Ark of Fire

by C. M. Palov

  “I can’t take you with me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t have time to potty-train you.”

  “Why, you arrogant bastard!” She leaped to her feet. “I’m not some Bond girl along for the ride. I’m your partner. And in case you didn’t get the memo, I am a full and equal partner.”

  Caedmon stared at her, unable to take his eyes off the long corkscrew curls that blew about her flushed face. Also unable to quash the memory of her standing beneath an upraised pickax.

  “‘In the world you will have tribulation,’” she continued. “John sixteen. A Bible verse that Stanford MacFarlane, no doubt, holds near and dear.”

  “And a frightening prospect it is.”

  “Yes, it is frightening. Which is why I’m going with you to Malta. Unlike you, I completely understand MacFarlane and his radical beliefs. For five years, I was fed a steady diet of Ezekiel and the End Times prophecy.”

  “After today’s primer in apocalyptic belief, I should be able to manage.”

  “What you heard was just the tip of the iceberg. Think of me as your very own expert in Christian fundamentalism. Besides, we’re a team. We have been from the very beginning. So, short of knocking me unconscious, there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

  “Very well,” he murmured.

  If she wondered at his ready acquiescence, she gave no indication. “Okay, now that we’ve got that settled, what’s the game plan?”

  “Simply put, to grab MacFarlane by the Old Testament and squeeze very, very hard.”

  CHAPTER 76

  Caedmon took a deep breath of the invigorating sea air. Bracing his hands on the deck railing, he stared at the rolling blue Mediterranean waves that danced in the lemony light of early morn. It was the same sea that Odysseus once sailed en route to battle the Trojans.

  Standing beside him, her cheeks tinted red from the breeze, Edie also deeply inhaled. “Other than a Potomac River dinner cruise, this is the first time I’ve ever been on a big boat. I think I like being on the open sea.” A mischievous smile playing about her lips, she winked at him. “Could be because I was a lady pirate in a past life; what do you think?”

  “I think I’d rather be in an airplane roaring high above the sea,” he grumbled. “Too many of these blasted ferry boats have sunk in recent years. Not to mention that traveling by ferry is a damn slow way to get from point A to point B.” Point A being Naples and point B their final destination: Malta.

  “Yeah, but given that it’s the dead of winter, flights into Malta are few and far between. This will actually get us to our destination six hours sooner than if we’d waited for the next available flight. Which you would know if you’d ever watched The Amazing Race. So stop griping.”

  “I have been doing quite a bit of that, haven’t I?”

  “Understandable. You’re under a lot of stress.”

  Truly an understatement. Already, the old paranoia had set in. The niggling fear that an unseen enemy would lurch from the shadows. Danger and treachery but a heartbeat away. If allowed to run rampant, fear could quickly become a man’s worst enemy. More dangerous than the brute with a gun.

  Because of his intelligence training, he knew the drill—always use cash, refrain from using one’s real name, and never, ever sleep in the same bed two nights in a row. Simple enough if not for having Edie in tow. With her Pre-Raphaelite beauty, she garnered attention wherever she went.

  Short of knocking me unconscious, there’s nothing you can do to stop me.

  An ultimatum. One he didn’t much care to ponder.

  “You’ve got two very big creases in the middle of your brow. Care to share your worries?”

  “I was thinking about the Ark and the poor blokes at Bethshemesh,” he lied, not about to confess his true thoughts.

  “And you’re concerned that when we commandeer the Ark from MacFarlane, it may gobble us whole.”

  “Mock me if you will, but the Ark was once used as a supercharged weapon of mass destruction,” he informed her, still hoping she would have a change of heart and return to the mainland.

  “Eons ago. Which means there’s nobody around who knows how to activate the ancient electromagnetic technology that once powered the Ark. To operate a piece of machinery, you need an instruction manual. And that manual, whether it was written down or passed verbally from father to son, has long since vanished. In other words, the Ark has lost its oom-pa-pa. So no need to worry about it exploding in our faces or anything like that.”

  “That’s not the danger I fear. As a tool of propaganda, the Ark could be used to convince millions of God-fearing people that the so-called End Times are truly upon us.”

  Her eyes focused on the sprightly waves in the distance, Edie plaintively sighed. “Yeah, that has me worried, as well,” she conceded. “Though God may not be fooled by MacFarlane’s false piety, a whole lot of good, well-intentioned people will eat up his prophetic ramblings. But enough said on that topic, huh?”

  Pronouncement made, Edie turned away from the water. Leaning against the railing, her arms folded across her chest, she stared at him. Quite unabashedly. Although they shared the vessel with countless passengers, there was something inherently intimate about the wind, the water, the warmth that radiated between their two bodies, all of it countermanding the cool satin chill of the winter’s day.

  Caedmon sidled closer.

  After Jules died, he’d had a few casual relationships, unwilling to take another chance. Which is why it made no sense, with the Ark hanging over his head like the blasted sword of Damocles, that he would now want the very thing he’d studiously avoided.

  Bloody hell. He was daft to think they could make a go of it. They didn’t even live on the same continent.

  In truth, he didn’t know how he felt about Edie Miller. He’d not had time to analyze his feelings. He only knew it was akin to coming out of a tube station and suddenly finding himself in a strange and unfamiliar location.

  “Christ! I need a blasted map,” he muttered.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Nothing.” He waved away the thought. “A bit of nonsense.”

  And it was nonsensical. He was forty. A man of middling years. He’d long since put such emotions behind him, a cheery forever after being the hope of one’s youth. Not one’s maturity. And yet . . .

  Edie slid her hand behind his head, pulling him close. “Wanna go back to our room?” she asked, rising up on tiptoe, giving him no time to reply.

  It took but a second for the unexpected kiss to turn decidedly passionate.

  “I think you know the answer to that,” he murmured against her lips.

  Taking her by the arm, he strode down the gangway; Edie had to jog to keep up with his hurried pace. It took only a few moments for them to reach their room, his hand shaking as he inserted the key into the lock. He wasted no time dragging her inside, slamming the door shut behind them.

  CHAPTER 77

  It was a moment of quiet intimacy. Of murmured endearments. Life slowed down to its simplest, most lovely, facet.

  In the midst of the quietude, Edie felt a spark. She snuggled closer to Caedmon, burrowing her head into the crook of his bare shoulder. This was not the first time she’d felt the spark, and she wondered if anything would come of it.

  Could anything come of it?

  On paper, she gave their relationship the shelf life of a carton of milk. If that. They were simply two sexually healthy people caught up in the excitement of the moment. Although, glancing at the small clock mounted to the wall, she could see that the excitement had lasted quite a few hours.

  “You do know that this . . . this attraction is nothing more than a primitive urge,” she said, propping her head on his chest.

  “Perhaps it must be primal, stripped of all civility, in order for us to put aside our preconceived notions of what should and shouldn’t be.”

  Hmm . . . it sounded as though he’d given their relationship more than a
passing thought.

  “And maybe Freud was right about there being no such thing as pure unadulterated love. Maybe there’s sexual need and nothing else,” she countered, testing him.

  “I suspect that Freud was an impotent bugger who wouldn’t have known love if it had slapped him in his bearded face. Let’s not analyze it. Let’s simply accept it, whatever it is, as a beginning. Tentative and tenuous, perhaps, but a beginning nonetheless.”

  She smiled; Caedmon had passed the test with flying colors.

  “Agreed. But if you think I’m one of those women who’d settle for a man just because he puts down the toilet seat, think again.”

  “Point taken. Although I hope you’ll reward me with several bonus points for being so considerate.”

  “Change of subject,” she announced. “I’m curious as to what would have happened if you had stayed at Oxford and received your doctorate?”

  “You mean how would my life have unraveled?” When she nodded, he said, “In a very typical fashion, no doubt. I would have received a college appointment, most likely at Queen’s. At which point my life would have become a steady stream of tutorials, committee meetings, and university functions.”

  “You know, I’m one of those people who believe that things happen for a reason. Personally, I don’t think you were meant to live such a sheltered life. Just look at Sir Kenneth Campbell-Brown. Okay, the man is brilliant, but he’s also a confirmed alcoholic bachelor. You were meant for a better life.”

  Smiling, Caedmon brushed his lips against hers. “At the mention of the path not taken, I feel strangely glad-hearted.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Bloody hell,” he abruptly exclaimed a half second later. “How do terrorists communicate with one another?”

  Surprised by the unexpected question, she lifted a shoulder. “Beats me. Although I suspect the answer is not messenger pigeons.”

  “In a sense, that is the correct answer in that they communicate via the Internet,” he informed her, his blue eyes excitedly gleaming. “Which enables them to freely pass messages to cells and operatives all over the globe. Perhaps MacFarlane and his Warriors of God are no different.”

  “Okay, suppose that’s true. How does the instant text message on Sanchez’s cell phone fit in? I thought that was how MacFarlane was communicating with his men.”

  “When we first received the flash message, I thought that a communiqué had been encoded into the numeric list and that an encryption key would be needed to decipher the message. But what if the numeric list is the encryption key?”

  “Sorry, I’m not following.” Edie propped her head on her hand.

  “Knowing he can’t be too careful when sending messages across the globe, MacFarlane might very well have devised a two-pronged mode of communication. The first prong being the numeric list that was sent to Sanchez’s mobile phone.”

  “And the second prong?”

  “Mind you, this is mere speculation, but the second prong, or piece of the puzzle, might be the Warriors of God Web page.”

  “You’re talking about the Web page that we checked out back in D.C., right?”

  Caedmon shrugged. “As I said, it’s merely a working theory. All bones, no meat.”

  “So let me make sure I’ve got this straight,” she said, still uncertain how all the pieces fit together. “You think there might be a message encoded in the Warriors of God Web page and that this message can only be decoded using the numeric list from the text message.”

  “There’s only one way to find out. Unless I’m mistaken, the ferry boat is equipped with Inmarsat.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A mobile communications system that enables Internet access while at sea.”

  Throwing back the sheet, Edie swung her feet to the floor. “Well, what are we waiting for?”

  CHAPTER 78

  “Doom and gloom of the worst sort, eh?”

  Sitting side by side in front of the ship’s computer monitor, Edie and Caedmon stared at the Warriors of God home page.

  “‘When the Warriors of God battle the dark forces—will you be ready for this holy Revolution? Will you be a Patriot marching under God’s golden banner’?” Edie read aloud from the computer monitor. Unnerved by the apocalyptic “announcement” that was prominently displayed on the screen, she shuddered. “You don’t really think there’s a secret message buried somewhere in this so-called announcement, do ya?”

  Leaning back in his chair, Caedmon slowly tapped his index finger against his chin. Several seconds passed in contemplative silence before he finally said, “My guess is that MacFarlane has used a simple alphanumeric substitution cipher. Since his flash message was intended for mass consumption, I doubt that he would employ too elaborate a cipher.”

  “The old KISS rule, huh?” Seeing Caedmon’s quizzical expression, she smiled. “As in ‘Keep it simple, stupid.’”

  Amused, Caedmon chuckled. “Clearly, we are of like mind. Employing the KISS rule, I propose that we consecutively number each letter and punctuation mark in MacFarlane’s hate-filled diatribe.”

  Pencil in hand, he carefully wrote out the “announcement” on a sheet of paper. Then he sequentially numbered each letter and punctuation mark.

  While Caedmon busied himself with laying out the cipher, Edie nervously glanced over her shoulder; the ship’s Internet computer was set up in the very public club room. A few tables away a middle-aged quartet played cards. From the cigarette butts overflowing the table’s only ashtray, she guessed that they had been playing for some time. About twenty feet away, an older well-dressed man and his much younger male companion were huddled together in front of a soft drink machine. And on the other side of the club room, a harried mother openly breast-fed her infant.

  “I’ll have you know that this is the same cipher that won you Yanks your independence, the words revolution and patriot being the dead giveaway.”

  Her eyes opened wide. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Not in the least. Created by Benjamin Franklin, this particular alphanumeric cipher was used to code messages shuffled back and forth between the Continental Congress and sympathetic French diplomats. Would you like to do the honors?” Caedmon offered her the pencil.

  Taking the implement, Edie first glanced at the alphanumeric chart that he had created from MacFarlane’s Web page.

  Then she glanced at the list of numbers from the text message.

  104-13-94-38-35-17-89-62-122-57-19-97-33-26-42-109-86- 70-40-9-53-2-119

  “Wish me luck.”

  Caedmon having done all the work, it only took a few moments for her to write out the deciphered message.

  dome of the rock eid al-adha

  Neither of them said anything; Edie was not altogether sure what, if anything, the message meant.

  “The Dome of the Rock is the big gold-leafed Islamic shrine that sits on top of the Temple Mount, right?”

  “Unquestionably the most famous silhouette on the Jerusalem skyline,” he confirmed; Edie could detect a husky catch in his voice.

  Something was wrong. That much was readily apparent.

  “MacFarlane’s message means something to you, doesn’t it?”

  Still staring at the decoded message, Caedmon slowly nodded. “I now know why Stanford MacFarlane and all of his followers wear the Jerusalem cross ring. As you, no doubt, recall, the Jerusalem cross was the symbol adopted by the medieval crusaders when they conquered the Holy City in the eleventh century.” The entire time he spoke, he stared at the decoded message.

  “And why do you think that’s significant?” she prodded, not altogether certain that she wanted to know the answer.

  “Because Jerusalem was only theirs for the briefest of i nterludes; the Muslim caliph Saladin retook the city in 1187.” Suddenly resembling a sad-faced crusader from a medieval woodcut, Caedmon turned his head and looked at her. “Clearly, MacFarlane has taken upon himself the crusaders’ cause.”

  “I don’t understa
nd. What cause?”

  “Like the crusaders of old, MacFarlane and his men intend to conquer the holy city of Jerusalem, their first military target being the Dome of the Rock.”

  At hearing that, her jaw slackened. “When? How?”

  “I have no idea as to the how. As to the when, it is obvious that they intend to launch their attack on the Islamic holy festival of Eid al-Adha. Which, unless I’m greatly mistaken, begins on December the eighth.”

  “But”—she did a quick mental calculation—“that’s less than two days away.”

  CHAPTER 79

  “Giving us a narrow window of opportunity.”

  As he spoke, Caedmon was acutely, painfully, aware of the play of opposites. Good and evil. Love and hate. Life and death.

  “So, what exactly are you saying—that MacFarlane intends to destroy the Dome of the Rock on December eighth?”

  “It does fit in with all of his apocalyptic posturing. And there’s a certain irony in his selection of holy days, Eid al-Adha being the Muslim Day of Sacrifice, commemorating the day when Abraham intended to sacrifice his beloved son Ishmael to prove his love to Allah. The Dome of the Rock marks the precise location of where the sacrifice was to have taken place. It’s also the spot where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven—making the Dome of the Rock the third-holiest site in all of Islam.”

  “Right behind Mecca and Medina.”

  He nodded, staggered by MacFarlane’s dark vision. Eid al-Adha. The Day of Sacrifice. The day when Muslim worshippers would be packed onto the Temple Mount. Ten thousand strong.

  “Maybe we need to dial back a bit. I mean, the encrypted message doesn’t specifically mention anything about destroying the Dome of the Rock,” Edie pointed out, playing devil’s advocate.

  “But MacFarlane did unequivocally state that he intends to install the Ark of the Covenant in the newly constructed Temple,” he countered. “And I think it no coincidence that the Dome of the Rock sits on the very site where Solomon’s Temple once stood.”