The Thieves of Faith (17 page)

“I have to go with you,” Susan said.

“You have no idea what is involved here.”

“And you do?” Susan’s tough attitude returned.

“Far more than you,” Michael answered with a bit of shock.

“I can’t sit by while you try to get him back.”

“What could you possibly have to offer?” Michael asked.

“You may have a map, you may have a great deal of research on where you need to go, but you are lacking in the things I could provide.”

“What is that?”

Susan just tilted her head and smiled.

Chapter 16

T
he Boeing Business Jet skidded down the
runway, coming to a stop adjacent to a caravan of black SUVs. The private airstrip on the Mediterranean island of Corsica was within the compound known as God’s Truth. It was one of the few private airstrips in Europe, its permit granted on the heels of a heavy donation to the French government.

Corsica was a jewel in the Mediterranean with a fabled history. The fifty-four-hundred-square-mile island, just west of Italy, was the famed birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte. Due to its strategic location, the mountainous island had fallen under a variety of leaderships from Carthage to the Romans to the Vandals to the Byzantine Empire in 522. Then on to the Arabs, Lombards, and Moors—the country still bearing the Moor’s-head emblem upon its flag—before it found stability with the Genoese in 1284, who, in turn, upon bankruptcy, sold it to France in 1768. Unspoiled by modern development, the island had remained a combination of beaches and forested wilderness that clung to its natural beauty; a perfect location for God’s Truth to conduct its business away from the modern world’s prying media eyes. Its twenty-five-thousand-acre compound stretched from the seaside cliffs to the base of the seven-thousand-foot Monte Cinto and was embraced by the surrounding mountainous forests that were more akin to northern European climates than the Mediterranean beaches of the Corsican coastline.

Julian emerged from the jet, glancing up at the stars, never taking them for granted, as they represented to him the unknown, mysteries to be unlocked. He headed down the ramp followed by two bodyguards and entered the first SUV. The guards flanked the door and looked up as Stephen Kelley was led from the jet, the black bag over his head but without restraints: his three escorts knew there was no escape. They led him down the ramp, deposited him in the second SUV, and the caravan drove off.

They circled around the jet and raced for the far gate. It was gold-plated, fifty feet across, and swinging open to welcome its owner. The road of the compound was muted red clay bordered by cobblestone for its three-mile length. It wound through an ancient forest that had been invaded by construction. Julian looked out the SUV’s smoked windows at the myriad buildings. His medical research team was second to none, attracting the greatest minds of the day not only through a highly generous compensation package but with its cutting-edge facilities and freedom to explore even the most out-of-the-box theories. Julian prided himself on the think-tank mentality of his organization. Creative medicine, creative finance, creative religion. He didn’t believe in the staid and traditional. For too long, man had followed the same map. Julian reveled in the exploration of new routes, for they could yield manna from Heaven much as Columbus’s search for a new route to India yielded the unintentionally found New World.

Julian’s home sat above the compound like a lord overlooking his minions. But it was so much more than just a home. It was where he conducted business, entertained dignitaries, preached to his followers. It was the center of his empire and the center of his heart. The castle-like structure rose four stories, made from field and quarry stone. Built in 1690, it had served as the summertime palace of the rulers of Genoa, who donated it to the Church in 1767 just before Corsica was purchased by France. It was a last-minute deal by the Genoans to undermine the French while hoping to buy their way into Heaven.

God’s Truth had acquired what became a monastery and modernized its interior while respecting its heritage. It was over seventy-five-thousand square feet, including ballrooms and vast dining rooms, dungeons and movie theaters, watch towers and a restaurant-sized kitchen. It looked out over the Mediterranean, its rear facade blending into the cliff face, sitting two hundred feet above the crashing waves that lapped at the sea wall. On approach from the ocean, it appeared as if God had carved the great castle on the sixth day of Creation for Himself.

Julian’s SUV pulled under the porte cochere. He emerged and entered his home through the twenty-foot-high wooden doors, their two-inch planking held together by three-inch metal bands that looked as new today as they had when they were formed three hundred years earlier. He headed across the marble foyer and straight to his library, which was tucked back in the southwest corner of his bastion. It was his fortress of solitude, where he did his best thinking, where he felt comfortable in the embrace of his deep rich mahogany walls and his five-thousand-volume collection of books. There was a commotion in the foyer as the three guards guided Stephen Kelley up the grand staircase to the fourth floor, but Julian paid it no mind as he poured himself a Johnnie Walker Blue, its rare whiskey blend soothing as it floated down his throat.

He had been gone two days. He usually didn’t involve himself in the more clandestine operations of his organization except to give orders, but this was different: this was the most personal of quests.

The Eternal
and
The Bequest
were both rendered five hundred years in the past. Julian was enraptured by his mother’s fables. He had listened to her stories in his youth about the painting on his wall; stories of angels and Eden, of life and death, Heaven and Hell, of the truth hidden within our souls. Of
The Eternal
’s long lost sister painting that had vanished from a French collector’s home, whisked away on a World War II night. They were paintings created by a heart touched by God. On a canvas whose heart contained a devil’s secret.

But as he grew into his teens, she sold off
The Eternal
to pay for the care of the children, to fund the orphanage’s operation, all of which he never questioned. He believed her with all his heart, the painting was long gone, the cruelest of fates. He never thought to question her; she had never lied to him, never deceived him. After all, she was his mother.

But as one grows, one learns that there are some truths that are fables and some fables that are truths. For Julian discovered a truth, had come upon it two years earlier during a simple doctor’s visit, when suspicions were raised about his heritage. After a record search and a healthy cash payment, he confirmed the truth: Genevieve did not bear him. He was merely another child dropped on her doorstep, abandoned at birth. His mother had lied to him, always assuring him that he was her only true child, held in higher esteem than any of the others. The nights that she tucked him in, the special times alone away from the orphans, a bond between mother and son. All a lie, all a ruse.

Julian never understood why. But if she lied about that, it brought everything else into question. His life, his background, who his true family was, and everything she had ever told him. He thought about
The Eternal,
how it was gone from his world, how it no longer hung in his mother’s home. Now that he knew she was capable of such a great deception, he didn’t question his conclusion: somehow he knew…she never sold the painting.

Mixed emotions, rage had filled him. But it was her lie, the fable of his birth, that made him conclude that if some truths were fables then some fables might, in fact, be truths.

And so Julian brought his resources to bear in a quest. He began his search in earnest, a simultaneous venture to find both Govier paintings. Tens of millions spent on an obsessive pursuit, for reasons only he knew.

Julian walked to his oversized desk, opened the center drawer, and pulled out an accordion folder. He thumbed through reams of documents on his mother: bank statements, phone records, photographs. Genevieve had been under his continual surveillance for two years, right up until the time of her disappearance. Though they no longer spoke, Julian knew everything about her: her business, her friends, her bank accounts, even the names of each of the children she was raising. So when it came time to pressure her into revealing where the painting from his youth truly was, he knew every point to press. And when she remained silent, refused to cooperate, to speak to the son she hadn’t spoken to in years, he dismantled her world quicker than anyone could have imagined. And yet his mother did not fold, she did not cave. She merely fled to the mountains where she died—but her death was simply another fable.

And while he suspected that she still possessed
The Eternal
, or at least knew of its whereabouts, turning her world upside down in his search, it was the sister painting,
The Bequest,
that appeared first; found on the black market, it subsequently drew his greater focus.

And as Julian ruminated on the matter, he looked up at the enormous portrait that hung above the car-sized fireplace. His mother looked out on the world with those caring eyes, the same eyes that comforted Julian in his youth. But to him, during the last two years, those eyes changed; they were deeper, more mysterious, carrying a world of secrets, a world of betrayal. Where they had been a window before, allowing her caring soul to shine forth, they had grown dark, as if a shadow fell across them, across her soul, hiding her true self from the world. They were inexplicably linked: the paintings, the golden box, and Genevieve. Julian didn’t know how but he had his suspicions; she wasn’t just hiding her maternal fallacy, hiding away pieces of fine art, she was hiding away secrets that ran deeper than anyone could fathom.

She had died on the mountain in Italy. But that was just another one of her stories. His men had seen her. They saw her terrified eyes as they stood before their pickup trucks, their rifles raised, the gun sights fixed on the Buick as it raced down a bridge toward them. They had watched as she crashed through the rail, hitting the water in a cascade.

Julian raised his glass in a silent toast to his mother, to her beauty, her intelligence, to her secretive nature. She was taken from him, kidnapped before his men could kidnap her, but that would only delay their reunion. Despite all her lies, all her deceit, Julian loved her as all sons love their mothers. He wanted her back, he needed her back, and what her kidnappers didn’t know was they crossed a very dangerous line.

He heard the ransom demand and laughed; he thought about it for the duration of his flight from the United States. He had no intention of paying it within five days; he had no intention of paying it at all. In fact, he couldn’t; despite his billions, it was the one ransom he did not possess. But that was of no matter, it would not change the outcome, in spite of the threat to his mother’s life, there was no question, no doubt in his mind, that he and his mother would be reunited. The kidnappers tried to play his heartstrings but he knew that game better than anyone, he had years of practice bending people to his will, playing their emotions, making them see the light; after all, he was a preacher, he was a man of God.

And with God on his side he would get his mother back, then he would kill those who dared to cross him, he would find their families, their children, their friends…and he would kill them all.

Chapter 17

S
tephen Kelley stepped out on the balcony
and looked out at the sea, its vast expanse accentuating his insignificance. As he looked about the topography he was unable to discern his location, but the steep cliff face below his windows and the crystal-blue water confirmed one thing: he was not in America.