C. Palov - Ark of Fire

Cinching a hand around her upper arm, he unceremoniously pulled her to the ground, the two of them squaring off in a low squat.

“Have you lost your bloody mind?” His warm breath hit her full in the face. Not bothering to ask permission, he yanked one of her hands to his face. The palm of her scraped hand was smeared with blood.

“Don’t say it. I’m here. Deal with it.”

“I can render you unconscious at any moment, so kindly do not tell me what I can or cannot do.”

“That reminds me . . . did you have to hit me so hard?”

“Be thankful it was me doing the hitting and not one of MacFarlane’s thugs. And before you rail at me further, I had no choice in the matter. You were the one who issued the ultimatum.” For several seconds he stared into her eyes. Then, raising his left hand, he gently caressed the side of her face. “I am truly sorry, Edie, that I hurt you.” Both his features and his voice had noticeably softened.

“My feelings are more hurt than anything else. Mainly because you didn’t trust me enough to—”

“I trust you with my life. And I will do all in my power to safeguard yours.” He removed his hand from her cheek. Taking her by the elbow, he urged her to stand upright. “You are to follow my lead. No harebrained heroics or I will stuff my kerchief in your lovely mouth before binding you hand and foot.”

“If you did that, I wouldn’t be able to tell you that they loaded the Ark into the back of that big truck. Oh, and how about giving me a weapon?”

Reaching into his pocket, he removed something that resembled a capped ink pen. “Here.”

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Shine it directly into an assailant’s eyes. I don’t have time to explain the laws of photonics, except to say that it will instantaneously induce a state of temporary blindness. So please be sure that the business end is pointing away from you when the light is activated.”

Edie reluctantly took the portable laser light. “I was hoping that you might give me your diving knife, seeing as how you managed to find yourself a machine—”

Just then, she heard a sound—the friction of rubber on stone—emanating from a booted footfall.

Frantically, she glanced at Caedmon.

Amazingly calm, he put his left index finger to his lips, cautioning her to silence, while at the same time he placed his right index finger on the trigger of the submachine gun strapped across his chest.

Suddenly, surprising Edie with his quickness, he pulled off a lightning-fast one-eighty spin.

“Drop your weapon and remove the headset! Now!”

Realizing his pistol was no match for Caedmon’s mightier weapon, Boyd Braxton obediently put his pistol on the ground, kicking it in Caedmon’s direction. That done, he yanked off the headset and, snidely smiling, tossed it several feet away. “You didn’t want that, did you?”

Afraid the headset might have an open mike, Edie strode over and forcefully smashed the heel of her shoe against the communications device.

The smile instantly vanished from the behemoth’s face. Stepping past him, Edie noticed that the crisscrossed bandages on the side of Braxton’s head surreally gleamed in the darkness. Sutures courtesy of Caedmon and a well-aimed bottle. She returned the snide smile.

Braxton took a threatening step in her direction, his right hand balled in a fist.

“Touch her and I’ll gladly add a kilo of lead to your current body weight.”

At a glance, Edie could see that it was no idle threat. In fact, she was beginning to realize that Caedmon Aisquith never made idle threats. He was one of those men blessed with i ncredible follow-through.

“She’s got you wrapped around her little pinkie, doesn’t she?” Braxton snickered. “Guess you know by now that she’s a real prick tease, huh? Hell, my pecker has been standing on end since I first set eyes on the curly-haired bitch.”

His shoulders visibly relaxing, Caedmon slyly smiled at Braxton . . . just before he reared back and kick-boxed him in the crotch.

Sounding a lot like a braying donkey, the behemoth dropped to his knees, clutching his testicles with both hands.

“I trust that has relieved the condition.” Caedmon turned to Edie. “My apologies.”

About to say For what? Edie instead went slack-jawed, horrified at seeing a quartet of men who had suddenly, and very silently, materialized, as though from thin air. Shoulder to shoulder, they stood in a united front some ten feet behind Caedmon.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse come to life.

Before she could shout a warning, a spotlight was switched on, illuminating the entire area.

“You would be well advised, Mister Aisquith, to drop your weapon. Very, very slowly,” came the addendum order.

Calmly, not so much as peering over his shoulder, Caedmon unclipped the leather strap that held the submachine gun to his chest. Holding the weapon in his left hand, his right hand held aloft so it could easily be seen, he slowly bent at the waist, placing the weapon on the ground.

Stanford MacFarlane stepped forward. Retrieving the submachine gun, he handed it to Boyd Braxton.

“Here, boy. You look like you could use this.”

Still doubled over and gasping for breath, Braxton straightened just enough so he could aim the weapon directly at Caedmon’s chest.

Unthinkingly, Edie grabbed MacFarlane by the forearm, knowing that he was the only man present who could stop Braxton from pulling the trigger.

“One Christian to another . . . don’t let him do it,” she begged, ready to throw herself at his booted feet if that was what it took to save Caedmon’s life.

“You are not a Christian woman!” MacFarlane bellowed, his face twisted in an ugly sneer. “You are a harlot!”

CHAPTER 88

“And you are a disgusting stain on a snowy white bedsheet,” Caedmon snarled at MacFarlane, words the only weapon left to him.

Unaccustomed to insubordinate words or deeds, the colonel appeared apoplectic. Like an Old Testament prophet on the verge of an aneurysm.

“I want him searched before he’s killed,” MacFarlane barked at one of his men.

The situation having spiraled completely out of his control, Caedmon stood motionless while a muscular man with a shaved pate roughly patted him for weapons. The torch he tossed aside; the GPS receiver and diving knife he handed to his overlord. MacFarlane quickly perused the confiscated items before giving them to yet another of his men for safe-keeping.

Still gasping to draw breath, Braxton gracelessly rose to his feet, instantly transforming from a wounded bear to a menacing mountain of a man. “Let’s just say I ain’t gonna miss you when you’re gone.”

Having known all along that this was how it might possibly end, Caedmon defiantly stared his executioner in the face. As he did, Goya’s famous painting The Third of May flashed across his mind’s eye; bloodshed and violence were the chain that inevitably linked one historic epoch to the next.

“Turn your head, woman,” MacFarlane commanded. “Unless you have a predilection for bloodshed.”

“You kill him, you kill the messenger!”

Hearing that, Caedmon swung his head in Edie’s direction.

The messenger?

What in God’s name was she up to? A subterfuge, clearly, but not having been briefed, he had no idea of the nature or direction of the lie. Relegating him to the role of hapless passenger.

Refusing to be bullied into submission, Edie startled every man present, including Caedmon, when she next said, “And something tells me that you’ll want to hear what MI5 has to say. They know all about your planned terrorist attack on the Dome of the Rock. Lucky for you, they want the Ark of the Covenant, which is why they’re willing to broker a deal. But all bets are off the table if you gun down Caedmon Aisquith. The Queen’s men don’t like it when you kill one of their own. In fact, they would take it very personally if any harm came to him.”