C. Palov - Ark of Fire

“Why the sudden interest in pursuing my ‘crazy’ theory?” he asked, if for no other reason than to break the unnerving silence.

“I have my reasons. Look, I’m good with details. And let’s not forget the old adage about two heads being better than just the one.”

“Honestly, Edie, I don’t think that—”

“I can be your research assistant,” she interjected, unwavering in her persistence.

“I don’t need a research assistant. Once I arrive in England, I have connections that—”

“Yeah, speaking of ‘connections,’ you told Eliot Hopkins that you could contact Interpol . . . making me wonder just what kind of shadowy connections you have.”

Not seeing the sense in keeping it from her, he said, “I used to be an intelligence officer with Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”

Her eyes opened wide. “You mean like James Bond?”

“Hardly. During my tenure at MI5, I spent most of my time in front of a computer and very little time chasing after nefarious characters. Certainly none with an outlandish moniker.”

“Well, that explains your supercharged street smarts,” she remarked, seeming to take his confession in stride. “Yesterday I was truly stumped as to how a bookworm could so easily keep his cool when the bullets started to fly. In fact, there were a couple of times at the National Gallery when you looked like you were in seventh heaven.”

“Trust me, that wasn’t the case,” he countered, not about to let her think otherwise.

“Whether you enjoy that kind of action or not, I still want to go with you.”

Something in Edie Miller’s brown eyes, a defiant expression, seized hold of him, refusing to let go. He was well aware that if they paid for their airline tickets with cash, it wouldn’t prevent MacFarlane from discovering their destination. If MacFarlane managed to get ahold of the airline passenger manifold lists, he would soon discover they’d flown into Heathrow. Whereupon they would find themselves, once again, in a dangerous strait.

He raised his face heavenward. “‘It’s raining feathers,’” he conversationally remarked, the sleet having softened into a light snowfall. “Admittedly, it’s not an original thought. The Greek philosopher Herodotus coined the phrase some twenty-four hundred years ago.”

“I’ve got one for you: ‘It’s raining men.’ The Weather Girls at the height of the disco era.”

Caedmon sighed, thinking them an odd pair indeed.

“It would appear that our destinies are linked,” he said, capitulating to her request to accompany him. For several long seconds, he stared at her. Although it was brief, he glimpsed a wariness in her eyes, at odds with her usual defiance. He intuited that Edie Miller’s tough façade was akin to gold leaf. Rigid to the glance, but gossamer thin.

“You know, Caedmon, I’m a little uncertain about the agenda. Are you planning to stop MacFarlane from finding the Ark, or are you hoping to beat him to the punch?”

Thinking it best not to truthfully reply, he said, “For now, we must concentrate our efforts on stopping MacFarlane from finding the Ark.”

“I agree. If the Ark is, as you claim, a weapon of mass destruction, it doesn’t bode well that an ex-military man is actively searching for it.”

He acknowledged Edie’s spot-on observation with a brusque nod. “Just as worrisome, I suspect that MacFarlane is well funded, his stockpile of cash translating into a highly developed network of communications and logistics.”

“So, in other words, it’s going to be a whole lot like David going up against Goliath.”

Caedmon kept silent, not about to point out that David, at least, had a slingshot.

CHAPTER 31

I will take revenge on my hateful enemies. I will sharpen my sword and let it flash like lightning.

Being a military man, Stan MacFarlane knew that another battle loomed on the horizon. Yet another chance to vanquish the enemy.

A lesson well learned in the trenches of Panama, Bosnia, Operation Desert Storm.

And, of course, Beirut.

Some said that was where he found religion. He preferred to think that was where his relationship with the Almighty began.

He still had vivid nightmares of that deadly October day when two hundred and forty-one Marines were taken out by a fanatical suicide bomber driving a water truck packed with explosives.

. . . the sickening stench of sulfur and burned flesh . . . a bellowing cacophony of pain and outrage . . . the frenzied rush to rescue the injured . . . the grievous task of finding the dead.

Amazingly, he’d survived the blast; his bunkmate not so lucky.

In retrospect, able to see with a survivor’s clarity, he knew the attack had been the first sign that the End Times were near.

His wife, the treacherous Helen, left him within a year of his conversion, claiming spousal abuse. In the nine years of their marriage, he’d never laid a hand on the woman—although he’d been tempted to wring her loose-skinned neck with his bare hands during the divorce proceedings.

The judge, a pussy-whipped left-wing liberal, had given Helen custody of their son, Custis; Stan was allowed to see his son only on the weekends. Afraid Custis would turn into a mama’s boy, he’d made sure his son joined ROTC while still in high school. Pulling a few strings, he’d been able to secure Custis a berth at Annapolis. Helen claimed that he’d bullied Custis into joining the Marine Corps, but he knew he’d done right by his son; the Corps made a man of Custis.

Who or what turned him into a weak-kneed coward was to this day a deep, dark mystery.

The official account claimed that after one deployment to Afghanistan and two to Iraq, Custis suffered from PTSD. Stan knew it wasn’t post-traumatic stress disorder that caused his son to put the barrel of a loaded M16 rifle into his mouth. Stan knew that it was the barbarous infidels of Babylon who caused his only son to heed Satan’s siren call. Men of God had a duty to battle the godless among them. Custis shirked his duty.

And would burn in the pits of hell because of it.

Soon after his son’s death, he founded the Warriors of God, convinced that it was his duty to lead the army of the righteous, akin to King David leading the Israelite army as they conquered the Jebusites and Philistines. Or Godfrey of Bouillon leading the crusaders as they battled Muslim infidels in the streets of Jerusalem. And, of course, there was his personal hero, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, a deeply religious military man who refused to fight on Sunday and who led his men in prayer before each battle.

Today, despite his fervent prayers, the battle had yet to be won.

Part of his contingency plan had been to send in a sniper. In case the old man lost his nerve. No need to worry about the scion of one of America’s great industrial families being gunned down in the middle of the National Zoo. The police would jump to the erroneous conclusion that a copycat killer, replicating the sniping spree that had gripped the nation’s capital during the autumn of ’02, was on the loose.

No doubt the funeral eulogies would wax poetic about Eliot Hopkins’s generosity and great philanthropic spirit, making no mention of the many art thefts that had padded his museum collection.

The tributes would also not mention Eliot Hopkins’s secret passion, the Ark of the Covenant.

Because of Stan’s thorough planning, the biblical scholars and archaeology watchdogs would continue to lightly snore, unaware of a trespass.

When all the pieces were in place, only then would the world know of his divinely inspired mission. Right now, the world was on his timetable. It was early yet. Too early to reveal God’s great plan. Although if the unbelievers had but eyes to see, they, too, would know that current global events had become an urgent call to arms from the Great Almighty.