Holliday heard booted feet tramping hard as the assault team pounded across the deck at the side of the cottage facing the lake. This was the moment-all the attention was going to be inward; no one would be watching the perimeter. Holliday grabbed Meg by the wrist and dragged her forward as he scuttled out from under the cottage.
"Keep your head down and follow me." He rushed across the thirty-foot opening between the cottage and the trees. A two-second count to the shotgun, which he scooped up, and another three seconds to the woods. He dropped to the ground, turning back the way he'd come. Meg dropped down beside him. He peered toward the cottage.
Smoke was billowing out of the windows on both floors, or maybe it was tear gas. There was intermittent gunfire and then silence. Holliday could hear the sounds of the assault team clearing each room. He edged backward, keeping his eyes on the cottage while moving deeper into the trees, Sister Meg following suit. Finally he stood. They were in full cover now, safe for the moment. He pulled the slide bolt on the top side of the shotgun. A shell popped out onto the ground. Bright green. A fragmentation round, a room cleaner.
"Come on," he whispered harshly, easing backward, deeper into the shadows.
"Where are we going?" Meg asked.
"Away," said Holliday.
They made a long arc through the trees, moving steadily downward, picking their way through the cedars and the big slabs of granite, moving downward toward the rocky shore below. A minute or two later they reached the edge of the trees at the shoreline and Holliday realized just how big the lake really was. He could just see the other side, a vague sense of a hazy farther shore. Sailboats skittered in the distance, sails bright in the hot sun. There were the faint sounds of voices calling across the water and the mosquito buzz of invisible motorboats.
He looked to the left. He was standing on a shallow cliff edge about twenty feet above the actual water. The cottage was clearly quite isolated-there was no other dock in sight. No wonder the cavalry hadn't arrived. He looked right. The Quince cottage dock was fifty yards away jutting out into the crystal- clear lake. He could see the water-ski towboat tied up and the old runabout on the other side.
The towboat looked like an old Bayliner, a little battered but perfect for what these guys had needed: room to cram at least half a dozen men in the forward cabin and another half dozen on deck with the twin outboards to provide the power. There was only one person visible-a man in a black wet suit-the decoy water skier. Holliday glanced out over the water. Where were they? He tried to remember his high school geography. They'd had at least one lecture on the Great Lakes.
Toronto was on Lake Ontario, and his uncle's place in upstate New York was on Lake Erie. So what was north of Toronto that you could see across? Some vague bell rang in his head-the abolition of slavery even before the British Empire. Then he had it, Lake Simcoe, one of the biggest freshwater lakes in the world. It didn't matter. What mattered was getting the guy in the wet suit off the boat before his friends came back.
"Stay here," he whispered to Meg. She nodded silently, shrinking back into the trees. "When you hear shots, come running. No hesitation. You either make it snappy or I leave you here."
Holliday slipped forward toward the dock, keeping within the band of shadows at the tree line, choosing his steps, careful to keep from treading on a noisy branch or a clattering patch of gravel. He reached a spot perhaps ten feet above the moored towboat and paused.
The water skier was alert, focused on the steps leading up to the cottage. He was seated at the controls of the boat, the door to the forward cabin low and to his left. One hand was on the wheel and the other held a blocky handgun. Another Glock.
The cottage at the head of the steps was silent. He didn't have a lot of time. He crouched down, put the AA-12 onto the soft ground, then opened the holster on the Glock he'd taken from the dead soldier under the cottage. He chambered a round and stepped into the light.
Seeing the movement, the man on the boat looked up. No time for fair play. Holliday fired a three-shot tap into the man's chest, toppling him out of the boat and into the water. He stabbed the Glock back into the holster, picked up the shotgun, then skittered down the steep slab of granite to the dock.
He flipped the selector on the shotgun to single shot and put half an earsplitting magazine into the hull of the old Chris-Craft. The fragmentation rounds bit into the varnished stringers, chewing the bottom of the fine old speedboat to splinters. The boat began to sink instantly.
Holliday turned away and undid the lines holding the Bayliner to the dock, dropped down into the towboat and made his way forward to the blood-spattered controls. He twisted the ignition key and the big outboards rumbled to life.
Seeing something out of the corner of his eye, Holliday turned. Sister Meg, pack slapping against her back, came sliding down the granite rock face and half fell, half jumped directly down into the boat, crashing into Holliday and almost knocking him over. There was another flicker of darker movement to the left. Regaining his balance, Holliday lifted the shotgun and fired a blind spray of the lethal rounds toward the stairs, empty shells flinging out of the ejection port in a steady stream, the weapon barking with a sound like the hounds of hell.
Without waiting to see the effect of the fire, Holliday turned and rammed the twin throttles full forward. The Bayliner leapt away from the dock with a huge rooster tail of spray rising behind. A hundred yards out he risked a look back over his shoulder. The cottage on the rocky rise above the dock was wreathed in smoke and he could see a few dark figures milling around on the dock.
Holliday took a deep breath and let it out slowly, his hand gripping the wheel of the boat, his other hand easing back slightly on the throttles. Another few seconds back there and it would have been too late; they'd made it out just in the nick of time. His stomach was churning as the adrenaline drained out of his system.
He glanced at Meg. She looked remarkably calm as she stood beside him, her green eyes focused on the huge lake's far horizon, as though the hell they'd just left behind them was nothing more than a bad dream, her concentration fixed only on what lay ahead. For the first time since meeting the enigmatic nun it occurred to Holliday that the so-called True Ark she was looking for must have some basis in fact-enough for men to kill. Enough for men to die.
24
Halifax, Nova Scotia, is known for two things: During World War One it was the largest convoy center in North America, and on December 6, 1917, the whole city blew up when the Mont Blanc, a French munitions ship, exploded in the harbor, killing two thousand people outright, causing a tidal wave, obliterating buildings for miles around, starting a hundred fires and basically destroying the city. The Halifax Explosion is still rated as the largest nonnuclear explosion ever.
Halifax is also known as the birthplace of English Canada, which is ironic since it was originally called Louisburg and was colonized by the French. At the time Nova Scotia itself was referred to as L'Acadie, or Arcadia, the name eventually becoming simply Acadia. The British, being who they were, decided they wanted what the French had, specifically a deepwater harbor in the New World even better than New York.
They attacked the French colony in an effort to gain hegemony over all of Canada and kicked out the "Acadians"; most of the Acadians settled in the coastal states of Maine and New Hampshire, while others returned to France and a hardy few, about three hundred, migrated to the French-speaking areas of Louisiana, becoming the people now known simply as Cajuns.
For Holliday and Meg it had been remarkably easy to get to. After arriving without further incident on the shores of Lake Simcoe at a place called Jackson's Point, they caught a bus back to Toronto, arriving just before noon. Maxing out his credit and debit cards, Holliday gathered enough money for two train tickets to Montreal and ongoing accommodation on the Ocean Limited, the through train to the Maritimes.