Stones of Fire

10

With reverential care Boyd Braxton closed the book and replaced it in the glove compartment. The Warrior’s Bible, leather bound and gilt-embossed with the Rosemont Security Consultants emblem, had been personally given to him by Colonel Stanford MacFarlane. And though Boyd was in a tearing hurry, the colonel always said that it was important to give the Almighty his due.

Reaching under the Bible, Boyd removed an official police permit and placed it on the dash of the Ford. The permit gave him the right to park anywhere in the city. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t on the force. He looked like a cop. And he drove a cop car. No one would think twice.

Parked directly in front of him, covered in a light layer of newly fallen snow, was a black Jeep Wrangler. Just as he had figured, no sooner had he left her pad than the bitch had crept out of her hidey-hole.

‘Stupid cunt,’ he muttered, getting out of the Ford. Walking over to the Jeep, he crouched down and slapped a magnetic tracking device on its metal underbelly. He could now monitor the vehicle’s every move on his mobile.

‘You, bitch, damned near cost me my job,’ he muttered as he walked towards the museum.

And being Colonel Stan MacFarlane’s right-hand man at Rosemont Security Consultants was a job he took real seriously. Just like he’d taken his stint in the US Marine Corps real seriously. He still wore his hair high and tight, having served fifteen years in the Green Machine. Now he served Stan MacFarlane. If it hadn’t been for the colonel, he’d be eating institutional slop and lifting weights alongside the brothers in the state penitentiary. No chance of parole.

Juries don’t look kindly upon gunnery sergeants who murder their wife and child.

A lot like that dark day four years ago, he’d fucked up royally today at the Hopkins Museum.

But soon he’d make it right, proving to the colonel that he was still a hard charger. That he was still worthy of his trust. That he was still a holy warrior.

Swinging open the glass door that fronted the 4th Street Entrance, Boyd entered the National Gallery of Art.

Beautiful. Not a metal detector in sight. The Ka-Bar knife and Heckler & Koch Mark 23 pistol would pass undetected.

Like he was on official business, he strode over to the desk. Security didn’t amount to much more than a cloth-covered table manned by a pair of rent-a-cops. Opening the flap of his leather coat, he revealed a very official-looking police badge.

‘Is there a problem, Detective Wilson?’ the grey-haired guard enquired, straightening his shoulders as he spoke.

‘I’m looking for someone. Have you seen this woman?’ Boyd held up a photograph of one Eloise Darlene Miller.

The guard reached for the pair of reading glasses hanging from his neck. After several seconds of careful scrutiny, he said, ‘Yeah, not too long ago, as a matter of fact. If I’m not mistaken, she headed down to the concourse.’

Never having been inside the National Gallery of Art before, Boyd glanced around the cavernous marble-walled lobby. ‘Where’s the concourse?’

‘At the bottom of the escalator,’ the guard said, pointing to the other side of the hall. ‘You want me to alert the museum security team?’

‘No need. She’s not dangerous,’ he assured the guard. ‘We just need to ask her a few questions.’ Returning the photo to his coat pocket, Boyd headed towards the escalator.

At the bottom of the escalator, he took note of the white sculpture, unimpressed.

‘If that’s art, I’m Pablo Pick-my-ass Picasso,’ he muttered, the sculpture looking a lot like the molar he once knocked out of a drunken swabbie’s head. For years he’d kept that tooth as a good luck charm, that being his first bar fight of any real note.

Entering a dimly lit gift shop, Boyd saw that the place was overrun with people pushing wheelchairs, people dragging toddlers, people yakking on mobiles. Everywhere he looked there were people meandering about like so many lost sheep. Perfect. No one would later be able to recall who did what when, large crowds being the best camouflage a hunter could have.

As he passed a display of cards showing a Nativity scene, he made a mental note that this might be a classy place to do his Christmas shopping. Not that these godless people would even know the meaning of Christmas. Or any other event described in the Bible. Nowadays people put a ‘popular’ spin on the Word of God, forgetting that biblical text was not subject to New Age feel-good interpretations.

Only a deluded fool would paraphrase the Word of God.

The colonel had taught him that. The colonel had taught him a lot of things since that day four years ago when he had ordered him to get down on his knees before the Almighty. Never having prayed before, Boyd had been wary, but once he got over the initial embarrassment, he discovered it was an easy thing |to beg God’s forgiveness. And just like that, in one life-altering moment, he was forgiven all his sins, past and present. The bars, the brothels, the brawls, all forgiven. So, too, the murder of wife and child.

Although it was a daily struggle, he tried mightily to be a perfect holy warrior. He didn’t drink. Didn’t smoke. Kept his body a temple unto the Lord. He wished that he didn’t cuss, but having entered the Corps at the age of seventeen that was proving a hard habit to break.

Always room for improvement, he thought as he left the gift shop and entered the Cascade Café.

Coming to a standstill, he eye-fucked the place.

She was here, somewhere in the crowd. Her fear would make her stand out, having an energy all its own. Its own stink, as it were. Like a bullseye, her fear would lead him to her.

But first he had to cover his ass.

Catching sight of a tall, big-gutted cleaner lackadaisically pushing a yellow bucket on wheels, Boyd knew he’d found his man. For ten years his father had pushed a similar bucket. Which is why Boyd knew that maintenance workers of every stripe were invisible to the rest of the world. Most people didn’t favour them with a polite ‘Hello’ let alone a sideways glance. Pleased that the op was going so smoothly, he followed the cleaner through a door marked CUSTODIAL STAFF.

In fact he was thinking about his daddy — a mean, drunken bastard till the day he died — when he knocked out the unsuspecting cleaner with one well-aimed punch. Not believing in chance occurrences, Boyd recognized the fortuitous appearance of the cleaner for what it was — a gift from God.