by C. M. Palov
“Come on, Caedmon. Even you have to admit that the idea of some English knight just happening upon the Ark of the Covenant is hard to swallow.”
“With your own eyes, you saw the sacred Stones of Fire. If the breastplate exists, why not the Ark?”
“Maybe I don’t want the Ark to exist,” she answered with her trademark candor. “If what you say is even partially true, the implications are immense. History altering, in fact.”
“Do you think that hasn’t crossed my mind?”
“Has this thought crossed your mind: right now, you’ve got nothing more solid than a rumor about some old knight. Lesson of the day? One crazy rumor does not a fact make.”
“It’s thin gruel, I admit, but many an extraordinary discovery has been made by men who were labeled harebrained. Most thought Schliemann mad when he went searching for Troy with only a battered copy of Homer as his guide.”
Edie snickered, her breath condensing in the chill air. “Yeah, well, you know what they say about mad dogs and Englishmen.”
“In defense of my countrymen, I should point out that Heinrich Schliemann was German born,” Caedmon retorted, the argument having diverged into a petty tit-for-tat. “Since the Bible makes no mention of the Ark being destroyed, we must assume that it still exists. Although biblical scholars have long denied the rumors regarding Galen of Godmersham, there is a scholar at Oxford, a man by the name of Sir Kenneth Campbell-Brown, who has devoted his life to studying the thirteenth-century English crusaders. If there is any credence to the rumor of an English knight discovering a gold chest on the Plain of Esdraelon, Sir Kenneth would certainly know of it. And given all that has transpired in the last twenty-four hours, we must accept Eliot Hopkins’s premise as a viable possibility.”
Folding her arms over her chest, Edie stubbornly shook her head. “What we need to do is contact SAFE. The FBI. Somebody. Anybody. And let them know what’s happening.”
“And what precisely would you tell the authorities?” he countered. “That a murder occurred at the Hopkins Museum for which there is no body? Or perhaps we could regale the local constabulary with the tale of the fabled Stones of Fire? Given that the relic disappeared several millennia ago, I somehow doubt the police will believe that the relic was stolen from the aforementioned nonexistent corpse. In fact, if not for the dead man at the zoo, whose murder they will most assuredly accuse you of having committed, the police will label you a lunatic.”
“I could take a lie detector test.”
“And if your heart rate accelerated but a notch, your fate would be sealed.”
Edie unfolded her arms, her sails not nearly so fulsome. “You could go to the—”
“If I come forward with my suspicions regarding the Stones of Fire or the Ark of the Covenant, my motives would immediately be suspect, the chaps at the FBI no doubt believing it a publicity stunt to garner more book sales.”
“So what are you saying, that our hands are tied?”
“Most certainly not. We know that Colonel MacFarlane and his men are searching for the Ark of the Covenant. Furthermore, we have reason to believe that they’ll be searching for it in England.”
“Oh, you have got to be kidding!” Edie exclaimed, realization dawning in her eyes. “You’re not really suggesting that we go to England and track down Stanford MacFarlane and his goons.”
“Rest assured, I do not expect or desire your company.”
“Ouch! That hurts,” she retorted, having taken offense where none was intended. “Going to England in pursuit of the Ark of the Covenant is big. Huge. You’ve given this—what?—about thirty seconds of thought before making a decision.”
“If you’re accusing me of being rash, nothing could be further from the truth.”
“Then how’s this for being rash: have you thought about how you’re going to pay for this little junket? As soon as you whip out a credit card, MacFarlane will be on to you like ugly on an alligator.”
“I agree that an electronic funds transaction could easily be traced.” He cleared his throat. Knowing there was but one way to clear the hurdle, he charged forward. “Which is why I thought to ask you for a loan.” When Edie cast him a pointedly askance glance, he added, “I’m good for it, as you Yanks are wont to say.”
“Well, here’s another phrase we Yanks are wont to say: ‘My way or the highway.’ Meaning you take me with you or you don’t see a dime of my money.”
No sooner was the ultimatum delivered than an invisible Maginot Line loomed between them, both retreating into a wordless world of move and countermove. Ignoring him, Edie reached into the now-wet paper bag and removed a hazelnut biscotti. Behaving as though he didn’t exist, she loudly chomped down on it.
“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.
Anxious about the upcoming mission, he hit the Intercom button on the phone console. “Any word on the flight plan?”
“I’ve just received the official approval, sir. You’re wings up at thirteen hundred hours.”
“Excellent,” Stan said to his chief of staff before disconnecting.
Despite the fact that English food rivaled mess tent slop, he looked forward to greeting the new day in London. The Miller woman had set the schedule back a full twenty-four hours, and though he was frustrated by the snafu, he felt curiously uplifted, ready, willing, and able for the task he was about to undertake. Besides, in the larger scheme of things, Edie Miller and her consort were insignificant. Minor players in a drama penned by the Almighty twenty-six centuries ago.
He glanced at his watch. He had enough time to post his daily blog entry.
Seating himself at the desk, he used his two index fingers to type the opening Bible passage, a favorite from Psalm 11.
He will send fiery coals and flaming sulfur down on the wicked . . .
CHAPTER 32
“At this juncture I should probably mention that I’m not an adventuresome person. I like stability. Predictable, watch the same TV program every Monday night, stability. The only thing in my life that gets changed on a regular basis is the lightbulbs.”
At hearing Edie’s voice, Caedmon glanced away from the Oxfordshire scenery that passed in a limestone blur on the other side of the oversized coach window. Having touched down at Heathrow two hours ago, they were now en route to Oxford.
“How curious. You strike me as a most intrepid woman.”
“Appearances can be deceiving.”
“Indeed.” He pointedly glanced at her attire.
Their clothes having taken a shabby turn for the worse after yesterday’s foot race, they’d each purchased a new set of garments at the airport boutique. He’d selected tweeds, wools, and a beige anorak. Opting for more colorful plumage, Edie had chosen a yellow knit cap, a red military-style jacket replete with epaulets, and knee-high riding boots into which she’d tucked her denim jeans. While he resembled one half of a stodgy English couple come to town, she looked like a Mondrian painting come to life. He would have preferred that she select earth tones. Colors that faded into the winter scenery. Should an RIRA operative happen to catch sight of him, he would suddenly have two enemies to contend with rather than the one.
“Do you think MacFarlane and his goons will actually find the Ark of the Covenant?”
“It’s an outside wager, at best,” he replied. “Over the centuries many have searched—all in vain. Although if found, the Ark of the Covenant would be the most astounding discovery in the annals of mankind.”
Edie closed the Bible they’d purchased in the gift shop at Dulles airport. “It’s been a while since I last read the Old Testament, being what you might call a New Testament kind of gal.” She stuffed the King James Bible into the Virgin Airlines shoulder bag that they now used to convey their meager belongings. “Somehow I’d conveniently forgotten about all the death and mayhem associated with the Ark. Just now I was reading about the battle of Ebenezer.”
“If memory serves correctly, Ebenezer was where the Philistines not only defeated the Israelites but managed to steal the Ark of the Covenant.”
“And wasn’t that a big mistake? Within hours of installing the Ark inside the Temple of Dagon, the Philistines discovered the statue of their deity smashed to smithereens. But, of course, that was nothing compared to the plague of boils that suddenly afflicted the
entire city of Ashdod. In the ensuing panic, the Philistine king wisely decided to return his ill-gotten booty to the Israelites.”
“At which point the Philistines loaded the Ark of the Covenant onto a cart and rolled it to the Hebrew town of Bethshemesh.”
“Where, as you mentioned yesterday, fifty thousand residents were indiscriminately slaughtered because of a curious few who dared to peek inside the Ark.” Edie’s brow furrowed. “You know, I’m trying hard, but I just can’t get a handle on an all-loving, all-forgiving God instigating that kind of brutality.”
“I, for one, don’t believe that God had anything to do with the Ark’s devastating powers.” Caedmon leaned back in his coach seat, crossing his legs at the knee. “Rather I believe that the Ark’s power was entirely manmade. To comprehend its supposedly supernatural power, one must understand how the Ark was constructed.”
“You said that the Egyptian bark was more than likely the prototype used by Moses.”
He verified the statement with a quick nod. “I am certain of it. First, consider the materials used. Both bark and Ark were manufactured from gold. An enormous quantity of gold, to be precise.”
“Well, gold is one of the most valuable metals known to man.”
“More important, gold is an extremely dense metal that is chemically nonreactive. Although it can’t be proved, some biblical scholars believe that the gold used on the Ark was nine inches thick.”
“You’re kidding? That would make for a huge hunk of gold.”
“Indeed.” Riffling through the shoulder bag, he removed pen and paper. Culling to mind the detailed descriptions given in the Old Testament, he managed to produce a fairly accurate rendition of the Ark of the Covenant.