The Thieves of Faith (12 page)

“This will get you started, give you a little history lesson.” Julian tapped the leather portfolio that lay propped against the chair. “You will meet a man named Fetisov in Moscow, in Red Square; he will assist with whatever supplies or further information you require.”

“Moscow?” Michael said in shock.

“Wipe the Cold War version from your mind. It’s very cosmopolitan, vibrant, a wonderful backdrop for a thief like you. As for mapping a route to the resting place of the box…That should be easy. Just follow the map.”

“What map?” Michael asked.

“The one you stole in Switzerland, the one concealed behind my painting. Don’t you dare insult my intelligence by telling me you didn’t slice it open and look with wonder on what I should have rightly been the first to see in five hundred years.”

Michael’s body remained still, his eyes unwavering as the panic overtook him. He
had
cut open the painting and gazed in wonder—and confusion—at the hidden depiction, at the map hidden within. And as Genevieve requested, he destroyed the painting and the map, fulfilling her desire to keep it out of her son Julian’s possession.

Zivera pulled a cell phone from his jacket and threw it to Michael. Michael made no attempt to catch it, letting it hit him in the chest and fall to the floor. “I expect your call from Red Square, at ten a.m. tomorrow—Moscow time.”

“And if I don’t agree?”

“Well, Michael, would you be willing to give up your father the way he willingly gave you up?”

Michael stared at Julian, particularly his eyes, and where you would customarily see life, there was nothing. Michael had faced true evil before, and it didn’t look much different than this. The man before him had no feelings, no regard for anything other than his own goals. And Michael was terrified. He fully grasped Genevieve’s dire warning, her fear of this man that she called her son.

“This is your fault, Michael. Let’s be clear. If you had just left me alone, let my painting be, we wouldn’t be together in this beautiful home of your father’s as he is being violently dragged out of this country. I watched as he desperately struggled against my men. I will say, he is pretty tough for a man in his late fifties. But I can’t imagine his heart will hold up against the torture I will inflict upon him if you do not comply with my wishes.

“I will not kill him right away. I will let him suffer. I will tell him that he owes this suffering all to you, all to the fact that you so recklessly stole something from me.

“Parents, no matter what they do, inform our character whether it is through love or neglect, through acts of affection or careless abandonment. As much as we want to deny it, they are part of our foundation, part of our fabric. And as you are now coming to realize, parents always pay the price for their children’s transgressions.”

“You hunted your mother…” Michael said through gritted teeth.

“And I captured your father. And the only way he is going to realize salvation is if you do exactly as I say. If you go to the cops, he will die and you will be arrested not only for stealing artwork in Europe, but for his death. If you ignore my indentured servitude, he will die. Not fast, mind you, slowly, with a great deal of suffering. I’m sure my mother explained my contradictions, my depravity.” Julian picked up his glass and walked to the bar, refilling his drink. “She always so underestimated me.”

And the blood rushed from Michael’s head, his mental balance lost, the guilt already welling up inside him for having placed a man he never knew, a man he had sought out, whom Mary begged him to find, in mortal danger. He couldn’t think of him as his father; Kelley was just someone who had turned his back on him. But that didn’t stop Michael from already feeling Kelley’s blood on his hands.

“So.” Julian shook out his shoulders, clapped his hands together. His mood spun one hundred and eighty degrees to one of jovial optimism. “The city of Moscow sits atop a vast array of tunnels and caverns, many of which were man-made and date back centuries. Many of these tunnels are mapped and inhabited by an underground culture of the destitute, bohemian, and the adventurous. But there is one area that many have not ventured into for five hundred years. And those who have were never heard from again. That is where you will be going. Within this underground complex is a place concealed by Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, a man who the world fondly called Ivan the Terrible. A library rumored to hold antiquities and riches beyond the imagination. A hidden secret in a place of secrets.” Zivera took a deep breath as if to calm himself.

“Where underground?” Michael asked not wanting to know the answer.

“I’m sure you have heard of it. In Russian it means ‘citadel.’” Julian paused, taking a moment to sip his drink. “But the world knows it affectionately as the Kremlin.”

Michael let out a mock laugh. “You have got to be kidding me!”

“I assure you, Michael, I do not kid around on matters such as these.” Julian’s pale blue eyes became intense. “If you are not standing in the middle of Red Square tomorrow morning, I will kill your father. If you do not retrieve the Albero della Vita in seven days, no more, Stephen Kelley will be dead before you have even had a chance to get to know him.”

Paul Busch stirred in his sleep. He was dreaming of baseball and Jeannie. They were alone in the middle of Fenway Park with their two children, Robbie and Chrissie, who were inhaling hot dogs. The Red Sox were down twelve–nothing to the Yankees and the Boston crowd was on the verge of rioting. Every fan was dressed in Sox colors, everyone except Paul and his family, who wore Yankee pin-striped blue, and at that very moment every Bo Sox fan noticed, their collective anger turning from the field to seats 12A through D. Paul started to sweat, he could feel the moisture trickling down his back, down his chest. He began looking for an exit, for a way out. He and Jeannie took the kids by the hand; Paul charged left; Jeannie pulled right. They were both defiant, pigheaded in the certainty of their escape. And then the fans moved toward them, getting closer, their chanting like a lion’s roar.

Busch bolted upright in his car seat, his heart pounding, a glaze of sweat covered his body. He had fallen asleep on Cambridge Street in Boston with the car turned off and the windows up. The sun pounded his face, heating the car to one hundred and five. Busch looked around, looked at his watch. He opened the door of the Corvette, reveling in the morning air, which was at least thirty degrees cooler. He cursed himself for not putting the top down. He got out of his car, locked it, and headed toward Franklin Street. There was no sign of Michael and he hadn’t called. Busch was concerned but hoped he was overreacting. He walked past the stretch of elegant town houses and continued to 22 Franklin.

When he noticed the front door open, his heart raced into double time. He leapt up the stairs in seconds and came upon a woman who was tearing herself from bindings. Busch had never seen anger like he did in this woman’s eyes.

Busch stood over her, her wrists bruised from the ropes, her mouth still red from tearing off the duct tape. She was calming herself, turning inward, her breathing controlled as she seemed to be gaining composure. Busch offered his hand to help her up, but she ignored it.

But then her calm washed away as she quickly stood and charged at the library doorway. Michael stood there holding the open door; he had a bewildered look on his face as if he had just seen the face of death and couldn’t comprehend it.

But then the woman’s fist snapped him out of his fog as she connected with his jaw. She recocked her hand but Michael caught this one in midair.

“What have you done with Stephen?” she screamed. And she didn’t let up, her punches coming faster now. Michael was doing everything in his power to ward off the onslaught without returning aggression.

Finally, she rose in the air as Busch picked her up, pulling her back, her arms and legs flailing despite his size and strength. “Calm down,” Busch said in a soothing voice. “It’s OK.”

“He kidnapped Stephen—”

“He didn’t kidnap anybody.” Busch looked up at Michael, a question in his eye, just to ease his mind that Michael didn’t, in fact, do something so foolish.

Michael walked through the large house, into the parlor, and sat on an unfamiliar floral sofa. He looked around, trying to get his bearings. The large fireplace sat dormant for the summer; in place of the logs was a huge bouquet of flowers. Above the mantel was an oil painting of a mountain stream: not a master, but not cheap. The room was designer caliber: elegant curtains, leather and suede chairs. Michael looked about as if the room would tell him something, but it was silent. There was no character here. No pictures, no books, no sense of identity. And when he looked up, his mind coming back to the moment, Susan and Busch were standing there, both hesitant to speak, as if it would somehow set Michael off.

Finally, Busch stepped into the room. “You all right?”

Michael looked up at him but didn’t respond.

“What the hell happened?”

Michael flinched in his seat, startled. He reached for his chest and pulled out the cell phone. He looked at it as it continued to vibrate. He flipped it open. “Yeah.”

“Well?” Julian’s voice sounded tinny through the phone.

“Well, what?” Michael said.

“You’re sitting in the guy’s house trying to digest what I said as the clock ticks down. I’m going to save you the effort, ensure you get on your way.”

And then someone else was there. “Hello.” Kelley’s voice was reluctant, quiet. “Look, I—”

“How do I know that you’re really who you say you are?” Questions danced in Michael’s mind. He had just met the man, and Michael saw no proof of their relationship, nothing beyond words.
Never know who you can trust,
Kelley had said. Those words were more prophetic than he realized. Michael wanted to believe, but at the same time hoped he was somehow stuck in a dream. “How do I know that you and Zivera aren’t playing me, that this is not part of some elaborate setup to blackmail me?”

“Is that Stephen?” Susan interrupted.

Michael held up his hand to silence her, to warn her to keep her distance.

“What the hell is going on?” Kelley’s anxiety echoed in the phone.

“That’s what I want to know.” Michael’s voice was tinged with anger.

There was silence on the other end, before…“That makes two of us.”

“Give me the phone!” Susan charged at Michael.

Busch took her gently by the shoulders, forcing her to the other side of the room, whispering to her to calm down.

“I need proof,” Michael said through gritted teeth. “And I need it now.”

“You were born March fifteenth—”

“That’s not proof.” Michael cut him off.

Susan broke away from Busch, raced over to Michael, and tried to grab the phone out of his hand. “Let me speak to him.”

Michael ripped the phone away from her and eyed Paul for help. Busch again took her by the arm. “Let him speak.”

“Was that Susan?” Kelley asked.

“Don’t worry about her. Go on,” Michael barked into the phone.

“You were adopted by the St. Pierres—”

“Listen, you are going to have to come up with far better proof than that.”

“Would you believe Genevieve?”

Michael was taken aback by the comment. Lost for words. He never mentioned Genevieve to Kelley. It was a moment…

“Put Susan on,” Kelley said.

Michael turned to Susan, reluctantly holding out the phone. “He wants you.”

Susan snatched the phone and hugged it to her ear as if it were a long lost child. “Are you all right, are you hurt?” Susan clutched the phone with both hands, her tough exterior washed away as she heard his voice. She began to cry as she listened intently, nodding her head, looking at Michael. “Stephen, who are these people, what do they want with you?”

Susan listened; she looked to Michael and to Busch. They were all trying to remain as quiet as possible, as if any noise could kill the man on the other end of the phone.

“Where?” she whispered. The room grew silent as she pressed the cell phone to her ear, listening for a good thirty seconds. “Don’t you worry, we’re going to get you.” She handed the phone back to Michael and ran out of the room.

“Well?” Michael said into the phone.

“Susan will get you proof—” Kelley said before he was interrupted.

Julian cut in, “Enough daddy time. Ten a.m. Red Square.” And the phone went dead.

Michael closed the phone and looked at Busch.

“Do you mind telling me what’s going on here?” Busch stood there confused.

But before Michael could answer, Susan ran back in the room, her face filled with confusion and what Michael thought to be fear. She looked at him, studying him as if she were seeing him for the first time, as if he was somebody of great importance.

“Stephen said to give you this. He said you would know what to do with it.” She handed him a black case. A lockbox, medium size, eighteen by twenty-four inches, and not designed for beauty. A security box intended to create the most difficult barrier of penetration if one wasn’t authorized to open it. Michael had seen them before. Similar in design to a safe-deposit box, it was of a thick carbon alloy design, with interior hinges to prevent compromise. Airtight and fireproof up to three hours. The lock was a reverse pin barrel design, difficult to pick. Short of a blowtorch, it would take hours to open…unless one possessed the skills.

“Stephen said you would know what to do with it,” Susan said as she stared at the box in Michael’s lap. “He said it was the proof you would need.”

“Proof of what?” Busch asked as he paced the parlor, his scruffy appearance standing in sharp contrast to the refined room around him.

Michael looked at the box and then to Susan. “Where did he get this?”

“I don’t know. But it came with this note.” She passed Michael an envelope.

Michael opened the note and read it to himself.

Dear Mr. Kelley,

Thank you for taking the time to meet with me. I wish you luck in speaking with Michael; to reach out to him after a lifetime, I’m sure, is difficult, particularly in light of your recent loss. Take comfort, though: I see much of Michael in you. He is the finest of men and will make you nothing but proud.