Ark of Fire

CHAPTER 84

Edie sat up and hacked, the frigid sea air scalding her lungs.

Damn Caedmon Aisquith.

Her head ached. Her body ached. And, not unexpectedly, her heart ached; Caedmon hadn’t trusted her to pull her weight. So what did he do? He cut her adrift. No warning. No discussion. Just wham-bam, thank you, ma’am.

Rolling onto all fours, she awkwardly shoved herself to her feet. She glanced at her left wrist. No watch. Because the cheapo Timex wasn’t waterproof, she’d left it behind at the hotel.

She wondered how long she’d been out. Hopefully not too long.

With a groan, she bent at the waist, snatching the flashlight.

“How considerate,” she muttered, wishing her AWOL partner had instead left her a bottle of aspirin.

Knowing the anger wouldn’t get her off the desolate strip of beach, Edie tilted her head back and peered upward, the sea cliff like an impregnable fortress wall. One that she intended to ascend. Just a few months ago she’d mastered the rock wall at one of D.C.’s largest sporting-goods stores.

So, I’m good to go.

Furtively, she searched the rocky shoreline, recalling that Caedmon had said something about a nearby path. Switching on the flashlight, she followed the footprints that he’d left in the sandy soil, tracking them about forty feet.

Right to the trailhead.

Afraid the flashlight might attract unwanted attention, she flipped it off, securing it in one of the elasticized loops on the waistband of her hiking pants. Hands free, she carefully began the steep climb up the incised stone steps. She wondered if it was the Barbary pirates or the Knights of St. John who had undertaken the painstaking chore of carving what amounted to a staircase into the side of the sea cliff. No doubt Caedmon would have been able to pull that particular factoid out of his hat. Had he been there.

Damn him, anyway. The man actually thought that he could take on the doomsday prophet all by himself. MacFarlane would fight him tooth and nail. And his loyal followers would use far deadlier weapons.

That thought spurring her on, Edie glanced behind her and saw that she was only at the halfway mark. Her breathing noticeably labored, she struggled to keep on climbing, stunned to realize she was pathetically out of shape.

Finally, sheer willpower coming to the fore, her leg muscles having long since turned to rubber, she reached the summit. With nothing she could do about the burning scrape on the palm of her hand, she wiped the blood as best she could against her pant leg.

At a glance, she could see that she was standing on a flat-topped ridge. A pitiless place that in the light of day probably resembled nothing so much as a big asteroid. Only the faint whiff of rosemary indicated that it could actually sustain some sort of vegetative life.

In the distance she saw a tall, circular tower. That being the only building in sight, she headed in that direction.

As she got closer to the tower, she saw a large canvas-covered truck parked outside. It was the kind of vehicle one might see on a military installation. Hoping it wasn’t loaded with armed soldiers, she headed toward it. Trying to keep as low a profile as possible, she hunched over, running in a crouched position. The way people scurried about in the movies.

She hadn’t gone far when she saw a bear of a man emerge from the tower and head toward the truck.

Boyd Braxton.

Terrified, Edie came to an abrupt halt. Needing a weapon, and needing one quick, she snatched a jagged rock from the ground.

Give me strength, God.

The same kind of strength that had enabled Samson to slay a thousand foes with the jawbone of an ass.

Edie glanced at the harmless-looking rock clutched in her hand.

If only she had the jawbone of an ass.