by Chloe Palov
No sooner were they alone than Cædmon urgently nudged her with his elbow. Having got her attention, he nodded towards his anorak pocket before shooting her a meaningful glance.
The nail file.
When they’d been given the wellington boots earlier that morning, Cædmon had managed to remove the file from his shoe and put in his coat pocket. Since he’d already been subjected to a thorough body search, he had assumed they wouldn’t search him a second time. With his hands cuffed in front of him, he wasn’t be able to retrieve the file. But her hands, although similarly bound, were much smaller.
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 Cædmon’s pocket.
Now what? she asked with her eyes.
Cædmon indicated that he wanted the file.
A few seconds later, the metal file tightly grasped between his interlocked fingers, he motioned for her to saw her plastic cuffs back and forth across it.
It took several moments of frantic sawing before the plastic gave way.
Her hands freed, she immediately reached up to remove the strip of duct tape from her mouth. Beside her, Cædmon tersely shook his head. 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.
Gripping the file between her clenched fists, she held steady while Cædmon sawed through his cuffs, freeing himself at the exact moment that Harliss flicked aside the end of his cigarette. Cædmon snatched the file from her. Then, his hands lying inert in his lap, he stared straight ahead. Now understanding his reason for not removing the tape, Edie struck a similar pose. With the tape in place, they created the illusion of still being bound.
Harliss, humming softly to himself, walked round the front of the Range Rover. With one hand he retrieved the gun shoved into the back of his waistband while with the other he reached for Cædmon’s door handle.
Edie tensed. Completely in the dark as to what Cædmon intended to do, her heart beat a painful tattoo.
An instant later, Cædmon’s door swung open.
‘Okay, boys and girls. Time to say hello to the hang –’
Edie saw Cædmon smash his shoulder against Harliss’s right hand, slamming the southerner’s wrist against the door frame, the unexpected motion causing Harliss to drop his gun.
‘Fucking shit! I’m gonna –’
Nail file in his hand, Cædmon raised his right arm. A split second later blood splattered onto the passenger window. A thick, red Rorschach blotch. Then a blood-curdling scream of agony.
Harliss fell to the ground, his legs twitching convulsively. Once. Twice. Before he went eerily still, his booted feet splayed awkwardly.
Cædmon ripped the piece of duct tape off his mouth. ‘Don’t look!’
The caution came an instant too late.
Horrified at 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 car!’ Cædmon ordered. ‘Sanchez will be here any second.’
Operating on autopilot, Edie reached for the door knob, stumbling out of the SUV in an ungainly heap. Turning her head, she saw that Cædmon had got out on his side and was hunched on the ground, searching for Harliss’s weapon.
Just then, a salvo 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 towards them. She also saw Cædmon 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 Cædmon –
Reaching her side of the Range Rover, Cædmon immediately released his hold on the bullet-riddled corpse, the human shield having no doubt saved his life. Crouched beside the bonnet, he began firing Harliss’s retrieved weapon.
‘Search his pockets for an ammo clip!’
Edie 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 Cædmon, frantically wondering how long he could keep Sanchez at bay. A quick peek over the bonnet verified that the other man had taken up a firing position behind the tumbled remnants of a brick wall.
‘Damn! I’m out of ammunition,’ Cædmon muttered, tossing the gun aside.
Suddenly catching a whiff of a very familiar scent, Edie glanced down to see liquid pooling at her feet. ‘Oh God! He hit the gas tank! We’ve got to get out of here!’
Snatching the GPS receiver and cigarette lighter out of her hand, Cædmon shoved them into his anorak pocket.
‘Keep low!’ he whispered, grabbing her elbow. ‘We don’t want Sanchez to know that we’re on the move. Hopefully, he’ll maintain his 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 resumed firing. Placing a hand on her shoulder, Cædmon 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 palsied, Edie watched as Cædmon removed the piece of duct tape that had been stuck over his mouth from his coat pocket. Along with Harliss’s silver cigarette lighter.
‘What are you planning to –’
‘Shhh!’
Terrified, Edie watched as Cædmon flicked on the lighter, the blue flame jauntily waving to and fro. He then wrapped the salvaged strip of duct tape around the lighter trigger so the flame wouldn’t go out. Edie noticed USMC engraved on the side of the lighter.
Putting a finger to his mouth, Cædmon wordlessly warned her to be silent, the admonition totally unnecessary, fear rendering her speechless.
Narrowing her gaze, she watched as Sanchez crept away from the wall. Bent at the waist, his gun held between his hands, he slowly approached the Range Rover.
Edie held her breath, suddenly realizing what Cædmon intended to do.
In no apparent hurry, Cædmon waited until Sanchez was within a few feet of the SUV. His expression steadfast, he then rose to his knees, cocked his arm back and hurled the lighter towards the Range Rover.
An instant later, a ball of fire engulfed the car.
Jubilant, Edie clutched Cædmon’s knees. ‘Oh God! Do you think we’re actually gonna get away?’
Cædmon smiled crookedly. ‘To paraphrase that 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, we need to find safe haven.’
More concerned with speed than stealth, they hurried off through the dry stalks of winter grass.
72
They’d gone nearly a mile when they came upon an abandoned farmhouse. From its derelict appearance, the house had been vacated years before, there being more than a few missing panes of window glass.
‘Now what?’ Edie asked, glancing around the farmyard, seeing only a jumble of weeds and tall grass.
Cædmon surveyed the area. ‘Search the house for weapons. Knives, scissors, anything you can lay your hands on. I’ll search the outbuildings for a vehicle.’
‘You actually know how to hot-wire a car?’
‘In theory. Assuming I can find one.’
Rising on tiptoe, Edie leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, then, having her orders, rushed towards the front porch. The door being warped, it took some joggling of the knob and a very determined shoulder to coerce it open. Ignoring
the dust mites, cobwebs and a heavy odour of mildew, she scanned the hall, her gaze 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 shed enough light for her see that vermin had had the run of the place. More than one cupboard door was ajar, containers of boxed food having been ripped open. A bag of sugar and a box of salt had been torn asunder on the kitchen counter.
She hurriedly began opening drawers, hoping to find a kitchen knife. 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 floorboards near the doorway creaked.
‘You didn’t really think that someone would abandon the house but leave the phone connected?’
Hearing that accented voice, Edie spun on her heel, the golf club slipping through her fingers, clattering onto the wood floor.
Her heart caught in her throat.
Standing across from her, holding a gun aimed at her chest, was Sanchez. Not only were his face and clothes blackened with soot, but blood poured freely from a jagged wound on his cheek, the skin 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 shaking, she reached behind her, gripping the edge of the worktop.
‘Where’s your red-headed lover boy?’
‘We got separated after the blast,’ Edie lied, knowing Sanchez would be out for vengeance, eye for an eye taking on a whole new meaning.
The sound of a car door being slammed echoed across the farmyard.
Sanchez cocked his ear, then shrugged. ‘Can’t start a car with a dead battery. What a bitch, huh?’
As he spoke, Edie inched her hand towards the salt 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.
Sanchez bellowed loudly, his head and body twisting in different directions.
Pushing herself away from the counter, Edie charged down the hall towards the open front door.
No sooner did she clear the doorway than she ran headlong into Cædmon. In his right hand he held a small axe, in his left he had what looked like a long-handled garden rake.
‘Sanchez is in the kitchen!’ she breathlessly exclaimed. ‘And he’s got a gun!’
She saw the muscles in Cædmon’s jaw clench and unclench, saw the feral gleam in his eyes. This was a man who had mercilessly taken out a foe by jamming a nail file into his skull.
Wordlessly, he shoved the axe into his anorak pocket then wrapped his free hand around her upper arm and ran, Edie barely able to keep pace with his long-legged stride.
They’d gone no more than a hundred yards when shots rang out, half a dozen in rapid succession. Cædmon dodged towards a large outbuilding. Kicking open a wood-planked door, he shoved her inside.
Edie squinted at 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,’ Cædmon muttered, dragging her across the dimly lit space. ‘It’s an old abattoir.’
‘What’s an abattoir?’
‘A slaughterhouse.’
73
The place does have a decided charnel-house feel to it, Cædmon thought as he hurried 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 space, this one with a high-pitched ceiling and an arched window set into the gable. More heavy chains dangled from rafters, more hooks on the walls. Elaborate cobwebs adorned all four corners. Overhead, a pair of sparrows flew out through the broken window. The menacing space would have made a black-robed inquisitor feel right at home.
Quickly, knowing he had only a few moments to set the trap, he shoved Edie towards a rusty metal cart, the only object of any size in the room.
‘Get yourself behind the cart. And for God’s sake, don’t move.’
Satisfied that she was out of sight, he placed the rake on the floor near the door, the prongs pointing up in what he hoped would be Sanchez’s direct path. Then, removing the axe from his pocket, he positioned himself in a dark cobweb-strewn corner.
Knowing he would have just one chance with the dull axe, he waited.
A few moments passed in tense silence. Then, as though scripted, the door to the cavernous room creaked open.
Sanchez, looking like a battered chimney sweep, slowly entered the room, pistol gripped 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.
Cædmon held his breath, hoping that the other man didn’t glance down, the rake some six feet from his booted right foot.
Tightening his grip on the axe handle, he mentally pictured the attack. A practice run. Having bowled many an over while at Oxford, he first imagined hurling the axe using a straight-armed delivery. Thinking 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 prongs of the rake.
Then two steps.
One step.
As planned, the instant that Sanchez’s booted foot landed on the prongs, the rake handle flew up, hitting him square in the face. Like a child’s top, Sanchez wobbled. The element of surprise now on his side, Cædmon stepped out of the shadows and hurled the axe towards the other man’s chest.
A dust-laden beam of light from the window glinted off the spinning blade.
Instinctively Sanchez twisted, his arm 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 axe by its handle, yanking the blade out of his arm. His eyes glazed but still alert, he searched the room, gun in one hand, the bloody axe in the other.
Seeing Cædmon standing in the corner, his gaze narrowed.
Slowly, in no apparent hurry to kill his quarry, Sanchez aimed the powerful pistol at a point somewhere in the middle of Cædmon’s head.
There being nothing he could do to stop the bullet, Cædmon defiantly stood his ground.
Smiling, Sanchez pulled the trigger.
There was a dull click.
The smile vanishing from his lips, Sanchez pulled the trigger a second time. Again, the only sound was the hollow click of the firing pin.
He was out of ammunition.
With a muttered oath, Sanchez dropped the gun. Then, in a blur, he was on Cædmon, swinging his arm, the axe blade aimed at his belly, the man clearly of a mind to eviscerate him. Cædmon leapt sideways, the blade missing him by a scant inch.
Out of the corner of his eye, Cædmon 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 Cædmon lifted his left foot off the ground, ramming his welly into Sanchez’s kidneys. The well-aimed kick propelled the other ma
n several feet, his head smashing into the wall. The axe slipped through his fingers, falling to the floor. Not giving his foe time to recover, Cædmon rushed forward. Placing one hand at the back of Sanchez’s skull and the other against his spine, he rammed the brute’s head against the metal cart.
The 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, Cædmon 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 jerking convulsively. Cædmon suspected that the man’s brain battled on, still sending flight-or-fight messages to his limbs, refusing to accept the inevitable, refusing to lie down and die.
Edie turned her head, unable to watch Sanchez in his death throes.
A few seconds later Cædmon placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.
‘He’s gone. Where to, I can’t say. Although I suspect he will be refused entry to heaven.’
Edie glanced at the sprawled corpse. Deprived of that animating spirit called the soul, bulging muscles were flaccid, eyes open wide in a ghoulish stare.
‘I need to get out of here.’ Pushing him aside, Edie staggered towards the door.
Going down on his knee, Cædmon quickly searched Sanchez’s pockets then followed Edie out of the abattoir.
Silently they stared at the wrecked farm. On the wet breeze Cædmon smelt rotted wood. In the distance a dilapidated shutter rattled against an equally dilapidated window frame.
‘Now what?’
‘No idea,’ he told her.
‘Couldn’t you have come up with something more positive?’
‘Sorry. My brain is a bit mashed.’ He showed her the mobile he had discovered in Sanchez’s coat pocket.
‘Do you think MacFarlane will give chase?’
Cædmon thought about this for only a second before shaking his head. ‘He has the Ark. That’s all he cares about.’
74