C. Palov - Ark of Fire

Suddenly, he heard the roar of an engine. Blinked at the near-blinding beam of a headlight. The truck was on the move.

He fought the instinctive urge to fire his weapon.

He needed a clean shot. If he botched it, all would be lost.

Knowing he had but seconds to launch his attack, he charged out of the shadows, coming at the truck from an angle to avoid being caught in the headlights. He refused to entertain the thought that in the contest between man and machine, machine almost inevitably won.

Arms locked in a firing position, he found his first target—Stanford MacFarlane—took aim, and fired.

“Shag it!” he muttered; the Glock had jammed. He pulled back the slide on the top of the pistol.

Suddenly, the clatter of machine-gun fire erupted all around him.

Caught in a corona of bullets, he quickly chambered a round, shock and anger hitting him in equal measure.

A heartbeat later, shock instantly mutated into fear as he saw a shaky shaft of green light being aimed at the truck’s windshield.

CHAPTER 92

“Jesusfuckingchrist! I can’t see!” Boyd Braxton hollered, raising his arms to stave off the green light beam. “I can’t see a damn—”

The truck swerved. Jerking to the right. Then the left. A few seconds later, it began to lose speed.

“Put your foot on the gas pedal!” Stan yelled over the top of his gunnery sergeant’s foul-mouthed screams. “We must fulfill the prophecy! Do not give in to your fears!”

Averting his head from the burning light, Stan leaned over the top of his gunny and grabbed the steering wheel, knowing that fear was the tool of the devil. Fear was what he’d felt that long-ago night in Beirut. When his best friend, his comrades, his CO were ripped to shreds by an Islamist’s bomb. When he stood shaking in the bomb’s aftermath, snot driveling from his nose, piss puddling at his feet. Afraid to grab his weapon and take action. Afraid to do anything other than drop to his knees and beg God’s mercy.

That was when the angels came to him. Gabriel and Michael. The same two angels who adorned the lid of the Ark. They took his fear from him, asking only that he take up the Lord’s fight.

And every day since, he had done just that.

This day would be no different.

For he knew no fear.

He had complete and certain faith in the sanctity of his mission.

The same faith that had led Abraham and Moses in their darkest hour. The same faith that had compelled David to face his mighty nemesis Goliath.

You come at me with a sword and spear. I come to you in the name of the Lord!

Those were words to live by. Words to die by.

“The battle for the Temple will soon be upon us! Praise be to the Lord!” he joyfully shouted, retaking control of the truck, steering it straight toward the green beam of light.

CHAPTER 93

Caedmon ran full speed toward the pencil-thin, erratic green glow.

“Turn it off!” he shouted, able to see that MacFarlane had taken control of the careening vehicle. Able to see that he was steering the truck directly toward the source of the light beam.

Edie turned her head in his direction. With her curly hair wildly blowing all about her, she looked like one of the Furies in pursuit of the wicked among them.

Her expression resolute, she shook her head, refusing to move out of the path of the oncoming convoy truck.

He pumped his legs and arms all the faster, afraid he wouldn’t reach her in time. Afraid she would meet her end in a most hideous fashion. Afraid.

He only had a few seconds, the whole of the world reduced to his pounding heart, the rat-a-tat-tat of automatic-weapon fire, the roar of the powerful engine.

She was just a few feet away.

He could do this.

He could save—

In the next instant, he was airborne, diving toward her, his arms and legs stretched taut.

His heart in his throat, Caedmon plowed into Edie with a thudding impact, knocking her off her feet and out of the truck’s pathway. The laser light knocked from her hands, its beam frenetically arced through the night sky before harmlessly plummeting to earth. Limbs tangled together, the two of them rolled across the rocky terrain, the inhospitable surface providing no leaf or blade of grass to soften the impact.

With no time to inquire as to injuries, he rolled to his knees. His finger on the trigger of the Glock, his arms locked in a firing position, he prayed that he had successfully cleared the jam.

The truck now moving away from him, he took aim at the rear tires, permitting himself one deep, calming breath before he fired six shots in quick succession.

His aim true, he hit the new targets, blowing out both rear driver’s-side tires, the truck abruptly fishtailing, wildly swaying from side to side as Stanford MacFarlane lost control of the mammoth two-and-a-half-ton vehicle. As the truck headed toward the steep cliff that overlooked the sea.

The gun limply hanging from his hand, Caedmon stood motionless, watching in disbelief as the truck went over the side of the cliff.

For the briefest of seconds the red taillights eerily twinkled in the darkness before disappearing from sight. A sonorous Boom! was soon followed by a sudden burst of bright light, the ensuing explosion illuminating the heavens. A surreal swan song for a madman and the coveted Ark of the Covenant.

All was vanity and grasping for the wind, he dazedly thought even as his stomach roiled.

Edie ran to his side, throwing herself into his arms.

“Oh, God! I can’t believe what I just saw!”

“Nor I,” he whispered, holding her tight.

CHAPTER 94

As though trapped in a dream from which he could not awake, Caedmon surveyed the wreckage. The explosion having been seen for miles, rescue workers, naval marines, law enforcement personnel, and local fishermen had descended in an excited swarm onto the rock-strewn beach.

The official crash site.

Like many he’d seen over the years, this one had all the familiar trappings—yellow tape, black smoke, smoldering hunks of twisted metal. At a glance he saw that no man could have survived so horrific a blast. Although that didn’t deter the local police divers, who plopped salmonlike from the starboard side of a nearby vessel, aided in their search by powerful underwater torches that cast an otherworldly glow onto the dark sea.

“He thought he could walk on water,” Edie, standing beside him, quietly intoned. “Boy, was he ever wrong.”

“The din is silenced. At least for the moment. Perhaps now the voices of tolerance and compassion can finally be heard.”

“Or, put another way, God works in mysterious ways.”

“Mmmm,” he noncommittally grunted, unable to see God’s hand in the violent events that had earlier transpired.

Since the crash, he and Edie had kept very much to the sidelines. Two curious, but innocent bystanders. To ensure that they weren’t caught in the police dragnet, he had informed the local officials that they were simply a honeymooning couple who “got the wild notion into our heads to spend a romantic night at the ancient tower.” And though they had heard the thunderous explosion, they “had no bloody idea what caused it.” Coitus interruptus, and all that. The lie took, the police not favoring them with so much as a second glance.