The Age Of Odin

Fifty-Four

The good news was that the forward ladder did, indeed, go down into the engine room.

The bad news?

Fenrir wasn't just an all-terrain assault vehicle.

It was a bloody troop transport as well.

Next door to the engine room there was a hold containing fifty-plus American mercs, all tooled up and ready for some action.

How did we find this out?

Because the bastards were lying in wait for us.

They knew we were aboard. They knew we'd breached the roof hatch. They knew which way we'd be likely to head.

And no sooner had we arrived at the engine room than they laid into us.

They rushed in via a short passageway in single file, carrying Ka-Bar knives with 7-inch matt-black blades, which they brandished as they greeted us with cries of "Hostiles!" and "Kick their asses!" and "Hoo-ah!"

Five of them were in the confined space of the engine room with us before we got our shit together to respond. There was every chance they would have obliterated us, too, if they'd only decided to sneak up on us rather than go for the gung-ho, yelling-their-heads-off option.

My simple solution to the problem was to let them have it with the Minimi. The difference between us and them, at that moment, was that Fenrir was their ride and they had no desire to damage it. Hence the knives, a prudent precaution. Us? We didn't care. Damaging was what we were there to do, one way or another. It didn't much matter how.

The five went down, victims of a mixture of overconfidence (theirs) and ruthlessness (mine). Others behind them backed off down the passageway, suddenly appreciating the fact that we had little to lose and they had lots. I heard some frantic debate as they retreated, stuff about bringing knives to a motherfucking gun fight, and what were they supposed to do now, huh?

We couldn't allow them time to come up with an answer.

"Paddy. Cy." I pointed to two diesel turbines the size of Transit vans. They were churning away deafeningly as they bullied Fenrir along. "You know the drill. Fifteen-second fuses. When you're done setting the charges, follow me out."

"Which way you going?" Cy asked.

"Which way do you bloody think? Through the septics. There's got to be an exit at the back for them to pile out of during an assault. That's our way out too. I make a hole through them. You follow."

"All on your own?"

I unhooked a couple of grenades from my belt. "Nope. I'll have some help from Mr and Mrs Pineapple here."

"And me," Odin added.

I was through second-guessing his participation, through querying his combat readiness. He wanted in? Fine by me. I'd no idea how much cop he'd be in a scrap, but hey ho, the more the merrier.

Three steps into the passageway, Odin said, "Gid, my ravens."

"What about them?"

"Someone must look after them, feed them."

"You're worried about your birds at a time like this?"

"If I don't survive…"

"Let's not go there, eh?"

"And Frigga. I want you to tell her — "

"Listen, Odin," I said firmly. "If you're not getting out of this alive, then I'm definitely not. So I'm not about to start promising to tell anyone anything. There's no point."

"I've been a poor husband."

"She knows that. She also knows you love her anyway. Poor husband? I wrote the book on it. But at least you and her are still together, unlike me and Gen. You stuck it through. That counts for a great deal. Now, there's a fuckload of mercs about twenty feet away from here, and every second we spend having this heart-to-heart is another second we give them to figure out how to deal with us. So let's forget the what-ifs and focus on the right-nows, yeah?"

"Blunt as ever, Gid," Odin said. "And in your own fashion, wise."

"Cheers."

I turned with a grenade in each hand and plinked out both pins with my thumbs, keeping the striker levers nice and flat with my fingers. Loki's men had withdrawn behind a steel door ahead. They'd gone quiet, which to me said they were braced to launch a counterattack. Charging down the passageway with guns blazing, two-by-two formation, one of each pair shooting high, the other low — that would be how I'd tackle it, in their position. Small arms rather than anything high velocity. Trying their utmost to keep casualties high and collateral damage to a minimum. Make each bullet count and for fuck's sake don't hole the engines.

Sure enough, the door swung open and two pistols poked out. High and low, just like I'd predicted. The men holding them emerged as I lobbed the grenades along the passageway and in through the doorway. I grabbed Odin and hurled him and myself to the floor.

"Oh fu — " one of the Americans managed to get out, and "Holy Mother of — " the other.

Then: Boom! Boom!

The near-simultaneous detonations of two frag-mentation grenades in a confined metallic space. Like gigantic gongs being rung in Hell.

Before the smoke had even begun to clear I was inside the hold, Minimi to shoulder. Odin was hard on my heels, and I briefly wondered what he was going to do, seeing as he was bare-handed. His problem, not mine.

The grenades had killed over half of the Yanks outright, injured plenty more, and stunned the rest. There were maybe a dozen left who were battle-worthy. They staggered to their feet as Odin and I burst in, and while they were groping for their sidearms I began putting them down with the Minimi. Nice and surgical.

But I couldn't neutralise every one of our opponents before return fire became a reality. Pistols started to spark, and I took shelter behind a heap of sprawled bodies.

I signalled to Odin to join me behind my gory barricade. He didn't see. Admittedly I was on his blind side, but it appeared he had his own tactic for handling the enemy fire, and that was to run straight into it.

Crazy? Oh yes. But somehow it worked for him. Not one bullet found its mark as Odin rushed the soldiers. He moved surprisingly fast, and doubtless none of them had anticipated a full-speed-ahead frontal assault like this. They'd expected he would dive for cover — like any normal person, such as me, would — and gauged their aim accordingly.

He seized his nearest opponent, a corn-fed, freckle-faced farmhand type, and smashed him backwards against the hold wall, knocking the wind out of him. While Farmhand wheezed for breath, Odin rammed a fist into his sternum. I heard the sound of his ribcage caving in — a splintery crack like a piece of fibreboard getting stamped on.

Odin swung Farmhand's huge frame round just as another American, a Mike Tyson lookalike, opened fire on him from the side. The body took the bullets, jerking with the impacts. Odin then flung Farmhand at Tyson-alike, who wasted precious seconds wrestling the corpse off. By the time Tyson-alike had disentangled himself from his dead comrade's limbs, Odin had his throat in an chokehold. He wrenched, and the American's atlas bone snapped, spine and skull parting company. A professional hangman couldn't have done it better.

I was impressed as hell. Who knew Odin had it in him? His name meant "war fury," that was what Bergelmir had said, and he was living up to it. White-haired and age-withered he might be, but when necessary he had the speed and vigour of someone far younger and better built, not to mention the killer instinct of a true warrior. The Americans, for their part, were open-mouthed with shock. An old guy, dressed like a civilian, not a gun to be seen on him, and he was taking them apart? No way. How?

Odin kidney-punched another of them, then used the man's pistol — while he was still holding it — to eliminate two of his own colleagues. Both head-shots, one through the eye, the other ripping off its victim's entire jawbone. For the coup de grace Odin twisted the soldier's arm up, lodged the pistol barrel under the chinstrap of his helmet, and pulled the trigger a third time. The man had a chance to choke out half a scream, but that was all. The helmet kept the top of his head from flying off but everything else got very messy.

Me and my Minimi were starting to feel redundant. Odin was a tornado, swift, remorseless, brutal. I foresaw a time when he and Loki would finally have it out between them, just the two of them, man to man, blood brother against blood brother. It would surely have to happen, and when it did, I didn't rate Loki's chances. He could shape-shift into the Incredible Hulk, and Odin would still pound him into the dirt.

At the very moment I had this thought, Odin glanced my way. His eye widened.

"Gid! Behind you!"

I rolled round to find a soldier looming over me. It was hard to know how his face looked, whether he was black, white, Asian, whatever. He had few features left, just a tarry, sticky mess of burnt skin and cartilage where lips, nose and cheeks had been. Shrapnel hedgehogged him from forehead to neck. Only his teeth, exposed by the melted O of his mouth, were intact. Straightened, bleach-white gnashers, clenched in a rictus of rage. And his eyes — bulging, aglow with the thirst for vengeance.

If this man with the mushed mush was still in pain, he wasn't aware of it. He was somewhere way beyond that sort of concern. All he wanted to do, all he could do, was kill me.

The semiautomatic pistol levelled at my face was poised to make his desires a reality.