood full well Hennicott’s desire to protect his collection of Monets, Rockwells, and van Goghs, and by applying his expertise, unique perspective, background, and insight to the overall project, he had created a system that rivaled anything used by the CIA in its technological impenetrability.

Michael turned and stared at the large painting hung above his stone fireplace, a painting of a majestic angel with wings spread wide, rising out of a glowing tree, its realistic perspective and warm colors reflective of the Renaissance age. It was a Govier, painted in the late sixteenth century and given to him by a close friend, a friend who had begged him to steal its sister painting and destroy it. The request
weighed heavily on Michael, as it had been her dying wish—an unusual request, and one that he had fulfilled.

Michael had been a thief,
had been
being the important words. That was a world he had promised to leave behind. He had made that promise to his wife, and to himself, but circumstances had pulled him back in. Since then, he had pulled a single job for the money to pay for his wife’s cancer treatment and had helped his friend Simon on several occasions. But each of the acts had been selfless, performed without remuneration, in service to others, in situations in which he had been forced to make moral compromises.

But that was all in his past now; theft was something he was exceedingly good at, but he was happy to tuck those skills away. He had established a legal business, a security business with a constantly growing clientele, a clientele that was fully aware of his conviction for breaking into an embassy to steal diamonds several years back. Michael was and continued to be hired on the basis of his illicit background and a reputation for quality that he had built up over the years. He was consulted because he could think like those who wished to infiltrate buildings, penetrate computers, lay waste to security systems, and steal Monets, Rockwells, and van Goghs. Michael thought like the opposition, he thought like those whose devious minds were focused on defeating safeguards and slipping into bank vaults. Hiring Michael was like stealing the playbook of the opposing team a week before the big game. You learned where to concentrate your defenses, where to plug up your unseen vulnerabilities. With Michael St. Pierre, you learned how to win.

Michael rolled up the blueprints, tucking them back into the cardboard tube, and left them on the couch with his unopened mail. He headed through the kitchen into the dining room. The table was set for two. The marinated steak was in the fridge and ready for the grill, the wine unopened, the crystal glasses lying in wait. Fresh flowers bloomed on the center of the table.

Michael had finally begun to date after eighteen months of mourning the loss of his wife. Mary had been his center, everything he had
lived for. Everyone referred to them collectively as if it were one name: Michael-and-Mary, Mary-and-Michael. He’d never imagined being alone at thirty-eight; he’d never imagined life without her; he’d never imagined the swiftness and evil of cancer. And as the weeks and months slowly crept by, he’d never imagined how he would cope. But over time, with the support of his friends and father, he slowly began to regain hope, pushing aside the tragedy, replacing it with the memory of her smile, embracing the words, “Don’t cry because she died, smile because she lived.”