Cain (39 page)

Now he only watched, and waited. Though sometimes he worried about it, wondering if he wasn't being used, being fooled. But the voice on the phone had been coldly professional and certain
– the voice of someone who knew. And, remembering the tone, he felt far less ridiculous about the stakeout, sensing that something would happen here.

And he knew something else.

If Archette had the guts to come out here, he was as good as dead.

***

"Only one of you will survive this." Maggie stared quietly as Soloman prepared. "You're like two freight trains on a collision course."

Soloman
laid cans of black powder and a bag of ammonium nitrate on the table, along with a small case of World War II—era hand grenades. Purchased at a late-night military surplus store, they had no explosive cores. He would have to make them himself from flares, black powder and nitrate.

Soloman
said nothing at the quiet comment. Then he removed a large quantity of black powder and placed it in a steel bowl. He carefully measured scoops of ammonium nitrate until he had the proper mixture, remembering the formula: 40 percent nitrate, 60 percent TNT for maximum explosive compression.

"So." Maggie sighed and leaned forward. "What are you making?"

"Amatol," Soloman replied, mixing ingredients. "It's the main explosive material used in artillery shells. These things don't have working cores because it's illegal to sell them with combustible material, but I can improvise what I need. I can build them."

"How dangerous will they be?"

Soloman shrugged. "Inside a six-foot perimeter, they'll injure 75 percent of the enemy. At fifteen feet it drops to 30 percent. Anyone outside twenty feet won't be hit at all, usually. And these are World War II-vintage, less effective than modern grenades. Most of the shrapnel tended to skip along the ground. But I'm boosting the charge to give the fragments more velocity. That means they'll probably go high. If I stay low to the ground, even if I'm close, I don't think I'll be hit."

Maggie's eyes narrowed as he worked. "I understand chemistry pretty well, you know. If you add some ferrous oxide to the black powder, you'll have more compression."

"Iron?" Soloman looked up. He knew virtually everything about improvised explosives—he had spent his lifetime learning it—but he hadn't heard of that. "Where do you get it?"

"There'll be some in the kitchen," she said. "It's a pretty common household product. Usually you can isolate it from cleaning powders. I can cook some chemicals up and deoxidize them in about a half hour." She studied the grenades. "What about fuses?"

"I'll soak some cotton string in a solution of black powder and sugar, then dry them. I'll measure them for five seconds." He grunted. "Which means I'll probably have about three."

"Why's that?"

"A version of Murphy's Law." He smiled. "A five-second fuse is always three seconds." He decided the mixture was as perfect as he could make it. "The grenades have a flint trigger that's struck when you release the lever. It causes a spark that ignites the fuse and when the fuse reaches the amatol it explodes to send shrapnel. But I'm adding a heavy measure of potassium chlorate and mercury fulminate to make it more incendiary. Sort of like napalm. The detonation will spread shrapnel and fire over a wider area. It'll have a larger sphere of destruction than a regular grenade."

"Potassium chlorate breaks down
very, very fast to oxygen." She pointed to burning candles. "You'd better seal the caps with wax once we mix the ferrous oxide in. That'll preserve it for a few days."

"Good idea," he nodded. "That'll be good enough for who it's for."

Maggie watched him unscrew a port located at the top of the grenade, removing the stem. Then he poured a measure of amatol in the canister of the grenade and set it to the side. He completed the procedure with twenty of them, leaving them standing.

"Will those kill Cain?" she asked quietly. "I mean, you've already hit
him with everything anybody could hit him with, Sol, and he's still standing. I don't ... I don't think he can die."

"Cain can die," he answered coldly. "There has to be a point where we
finally overload that healing factor. If I can hit him hard enough and long enough, I'll wear him down."

"But what if he uses Amy as a shield again?" From the look on her
face Soloman knew she was terrified at the possibility. He looked down and laid a line of string in a solution of black powder and sugar. He would remove it in five minutes and pour a careful measure of mercury fulminate along the length.

"Amy's not even going to be there when the shooting starts," he said.
"The first thing I'm going to do is get you and her clear. I don't want anybody coming between me and Cain."

"
Any ground between you and Cain is the last place anybody wants to be standing," she said, gazing at him for a long while before she leaned forward. "Sol, can I ask you something?"

"Go for it."

"Why do you think you're still alive?" Somehow, the question disturbed her. "I mean, Malo was a good soldier – the best. All of them were. But you're the last one."

He shrugged. "There's no explaining it. Luck. Fate. Whatever. I've been six feet away from a land mine that exploded and killed everyone around me and I wasn't even scratched. Really, I should've died
, then. I should've died a lot of times. But I'll die when it's my time. Just like Malo died when it was his time. That's all there is to it."

"Are you afraid?"

He grunted. "Always."

"Were you afraid when you lived in the desert?"

Soloman looked up. He hadn't told her about that part of his life, was surprised that she knew.

She smiled faintly. "Ben told me about it on the night you went to the cathedral. He'd had a lit
tle too much of the sauce, I think. Got real talkative." She stared. "He said he couldn't figure what you were doing out there. Waiting to die. Trying to die. Something like that."

There was silence, and
Soloman knew he had to answer. With a frown he looked down and removed the string from the pan, laying it carefully on the table. He didn't look up as he spoke.

"When I lost Marilyn and Lisa, I didn't care about living. That's probably the only reason I was able to pull off what I did. I had no fear
– not of anything. So I hunted down the men that killed them and … killed them all. It was the only time I had ever set out to actually kill anyone. But it didn't help, in the end. I couldn't kill enough. I could never kill enough. So I went to the desert." He tilted his head slighdy. "I don't know. I was more comfortable with death, I guess, than life. The best part of my life was dead, and I suppose I wanted to die with them. But I wasn't going to give in to it. It had to work for me. Had to earn it. It's . . . hard to explain."

There was affection in her green eyes, along with compassion. But there was something else, as if she realized a bitter irony.

"You were alive, Sol, and you wanted to die," she said. "And now you're fighting a dead man that wants to live."

Soloman
stared, absorbing the thought.

"Yeah. I guess so."

She glanced at the grenades, the massive shotgun, the handgun with magazines and ammunition laid in a dangerous glossy black display.

"I pray that you can stop him, Sol." She closed her eyes. "You're the last one."

Soloman frowned. "I'll finish it, Maggie. I promise. I'll finish it and then you and Amy can be together. And ... and maybe I could tag along ... if you don't mind the company."

Her eyes were both sad and joyful.

"No, Sol." She smiled. "I wouldn't mind."

***

The sun was still high when the Lear landed at the international airport in Birmingham.

It was an English industrial metropolis, proud and expansive. And although it was far from dusk, early darkness obscured the distant factories and hotels that lined the horizon. In the west, a great column of smoke stretched into the sky like a funeral pyre.

The jet door opened, and eight men wearing obviously expensive casual clothing deplaned. Then another man deplaned, a broad-shouldered giant who held himself with an imperious, lordly manner as he turned his head. Preternatural quickness flickered in the black eyes as he appeared to see all that was, and more.

Of imposing stature, he held himself with a vaguely threatening aura
of concentrated physical power. And over a wide, low brow that hinted of phenomenal intellect and will, a long black mane of hair fell slightly past his shoulders. Dressed entirely in black, his long dark cloak lifted to a deep-born north wind which had risen abruptly, overcoming the roar of dying engines. His pants were loose and luxurious, and laced boots of thick leather sheathed his legs to the knees. He wore black gloves over hands that appeared large and capable.

Hesitating at the kingly image, airport police turned after a moment, politely requesting papers, and one of the men presented all that was necessary: a flight plan, visas, passports, and detailed manifests of cargo. Obviously, from the professional manner in which everything was inventoried and available for quick verification, the expedition was well organized. There were no untoward developments and in an hour they had cleared customs.

The only curious attachment was a six-year-old girl with sunlight hair, sleeping soundly inside the jet. Her papers were also in order and at the faintly intimidating request of the father, the leader, police declined to awaken her. His daughter was very tired, he said with no discernible accent, and needed to rest. Holding the dark and ultimately dominating gaze for a moment, officers exchanged hesitant glances, finally acquiescing.

It was finished.

Customs officials allowed two vans, which had been waiting for the jet's arrival, to approach. And while the men loaded cargo and luggage into the secondary vehicle, the giant carried the child, still sleeping soundly, to the back of the first vehicle where he laid her gently on a cot. He turned to nod dismissively to the police who watched with curious interest, amazed that a child could sleep so soundly.

Then the van left the tarmac and drove toward the mysterious north, a land where misty forests and ancient castles stood poised on the edge of ice-mountains that rose hauntingly above the sea.

***

Father Barth, sweating and breathing heavily, held a hand over his chest. He was perilously exhausted, his vision blurring with each document he lifted so tiredly from the shelf.

He cast a glance at the Librarian Superior to see his face drawn and haggard, as if he could not continue. Then Barth looked at the ancient Aveling to see the pale visage sternly set. Obviously the older priest was similarly exhausted but revealed no sign of relenting.

Only a handful of the documents remained. Then Aveling motioned generously for Barth to sit while he finished the task.

Accepting, Barth collapsed while Aveling moved quickly, finding and sorting and discarding with a skill keenly honed by a night of frantic filing. And then they were done, the vault cleared with every paper meticulously inventoried and cross-checked.

Aveling let the last document fall dead to the floor, stumbling sligh
tly as he exited. He reached the table and motioned for the Librarian Superior to move aside. Then the Jesuit Superior General sat where the lists had been so hurriedly but carefully compiled. His eyes roamed, concentrated. He went from one book to the next, finding and referencing.

After ten minutes, he stood. His gray eyes narrowed in a primitive pleasure rarely observed in so august a face. "At last," he said quie
tly as he stared down. "At last ... we have found this fell creature."

Barth stood, swayed by the impact of the news. He leaned against the vault wall. "Are you certain, Ave
ling? Do you know where Cain has taken the child? There is no time to be deceived!"

"Yes," came the exhausted reply. "I know exac
tly where he has fled. It is as I surmised. He has taken her to the ancient land of the Druids. To the land of Samhain."

"What is this place?"

"The Castle of Calistro. It was claimed by the Church in the fourteenth century after the renegade Cathars and Druids ran amok with human sacrifice. It is located in the Northumberland region of England." Aveling released a deep breath. "It is a forbidding fortress that towers on the eastern sea cliffs of Lifanis, a cold and desolate place. Though the Castle itself is Roman in design, no one is certain who constructed it. It is a place I know only by bureaucratic privilege as Superior General, and there is much I cannot tell. Though, vowing you to restraint, I can say it is a place rumored to contain mysterious forces. The single road leading to the cliffs of Lifanis has been barricaded for many years. Nor do we allow tourism within its walls."

"Forces? What manner of forces?"

"Perhaps scientific, perhaps magnetic or even geological." Aveling shook his head tiredly. “Perhaps even divine forces, though I had thought myself to have given up belief in such things. Suffice it to say that we do not understand them. But Cain ... He will understand."

"Then this deed that he has stolen—"