Ark of Fire

by C. M. Palov

  Satisfied that she was out of sight, he placed the long-handled garden hoe on the floor near the door, the blade pointing upward. In what he hoped would be Sanchez’s direct path. Then, removing the ax from his pocket, he positioned himself in a dark, cobweb-strewn corner.

  Knowing he would have but one chance with the dully honed ax, he waited.

  A few moments passed in tense silence. Then, as though scripted, the door to the cavernous room creaked open.

  In the next instant, Sanchez, looking like a battered chimney sweep, slowly entered the room, gripping a semiautomatic pistol in his right hand. A powerful weapon, it could blow a man’s head clean off his shoulders. Two steps into the room, Sanchez came to a standstill, scanning for the slightest hint of movement.

  Don’t move, Edie. For the love of God, don’t even think about moving.

  Caedmon held his breath, hoping that the other man didn’t glance downward, the hoe innocuously set some six feet from his booted right foot.

  Tightening his grip on the ax handle, he mentally envisioned the attack. A practice run. Having bowled many a cricket game while at Oxford, he first imagined hurling the ax in a straight-armed delivery. Knowing he wouldn’t get the desired height, he replayed the scenario in his mind’s eye, this time with bent elbow.

  He spared a quick sideways glance at the cart, relieved to see that Edie had faded into the shadows. His gaze then ricocheted back to Sanchez, who had taken a tentative step forward.

  He calculated the other man to be three steps from the upturned blade of the hoe.

  Then two steps.

  One step.

  As planned, the instant that Sanchez’s booted foot landed atop the blade, the hoe handle flew upward, hitting him square in the face. Like a child’s top, Sanchez unsteadily wobbled. With the element of surprise now on his side, Caedmon stepped out of the shadows and hurled the ax toward the other man’s chest.

  A dust-laden beam of light from the window glinted off the spinning ax blade.

  Instinctively Sanchez twisted, his arm protectively shielding his heart, parrying the blow as best he could.

  The dull blade caught him on the right bicep, slicing deep. But not deep enough; Sanchez grunted as he grasped the ax by the handle and yanked the blade out of his arm. His eyes glazed, but still cognizant, he searched the room, a gun in one hand, the bloody ax in the other.

  Seeing Caedmon standing in the corner, he narrowed his gaze.

  Slowly, in no apparent hurry to kill his quarry, Sanchez aimed the powerful pistol at a point somewhere in the middle of Caedmon’s head.

  There being nothing he could do to stop the bullet from reaching its intended target, he defiantly stood his ground.

  Smiling, Sanchez pulled the trigger.

  A dull click.

  The smile having suddenly vanished from his lips, Sanchez pulled the trigger a second time. Again, the only sound was the hollow click of the firing pin.

  Sanchez was out of ammunition.

  With a muttered oath, he dropped the gun. Then, in a quick blur, he was on Caedmon, swinging his arm, the ax blade aimed at his soft underbelly, the man clearly of a mind to eviscerate him. Caedmon leaped sideways, the blade missing him by a scant inch.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Caedmon saw Edie lurch to her feet.

  “You bastard!” she screamed. Wild-eyed, she grabbed a chain from a nearby wall hook and began swinging it over her head like a medieval mace.

  Endowed with enviably quick reflexes, Sanchez pivoted in Edie’s direction.

  Which is when Caedmon lifted his left foot off the ground, ramming his wellie into Sanchez’s kidneys. The well-aimed kick propelled the other man several feet, smashing his head into an array of metal instruments hanging from the wall. The ax slipped through his fingers, falling to the floor.

  Not giving his foe time to recover, Caedmon rushed forward. Securing one hand against the back of Sanchez’s skull and the other against his spine, he rammed the brute’s head against the metal cart.

  The rickety walls of the abattoir shook with the impact.

  Sanchez, a stunned, owl-like expression on his face, rolled into a fetal ball. A moment later, he opened his lips. To speak or scream, Caedmon knew not. The only thing emitted from his gaping mouth was a bright red trickle of blood. A second later his body shook with a mighty spasm, his feet convulsively jerking. Caedmon suspected that the other man’s brain battled on, still sending fight-or-flight messages to his limbs, his brain refusing to accept the inevitable, refusing to lie down and quietly die.

  Edie turned her head, unable to watch Sanchez in his death throes.

  A few seconds later, Caedmon placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  “He is gone. Where to, I can not say. Although I suspect he will be refused entry to the heavenly realm.”

  Edie glanced at the sprawled corpse. Deprived of that bit of animating spirit called the soul, bulging muscles were flaccid, eyes open wide in a ghoulish stare.

  “I need to get out of here.” Pushing him aside, Edie staggered toward the door.

  Going down on bent knee, Caedmon quickly searched through Sanchez’s pockets. The search concluded, he followed Edie out of the abattoir.

  Silently they stared at the wreck of a farm. On the wet breeze Caedmon heard the creak and groan of rotted wood. In the distance, a dilapidated shutter rattled against an equally dilapidated window frame.

  “Now what?”

  “If we are to steer the ship through the dense fog, we must remain calm,” he told her.

  “Couldn’t you have come up with a more uplifting cliché?”

  “Sorry. My brain is a bit mashed.” He showed her the cell phone that he had discovered in Sanchez’s coat pocket.

  “Do you think MacFarlane will give chase?”

  Caedmon thought about it for a moment before finally shaking his head. “He has the Ark. That is all he cares about.”

  CHAPTER 74

  Surely in that day there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel, so that the fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, the beasts of the field, all creeping things that creep on the earth, and all men who are on the face of the earth shall shake at My presence. The mountains shall be thrown down, the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.

  Opening the storage compartment in the middle of the SUV’s console, Stanford MacFarlane stowed his well-worn Bible; the words of the prophet Ezekiel never ceased to inspire him.

  Beside him in the driver’s seat, his gunnery sergeant muttered under his breath, complaining yet again about having to drive on the left side of the road. Stan ignored him. They would be in Margate soon enough. A small fishing boat docked at the harbor would enable them to bypass British customs.

  Again, he craned his neck, his eyes alighting on the well-padded shipping crate placed in the Range Rover’s cargo hold.

  The Ark of the Covenant.

  It had taken more than twenty years for him to find that most sacred of relics. His search ordained by God, he had tracked down every lead, every rumor, every crackpot theory regarding the Ark; his search had taken him to the distant corners of the globe. Ethiopia. Iraq. Southern France. One by one, each theory had been discredited, leaving only the quatrains of the medieval knight Galen of Godmersham.

  Again, he glanced at the shipping container, experiencing a tingling sensation. As though his entire body were enveloped in a static electric field.

  The Lord was near at hand! He could feel it!

  For it was at the Ark that God, made manifest, had appeared to Moses. The Ark not only embodied the Almighty, it was the symbol of God’s promise to His chosen people. Nothing had changed. It was now as it had been then. Adorned with the Stones of Fire, he, too, would be able to speak with the Almighty. Just as Moses had conversed with God in the wilderness.

  That heady thought gave rise to a vision in his mind’s eye; Stan could hear the blast of trumpets and the clang of cymbals, the shouts and cheers, a
throng of men joyfully singing hosannas. As though thirty-five hundred years had come and gone in the blink of an eye.

  All praise to God the Almighty!

  He knew full well that God’s plan for mankind had been formulated in the Garden of Eden and that it would end with a new paradise where those worthy of God’s blessings would enjoy a thousand years of peace and prosperity. Finally, the rest well deserved, the warriors would put aside their bloody weapons and lie side by side with the meek and gentle lamb.

  With astounding clarity, the prophet Ezekiel had seen the crimson future that would proceed the golden dawn.

  Stan did not doubt that Ezekiel’s prophecy would soon unfold, taking an unprepared world by storm. The future was already written, prophecy the gift that God gave to quell man’s fear in the face of the dark and violent nights that were to come.

  And when Ezekiel’s prophesized war finally came, sinful man would have no doubt as to God’s existence.

  Those would be dark days. Days that would push human-kind to the limits of their endurance. But those who refused to traffic with the enemy would be reborn in the new world to come. A time of rest for the people of God. When the deserts of the earth would be made fertile and when the Dead Sea would no longer be dead. Ezekiel foretold of how those waters would be stocked with the very fish that would feed the new kingdom of God.

  A thousand years of peace. Time for an old warhorse to at long last take his rest.

  Reaching into his pocket, Stan removed his BlackBerry, quickly typing out a numeric code with his thumbs. Double-checking each digit, he sent the text message, knowing it would simultaneously reach members of Rosemont Security Consultants stationed in Europe and the Middle East. Battle orders issued, he returned the device to his pocket.

  As they approached the Margate town limits, Stan thought of the Englishman and his harlot. Their execution was well deserved, and he felt no pity for them. Instead, a wave of hatred washed over him. Hate was good. Cleansing even. Hate enabled a man to slay the infidel and slaughter the sinner.

  He would put his hate to good use in the days to come.

  CHAPTER 75

  “I know this is going to sound crazy, but I’m actually sad,” Edie confessed, taking the proffered coffee cup from Caedmon’s outstretched hand. “Angry, but sad. I mean those two guys were a couple of homophobic misanthropes in dire need of some sensitivity training. But watching them die was—” She broke off and stared at the narrow roadway that fronted the public bench.

  Coffee cup in hand, Caedmon seated himself beside her. He, too, gloomily stared at the main thoroughfare that ran through the middle of the small seaside port of Gilchrist.

  Knowing that the local constabulary would be drawn to the plumes of black smoke produced by the Range Rover explosion, and that, in turn, would lead them to at least one dead body, he’d used the pilfered GPS receiver to plot a course in the opposite direction from the charred ruins. Although exhausted, they’d tramped through deserted farmers’ fields, eventually arriving at their present location. Unwelcoming in the way that small clannish enclaves tended to be, Gilchrist had about it the distinct scent of salt and dead fish, the town’s only saving grace being that it had a coach depot. Assuming one could call a metal-covered bench situated only six feet from the roadway a proper depot.

  Raising the paper cup to his lips, Caedmon took a sip of the horrible-tasting brew that he’d purchased at the fish-and-chip shop across the way. According to the reticent fellow behind the counter, the afternoon coach to London was due to arrive in forty minutes.

  “It’s never easy to witness the extinction of a life,” he replied, also haunted by the deaths of Harliss and Sanchez. “Try as one might to erase the memory, it leaves an imprint on your soul.”

  “Not for MacFarlane or his men.” Raising the plastic lid, Edie took several swallows. Only to grimace a few seconds later from the bitter aftertaste. “They wholeheartedly believe that when they pull the trigger, they’re doing God’s work.”

  “Somehow I doubt that MacFarlane’s God would have much truck with those of us who long for peace, not war.”

  Sighing, Edie wrapped her free arm around his waist, leaning her head on his shoulder. “I don’t know about you, but I’m in desperate need of a group hug.”

  As am I, love. As am I.

  The web of life was fragile, indeed, and he hoped this day’s atrocities would quickly recede from Edie’s memory. Hoped she could forget what she’d witnessed. And forgive what she’d seen him do. As soon as they reached London, he intended to call in a favor from an old chum at MI5 and have her placed in an out-of-the way safe house. Some place where Stanford MacFarlane and his assassins could never find her.

  Edie inclined her head away from his shoulder. “What do you think MacFarlane plans to do now that he has the Ark?”

  “The first order of business will be to get the relic out of Britain. If he’s discovered with the Ark on English soil, not only will the bloody thing will be confiscated, it will be sent directly to the British Museum.” Where it would draw larger crowds than the Rosetta stone, the Elgin Marbles, and the Sutton Hoo treasure combined.

  He removed the nicked GPS receiver from his anorak pocket. “It’ll take a few moments to initialize,” he informed her as he hit the Power button. He held the receiver aloft to get a satellite fix on their position. A few seconds later, glancing at the small display screen, he said with a teasing smile, “Ah, we are exactly where we should be.”

  Edie halfheartedly returned the smile. “Since I have yet to correctly program the TV remote, I’ll have to trust you on that one. But isn’t the GPS receiver a bit superfluous? I mean, we’re here already and we know where ‘here’ is located.”

  “On the contrary. Given that this is a handheld computer with satellite capabilities, untold information could be stored on the device.” Using the NAV key, he accessed a database file of saved maps. “Now, isn’t this interesting. A number of maps were recently downloaded. According to the list, there are maps for Oxford, Oxfordshire, Godmersham, Swanley, and—” He stared at the list, stunned.

  “Come on, Caedmon. I can only hold my bated breath for so long.”

  “And Malta,” he replied, turning the receiver in her direction.

  “Malta?” Tapping her pursed lips, she stared at the display screen. “Although world geography isn’t one of my strong suits, I seem to recall that Malta is a spit of an island located in the Mediterranean Sea. Do you think that’s where MacFarlane is headed?”

  “Given that the list of maps perfectly corresponds to MacFarlane’s known movements in the last seventy-two hours, we must assume that Malta is his intended destination.” And how very ironic, given that the diminutive isle had once been home to the Knights of St. John, the same order of warrior monks to which Galen of Godmersham had been an initiated member.

  “Isn’t Malta where St. Paul was shipwrecked while en route to Rome?”

  “Hmm? Er, yes,” he answered, interrupted from his reveries. “As a crossroads between Africa and Europe, the island has hosted many a famed and infamous personage during its turbulent history.”

  “But why would MacFarlane take the Ark to Malta?”

  Caedmon shrugged, admittedly at a loss. “The dreams of a madman are difficult to decipher.”

  “I’m guessing that getting the Ark out of England is going to be an even more difficult feat, what with airport security having tightened considerably in recent years.”

  “Which is why Stanford MacFarlane will no doubt transport the Ark via a shipping vessel. An innocuous boat leaving port in the dead of night sounds about right.” As he spoke, the mobile phone in his pocket began to shrilly beep.

  “What’s that?”

  Caedmon shoved his hand into his anorak pocket and removed the mobile he’d taken from Sanchez. He glanced at the digital display.

  “Unless I’m greatly mistaken, we’ve just been given Stanford MacFarlane’s next chess move,” he said, showing her the fl
ash message.

  104-13-94-38-35-17-89-62-122-57-19-97-33-26-42-109-86- 70-40-9-53-2-119

  “Well, will ya look at that? It’s some sort of a text message sent by an unnamed person at Rosemont Security Consultants. Although I don’t know that I would call it a text message per se, since it appears to be nothing more than a numeric list.”

  “A coded numeric list, I daresay.” Caedmon suspected that Stanford MacFarlane maintained contact with his troops with flash messages sent via mobile phones. A brilliant means of communication in the satellite age, enabling MacFarlane to simultaneously issue battle orders to followers across the globe.

  “If only we had the encryption code,” he murmured.

  “Do you think the encryption has anything to do with the map of Malta that we found on the GPS receiver?”

  “Mmmm . . . difficult to say.” His gaze ricocheted between the receiver and the mobile. “Probably not, given that Harliss was the only one of MacFarlane’s men to carry a satellite receiver. I suspect that MacFarlane moves his chess pieces very carefully across the board, revealing the master plan in dribs and drabs.”

  “Where do we begin the hunt?”

  “In Malta. However, from this point forward, there is no more ‘we.’”

  When Edie heard that, her brown eyes furiously gleamed. “So, in other words, you’re planning to dump me and chase after MacFarlane on your own.”

  “Rather than ‘chase after MacFarlane,’ I intend to retrieve the Ark.” Getting up from the bench, he walked over to the nearby trash receptacle and tossed his coffee cup into the plastic-lined can.

  He had no delusions as to the difficulty of the task he’d set for himself. Tracking down MacFarlane and actually confiscating the Ark of the Covenant would more than likely prove an impossible, if not deadly, undertaking. But try he must. The GPS receiver had proved a godsend. Now, at least, he knew where to hunt for his nemesis.

  Grabbing him by the wrist, Edie urged him to retake his seat on the bench. “I know you’re worried about me. That said, going after the Ark isn’t a one-man job. You’re going to need all the help you can get to vanquish MacFarlane and his Warriors of—”