The History Thief: Ten Days Lost (The Sterling Novels) (51 page)

The men and women were of society’s most elite; it mattered not that the men were dressed in expensive, hand-tailored suits with the best haberdashery, or that women wore their finest designer dresses, matching shoes, and hard-tofind accessories. They weren’t meant to be facedown on the floor and treated as social parasites.

Present circumstances dictated otherwise.

In the street, the news vehicles hummed to life as their respective crews witnessed live the drama that was occurring. Armed men stormed through the front of the hotel. A few stayed and were posted ominously at the hotel’s front door. Soon all cameras were pointed at them and the hotel; the journalists were in front of the guards with microphones in their hands, broadcasting the events to the world.

The armed men made for a dramatic backdrop, to the delight of a number of the unseen producers.

Inside of the hotel, the French and American security teams were efficient and worked well together. They had all the stairwells covered, running a wellchoreographed, pre-organized drill. The power had been shut down, and all of the automated fire doors were closed and magnetically locked shut.

The onsite agent-in-charge (AIC) issued a command through his bone-mic, ordering the men to simultaneously sweep upward using the stairwells.

Balletic and precise in their movements, the heavily armed teams entered the hotel’s four stairwells with their weapons pointed at the ready as they made their way upward.

Looking down the spiraling stairwell from the fourth floor, Michael could see them coming. He knew this would be happening throughout all of the hotel’s stairwells. Certainly there would be a helicopter hovering above, ready to drop in a team to the roof.

Prophetically, the distinctive clapping sounds of a Blackhawk, painted in the national colors of France, came to a hover over the hotel.

Time was running out.

Michael tried the door, but it was sealed shut. Without hesitation, he fired two rounds into the door’s brass hinges and then roughly threw Faust through the unhinged door and into the hallway of the fourth floor.

The senator rolled twice, landing on his hands and knees; Michael kicked his ribs without hesitation. The senator let out a weak scream. Michael reached down, grabbing him by the lapels with one hand and yanking him to his feet.

Michael buried the pistol into Faust’s left eye and demanded, “Where is she, where is my wife?”

“Your wife? I don’t know—I know nothing about her. What is this all about, just talk to me! I can help you if you just…”

Michael shoved Faust into the wall. “Shut up! Don’t play stupid with me, Senator. I know who you’re with and about your plans, I know about Senator Door! You lost the primaries but needed a way back to the White House! So you cut a deal, didn’t you? I know about the shroud and the crown, Senator, I know all about Operation Merlin! I know that you traded the plans for a nuclear weapon for cash with al-Qaeda to bankroll your election, and that you arranged for the material for uranium-enriching centrifuges to be sent to them! And for this, you were promised the fucking presidency!”

Michael thrust his pistol emphatically forward.

“Wait—wait! Don’t shoot me! I don’t know what you are talking about! Senator Door? Nuclear weapons? This is rubbish and complete nonsense; I know nothing of these things. You have to believe me! But if you just let me help you, maybe I can help get to the bottom of it! What do you want?”

Michael growled, “I already told you, Faust—I want to know where my wife is. The next word out of your mouth had better be the answer.”

“I don’t know!”

A shot rang out; the senator’s face went white. Michael lowered his voice and raised his pistol. Smoke was coming out from its barrel. “That wasn’t the answer, Senator.”

It took a moment for the pain to register. The senator’s legs gave out, but Michael stopped him from falling completely to the floor.

Senator Faust lifted his left hand and peered through the hole put there by Michael’s shot. He could see light coming through it. It wasn’t neat, nor was it small. To the contrary, the hole in his hand was rough and jagged. The bullet had exploded both bone and flesh, sending an oblong and jagged portion of the center of his hand from his body.

His face turned from its shade of white to green; he felt the nausea come.

Michael put the pistol under Faust’s chin; he pressed it deeper into his flesh. Michael’s voice was calm but contained the pure tone of a man of conviction: “Senator, I will only ask you one more time. The next bullet will be through your head! Where is my wife?!”

Faust was saved.

The moment Michael’s question ended, a team of armed men stormed through the stairwell door.

Michael spun around with the senator at his front, shielding him from the armed men, the weapon still under Faust’s chin.

One man shouted out, “Put the weapon down! Move away from the senator!”

The team slowly crept forward.

Michael fired a shot at their feet and screamed out, “Don’t move another inch this way!”

He put the pistol back under the senator’s chin. “I will end his life! Now back up and get off this floor!”

The senator’s cocksure nature, fed by his years in politics, started to return; he tried to negotiate, feeling that the advantage had shifted in his favor. “Dr. Sterling, listen to me, I can help you. I don’t know why you think I am a part of Door’s death. I know nothing about the Order. I don’t know anything about your wife. You have to believe me. Just let me go, and I promise you that I’ll do all that I can to help find your wife.”

There was a moment of silence, and then the team’s commander shouted once more, “Put the weapon down—move away from the senator!”

And then the quiet returned.

A cell phone rang.

Michael’s mouth was pressed against Faust’s ear, and he growled, “Answer your phone, Senator.”

The phone rang again.

The team of armed men looked at one another in confusion.

Slowly the senator reached for his phone.

Looking at it, he saw the incoming call was from Justine. He was confused. He answered it with an uneasy voice. “Justine? Justine, where are you?” But, instead of hearing the voice of his assistant reply, he heard only the echo of his own voice.

He didn’t understand.

Michael raised Justine’s cell phone in front of the senator. Faust eyed the screen and read his own name.

Michael shoved the pistol deeper into Faust’s chin and whispered, “I never mentioned anything about the Order, Faust—you did. Justine is dead, and before she died, she gave you up. I guess you never learned that it is unwise to leave a woman scorned.”

Senator Matthew Faust cringed, his face cascaded white. Michael watched as the senator’s skin went erect where each hair follicle met flesh. He saw the slight increase in the man’s blood pressure as the senator’s carotid artery bulged fatter and faster. These were the signs that only a trained interrogator would see.

Michael had him.

The senator knew it, too: he knew he had fallen into a trap. There was only one thing left to do. His political instincts fired up—he wanted to strike a deal.

Faust replied quietly, at a level that only Michael could hear; his voice had a trained ease in it: “Dr. Sterling, I am surprised that you made it this far. They told me you were good, but I didn’t expect you to be this good. Goddamn, son, bravo,” Faust cleared his voice slightly and continued. “But this time you are in over your head and way above your pay grade. Kill me and, rest assured, these men will kill you; your wife will die, too. Your mission is over. Let me go, and I will make sure that she is freed; at least one of you will live. That’s my deal. You have no other option.”

Michael didn’t hesitate; his response had already been calculated. “There is always more than one option, Senator.”

Behind Michael was a window. The impending night cast a growing black shadow through it.

Michael’s movements were fast. Grabbing the senator once more by the hair, Michael shot the window with a three-round burst and dove through it, pulling the senator roughly backward and with him.

Together, the two men disappeared through the window. The shatter of broken and falling glass was interrupted only by the waning screams of the defenestrated senator.

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

CURB APPEAL
67 RUE DU CHABROL

T
he neighborhood could have been any in Paris. The streets were narrow and constricting, the traffic allowed to flow only one way. The façade of each building rose to the same uniform height, obeying codified Parisian conformity, and they were demarcated only by distinctions in color or choice of stone and style.

A stray, disheveled dog, followed by another, darted across the street, causing the driver of a small speeding car to hit the brakes hard. Narrowly missing the mutts amid screeching tires, the driver sped away, the dogs, too.

York was as alone as he had ever felt.

In a foreign country and on the run, he was hungry, tired, and had no resources. To make matters worse, the Doc had lost his mind. York had no idea what had occurred at the hotel. He only knew that he was told to come here: 67 Rue du Chabrol, #4.

In front of him were two dark-colored, wooden doors above which the number 67 was painted. The doors split two street-level shops. The one to the left was for a local real-estate broker; its windows were pasted with photos of apartments and neighborhoods. To the right, a colorful display of fantasy wares and gifts lined the length of the store’s window, showing the adventurous at heart what types of spice, frill, or lace—rubber, too—could be added to their amore.

The sun had set, and the life that belonged to the night made its presence known. Scantily clad women pockmarked the street both left and right, but these weren’t the kind for whom the lonely dreamed. To the contrary: these women appeared well used, dirtied even; they were the kind reserved for use by the lowest elements of life. York ignored them, and they returned his gesture, having the street smarts long ago cultivated to know that he wasn’t a customer.

On the cut and worn stone of the building, next to each of the two wooden doors, were numerous signs and warnings. One read
Jour et Nuit
and was in the middle of a red circle with a line through it. York didn’t know that it was a clear message from the occupants behind the door that they didn’t want to be bothered
Day or Night
. York couldn’t speak or read French, but the message was nonetheless clear: stay away.

However, ignoring the sign, York rang the bell for #4—just as Michael had told him to do.

From above, he was sure that he caught the flicker of a shadow move away from one of the windows.

York waited.

Nothing.

He pressed the button for #4 once more; this time he held it down for much longer.

A few moments dragged by, and then static spat through the small speaker of the intercom.

“Oui?” Her voice was soft, almost quiet, like that of a child’s.

York pressed the button and flatly, albeit nervously, responded, “The Doc sent me here.”

“American? You have the wrong place. Now go!” she spat back.

York could feel a mixture of anger and worry.
The wrong place?
And then it hit him; he pressed the button again and shouted slightly, “Michael! I meant Dr. Michael Sterling, deputy director of the C…” York froze, instantly realizing his mistake. He had almost shouted out to any within earshot “the deputy director of the CIA.”

The door buzzed, snapping York from his moment of stupidity. He pushed and walked through. Quickly, he climbed the four flights until he was in front of a door that had a brass #4 on its front.

Raising his hand to knock, he didn’t have to. She opened it.

She was young—and attractive.

In the doorway she stood barefoot and curiously eyed the young Green Beret. Her arms were long and lean; the rest of her was the same. Her body was light and delicate but magnetic, and it was accentuated by the loose fit of her white silk top and matching sleeping shorts. Her black hair was worn with no style and fell alongside the prominent bones in her cheeks, framing the milky white skin of her face perfectly.

She wasn’t classically beautiful but attractive and sultry nonetheless.

The French woman stared back at the young soldier, having done the same thing he did: she noticed his sturdy and well-shaped frame and saw that he looked tired—really tired.

Stepping to the side, she said, “Best that you come inside, monsieur.”

York complied.

Inside, York saw that the apartment was voluminous and took up the entire fourth floor of the building. “What is this place?” he asked.

The young woman reached under the small, ornamented glass shade of a table lamp and turned it on. The low light from the bulb cast a shadow across her body and face that York found slightly tantalizing. He noticed that she wore nothing underneath her billowing nightclothes.