‘Have you lost your bloody mind?’ His warm breath hit her full in the face.
‘I’m here. Deal with it.’
‘I can render you unconscious at any moment, so kindly do not tell me what to do.’
‘That reminds me… Did you have to hit me so hard?’
‘Be thankful it was me doing the hitting and not one of MacFarlane’s thugs. And before you rant at me, I had no choice.’ For several seconds he stared into her eyes. Then, raising his left hand, he gently caressed the side of her face. ‘I am truly sorry, Edie, that I hurt you.’ Both his features and his voice had noticeably softened.
‘My feelings are hurt more than anything else. Mainly because you didn’t trust me enough to —’
‘I trust you with my life. And I will do all in my power to safeguard yours.’ He removed his hand from her cheek. Taking her by the elbow, he urged her upright. ‘Follow my lead. No hare-brained heroics or I’ll stuff my handkerchief in your lovely mouth and bind you hand and foot.’
‘If you do that, I won’t be able to tell you that they loaded the Ark into the back of that big truck. Oh, and how about giving me a weapon?’
Reaching into his pocket, he removed something that resembled a fountain pen. ‘Here.’
‘What am I suppose to do with this?’
‘Shine it directly into an assailant’s eyes. I don’t have time to explain the laws of photonics, except to say that it will instantaneously induce a state of temporary blindness. So please be sure the business end is pointing away from you when the light is activated.’
Edie took the laser. ‘I was hoping you might give me your diving knife, seeing as how you managed to find yourself a machine —’
Just then she heard the sound — rubber on stone — of a booted foot.
Frantically, she glanced at C?dmon.
Amazingly calm, he put his left index finger to his lips, cautioning her to silence while at the same time placing his right index finger on the trigger of the sub-machine gun.
Suddenly, Edie surprised by his quickness, C?dmon made a lightning-fast about turn.
‘Drop your weapon and remove the headset! Now!’
Realizing his pistol was no match for C?dmon’s mightier weapon, Boyd Braxton obediently put his pistol on the ground, kicking it in C?dmon’s direction. That done, he yanked off the headset and, smiling snidely, tossed it several feet away. ‘You didn’t want that, did you?’
Afraid the headset might have an open mike, Edie strode over and smashed the heel of her shoe down on the device.
The smile instantly vanished from the behemoth’s face. Stepping past him, Edie noticed that the crisscrossed bandages on the side of Braxton’s head gleamed surreally in the darkness. Stitches courtesy of C?dmon and a well-aimed bottle. She returned the snide smile.
Braxton took a threatening step in her direction, his right hand balled in a fist.
‘Touch her and I’ll gladly add a pound of lead to your current body weight.’
At a glance, Edie could see that it was no idle threat. In fact, she was beginning to realize that C?dmon Aisquith never made idle threats.
‘She’s got you wrapped around her little pinkie, doesn’t she?’ Braxton snickered. ‘Guess you know by now that she’s a real prick tease, huh? Hell, my pecker has been standing on end since I first set eyes on the curly-haired bitch.’
His shoulders visibly relaxing, C?dmon slyly smiled at Braxton… just before he reared back and kicked him in the crotch.
Sounding a lot like a braying donkey, the behemoth dropped to his knees, clutching his testicles with both hands.
‘I trust that has given you some relief.’ C?dmon turned to Edie. ‘My apologies.’
About to say ‘For what?’ Edie instead went slack-jawed, horrified at seeing a quartet of men, who had suddenly and very silently materialized as though from thin air. Shoulder to shoulder, they stood some ten feet behind C?dmon.
Before she could shout a warning, a floodlight was switched on, illuminating the entire area.
‘You would be well advised, Mr Aisquith, to drop your weapon. Very, very slowly.’
Calmly, not so much as peering over his shoulder, C?dmon unclipped the leather strap that held the sub- machine gun to his chest. Holding the weapon in his left hand, his right hand held aloft so it could easily be seen, he bent slowly at the waist, placing the weapon on the ground.
Stanford MacFarlane stepped forward. Retrieving the gun, he handed it to Boyd Braxton.
‘Here, boy. You look like you could use this.’
Still doubled over and gasping for breath, Braxton straightened just enough to aim the weapon directly at C?dmon’s chest.
Unthinkingly, Edie grabbed MacFarlane by the forearm, knowing he was the only man present who could stop Braxton from pulling the trigger.
‘One Christian to another… don’t let him do it,’ she begged, ready to throw herself at his booted feet if that’s what it took to save C?dmon’s life.
‘You are not a Christian woman!’ MacFarlane bellowed, his face twisted in an ugly sneer. ‘You are a harlot!’
88
‘And you are a disgusting stain on a snowy white sheet,’ C?dmon snarled at MacFarlane, words the only weapon left to him.
Unaccustomed to insubordinate words or deeds, the colonel appeared apoplectic. Like an Old Testament prophet on the verge of an aneurism.
‘I want him searched before he’s killed,’ Mac-Farlane barked at one of his men.
The situation completely out of his control, C?dmon stood motionless while a muscular man with a shaved pate roughly patted him down for weapons. The torch he tossed aside, the GPS receiver and diving knife he handed to his chief. MacFarlane quickly perused the confiscated items before giving them to yet another of his men for safekeeping.
Still gasping for breath, Braxton rose to his full height, transformed from a wounded bear into a menacing mountain of a man. ‘Let’s just say I ain’t gonna miss you when you’re gone.’
Having known all along that this was how it might end, C?dmon defiantly stared his executioner in the face. As he did, Goya’s famous painting
‘Turn your head, woman,’ MacFarlane commanded. ‘Unless you have a predilection for bloodshed.’
‘You kill him, you kill the messenger!’
Hearing that, C?dmon’s head swung in Edie’s direction.
What in God’s name was she up to? A subterfuge clearly, but he had no idea of the nature or direction of the lie. Relegating him to the role of hapless passenger.
Edie startled every man present, including C?dmon, when she next said, ‘And something tells me that you’ll want to hear what MI5 has to say. They know all about your planned terrorist attack on the Dome of the Rock. Lucky for you they want the Ark of the Covenant, which is why they’re willing to do a deal. But all bets are off the table if you gun down C?dmon Aisquith. The Queen’s men don’t like it when you kill one of their own. In fact, they would take it very personally if any harm came to him.’
Although MacFarlane’s face was in shadow, C?dmon could see that the older man didn’t appear the least bit surprised to learn of his connection to MI5.
