The Thieves of Darkness (37 page)

“How was I to know when I answered the door that the person standing there, someone I trusted for so many years, would kidnap me, would be so violent?” Cindy cast her eyes on Simon’s unconscious form before glaring with accusatory eyes at Iblis. “… would turn out to be a criminal just like my sister?”

“And what she does shames you?”

“More than you could know,” Cindy said with pure disgust.

“You know, you’re despicable. You walk around with this holier-than-thou attitude, passing judgment, yet you forget what she sacrificed for you. So you could get your sheepskin, tell the world you graduated from Oxford. Is her name on that diploma? It should be. Everything in your young life came from her.”

“She lied to me my entire life. She’s a common thief.”

“Careful what you say,” Iblis said slowly.

Seeing Iblis’s dead eyes boring into her, Cindy fell silent.

“Your sister is anything but common.” Iblis paused. “She’d risk her life for you. Would you do the same for her, would you risk your life for your sister?”

“You defend her, yet you’re prepared to kill her if she doesn’t do what you say,” Cindy said in challenge. “You’re screwed up.”

Iblis walked to the small fridge and pulled out a Coke, cracking it and downing half before answering.

“Do you know what fear is?” Iblis placed the satchel on the table and walked toward Cindy. Cindy froze in the thought that she had gone too far as Iblis leaned close to her ear. “You have no idea what fear is.”

“No idea what fear is?” The anger washed over Cindy. “You threaten us with death and then say something like that?”

“Do you fear death?” Iblis said, sounding like a preacher.

Cindy was floored by the question, her hands shaking, her palms instantly sweaty, at a loss for words. This man before her had been a friend to them in their youth, providing money, guidance, a shoulder to cry on, and yet all the while he had lived his life in the shadows, dealing in the underworld, a world of crime. And now she was nothing more than a living, breathing incentive to get her sister to do his bidding by holding a proverbial knife to her and Simon’s throats.

“Fear is our instinctual motivator, it is what keeps us alive, is our most basic of instincts that ensures our survival. It is what makes us resourceful in times of crisis, it is what makes us think of solutions we could never imagine when we are safe and secure.

“Fear in the hands of someone skilled can be used to achieve goals, to attain success, money, fame. When you know what scares someone you can get them to do almost anything you want. Some people work harder as they fear being fired, most live their lives in fear of death, which provides a motivation to believe in the Almighty.

“For centuries, for millennia, fear is what was used to rule. The benevolent ruler, the benevolent king was one of fairy tale. Kings were feared, sultans were feared.

“Why is it that when fear overwhelms us we begin to pray? Pray for divine intervention, pray for a solution, pray for delivery from what scares us, be it monsters, death, and even sometimes ourselves?

“But fear can also bring out the best in people. Do you know what scares your sister? It’s not death, not the boogeyman. It’s anything that threatens
your
continued survival. It is what has always pushed her forward. She was terrified of losing you, not being able to support you. That pushed her to do things most people would never consider, things that the high-minded, moral society frowns upon. And yet she never complained about it. Yet you, for two days, live in fear while condemning her for the sacrifices she made for you.

“I hope you’re scared; I hope you’re terrified.” Iblis finally paused, moving closer to her once again. “I hope you know that I hold your life in the palm of my hand.”

“You think I’m afraid of death?” Cindy tried to be bold.

“There are things and there are places worse than death.” Iblis’s cold eyes bore into her. “Far worse than death.”

“Death is the end of all things,” Cindy said in protest, as if in debate. “There is no afterlife. We simply cease to exist.”

“That’s what you believe?” Iblis smiled.

“Can you prove otherwise?” Cindy asked.

“They educated the God right out of you, didn’t they?” Iblis shook his head.

Cindy was suddenly angry, offended by Iblis’s comment. “For people like you and KC, I would think that would be a good thing. No final judgment for your deeds.”

“Need I remind you, your lack of faith is just as grave a sin?”

Cindy rolled her eyes. “I’m not getting into a theological debate with a psychotic.”

“Really?” Iblis said.

“Trust me, you’d lose.”

Iblis smirked under arched eyebrows. “You’re more concerned with being right than learning the truth.”

“You can’t prove the existence of God, the Devil, or an afterlife.”

“Have you ever taken anything on faith?”

“I only believe in what is real, what I can touch, what science can prove.”

Iblis nodded. “What science can prove?”

Cindy sat there obstinate and angry.

“You play in the financial world, corporate raiding. Cashing in on the misfortunes of others; every time you make money someone else loses it.”

“That is completely legal,” Cindy defended herself.

“But is it moral?” Iblis paused, letting his point sink in.

“Don’t you, of all people, talk to me about morality.”

“The company you are going to work for, they’re probably paying you a fortune.”

“I’m paid what I’m worth,” she shot back.

“Do you believe that? What if you were to find out you were just a pawn in a much bigger game? Isn’t that what most worker bees in a corporation are, pawns grinding out their everyday existence in order to make the hive bigger, the company stronger, the boss richer? Doesn’t that bother you? You with your Oxford degree?”

“My time will come,” Cindy said.

“Are you sure?”

Cindy sat there, unable to hide a hint of rising doubt.

“Since you were ten, you’ve been after the big payday; you always said thirty million by thirty, three hundred million…”

“By forty,” Cindy reluctantly said.

“Wealth comes to risk takers, Cindy, not worker bees, not people who play it safe, and you’re playing it safe, Miss Polly Purebread. You believe in the promises of your chairman, you have faith in him, faith in the almighty dollar, yet your success is not a given. They’ll probably screw you with worthless options and a twenty-five-dollar retirement watch.”

“They’ll take care of me; I trust them.”

“And yet not your sister,” Iblis said as if proving a point. “So let me get this straight. You can have faith in a boss you’ve never met, you’ve handed over your future to him for the promise of a dollar, yet you refuse to even explore the existence of forces greater than man, of God, for the promise of eternal life.”

Cindy stared into Iblis’s eyes; she had little doubt of his fragile sanity, as he spoke of God yet wouldn’t hesitate to kill them if it meant getting his heart’s desire.

“We’re born, we live, we die. That’s it, nothing before, nothing after. No God, no magic or mystery, no heaven and hell. There is nothing you could do or say to convince me otherwise.”

“What if I showed you something?” Iblis unlaced the top of the leather tube, then unlatched the interior hasp. He removed the chart, reverently rolling it out on the table.

Cindy stared at the elaborate chart, never having seen anything like it in all her years. She looked up into the cold, lifeless eyes of her captor, curious about what he was showing her and why.

“What if I told you a secret,” Iblis continued, “that would change the way you think about everything?”

KC came down the three flights of stairs and cracked open the large white metal fire door. She peered out into the Istanbul morning; the heat of the day was already on the rise, the humidity straining each breath. The cobblestone street was vacant but for a few shopkeepers going about their routines to prep for the coming day.

She remained in the doorway, her heart racing, her feet ready to run, not sure if she was being watched by the cops, stalked by Iblis, or hunted by some unknown. And Michael—her mind was in a jumble over his betrayal. She had trusted him, made love to him. She didn’t question their passion, but that didn’t negate the fact that he was gone, along with the rod that she had stolen. She hoped he wasn’t trying something foolish. If Iblis was to find Michael still alive, she had no doubt the assassin wouldn’t fail the second time. She had less than five hours to find him and get the rod to Iblis, otherwise her sister and Simon and who knew who else would be dead.

And then the limo rounded the corner, moving slowly, heading her way. KC ducked back in the vestibule, leaving the door cracked open to watch its approach. The black car was out of place in this run-down section, incongruous among its surroundings. It wasn’t here by accident.

The car was creeping, searching, approaching as if it was ready to pounce. And as it finally rolled to a stop, the window came down.

KC released the building door, allowing it to fall shut with an echoing thud, and retreated into the recesses of the stairs, ready to run up.

“Good morning,” the voice called from outside.

And KC’s fear slipped from her mind. She opened the door to see Michael standing beside the limo, holding the car door open with his left hand, a brown paper bag in the other.

“You hungry?” Michael asked.

KC walked outside, glancing left to right, unable to contain her paranoia, and jumped into the back of the limo. Michael slid in behind her, closing the door, sealing them into the first safety KC had felt since waking up. The smell of fresh bread and coffee filled the car; the air-conditioning was on high, already fighting back the early-morning heat.

Michael smiled at her as he opened the bag and pulled out two flaky borek pastries and a bottle of water.

“Where the hell were you?” KC exploded, all her rage and frustration pouring out. “I’ve been calling. Can’t you answer your phone?”

Michael silently looked at her, his face awash in confusion. He slowly raised the brown bag. “Breakfast?”

“And you couldn’t leave me a note?”

Michael glanced to Busch, who manned the wheel. KC followed his eyes and verbally launched into Michael’s large friend. “And what’s up with you? You don’t answer your phone either?”

But Busch said nothing, turning his attention to the road as he put the car in gear and drove off.

“Where’s the rod? What the hell did you do with it?”

Michael held up his hands as if warding off a stampede. “Relax—”

“Relax, my ass. You had no right taking it.”

Michael held her eye as he lowered the breakfast bag and picked up the leather satchel from the floor, passing it to her. KC ripped it from Michael’s hands and fell silent, looking out the darkened window in a huff, like a child who had gotten her way but still wasn’t happy.

Michael handed her a borek and the bottled water; she snatched it
from his hands, ignoring him and the gesture, and turned her attention back to the city as it whizzed by in the rush hour.

Busch drove into the morning traffic, the car jumping and jerking, starting and stopping as they made their way across the ancient city. He had finally gotten the hang of driving in Istanbul, realizing it was an every-man-for-himself traffic blitzkrieg that could only be managed through aggressive selfishness, a game of ultimate chicken, with those who hesitated left in a snail-like crawl across town.

They all sat silently, each lost in thought, as they made their way past the Blue Mosque, its worshippers flooding out into the street upon the conclusion of morning prayers, past the Grand Bazaar and out onto Ataturk Bulvari. They drove across the Ataturk Bridge and into the modern world of the Asian side of the city.

It was all cosmopolitan, fresh and new, standing in stark contrast to the ancient masterpieces and district behind them.

“Do you mind telling me where we are going?” KC looked at Michael.

“Not particularly,” Michael was lost in his notebook computer that sat upon his lap.

KC ignored his flip response and scooted along the bench seat up to Busch.

“Will you tell me?” KC asked.

Busch was focused on a GPS display, following it as he drove. Two red blips intermittently shone: one in the center of the screen, the other in the upper right-hand corner. “What is that?”

“Did you eat breakfast?” Busch asked in hopes of changing the subject.

“What is that?” KC asked, getting annoyed. “Will someone please tell me where we are going?”

Busch glanced up at the rearview mirror, his eyes meeting Michael’s, and noting his acceding glance, Busch briefly turned an eye to KC. “We’re going to get your sister and Simon.”

* * *

T
HE PRIVATE ENCLAVE
sat on five acres of manicured lawns behind ten-foot stone walls. The three-story Mediterranean-style house overlooked the water and sang of wealth beyond compare.

An imposing wrought-iron gate served to warn of the security that sat behind the large walls. Two guards flanked the entrance while three cameras sat rather conspicuously atop tall white metal poles.

“Where the hell are we?” KC asked.

Busch removed the GPS monitor from the dash, the two red lights flashing side by side in the center of the screen. “We’re chasing the leather satchel with the chart.”

He turned to KC and held up a small chip, the size of a piece of chewing gum, placing it in her hand. “It’s waterproof. The battery is good for forty-eight hours.”

KC looked at him, confused.

“You flip that little switch on the side to activate it.” Busch’s enormous finger dwarfed the pinhead-sized button on the side of the chip.

KC flipped the switch and a third red dot appeared in the center of the GPS. She smiled. “Son of a bitch.”

“You’re not the first person to call him that. My feelings exactly.” Busch grinned.

KC’s brows furrowed as she looked closely at the digital GPS display. “If one is in that house, one is in my hand, where’s the third?”