Ark of Fire

CHAPTER 45

“Nothing here but a bunch of old bones.”

At hearing that, Stan MacFarlane shone his Maglite into the exhumed grave where his aide-de-camp stood chest deep. Scattered at Braxton’s booted feet were the mortal remains of Galen of Godmersham. And a whole lot of mud, the grave quickly filling with water. Earlier, the night sky had opened up, the rain coming down in horizontal sheets.

Stan next shone his flashlight into the face of the Harvard scholar, who stood shivering on the other side of the grave, the light beam casting a golden hue onto the driving rain.

“You told me it would be here.”

“Based on the quatrains, I thought there was a likely possibility that the gold chest would be found in Galen’s grave.” His paid medieval expert, beginning to look like a wet rat, shrugged. “What can I say? We played the odds and lost.”

“Could you have misinterpreted the quatrains?”

The scholar rubbed the back of his neck. “Hmm . . . it’s possible, but . . . I really thought I correctly deciphered the verses. That’s the tricky thing about Middle English, it’s all about layered meaning. Hey, do you guys mind if I sit inside the Range Rover? I’m gonna catch my death if I stand out here much longer.”

Tuning out the other man’s whiny-ass complaints, Stan carefully considered his next move, knowing it was a move twenty-five years in the making. For it was twenty-five years ago that the archangels Michael and Gabriel had appeared to him soon after the blast in Beirut. Sent by God to pull him from the rubble.

The terror attack on the Marine barracks had been the first of the signs that the End Times were near.

Saved in body, and, more important, in spirit, he gave his life over to God’s work. Not once had he shirked his duty, commissioned with the task of building God’s holy army here on earth. What began as an informal prayer group in the first Gulf War had become a twenty-thousand-strong faith-based movement by the time the tanks rolled into Baghdad eleven years later.

Twenty-five years had come and gone, yet his mission was still incomplete.

God had something great and glorious intended for him.

But only if he uncovered the Ark.

The Ark was the key that would unlock the gates of the Millennial Kingdom.

The Ark was the weapon that would destroy the Muslim infidels.

Just as it had destroyed the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Jebusites.

“You know, I’m as stumped as you,” the scholar droned, interrupting Stan’s train of thought.

His attention snagged, Stan realized that the sentiment just expressed didn’t ring true; the other man was too pat. Too well-rehearsed.

As though it were a gun aimed at point-blank range, Stan shone the Maglite at the scrawny man’s face. Pupils quickly contracted into shiny black dots. “Why do I suddenly not believe you?”

“You’re kidding, right?” The other man affected a theatrical look of stunned disbelief. “What reason would I have to lie? I need the cash to pay off my student loans.”

“I can think of any number of reasons why you might lie to me.” Stan continued to shine the light at the other man’s face, as though he were boring a hole right through the middle of his forehead.

“Look, I thought for certain the Ark would be—I mean, the gold chest would be buried with Galen.”

“What did you just say?” The beam of light drilled that much deeper.

“Arca. I said arca. As in ‘Arca and gold ful shene he carried to the toun he was born.’ Remember the third quatrain?”

The truth revealed, Stan stared at the scholar, contempt washing over him in undulating waves.

Sensing that the winds had suddenly shifted, the Harvard scholar nervously glanced at the parked Range Rover. No doubt trying to remember if the keys had been left in the ignition.

“You can’t outrun a bullet,” Boyd Braxton jeered, having climbed out of the exhumed grave.

Judge and jury, Stan pointed an accusing finger. “ ‘And then shall the wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.’ ”

Surprisingly belligerent, the other man pointed a finger right back at him. “You’re a fucking lunatic, that’s what you are!”

“Unkind words for the man who holds your fate in his hands.”

The Harvard scholar glanced at the Israeli-made Desert Eagle negligently held in the gunnery sergeant’s right hand, belligerence now replaced with fear. Cowardly, sniveling fear.

“You’re right, dude. Heat of the moment. Sorry. And just to prove that I’m still part of the team, I think I know where the Ark is hidden.” The scholar jutted his chin toward the small church nestled on the other side of the cemetery. “When you guys did your earlier security check in the church, I caught sight of a very large marble plaque depicting the martyrdom of St. Lawrence.” Spreading his arms, the other man indicated an expanse of some four feet. “I’m guessing that if we pry that mother off the wall, we’ll find the Ark hidden behind it.”

“Pray that we do.”