Page 77 of Dead Fall

“Why this place?” asked Jacks. “Of all places. Why here? Why nuns?”

“Because they’re Orcs,” said Krueger. “It’s what they do. And whoever these Ravens are, they’re the worst of all the Orcs.”

“You’re right,” Harvath replied. “They are Orcs and the Ravensarethe worst of them. But there’s another reason they were here. They chose this place because the nuns had a secret. They were hiding something.”

“What the fuck could they have been hiding that warranted all of this?” Hookah asked, looking up at the suspended bodies.

“Nothing warrants any of this,” Harvath responded. “Nothing at all. But they weren’t here by coincidence. They were here looking for something and they were prepared to do whatever needed to be done to get it.”

“So, what the hell was it?”

Backing out of the chapel, Harvath motioned for the men to follow him.

They waited a moment for Biscuit, who, no longer throwing up, was resting his head against the cold stone wall. Helping him to the front door, they left him with the guards outside to take in some fresh air.

It didn’t take Harvath long to find the entrance to the basement, its heavy lock blown to bits.

They followed the stairs down and felt the temperature change as they descended into the bowels of the earth beneath the convent.

Multiple side rooms lined the low, hand-carved hall. All their doors had been left open and the contents of each room had been violently upended. Someone had definitely been searching for something down here.

The final room on the right-hand side was the ultimate target. Inside, a false wall had been breached, revealing a small chamber just beyond. Harvath stepped inside and swept his light from side to side.

Bare wooden pallets, placed along the floor, were all that the chamber now contained.

Jacks looked around. “What’s this?”

“It was supposed to be a safe haven.”

“A safe haven for what?” he asked as Hookah and Krueger joined them.

“When it became obvious that Russia intended to invade, Ukraine set up a very special type of resistance—an underground railroad of sorts, but for art.

“Museum directors, gallery owners, even private collectors all wanted to make sure that the country’s soul, its artistic and cultural heritage, wouldn’t be plundered and wiped out by the Russians. To make sure, they arranged for the nation’s most important and valuable pieces to be hidden away.

“Across the country, they identified what needed to be saved—illuminated manuscripts, sacred icons, even pieces of modern art—then appointed citizens to help smuggle and protect those pieces. The Mother of God Convent was one of the secret repositories.”

“What, specifically, were they hiding?” asked Krueger.

Harvath removed the list entrusted to him by the man with the briefcase. Cross-referencing the location with the specific item or items it was supposed to house, he replied, “A section of the Bohorodchany Iconostasis—a very big, very elaborate altarpiece.”

“How big?”

“When fully assembled, forty-two feet high by thirty-six feet wide. It was created in the late 1600s by an artist named Kondzelevych along with twenty carpenters, joiners, goldsmiths, and other artisans. It took seven years to create and is considered the pinnacle of Ukrainian art and the key to the country’s identity.”

“How did the Ravens know it was here?”

“I have no idea,” Harvath responded. “This has been a tightly held national security secret from the beginning.”

“Well, obviously somebody talked.”

Harvath nodded. “The French faced a similar problem in World War II. The Nazis were ravenous looters, especially when it came to art. From Paris alone, they spirited away countless boxcars full of priceless treasures. Remarkably, the Louvre Museum had acted early and had managed to get their most important pieces packed up and hidden before the Nazis took the city.”

“So, the Ravens are a marauding band of psychopathic art thieves?” asked Hookah, trying to piece it together.

“In a way, yeah.”

“But what’s any of this got to do with your hostage?” asked Krueger. “Was her orphanage a stop on the underground railroad?”

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