Stones of Fire

5

Like a man who’d just been baptized in the cool waters of the Jordan, retired Marine Corps Colonel Stanford J. MacFarlane stared at the jewel-encrusted breastplate.

The Stones of Fire.

Arguably one of the most sacred of all biblical relics, third only to the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail.

‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.’

Stan MacFarlane knew from his Bible studies that the twelve inlaid stones had originally been entrusted to Lucifer when he was still God’s favourite. After the expulsion from heaven, the stones were retrieved by God and later given to Moses, who created the breastplate according to God’s specific instruction. Worn only by the high priest of the Jews, the breastplate came to be known as the Stones of Fire. Hidden within the sacred confines of the Jerusalem Temple, the breastplate was plundered by the Babylonians when Nebuchadnezzar’s army sacked the holy city in the sixth century BC. For the next twenty-six centuries the holy relic had remained hidden in the deserts of Babylon in what is now Iraq. More than one treasure hunter lost his head attempting to find the breastplate, learning, too late, that the caliphs, sultans and dictators who ruled Mesopotamia did not take kindly to foreign trespassers.

All that changed when the American army marched into Baghdad.

Knowing he would need an expert, Stan hired an Iraqi archaeologist more interested in making a buck than safeguarding his country’s national treasures. Before the conquest the archaeologist had been in charge of a site where a cache of ancient Hebrew objects had been uncovered. Stan was certain those were some of the holy relics stolen from the Temple and that more digging would unearth the Stones of Fire. But he wasn’t the only man searching for the breastplate. Eliot Hopkins, director of the Hopkins Museum of Near Eastern Art, beat him to the prize. Not about to let the relic elude him a second time, Stan sent his most trusted aide to retrieve the breastplate.

Except his trusted aide had made a very careless mistake.

‘ “And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood,”’ he hissed to the man who stood at attention in front of him. His temper rising, he stared down his red-faced subordinate. ‘So tell me, Gunny, how did this Miller woman get away from you? Do you think she hitched a ride on Satan’s dinghy?’

The penitent, former Gunnery Sergeant Boyd Braxton, shook his head. ‘I told you, sir. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t even know that she was a woman until I found her purse in the museum.’

‘The weaker sex, yet still she eluded you.’ MacFarlane stepped towards the gunnery sergeant, jabbing him in the chest with his finger. ‘Boy, you’re not going soft on me, are you? I hate to think that you’ve been pussy-whipped.’

‘No, sir. You don’t need to worry about that, sir.’

‘You make certain of it, Gunny. Each and every day, you make certain.’

His subordinate properly chastened, Stan Mac-Farlane stepped back, such discipline necessary to keep order in the ranks. A lesson he had learned during his thirty-one years in the Corps.

A full colonel when he left the service, he’d still be in uniform had his career not been abruptly derailed two years ago by the Pentagon watchdog group FREEDOM NOW! a godless cabal made up of left-wing lawyers and activists. They targeted him soon after he was promoted to the intelligence office of the undersecretary of defense. Hypocrites, one and all, they claimed their purpose was to protect religious freedom in the US military. Because of his strict adherence to the word of God, FREEDOM NOW! had branded him a religious fanatic bent on converting the whole of the US military to the evangelical faith.

Well, guess what, you godless hippie freaks? It was already happening.

When FREEDOM NOW! caught wind of the weekly prayer meeting he held in the Pentagon’s executive dining room, they wasted no time blowing the whistle, somehow getting their lily-white hands on a photo of him standing in a prayer circle with other uniformed officers. The photo made the front page of the Washington Post. In the accompanying article several junior officers claimed they’d been personally harassed by him, told they would eternally burn in hell if they didn’t attend the prayer meetings.

Left-wing pundits, Washington politicos and military-bashers unwilling to let the story drop had had a field day. Soon after, he’d been relieved of his command.

God, however, worked in mysterious ways.

No sooner did the furore die down than Stan founded Rosemont Security Consultants. In recent years private contractors had become the mercenary might behind the US military, tens of thousands of private fighters hired in Iraq alone. With his top-level Pentagon contacts, he was soon making money hand over balled fist. Made up entirely of former special ops soldiers, Rosemont was twenty thousand strong. As leader of this well-armed flock, Stan made certain there wasn’t a pluralist or atheist or agnostic among them. Holy warriors, each and every one.

‘Sir, what do you want me to do about the woman?’

MacFarlane glanced at his subordinate, the former gunnery sergeant a member of his handpicked Praetorian Guard. His eyes and ears in the nation’s capital, this elite team were embedded in law enforcement agencies all over the city. Contemplating how best to clean up the mess, he opened the satchel that had been retrieved from the museum and removed a leather wallet. For several seconds he stared at the driver’s licence photo of a thirty-seven-year-old curly-haired woman.

‘You heard Gunny… What shall we do with you, Eloise Darlene Miller?’ he contemplatively murmured.

A quick background check had uncovered the fact that the Miller woman had been arrested in 1991 for protesting against the First Gulf War. In Stan’s book that made her a Chardonnay-sipping left-wing tree hugger. Like the bastards who had derailed his military career.

Nothing like a ‘terrible swift sword’ to keep an unruly woman in her place.

‘Any word on the whereabouts of —’ Stan glanced at the name scrawled on a sheet of paper ‘— Cædmon Aisquith?’ A similar background check had turned up a noticeable dearth of information, prompting Stan to order his intelligence team to dig deeper.

‘Aisquith managed to slip out of the bookstore undetected. We’re keeping a close watch on his hotel, but he’s yet to show up,’ the sergeant informed him.

‘Hmm.’ Stan MacFarlane contemplatively rolled the silver ring that he wore on his right hand, the intertwined crosses worn smooth over the years. ‘This man Aisquith is another loose end we can’t afford to let dangle.’

‘I hear ya, Colonel.’

‘Then hear this.’ Stanford MacFarlane looked his subordinate straight in the eye so there would be no misunderstanding. ‘You will search. You will find. And you will destroy.’

The order clearly to his liking, the gunnery sergeant smiled. ‘By day’s end, sir.’