Stones of Fire

75

‘I know this is going to sound crazy, but I’m actually sad,’ Edie confessed, taking the proffered coffee cup from Cædmon’s outstretched hand. ‘Angry, but sad. I mean those two guys were a couple of homophobic misanthropes in dire need of some sensitivity training. But watching them die was…’ She broke off and stared at the narrow road in front of the public bench.

Coffee cup in hand, Cædmon seated himself beside her. He, too, gloomily stared at the main thoroughfare that ran through the middle of the small seaside port of Gilchrist.

Knowing the local constabulary would be drawn to the plumes of black smoke produced by the Range Rover explosion, and that in turn would lead them to at least one dead body, he’d used the pilfered GPS receiver to plot a course in the opposite direction from the charred ruins. Although exhausted, they’d tramped through deserted fields, eventually arriving at their present location. Unwelcoming in the way that some small towns tend to be, Gilchrist had about it the distinct scent of salt and dead fish, the town’s only saving grace being its coach station. Assuming one could call a metal bench in a shelter beside the road a coach station.

Raising the paper cup to his lips, Cædmon took a sip of the horrible-tasting brew he’d purchased at the fish and chip shop across the way. According to the reticent fellow behind the counter, the afternoon coach to London was due to arrive in forty minutes.

‘It’s never easy to watch the end of a life,’ he replied, also haunted by the deaths of Harliss and Sanchez. ‘Try as you might to erase the memory, it leaves an imprint on your soul.’

‘Not for MacFarlane or his men.’ Raising the plastic lid of her cup, Edie took several swallows. Only to grimace a few seconds later from the bitter aftertaste. ‘They believe that when they pull the trigger, they’re doing God’s work.’

‘Somehow I doubt whether MacFarlane’s God would have much truck with those who long for peace.’

Sighing, Edie wrapped her free arm around his waist and leaned her head on his shoulder. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m in desperate need of a group hug.’

As am I, love. As am I.

He hoped the day’s atrocities would quickly recede from Edie’s memory and she could forgive what she’d seen him do. As soon as they reached London, he intended to call in a favour from an old chum at MI5 and get her into an out-of-the way safe house. Some place where Stanford MacFarlane and his assassins could never find her.

Edie lifted her head from his shoulder. ‘What do you think MacFarlane plans to do now that he has the Ark?’

‘The first thing is to get it out of Britain. If he’s discovered with the Ark on English soil, not only will the bloody thing be confiscated, it will be sent direct to the British Museum.’ Where it would draw larger crowds than the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles and the Sutton Hoo treasure combined.

He removed the GPS receiver from his anorak pocket. ‘It’ll take a few moments to initialize,’ he informed her as he hit the ‘Power’ button. He held the receiver aloft to get a satellite fix on their position. A few seconds later, glancing at the small display screen, he said with a teasing smile, ‘Ah, we are exactly where we should be.’

Edie half-heartedly returned the smile. ‘Since I have yet to correctly programme the TV remote, I’ll have to trust you on that one. But isn’t the GPS a bit superfluous? I mean, we’re here already and we know where here is.’

‘On the contrary. This is a hand-held computer with satellite capabilities and untold stored information.’ Using the ‘Nav’ key, he accessed a database file of saved maps. ‘Now, isn’t this interesting? A number of maps have recently been downloaded. There are maps for Oxford, Oxfordshire, Godmersham, Swanley and…’ He stared at the list.

‘Come on, Cædmon. I can only hold my bated breath for so long.’

‘And Malta,’ he replied, turning the receiver in her direction.

‘Malta?’ Tapping her pursed lips, she stared at the screen. ‘Although world geography isn’t one of my strong suits, I seem to recall that Malta is a spit of an island located in the Mediterranean Sea. Do you think that’s where MacFarlane is headed?’

‘Given that the list of maps perfectly corresponds to MacFarlane’s known movements in the last seventy-two hours, we must assume that Malta is his destination.’ How ironic, given that the diminutive isle had once been home to the Knights of St John, the same order of warrior monks of which Galen of Godmersham had been an initiated member.

‘Isn’t Malta where St Paul was shipwrecked en route to Rome?’

‘Hmm? Er, yes,’ he answered, interrupted from his reveries. ‘As a crossroads between Africa and Europe, the island has been visited by many famous and infamous people.’

‘But why would MacFarlane take the Ark to Malta?’

Cædmon shrugged, at a loss. ‘The dreams of a madman are difficult to decipher.’

‘I’m guessing that getting the Ark out of England is going to be difficult, what with airport security being so tight.’

‘Which is why Stanford MacFarlane will no doubt use a boat. An innocuous trawler leaving port in the dead of night sounds about right.’ As he spoke, the mobile phone in his pocket began to beep.

‘What’s that?’

Cædmon shoved his hand into his anorak pocket and removed the mobile he’d taken from Sanchez. He glanced at the display.

‘Unless I’m greatly mistaken, we’ve just been given Stanford MacFarlane’s next move,’ he said, showing her the message: ‘105-13-95-39-17-35-90-63-123-51-20-98-34-27-43-110-87-71-41-9-54-2-120’.

‘Will ya look at that? It’s some sort of text message from Rosemont Security Consultants. Although I don’t know that I would call it a text message per se since it’s nothing more than a list of numbers.’

‘A coded list, I dare say.’ Cædmon suspected that Stanford MacFarlane maintained contact with his men using flash messages sent via mobile phones, a brilliant means of communication in the satellite age, enabling MacFarlane to issue simultaneous orders across the globe.

‘If only we had the encryption key,’ he murmured.

‘Do you think it has anything to do with the map of Malta on the GPS receiver?’

‘Mmmm… difficult to say.’ His gaze ricocheted between the receiver and the mobile. ‘Probably not — Harliss was the only one of MacFarlane’s men to carry a satellite receiver. I suspect that MacFarlane moves his chess pieces very carefully across the board, the master plan revealed in dribs and drabs.’

‘Where do we begin the hunt?’

‘In Malta. However, from this point forward, there is no more “we”.’

Edie’s brown eyes gleamed furiously. ‘So you’re planning to dump me and chase after MacFarlane on your own.’

‘I intend to retrieve the Ark, yes.’ Getting up from the bench, he walked over to a bin and dropped in his coffee cup.

He had no delusions as to the difficulty of the task he’d set himself. Tracking down MacFarlane and securing the Ark of the Covenant would more than likely prove an impossible, if not deadly, undertaking. But try he must. The GPS receiver had proved a godsend. Now at least he knew where to hunt for his nemesis.

Grabbing him by the wrist, Edie dragged him back down onto the bench. ‘I know you’re worried about me, but going after the Ark isn’t a one-man job. You’re going to need all the help you can get with MacFarlane and his Warriors of —’

‘I can’t take you with me.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t have time to potty-train you.’

‘You arrogant bastard!’ She leapt to her feet. ‘I’m not some Bond girl along for the ride; I’m your partner. And in case you didn’t get the memo, I am a full and equal partner.’

Cædmon stared at her, unable to take his eyes off the long corkscrew curls that blew about her flushed face. Also unable to erase the memory of her standing beneath an upraised pickaxe.

‘“In the world you will have tribulation,”’ she continued. ‘John sixteen. A Bible verse that Stanford MacFarlane no doubt holds near and dear.’

‘A frightening prospect.’

‘Yes, it is frightening. Which is why I’m going with you to Malta. Unlike you, I completely understand MacFarlane and his beliefs. For five years I was fed a steady diet of Ezekiel and End Times prophecy.’

‘After today’s primer in apocalyptic beliefs, I should be able to manage.’

‘What you heard was just the tip of the iceberg. Think of me as your very own expert in Christian fundamentalism. Besides, we’re a team. We have been from the very beginning. So, short of knocking me unconscious, there’s nothing you can do to stop me.’

‘Very well,’ he murmured.

If she wondered at his easy acquiescence, she gave no indication. ‘Okay, now that we’ve got that settled, what’s the game plan?’

‘Simply put, to grab MacFarlane by the Old Testament and squeeze very, very hard.’