by Chloe Palov
‘I certainly hope so.’ Smiling, Edie caressed his stubbled cheek, making him wish he’d had the time to use the disposable razor he’d purchased in Naples. ‘Being a well-travelled man, you’ve undoubtedly heard of the mile-high club.’ As she spoke, she traced the outline of his lips with the tip of her finger.
‘Er, yes. Although, alas, I’m not a member.’
‘How would you, instead, like to become a bona fide, card-carrying member of the high-seas club?’
He held her stare, silently communicating a wicked and slightly outrageous fantasy. One that involved her sweetly rounded arse and the upholstered bench he’d earlier spied in their cabin.
‘I believe I would enjoy that greatly,’ he replied.
‘And, of course, it goes without saying that membership has its perks.’ She winked at him. Just before she reached down and brazenly cupped his testicles.
Afraid she might have taken public indecency too far, he furtively glanced over his shoulder, relieved to see that they were now alone on deck.
‘How fast do you think we can get to our cabin?’
‘Not fast enough,’ he muttered, smoothing his palm across the front of his corduroy trousers, rearranging himself as best he could.
Taking her by the arm, he strode down the gangway, Edie having to jog to keep up with him. It took only a few moments for them to reach their cabin, his hand shaking as he inserted the key into the lock. He wasted no time dragging her inside, slamming the door shut behind them.
Neither spoke, the only sound being their harshly drawn breaths. A shaft of orange light emanated from the small WC on the other side of the room. While hardly romantic, it did cast a warm glow.
Aching from the want of her, Cædmon stood with his fists tightly clenched at his sides, afraid that he might overwhelm her with the intensity of his passion.
He wanted to go slowly. To be considerate. To savour each and every moment.
He feared it might not be possible.
‘You’ve bewitched me,’ he murmured hoarsely, reaching for her, unable to restrain himself another second.
Splaying his hands on her bottom, he lifted her onto her toes and nestled her against his straining cock. He rocked back and forth, burying his face in the luxurious mass of brown curls. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt so strongly about a woman. It had been years. Decades even. This had the feel and urgency of his youth.
Worried he might start growling like an animal in rut, he sought her lips, kissing her deeply, fusing his mouth to hers.
It was Edie who finally pulled away, laughing as she did so. ‘Clothes off this time, okay?’
‘Right.’
Guiltily aware that she was referring to the standup quickie in Canterbury, Cædmon released his hold on her bottom and immediately started kicking off his shoes and unfastening buttons.
Still chuckling, Edie did likewise, removing her jacket and tossing it onto the upholstered bench. Her jeans and turtleneck jumper soon followed. Then, proving herself a confident woman, she pulled off her bra and wound it over her head like a lasso before slinging it across the room. Seeing the small bumblebee tattooed on the ball of her right shoulder, he smiled.
‘An impulsive moment of youthful indiscretion, I’ll wager.’
Craning her neck, Edie glanced at the whimsy. ‘I’ll have you know that for a good many years I took every opportunity to show off my tat. How about you, any skeletons in the closet?’
‘If you’re asking if I ever sported a green Mohawk or a pair of trousers made from a tattered Union Jack, the answer is no.’
‘It’s never too late,’ she retorted, barely able to stifle a giggle. As she spoke, she slid her hands under the waistband of his pants and slipped them off his hips. She then grasped him, moving her hand up and down the throbbing length of him. He thought it best not to mention that bees were the age-old symbol of chaste womanhood.
‘You’re liable to cause an explosion if you keep that up,’ he groaned, entranced by the sight of her hand brazenly fondling his organ.
‘Oh dear. The British are coming! The British are coming!’
Snatching her hand, he pulled her towards him, crushing her bare breasts against his chest as he backed her towards the bed. Gently he nudged Edie down onto the edge of the mattress and knelt before her. Prying her legs apart, he kissed his way up her inner thigh, rubbing his unshaved face against her warm soft skin. Then, bracketing his thumbs on either side of her genitalia, he gently pulled aside the plump folds. As he did, the blood rushed from his heart to his cock in painful surges.
‘The stuff of dreams,’ he whispered, mesmerized by her lush beauty.
He didn’t know what tomorrow would bring. But for now you’re mine. He pressed his mouth to her, laving her with his tongue.
‘Umm… you just hit the sweet spot,’ Edie crooned, leaning back on her hands, her hips coming several inches off the bed. Again proving the bumblebee a poor choice for a tattoo. A few moments later she pulled away from him. ‘That’s way more than I can handle. Too much more and I’ll fall overboard.’
Not about to let her escape, he clambered onto the bed. Covering her body with his, he took a swollen nipple into his mouth and suckled. As he did, he thrust into her. Deeply. Forcefully. Their two bodies melded into one.
Who possessed whom in that instant, he couldn’t say.
Levering his torso away from her breasts, Cædmon raised himself onto his forearms. Edie unabashedly stared at the in-and-out movement of his sex.
‘Now that is what I call a Kodak moment,’ she said with a husky laugh.
‘If you pull out a bloody camera, I’m leaving.’
‘I wouldn’t have taken you for the modest type,’ again she laughed, ‘Big Red.’
Sliding a proprietary hand beneath her hips, he angled her up. ‘I can’t take credit for the colour and the size is entirely your fault.’
‘Oh, God, that feels –’
‘Better,’ he grunted, pressing her thighs to her chest, increasing the friction.
‘Umm… just like that… perfect.’ Smiling, she grasped him by the shoulders. ‘Is this totally crazy or what?’
His climax fast approaching, he somehow found the wherewithal to say, ‘Actually, this is the one sane act in a world gone mad.’
77
It was a moment of quiet intimacy. Of murmured endearments. Life slowed down to its simplest, most lovely, facet.
In the midst of the quietude, Edie felt a spark. She snuggled closer to Cædmon, burrowing her head into the crook of his bare shoulder. This not being the first time she’d felt the spark, she wondered if anything would come of it.
Could anything come of it?
On paper she gave their relationship the shelf life of a carton of milk. If that. They were simply two sexually healthy people caught up in the excitement of the moment. Although, glancing at the small clock mounted on the wall, she could see that the excitement had lasted quite a few hours.
‘You do know that this… this attraction is nothing more than a primitive urge,’ she said, propping her head on his chest.
‘Perhaps it must be primitive in order for us to forget our preconceived notions of what should and shouldn’t be.’
Hmm… it sounded as though he’d given their relationship more than a passing thought.
‘And maybe Freud was right – about there being no such thing as pure unadulterated love. Maybe there’s sexual need and nothing else,’ she countered, testing him.
‘I suspect Freud was an impotent bugger who wouldn’t have known love if it had slapped him in his bearded face. Let’s not analyze it; let’s just accept it, whatever it is, as a beginning. Tentative and tenuous perhaps, but a beginning nonetheless.’
She smiled, Cædmon having passed the test with flying colours.
‘Agreed. But if you think I’m one of those women who’d settle for a man just because he puts down the toilet seat, think again.’
‘Point taken. Although I hope
I get several bonus points for being considerate.’
‘Change of subject,’ she announced. ‘I’m curious as to what would have happened if you had stayed at Oxford and received your doctorate?’
‘You mean how my life would have unfolded?’ When she nodded, he said, ‘In a very conventional way, no doubt. I would have got a college post, most likely at Queen’s. At which point my life would have become a steady stream of tutorials, committee meetings and university functions.’
‘You know, I’m one of those people who believe that things happen for a reason. Personally, I don’t think you were meant to live a sheltered life. Just look at Sir Kenneth Campbell-Brown. Okay, the man is brilliant, but he’s also a confirmed alcoholic bachelor. You were meant for a better life.’
Smiling, Cædmon brushed his lips against hers. ‘At the mention of the path not taken, I feel strangely glad.’
‘Me too.’
‘Bloody hell,’ he abruptly exclaimed a half-second later. ‘How do terrorists communicate with one another?’
Surprised by the unexpected question, she lifted a shoulder. ‘Beats me. Although I suspect the answer is not carrier pigeons.’
‘Correct. They communicate via the internet,’ he informed her, his blue eyes shining. ‘Which enables them to pass messages to cells and operatives all over the globe. Perhaps MacFarlane and his Warriors of God are no different.’
‘Okay, suppose that’s true. How does the message on Sanchez’s cell phone fit in? I thought that was how MacFarlane was communicating with his men.’
‘When we first received the flash message, I thought that a communiqué had been encoded into the numbers and that an encryption key would be needed to decipher the message. But what if the list of numbers is the encryption key?’
‘Sorry, I’m not following.’ Edie propped her head on her hand.
‘Knowing he can’t be too careful about sending messages across the globe, MacFarlane might have devised a two-part mode of communication. The first part being the numeric list that was sent to Sanchez’s mobile phone.’
‘And the second?’
‘Mind you, this is mere speculation, but the second piece of the puzzle might be the Warriors of God website.’
‘You’re talking about the website we checked out back in DC, right?’
Cædmon shrugged. ‘As I said, it’s only a theory.’
‘So, let me make sure I’ve got this straight,’ she said, still uncertain how all the pieces fitted together. ‘You think there might be a message encoded in the Warriors of God web page and that this message can only be decoded using the numeric list from the text message.’
‘There’s only one way to find out. Unless I’m mistaken, this boat is equipped with Inmarsat.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A mobile communications system that enables internet access while at sea.’
Throwing back the sheet, Edie swung her feet to the floor. ‘Well, what are we waiting for?’
78
‘Doom and gloom of the worst sort, eh?’
Sitting side by side in front of the ship’s computer monitor, Edie and Cædmon stared at the Warriors of God home page.
Unnerved by its apocalyptic content, Edie shuddered. ‘You don’t really think there’s a secret message buried somewhere, do ya?’
Leaning back in his chair, Cædmon tapped his index finger against his chin. Several seconds passed in contemplative silence before he finally said, ‘My guess is that MacFarlane has used a simple alphanumeric substitution cipher. Since his flash message was intended for mass consumption, I doubt if he would employ too elaborate a code.’
‘The old KISS rule, huh?’ Seeing Cædmon’s quizzical expression, she smiled. ‘As in “Keep it simple, stupid.”’
Cædmon chuckled. ‘Let’s hope we’re right. Employing the KISS rule, I suggest we consecutively number each letter and punctuation mark in MacFarlane’s diatribe.’
Using a pencil, he carefully wrote out the ‘The Warrior’s Diary’ text on a sheet of paper. He then sequentially numbered each letter and punctuation mark.
While Cædmon busied himself with the cipher, Edie glanced nervously around, the ship’s internet computer set up in the very public club room. A few tables away a middle-aged quartet played cards. From the cigarette butts overflowing the table’s only ashtray, she guessed that they had been playing for some time. About twenty feet away, a well-dressed older man and his much younger male companion were huddled together in front of a soft-drink machine. And on the other side of the club room a harried mother openly breastfed her infant.
‘I’ll have you know that this is the same cipher that won you Yanks your independence, the words “revolution” and “patriot” being dead giveaways.’
Her eyes opened wide. ‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘Not in the least. Created by Benjamin Franklin, this particular alphanumeric cipher was used to code messages between the Continental Congress and sympathetic French diplomats. Would you like to do the honours?’ Cædmon offered her the pencil.
Taking the implement, Edie first glanced at the alphanumeric chart that he had created from MacFarlane’s web page.
Then she glanced at the list of numbers from the text message: 105-13-95-39-17-35-90-63-123-51-20-98-34-27-43- 110-87-71-41-9-54-2-120.
‘Wish me luck.’
Cædmon having done all the work, it only took a few moments for her to write out the deciphered message: ‘dome of the rock eid al-adha’.
Neither of them said anything, Edie not altogether sure what, if anything, the message meant.
‘The Dome of the Rock is the big gold-leafed Islamic shrine that sits on top of the Temple Mount, right?’
‘The most famous silhouette on the Jerusalem skyline,’ he confirmed, Edie able to detect a husky catch in his voice.
‘MacFarlane’s message means something to you, doesn’t it?’
Still staring at the decoded message, Cædmon nodded slowly. ‘I now know why Stanford Mac-Farlane and all of his men wear the Jerusalem cross ring. As you no doubt recall, the Jerusalem cross was the symbol adopted by the medieval crusaders when they conquered the Holy City in 1099.’ The entire time he spoke, he stared at the decoded message.
‘And why do you think that’s significant?’ she prodded, not altogether certain she wanted to know the answer.
‘Because Jerusalem was theirs for less than a hundred years, the Muslims under Saladin retaking the city in 1187.’ Suddenly resembling a sad-faced crusader from a medieval woodcut, Cædmon turned his head and looked at her. ‘I think MacFarlane has taken up the crusaders’ cause.’
‘What cause?’
‘Like the medieval crusaders, MacFarlane and his men intend to conquer the Holy City, and their first target is the Dome of the Rock.’
Edie’s jaw dropped. ‘When? How?’
‘I have no idea as to how. As to when, it seems they intend to attack on the Islamic holy day of Eid al-Adha. Which this year, unless I’m greatly mistaken, falls on December the eighth.’
‘But that’s only two and a half days away.’
79
‘Giving us very little time.’
As he spoke, Cædmon was acutely, painfully, aware of the play of opposites. Good and evil. Love and hate. Life and death.
‘So are you saying that MacFarlane intends to destroy the Dome of the Rock on December the eighth?’
‘It does fit in with all his apocalyptic posturing. And there’s a certain irony in his selection of the day, Eid al-Adha being the Muslim day of sacrifice, commemorating the day when Abraham intended to sacrifice his beloved son Ishmael to prove his love to Allah. The Dome of the Rock marks the precise location of where the sacrifice was to have taken place. It is also the spot where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. Making the Dome of the Rock the third-holiest site in all of Islam.’
‘Right behind Mecca and Medina.’
He nodded, staggered by MacFarlane’s dark vision. Eid al-Adha. Th
e Day of Sacrifice. Muslim worshippers would be packed onto the Temple Mount. Thousands of them.
‘Maybe we need to pull back a bit. I mean, the encrypted message doesn’t specifically mention anything about destroying the Dome of the Rock,’ Edie pointed out, playing devil’s advocate.
‘But MacFarlane did unequivocally state that he intends to install the Ark of the Covenant in the newly constructed temple,’ he countered. ‘And it’s surely no coincidence that the Dome of the Rock sits on the very spot where Solomon’s Temple once stood.’
‘Solomon’s Temple?’ Edie gave him a long wordless stare, her pupils contracting into microdots. ‘Oh God… I didn’t know,’ she murmured. ‘That changes everything.’
‘The terrible thing about the truth is that sometimes you find it. Since the Temple Mount is a holy site for the three major religions of the world, over the centuries it has been one of the most fought-over pieces of land anywhere.’ The history of the Temple Mount was a fantastical tale almost too violent to be believed.
‘I know that in 1967, during the Six Day War, the Israelis captured the Temple Mount.’
‘That’s right. Although in an attempt to placate the Muslims, the Israelis permitted a waqf, an Islamic trust, to continue to act as the official administrators of the site.’
‘So while the Israelis have sovereignty over it, the Muslims retain control.’
‘And, as you undoubtedly know, this arrangement has been a source of contention for several generations.’ A heaviness in his heart inspired him to say, ‘I have often wondered if the world would have been a better place had Solomon’s Temple never been constructed. It’s one of the most volatile spots on the planet.’
Slumping in her chair, Edie stared at the innocuous sheet of lined notepaper in front of her.
Cædmon also gazed at the deciphered message. ‘And now a madman has arrived on the scene, intent on destroying the Dome of the Rock so he can build a third temple. With the Ark in his arsenal and a well-trained force at his disposal, he could easily bring about events that mimic those foretold in the Old Testament. Thus fulfilling Ezekiel’s prophecy.’
