The man at the butcher block was chopping vegetables by hand. Green peppers, onions and celery. There was already a mound of diced ham and a pile of grated cheese off to one side. The man was wearing a blue-and-white-striped ap.r.o.n of the kind once seen on greengrocers in London's Covent Garden. The man was in his fifties, wearing horn-rimmed gla.s.ses and with a graying military haircut. Under the ap.r.o.n he was wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

"The secret of a perfect breakfast is timing," the man said. The voice was completely accentless, some kind of mid- Atlantic melding of English and American. The man had either been born in the States and educated in England or the reverse; it was impossible to tell which. Holliday found the voice oddly sinister, almost machine-like. "You've got to have everything set to go in perfect order."

As if to demonstrate his rule, the man scooped up ingredients from the butcher block on the end of a spatula and tipped them one by one into a large cast iron frying pan on the stove behind him. He seemed to have several other pans on the go. Even from the back his movements were quick and deft. He liked cooking and he was good at it.

"Do sit down, Colonel," the man said, his back to Holliday. Meg came down the stairs and stepped into the kitchen, her face scrubbed but still bleary-eyed. She was rubbing a line of chafed skin on one wrist. The cuffs. A reminder; he might be dressed in an ap.r.o.n but the man at the stove was still their kidnapper and jailer. Holliday sat down, poured himself a cup of coffee and waited. Sister Meg followed suit. The cups holding the coffee were Kutani Crane pattern.

The man in the ap.r.o.n transferred food onto plates lined up on the counter beside the stove and carried them to the table, two on one arm, a third in his other hand. He laid them down as smoothly as an experienced waiter. Perfectly turned half moons of omelet, three rashers of bacon and a generous pile of pepper-and-onion-cooked home fries on the side. The man slipped the ap.r.o.n over his head, hung it over the back of his chair and sat down. He poured himself a cup of coffee, added cream and smiled at his guests, fork poised over his omelet.

"Eat up," he said pleasantly in that strange, flat voice. "Before it gets cold." He carved off a precise piece of omelet and popped it delicately into his mouth. Holliday followed suit and so did Meg. The omelet was excellent, perfectly cooked. The coffee was dark and strong without being bitter. Pressed, not dripped.

"You know who we are, obviously," said Holliday. "Who are you?"

"Are you enjoying your breakfast?"

"It's fine. Who are you?"

"My name is Quince, like the jelly. Nathan Quince." The man smiled. "I'm sure my mother had a fantasy that I'd grow up to be a gay English professor at a little college in some place like Nebraska. Perhaps write a book of poetry or two. Something low-stress. Alas, her dream hasn't come true."

"So what are you then?" Holliday went on, eating his omelet. "If you're not a poet from Nebraska?"

"I'm a facilitator. I make things happen. I give history a nudge now and again, that's all. You're a historian. I'm sure you can see the value in that."

"And we're in the way of a nudge, is that it?"

"Not necessarily," said Quince. He plucked a slice of toast from the rack and tore it in half. He loaded a piece of omelet onto one of the toast halves and put it in his mouth. He chewed, looking across the table at Holliday. He swallowed and spoke again. "We're just keeping an eye on you."

"Is that why you kidnapped us?"

"It's a stormy world out there, Colonel Holliday. Sometimes it's best to come in out of the rain."

"I didn't feel any rain."

"You would have," said Quince. "There are a great many parties interested in your little quest."

"Including you."

"Including us," Quince said and nodded. He took a sip of coffee. Outside on the lake the water-skiing boat was back.

"So who is us?"

"An interested party."

"One of the three- letter boys, CIA, DEA, NSA, or one of the new crop that's sprung up over the past ten years?"

"Not federal at all," said Quince. "The world has changed. Think globally. Corporately."

"You're private then, whoever you are."

"Contract employees. As I said, facilitators. Problems arise; we solve them."

"Thugs," said Holliday, sipping his coffee.

"Certainly," said Quince pleasantly. "If thugs are necessary."

"But why us?" Holliday asked.

"According to my information you and the good sister are looking for something called the True Ark. To some people this relic has certain symbolic value well in excess of its monetary worth. It is our task to ensure that this True Ark--if it exists at all--not fall into the wrong hands."

"What const.i.tutes the wrong hands?" Holliday asked.

"Any hands other than my client's."

"And who is your client?"

"I can't say. Security reasons."

"Logjam," Holliday said. He picked up a piece of toast and started spreading it with preserves from a little pot beside the toast rack. The pot had a small paper label: Moira's Plum Jam. He bit into the toast. Moira was to be congratulated.

"Why kidnap us?" Meg said, speaking for the first time.

"To my sure knowledge you have five separate police agencies and the Vatican Intelligence Service looking for you. You've left a litter of bodies in your wake. We're just trying to differentiate ourselves from the crowd, so to speak. Our sources tell us that your friends from the Vatican were getting very close. We decided to remove you from the playing field for a while. For your own safety and for the safety of your undertaking."

"So you're on our side?" Holliday asked.

"Until I'm told differently by my client."

"So for you it's about the job. No loyalties to anyone. It's all about the money."

"Don't be naive, Colonel. It's always all about the money. Wars are fought for all sorts of reasons by all sorts of people, but inevitably it is the people who sell the warriors their bullets who get rich. Life, Colonel Holliday, is a retail event, just like Christmas."

The water- skiing boat was visible now, no more than fifty feet off the dock below them. The skis of the man being towed behind the boat slapped the water noisily and the roar of a pair of big twin engines was enough to drown out conversation at the kitchen table. Everyone looked toward the lake, including the guard on the deck. There were four people in the speeding towboat, all wearing black life jackets. Directly in front of the dock the man being towed suddenly let go of the tow-rope and the boat throttled back to almost nothing. The four men on the boat turned toward the sh.o.r.e.

Who the h.e.l.l wore black life jackets?

23.

Not life jackets. Bulletproof vests.

"Get down!" Holliday yelled. He grabbed Meg by the arm and dragged her off the chair and onto the floor. The big window looking out onto the lake shattered, and the kitchen erupted in a hail of silent lead. The man on the deck was torn to ribbons by automatic fire even before he had a chance to stand up.

More fire came from the trees around the cottage. The water-ski boat had just been a distraction. They were coming from all sides. Quince was on the floor, facedown, arms spread, his right forefinger still hooked into the delicate handle of the ornate china cup he'd been drinking his coffee from. Most of the back of his head was missing. Moira's plum jam was everywhere. The gunfire m.u.f.fled by silencers continued in an unbroken stream.

"Who's shooting at us!?" Meg screamed.

"Quince's compet.i.tion!" Holliday yelled back. Still hanging on to Meg's arm, he crabbed across the floor, dragging Meg along. He huddled under the stairs. It was probably the safest place in the house. They found their knapsacks tossed into the little alcove, probably searched while they were knocked out then cast aside.

"What are we going to do?" Meg asked. Her voice was a frightened panting sound. Holliday was in the groove. This was combat. Familiar territory. The rule book said always attack from the higher ground, but going up onto the second floor of the cottage would be suicide. The rule book also said that with insurmountable odds the best option was to make an orderly withdrawal--army talk for retreat. But they were in George Armstrong Custer territory now, surrounded on all sides.

"Grab your pack and put it on," instructed Holliday, more to keep her occupied than anything else. He needed to think and she was on the verge of losing it, which wouldn't do anyone any good.

Meg lifted her pack off the floor and slipped it on while Holliday peeked around the corner of the stairway. The guard outside was bleeding all over the Adirondack chair and the men in the black life jackets were coming up the steps. Six of them, armed with various brands of riot guns and automatic weapons. They had thirty seconds at the outside.

Holliday felt Meg tugging at his sleeve. He turned to her, irritated.

"Not now!"

"Look," she insisted. She'd swept his knapsack aside. Outlined on the floor he could see a trapdoor or a hatch. It made sense. A crawl s.p.a.ce. The cottage was built on a slab of bedrock so all the plumbing would be under the floor. There'd have to be some way of getting at it for maintenance. Not that it mattered. It was the only option now.

Holliday shrugged on his own pack and pulled on the bra.s.s ring inset into the floor. The hatch pulled upward, revealing three roughly made steps. He smelled stone and cedar. Gunfire exploded around them, chewing into the wood of the stairs behind them. Windows exploded and fist-sized holes appeared in the walls. Even silenced, that much ordnance was making a racket outside. Eventually someone was going to call 911, but it would almost certainly be too little, too late; a myopic summertime cottage cop with maybe a .38 on his hip.

"I'll go first," said Holliday.

Meg nodded, eyes like saucers, wincing and jerking as each bullet struck the walls around them. He went down the steps. There was barely enough room between the floor joists and the ground to duckwalk forward.

He looked around. It was impossible to move to the back of the cottage; the rock sloped away toward the deck and the crawl s.p.a.ce narrowed to barely a foot-high crack. Most of the fire seemed to be coming from the steps leading down to the dock.

He looked back over his shoulder. Meg was right behind him. Under the floor the ground was covered in old rotting construction litter and decaying leaves. There were spiders above them and dark slithering things below. It occurred to Holliday that the best horror movies came out of bas.e.m.e.nts and attics. Most people didn't have the slightest idea of what was going on within the walls of their own houses. Domestic nightmares.

Holliday reached the edge of the cottage and paused, peering out into the open. Sun dappled down. There was about a thirty- foot clearing between the side of the cottage and the wall of surrounding trees. As he knelt, looking outward, someone emerged from the tree line in full combat fatigues and a dark green balaclava. The man's hands were covered with Camtech camouflage makeup. He was carrying an Atchisson AA- 12 a.s.sault shotgun with a twenty-round drum magazine and a Glock or something similar in a waist holster.

The Atchisson had been developed for close-quarters combat. It fired a Magnum sh.e.l.l that could kill a Kodiak bear or an elephant. It could blow a man in half from thirty yards away and drill a through-and-through hole in the cottage from one side to the other.

The man with the shotgun paused for a split second at the edge of the trees and then raced forward. Ten points off in a tactical exercise exam at West Point, Holliday thought. He should have approached his target in a crouch. If he had, he might have seen Holliday lurking in the shadowed crawl s.p.a.ce. The man in the camo gear ran forward, then paused next to the house. From the position of his feet Holliday guessed he was going to sidestep along the wall to a window. The feet were encased in sand-colored standard-issue two-pound Belleville combat boots.

Barely thinking about what he was doing, Holliday reached out with both hands, grabbed the man's ankles and pulled as hard as he could. Caught completely off guard, the soldier toppled backward, his head smacking into the rock and the shotgun flying out of his hands. Holliday heaved on the man's feet hard and dragged him under the cottage. The dazed man struggled but Holliday jammed his elbow hard into the man's wind-pipe and leaned on it with his full weight. Something in the soldier's throat cracked. He made a choking, gurgling sound and then stopped moving, blood streaming from his mouth.

Holliday hauled the body even farther under the cottage and stripped the soldier of his sidearm and an ammo pocket full of 9mm magazines. Two more drums for the Atchisson in a canvas pouch over his shoulder. Holliday slipped the pouch off and put the strap over his own head.

There was also a sheathed Ek Commando knife, like the one Holliday had used in the Rangers. Holliday took the weapon and slipped it under the gun belt. Easing the body to one side, he edged forward and peered out into the sunlight.

Somebody blew a whistle. A split second later there were explosions from inside the cottage: flash-bang stun grenades of the type used in hostage situations. Suddenly the air was filled with yelling voices and smashing wood. There was more gunfire, this time from above. Quince's people making a last stand on the upper floor. This was the push.

Holliday heard booted feet tramping hard as the a.s.sault 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 a.s.sault 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 sh.e.l.l 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 sh.o.r.e below. A minute or two later they reached the edge of the trees at the sh.o.r.eline and Holliday realized just how big the lake really was. He could just see the other side, a vague sense of a hazy farther sh.o.r.e. 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 sh.e.l.ls flinging out of the ejection port in a steady stream, the weapon barking with a sound like the hounds of h.e.l.l.

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 h.e.l.l 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 sh.o.r.es 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.

n.o.body seemed to raise an eyebrow at Holliday's use of cash, and no ID display was required. Apparently Homeland Security hadn't arrived in Canada yet and there were no obvious armed security personnel prowling around the echoing old Union Station. The high-speed train out of Toronto was modern and fast, complete with meal and bar cars. They arrived in Montreal with enough time for a little shopping in the underground malls connected to the train station and then boarded the Ocean just before it left at six thirty that evening.