The History Thief: Ten Days Lost (The Sterling Novels) (69 page)

Turning to Michael, the old man reached out and embraced Michael’s left wrist awkwardly with both hands and smiled. His thumb pushed into the face of Michael’s watch, causing it to dig into his arm sharply. The old man didn’t seem to notice as he said, “Please do be careful in my archives, Dr. Sterling. I trust that you know full well it isn’t time that’s on your side.”

Letting go of Michael, with no other words said, the old man shuffled away, doing his best to catch up to the group.

Michael, York, and Sonia encircled the colonel, who slowly opened his hand. In it was a small brass key. The colonel looked left and right and when sure he was alone, he walked toward a nondescript wooden door near where they stood and inserted the key.

A slight metallic click announced that the door was unlocked, and the four of them quickly made their way through it.

The spiraling narrow staircase was of a slightly dirtied—better put, it was irreversibly darkened from extensive use—white marble; it encircled a small wire-caged elevator. They all followed the colonel, who had taken the lead; at the top was another door. This one was clearly unlocked; it was the crack of light that split the door and its frame that told them so.

Michael looked at the colonel. He nodded and pushed the door fully open.

Walking inside, Sonia was nearly robbed of her breath as her eyes darted around. The walls of the room towered thirty feet over them and were covered nearly completely from top to bottom by brilliant and rich frescos of landscapes, the sky, angels and apostles—dense imagery and detailed moments from the Bible.

The Tower of Winds.

The colors were dramatic, vibrant, and alive.

The room seemed to move.

Overhead, the vaulted arches of the Tower of Winds were covered with the
Allegories of the Seasons
: magnificent and meticulously detailed depictions of summer, autumn, winter, and spring. Sonia was struck by the feeling of movement and had to catch herself from nearly losing her balance as her mind played with vertigo.

Sonia focused on a spot overhead to counter the slight dizziness she felt. It was a mistake. The ceiling was painted with a sky so realistic the clouds gave the faux appearance of depth and circular movement. She stumbled from the effect.

Sonia exhaled quickly and shot her eyes toward the floor. Latching onto a spot that obviously was steadfast, she regained her balance.

Colonel Camini leaned in and whispered, “That happened to me, too, the first time I was here. It’ll pass.”

Sonia offered a weak smile.

Michael looked up at the ceiling; adorning the bulbous clouds, he saw, were the pale bodies of celestial figures that circumambulated in the center of the ceiling a simple but odd-looking device.

In the middle of the bold blue of the densely painted ceiling, which was split by the high rising arches, was a metal wind rose, its points capped with stars. It looked at least three feet long and punctuated the high center of the room; its long iron hand was frozen in time—just as the parchment had said:
the wind no longer blows.

Sonia pointed upward, and all eyes followed.

“The anemoscope?” asked York.

“It is,” answered Michael without emotion.

The anemoscope.

While all eyes stared upward, Michael retraced his downward glance to the tiled floor. The symmetry of stone was laid out in mosaic fashion. To most, the floor would come across as unremarkable in contrast to the near confusion of brilliant artwork splashed across every other part of the room.

Michael followed the length of the room with a slow stare; the middle of the room was split by a narrow but long white marble line that ran north and south.

The meridian line.

Surrounding the meridian line were outlines of concentric circles of dark stone; each subsequent outline reduced in size as each made its way toward the room’s center. There, an eight-pointed circular rosette was carved in white marble.

Michael walked to the round piece of white marble and stood over it, studying its features. Nothing stood out, and he furrowed his brow.

While Michael stared at the circular disc on the floor, Sonia and the colonel walked nearly side by side around the room. York was close behind. As they moved, the colonel pointed out and named the artwork. At the south wall, he said, “
The Shipwreck of St. Paul in Malta
.”

They continued walking clockwise around the room from the west wall to north, east, and finally the south wall. The colonel continued to name the frescoes, “
The Allegory of the North Wind
, the
Oriental Heresies
, and finally, one of my favorites:
The Calming of the Storm and Epileptic Demoniac
.”

“That’s some name, Colonel,” Sonia proclaimed as she moved closer to the wall to inspect the richly detailed fresco.

“It’s from the Book of Mark and depicts two of Jesus’s miracles. Here,” the colonel pointed to a man being held by another; nearby, a third man looks ready to strike the held man with a heavy club but was being restrained by another from doing so. “That is the Epileptic Demoniac—a boy plagued with the evil spirit has it driven out by Jesus. And in the background, on the water, you can see a vessel where Jesus sat as he calmed the torrent of the Sea of Galilee.”

“They’re just heavenly,” Sonia proclaimed. It was the only thing that she could think to say.

York had been listening and interrupted, “Miracles and demons; controlling the weather? It looks like just another self-serving, flamboyant painting to me. You know what I see?” York’s question was meant to be rhetorical, and he continued, “I see a couple years’ worth of work that made one guy richer while letting a couple thousand families go without food, proper clothing, or adequate shelter, so that this church could boast about some over-the-top brushstrokes of a man and time that are both irrelevant. Yeah,” York blurted as he shoved roughly past the colonel, “that’s what I see: a reminder that those of us without any power or wealth are insignificant and unimportant, nothing more than pests or pawns. Take your pick.”

The colonel remained collected and turned to the young Green Beret; his words echoed across the stone and plaster of the room, “They are allegories, Staff Sergeant.” And then the colonel did something that surprised all of them, Michael included. He put a paternal hand on the shoulder of York and calmly said, “Young man, the painting tells of the need to have faith, even when we are feeling our darkest pains of despair, when we are tormented with no end in sight to the fury. It is a reminder that it is faith that will heal us.”

York didn’t say a word. He thought of his dead men, of his wife. He wanted to hate the colonel, but couldn’t, try as he might. There was something genuine in his nature and a commitment in his tone. He hated that he knew the colonel was a good man; he wanted to despise him. York’s eyes glanced away. He didn’t want to look at the colonel; instead, glancing over the man’s shoulder, what he saw quickly, and thankfully, snapped his attention elsewhere.

In the corner of the room and adorning the cutout of the door they had used to enter the Tower of Winds was another painting, one the colonel hadn’t yet told them about.

The Angel Marks the Forehead of the Chosen.

“Doc,” York called out, shaking the colonel’s hand from his shoulder, “take a look.” York pointed toward the door that they had walked through, over which was the painting.

Sonia caught the colonel’s eye and silently acknowledged what he had tried to do.

Michael moved toward where York now stood rigid; Sonia and the colonel joined in the movement toward the fresco. All gazed upon it. It was identical to the one in the colonel’s castle, although much larger.

There was one slight difference, however, and it immediately caught Michael’s attention. The angel towered prominently in the center of the painting and was painted much more brightly than the other figures. Around the angel’s head was a very large, and even brighter, halo that looked quite solar.

“Now what?” York asked.

It was a question that all had been thinking.

Michael couldn’t help but to lock his eyes on the angel and the halo. Inexplicably, he looked back at the meridian line and the white marble disc, and then back to the halo surrounding the angel.

“Colonel, what time is it?”

The colonel looked at his watch and replied, “Less than ten minutes shy of noon, Michael—why?”

Michael didn’t respond and anxiously moved back to the circle and the meridian line; he was facing the south wall and staring intently. But it wasn’t the painting that he studied.

Michael’s mind was running like the raging current of a flooded Colorado river. He snapped his head left and right and then up to the ceiling. He paced quickly around the round white marble disc on the floor.

And then he walked around it again—this time in the opposite direction.

“What is it, Michael?” Sonia asked as she moved closer to Michael and the center of the room.

“I’m not sure,” replied Michael. “Colonel, the medallion—please give it to me.”

The colonel walked toward Michael with his hand in his pocket. He was pulling out the round medallion, but before he could give it to Michael, a long, shrill scream spilled from Sonia’s lips.

Across the colonel’s face was an interesting mix of surprise and fear where there should have been pain.

The large, capable man fell slowly to both knees with little drama, given what just had occurred.

In the middle of the room, Michael stood in front of the colonel, who was now fully on his knees and barely able to maintain his balance. His hands were draped loosely at his sides. A slow trickle of blood dripped from the right corner of his mouth. He looked curiously at Michael. The colonel slowly uncurled his fingers, and the medallion fell quietly from his palm to where his fingertips met the stone.

Michael’s return stare was without emotion; instead, his eyes were firmly latched onto another man.

Behind the fallen colonel, a stocky man stood with his right arm outstretched. In it, his silenced Glock had a slow-rising stream of blue smoke.

Sonia was wrapped strongly in his left arm.

York was frozen but sizing up the man.

It didn’t matter.

With a snap of his wrist, the end of the gun was aimed at York. Gerald pulled the trigger.

Another silenced shot.

York fell, only able to spill out a quiet grunt.

Sonia tried to scream but was met with sound of nothing; her voice failed her.

Michael calculated the scene.

Two men were down; his wife was a captive.

He waited for the man to speak.

“Pick it up, Dr. Sterling,” Gerald commanded as he nodded toward the medallion that had fallen from the colonel’s limp hand.

Michael did as he was told. He shared a moment with Sonia as their eyes locked. His glance spoke of the need to be calm; hers said that she would comply, understanding his request. Instantly, she relaxed her muscles and let the fear-driven tension melt away.

She trusted her husband.

Michael bent down to one knee in front of the colonel and picked up the medallion. The colonel pushed himself onto one hand, smiled at Michael, and weakly said, “I’m sorry, Michael. I wish you luck.”

And then he grunted oddly; a bit of bloody sputum gurgled atop his lip, and he fell into Michael’s arms. Michael gently laid the colonel to his side and wiped away the blood. Cupping the back of his old friend’s head, Michael replied, “I am sorry, too, Colonel.”

The colonel’s eyes were closed, but he whispered words that only Michael could hear, “The medallion is the key: ein gift.”

And then the colonel’s last breath passed over his already ashen lips.

Michael silently mourned, the emotion quickly turning to anger. He bore a stare into the armed man that promised vengeance and matter-of-factly growled, “Let her go; you and I can manage this from here.”

“And if I don’t, Dr. Sterling?” Gerald answered.

Michael was pithy and snarled evenly; there was an icy sincerity in his stare: “I will kill you.”

This caused Gerald to smile. “Your reputation certainly is spot-on, Dr. Sterling. I’ve heard that you don’t beat around the bush. So let me respond in kind. Take me to the king’s body, or she dies.” Gerald turned the silenced weapon toward Sonia’s temple. It was the second time in less than a day that Michael had seen his wife in the grips of death; it didn’t make it any easier.

Michael squeezed the medallion while frantically dissecting the colonel’s last words:
the medallion is the key—ein gift.
“The king’s body? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Michael lied, trying to buy some time.

Gerald screamed back; his carotid artery bulged in tandem with each escalating syllable. “Don’t fucking toy with me! You know very well that Sebastian’s body is here! Now finish your job and find him!”

“Not until you let her go!” Michael shouted as he stood and faced the man squarely.