The History Thief: Ten Days Lost (The Sterling Novels) (23 page)

The words spoken by the CNN political analyst were uttered just as Justine had written them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

JOHNS HOPKINS
HOSPITAL BALTIMORE,
MARYLAND

D
r. Sonia Sterling walked briskly across the grounds of the Johns Hopkins Medical Campus. The children’s center—the building that housed her office—was located nearly in the middle of the sprawling Baltimore medical center. Her day had been quite busy, but her mind had not been on her patient load. It was on her husband. Michael was all that she could think of; Michael and his drinking. It was so much worse than she had thought.

Mixed with her anger, a tear formed in her eye.

She blamed herself.

She had seen all of the signs and ignored them, marginalizing them as normal, acceptable. He was so good at everything—what did it matter if each night he ended with a drink or two? But the nights had blended into days, and still she had said nothing.

Burying her chin deep into her chest, she held back a wave of emotion and picked up her pace.

Their move to the East Coast had been fast and exciting, but Michael’s new role as deputy director had brought on obvious but unspoken demands. It hadn’t been that long ago that she even had found he was a paramilitary operative for the CIA, much less employed by the secretive government spy organization.

A few years ago, to her, he was just a normal, everyday working stiff with a good corporate job, an MBA, and the occasional bout of business travel.

But it had been a lie—all of it.

He had a PhD, worked for the government, and had killed: many times over.

She told herself that she could handle all of this. She loved him and supported him; she knew that his work was important and had had profound and lasting effects on society.

But the drinking was getting worse.

The drinking was beyond troubling; it was life-altering and interfering with her work, his career, and their marriage. She could no longer take sitting back passively while she watched him finish bottle after bottle of wine, night after night, or move from one finger of Scotch to four or five per glass.

Sonia walked alongside the ongoing construction on the site of the Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children’s Center—where her new office would be in the following year—and tried to rid her mind of Michael. The noise from the heavy machinery—the drilling, the pounding, and the ear-splitting grinding—didn’t faze her, but it also didn’t drown out her thoughts. Even the onslaught of blue-collar whistling in her direction didn’t catch her attention.

Not today.

Her mind was simply too preoccupied.

Normally her attention to the details of life, both large and small, didn’t waver. It was that attention that put her through medical school on a fellowship; it was that attention that catapulted her into her current position. However, today, that attention was only on her husband. Had her worries not centered on Michael, she might have noticed the man slowly mirroring her path; maybe she would have sensed that his intensity was directed solely on her.

Sonia pushed open the door to the first level of the Orleans Street Garage and walked directly to her car. He followed. Her parking spot was private and reserved, a perk that went along with her position. As she walked nearer to her car, something struck her as odd. The front end seemed a bit canted, tilting slightly to one side.

She stepped closer and lower, muttering a quiet, “Shit! The day just gets better.” She sighed heavily.

The tire was flat. But that wasn’t all. Sonia was confused. The glint from a small knife refracted the low light of the overhead bulb and caught her attention. It was protruding from the flat tire.

The moment she bent in lower to inspect the curious sight, the sweet smell of an organic compound made from red, green, and brown seaweed wafted into her nose.

Attached to the rag doused in chloroform, which was pressing heavily into her face, was a thick forearm. She fought fiercely and pulled the arm from her face. She clamped her jaw onto the thick part of her attacker’s upper forearm and bit as hard as she could; the salty taste of blood touched her tongue. The man screamed loudly and put his knee into her kidney. Sonia fell roughly against her car and released her bite with a grunt as the sharp pain split through her midsection.

The rag returned to her mouth.

He pressed harder.

This time there was no fighting back.

She felt her body going limp as the sounds of the world and the nearby construction faded. All that encompassed her was the smell of the anesthetic. In her ear, the man quietly whispered, “That’s it, Dr. Sterling, be a good girl; it’s time to go to sleep.”

With her strength slipping, Sonia tried to turn her face to look at the man. But, instead, her eyes began to roll backward into her head. She muttered through the rag: “Why?”

The man smiled as he pressed his lips to her ear. “You married the wrong man.”

Her world went black.

CHAPTER THIRTY

OLD DOMINION DRIVE
FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA

T
he driver of the oversized black Yukon sped down Old Dominion Drive. He sat alone in the front. Two other vehicles were in the convoy: a lead vehicle in front of them and a chase vehicle following at their rear. They were not using any sirens or flashing lights. They drove toward Langley—CIA headquarters—with a purpose.

In the back seat, Michael’s hands were cuffed behind him. His head was covered with a dark bag. He was uncomfortable and irritated but knew enough to keep his mouth shut. York had told him that they were both named as conspirators in Senator Door’s death. They were being set up, and Michael had no idea why. His mind raged with attempts to connect the dots, any dots. But the only ones to connect were the dead senator’s unabated inquiries into Operation Merlin and his part in it.

But that was put to bed nearly three years ago.

Door was dead, the president of France too. Notre Dame was destroyed, and scores of civilians had perished. Michael and York were to blame. From underneath the dark bag, Michael squinted hard as he calculated the framework of the conspiracy: as the deputy director for the National Clandestine Services, they would say he used SSG York and York’s Alpha team to make the assassination plausible—a black operation.

He and York were both connected to Operation Merlin through the incident with Iran three years ago. Michael was meant to be the senator’s scapegoat for Operation Merlin and its botched mission to give Iran a faulty blueprint for nuclear weapons.

But the operation was before Michael’s time as director. His predecessor had authorized the mission; its main goal had been to provide a nuclear-hungry Iran with a nuclear weapon blueprint. But the blueprint was to have a hidden flaw, a flaw that would put Iran’s ambitions two decades behind schedule. Unfortunately, the man that delivered the blueprint—a renowned Russian nuclear scientist and defector to the US—knew of the flaw and had lost his nerve upon its delivery; he told the Iranians everything.

Iran had become nuclear capable because of Operation Merlin.

In the middle of his thoughts, and without warning, the guard yanked off the bag from Michael’s head. Michael didn’t recognize him.

He then eyed the man who was driving. He didn’t know him either. The driver carried only a side arm, and he was wearing Kevlar body armor. The cabin of the vehicle was air conditioned, but a small stream of sweat trickled down the back of the driver’s neck. Michael noticed that he was obsessively scanning the road. The man was nervous.

Next to Michael sat the guard who was just as lightly armed as the driver. He was wearing the same heavy protection, but this man’s demeanor seemed steadier, calmer. His gaze was not focused on his captive but on the rearview mirror.

Michael didn’t see the guard nod subtly at the driver, but he did see the driver nod back.

The guard in the back seat interrupted the silence and matter-of-factly stated, “In precisely two minutes, this vehicle is going to crash. You are going to escape, Dr. Sterling.”

Michael didn’t respond. Instead he blankly stared at the guard. The man reached into his Kevlar protection and pulled out an oddly shaped pistol. It was pneumatic powered and had only one purpose.

He looked at Michael, pointed it toward him, and said, “This is going to hurt, Doc.”

Michael wanted to protest, but the man was fast and efficient. The barrel of the device was shoved deeply into the thick quadriceps muscle of his upper thigh. The guard paused. Michael could do nothing. A monotone hum emanated from the gun and filled the cabin of the Yukon; the man had found his mark. He pulled the trigger.

It felt like a stream of molten liquid was being shot into his femoral artery.

Michael’s head snapped involuntarily backward; all of the air in his lungs was forced out. His teeth smashed together as the burning in his leg intensified. He wanted to breathe but couldn’t, the pain was too acute. Sputum formed at the tips of his nostrils as he worked feverishly to force oxygen back into his lungs. His body temperature rose, and his heart raced. Large, thick beads of sweat formed instantly across his brow. The cabin of the Yukon seemed to compress inward. The fire in his leg grew.

“Try to relax, Doc. What you are experiencing is only temporary.”

Michael’s chest was heaving, but his lungs were coming back under his control. He wanted to speak but couldn’t find the words. The guard saw this.

From the front, the driver said, “Ninety seconds.”

The guard looked at Michael and said, “You will escape; you will find York. You will do this without question.”

“Go fuck yourself,” stammered Michael.

With a smug look draped across his face, the guard snapped his fingers, and the driver of the Yukon responded by passing back to him a small laptop.

The guard asked the driver, “Is it ready?”

The driver replied, “Just uploaded it. We’ve got her.”

The guard smiled, and said, “Good.”

Turning back to Michael, the man said, with a glint of superiority in his eyes, “I thought you might react this way.” With the stroke of few keys, the LCD lit up. Coming through the display was a video file. It was a darkened room; nothing discernible appeared otherwise. Over the audio, Michael heard some scuffling and the sound of resistance. A woman fell to the floor. It took only a moment, but when he realized what he was seeing, he trembled at what he saw. Playing on the laptop was a video of his wife. Her eyes were covered with a blindfold, her hands bound behind her back. Tears streamed down her cheeks; she pulled herself with some difficulty to her knees. She looked off-balance.

Michael’s muscles tightened as he watched. He felt his heart beat faster.

The video continued to play; an unseen man grabbed Sonia by the hair and yelled for her to speak.

Michael noticed a bloodied and purple wound on his arm; it looked like he had been bitten:
Good girl,
he thought. The man yanked Sonia’s head back hard; Michael grimaced as he watched. The man shouted again at Sonia, “Tell him!”

Sonia’s voice was clear and surprisingly calm as she said, not to Michael, but to the unseen man, “Tell him yourself, you fucking pig!”

Michael couldn’t help but smile slightly—she was always a tad stubborn.

In an instant, the unseen man’s hands clamped on Sonia’s throat; her eyes bulged behind the blindfold.

Her coughs were gut-wrenching.

She gasped painfully.

Michael could feel his heart pound through his chest.

A few moments painfully ticked by, and then the man, still unseen, said to Michael, “Do as you are told, Dr. Sterling, or I will kill your wife.”

Michael’s eyes shook at what he heard; at that moment, he watched as Sonia yanked her head free from his grasp. The unseen man yelled out and then slapped Sonia hard. She fell to her side.

Blood trickled down from her nose as he reached for the camera.

The screen went black.

The guard slapped shut the laptop and stated, “Dr. Sterling, we would like to not involve your wife any more than we already have. But the seriousness of the situation presents us with the need to do so. Your interference with our work a few years ago has not been forgotten. Your meddling requires a bit of—”the guard paused to think of the right word, and when he had it, he continued. “Your meddling requires a bit of atonement. As was stated, your wife will be killed should you not cooperate. Your life will end as well. Soon, she will be injected with the same device we put into you.”

Michael’s vitriol could hardly be contained. His heart pounded even harder. He felt his anger turning his face red.

The guard opened one of the pockets on his vest and pulled out a medallion. Turning the medallion over, he read part of the engraving etched into its backside, “From Four to Fifteen: Ten are Lost Forever.”

Looking back to Michael, he reached over and put the medallion in Michael’s front shirt pocket, shrugged, and said, “This is where you come in, Doc. We haven’t been able to figure out what it means, but you will. After that bit of work you did for us a couple of years ago deciphering
The Hand of Christ
, we figured you were the right guy for the job. And your old buddy, York, is going to help.”