Ark of Fire

by C. M. Palov

  “Don’t move,” he ordered, pointing the gun at her heart. “Or there won’t be anything left of your left titty.”

  Not so much as twitching, Edie braced herself, certain a bullet would slam into her chest at any moment.

  When it didn’t happen, she released a pent-up breath, wordlessly watching as her would-be rapist clicked the safety on his weapon. That done, he placed it on the mantel. Completely out of reach.

  Cracking his knuckles, he walked toward the bed. “In case you’re wondering, I can kill you with my bare hands as easily as I can shoot you.”

  Edie didn’t doubt for one second that he spoke the truth.

  Intently staring at her, he placed a knee on the foot of the bed. In the next instant, he had her pinned beneath him. His harsh breath hit her full in the face. Edie figured he had a good hundred pounds on her.

  Unable to move, barely able to breathe, she mutely stared at her assailant.

  She had only two choices: submit or fight. Either way, when all was said and done, she figured she’d end up dead.

  At that thought, Edie heard a buzzing in her ears, the rapist-cum-murderer’s rough unshaven face blurring at the edges.

  Submit, a voice in her head ordered.

  Submit and you might live.

  If you live, you can snatch the gun on the mantel.

  And if you get the gun, you can blow him away.

  Her mind made up, Edie clenched her jaw and stared at the ceiling.

  Finagling his hand between their hips, the monster unbuttoned his pants. In the same instant his cell phone vibrated; Edie could feel the pulse against her bare hip.

  “Fucking shit.”

  Removing his hand from between their two bodies, he reached for the vibrating phone clipped to his waistband. “Not a word,” he warned, supporting himself on his elbows.

  Relieved to have some of his weight removed, Edie obediently nodded.

  “Braxton. Yes, sir, I got her.” He frowned, his brows drawing together in the middle. “No, sir, she’s all right . . . yes, sir . . . I’ll have her there in fifteen minutes.”

  Disconnecting the call, he snapped his cell phone shut and reclipped it on his waistband. Muttering some of the most foul-mouthed profanities she’d ever heard, he pushed himself to his knees, clamping a hand around her upper arm as he did so. With no explanation as to what he was doing, or why he was doing it, he pulled her off the bed.

  Edie had no idea who had been on the other end of the line. And she didn’t much care. She only knew that she’d been given a reprieve.

  His hand still wrapped around her upper arm, he dragged her over to the mantel, retrieving his gun. He then shoved her through the open bathroom door.

  “Get dressed,” he ordered, gesturing to the messy pile of clothes on the toilet seat.

  Bending at the waist, Edie picked up her discarded bra. “Can I at least dry off? I’m still wet.”

  “Bitch, do I look like I care?”

  CHAPTER 58

  Without a doubt, he’d been a pompous ass.

  Ashamed of his earlier actions, Caedmon hoped that a heartfelt apology would smooth the rough waters. If it didn’t, he would woo Edie with Parsi lamb and cardamom pudding.

  He glanced at the brown takeaway bag clutched in his hand, hoping the peace offering would lead to improved relations. And that improved relations led to something decidedly more intimate. More romantic.

  As he climbed the well-worn treads that led to their garret room, he wondered if the day would ever come when he could make a full confession. When he could freely and openly tell Edie about the pain of love lost, of vengeance sought and claimed, of the eventual emergence from an alcohol-induced fog. He thought that because of her own travails, she would understand. Maybe even forgive.

  “And a warm, fuzzy hug would be nice, too,” he said aloud, chortling.

  Still laughing as he reached the top of the stairs, the chuckle caught in his throat.

  The door to their room had been left ajar.

  Afraid of what he would find on the other side of the door, he slowly pushed it all the way open, entering the room. At a glance, he could see that a violent ruckus had taken place. Almost immediately his gaze landed on the large dark spot that stained the tousled coverlet. Setting the brown bag on the dresser, he walked over to the bed. His heart painfully thudding against his chest, he placed his hand on the wet spot, then breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t blood.

  Edie Miller was still alive.

  Not as well as she could be, but most definitely alive.

  And for that, God, I do indeed thank you.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he spied the Virgin Air bag on the floor next to the bed, upended, emptied of its contents. He next surveyed the room, searching for a ransom note.

  There was none. He didn’t need a scrawled scrap of paper to know Edie had been kidnapped because they wanted him.

  Stunned by the well-executed abduction, he went into the bathroom, heading straight for the sink. Turning on the cold water tap, he rinsed his face.

  He knew the drill: wait until further instruction. Eventually, he would be contacted. If their plan had been to kill Edie, they would have left her corpse behind as a warning. But there was no sprawled, blood-splattered body. Her abduction was simply a means to an end.

  He reached for the neatly folded bath towel and dried his face.

  Taking deep, measured breaths, he walked back to the bedroom. Again, he inspected the premises, searching for anything that could be used as a weapon. When the time came to confront his foes, he didn’t want to stand before them defenseless. His gaze alighted on the upholstered chair. The chair where Edie had earlier sat, filing a broken nail.

  Having no recollection of her returning the file to the Virgin Air bag, he walked over to the chair. The file not being in plain view, he slid his hand around the chair cushion. Frustrated when he came up empty-handed, he removed the cushion from the chair.

  There, betwixt two stale chips and a piece of hard candy, dully gleaming in the lamplight, was the nail file. Though it was hardly a well-honed broadsword, it would have to do.

  He replaced the chair cushion.

  Bloody hell, but he wanted a drink. Needed a drink to—

  Not on your life, old boy. You face the enemy head-on. No armor. No weapon to speak of. Only your wits.

  And a burning desire to save the woman he’d come to think of as his own.

  Lowering himself into the lumpy Marquise chair, he inhaled the exotic scents of cardamom and cumin mingled with that of lemon-scented water.

  Waiting . . .

  CHAPTER 59

  “I mean you no harm,” Stanford MacFarlane said as he ushered her into the room.

  Edie snorted, the memory of her near rape all too vivid. “Yeah, and British beef is safe to eat.”

  As she spoke, she glanced around her prison, taking in what appeared to be an old millhouse, the metal cogs and wheels of the original machinery still in place on the other side of the room. She could hear water running beneath the floorboards and figured the millhouse was located on a stream or brook.

  Next she turned her gaze to the man standing across from her. She gauged Stanford MacFarlane to be in his mid- to late fifties, the graying buzz cut with the sharply defined widow’s peak being the dead giveaway. At one time he was probably handsome, but years spent in the sun had turned age lines into deeply incised creases, giving him a stern, gnomelike visage. A man of medium height, he had an erect military posture, with an air of command that bordered on the egomaniacal. She figured that right about the time he started to toddle, folks got out the garlic when they saw him coming.

  “Just answer me this . . . what are you going to do if you actually get your hands on the Ark?”

  “That’s between me and the Almighty,” MacFarlane r eplied.

  “What if the Ark of the Covenant turns out to be nothing more than a gold-plated box?”

  MacFarlane smiled. “And God said to Mose
s, ‘Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.’”

  Realizing that he considered the Ark some kind of God box, Edie decided to try a different approach. “There’s no question in my mind that you’re a God-fearing man. Which means that we have a lot in common. You may not know this, but I go to church every Sunday and . . . well, I don’t have to tell you what the Bible says about mercy and compassion. ‘Blessed are those who are pure in heart: for they shall see God,’” she recited, tossing out a Bible verse of her own, figuring the only way to fight fire was with more of the same.

  Hearing that, MacFarlane’s gaze narrowed. “Like many of your ilk, you’ve hijacked the Bible in order to put forth your left-wing, feel-good agenda. The carjacker will not steal your vehicle if you show some compassion. Nor will the killer pull the trigger as he is an intrinsically good man.”

  And the rapist will not brutalize his victim if shown loving-kindness. Yeah, right.

  Turning away from her, MacFarlane walked over to the nearby kitchenette; the stone-walled room was a big open space with matching sofas on one side, a dining room table in the middle, and a kitchen on the opposite end. She watched as he pulled two clean mugs from a shelf. He then opened two packets of instant cocoa. That done, he poured hot water from a carafe.

  Even as he handed her one of the mugs, he glared at her. A dark, impassioned glare that sent a chill down her spine. She didn’t dare refuse the cocoa.

  “I know you and your kind, Miss Miller. You think that by putting your carcass in the pew every Sunday, God will look kindly upon you, that perfect church attendance will equal a free pass into heaven.”

  “You’ve got me mixed up with some other person. Personally, I think it’s important for . . .” She searched for the right word. “. . . the betterment of one’s soul to engage in good works, Christian charity being the touchstone of—”

  “Spare me the secular soliloquy. As if volunteering at some inner-city soup kitchen will gain you entry into heaven. Faith, not deeds, will secure you a place among the righteous.”

  “Don’t you mean the self-righteous?” she retorted.

  “You and your kind are an anathema unto the Lord.”

  “Then we clearly worship two different gods.”

  “At last, something we can agree upon.”

  And as Edie knew full well, it was an agreement based on a bitter divide.

  Truth be told, she was taken aback at how much Stanford MacFarlane reminded her of Pops; her maternal grandfather had held to a very conservative interpretation of the Bible. At the time she’d thought it a stifling interpretation. But when espoused by a man like MacFarlane, it went from stifling to scary. Put a black robe on him and Stanford MacFarlane would have made the perfect Spanish inquisitor.

  “Speaking of a free pass into heaven, if you think that finding the Ark is your stamped ticket, think again,” she said, refusing to go quietly into the funeral pyre.

  About to raise his mug to his lips, MacFarlane lowered it. For several seconds—seconds that conjured images of burning bodies—he stared at her.

  “Unlike you, I will die and rise with the Old Testament saints.” Then, as though he’d simply made a passing comment about the weather, he calmly took a sip of his cocoa.

  Edie stood silent.

  There was no way to argue with a zealot. The years spent with Pops had taught her that; the memory still weighed heavy. Like a giant millstone on her heart.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a gossamer strand of cobweb dangling from the wood-beamed ceiling. Staring at it, she suddenly felt very much like the fly ensnared in that deceptively beautiful web.

  But unlike the ensnared fly, she had an out. Caedmon.

  Above all else, she knew he would come. If not to rescue her, then to find the Ark.

  CHAPTER 60

  Hearing a sonorous knock, Caedmon turned in his chair. The guesthouse proprietor, a florid-faced Welshman, stood in the doorway, no doubt baffled as to why the door had been left ajar. Simply put, he had not seen a need to close it.

  “You’ve got a call,” the other man announced, clearly annoyed at having had to climb four sets of stairs to convey the message. “You can take it at the front desk.” Announcement made, he took his departure.

  Caedmon rose to his feet. As he walked toward the door, he glimpsed the sketched drawing of the Canterbury window, along with the handwritten translation of the quatrains. Both left in plain sight on the wooden bench. A stark and painful reminder that Edie’s abduction had everything to do with the Ark of the Covenant.

  Knowing he would have need of both, he retrieved the two sheets of paper, slipping them inside his anorak pocket. That being the only thing of value in the room, he trudged after the proprietor, closing the door behind him.

  A few moments later, standing at the rough-hewn counter that masqueraded as a front desk, Caedmon lifted the heavy handset of an old-fashioned telephone. “Go ahead. I’m listening,” he said, refusing to engage in the hypocrisy of a civil greeting.

  “I do hope you’re having a pleasant evening,” the American male on the other end smoothly, and hypocritically, said in turn.

  “Sod off! Is she still alive?”

  “You know that she is.”

  “I know no such thing. If we are to continue the conversation, I require proof of life.”

  “You’re hardly in a position to make demands.”

  “I am not demanding,” Caedmon countered in a calmer tone, reining in his unruly emotions. “I am requesting, as a show of good faith, you give me proof that Miss Miller is, indeed, your captive.”

  The request was met with silence, and then Caedmon could detect a muffled command being issued.

  Then, a few seconds later, “It’s me, Caedmon. I’m . . . I’m all right.”

  At hearing Edie’s voice, he glanced heavenward.

  She was alive.

  “Have they harmed you in any way?”

  “No, they—”

  “Satisfied?” her captor snarled into the phone.

  “Yes, I’m satisfied. What must I do to ensure her safe r eturn?”

  The other man chuckled, obviously amused by the question. “Find me the Ark of the Covenant, of course.”

  Caedmon fell silent.

  Hearing the proviso so bluntly spelled out—in clear, concise, unequivocal terms—made him acutely aware that MacFarlane might very well be asking the impossible. For nearly three thousand years the Ark had remained hidden. Naught but a legend. Many before him had tried—and failed—to find it. Somehow, against impossible odds, he had to succeed.

  His stomach muscles painfully cramped; he was afraid that the challenge might prove insurmountable.

  Knowing the negotiations would come to a horrible end if such doubts were hinted at, let alone verbalized, he strove for a confidence he didn’t feel. “Do I have your word that when I find the Ark, Edie Miller’s life will be spared?”

  “My word is my bond,” the other man promptly replied. “As soon as we hang up, I want you to leave that rathole of a hotel and head three blocks south. Turn left at the telephone booth on the corner. There’s an alley halfway down the street. My men will be waiting for you. Don’t try anything foolish. If you do, the woman dies. And, trust me, it won’t be a pleasant death.”

  Instructions issued, the call was unceremoniously disconnected.

  For several long seconds Caedmon stared at the telephone, events unraveling at a faster pace than he would have liked.

  Needing to be on his way, he banged his palm against the silver bell on the counter. When the Welshman appeared, he slid his hand inside his coat pocket and removed his billfold. “I would like to check out.”

  The proprietor suspiciously stared at him. “Where’s the missus?”

  “She has gone ahead without me.”

  Bill paid in full, he left the guesthouse and proceeded south as directed, his progress slowed by an almost impenetrable fog, the gray mist as dense as Irish oatmeal
.

  On his right, he passed a pub, its yellow light spilling onto the pavement. Earlier in the evening, he’d glumly sat in that same pub, staring at a full pint of lager. Knowing alcohol would do nothing to resolve the unsettled business with Edie, he’d handed the glass to an inebriated local before wordlessly slinking out.

  Had he not succumbed to a moment’s weakness, the abduction might have been thwarted.

  Caedmon shoved the thought aside. He couldn’t change the past. He could only affect the here and now.

  As he made his way through the dense fog, sound became muffled to such an extent that he couldn’t discern whether a honking vehicle was to his left or to his right. The alarming scene was so cinematic, he wondered if MacFarlane had somehow magically conjured the foul weather on command, such notions reminding him anew that all he had at his command was the nail file hidden beneath the leather insole of his right oxford.

  Again, he rehearsed the plan in his mind’s eye. A jab to the eye. A deep puncture to the neck. If used correctly, the metal file could become a deadly weapon. He’d killed before. He could do so again.

  Approaching a red call box, he turned left as he had been instructed. When he came to the alleyway, he made another left. At the end of the deserted lane, he sighted two men leaning against a parked Range Rover.

  MacFarlane’s bully boys. Dicey characters, the both of them.

  Though he had no concrete evidence, Caedmon assumed that MacFarlane recruited his mercenaries straight out of the U.S. military. Special Forces, more than likely.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” he said, touching his fingers to an imaginary hat brim.

  Neither man acknowledged the greeting, although one of them pushed himself away from the vehicle and stepped toward him. Without being asked, Caedmon raised his arms, grasping the back of his head with his clasped hands. The other man impersonally patted him down, searching every crevice where a weapon might be concealed.

  Search concluded, Caedmon slowly lowered his arms.

  “Strip off your clothes.”

  “I beg your pardon?”