Stones of Fire

by Chloe Palov

  ‘Surely in that day there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel, so that the fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, the beasts of the field, all creeping things that creep on the earth, and all men who are on the face of the earth shall shake at my presence. The mountains shall be thrown down, the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.’

  Opening the storage compartment in the middle of the Range Rover’s dashboard, Stanford MacFarlane stowed away his well-worn Bible, the words of the prophet Ezekiel never ceasing to inspire him.

  Beside him, in the driver’s seat, his gunnery sergeant muttered under his breath, complaining yet again about having to drive on the left side of the road. Stan ignored him. They would be in Margate soon enough. A small fishing boat docked at the harbour would enable them to bypass British customs.

  Again, he craned his neck to look at the well-padded crate in the back of the Range Rover.

  The Ark of the Covenant.

  It had taken more than twenty years for him to find the most sacred of relics. During this search ordained by God he had followed every lead, every rumour, every crackpot theory, his quest taking him to the distant corners of the globe. Ethiopia. Iraq. France. One by one, each theory had been discredited, leaving only the quatrains of Galen of Godmersham.

  Again, he glanced at the crate, experiencing a tingling sensation. As though his entire body was enveloped in a static electric field.

  The Lord was near at hand! He could feel it!

  For it was at the Ark that God, made manifest, had appeared to Moses. The Ark not only embodied the Almighty, it was the symbol of God’s promise to his chosen people. Nothing had changed. It was now as it had been then. Adorned with the Stones of Fire, he would be able to speak with the Almighty. Just as Moses had conversed with God in the wilderness. With that heady thought in his mind, Stan was able to hear the blast of trumpets and the clash of cymbals, the shouts and cheers, the joyful hosannas. As though thirty-five hundred years had come and gone in the blink of an eye.

  All praise to God the Almighty!

  He knew full well that God’s plan for mankind had been formulated in the Garden of Eden and that it would end with a new paradise where those worthy of his blessings would enjoy a thousand years of peace and prosperity. Finally, their rest well deserved, the warriors would put aside their bloody weapons and lie side-by-side with the meek and gentle lamb.

  With astounding clarity, the prophet Ezekiel had seen the crimson future that would precede this golden dawn. Stan did not doubt that Ezekiel’s prophecy would soon unfold, taking an unprepared world by storm. The future was already written, prophecy the gift that God gave to quell man’s fear in the face of the dark and violent nights that were to come. And when Ezekiel’s prophesied war came, sinful man would have no doubt as to God’s existence.

  Those would be dark days. Days that would push man to the limit of his endurance. But those who refused to traffic with the enemy would be reborn in the new world to come. A time of rest for the people of God. When the deserts of the earth would be made fertile and when the Dead Sea would no longer be dead. Ezekiel had foretold how those waters would be stocked with the very fish that would feed the new kingdom of God.

  A thousand of years of peace. Time for an old warhorse to at long last take his rest.

  Reaching into his pocket, Stan removed his BlackBerry and rapidly keyed in a numeric code with his thumbs. Double-checking each digit, he sent the message, knowing it would simultaneously reach the Warriors of God stationed in Europe and the Middle East. Battle orders issued, he returned the device to his pocket.

  As they approached the outskirts of Margate, Stan thought of the Englishman and his harlot. Their execution well-deserved, he felt no pity. Instead, a wave of hatred washed over him. Hate was good. Cleansing even. Hate enabled a man to slay the infidel and slaughter the sinner.

  He would put his hate to good use in the days to come.

  75

  ‘I know this is going to sound crazy, but I’m actually sad,’ Edie confessed, taking the proffered coffee cup from Cædmon’s outstretched hand. ‘Angry, but sad. I mean those two guys were a couple of homophobic misanthropes in dire need of some sensitivity training. But watching them die was…’ She broke off and stared at the narrow road in front of the public bench.

  Coffee cup in hand, Cædmon seated himself beside her. He, too, gloomily stared at the main thoroughfare that ran through the middle of the small seaside port of Gilchrist.

  Knowing the local constabulary would be drawn to the plumes of black smoke produced by the Range Rover explosion, and that in turn would lead them to at least one dead body, he’d used the pilfered GPS receiver to plot a course in the opposite direction from the charred ruins. Although exhausted, they’d tramped through deserted fields, eventually arriving at their present location. Unwelcoming in the way that some small towns tend to be, Gilchrist had about it the distinct scent of salt and dead fish, the town’s only saving grace being its coach station. Assuming one could call a metal bench in a shelter beside the road a coach station.

  Raising the paper cup to his lips, Cædmon took a sip of the horrible-tasting brew he’d purchased at the fish and chip shop across the way. According to the reticent fellow behind the counter, the afternoon coach to London was due to arrive in forty minutes.

  ‘It’s never easy to watch the end of a life,’ he replied, also haunted by the deaths of Harliss and Sanchez. ‘Try as you might to erase the memory, it leaves an imprint on your soul.’

  ‘Not for MacFarlane or his men.’ Raising the plastic lid of her cup, Edie took several swallows. Only to grimace a few seconds later from the bitter aftertaste. ‘They believe that when they pull the trigger, they’re doing God’s work.’

  ‘Somehow I doubt whether MacFarlane’s God would have much truck with those who long for peace.’

  Sighing, Edie wrapped her free arm around his waist and leaned her head on his shoulder. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m in desperate need of a group hug.’

  As am I, love. As am I.

  He hoped the day’s atrocities would quickly recede from Edie’s memory and she could forgive what she’d seen him do. As soon as they reached London, he intended to call in a favour from an old chum at MI5 and get her into an out-of-the way safe house. Some place where Stanford MacFarlane and his assassins could never find her.

  Edie lifted her head from his shoulder. ‘What do you think MacFarlane plans to do now that he has the Ark?’

  ‘The first thing is to get it out of Britain. If he’s discovered with the Ark on English soil, not only will the bloody thing be confiscated, it will be sent direct to the British Museum.’ Where it would draw larger crowds than the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles and the Sutton Hoo treasure combined.

  He removed the GPS receiver from his anorak pocket. ‘It’ll take a few moments to initialize,’ he informed her as he hit the ‘Power’ button. He held the receiver aloft to get a satellite fix on their position. A few seconds later, glancing at the small display screen, he said with a teasing smile, ‘Ah, we are exactly where we should be.’

  Edie half-heartedly returned the smile. ‘Since I have yet to correctly programme the TV remote, I’ll have to trust you on that one. But isn’t the GPS a bit superfluous? I mean, we’re here already and we know where here is.’

  ‘On the contrary. This is a hand-held computer with satellite capabilities and untold stored information.’ Using the ‘Nav’ key, he accessed a database file of saved maps. ‘Now, isn’t this interesting? A number of maps have recently been downloaded. There are maps for Oxford, Oxfordshire, Godmersham, Swanley and…’ He stared at the list.

  ‘Come on, Cædmon. I can only hold my bated breath for so long.’

  ‘And Malta,’ he replied, turning the receiver in her direction.

  ‘Malta?’ Tapping her pursed lips, she stared at the screen. ‘Although world geography isn’t one of my strong suits, I seem to recall that Malta
is a spit of an island located in the Mediterranean Sea. Do you think that’s where MacFarlane is headed?’

  ‘Given that the list of maps perfectly corresponds to MacFarlane’s known movements in the last seventy-two hours, we must assume that Malta is his destination.’ How ironic, given that the diminutive isle had once been home to the Knights of St John, the same order of warrior monks of which Galen of Godmersham had been an initiated member.

  ‘Isn’t Malta where St Paul was shipwrecked en route to Rome?’

  ‘Hmm? Er, yes,’ he answered, interrupted from his reveries. ‘As a crossroads between Africa and Europe, the island has been visited by many famous and infamous people.’

  ‘But why would MacFarlane take the Ark to Malta?’

  Cædmon shrugged, at a loss. ‘The dreams of a madman are difficult to decipher.’

  ‘I’m guessing that getting the Ark out of England is going to be difficult, what with airport security being so tight.’

  ‘Which is why Stanford MacFarlane will no doubt use a boat. An innocuous trawler leaving port in the dead of night sounds about right.’ As he spoke, the mobile phone in his pocket began to beep.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Cædmon shoved his hand into his anorak pocket and removed the mobile he’d taken from Sanchez. He glanced at the display.

  ‘Unless I’m greatly mistaken, we’ve just been given Stanford MacFarlane’s next move,’ he said, showing her the message: ‘105-13-95-39-17-35-90-63-123-51-20-98-34-27-43-110-87-71-41-9-54-2-120’.

  ‘Will ya look at that? It’s some sort of text message from Rosemont Security Consultants. Although I don’t know that I would call it a text message per se since it’s nothing more than a list of numbers.’

  ‘A coded list, I dare say.’ Cædmon suspected that Stanford MacFarlane maintained contact with his men using flash messages sent via mobile phones, a brilliant means of communication in the satellite age, enabling MacFarlane to issue simultaneous orders across the globe.

  ‘If only we had the encryption key,’ he murmured.

  ‘Do you think it has anything to do with the map of Malta on the GPS receiver?’

  ‘Mmmm… difficult to say.’ His gaze ricocheted between the receiver and the mobile. ‘Probably not – Harliss was the only one of MacFarlane’s men to carry a satellite receiver. I suspect that MacFarlane moves his chess pieces very carefully across the board, the master plan revealed in dribs and drabs.’

  ‘Where do we begin the hunt?’

  ‘In Malta. However, from this point forward, there is no more “we”.’

  Edie’s brown eyes gleamed furiously. ‘So you’re planning to dump me and chase after MacFarlane on your own.’

  ‘I intend to retrieve the Ark, yes.’ Getting up from the bench, he walked over to a bin and dropped in his coffee cup.

  He had no delusions as to the difficulty of the task he’d set himself. Tracking down MacFarlane and securing the Ark of the Covenant would more than likely prove an impossible, if not deadly, undertaking. But try he must. The GPS receiver had proved a godsend. Now at least he knew where to hunt for his nemesis.

  Grabbing him by the wrist, Edie dragged him back down onto the bench. ‘I know you’re worried about me, but going after the Ark isn’t a one-man job. You’re going to need all the help you can get with MacFarlane and his Warriors of –’

  ‘I can’t take you with me.’

  ‘Why not?’

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

  ‘You arrogant bastard!’ She leapt 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.’

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

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

  ‘A frightening prospect.’

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

  ‘After today’s primer in apocalyptic beliefs, 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 easy 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.’

  76

  Cædmon took a deep breath, the sea air invigorating. Bracing his hands on the railing, he stared at the rolling blue Mediterranean waves that danced in the lemony light of early morning. It was the same sea that Odysseus had sailed on his way to battle the Trojans.

  Standing beside him, cheeks tinted red from the breeze, Edie also inhaled deeply. ‘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 a plane high above the sea,’ he grumbled. ‘Too many of these ferry boats have sunk in recent years. Not to mention that travelling by sea is a damn slow way to get from point A to point B.’ Point A being Naples and B their final destination, Malta.

  ‘Yeah, but in the dead of winter flights into Malta are few and far between. This will actually get us there 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 a bit of that, haven’t I?’

  ‘Understandable. You’re under a lot of stress.’

  Truly an understatement. Already, the old paranoia had set it. 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 an assailant with a gun.

  Because of his intelligence training, he knew the drill – always pay with cash, never use your real name and never, ever, sleep in the same bed two nights in a row. Simple enough, but Edie’s Pre-Raphaelite beauty attracted attention wherever she went.

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

  ‘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.

  ‘And you’re concerned that when we get the Ark from MacFarlane, it may gobble us whole.’

  ‘Mock me if you must, but the Ark was once used as a supercharged weapon of mass destruction,’ he said, still hoping she would have a change of heart.

  ‘Aeons ago. Which means there’s nobody around who knows how to activate the ancient electromagnetic technology that once powered it. 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 oompah-pah. So, no need to worry about it exploding in our faces, or anything like that.’

  ‘That’s not what I fear. The Ark could be used to convince millions of God-fearing people that the End Times are truly upon us.’

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

  Edie turned away from the water. Leaning against the railing, her arms folded across her chest, she stared at him. Brazenly. Although they were surrounded by other travellers, there was something intimate about the wind, the water, the warmth that radiated from their two bodies that countered the cool satin chill of the winter’s day.

  Cædmon sidled closer.

  After Jules he’d had a few casual relationships, unwilling to get too close. Which is why it made no sense, with the Ark hanging over his head like the Sword of Damocles, to 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.

  Torn asunder by Apollonian reason and Dionysian desire, the age-old conflict between head and heart, he simply did not know what to do.

  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 like coming out of a Tube station and suddenly finding himself in an unfamiliar location.

  ‘Christ! I need a map,’ he muttered.

  ‘I beg your pardon.’

  ‘Nothing.’ He waved away the thought. ‘A bit of nonsense.’

  And it was nonsense. He was forty. Middle-aged. He’d long since put happy ever after behind him. And yet…

  Edie slid her hand behind his head, pulling him close. ‘You know what? I’m in the mood for a no-nonsense kiss,’ she announced, rising up on tiptoe, giving him no time to say yea or nay.

  It took only a second for the unexpected kiss to turn decidedly passionate, Edie sucking his tongue with erotic abandon as she mashed her pelvis against his crotch. Growling, Cædmon framed her face between his hands, angling her head to deepen the contact, suddenly consumed with the overriding urge to slake his lust on her. Like one of his wild Scottish forebears. Civility be damned.

  Unbelievably arousing, the kiss, when it finally ended, left both of them panting.

  ‘Chins will wag,’ he rasped, resting his forehead against hers as he took several deep restorative breaths.