C. Palov - Ark of Fire

He nodded, surprised that she was so well versed in scripture. “In truth, it was not the Hebrew slaves who possessed such wealth, but rather the Egyptian nobility who accompanied them on their flight.”

“Moses leading the way to the Land of Canaan.”

“So I believe.”

“While it makes for the greatest story never told, I still need more proof before I chuck away years of Sunday school indoctrination.” She glanced at the electric alarm clock on the nightstand. “Time for the six o’clock newscast,” she announced, lunging off the bed.

Aiming the remote at the telly, she hit the power button. A suited woman sporting a blond bob appeared on the screen.

“In a scene reminiscent of the pandemonium that struck Washington in the wake of 9/11, museum goers at the National Gallery of Art came under terrorist fire earlier today when a gunman began shooting a loaded firearm into the underground concourse area.”

As the news broadcaster read her script, a grainy video of the “pandemonium” appeared on the screen, the footage clearly shot by an amateur hand. And a shaking hand at that, there being a decidedly frenetic quality to the captured images. To Caedmon’s relief, neither he nor Edie was visible in the video.

Slack-jawed, Edie turned to him. “They’ve got it all wrong . . . it wasn’t a terrorist attack.” Reaching for the remote, she quickly changed channels.

“The shooting spree in the museum’s concourse was part of a well-coordinated terrorist attack, with a car bomb detonating yards away from the Fourth Street entrance. No fatal casualties were reported, although several emergency workers suffered severe burns.”

“Oh, God,” she murmured as she watched the accompanying video of the smoldering blast site. Then, her eyes filled with tears, she turned to him. “That’s the Jeep. The same Jeep that I wanted us to—”

“Don’t say it,” he roughly ordered, equally jarred by the charred wreckage being shown on the telly. “By a fortuitous stroke of luck, we escape the demon.”

“That’s crap and you know it! They’re not going to stop until they find us.” She shoved a balled fist against her mouth, her eyes glued to the television screen.

In silence, they watched the remainder of the news broadcast. Edie muted the volume when the sports segment aired.

“Don’t you think it’s odd that there was no mention of Padgham’s murder? There are three dead bodies at the Hopkins Museum, yet there’s no mention of it on the nightly news.”

“I presume the bodies haven’t been discovered.”

She shook her head, negating the suggestion. “On Mondays, the cleaning crew arrives at four o’clock. Why didn’t they—” She gasped. “Oh, God! Maybe they killed the cleaning crew.” Spinning on her heel, she made a grab for the telephone. “I’m going to make an anonymous call to the D.C. police and inform them that Dr. Padgham and the two security guards were—”

Striding between the two beds, Caedmon yanked the phone out of her hand.

“What are you doing?”

“In this day and age, it’s impossible to be truly anonymous,” he matter-of-factly informed her. “We already know that the local police force has a tainted officer in their midst. If you contact the authorities, you may inadvertently lead the enemy—”

“Right to us.” Grim-faced, Edie sank to the bed.

“I have a far better suggestion.”

“Unless it involves a magic wand, I don’t know how you’re going to make things better.”

Knowing its source, he ignored the sarcasm. “I propose we do a bit of cyber sleuthing. High time we meet the enemy.” He removed his wool jacket from the back of the wingback chair.

“But we don’t have a computer.”

“True, but the bloke downstairs at the front desk seemed amiable enough.”

CHAPTER 22

“Boy, you don’t know your dick from a stick!” Stanford MacFarlane railed at his subordinate.

Just like his son, Custis. Had he lived, Custis would be twenty-eight years old this month. But Custis was no longer among the living, the weak-kneed snot having—

MacFarlane shoved the thought to the backwater of his mind.

The framed photographs had been removed, the name Custis Lee MacFarlane stricken from the family bible. No sense regurgitating the past. It was over and done with. Mortal man could affect nothing save the here and now. And then only if it was in God’s purview to do so.

“What was running through your gourd, Gunny, detonating that wad of C-4 without the Miller woman being in the vehicle? This operation was supposed to have been swift and silent, not a blind man’s game of grab-ass.”

“Sir, the explosives were rigged to go off when the engine was started. I had no way of knowing the C-4 would detonate when the tow truck hooked the—”

“Well, you should have known! And how is it that Aisquith and Miller eluded six, count ’em, six men trained in urban warfare?”

“I don’t know how they got the slip on us, sir.”

Hearing that, MacFarlane was sorely tempted to ram his knee into his subordinate’s crotch. Penance for his sins. Instead, he strode over to his desk. A hardbound book, Isis Revealed , lay in plain sight on top of his in-basket. He snatched the book in his hand, waving it in front of the gunny’s face.

“Are you saying that the man who wrote this pack of lies outsmarted six of Rosemont’s finest?” He’d earlier had one of his assistants purchase the book; a hunter needed to know the nature of the beast before he laid his traps.

“He’s good, sir. That’s all I know. Riggins is fairly certain they slipped through the Seventh Street exit.”

MacFarlane wasn’t fooled by the Brit’s bravado. No doubt Aisquith and the Miller woman were holed up somewhere, trying to figure out their next move. They were afraid, uncertain whom they could trust. He had carefully cultivated that mistrust when he earlier spoke to the woman. The mess at the Hopkins Museum had been swept clean and the fiasco at the National Gallery of Art attributed to a rogue terrorist. But all that could change if Ms. Miller gave a statement to the police.

He dismissively tossed the book into his in-box, his gaze momentarily landing on the book jacket photo of a red-haired man in a tweed sports jacket.

There was a special place in hell for men who blasphemed the teachings of the one true God.

Soon enough, the ex-operative turned faux historian would know the meaning of terror; Aisquith was playing with a fire that could not be extinguished.

As the silent seconds ticked past, Boyd Braxton wordlessly stared at him, a Help me, I’m drowning look on his broad face. It put him in mind of the night that the gunny murdered his wife and child—a boot mistake committed in a moment of unchecked rage. MacFarlane had used the calamitous event to bring the sobbing, baby-faced gunnery sergeant to God. He’d done good work that night, having made a promise not to turn his back on the man who now stood before him.

Ass chewing administered, Stanford MacFarlane pointed to the parquet floor. “On your knees, boy. It’s time you begged the Almighty’s forgiveness.”

A look of relief on his face, the gunnery sergeant obediently dropped to his knees, his head bowed in prayer. Glancing downward, MacFarlane could see the crisscrossed scars that marred his subordinate’s skull. Remnants of a sinner’s life, the scars were undoubtedly the result of a broken beer bottle making contact with Braxton’s head.

Stepping back, giving the other man the space he needed to make his peace with God, he walked over to the shipping container on the other side of the room, the Stones of Fire packed and ready for transport. Acquiring the breastplate had been the preliminary step in a much larger operation. A means to an end. The end being the cleansing of all perversion, all licentiousness.