Ark of Fire (53 page)

MacFarlane could possibly have the Ark stored inside St. Paul’s tower. Out of sight from prying eyes. Or stowed inside the truck, ready for transport.

Standing motionless, he scanned the rocky terrain, searching for a telltale sound or a blurred bit of motion. Something to indicate that he was not alone. That others lurked in the shadows.

A good two minutes passed before he saw a faint flicker, little more than a pinprick of light.

The target sighted, he set forth.

As he navigated his way across the bramble-strewn escarpment, his thoughts turned to the Knights of St. John, who for nearly three centuries had patrolled those same craggy heights, safeguarding their domain from Turkish corsairs. During the Great Siege of 1565, sixty of those stalwart knights had defended the fort at St. Elmo against a Turkish force numbering eight thousand strong. Perhaps this night, history would repeat itself.

Lord, he hoped so.
The thought that he might never again set his gaze upon Edie Miller’s face left him bereft.

He quickly shoved the wayward thought aside, turning his attention to the man negligently leaning against a large slab of limestone, a lit cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

And an H&K MP5 submachine gun cradled against his chest.

Though it was difficult to see in the murky shadows, Caedmon assumed the man’s finger was on the trigger and that the safety had been disengaged.

Coming to a standstill, keeping to the shadows cast by the limestone outcropping, he slid the five-inch diving knife from its sheath. The hilt securely grasped in his right hand, he inched forward, hoping the sentry didn’t suddenly spin around. Praying he didn’t inadvertently kick a loose stone. To his dismay, he saw that the other man had a communications device protruding from the side of his head.

If the sentry so much as whimpered, the game would be over before it even began.

Caedmon slowed his breathing. An age-old trick to calm one’s nerves.

Then, having come to within two feet of the sentry, he lunged forward.

In one smooth, surefooted motion, the movement ingrained from his long-ago training, he grasped the other man from the rear, clasping a hand over his mouth as he yanked his head back, exposing the jugular vein and carotid artery. First he slashed. Then he ripped.

Warm blood gushed from the opened artery.

A silent kill.

As the sentry dropped to the ground, Caedmon shoved his finger into the weapon’s trigger guard and yanked the H&K MP5 out of the dying man’s grasp, knowing that a spent round would be his undoing.

Sliding his arm through the submachine gun’s shoulder strap, he crouched beside the now-dead sentry, relieving him of the radio equipment, the device both a blessing and a beast. Although he’d be able to monitor sentry movement in and around the tower, when the dead sentry failed to report in, MacFarlane and his cutthroats would know they had an enemy in their midst.

Edie sat up and hacked, the frigid sea air scalding her lungs.

Her head ached. Her body ached. And, not unexpectedly, her heart ached; Caedmon hadn’t trusted her to pull her weight.
So what did he do?
He cut her adrift. No warning. No discussion. Just wham-bam, thank you, ma’am.

Rolling onto all fours, she awkwardly shoved herself to her feet. She glanced at her left wrist.
No watch.
Because the cheapo Timex wasn’t waterproof, she’d left it behind at the hotel.

She wondered how long she’d been out. Hopefully not too long.

With a groan, she bent at the waist, snatching the flashlight.

“How considerate,” she muttered, wishing her AWOL partner had instead left her a bottle of aspirin.

Knowing the anger wouldn’t get her off the desolate strip of beach, Edie tilted her head back and peered upward, the sea cliff like an impregnable fortress wall. One that she intended to ascend. Just a few months ago she’d mastered the rock wall at one of D.C.’s largest sporting-goods stores.

Furtively, she searched the rocky shoreline, recalling that Caedmon had said something about a nearby path. Switching on the flashlight, she followed the footprints that he’d left in the sandy soil, tracking them about forty feet.

Right to the trailhead.

Afraid the flashlight might attract unwanted attention, she flipped it off, securing it in one of the elasticized loops on the waistband of her hiking pants. Hands free, she carefully began the steep climb up the incised stone steps. She wondered if it was the Barbary pirates or the Knights of St. John who had undertaken the painstaking chore of carving what amounted to a staircase into the side of the sea cliff. No doubt Caedmon would have been able to pull that particular factoid out of his hat. Had he been there.

Damn him, anyway.
The man actually thought that he could take on the doomsday prophet all by himself. MacFarlane would fight him tooth and nail. And his loyal followers would use far deadlier weapons.

That thought spurring her on, Edie glanced behind her and saw that she was only at the halfway mark. Her breathing noticeably labored, she struggled to keep on climbing, stunned to realize she was pathetically out of shape.

Finally, sheer willpower coming to the fore, her leg muscles having long since turned to rubber, she reached the summit. With nothing she could do about the burning scrape on the palm of her hand, she wiped the blood as best she could against her pant leg.

At a glance, she could see that she was standing on a flat-topped ridge. A pitiless place that in the light of day probably resembled nothing so much as a big asteroid. Only the faint whiff of rosemary indicated that it could actually sustain some sort of vegetative life.

In the distance she saw a tall, circular tower. That being the only building in sight, she headed in that direction.

As she got closer to the tower, she saw a large canvas-covered truck parked outside. It was the kind of vehicle one might see on a military installation. Hoping it wasn’t loaded with armed soldiers, she headed toward it. Trying to keep as low a profile as possible, she hunched over, running in a crouched position. The way people scurried about in the movies.

She hadn’t gone far when she saw a bear of a man emerge from the tower and head toward the truck.

Terrified, Edie came to an abrupt halt. Needing a weapon, and needing one quick, she snatched a jagged rock from the ground.

The same kind of strength that had enabled Samson to slay a thousand foes with the jawbone of an ass.

Edie glanced at the harmless-looking rock clutched in her hand.

If
only
she had the jawbone of an ass.

Pondering his next move, Caedmon stared at the watchtower that loomed a hundred meters away. Absently, he stroked the smooth metal of the H&K MP5, wondering if a little shock and awe wasn’t in order. That would certainly ensnare MacFarlane’s attention.

And, no doubt, would get him killed in the bargain. Without ever having set eyes upon the Ark.

No,
he needed a far more subtle tactic. An unexpected trap. Something that would lure MacFarlane’s men away from the tower where he presumed the Ark was being stored, enabling him to sneak inside and decapitate the serpent. And maybe, if he was lucky, he could then exit the tower with none of the bully boys the wiser. The wily fox outwitting the ferocious pack of hounds.

If he were anywhere else in the world, he would start a fire. However, other than a few windblown brambles, there was no combustible tinder to be had. He did have the portable laser light, a last-minute purchase. Perhaps he could do something with that.

Like a man mesmerized by a dangling crystal, he continued to stare at the tower. The Ark of the Covenant was near at hand. Yet completely unattainable.

“We’ve got a breach on the northwest quadrant. Somebody just tripped the security laser.”

Hearing that disembodied voice in his earpiece, Caedmon’s breath caught in his throat.

He scanned the promontory, searching for that familiar, curly-haired silhouette, knowing he had to find her before MacFarlane did.

Standing as still as a Grecian marble, Edie surreptitiously watched as Boyd Braxton threw back the canvas tarp on the military-style truck and swung open the tailgate. She assumed that he was about to unload something. Or else he was getting the truck ready
to be
loaded. Whichever scenario it was, it had to have something to do the Ark. Of that she was certain.

Taking deep measured breaths, she continued to watch Braxton, curious as to why he suddenly pressed a finger to his ear. Just before he pulled his gun out of its shoulder holster, turned on his heel, and took off running.

Something had spooked the man. But what could possibly have—

Swiveling her head back and forth, squinting to better see in the murky shadows, she searched the rocky promontory.

It was like searching the dark side of the moon.

Belatedly realizing that it really was a whole lot like being on the moon in that there was no place to hide, she began to shiver.

A few moments later, four men emerged from the tower, carrying what looked to be a large shipping container. Two other men, stubby machine guns at the ready, followed in their wake.

Without being told, Edie knew that the Ark of the Covenant was inside the shipping container.

Her heart painfully thudding against her breastbone, she watched as it was loaded into the back of the truck. That done, the two armed guards took up a position on either side of the vehicle, the four load bearers returning to the tower.

Slowly, she backed away from her observation post.

She’d taken no more than three tentative steps when a large hand was slapped over her mouth, an unseen assailant bodily lifting her off the ground.