Ark of Fire ca-1

by C. M. Palov

  Quickly she flipped open the flap on his pocket, shoving her fingers into the opening. It took only an instant for her to remove the file from Caedmon’s pocket.

  Now what? she silently asked.

  Caedmon wordlessly indicated that he wanted her to pass him the file.

  A few seconds later, with the metal file tightly grasped between his interlocked fingers, he motioned for her to use the file to cut through her plastic flexi-cuffs.

  It took several moments of frantic sawing back and forth before the plastic finally gave way.

  Her hands freed, she immediately reached up to remove the strip of duct tape from her mouth. Beside her, Caedmon tersely shook his head, silently commanding her not to remove the gag. Uncertain why he wanted her to keep the tape in place, she grabbed the file out of his hands; they had a narrow window and she wasn’t about to waste any time second-guessing him.

  Tightly gripping the nail file between her clenched fists, she held steady while Caedmon roughly sawed through his flexi-cuffs, freeing himself at the exact moment that Harliss flicked aside the tail end of his cigarette.

  Hurriedly Caedmon snatched the file from her. Then, his hands lying inert in his lap, he stared straight ahead. Now understanding the reason for not removing the duct tape, Edie struck a similar pose.

  With the tape in place, they created the illusion of still being bound.

  Harliss, softly humming to himself, walked around the front of the Range Rover. With one hand he retrieved the gun shoved into the back of his waistband while with the other hand he reached for Caedmon’s door handle.

  Edie tensed. Completely in the dark as to what Caedmon intended to do, her heart beat a painful tattoo.

  An instant later, Caedmon’s door swung open.

  “Okay, boys and girls. Time to say hello to the hang—”

  In a quick peripheral flash, Edie saw Caedmon violently shove his shoulder against Harliss’s right hand, slamming the southerner’s wrist against the metal door frame; the unexpected motion caused Harliss to drop his gun.

  “Fucking shit! I’m gonna—”

  Nail file grasped in his hand, Caedmon raised his right arm, slashing downward in a smooth arc.

  A split second later, blood splattered onto the passenger window. A thick, red Rorschach blotch. Then a bloodcurdling scream of agony.

  Harliss fell to the ground, his legs convulsively twitching. Once. Twice. Before he went eerily still, his booted feet awkwardly splayed.

  Caedmon ripped the piece of duct tape off his mouth. “Don’t look!”

  The caution came an instant too late.

  Horrified at seeing the metal nail file protruding from the sprawled man’s eye socket, Edie yanked the tape from her mouth, spraying the back of the front seat with yellow stomach bile.

  “Quick! Get out of the vehicle!” Caedmon ordered. “Sanchez will be here any second.”

  Operating on autopilot, Edie reached for the doorknob, stumbling out of the SUV in an ungainly heap. Turning her head, she saw that Caedmon had exited on his side and was hunched on the ground, searching for Harliss’s weapon.

  Just then, a barrage of bullets peppered the Range Rover.

  Edie screamed, instinctively throwing herself to the ground. Peering under the vehicle, she saw Sanchez slam an ammunition clip into his weapon as he charged toward them. She also saw Caedmon grab Harliss by his shoulders, using the lifeless man as a shield.

  Another rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire rang out.

  Edie slammed a balled fist into her mouth, hoping, praying that Caedmon—

  Reaching her side of the Range Rover, Caedmon immediately released his hold on the bullet-riddled corpse, the human shield having no doubt saved his life. Crouched beside the SUV’s hood, he began firing Harliss’s retrieved weapon.

  “Search his pockets for an ammo clip!”

  Edie quickly crawled over to the dead southerner. Forcing herself not to look at the nail file protruding from his eye socket, she shoved her hand into Harliss’s jacket pocket.

  “All I’ve got is the GPS receiver and a cigarette lighter!” she hissed at Caedmon, frantically wondering how long he could keep Sanchez at bay. A quick peek over the top of the SUV verified that the other man had taken up a firing position behind the tumbled remnants of a stone fence.

  “Damn! I’m out of bullets,” Caedmon muttered, tossing the gun aside.

  Suddenly catching a whiff of a very familiar scent, Edie glanced at her feet, surprised to see liquid pooling at her feet. “Oh, God! He pierced the gas tank! We’ve got to get out of here!”

  Snatching the GPS receiver and cigarette lighter out of her hand, Caedmon shoved them into his anorak pocket.

  “Keep low!” he whispered, cinching a hand around her elbow. “We don’t want Sanchez to know that we’re on the move. Hopefully, he’ll maintain his defensive position long enough for us to escape.”

  But to where? Edie wondered, seeing nothing but overgrown fields in every direction.

  They’d gone no more than twenty yards when Sanchez r esumed firing his weapon. Placing a hand on her shoulder, Caedmon shoved her to the ground.

  “On your belly,” he ordered, flinging himself beside her.

  Side by side, they lay hidden in the tall grass.

  Every limb in her body shaking, as though in a palsied state, Edie watched as Caedmon removed the used piece of duct tape from his coat pocket. Along with Harliss’s sterling silver cigarette lighter.

  “What are you planning to—”

  “Shhh!”

  Terrified, Edie watched as Caedmon flicked on the lighter, the blue flame jauntily moving to and fro. He then wrapped the salvaged strip of duct tape around the lever so that the flame wouldn’t go out. Edie noticed that the initials USMC were engraved on the side of the lighter.

  Putting a finger to his mouth, Caedmon wordlessly warned her to be silent; the admonition was totally unnecessary, as fear had rendered her speechless.

  Narrowing her gaze, she watched as Sanchez crept away from the stone wall. Bent at the waist, his gun held between his hands, he slowly approached the Range Rover.

  Edie held her breath, suddenly realizing what Caedmon intended to do.

  In no apparent hurry, Caedmon waited until Sanchez was within a few feet of the SUV. His expression steadfast, he rose to his knees, cocked his arm back and—

  —hurled the lighter toward the Range Rover.

  An instant later, a huge blast erupted and the Range Rover exploded into a ball of fire.

  Jubilant, Edie slung an arm around Caedmon’s knees. “Oh, God! Do you think we’re actually gonna get away?”

  Caedmon crookedly smiled; Edie could see that he, too, was joyfully relieved. “To paraphrase that oddly named American chap, we’re not done for until the fat lady sings.”

  “I’ve never been able to sit through a Wagner opera.”

  “Nor I. But on the off chance that Sanchez survived the blast, we need to find a safe haven.”

  More concerned with speed than stealth, they clumped through the dried stalks of winter grass.

  CHAPTER 72

  They’d wandered nearly a mile when they came upon an abandoned stone farmhouse. From its derelict appearance, the house had been vacated long years before, there being more than a few missing panes of window glass.

  “Now what?” Edie asked, glancing around the ramshackle farmyard and seeing only a jumble of weeds and tall grass.

  Caedmon surveyed the area. “Search the house for weapons. Knives, scissors, an old hunting rifle, anything you can lay your hands on. I’ll search the outbuildings for some sort of conveyance.”

  “You actually know how to hot-wire a car?”

  “In theory. Assuming I can find a serviceable vehicle.”

  Rising up on her tiptoes, Edie leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Here’s hoping the practical application comes off without a hitch.”

  Having been issued her orders, she rushed toward the front stoop. The door sat crooked
in the jamb; it took some jostling of the knob and a very determined shoulder shove to coerce it open. Ignoring the dust mites, cobwebs, and heavy odor of mildew, she scanned the foyer, her gaze finally alighting on a solitary golf club protruding from a tall metal milk jug. Thinking it as good a weapon as any, she grabbed the eight iron.

  She then felt her way down the dark hallway, the light switch producing nothing but a dull click, and soon found herself in a primitive kitchen. The grimy window above the dry sink produced enough light for her see that vermin had had the run of the place. More than one cupboard door was ajar, and containers of boxed food had been ripped open. In an apparent feeding frenzy, a bag of sugar and a box of salt had been torn asunder; a small white pile of each sat on the kitchen counter.

  She hurriedly began opening drawers, hoping to find a kitchen knife that had been left behind.

  To her dismay, the search turned up nothing more deadly than an ice cream scoop and a rusty can opener.

  Seeing an old-fashioned telephone mounted on the wall, she rushed over and grabbed the heavy handset.

  Damn. Dead air.

  As she hung up the phone, the wood planks near the doorway softly creaked.

  “You didn’t really think that someone would abandon the house but leave the phone connected?”

  At hearing that slightly accented voice, Edie spun on her heel, the golf club slipping through her fingers and clattering onto the wood floor.

  Her heart caught in her throat.

  Standing across from her, holding a gun that was aimed at her chest, was Sanchez. Not only were his face and clothes blackened with soot, but blood freely poured from a jagged wound on his upper cheek, the skin having been flayed in the car blast.

  Edie stood unmoving. Like a frog in a warming cauldron.

  “Hope springs eternal,” she told the unsmiling gunman, striving for a calm she didn’t feel. To keep her hands from noticeably shaking, she reached behind her, gripping the edge of the countertop.

  “Where’s your redheaded lover boy?”

  “We got separated after the blast,” Edie lied, knowing Sanchez would be out for vengeance, the old “eye for an eye” taking on a whole new level of meaning.

  The sound of a car door being slammed echoed across the farmyard.

  Sanchez cocked his head, then shrugged. “Can’t start a car with a dead battery. What a bitch, huh?”

  As he spoke, Edie inched her hand toward the salt pile that she’d earlier seen on the counter. “Yeah, what a bitch,” she retorted, tossing a handful of salt at the gaping wound on his face.

  Rearing his head back, a thunderbolt in reverse, Sanchez loudly bellowed.

  Pushing herself away from the counter, Edie charged down the hall toward the open front door.

  No sooner did she clear the doorway than she ran headlong into Caedmon. In his right hand he held a small ax; in his left he had what looked to be a long-handled garden hoe.

  “Sanchez is in the kitchen!” she breathlessly exclaimed. “And he’s got a gun!”

  She saw the muscles in Caedmon’s jaw clench and unclench, saw the feral gleam in his eyes. This was the man who had mercilessly taken out his foe by jamming a nail file into his skull.

  Wordlessly, he shoved the ax into his pocket. Then he wrapped his free hand around her upper arm and took off running; Edie could barely keep pace with his long-legged stride.

  They’d gone no more than a hundred yards when shots rang out, a half dozen of them in rapid succession. Caedmon dodged toward a large stone outbuilding. Kicking open a wood-planked door, he shoved her inside.

  Edie squinted, surprised to see a huge chain with an ominous hook at the end of it dangling from a ceiling beam.

  “It looks like some kind of torture chamber.”

  “Close enough,” Caedmon muttered, dragging her across the dimly lit room. “It’s an old abattoir.”

  “What’s an abattoir?”

  “A slaughterhouse.”

  CHAPTER 73

  The place does have a decidedly charnel house feel to it, Caedmon thought as he hurriedly ushered Edie across the abattoir.

  Hopefully not a harbinger of things to come.

  Shouldering open a rickety door, he motioned Edie through. A second later, they emerged into another dimly lit room, this one with a high-pitched ceiling and an arched window set into the gable. Heavy chains dangled from the rafters. Elaborate cobwebs adorned all four corners. Overhead, a pair of sparrows flew through the broken panes of glass, the abandoned abattoir having evidently become a makeshift aviary. The menacing space would have made a black-robed inquisitor feel right at home.

  Quickly, knowing he had but a few moments to set the trap, he shoved Edie toward a rusty metal cart, that being the only piece of “furniture” in the room.

  “Get yourself behind the cart. And for God’s sake, don’t move,” he tersely instructed.

  Satisfied that she was out of sight, he placed the long-handled garden hoe on the floor near the door, the blade pointing upward. In what he hoped would be Sanchez’s direct path. Then, removing the ax from his pocket, he positioned himself in a dark, cobweb-strewn corner.

  Knowing he would have but one chance with the dully honed ax, he waited.

  A few moments passed in tense silence. Then, as though scripted, the door to the cavernous room creaked open.

  In the next instant, Sanchez, looking like a battered chimney sweep, slowly entered the room, gripping a semiautomatic pistol in his right hand. A powerful weapon, it could blow a man’s head clean off his shoulders. Two steps into the room, Sanchez came to a standstill, scanning for the slightest hint of movement.

  Don’t move, Edie. For the love of God, don’t even think about moving.

  Caedmon held his breath, hoping that the other man didn’t glance downward, the hoe innocuously set some six feet from his booted right foot.

  Tightening his grip on the ax handle, he mentally envisioned the attack. A practice run. Having bowled many a cricket game while at Oxford, he first imagined hurling the ax in a straight-armed delivery. Knowing he wouldn’t get the desired height, he replayed the scenario in his mind’s eye, this time with bent elbow.

  He spared a quick sideways glance at the cart, relieved to see that Edie had faded into the shadows. His gaze then ricocheted back to Sanchez, who had taken a tentative step forward.

  He calculated the other man to be three steps from the upturned blade of the hoe.

  Then two steps.

  One step.

  As planned, the instant that Sanchez’s booted foot landed atop the blade, the hoe handle flew upward, hitting him square in the face. Like a child’s top, Sanchez unsteadily wobbled. With the element of surprise now on his side, Caedmon stepped out of the shadows and hurled the ax toward the other man’s chest.

  A dust-laden beam of light from the window glinted off the spinning ax blade.

  Instinctively Sanchez twisted, his arm protectively shielding his heart, parrying the blow as best he could.

  The dull blade caught him on the right bicep, slicing deep. But not deep enough; Sanchez grunted as he grasped the ax by the handle and yanked the blade out of his arm. His eyes glazed, but still cognizant, he searched the room, a gun in one hand, the bloody ax in the other.

  Seeing Caedmon standing in the corner, he narrowed his gaze.

  Slowly, in no apparent hurry to kill his quarry, Sanchez aimed the powerful pistol at a point somewhere in the middle of Caedmon’s head.

  There being nothing he could do to stop the bullet from reaching its intended target, he defiantly stood his ground.

  Smiling, Sanchez pulled the trigger.

  A dull click.

  The smile having suddenly vanished from his lips, Sanchez pulled the trigger a second time. Again, the only sound was the hollow click of the firing pin.

  Sanchez was out of ammunition.

  With a muttered oath, he dropped the gun. Then, in a quick blur, he was on Caedmon, swinging his arm, the ax blade aimed at his
soft underbelly, the man clearly of a mind to eviscerate him. Caedmon leaped sideways, the blade missing him by a scant inch.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Caedmon saw Edie lurch to her feet.

  “You bastard!” she screamed. Wild-eyed, she grabbed a chain from a nearby wall hook and began swinging it over her head like a medieval mace.

  Endowed with enviably quick reflexes, Sanchez pivoted in Edie’s direction.

  Which is when Caedmon lifted his left foot off the ground, ramming his wellie into Sanchez’s kidneys. The well-aimed kick propelled the other man several feet, smashing his head into an array of metal instruments hanging from the wall. The ax slipped through his fingers, falling to the floor.

  Not giving his foe time to recover, Caedmon rushed forward. Securing one hand against the back of Sanchez’s skull and the other against his spine, he rammed the brute’s head against the metal cart.

  The rickety walls of the abattoir shook with the impact.

  Sanchez, a stunned, owl-like expression on his face, rolled into a fetal ball. A moment later, he opened his lips. To speak or scream, Caedmon knew not. The only thing emitted from his gaping mouth was a bright red trickle of blood. A second later his body shook with a mighty spasm, his feet convulsively jerking. Caedmon suspected that the other man’s brain battled on, still sending fight-or-flight messages to his limbs, his brain refusing to accept the inevitable, refusing to lie down and quietly die.

  Edie turned her head, unable to watch Sanchez in his death throes.

  A few seconds later, Caedmon placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  “He is gone. Where to, I can not say. Although I suspect he will be refused entry to the heavenly realm.”

  Edie glanced at the sprawled corpse. Deprived of that bit of animating spirit called the soul, bulging muscles were flaccid, eyes open wide in a ghoulish stare.