Ark of Fire

CHAPTER 15

A fiddle fuck.

That’s what he had on his hands, a goddamned fiddle fuck.

Uncertain how things turned so bad so quickly, Boyd Braxton shoved his arms into his black turtleneck sweater. The unconscious Walter Jefferson was still sprawled on the floor of the janitor’s closet. Having retrieved his bundle of clothing from where he’d earlier stowed it, he’d returned to the closet, needing to reconnoiter. In a big-ass hurry, he yanked his black pants over the top of the blue pair he already wore. He didn’t give a rat’s ass how he looked. He just needed to not look like a janitor. Too many people had seen a janitor firing into the crowd. No way in hell would he be able to get out of the museum decked out like some numbnuts custodial worker.

He shoved the Ka-Bar and the Mark 23 into his waistband. Next he checked his cell, the phone programmed with a preset number to immediately warn him if the tracking device was activated.

He heaved a sigh of relief; the Jeep was still parked out front.

The bitch was in the museum. He could make this right. Wherever the bitch went, he would follow.

Yanking open the door of the janitor’s closet, he stepped across the threshold; the museum concourse was directly across from his present position.

Quickly he scanned the area. Blown-out glass. A couple of overturned tables. Some broken plates. The concourse was all assholes and elbows as people frantically sloshed across the wet floor, water having gushed from the fountain when the plate glass shattered. A sobbing woman in a tight-fitting suit, hobbled by a pair of stiletto heels, limped past. Boyd nearly gagged in her wake; the broad was doused in more perfume than a Bangkok whore.

Through the hole in the glass, he heard the blare of at least a half dozen police sirens. Any second, the place would be swarming with cops.

No sense looking for the Miller bitch; he already knew she’d fled the concourse, having earlier caught sight of her and that redheaded bastard heading toward the gift shop.

Just who the fuck was he, anyway?

Obviously, the guy was a player. He had to be. Nobody had reflexes that quick unless he’d been trained. Maybe the redheaded bastard worked for a law enforcement agency. Whoever he worked for, it meant trouble.

Boyd strode over to where the Miller woman had been sitting and snatched a sheet of paper off the floor.

“Shit!”

On the sheet of paper were two hand-drawn sketches: one a drawing of the relic he’d earlier stolen from the Hopkins, the other the Jerusalem cross that he and every other man at Rosemont Security Consultants wore on his right ring finger.

As he continued to stare at the piece of paper, he caught sight of a Muslim couple; the wife wore a hijab and was hurriedly pushing a baby stroller as the kid bawled its head off. The couple stopped a few feet away from where he stood. The woman peered into the stroller, the kid bawling even louder.

The bawling baby in the back room was gonna give away their position. There was a sniper in the building across the street and dozens of raghead fuckers prowling the streets of Fallujah in Toyota pickups, RPG launchers at the ready. If the brat didn’t stop bawling, he and his men were gonna end up hanging from a streetlight with no head and no balls. Burnt toast.

Boyd strode into the back bedroom. “Hey, Fatima, shut the fucking brat the hell up!” he hissed.

Wrapped in a big black chador, she stared at him. Like he was a freakin’ Martian or something.

Well, fuck that shit! He was sick and tired of getting his ass shot at for these ungrateful, godless people.

Lunging forward, he slashed the black-swathed woman’s throat. Then he grabbed a pillow off the bed and shoved it over the bawling brat’s face.

The piece of paper in Boyd’s hand began to shake as his head suddenly exploded in a corona of pain.

Babies crying. Women crying. Everybody and their fucking Uncle Tom crying. Christ, you’d think he’d killed somebody. Like this was a goddamned war zone or something. This was nothing. A minor public disturbance. A custodial worker gone postal. Except this time around, nobody got killed.

And that was the problem. Somebody was supposed to have ended up dead.

Kill ’em. Kill ’em all. God will know his own. Isn’t that what the colonel always said?

Still staring at the Muslim couple and their screaming baby, Boyd reached behind his back, his hand curling around the gun grip. Slowly he slid the Mark 23 from his waistband. Papa, Mama, and Baby Bear. One, two, three.

No sooner did he pull the gun free than his cell phone vibrated against his breastbone.

Boyd shoved his piece back into his waistband. Turning his back on the Muslim couple and their screaming brat, he reached for his cell. The digital display read RSC. Rosemont Security Consultants.

“Fuck.”

It was the colonel calling for a status report.

Feeling like Joe Shit the Ragman, he depressed the Answer button. Since the colonel hated what he referred to as circumlocution—what Boyd and everybody else with a twelfth-grade education called beating around the bush—he didn’t bother with the pleasantries. Instead, he simply said, “We’ve got a problem, sir. The target escaped, the place has turned into a three-ring circus, and the cops have just arrived.”

The statrep met with a moment’s silence; Boyd braced himself for a world-class ass chewing.

“Is the Miller woman still on the premises?” the colonel asked, his calm tone of voice taking Boyd by surprise. Usually this kind of fuckup would meet with a wrath second only to that of God Almighty.

“I believe so, sir. Her Jeep is still parked out front. I found a sheet of paper with two drawings: one of the relic, the other a Jerusalem cross. And one other thing, sir”—he hesitated, knowing the colonel would break his balls but good—“she’s hooked up with somebody. A tall guy with red hair. I’m not altogether certain, but he may be a player. What do you want me to do, sir?”

Another silence ensued. In the background, Boyd heard the muffled strains of several voices, the colonel having put him on the speakerphone. Then he heard what sounded like a file folder being opened.

“Gunnery Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Stand by for further instruction.”