The Valhalla Prophecy

27

Eddie stared disdainfully at the new arrival. The passage of almost a decade had not changed Lock much; his hair and the goatee beard had greyed, and his face was fuller, but otherwise he was the same as in their last encounter. ‘Ivor Lock. Should’ve known. Hoyt doesn’t have the brains to do anything without you having your hand up his arse like a glove puppet.’

Hoyt smirked — then punched the Englishman hard in the stomach. Even with the padding of his cold-weather clothing, the blow still made him double over. ‘Funny fucker.’

Edie saw a glint of brass on the floor — the cartridge Hoyt had ejected from the Wildey. But he was pulled back upright before he could reach for it. Lock, meanwhile, had moved on to Kagan. ‘And you, working with him. The situation’s reversed from the last time we met, though. I’ve got you outnumbered. Mind you, from what I’ve heard, you’re pretty much the last man standing at Unit 201.’

Kagan gave him an icy glare. ‘You have heard wrong.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so. You think Slavin was our only source? Money talks, my friend. We may not have been able to get anyone into your inner circle, but we still know what’s going on. Shame about old Eisenhov, huh?’

Kagan tried to rush him, but was yanked back by two mercenaries, one of whom twisted the wooden shard stuck in his shoulder. He gasped in agony.

‘Thought you’d have been fired after the enormous fuck-up you made of Vietnam,’ said Eddie, trying to draw attention back to himself. If they were to have any chance of escaping alive, he would need the Russian’s help.

Lock’s mocking expression became harder as he turned back to Eddie. ‘I’ll admit, things were a little tough when I got back to Washington. But one failure doesn’t end a career; in fact, I’m doing better than ever. The BSA was spun off into the private sector at the end of the Bush presidency and became Xeniteq. I was appointed chief operations officer, and after a few years ended up as CEO. Turned out that once I was freed from the shackles of the public sector I had a talent for business. Who knew?’ A smug smirk. ‘Same work, same client — Uncle Sam — but a lot more money. And I never forgot about the potential of the eitr, so when the Valhalla Runestone was found,’ he glanced at Tova, ‘I realised we had a chance to pick up where we left off.’ He went to Berkeley. ‘Logan, you’re still in one piece.’

‘It was a close thing,’ said Berkeley, relieved. ‘I’m glad your men’s aim was good, though. When they threw that bomb into the room — well, if it had landed any closer, I could have been killed!’

‘You think they even knew where you were?’ said Nina. The thought had clearly not occurred to her former colleague.

‘Ignore her,’ said Lock. He shone his flashlight over the carved text on the wall. ‘Did you find anything out from the runes?’

‘I’d started a translation on my tablet. Unfortunately, this guy objected, rather strongly.’ Berkeley indicated the broken device on the floor, then glowered at Kagan.

‘You’re not kidding,’ said Hoyt, fingering the bullet impact in the stone.

Lock took a closer look. ‘Damn it, there are some lines missing,’ he muttered. ‘Logan, had you translated this section?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ Berkeley replied. ‘Dr Skilfinger had read it, though.’

‘Had she now?’ With a wolf-like smile, Lock faced the Swede. ‘Dr Skilfinger, if you would be so kind as to fill in the blanks?’

Tova hesitated, looking to Nina for support before replying. ‘No. I know what you are looking for, and I will not help you find it.’

Hoyt adopted a sarcastic tone. ‘Well, hey, guess that’s it. We’d better pack up and go home.’

‘But it’d be such a shame to have come all this way for nothing,’ said Lock. ‘All right, Dr Skilfinger, let me rephrase that. Tell me what the damaged section of the runes said…’ He reached into his coat, drawing out a handgun — which he pointed at Nina. ‘Or I’ll kill Dr Wilde.’

Eddie lunged at him, only to be hauled roughly back by Hoyt and one of his men. The mercenary leader jammed his gun into the Englishman’s side. ‘Stay still, or you go before she does.’

Lock gave the scuffle only the briefest glance before returning his attention to Tova. ‘Well? I’ll give you ten seconds to tell me, or I’ll shoot your friend — and don’t think I won’t do it. Chase here will confirm that for you.’

‘If you hurt her, I’ll fucking kill you,’ Eddie snarled.

The American ignored him. ‘Ten seconds, Dr Skilfinger. Nine.’

Berkeley finally broke through his bewilderment. ‘Wait — Ivor, what are you doing? You’re not, ha, you’re not really going to kill her, are you?’

‘I thought you’d be happy about that, Logan,’ Lock replied. ‘Seven. Six. Dr Skilfinger, tell me now.’

‘Tova, don’t tell him anything,’ said Nina, trying to suppress her rising fear.

Lock thumbed back the pistol’s hammer. ‘I will kill her. Three, two, one—’

‘No, wait!’ Tova cried, close to panic. ‘It was part of the route to Helluland! I do not know exactly what those lines said, I did not read all the runes, but they lead to Helluland!’

The gun remained locked on to Nina for a long moment… then was lowered. ‘Helluland,’ Lock repeated. ‘Where is that?’

‘It’s — it’s Baffin Island, in Canada,’ Berkeley replied, shocked. ‘But… Jesus, you really were going to shoot her! Ivor, what the hell?’

Nina’s heart was still racing. ‘For God’s sake, Logan! Haven’t you figured it out yet? They’re the bad guys!’

Berkeley shook his head in desperate denial. ‘No, no, they can’t be — they’re working for the US government!’

‘No, they’re working for themselves. They didn’t come to Valhalla out of any interest in Norse history — they came because they want to use eitr to make a biological weapon. You think they’d have brought along a private army just to make sure you didn’t get scooped in the International Journal of Archaeology?’

He gaped like a fish before rounding on Lock. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said, trying to recover some scrap of authority. ‘Ivor, what’s all this about? Is she telling the truth?’

Lock regarded him with dismissive disdain. ‘As a matter of fact, yes. Is that going to be a problem for you, Logan?’

It was clearly not the response Berkeley had been expecting. He looked in confusion between his patron and Nina. ‘Wait, you mean… you’re telling me the lair of the Midgard Serpent is real? Eitr actually exists?’

‘It does,’ said Kagan. ‘The Soviet Union discovered one of the pits. And for the past fifty years, Unit 201 has been trying to ensure that nobody makes that mistake again.’

‘Yes, it’s real,’ Lock told the astounded Berkeley. ‘And now it’s almost in our hands.’ He examined the runes once more. ‘So this is some sort of route guide, then? I’m sure that with the benefit of modern technology, we can skip a few steps and just work out where it ends. All we need is someone to translate it.’

‘Logan, don’t do it,’ Nina said. ‘These people are killers — and they’re trying to get their hands on something they can turn into a WMD. I’ve seen photos of what it does, and I wish I hadn’t. You can’t help them. You mustn’t.’ Her voice became more earnest. ‘I know we’ve never exactly got on — to be honest, I’ve always thought you’re kind of an asshole.’

‘My wife, the diplomat,’ Eddie muttered.

‘But,’ she went on, ‘I’ve never believed that you’re actually a bad person underneath it all. And I don’t think they do, either.’ She shot Lock and Hoyt a disparaging look. ‘Otherwise they wouldn’t have kept all this secret from you.’

‘The runes, Logan,’ said Lock. ‘Can you translate them or not?’

‘Of course I can translate them,’ said Berkeley, his old pride briefly resurfacing. ‘Given time and resources, it won’t be a problem. But the question really is: should I translate them?’

‘No, the question is: why wouldn’t you?’ said Lock, with a clear undercurrent of threat.

Berkeley picked up on it loud and clear. ‘Because, well,’ he said with some hesitancy, ‘I didn’t hear any denials when Nina said you were planning to use the eitr to make a weapon of mass destruction.’ Lock’s expression darkened, but Berkeley pressed on. ‘So I’m starting to reach the conclusion that…’ He looked at the mercenaries around him, almost as if registering for the first time that they were armed. ‘That it might not be a good idea for me to do it. No offence,’ he hurriedly added.

There was a lengthy silence — then, to everyone’s surprise, Lock shrugged, almost smiling. ‘That’s your decision, of course, Dr Berkeley. And I respect it.’

Berkeley blinked. ‘You do? Oh. Well, good.’

‘I don’t agree with it, though. But it doesn’t matter, because now that we have her,’ he indicated Tova, ‘we don’t need you any more.’

Hoyt grinned. ‘About time. Guy’s been a pain in the ass ever since we brought him aboard.’

He gestured to two of his men, and before Berkeley realised what was happening, they had grabbed him by his arms and pulled him away from Lock. ‘What are you— Hey! Let me go, what the hell are you doing?’ the archaeologist protested.

Lock ignored his squawks. ‘Someone photograph the runes,’ he said. One of the mercenaries opened a pack and took out a high-end digital SLR camera, then began to take pictures. ‘Dr Skilfinger, you’re going to translate them for us.’

‘I will not,’ she replied.

‘Yes, you will. Because we haven’t just got you — we’ve got Dr Wilde too. If you don’t do what I say, then…’ He made a boom sound.

‘Don’t do it,’ Nina told Tova. ‘We can’t—’

She cried out as Lock backhanded the side of her face. ‘Shut up,’ he growled. ‘You talk too much — you’re as bad as your husband. Get them back to the trucks, we’re taking them with us.’

Nina pressed a hand against her aching cheek, filled with both fury and outrage at being humiliated. ‘You fucker!’

Only the gun pressed hard into his abdomen stopped the enraged Eddie from hurling himself across the dais at Lock as his men dragged Nina and Tova towards the exit. ‘Nina, don’t give these shitheads anything!’ he shouted. ‘I’ll come and get you, I promise!’

Hoyt laughed. ‘Yeah, we all know what a promise from you means, Chase. A bullet in the back of the fuckin’ head, just like you gave Natalia!’

Even as she struggled, the words caught Nina’s attention — as did Eddie’s suddenly mask-like expression. Hoyt saw her shocked reaction. ‘Whoa, wait!’ he called to the men hauling her. ‘She stays for a minute.’ They stopped, holding Nina as their comrades took Tova from the chamber.

‘What are you doing?’ Lock asked.

A malevolent smile oozed across Hoyt’s bony visage. ‘I think Chase has been keeping secrets from his old lady.’ Keeping the gun aimed at Eddie, he released him and stepped back. ‘So, you never told her about your little adventure in ’Nam?’

‘I know about Vietnam,’ Nina said defiantly. ‘You were trying to use a German girl to get your hands on the formula for eitr. Eddie protected her.’

Now it was Lock’s turn to laugh. ‘That’s one hell of a definition of protection. I think you’re right, Hoyt — she doesn’t know.’

‘Know what?’ she demanded.

‘Don’t you get it?’ said Hoyt. ‘He killed her! He fucking executed her and burned her body, to stop us from getting samples of her DNA. That’s what a promise from him gets you! Just can’t protect your women, can you, Chase?’

The men holding her eased their grips, but Nina was too stunned to try to break free. ‘Eddie? What are they talking about? Did you…’ She couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

His mask was still in place, but it couldn’t hide the dismay and conflict behind it. ‘What’s the matter, Chase?’ said Hoyt gloatingly. ‘Oh, now all of a sudden you don’t have any smart-ass comments? Ain’t that a thing.’

Nina shook her head. ‘No. I don’t believe it.’

‘It… it is true,’ said Kagan, with a heavy sigh. ‘I saw her body with my own eyes. I am sorry.’

She looked back at her husband. ‘Eddie?’ she asked, voice almost plaintive.

‘I did what she wanted me to do,’ he said, struggling to meet her gaze.

The silence that followed was broken by the man with the camera. ‘Okay, I’ve got them.’

Lock nodded. ‘We’re done here, then.’

‘What about them?’ Hoyt asked, with a flick of his gun at Eddie, Kagan and Berkeley.

Lock shone his flashlight at the ceiling. The beam glinted off the golden shields, but he was more interested in the wooden rafters, tracing the lines of the supports down to floor level. ‘This all looks very flammable, don’t you think, Hoyt?’

Hoyt grinned evilly. ‘Yeah, a real fire hazard.’ Pistol still pointed at Eddie, he took out his cigarette lighter and descended to the great hall’s floor. He crouched by a table, scraping some of the loose straw into a pile and setting it aflame. ‘Guys? Light ’em if you got ’em!’ Some of the other mercenaries spread out across the chamber to start fires of their own.

Nina watched in horror. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Consider it a Viking funeral,’ Hoyt replied. He watched as his fire grew, taking hold of the ancient, bone-dry wood of the table. ‘Burn, baby, burn.’ More flames rose around the chamber as furniture and beams caught light.

‘But — but you can’t just burn it down!’ Berkeley protested. ‘This is Valhalla, one of the greatest discoveries—’

Lock cut him off. ‘I don’t know how many people at the IHA or in Russia know about this place, but if Dr Wilde found it, somebody else could too. I don’t want to risk anyone else discovering the runestones before we reach the eitr pit.’

Hoyt turned to Berkeley. ‘Besides, thought an archaeologist’d love the chance to be a part of history. You’re gonna—’

Eddie lashed out with his elbow at the man holding him, knocking him back. He lunged at Lock, but the mercenary recovered and clubbed him down with his rifle. ‘Eddie!’ Nina cried as he fell.

‘I’m okay, I’m okay,’ he groaned. He pushed himself up on to his knees… and surreptitiously grabbed the Wildey’s ejected bullet, tossing it away with a flick of the wrist. It clinked off the stone floor to land in one of the spreading fires.

Lock was shaken by the attempted attack, but quickly covered it. ‘That was stupid, Chase. What were you hoping to achieve? You really think you can punch your way out of here?’

‘Worth a try,’ Eddie replied, preparing himself. When the heat of the fire caused the round to cook off and explode, he had to be ready to take his only chance.

When it cooked off. Any moment now…

Nothing happened. He glanced at the fire. The glinting brass case was visible amongst the flames, but the blaze wasn’t hot enough to ignite it.

The other fires were rising higher, though. Smoke billowed up into the vaulted ceiling. Hoyt suppressed a cough. ‘Think we need to get moving, boss.’

‘I think so too,’ Lock replied. Covering Eddie with his gun, he backed down the steps of the dais. The soldiers of fortune followed his example. ‘Get Dr Wilde out of here.’

Nina’s captors hauled her towards the doors. ‘You bastards!’ she yelled.

‘What about these assholes?’ asked Hoyt, indicating Eddie, Kagan and Berkeley.

‘Shoot them,’ Lock decided. Berkeley moaned in fear.

‘No!’ cried Nina as the mercs raised their guns — but then she was dragged out of the great hall, her shouts lost beneath the growing crackle of the fires.

Eddie helplessly watched her go, then looked back at the cartridge. It was now barely visible within the fire, but still hadn’t exploded — and might never do so. ‘If we leave them alive in here,’ Lock continued, ‘they might find a way out if part of the roof collapses.’

‘I ain’t complainin’,’ said Hoyt. He raised his gun. ‘Okay, Chase! I spent three years in a Vietnamese jail ’cause of you. But now, it’s finally payback time.’

Eddie tensed—

Crack!

The cartridge detonated, kicking up a shower of sparks and burning straw — and the mercenary nearest to Eddie screamed as the .45-calibre bullet tore into the back of his calf.

Everyone whirled to face the unexpected threat—

Eddie sprang up like a runner off the starting blocks and charged across the dais. The mercenaries’ weapons whipped back around to track him, but he had already hurled himself off the platform and dived behind one of the overturned tables.

Hoyt opened fire, his men following suit. Bullets ripped into the thick wood. Eddie shielded his face as splinters stabbed at him — but the 5.7mm rounds from the mercenaries’ P90s struggled to penetrate the dense oak planks. ‘Go around it, get him!’ Lock yelled.

Kagan grabbed Berkeley and hauled him into cover behind a throne as one of Hoyt’s men ran to the table. Eddie searched for anything he could use as a weapon—

He found plenty.

The merc reached the table, ready to shoot the figure hunched behind it — only to find that his quarry was ready for him.

A rusty axe hacked deep into his shin, breaking bone. The man screeched in agony, gun forgotten as his injured leg gave way and he collapsed on to his knees. Eddie yanked the axe back — and struck again, slashing the ancient weapon across his throat. A jet of blood sprayed across the stone floor as the merc toppled, the wound gaping like a second mouth beneath his chin.

‘Jesus fuck!’ Hoyt yelled as Eddie snatched up the dying man’s P90 and ducked back into cover. ‘Take him down, shoot that motherfucker!’

Lock hurriedly retreated from the clamour of automatic fire as the other men opened up on full auto. This time, wood was no match for the onslaught. ‘Shit!’ Eddie yelped as he dropped flat, the old table juddering as ragged chunks were ripped from it. His shelter would only last a couple more seconds—

Another sound filled the room — a deep, dangerous crack from above.

The fire had reached the roof beams. One of them sheared in two with a noise like a shotgun blast, golden shields jolting loose around it and clanging to the stone floor. Earth and stones cascaded down after them, a mercenary reeling as he was struck on the shoulder. Another beam, flames licking hungrily up its length, broke free from the apex of the vaulted ceiling and swung down to pound a bench into matchwood. The shooting stopped as the gunmen scattered.

‘Get out, get out!’ yelled Lock. ‘The whole place is coming down!’

‘What about Chase and the others?’ Hoyt demanded. ‘They’re still alive!’

‘Just make sure nobody gets out the front entrance!’ Covering his mouth and nostrils with his sleeve, Lock ran from the great hall.

Hoyt glared at the table shielding Eddie, then reluctantly followed his boss. ‘Everybody out!’ he shouted, firing a few last rounds to make sure the Englishman didn’t dare raise his head to shoot back. Dragging the wounded man with them, the others hurried after him.

Eddie peered around the table to see the last of the mercenaries leaving the chamber. He jumped up. ‘Kagan! Are you okay?’

The Russian rose from behind the thrones, Berkeley emerging fearfully after him. ‘My shoulder is hurt,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘but I will live.’

‘Not for long if we don’t get out of here.’ Eddie flinched back as a hunk of burning wood dropped from above and smashed on the dais. The smoke was getting thicker, rasping at the back of his throat. ‘Come on.’

‘But they’ll be waiting for us!’ Berkeley objected, before coughing.

‘You want to stay in here?’ Eddie started for the exit — then veered off to recover his Wildey. ‘Not losing this one too,’ he said, on Kagan’s quizzical look. ‘Nina’d never shut up about it.’ He set off again. The Russian collected a flashlight and followed.

‘Wait, wait!’ Berkeley yelped, hurriedly reversing direction.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ demanded Eddie. Another ominous crack and a shower of dirt from above warned him that the roof was about to collapse.

‘My tablet!’ The American picked up the broken computer, shaking out the shards of broken glass.

‘What? It’s buggered!’

‘The screen’s broken — but we can still recover the memory!’ Berkeley replied as he also scooped up the discarded sun compass, then raced after Eddie. ‘It’s got the directions to the site on Baffin Island! They can still be translated.’

Eddie was about to ask him why he cared, but decided there were more important concerns. A clutch of shields clashed to the floor like oversized cymbals as other burning roof beams gave way. He weaved around the wreckage, slowing to let Berkeley catch up. ‘Come on, fucking leg it!’

He looked back — and realised as Berkeley overtook him that he would be the last person ever to see the great hall of Valhalla. Hidden for over a thousand years, destroyed in minutes. The entire chamber was now ablaze as the fire greedily swallowed tinder-dry fuel. Flames rose around the dais, the three thrones and the runestones behind them disappearing into the smoke.

But there was no time for regrets — and besides, he told himself as he turned away, that was Nina’s department, not his. He had tried to keep his promise to Natalia by stopping anyone from ever finding this place, and failed. Now, his only hope was to prevent Lock and Hoyt from escaping with what they had discovered.

And above that, he had to save his wife.

He shoved Berkeley though the doors as a massive splintering crack shook the entire hall. The backbone of the great vaulted ceiling had broken. The roof sagged, shedding a cascade of golden shields into the swelling fires — then the middle of the long room was crushed by a giant hammerblow of falling soil and trees. A searing wind blew smoke and cinders through the doors as Kagan and Eddie struggled to shut them.

They finally closed with a thud. More loud crashes came from inside the hall, shaking the walls. Eddie staggered back, eyes stinging. ‘Bloody hell!’ he said between coughs. ‘Guess the Vikings didn’t have a god of sprinkler systems.’

Kagan groaned as he pulled the wooden shard out of his shoulder. Blood oozed from the tear in his coat. ‘How are we going to get out? They will be watching the gate.’

‘I think I know a way,’ said Eddie. ‘Give me the torch.’ He holstered the Wildey, then, with the P90 in one hand and Kagan’s flashlight in the other, he jogged down the passage and cautiously looked around the corner.

There were no torch beams in sight, and under the circumstances he doubted that any of the mercenaries were lurking in side rooms to ambush them. A quick sweep with his light revealed smoke swirling through cracks in the wall. The stones were not flammable, but the same couldn’t be said about the beams bracing them. ‘Okay, it’s clear.’

He hurried down the long corridor, the others behind him. The smoke thickened as they approached the far end; a section of wall had partially collapsed where falling rubble in the main hall had piled up behind it. ‘My God,’ said Berkeley in dismay. ‘The whole place is going to come down. We’ve lost everything!’

‘Your mates got the only thing they came here for,’ Eddie said, checking the next turn. Again nobody was waiting for them — though there was a glow of daylight coming from the passage leading to the death-gate.

‘They’re not my mates,’ Berkeley snapped back. ‘They used me — they were going to kill me!’

‘They still might if you don’t keep your voice down.’ Eddie weaved through the hanging tree roots and advanced to the intersection, Kagan and Berkeley following. With greater caution than before, he peered around the corner at the gate.

The mercenary team’s entrance had been literally explosive. The two lead-sheathed doors were ripped open as if someone had punched through a sheet of aluminium foil, mangled metal curled back from the edges of a ragged hole. Broken wood littered the floor. But Eddie was only concerned about what was outside. He squinted against the glare of sunlight on snow, eyes adjusting to reveal figures in the cutting. ‘They’re waiting for us. Definitely can’t get out that—’

‘Chase, look out!’ Berkeley yelped, suddenly shoving him into the open. Eddie whirled, the torch raised like a club — the thought flashed through his mind that the renegade archaeologist was betraying him to regain favour with Lock — but then he saw both the other men jumping clear as the ceiling beams above them sagged, then snapped. Hard-packed earth spewed down where they had been standing, a section of the stone wall toppling into the passage.

‘Run!’ shouted Kagan as another beam split with a whipcrack sound. Eddie needed no further prompting. The trio rushed across the intersection — and bullets smacked against the wall behind them as one of the mercenaries spotted movement in the shadows.

The gunfire ceased as they reached cover on the other side, but more sounds of tormented wood came from overhead. ‘Don’t stop!’ Eddie yelled. ‘Keep going!’

‘This is a dead end!’ Kagan objected.

‘No, there might be a way out — if we can get to it!’ He shone the light forward. The next corner was just ahead—

The ceiling behind them completely gave way. Hundreds of tons of frozen soil and ash roots plunged into the empty space, the shock of the impact kicking flagstones up from the ground and sending all three men tumbling. Blinding dust swallowed them.

‘Whoa!’ said Hoyt, shielding his eyes from flying grit as a dark cloud belched out of the entrance. Above it, an ash tree swayed before falling with a savage crackle of breaking branches. Others thrashed wildly as the entire top of the barrow sagged. ‘God damn! The whole place just caved in.’

Lock watched from further away, mercenaries guarding the zip-cuffed Nina and Tova behind him. ‘I don’t think anyone’ll be getting out of there. And nobody else will find the runestones before we get to Baffin Island, that’s for sure.’

Nina stared at the sight in horror. Smoke began to gush from the heart of the broken mound. ‘Oh my God. Eddie…’

Lock turned to her with an obnoxious smile. ‘May I be the first to say sorry for your loss, Dr Wilde. But,’ he went on, seeing her expression change to fury, ‘it seems appropriate, somehow. Valhalla is the last resting place for heroic warriors, and Chase was that if nothing else.’

‘You’re givin’ him too much credit,’ said Hoyt, joining them. ‘Guy was an asshole.’ Nina fixed him with a glare of hatred, but was filled with too much rage and grief to speak.

‘All right,’ Lock said, addressing his men, ‘let’s get back to the trucks. Dr Skilfinger, I hope you don’t suffer from travel sickness, because you’re going to get right to work on translating the runes. Otherwise, Dr Wilde will be joining her husband in the land of the honoured dead.’

‘You are a monster,’ Tova told him bitterly. ‘Nina, I am so, so sorry.’

Again Nina was too overcome with emotion to answer. All she could do was look back at the remains of Valhalla as the mercenaries led her away into the snowy forest.