The Thieves of Faith (31 page)

Fetisov walked across the room and pulled himself a beer from underneath the bar. He opened it and drew a long swig before turning back to the three pairs of eyes that hung on his very words. “His name is Ilya Raechen, ex-KGB, ex-DRE.” Fetisov fixed his one good eye on Michael. “He’s the guy who kidnapped Genevieve; he’s about as dangerous as they come.”

“What time did they move it up to?” Michael asked, trying to refocus.

“Seven a.m.”

“Seven? That’s not going to leave us enough time,” Michael exploded. “I allowed five hours to get the box and five hours for Genevieve.”

“You said your time estimates were ultraconservative; don’t we have some wiggle room?” Busch said.

“The timing that I laid out for us leaves room for error, room for contingencies. We don’t know what we’re going to face when we dive for the box. You know as well as I that the dive is risky even before we find the chamber.”

“What if we get Genevieve first?” Busch countered.

“If we grab her first, we won’t have time to get the box and make our exit without running into half of the Russian army; then my father will die. If we steal the box first, we won’t get to the operating room in time and Genevieve…” Michael felt his entire plan crashing around him. “We’ll never make it.”

Fetisov said nothing as he walked to the window.

Busch sat on the couch. “If we leave right now—”

“No.” Michael shook his head. “Eight hours is cutting it too close.”

“What if you do both jobs simultaneously?” Susan asked. “You would have enough time if both jobs were done at once.”

“No way. I can’t dive alone and it’s going to take two people to get Genevieve out of there.”

“You’re not listening to me,” Susan said.

“I can’t be in two places at once.”

“You don’t have to. Nikolai and Paul get Genevieve.” Susan paused. “And you and I go for the box.”

“Absolutely not.” Michael walked about the room trying to gather his thoughts. He glanced out the window but the Kremlin skyline seemed to be mocking him.

“We could go now and have all the time we need,” Susan said slowly, logically.

Michael looked at her as if she were crazy. “Would you send me into a court of law and expect me to defend someone?” Michael didn’t wait for her response. “No, because I lack the training, the experience to get the job done.”

“That’s different.”

“No, it’s not,” Michael said. “And in a court of law my risk of dying is slightly less.”

“I know how to dive, I’m a better swimmer than you could ever hope to be; so get down off your high horse and accept my help.” Susan turned to Fetisov. “Right? You could go in with Paul, couldn’t you?”

Fetisov said nothing in response as he continued to look out the window.

Susan turned back to Michael and looked up with pleading eyes. “If you don’t pull this off, Stephen is going to die.”

Susan’s words rang in Michael’s ears. He knew that there would be no way to save his father without the box, without Genevieve, without having them to bargain with.

“We could do it.” Nikolai turned back to the room. “For my niece.”

Busch stood, walked over to Michael, and pulled him aside. “As much as I don’t want to admit it…she’s right.”

“No, she’s—”

“Michael, it’s your dad. This is our one and only shot. And they’re going to carve up Genevieve in less than eight hours.” Busch looked down at his friend and spoke softly. “Every second we delay on this…I don’t see another way.”

As Michael stood there, his hope for his father’s survival fading, the picture of his parents weighed heavy in his pocket. And then Mary’s words, the words from her letter, coaxed his mind:

I am not asking you to find your real parents for yourself, but for me. It is my last request, one that will allow me to go to my final rest knowing that you are not alone in this world. Family has a way of…restoring the hope that we think is forever lost.

Chapter 33

J
ulian Zivera sat at the far end of an elegant dining
room table. The cool sea breeze passed through the opened French doors, their curtains drawn, as the last remnants of the summer sun slipped into the ocean, painting the evening sky pink. Before him was a meal of roast duck over fresh greens; in his raised hand, a crystal glass filled with champagne. “
Cent’anni.
May you live a hundred years,” Julian toasted.

Stephen Kelley was the lone dinner guest at the other end of the table. He sat there in a white oxford shirt and a pair of blue jeans provided by his host, his food untouched, his glass on the table before him, his hands in his lap. He was an unwilling attendee, but when three of Zivera’s burly men sternly “escorted” him to dinner, he didn’t have much of a choice. Perhaps at least he would use this time to better understand the mind of his captor, if not enjoy his company.

“Your son will be here soon with what I need,” Julian said matter-of-factly, as if Michael were an errand boy.

Stephen looked around the stylish room, at the servants standing at the ready in the corner, awaiting their master’s command, at the Rembrandts and the Chagalls, at the marble statues carved by masters. This single room held riches greater than any man could dream of. “You have wealth without compare. What could you possibly need?”

“There are some things all the riches in the world couldn’t buy.”

“Such as?”

Julian paused, swirling the champagne around in his glass. “Man will chase riches, power, fame his entire life but when he is at his end, when he is lying on his deathbed, he would gladly trade it all for one more year; he would take back that last cigarette, that last plate of bacon. For there is nothing more precious than life. Unfortunately, most do not learn this truth until it is too late.” Julian’s eyes momentarily lost focus, before he returned to the conversation. “If you were able to find the cure for cancer, if you were able to offer someone fifty more years of life, would you do it? Tell me you wouldn’t have tried to save your wives, your son, from their deaths.”

Stephen stared at Zivera, unsure of how he had learned these intimate details of his life.

“The search for eternal life is the central driving goal of man,” Julian continued. “All religions are based around an eternal afterlife, all offer the promise of living forever. Many even preach of forsaking earthly pleasure to attain it. But no matter one’s beliefs, while man walks the earth, he is in a constant search of extending his days. We modify our diets, we take vitamins, exercise, all to stay healthy, to look good, to live longer.

“What if man was successful, what if we were finally able to uncover a way to truly live longer?”

“Is that a question that can really be answered?” Stephen asked as he finally succumbed to his hunger and started carving into his duck.

Julian picked up and poured the 1978 Montrachat into his wineglass and sat back. “Throughout history man has continually sought answers to the unanswerable. Man’s understanding of the world around him comes in great leaps, in spurts every hundred or so years. The Bronze Age, the Renaissance period, the Industrial Revolution, the Atomic Age. All unimaginable, unattainable before their advent.

“There is a time for man to learn certain truths. In the sixteenth century there was the birth of modern science, the rejection of a flat world. Then the secrets of electricity were unlocked. The Wright brothers made us realize that man could fly. Einstein proved that time doesn’t always march on, it can crawl, it can stop, that with a strong enough telescope we can look into the past. No one thought the mystery and power of the atom could be cracked. Who would have believed that the simple action of splitting the smallest of objects could destroy a city? Things thought impossible became commonplace. Things thought magical became tangible. A thousand years ago man could not conceive of the power to communicate with the far side of the world, the power to fly, to travel space, to land on the moon. The power to see within the body and to cure its ills. A man one thousand years ago would have thought the only one capable of such feats would be God.

“Now, what we think impossible today will be merely an afterthought five hundred years from now. Children will learn in kindergarten what takes ten of the greatest of minds at MIT to unlock today.

“Imagine if we could unlock the answers to extending life. To one of God’s greatest mysteries.” Julian stood, picked up the bottle of wine and walked down to Stephen, filling his glass. “I believe that answer is in the box your son is seeking.”

“So you have my son chasing fables, looking for a fountain of youth?”

“Fables?” Julian slowly said, his eyes fixed on Stephen.

Stephen stared back but said nothing.

“Take the great flood for an example. As you say”—Julian nodded as he returned to his seat—“it is a myth, a fable written with conviction in the Bible. The Good Book speaks highly of Noah and his family, of arks and forty days of torrential storms, of wiping the earth clean of man and beast. But every culture, far and wide, from Africa to China, Peru to Europe, contains a similar story of a massive storm, a flooding of the world, wiping out most of life, God’s wrath delivered unto man. Scientific evidence has since confirmed that in 6000
BC
this was actually true, a great flood probably did wipe out millions. Some fables are, in fact…fact. And some facts are fables; it sometimes boils down to what we place our faith in. And I believe we can find the answer to life contained in the box your son is seeking for me.”

Stephen stared at Julian as if he was staring at a madman. And despite himself, he laughed. “Maybe there are some answers we should never know,” Stephen said. “If we were to know our fate, would we approach life in the same manner? If we knew failure was in our future, would we lose the will to try? If we knew we were to succeed in life, would we rest and lose our drive, thereby altering our fate?” Stephen took a long sip of his wine and continued. “If we could take a pill to live longer, would we diminish the joys of life, putting off the present, delaying our lives, thinking that there is always more time? The answer to life’s mysteries are meant to be learned, not found in some fairy-tale box.”

Julian smiled. “Spoken like an attorney. No room for faith in the story, no room for God in the courtroom anymore.”

“Cut the crap. You kidnap me, blackmail my son, sending him to his possible death chasing some biblical hearsay, all the while calling yourself a man of God. If the world only knew…I’m a better Christian than you and I lost my faith.”

“
Time
magazine would disagree with you. They proclaimed me the future of religion, a modern-day prophet incorporating the present with the past with the future. I have followers everywhere. I’ll bet I even have some in your law firm.”

“
Time
magazine also proclaimed Hitler as Man of the Year. Twice,” Stephen said, his voice thick with disdain. “You are nothing more than a cult.”

“Maybe, but where is the divide between a religion and a cult? What constitutes the difference? I’ll tell you. The size of your membership. Less then twenty you’re a club, less than three thousand you’re a cult. But when you have five hundred thousand like we do, that’s a religion. We’re as big as Scientology, we’re one-twentieth the size of Judaism, and we have only been around a few years. Imagine how large we will be in five thousand.”

“Religion? You just incorporate the pieces of faith that correspond with your personal beliefs and discard the rest.”

“You mean like Catholicism, Christianity splintering, Henry the Eighth wanting a divorce so he creates the Church of England, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Protestant, created and established based on differences with the Church. I’m doing the same thing.”

“No,” Stephen said. “You’re doing it for money. This is all about greed, not faith. Your worship is centered around oneself and the almighty dollar. You’re not offering any new kind of spiritual enlightenment, moral or ethical guidance. You offer products.” Stephen chuckled to himself. “You’re a conglomerate masquerading as a religion. Your followers are so consumed with the here and now they probably don’t even think of eternal life.”

Julian stared at Stephen, his face growing red. He picked up his glass, slowly sipping his wine, forcibly calming himself. He placed two fingers to his forehead, rubbing in circles as if it would somehow dissipate his rage. From an unspoken queue the servants emerged from the corners and cleared the table. They returned moments later, laying out two pies and assorted sorbets before dissolving back into the walls.

After a moment, Julian gathered himself and began speaking as if he was giving a sermon. “People around the world spend so much of their time praying for salvation, dedicating their Sundays so they may have eternal life. What if eternal life could be offered to them here?”