‘“And there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail,”’ Stanford MacFarlane loudly intoned.
‘Don’t forget the drizzle,’ Edie muttered under her breath. ‘And the fog,’ she added a moment later when Harliss set off a smoke bomb, completely obscuring the proceedings from their view.
‘The Hebrew priests used to shroud the Ark in a thick blanket of incense to keep it hidden from curious onlookers.’ As he spoke, C?dmon squinted and strained, but the smoke was impenetrable.
A few seconds later Harliss emerged from the smoke. Two sets of plastic handcuffs dangled from his fingers. ‘I’ve got a restraining order for you two.’
‘Will you at least tell us if it is the Ark of the Covenant?’ C?dmon asked.
‘Oh yeah,’ the other man slowly replied, the bedazzled expression returning to his unshaved, raw-boned features. ‘The two angels on top of the gold box were the giveaway.’
Hearing that was like hearing an unexpected boom of thunder, C?dmon swaying slightly on his feet.
Knowing it was futile to resist, he stood motionless as Harliss cuffed his hands, his mind unable to comprehend the enormity of the find.
Softly humming a jaunty tune, Harliss ripped a piece of duct tape from a roll. ‘Wouldn’t want to disturb the neighbours,’ he said with a mean-spirited cackle as he slapped the length of tape across C?dmon’s mouth. That done, he bound and gagged Edie in a similar fashion.
‘We got orders to row you two to shore and take you to a remote location. The colonel says it wouldn’t be right to kill you in the same place where we found the Ark.’
71
For the second time that morning the spectre of death hovered at Edie’s shoulder. But this time, unlike those petrified moments when she’d stood shaking beneath Braxton’s pickaxe, she had time to prepare for her death. Harliss and Sanchez had loaded them into the Range Rover and headed east — somewhere towards the sea, Edie beginning to discern the tang of salt in the air.
In the distance she heard the outraged screech of a gull. The faint roar of a jet engine. Familiar sounds. Probably the last sounds she would hear.
At least she’d lived longer than her mother.
She turned and glanced at C?dmon, who, duct tape over his mouth, hands cuffed in front of him, stoically stared at the passing scenery. She wondered if he too had used the time to take stock of his life. He could have saved himself back on the isle. But he hadn’t. Instead, he had tried to gain her freedom. From a madman, no less. Although furious with him for passing up his one and only chance, she thought she might just love the brave, quixotic Englishman.
Harliss, again relegated to co-pilot, peered over the headrest. ‘Soon you two will be sleepin’ with the angels. The colonel is fond of sayin’, “The judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold… sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.”’
Still leaning over the back of his seat, Harliss reached into his jacket pocket and removed a pack of filterless Camels. ‘I’d offer you one but…’ Chortling, he shook a cigarette free. He then flipped open a silver lighter. Taking a drag, he blew a perfect smoke ring into her face.
Forced to inhale the smoke through her nostrils, Edie gagged. Beside her, C?dmon twitched, his muffled protest sounding as though he were attempting to speak underwater.
Sanchez steered the SUV onto what looked like a farm road, the Range Rover lurching from side to side as they drove slowly down the rutted lane. They’d gone approximately a half mile when Sanchez put on the brakes and cut the engine.
Edie and C?dmon simultaneously turned and looked at one another.
Craning from side to side, Harliss gave an approving nod. ‘This looks as good a place as any. Don’t know that anyone’s been down this road in a good long while.’ He turned to his partner. ‘What do ya think?’
‘I think I gotta take a crap,’ Sanchez blurted, releasing his seat belt.
‘Jesus! A body could tell time by your bowel movements.’
‘Shut up and get me the wipes out of the glove compartment.’
A few seconds later, packet in hand, Sanchez was ambling towards a clump of trees. Harliss, another half- smoked Camel sticking out of the corner of his mouth, opened the passenger door and got out of the Range Rover. Slamming the door shut, he stretched then walked round to the front of the vehicle. Leaning against the bonnet, his back to them, he proceeded to finish his cigarette.
No sooner were they alone than C?dmon urgently nudged her with his elbow. Having got her attention, he nodded towards his anorak pocket before shooting her a meaningful glance.
When they’d been given the wellington boots earlier that morning, C?dmon had managed to remove the file from his shoe and put in his coat pocket. Since he’d already been subjected to a thorough body search, he had assumed they wouldn’t search him a second time. With his hands cuffed in front of him, he wasn’t be able to retrieve the file. But her hands, although similarly bound, were much smaller.
Quickly she flipped open the flap on his pocket, shoving her fingers into the opening. It took only an instant for her to remove the file from C?dmon’s pocket.
C?dmon indicated that he wanted the file.
A few seconds later, the metal file tightly grasped between his interlocked fingers, he motioned for her to saw her plastic cuffs back and forth across it.
It took several moments of frantic sawing before the plastic gave way.
Her hands freed, she immediately reached up to remove the strip of duct tape from her mouth. Beside her, C?dmon tersely shook his head. Uncertain why he wanted her to keep the tape in place, she grabbed the file out of his hands; they had a narrow window and she wasn’t about to waste any time second-guessing him.
Gripping the file between her clenched fists, she held steady while C?dmon sawed through his cuffs, freeing himself at the exact moment that Harliss flicked aside the end of his cigarette. C?dmon snatched the file from her. Then, his hands lying inert in his lap, he stared straight ahead. Now understanding his reason for not removing the tape, Edie struck a similar pose. With the tape in place, they created the illusion of still being bound.
Harliss, humming softly to himself, walked round the front of the Range Rover. With one hand he retrieved the gun shoved into the back of his waistband while with the other he reached for C?dmon’s door handle.
Edie tensed. Completely in the dark as to what C?dmon intended to do, her heart beat a painful tattoo.
An instant later, C?dmon’s door swung open.
‘Okay, boys and girls. Time to say hello to the hang —’
Edie saw C?dmon smash his shoulder against Harliss’s right hand, slamming the southerner’s wrist against the door frame, the unexpected motion causing Harliss to drop his gun.
‘Fucking shit! I’m gonna —’
Nail file in his hand, C?dmon raised his right arm. A split second later blood splattered onto the passenger window. A thick, red Rorschach blotch. Then a blood-curdling scream of agony.
Harliss fell to the ground, his legs twitching convulsively. Once. Twice. Before he went eerily still, his booted feet splayed awkwardly.
C?dmon ripped the piece of duct tape off his mouth. ‘Don’t look!’
The caution came an instant too late.
Horrified at the metal nail file protruding from the sprawled man’s eye socket, Edie yanked the tape from her mouth, spraying the back of the front seat with yellow stomach bile.
‘Quick! Get out of the car!’ C?dmon ordered. ‘Sanchez will be here any second.’
Operating on autopilot, Edie reached for the door knob, stumbling out of the SUV in an ungainly heap. Turning
