C. Palov - Ark of Fire

Edie Miller was still alive.

Not as well as she could be, but most definitely alive.

And for that, God, I do indeed thank you.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spied the Virgin Air bag on the floor next to the bed, upended, emptied of its contents. He next surveyed the room, searching for a ransom note.

There was none. He didn’t need a scrawled scrap of paper to know Edie had been kidnapped because they wanted him.

Stunned by the well-executed abduction, he went into the bathroom, heading straight for the sink. Turning on the cold water tap, he rinsed his face.

He knew the drill: wait until further instruction. Eventually, he would be contacted. If their plan had been to kill Edie, they would have left her corpse behind as a warning. But there was no sprawled, blood-splattered body. Her abduction was simply a means to an end.

He reached for the neatly folded bath towel and dried his face.

Taking deep, measured breaths, he walked back to the bedroom. Again, he inspected the premises, searching for anything that could be used as a weapon. When the time came to confront his foes, he didn’t want to stand before them defenseless. His gaze alighted on the upholstered chair. The chair where Edie had earlier sat, filing a broken nail.

Having no recollection of her returning the file to the Virgin Air bag, he walked over to the chair. The file not being in plain view, he slid his hand around the chair cushion. Frustrated when he came up empty-handed, he removed the cushion from the chair.

There, betwixt two stale chips and a piece of hard candy, dully gleaming in the lamplight, was the nail file. Though it was hardly a well-honed broadsword, it would have to do.

He replaced the chair cushion.

Bloody hell, but he wanted a drink. Needed a drink to—

Not on your life, old boy. You face the enemy head-on. No armor. No weapon to speak of. Only your wits.

And a burning desire to save the woman he’d come to think of as his own.

Lowering himself into the lumpy Marquise chair, he inhaled the exotic scents of cardamom and cumin mingled with that of lemon-scented water.

Waiting . . .

CHAPTER 59

“I mean you no harm,” Stanford MacFarlane said as he ushered her into the room.

Edie snorted, the memory of her near rape all too vivid. “Yeah, and British beef is safe to eat.”

As she spoke, she glanced around her prison, taking in what appeared to be an old millhouse, the metal cogs and wheels of the original machinery still in place on the other side of the room. She could hear water running beneath the floorboards and figured the millhouse was located on a stream or brook.

Next she turned her gaze to the man standing across from her. She gauged Stanford MacFarlane to be in his mid- to late fifties, the graying buzz cut with the sharply defined widow’s peak being the dead giveaway. At one time he was probably handsome, but years spent in the sun had turned age lines into deeply incised creases, giving him a stern, gnomelike visage. A man of medium height, he had an erect military posture, with an air of command that bordered on the egomaniacal. She figured that right about the time he started to toddle, folks got out the garlic when they saw him coming.

“Just answer me this . . . what are you going to do if you actually get your hands on the Ark?”

“That’s between me and the Almighty,” MacFarlane r eplied.

“What if the Ark of the Covenant turns out to be nothing more than a gold-plated box?”

MacFarlane smiled. “And God said to Moses, ‘Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.’”

Realizing that he considered the Ark some kind of God box, Edie decided to try a different approach. “There’s no question in my mind that you’re a God-fearing man. Which means that we have a lot in common. You may not know this, but I go to church every Sunday and . . . well, I don’t have to tell you what the Bible says about mercy and compassion. ‘Blessed are those who are pure in heart: for they shall see God,’” she recited, tossing out a Bible verse of her own, figuring the only way to fight fire was with more of the same.

Hearing that, MacFarlane’s gaze narrowed. “Like many of your ilk, you’ve hijacked the Bible in order to put forth your left-wing, feel-good agenda. The carjacker will not steal your vehicle if you show some compassion. Nor will the killer pull the trigger as he is an intrinsically good man.”

And the rapist will not brutalize his victim if shown loving-kindness. Yeah, right.

Turning away from her, MacFarlane walked over to the nearby kitchenette; the stone-walled room was a big open space with matching sofas on one side, a dining room table in the middle, and a kitchen on the opposite end. She watched as he pulled two clean mugs from a shelf. He then opened two packets of instant cocoa. That done, he poured hot water from a carafe.

Even as he handed her one of the mugs, he glared at her. A dark, impassioned glare that sent a chill down her spine. She didn’t dare refuse the cocoa.

“I know you and your kind, Miss Miller. You think that by putting your carcass in the pew every Sunday, God will look kindly upon you, that perfect church attendance will equal a free pass into heaven.”

“You’ve got me mixed up with some other person. Personally, I think it’s important for . . .” She searched for the right word. “. . . the betterment of one’s soul to engage in good works, Christian charity being the touchstone of—”

“Spare me the secular soliloquy. As if volunteering at some inner-city soup kitchen will gain you entry into heaven. Faith, not deeds, will secure you a place among the righteous.”

“Don’t you mean the self-righteous?” she retorted.

“You and your kind are an anathema unto the Lord.”

“Then we clearly worship two different gods.”

“At last, something we can agree upon.”

And as Edie knew full well, it was an agreement based on a bitter divide.

Truth be told, she was taken aback at how much Stanford MacFarlane reminded her of Pops; her maternal grandfather had held to a very conservative interpretation of the Bible. At the time she’d thought it a stifling interpretation. But when espoused by a man like MacFarlane, it went from stifling to scary. Put a black robe on him and Stanford MacFarlane would have made the perfect Spanish inquisitor.

“Speaking of a free pass into heaven, if you think that finding the Ark is your stamped ticket, think again,” she said, refusing to go quietly into the funeral pyre.

About to raise his mug to his lips, MacFarlane lowered it. For several seconds—seconds that conjured images of burning bodies—he stared at her.

“Unlike you, I will die and rise with the Old Testament saints.” Then, as though he’d simply made a passing comment about the weather, he calmly took a sip of his cocoa.

Edie stood silent.

There was no way to argue with a zealot. The years spent with Pops had taught her that; the memory still weighed heavy. Like a giant millstone on her heart.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a gossamer strand of cobweb dangling from the wood-beamed ceiling. Staring at it, she suddenly felt very much like the fly ensnared in that deceptively beautiful web.

But unlike the ensnared fly, she had an out. Caedmon.

Above all else, she knew he would come. If not to rescue her, then to find the Ark.

CHAPTER 60

Hearing a sonorous knock, Caedmon turned in his chair. The guesthouse proprietor, a florid-faced Welshman, stood in the doorway, no doubt baffled as to why the door had been left ajar. Simply put, he had not seen a need to close it.