“It means we’ll have to scale a cliff wall. Although there’s a road leading to the point, we must assume that MacFarlane will have the roadway closely guarded.”
He signaled the bartender to step over. When the young man approached, he swiveled the paper map in his direction. “Are you by any chance familiar with a place called Calypso’s Point?”
The bartender barely glanced at the map. “Iva, I know it well. It used to be a hideout for the Barbary pirates until the knights defeated them. But”—he expressively shrugged—“why would you want to go there? It’s uninhabited. You will find only seabirds and the ruins of St. Paul’s torri.”
An abandoned tower . . . how interesting. No doubt a signal tower once used by the Knights of St. John.
“Actually, it’s the sea birds that I wish to see,” he glibly lied, turning the map back in his direction. “I am something of an amateur bird watcher. Would you happen to know anyone who would be willing to take us to the point by way of the sea?”
“My brother-in-law has a fishing vessel. I am sure he could be persuaded to take you there. Assuming the price is right.”
“He has but to name it, the only stipulation being that I would like to depart later this evening.”
If the young man thought it odd that someone would go bird watching in the dead of night, he gave no indication, scribbling his brother-in-law’s phone number onto a cocktail napkin.
Their business concluded, the bartender turned and waited on a portly surgeon who loudly raved about the “jolly good pasties.”
Relieved that the logistics were taken care of, Caedmon neatly folded the map. That done, he slid map and ruler into his anorak pocket. With one more task to attend to, he glanced through the glass doors that fronted the entrance to the bar, able to see across the lobby into the so-called business center. One of the hotel amenities was the free use of a desktop computer, a fax machine, and a color copier. For the last twenty minutes, the computer had been commandeered by a Suffolk surgeon.
“Is he still there?”
“If you’re asking if I can still see the chap’s tonsured pate, the answer is yes.”
“Why do you need a computer, anyway? We got everything we needed from the ferryboat computer. Or at least I thought we did.”
“I need the computer because I intend to put together a dossier for the British consulate. If by tomorrow morning we haven’t returned to the hotel, the dossier will be sent to the consulate office here in Valletta. From there, it will be forwarded to British Intelligence. Hopefully, the lads at Thames House will be able to succeed where we failed.”
“You’re talking about your old buddies at MI5, right?”
He nodded. “One doesn’t need the Delphic Oracle to know that Stanford MacFarlane won’t relinquish the Ark without a fight.”
“And a deadly fight, at that,” Edie murmured; Caedmon could see that she was still distressed by the encoded message they had earlier deciphered. For several seconds she stared at her cola glass, the only sound being the dull clink-clink as she continued to swirl her straw.
Quite abruptly, she set the straw adrift.
“I keep thinking about that proverb, ‘Everything has an end.’ And I can’t help but wonder . . . is this the beginning of the end?”
His thoughts running a similar course, Caedmon cast his gaze at the second set of French doors, which opened onto a terrace; the hotel was set on a scenic perch overlooking the water. The sun had already begun its descent into the sea, creating a glorious explosion of tangerine and magenta. So beautiful, it was almost painful to watch. To his right, the baroque city of Sliema, a burnished maze of stone façades, rose up as if spawned from the sea.
How did he get himself into this mess? More important, how had he gotten Edie so deeply involved in it?
At first it had been simple academic curiosity. The Ark of the Covenant. If he could find it, if he could lay his hands upon it, he could prove himself worthy of the man who’d overseen his ouster from Oxford. Prove to his long-dead father that—
“I’m afraid,” Edie said, her tremulous voice breaking through the silence. “What if we can’t stop him? We were powerless to stop him from walking away with the Ark.”
Turning his head, he peered into Edie’s sad brown eyes. “Although MacFarlane may best us, we’re not as powerless as you seem to think. Knowledge has a power all its own.”
“It’s the guns and bullets that have me worried.”
“They can only kill you. But knowledge lives on.”
Placing a hand on his knee, she leaned toward him. “So does this,” she whispered, brushing her lips against his.
CHAPTER 81
Like a miser counting pennies, the crescent moon stingily cast a jaundiced light upon the choppy sea. Its lantern extinguished, the small fishing vessel steadily made its way toward the barren chunk of limestone in the distance. Calypso’s Point. The captain, a wizened salt who spoke no English, stood at the helm. Having been amply compensated for his services, he had turned a blind eye to the peculiarities of the voyage.
Caedmon glanced at Edie, only the pale oval of her face visible in the inky darkness; both of them were garbed in dry diving suits with matching black hoods.
“You know, maybe we should let British intelligence handle this,” Edie said in a hushed voice. “It’s not too late.”
Seated across from her, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the top of his thighs. “Until MacFarlane actually steps foot inside Jerusalem, there’s little that British intelligence or Mossad can do to stop him. Those chaps don’t hold much truck with doomsday prophecies. And though the intelligence agencies will do all in their power to prevent a terrorist act from occurring on the Temple Mount, they won’t be able to act until they have material proof that MacFarlane intends to commit the unthinkable. I, however, am no longer bound by such dictates.”
“Yeah, but short of killing Mac—” She slapped a hand over her mouth. A second later, she lowered it. “That’s exactly what you’re intending to do, isn’t it?”
“In order to destroy a serpent, one must decapitate it.”
“But what if the snake turns around and bites you?”
Rather than answer the question put to him, he instead said, “I think you should return to Valletta with the captain.”
“I told you once already, you’ll have to knock me unconscious to stop me from going with you to Calypso’s—What’s happening?” she hissed, clearly startled.
“No need for alarm. The captain has merely cut the engine.”
“So this is our stop, huh?” She stared at the remote and off-putting promontory that loomed above the small vessel.
Caedmon peered upward. The limestone cliff rose approximately two hundred meters above the sea. “Yes, I know. It has a decidedly Gothic aspect.” As he spoke, he stepped over to the side of the boat, his neoprene booties softly smacking against the deck. Edie followed in his wake, dashing his hope that she’d have a change of heart at the last.
“Right. Let’s get to it,” he said, swinging his leg over the side. A second later, he plunged into the cold sea, grateful they had only a short distance to traverse.
Treading water, he watched as Edie jumped ship and proved herself an able swimmer.
A few minutes later, shivering from the cold and breathing heavily from their exertions, they emerged onto a spindly strip of land that was strewn with chunks of rock that had fallen from the cliff face. At a glance, Caedmon could see that the fishing vessel had already begun its homeward voyage, the captain not bothering to confirm whether they had safely landed.