Ark of Fire

CHAPTER 22

“Boy, you don’t know your dick from a stick!” Stanford MacFarlane railed at his subordinate.

Just like his son, Custis. Had he lived, Custis would be twenty-eight years old this month. But Custis was no longer among the living, the weak-kneed snot having—

MacFarlane shoved the thought to the backwater of his mind.

The framed photographs had been removed, the name Custis Lee MacFarlane stricken from the family bible. No sense regurgitating the past. It was over and done with. Mortal man could affect nothing save the here and now. And then only if it was in God’s purview to do so.

“What was running through your gourd, Gunny, detonating that wad of C-4 without the Miller woman being in the vehicle? This operation was supposed to have been swift and silent, not a blind man’s game of grab-ass.”

“Sir, the explosives were rigged to go off when the engine was started. I had no way of knowing the C-4 would detonate when the tow truck hooked the—”

“Well, you should have known! And how is it that Aisquith and Miller eluded six, count ’em, six men trained in urban warfare?”

“I don’t know how they got the slip on us, sir.”

Hearing that, MacFarlane was sorely tempted to ram his knee into his subordinate’s crotch. Penance for his sins. Instead, he strode over to his desk. A hardbound book, Isis Revealed , lay in plain sight on top of his in-basket. He snatched the book in his hand, waving it in front of the gunny’s face.

“Are you saying that the man who wrote this pack of lies outsmarted six of Rosemont’s finest?” He’d earlier had one of his assistants purchase the book; a hunter needed to know the nature of the beast before he laid his traps.

“He’s good, sir. That’s all I know. Riggins is fairly certain they slipped through the Seventh Street exit.”

MacFarlane wasn’t fooled by the Brit’s bravado. No doubt Aisquith and the Miller woman were holed up somewhere, trying to figure out their next move. They were afraid, uncertain whom they could trust. He had carefully cultivated that mistrust when he earlier spoke to the woman. The mess at the Hopkins Museum had been swept clean and the fiasco at the National Gallery of Art attributed to a rogue terrorist. But all that could change if Ms. Miller gave a statement to the police.

He dismissively tossed the book into his in-box, his gaze momentarily landing on the book jacket photo of a red-haired man in a tweed sports jacket.

There was a special place in hell for men who blasphemed the teachings of the one true God.

Soon enough, the ex-operative turned faux historian would know the meaning of terror; Aisquith was playing with a fire that could not be extinguished.

As the silent seconds ticked past, Boyd Braxton wordlessly stared at him, a Help me, I’m drowning look on his broad face. It put him in mind of the night that the gunny murdered his wife and child—a boot mistake committed in a moment of unchecked rage. MacFarlane had used the calamitous event to bring the sobbing, baby-faced gunnery sergeant to God. He’d done good work that night, having made a promise not to turn his back on the man who now stood before him.

Ass chewing administered, Stanford MacFarlane pointed to the parquet floor. “On your knees, boy. It’s time you begged the Almighty’s forgiveness.”

A look of relief on his face, the gunnery sergeant obediently dropped to his knees, his head bowed in prayer. Glancing downward, MacFarlane could see the crisscrossed scars that marred his subordinate’s skull. Remnants of a sinner’s life, the scars were undoubtedly the result of a broken beer bottle making contact with Braxton’s head.

Stepping back, giving the other man the space he needed to make his peace with God, he walked over to the shipping container on the other side of the room, the Stones of Fire packed and ready for transport. Acquiring the breastplate had been the preliminary step in a much larger operation. A means to an end. The end being the cleansing of all perversion, all licentiousness.

Like ancient Egypt, America was headed down the path of destruction, the world no different now than it was in the days of the pharaoh. Plague upon plague had been sent upon the godless pagans, none immune save the God-fearing Moses and his Hebrew entourage. So, too, this epoch would see God’s might as never before, his “terrible swift sword” striking down the false prophets, the feel-good TV shrinks, the prosperity gurus. Those who did not heed the warnings of the Old Testament prophets would discover firsthand how God judges sin.

With so little time left, America must have a revival of repentance, the nation having strayed from the tenets of God’s word as transcribed by the prophets. A course correction was needed. Holy warriors were needed.

MacFarlane walked over to the framed map that hung behind his desk. Starting at Washington, D.C., he cast his gaze due east. To Jerusalem.

“Oh, holy city of Zion. God’s glittering jewel,” he murmured. “God said the Temple shall be rebuilt . . . and so it shall.” Rejuvenated, he turned away from the map. “Rise to your feet, boy, and start acting like the man of God that you are.”

As Braxton shoved himself upright, a disembodied voice came over the telephone intercom. “They just brought Eliot Hopkins into the waiting room, sir.”

Pleased, MacFarlane turned to his subordinate. “Show the museum director into the office. And make sure you give him a hearty Rosemont welcome.”