Ark of Fire (50 page)

“Nothing.” He waved away the thought. “A bit of nonsense.”

And it was nonsensical. He was forty. A man of middling years. He’d long since put such emotions behind him, a cheery forever after being the hope of one’s youth. Not one’s maturity.
And yet . . .

Edie slid her hand behind his head, pulling him close. “Wanna go back to our room?” she asked, rising up on tiptoe, giving him no time to reply.

It took but a second for the unexpected kiss to turn decidedly passionate.

“I think you know the answer to that,” he murmured against her lips.

Taking her by the arm, he strode down the gangway; Edie had to jog to keep up with his hurried pace. It took only a few moments for them to reach their room, his hand shaking as he inserted the key into the lock. He wasted no time dragging her inside, slamming the door shut behind them.

It was a moment of quiet intimacy. Of murmured endearments. Life slowed down to its simplest, most lovely, facet.

In the midst of the quietude, Edie felt a spark. She snuggled closer to Caedmon, burrowing her head into the crook of his bare shoulder. This was not the first time she’d felt the spark, and she wondered if anything would come of it.

On paper, she gave their relationship the shelf life of a carton of milk. If that. They were simply two sexually healthy people caught up in the excitement of the moment. Although, glancing at the small clock mounted to the wall, she could see that the excitement had lasted quite a few hours.

“You do know that this . . . this attraction is nothing more than a primitive urge,” she said, propping her head on his chest.

“Perhaps it must be primal, stripped of all civility, in order for us to put aside our preconceived notions of what should and shouldn’t be.”

“And maybe Freud was right about there being no such thing as pure unadulterated love. Maybe there’s sexual need and nothing else,” she countered, testing him.

“I suspect that Freud was an impotent bugger who wouldn’t have known love if it had slapped him in his bearded face. Let’s not analyze it. Let’s simply accept it, whatever it is, as a beginning. Tentative and tenuous, perhaps, but a beginning nonetheless.”

She smiled; Caedmon had passed the test with flying colors.

“Agreed. But if you think I’m one of those women who’d settle for a man just because he puts down the toilet seat, think again.”

“Point taken. Although I hope you’ll reward me with several bonus points for being so considerate.”

“Change of subject,” she announced. “I’m curious as to what would have happened if you had stayed at Oxford and received your doctorate?”

“You mean how would my life have unraveled?” When she nodded, he said, “In a very typical fashion, no doubt. I would have received a college appointment, most likely at Queen’s. At which point my life would have become a steady stream of tutorials, committee meetings, and university functions.”

“You know, I’m one of those people who believe that things happen for a reason. Personally, I don’t think you were meant to live such a sheltered life. Just look at Sir Kenneth Campbell-Brown. Okay, the man is brilliant, but he’s also a confirmed alcoholic bachelor. You were meant for a better life.”

Smiling, Caedmon brushed his lips against hers. “At the mention of the path not taken, I feel strangely glad-hearted.”

“Me, too.”

“Bloody hell,” he abruptly exclaimed a half second later. “How do terrorists communicate with one another?”

Surprised by the unexpected question, she lifted a shoulder. “Beats me. Although I suspect the answer is not messenger pigeons.”

“In a sense, that is the correct answer in that they communicate via the Internet,” he informed her, his blue eyes excitedly gleaming. “Which enables them to freely pass messages to cells and operatives all over the globe. Perhaps MacFarlane and his Warriors of God are no different.”

“Okay, suppose that’s true. How does the instant text message on Sanchez’s cell phone fit in? I thought
that
was how MacFarlane was communicating with his men.”

“When we first received the flash message, I thought that a communiqué had been encoded into the numeric list and that an encryption key would be needed to decipher the message. But what if the numeric list
is
the encryption key?”

“Sorry, I’m not following.” Edie propped her head on her hand.

“Knowing he can’t be too careful when sending messages across the globe, MacFarlane might very well have devised a two-pronged mode of communication. The first prong being the numeric list that was sent to Sanchez’s mobile phone.”

“And the second prong?”

“Mind you, this is mere speculation, but the second prong, or piece of the puzzle, might be the Warriors of God Web page.”

“You’re talking about the Web page that we checked out back in D.C., right?”

Caedmon shrugged. “As I said, it’s merely a working theory. All bones, no meat.”

“So let me make sure I’ve got this straight,” she said, still uncertain how all the pieces fit together. “You think there might be a message encoded in the Warriors of God Web page and that this message can only be
decoded
using the numeric list from the text message.”

“There’s only one way to find out. Unless I’m mistaken, the ferry boat is equipped with Inmarsat.”

“What’s that?”

“A mobile communications system that enables Internet access while at sea.”

Throwing back the sheet, Edie swung her feet to the floor. “Well, what are we waiting for?”

“Doom and gloom of the worst sort, eh?”

Sitting side by side in front of the ship’s computer monitor, Edie and Caedmon stared at the Warriors of God home page.

“‘When the Warriors of God battle the dark forces—will you be ready for this holy Revolution? Will you be a Patriot marching under God’s golden banner’?” Edie read aloud from the computer monitor. Unnerved by the apocalyptic “announcement” that was prominently displayed on the screen, she shuddered. “You don’t really think there’s a secret message buried somewhere in this so-called announcement, do ya?”

Leaning back in his chair, Caedmon slowly tapped his index finger against his chin. Several seconds passed in contemplative silence before he finally said, “My guess is that MacFarlane has used a simple alphanumeric substitution cipher. Since his flash message was intended for mass consumption, I doubt that he would employ too elaborate a cipher.”

“The old KISS rule, huh?” Seeing Caedmon’s quizzical expression, she smiled. “As in ‘Keep it simple, stupid.’”

Amused, Caedmon chuckled. “Clearly, we are of like mind. Employing the KISS rule, I propose that we consecutively number each letter and punctuation mark in MacFarlane’s hate-filled diatribe.”

Pencil in hand, he carefully wrote out the “announcement” on a sheet of paper. Then he sequentially numbered each letter and punctuation mark.

While Caedmon busied himself with laying out the cipher, Edie nervously glanced over her shoulder; the ship’s Internet computer was set up in the very public club room. A few tables away a middle-aged quartet played cards. From the cigarette butts overflowing the table’s only ashtray, she guessed that they had been playing for some time. About twenty feet away, an older well-dressed man and his much younger male companion were huddled together in front of a soft drink machine. And on the other side of the club room, a harried mother openly breast-fed her infant.

“I’ll have you know that this is the same cipher that won you Yanks your independence, the words
revolution
and
patriot
being the dead giveaway.”

Her eyes opened wide. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Not in the least. Created by Benjamin Franklin, this particular alphanumeric cipher was used to code messages shuffled back and forth between the Continental Congress and sympathetic French diplomats. Would you like to do the honors?” Caedmon offered her the pencil.

Taking the implement, Edie first glanced at the alphanumeric chart that he had created from MacFarlane’s Web page.

Then she glanced at the list of numbers from the text message.

“Wish me luck.”

Caedmon having done all the work, it only took a few moments for her to write out the deciphered message.

Neither of them said anything; Edie was not altogether sure what, if anything, the message meant.

“The Dome of the Rock is the big gold-leafed Islamic shrine that sits on top of the Temple Mount, right?”

“Unquestionably the most famous silhouette on the Jerusalem skyline,” he confirmed; Edie could detect a husky catch in his voice.

Something was wrong.
That much was readily apparent.

“MacFarlane’s message means something to you, doesn’t it?”

Still staring at the decoded message, Caedmon slowly nodded. “I now know why Stanford MacFarlane and all of his followers wear the Jerusalem cross ring. As you, no doubt, recall, the Jerusalem cross was the symbol adopted by the medieval crusaders when they conquered the Holy City in the eleventh century.” The entire time he spoke, he stared at the decoded message.

“And why do you think that’s significant?” she prodded, not altogether certain that she wanted to know the answer.

“Because Jerusalem was only theirs for the briefest of i nterludes; the Muslim caliph Saladin retook the city in 1187.” Suddenly resembling a sad-faced crusader from a medieval woodcut, Caedmon turned his head and looked at her. “Clearly, MacFarlane has taken upon himself the crusaders’ cause.”

“I don’t understand. What cause?”

“Like the crusaders of old, MacFarlane and his men intend to conquer the holy city of Jerusalem, their first military target being the Dome of the Rock.”

At hearing that, her jaw slackened. “When? How?”

“I have no idea as to the
how
. As to the
when
, it is obvious that they intend to launch their attack on the Islamic holy festival of Eid al-Adha. Which, unless I’m greatly mistaken, begins on December the eighth.”

“But”—she did a quick mental calculation—“that’s less than two days away.”