The Thieves of Faith (26 page)

“Death: it is a fate that awaits us all. While the Bible speaks of the hereafter we must remember one of the Good Book’s greatest proverbs…God helps those who help themselves. We speak of sacrifice, of forgoing immediate pleasure for the promise of future benefits; we do it in business, we do it in life, some even do it in their religions.

“Now before I leave you this evening, I want you to think on a topic. What if this was your last day, what if you knew with pure conviction that there was no tomorrow? What if you knew you only had twenty-four hours left to live? Imagine yourself in this place, for it is a place we will all arrive at despite our best efforts. Close your eyes and imagine that you are at your end of days, your accumulation of experiences at their conclusion. Do you suddenly embrace God, hoping to get to Heaven, do you reflect on your life, the summation of your collective events or…do you look for a way to live just one more day?” He looked about the room, every ear drawn to him, all in rapt attention. “If you could do anything to save yourself, how far would you go? What would you do?

“Now ponder this…if you were given the opportunity to buy one more day, one more week, or even one more year to live; if you were able to purchase ten more years…what would the value of that be? What price would you place on life?” Julian paused and looked down at the vast crowd of parishioners, seeming to make eye contact with all who waited with bated breath. He finally raised his glass.
“Cent’anni.”

And in an almost choreographed response, the entire crowd raised their glasses, thunderously calling out,
“Cent’anni.”

Julian took Sheila by the arm; they walked back down the stairs and through the crowd that silently parted for him in respect. “I would pay anything for my mother to have lived another year,” Sheila whispered in his ear. “Is your mother still alive?”

Julian turned to her and looked deep into her eyes. “I don’t know.”

Genevieve’s eyes flashed open. There was no sense of panic about her. She did not pull at her restraints or try to rise from the gurney. Her breathing was deep and steady as she looked about her surroundings. The medical facility was pure white, harsh in appearance even under the dim lights. The antiseptic smell assaulted her senses as she tried to get an idea of her location.

She had awoken only twice since her abduction, once while being loaded onto a plane and once upon arrival at wherever here was. Each time was only momentary, never allowing her to gain her bearings before the large man drugged her again. Her concept of time was completely lost as she tried to regain focus through the fog that clouded her thoughts. She did not know where she was or who her kidnappers were, but their goals were obvious, the same as Julian’s: getting the Albero della Vita, the golden box that she wished was erased from history.

She had felt nothing but betrayed by Julian. He had stolen everything from her, leaving her with an utter emptiness she hadn’t felt since the loss of her husband. He had died many years ago, and since then she had wandered through life, never looking for love again as the pain of loss still lingered despite the drawing of time. But it was through the joy of mothering that she found herself again, that her heart was filled with warmth. But the warmth was tempered, made bittersweet as it concerned Julian. He had been troubled since birth, an emotionally fragile child whose cruelty never abated.

Her kidnapper walked in the room to find her awake. Without a word, he walked to a medical cabinet, withdrew an IV bag, and stepped to Genevieve’s bedside. He briefly looked down at her with troubled eyes, his face filled with pain. He silently switched her IV bag, looked at her briefly, and left the room. As the IV drip flowed, Genevieve could feel the fog gathering in her mind, pulling her back toward sleep. And she thought of Michael, saying a brief prayer that he found his father, that he received the painting and the map that she had left for him but was unable to tell him about, her kidnappers snatching her before she could explain to Michael the true significance of the map within the painting.

And as her eyes fell shut, her mind once again encased in a drug-induced sleep, a single tear rolled down her face. Not for herself or her imprisonment, but for the danger she had placed Michael in. For he had no idea what surrounded the map within
The Eternal
or the mystery of the Albero della Vita. A box that one of history’s most evil men, Ivan the Terrible, deemed should be hidden away for all eternity. A box whose contents were too horrible for even the most horrible of men.

Chapter 26

B
eneath the city of Moscow is a legend. A city
under a city. A world that runs as much as twelve levels deep, comprising tunnels and labyrinths, bomb shelters and catacombs, ancient passages and raging rivers. There are hidden apartments just a few feet below the surface; graveyards three hundred feet down, rumored to be below even Hell itself. And like all cities, Moscow’s subterranean populace is somewhat different than its terrestrial counterpart: Roma—those that some people still refer to as Gypsies—squatters and prostitutes, gangs, political refugees, and the homeless. The city of Moscow forbids ex-cons to reside within the city, forcing former criminals who wish to remain to literally go underground.

The eight-hundred-and-fifty-year-old city, built on alluvial soil, turned out to be perfect for those who chose to build down instead of up. Starting with Ivan the Terrible’s grandparents, each of the city’s rulers had left their underground mark in one way, shape, or form, constructing vaults to hide their treasures, graveyards for those who opposed them, palatial abodes as safe houses during a coup, churches for worship, secret apartments for clandestine affairs, storage depots for weapons. Stalin built an underground railroad for moving his loyal party officials, weapons, and troops in and out of the city. Peter the Great spent part of his childhood in the lost Tsarina chambers. Catherine the Great brought in Italian craftsmen to channel the Neglinnaya River into enormous brick-lined underground canals.

Michael, Busch, and Fetisov stood under a high brick archway along the banks of a man-made canal. Before them was a giant grotto, its rounded ceiling reaching upward twenty-five feet. The bright lamps that were built into their respective miner’s helmets painted dancing shadows along the red-brick walls. Centered around a large central pool were seven man-made rivers, each leading off into its own separate tunnel.

They had entered the vast array of passages from a drainage pipe in the back of a restaurant in Kitai Gorod—the Chinatown of Moscow, though there never had been any Chinese there—which sat a mile from the Kremlin. Nikolai Fetisov, with his one good eye, had led the way through a series of tunnels whose height and construction varied with each step. Above them were large conduits that carried steam, electricity, and probably the wiring for hidden listening devices dating back to the times of the KGB. The Russian read from a small hand-drawn map, its red Cyrillic markings already smudged. He had procured it from the tunnel rats with a payment the seller did not anticipate: his own life.

Michael had given Fetisov a list of supplies and, true to his word, Fetisov obtained them all without excuse. Each wore a knapsack on his back and was equipped for caving, diving, and the unanticipated. Fetisov never questioned Michael’s need but simply arrived at five in the morning with the three packs and the simple map that led to the confluence of the seven rivers. Michael never questioned him on his resources or the bit of blood in the left-hand corner of the hand-drawn map.

Fetisov, Michael, and Busch had walked for miles through clouds of steam, water spray from broken pipes, and dry winds from ventilation shafts. It took an hour, though Michael had completely lost track of time. They had passed countless groups of people who remained in the shadows appraising the three intruders as friend or foe. Some were dressed in little more than the dirt and grime that marred their bodies while others wore expensive clothes that appeared only hours old. While some bore the eyes of the mentally ill, most had their wits about them and many seemed more than educated. But they all possessed one characteristic, one thing in common: they were all on guard as if ready to run, as if they were expecting the arrival of gods or demons. And while the populace was initially large, after a series of jogs and turns, ladders and stairs, the three found themselves alone.

“All right, this is the Grotto of the Tsars, the intersection of the seven canals. We are just outside the southwest wall of the Kremlin,” Nikolai said as he brushed his night-black hair out of his eyes. “All the tunnel rats know about it, even the Soviets knew about it back in the fifties but it never led them to the Liberia or anywhere, for that matter, except a series of dead ends. Now, do you mind telling me where you got
your
map?”

Michael was intently studying a two-by-three-foot piece of paper. It was a map, but it wasn’t
the
map, the one that Genevieve had left for him. He thought that map more precious than gold: a detailed depiction of a subterranean world that held a far greater value than the riches in the city above. Michael had copied only what he needed onto the large paper that he now held spread out in his hands.

“Yes,” Michael finally answered. Nikolai would never learn about the map. Michael studied the seven canals that led off into seven separate tunnels, paying particular attention to the third from the right, the darkest of them all. He looked back at his map and again at the tunnel. “All right. This room is our staging point. And that’s our exit.” He pointed at the third tunnel.

“How are we going to get the woman out of here if she is sedated?” Fetisov asked.

“Leave that to us. You just do what you’re told,” Michael said. He stole one last glance at the large grotto, looked at his compass, and silently led the group forward, assuming the lead from Nikolai.

“You sure you know where you are going?” Nikolai asked.

Michael reached into the side pouch of his knapsack and withdrew a spray can. “No, but I’m hoping the author of the map was sure.”

Michael removed the cap from the can and sprayed an orange dot on the wall.

“What’s that for?” Nikolai asked.

“Bread crumbs,” Michael said as he continued to mark their path every twenty feet.

The three continued their trek along the bank of the canal, which soon lost its brick embankments, to be replaced by natural rock outcroppings and muddy pathways. The ceiling height rose and fell at random, occasionally forcing them to their knees and even their bellies. They were continually presented with divergent paths that ran off in every direction; Michael was sure if he lost the map they would be forever adrift in this underground maze and would slowly go mad once their light batteries died, trapped in darkness with no one to come looking for them. And so he continued to intermittently mark their trail; in the event that the map did get lost, they wouldn’t.

Michael was careful to keep the map out of Nikolai’s line of sight. He had no intention of letting this man with the affable demeanor and disarming smile get a glimpse so he could eliminate Michael and Busch and take over the operation in its entirely.

After what seemed like hours, trekking over uneven terrain through tunnels and caverns, they came to a raging pool of water that sat within a large cavern, its high ceiling dotted with stalactites. The thirty-by-thirty room had a single outcropping six inches over the water that jutted out four feet. The three of them stood at the water’s edge watching it lap against the far walls, worn smooth by the river’s flow over time.

“Dead end,” Nikolai said.

Michael looked around the room and didn’t want to admit it, but there was no way out except the way they came in. The path that they had followed for over thirty minutes had come to an abrupt stop. There was nothing but a smooth wall of stone across the water on the far side of the room. No doorway or passage.

“There has to be a way to get to the other side of that wall,” Busch added.

Michael focused his headlamp on the map, studying his handwriting. He had copied the map to a T, careful not to neglect any detail. He looked about the cavern for a telltale sign, a hidden doorway, but there was nothing. As he studied the map he knew he was less than two hundred feet from the Liberia, but now…he might as well have been a thousand miles.

Michael’s thoughts ran to Stephen, to his father and how his life would not be in danger if it wasn’t for him. And while the guilt resumed in Michael’s heart, it focused him on the task. He leaned down and examined the raging waters: they flowed in rapidly from the underground river but seemingly disappeared at the far side where could be seen ebbing and flowing whirlpools attesting to the water’s unseen exit. Michael reached behind his back, pulled out a glow stick from his knapsack, cracked it, and threw it in the water. He watched as the yellow light danced on the surface, floating along toward the far wall like a ship out of control. As it reached the dead end, it began to bob up and down and suddenly it was gone. Its yellow light disappeared, sucked under the surface.