The Bones Of Odin

THIRTY-SIX

The game was up.

When Drake and his companions overflew Ragnarok and Abel Frey’s crew, heading towards the smoking mountain, they knew the Germans would be high-tailing it after them. The chopper descended rapidly towards a soft snow basin, jarred violently by random gusts of wind and a rebounding down-draught. The pilot finessed the collective until the chopper hovered as close as it was going to get, six feet off the ground, then shouted at everyone to get the hell off.

“Clock’s ticking!” Dahl shouted, as soon as his boots hit snow. “Let’s move!”

Drake reached out to steady Ben, before surveying their surroundings. The tiny basin had seemed the best drop-off point, being only a mile from the small entrance they had surveyed and the only land within reasonable distance that wasn’t too rocky or a potential magma tube. An extra bonus was it might help confuse Frey as to the Tomb’s exact location.

It was a bleak landscape, not unlike what the end of the world might look like, Drake thought. Layers of grey ash, drab-coloured mountain-sides, and blackened deposits of lava did nothing to boost his confidence as he waited for Dahl to pinpoint the entrance on his GPRS device. He half expected a bedraggled Hobbit to come crawling out of the dim mists claiming he’d reached Mordor. The wind wasn’t strong, but its sporadic gusts bit at his face like a pit-bull.

“This way.” Dahl took off across a drift of ash. High above them the mushroom cloud plumed into the sky with serene calm. Dahl aimed towards a thick black crevice in the mountain ahead.

“Why would anyone put such an important and sacred site inside a volcano?” Kennedy asked as she trudged along beside Drake.

“Maybe it was never meant to last,” he shrugged. “Iceland’s been exploding for centuries. Who would’ve thought that this volcano would erupt so often without going full scale?”

“Unless… unless it isn’t erupting properly because of Odin’s bones. Could they be holding it in check?”

“Let’s hope not.”

The skies overhead were laden with snow and drifting ash, enforcing a premature dusk. The sun didn’t shine here; it was as if Hell had gained its first foothold in the Earthly realm and was clinging on tight.

Dahl negotiated the uneven ground, stumbling sometimes through unexpectedly deep drifts of grey powder. When Dahl reached the stark cliffs, all talk had ceased from the rag-tag group — leached away by the depressing wilderness.

“Up here,” the Swede gestured with his gun. “About twenty feet.” He squinted. “Can’t see anything obvious.”

“Now, if Cook had said that off the coast of Hawaii we’d never have had Dole pineapple,” Drake chided gently, hoping for a laugh.

“Or Kona coffee,” Kennedy licked her lips at him, then abruptly blushed when he winked back.

“After you,” he said, indicating the thirty-degree incline with a flourish.

“Not a chance, perv.,” only now she did manage a smile.

“Well, so long as you promise not to stare at my arse.” Drake attacked the rocky slope with gusto, testing every hold before distributing his weight, and keeping a close eye on Dahl and the lone SAS soldier above him. Kennedy came next, then Ben, and finally the Professor and Wells.

No one had wanted to be left out of this particular mission.

Dahl clattered on ahead for a time. Drake cast a glance behind them, but saw no signs of pursuit beyond a horizon blander than a Prime Minister’s speech. A moment later, Dahl’s voice penetrated the cloak of silence.

“Woah, got something here, lads. There’s a rock outcropping, then a left turn behind it…” his voice faded. “A vertical shaft with… yes, with steps carved into the rock. Very tight. Helvite! Those old Gods must’ve been skinny!”

Drake reached the outcropping and shimmied behind it. “Did you just swear, Dahl, and crack a joke? Or try to, anyway. So you may be human after all. Shit, that’s one narrow hole. Hope we’re not in a hurry to leave.”

With that alarming thought, he helped Dahl fix a safety line before squeezing the Swede down the black hole. Several ripostes came to mind but this wasn’t the time or the place. Without room to aim a torch below, poor Torsten Dahl was climbing down blind, a step at a time.

“If you smell brimstone,” Drake couldn’t resist. “Stop.”

Dahl took his time, carefully planting every foot. After a few minutes he disappeared, and all Drake could see was the dim glow from his fireman’s helmet growing fainter and fainter.

“You okay?”

“I hit rock bottom!” Dahl’s voice echoed up.

Kennedy glanced around. “Is that another joke?”

“Well, let’s get out of this cold,” Drake gripped the black-rock rim and gingerly lowered himself over the edge. Using his feet to scrabble for purchase first, he gently lowered himself inch by perilous inch. The hole was so tight he scraped his nose and cheeks at every move. “Damn! Just take it slow,” he called up to the others. “Try to move your upper body as little as possible.”

After a few minutes he heard Dahl say: “Six feet,” and sensed the rock at his back become empty space.

“Be careful,” Dahl warned. “We’re on a ledge now. About two foot wide. Sheer rock wall to our right, the customary bottomless pit to our left. Only one way to go.”

Drake used his own light to verify the Swede’s findings as the others made their lengthy descents. Once everyone was warned and prepared, Dahl began to inch along the ledge. Utter darkness enveloped them, speared only by their helmet torches which danced about like fireflies in the bayou. Total emptiness lulled them like a siren’s traitorous call to their left, making the hard rock to their right all the more welcoming.

“This reminds me of one of those old dinosaur films,” Professor Parnevik said. “You remember? The Land That Time Forgot, I think? They move through the caves with deadly creatures all around them. Great film.”

“The one with Raquel Welch?” Wells asked. “No? Ah well, people from my era, they think dinosaur — they think Raquel Welch. Never mind.”

Drake pressed his back to the rock and side-stepped forward, arms spread out, ensuring both Ben and Kennedy followed his example before moving off properly. The murky void faced them, and now a faint rumbling came to their ears, deep and far away.

“That would be Eyjafjallajokul, the mountain, erupting gently,” Professor Parnevik whispered along the line. “My best guess is that we are in a side chamber, well insulated from the magma chamber and from the conduit pipe that feeds the eruptions. There might be dozens upon dozens of ash and lava layers between us and the rising magma, shielding us and the Tomb. We may even be inside a bedrock anomaly, where it rises at a steeper angle than the sides of the mountain.”

Dahl shouted into the gloom. “Helvite! Hell and damnation! We have a low wall coming up, crossing our path at a ninety-degree angle. It’s not high, so don’t worry, just be careful.”

“Some kind of trap?” Parnevik ventured.

Drake saw the obstacle and thought the same. With great care, he followed the SGG Commander over the knee-high barrier. They both saw the first Tomb at the same time.

“Ohhh,” Dahl’s grasp on words failed him.

Drake just whistled, awestruck by the sight.

A great niche had been carved into the mountainside, travelling possibly a hundred feet into the core of the volcano — towards the magma chamber. It had been formed into an arch shape, perhaps a hundred feet high. As everyone gathered around and took out their heavier- duty flashlights, the stunning spectacle of the first Tomb unfolded.

“Wow!” Kennedy said. Her light illuminated shelf upon shelf cut into the rocky surround, each shelf adorned by and filled with treasures: Necklaces and spears, breast-plates and helmets. Swords….

“Who the hell is this guy?”

Parnevik was predictably studying the far wall, the one that faced them, effectively the God’s arched tombstone. A fantastic carving stood in sharp relief there, easily the equal in skill of any of the latter-day Renaissance men, even Michelangelo.

“It is Mars,” the Professor stated. “The Roman God of war.”

Drake saw a muscle-bound figure wearing a chest plate and skirt, holding a great spear over one massive shoulder whilst staring over the other. In the background stood a majestic horse and a round building that closely resembled the Colosseum in Rome.

“Beats me how they decided who gets to be buried here,” Kennedy murmured. “Roman Gods. Norse Gods….”

“Me too,” Parnevik said. “Perhaps it was just the whim of Zeus.”

All eyes were suddenly on the enormous sarcophagus that stood beneath the carved mural. Drake’s imagination took hold. If they looked inside would they find the bones of a God?

“Damn, but we don’t have time!” Dahl sounded frustrated and worn and harassed. “Let’s go. We have no idea how many Gods may be buried down here.”

Kennedy frowned at Drake, and looked along the ledge as it disappeared into the blackness. “That’s a fragile track of rock we’re following, Matt. And I bet my 401K the God count ain’t just one or two.”

“We can’t trust anything now,” he said. “Only each other. C’mon. The Germans will be coming.”

They filed out of Mars’ burial chamber, each person stealing a longing, backward glance at its relative safety and incalculable significance. The void beckoned once more, and now Drake began to feel a dull ache in his ankles and knees, a by-product of their slow ledge shuffle. Poor Professor Parnevik and young Ben had to be in real pain.

More rumblings shook a far-flung cave and echoed around their own. Drake looked up, and he fancied he could see a similar ledge far above him. Bollocks. This damn thing could wind up and around all night!

On the plus side, they had heard no signs of pursuit as yet. Drake guessed they were a good hour in front of the Germans, but knew the confrontation was almost inevitable. He just hoped they could neutralise the world-threat before that happened.

A second ledge appeared ahead, and beyond it a second magnificent niche set back into the mountain. This one was adorned by rank upon rank of gold objects, the side walls fairly glowing with golden light.

“Ohmygod!” Kennedy breathed. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Who is that? The God of treasure?”

Parnevik squinted at the rock-carving that dominated a massive sarcophagus. He shook his head for a moment, frowning. “Wait, are those feathers? Is that God clothed in feathers?”

“Could be, Prof,” Ben was already looking past the niche and into the stretch of black night that awaited them. “Does it matter? It’s not Odin.”

Parnevik ignored him. “That’s Quetzalcoatl! The Aztec God! Which makes all this…” he gestured at the shining walls.

“Aztec Gold.” Wells breathed, awestruck despite himself. “Woah.”

“This place…” Kennedy was practically hyper-ventilating, “is the greatest archaeological find of all time. You get that? There’s not just one civilization’s deity here, but many. And all the traditions and treasures that accompany them. This is… staggering.”

Drake glanced away from the depiction of Quetzalcoatl, adorned in feathers and brandishing an axe. Parnevik was saying that the Aztec god had been known — by accepted clerical sources — as the God-ruler, an expression intimating that he had indeed been real.

“Quetzalcoatl means ‘flying reptile’ or ‘feathered serpent.’ Which is-” Parnevik paused for effect, then seemed to realise that everyone else had filed back towards the ledge, “a dragon,” he said to himself, pleased.

“Does he have anything in common with Mars?” the lone SAS soldier — a man called Jim Marsters — asked.

Drake watched Parnevik step out onto the ledge with a purse to his lips. “Hmm,” his breathy speculation carried past everyone on the ledge. “Only that they can, and have at some time, both signified death.”

A third niche, and this one equally as breathtaking as the last. Drake found himself staring at a carving of a stunning naked lady.

A fortune in statuettes lined the walls. Dolphins, mirrors, swans. A necklace of sculpted doves large enough to span the Statue of Liberty’s neck.

“Well,” Drake said. “Even I know who that is.”

Kennedy made a face. “Yeah, you would.”

“The original slut,” Parnevik said harshly. “Aphrodite.”

“Hey,” Wells said. “You’re calling the God, Aphrodite a slut? Down here? This close to her Tomb?”

Parnevik rushed on with typical prep-school bullishness: “Known to have slept with Gods and men, including Adonis. Offered Helen of Troy to Paris, then sealed the deal by inflaming Paris’ ardour the moment he laid eyes on her. Born near Paphos from Uranus’s newly castrated testicles. I have to say she’s a-”

“We get the message,” Drake said drily, still staring at the carving. He smiled when he noticed Kennedy shaking her head at him.

“Jealous, love?”

“Sexually frustrated much?” She pushed past him to be second in line after Dahl.

He stared after her. “Well, now that you mention it….”

“C’mon, Matt,” Ben slipped by him too. “Wow!”

His exclamation made them all jump. They turned, to see him scrambling back on all fours, terror etched in his face. Drake wondered if he’d just seen the Devil Himself borne up on wings of demons, straight from the cookhouse of Hell.

“This niche — ” he gasped. “It’s on a platform… floating in air… there’s nothing on the other side!”

Drake felt his heart freeze. He remembered Mimir’s Well and its false floor.

Dahl jumped a few times. “The damn rock feels sturdy enough. This can’t be the end of the line.”

“Don’t do that!” Ben squeaked. “What if it breaks away?”

Stillness reigned. Everyone stared back at each other with wide eyes. Some ventured a glance back along the way they had come, the safe way, Wells and Marsters among them.

At that moment, at the furthest range of hearing, a faint clattering sound was heard. The sound of a stone dropped down a well.

“That’s the Germans,” Dahl said with conviction. “Testing the depth of the shaft. Now, we either find a way off this platform, or die anyway.”

Drake nudged Kennedy. “See up there,” he pointed above them. “I’ve been keeping an eye out. I think there must be another set of niches or caves above us. But see… see how the rock edge seems to curve.”

“Right.” Kennedy hurried to the edge of Aphrodite’s niche. Then, hugging the jagged rock, she leaned around the corner. “Some kind of structure here… Jeez! Oh, man.”

Drake held her shoulders and peered into the dark. “I think you mean — fuck me!”

There, stretching away beyond the reach of their lights, was a thin ledge that turned into an even thinner spiral staircase. The staircase stretched up above them, heading for the next level.

“Talk about vertigo,” Drake said. “This just took the biscuit and the jar.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

The spiral staircase felt solid enough, but the simple fact that it wound through empty air above an endless pit, not to mention that its architects had failed to fit any kind of banister, made even Drake’s well-trained nerves judder faster than a flea on a vibrator.

One complete circle led them about a quarter of the way up Aphrodite’s niche, so Drake figured they had four or five circuits to do. He moved up a step at a time, following Ben, trying to keep his fear at bay by taking deep breaths and always looking ahead to their goal.

Sixty feet up. Fifty. Forty.

When he neared thirty feet he saw Ben stop and sit for a moment. The boy’s eyes were petrified with fear. Drake sat gingerly on the step below him and patted his knee.

“No time to start composing the new Wall of Sleep track, dude. Or dreaming about Taylor Momson.”

Then the SAS soldier’s voice echoed up from below them. “What’s going on up there? We’re shittin’ ourselves down here. Get movin’.”

SAS soldiers, Drake thought. Didn’t make ‘em like they used to.

“Take a break,” he shouted back. “Just be a mo’.”

“A break! A fu-” Drake heard Wells’ low tones, then silence. He felt Kennedy sit near his feet, saw her tight smile, and felt her shaking body through his toes.

“How’s the kid?”

“Missing college,” Drake made himself laugh. “Fellow band members. The pubs of York. Free cinema night. KFC. Call of Duty. You know, student boy things.”

Kennedy peered more closely. “That’s not what student boys and girls do in my experience.”

Now Ben opened his eyes and tried a strained smile. He inched himself around on hands and knees. Once facing upwards again, still on hands and knees, he climbed up one gruelling step after another.

Inch by inch, step by perilous step, they ascended. Drake felt the stress making his head and heart ache. If Ben fell he would willingly block the boy’s fall with his own body, if only to save him.

Without question or hesitation.

Another full circle and they were about twenty feet from their goal — a ledge that mirrored the one they had just traversed. Drake studied it in the flickering torchlight. It led back towards the entrance shaft but obviously one level up.

Level up? He thought. Christ, he’d been ‘retro-ing’ it too much with Sonic the damn Hedgehog.

Above him he saw Dahl waver. The Swede had stood up too fast, over-balanced, and now had too much weight on his back foot. There were no sounds, just the silent struggle. He could only imagine the tortures flooding Dahl’s mind. The space at his back, the safety in front, the thought of the long, torturous drop.

Then the Swede flung himself forward, hit the steps, and clung for dear life. Drake heard his heavy breathing from ten feet down.

A few minutes later and the arduous climb continued. At last Dahl stepped off the stairs and onto the ledge, then crawled forward on hands and knees to make space. Drake followed not long after, pulling Kennedy with him, feeling stunned relief at being back on their narrow ledge that still left them only a slip from screaming death.

When they were all accounted for, Dahl breathed. “Let’s get to the next niche and call a rest,” he said. “I, for one, am totally blasted.”

After five more minutes of shuffling their sore bodies and fighting off increasing muscle cramps they stumbled into the fourth niche, the one that stood directly above Aphrodite’s Tomb.

No one saw the resident God at first. They were all on their knees resting and panting. Drake thought wryly that this was what civilian life had led him to, and only looked up when Parnevik uttered an expletive that would have seemed odd coming from anyone else, but not him.

“Woof!”

“What?”

“Woof! Doghead. It’s Anubis.”

“The jackal?” Wells sat back on his arse and gripped his knees to his chest. “Well. I’ll be…..”

“An Egyptian deity,” Parnevik said. “And this one undoubtedly linked to death.”

Drake took in row upon row of mummies and coal-coloured jackal statuettes. Gold-inlaid coffins and emerald-studded ankhs. Unimpressed, he turned his back on the God’s burial chamber and broke into a KitKat. A moment later, Kennedy was seated by his side.

“So,” she said, unwrapping her own food and drink.

“Damn, you’re good at the chat-up lines,” Drake grinned. “I’m feeling myself aroused already.”

“Listen, buddy, if I wanted you aroused then you’d be putty in my hands.” Kennedy shot him a grin both cheeky and exasperated. “Damn, you guys can’t quit it for a minute can you?”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Just playing. What’s up?”

He watched Kennedy peer off into the void. Saw her eyes widen when she caught the faint sound of Frey’s soldiers catching them up. “This… thing… we’ve been skirting around for a while. Do you think, um, we’ve actually got something, Drake?”

“I certainly think Odin’s down here.”

Kennedy rose, about to walk away but Drake put a hand on her knee to stop her. The touch almost produced sparks.

“There,” he said. “What do you think?”

“I don’t think I’ll have much of a job when we get back,” she whispered. “What with the Thomas Kaleb serial killer thing and all. That bastard killed again, you know, the day before we got to Manhattan.”

“What? No.”

“Yes. That’s where I went, to walk the murder scene. And to pay my respects.”

“I’m so sorry.” Drake refrained from hugging her, recognising it was the last thing she needed right now

“Thank you, I know. You’re one of the most honest men I’ve ever known, Drake. And the most selfless. Maybe that’s why I like you so much.”

“Despite my annoying comments?”

“Very much despite those.”

Drake finished the last of his chocolate, and decided against tossing his KitKat wrapper into the void. Knowing his luck he’d trigger an ancient litter-trap or something.

“But no job means no ties,” Kennedy went on. “I have no true friends in New York. No family. I guess I might need to disappear from the public eye anyway.”

“Well,” Drake mused, “you’re an enticing prospect, I can see.” He gave her goofy eyes. “Maybe you could say bollox to gay ole Paris and come visit merry old York.”

“But where would I stay?”

Drake heard Dahl mustering the troops. “Well, we’ll just have to come up with a way for you to earn your keep.” He waited until she had climbed to her feet then caught hold of her shoulders and gazed into her sparkling eyes.

“Seriously, Kennedy, the answer to all your questions is yes. But I can’t deal with all that right now. I have my own baggage that we need to discuss, and I so need to keep focused.” He nodded towards the void. “Down there is Alicia Myles. You might think of our journey so far as being dangerous, of this Tomb as being dangerous, but, believe me, they’re nothing compared to that bitch.”

“He’s right,” Wells came up and caught the last comment. “And I’m seeing no other way out of here, Drake. No way to avoid her.”

“And we can’t block the route because we need a way out,” Drake nodded. “Yes, I’ve trawled through every scenario too.”

“Knew you would have.” Wells smiled as if he’d known all along that Drake was still one of his boys. “C’mon, the turnip’s bellowing.”

Drake followed his old boss to the ledge, then took his place behind Ben and Dahl. One appraising glance saw everyone refreshed but edgy about what lay ahead.

“Four down,” Dahl said, and shuffled away across the ledge, mountain at his back.

The next niche was a surprise and gave them all a fortifying boost. It was the Tomb of Thor, son of Odin.

Parnevik was bleating as if he’d discovered a Yeti camped out in Death Valley. And, for him, he had. The Professor of Nordic mythology had located the Tomb of Thor, arguably the best known Nordic figure of all time thanks in part to Marvel comics.

Pure elation.

And for Drake, the presence of Thor suddenly made it all the more real.

There was a respectful silence. Everyone knew of Thor, or at least some incarnation of the Viking God of thunder and lightning. Parnevik lectured about Thorsday, or as we now know it — Thursday. This interlaced with Wednesday — or Wodensday, or Odinsday. Thor was the greatest warrior-god known to man, a hammer-wielding, enemy-felling tour de force. The pure epitome of Viking manhood.

It was all they could do to drag Parnevik away and stop him from trying to examine Thor’s bones there and then. The next niche, the sixth, contained Loki, the brother of Thor and another of Odin’s sons.

“Trail’s hotting up,” Dahl said, with barely a glance inside the niche before continuing along the ledge — which ended against the mountainside — a solid black mass.

Drake joined the Swede, Ben and Kennedy as they ran torches over the rock-face.

“Footholds,” Ben said. “And handholds. Looks like we’re going up.”

Drake craned his neck to look up. The rock-ladder ran up into infinite dark, and they would have nothing but air at their back.

First a test of nerve, now what? Strength? Vitality?

Again Dahl went first. Climbing fast for twenty feet or so before seeming to slow as the blackness engulfed him. Ben chose to go next, then Kennedy.

“Guess you can keep an eye on my ass now,” she said with half a smile, “Make sure it doesn’t go flying past you.”

He winked. “Won’t take my eyes off it.”

Drake went next, scrabbling for three perfect holds before moving his fourth appendage. Rising in that fashion he rose slowly up the sheer rock-face into the volcanic air.

The rumblings continued all about them: distant complaints of the mountain. Drake imagined the magma chamber sitting not too far away, bubbling, spitting hellfire and discharging it across the walls, spewing up towards the distant blue Icelandic skies.

A foot scraped above him, slipping off its little ledge. He held himself stock-still, knowing there was little he could do if someone came barrelling past him, but prepared, just in case.

Kennedy’s foot swayed in space about a metre above his head.

He reached out, swinging a bit precariously, but managed to grab the sole of her boot and guide it back to its ledge. A short whisper of thanks drifted down.

On he went, biceps on fire, fingers aching in every joint. The tips of his toes bore the weight of his body for every small ascension. Sweat slicked his every pore.

He estimated two hundred feet of safe but terrifying hand and footholds before they reached the comparative safety of another ledge.

Gruelling work. Edge of the world, apocalypse-later kind of work. Saving humankind with every punishing step forward.

“What now?” Wells was flat out on his back, groaning. “Another bloody ledge-walk?”

“No,” Dahl didn’t even have the strength to make a joke. “A tunnel.”

“Balls.”

On their knees they crawled forward. The tunnel led into an inky darkness that made Drake start to believe he was dreaming before he abruptly ran into Kennedy’s stationary behind.

Face first.

“Ow! Could’ve warned me.”

“Difficult when I was suffering the same fate,” came back a dry voice. “Only Dahl came out of that pile-up sans bruised nose, I think.”

“It’s my damn heart I worry about,” Dahl called back wearily. “Tunnel ends right up against the first step of another staircase at, um, I’d guess a forty-five degree angle. Nothing to left and right, at least nothing I can see. Prepare yourself.”

“These things must be attached somewhere,” Drake muttered as he crawled on bruised knees. “They can’t just be suspended in mid-air, for God’s sake.”

“Maybe they can,” Parnevik said. “For a God’s sake. Ha ha. I made a joke, but seriously my best guess is a series of flying buttresses.”

“Hidden beneath us,” Drake said. “Sure. Must’ve taken a hell of a workforce. Or a couple of really strong Gods.”

“Maybe they asked Hercules and Atlas for a hand.”

Drake edged out onto the first step with a curiously creepy feeling invading his brain and ascended the rough stone. They rose for a while, at length emerging onto another niche based around a suspended platform.

Dahl met him with a jaded shake of his head. “Poseidon.”

“Impressive.”

Drake sank again to his knees. Christ, he thought. I hope the Germans are having it just as hard. At the end, maybe instead of a battle they could duke it out with rock, paper, scissors.

The Greek God of the Sea carried his usual trident and a roomful of fabulous wealth. This was the seventh God they had passed. The figure nine began to gnaw at his mind.

Wasn’t the number nine the most sacred in Viking mythology?

He mentioned it to Parnevik whilst they rested.

“Yes, but this place clearly isn’t just Nordik,” the Prof jabbed a finger towards the trident-bearer behind them. “Could be a hundred of them.”

“Well, we clearly aren’t going to survive a hundred of them,” Kennedy bickered at him. “Unless someone built a Ho-Jo’s up ahead.”

“Or better still, a bacon-buttie shop,” Drake smacked his lips. “I could sure down one of those bad-boys about now.”

“Crusty,” Ben laughed and slapped his leg. “You speak about ten years out of date. But don’t worry — you still have entertainment value.”

It was five more minutes before they felt rested enough to continue. Dahl and Wells and Marsters spent a few minutes listening out for their pursuers, but no sounds split the perennial night.

“Maybe they all fell off,” Kennedy shrugged. “It could happen. If this were a Michael Bay movie someone would’a fallen by now.”

“Indeed.” Dahl led the way up another suspended staircase. As fate decided, this was the one where Wells lost his grip and slipped two slimy steps down, cracking his chin against stone each time.

Blood seeped through his lips from a bitten tongue.

Drake grabbed him by the shoulders of his big coat. The man below him — Marsters — gripped his thighs with superhuman strength.

“Not going anywhere, old man. Not yet.”

The fifty-five-year-old was manhandled back up the staircase with Kennedy supporting Drake’s back and Marsters ensuring he didn’t slip another step. By the time they reached the eighth niche Wells was back in good humour.

“Yeah, did it on purpose, boys. Just fancied the rest.”

But he clasped Marsters’ arm and whispered a heartfelt thanks to Drake when no one was looking.

“No worries, old mate. Just hang in there. You haven’t had your Mai-time yet.”

The eighth niche was a bit of a showstopper.

“Oh, Lord.” Parnevik’s wonder infected them all. “It’s Zeus. The Father of man. Even Gods address him as a deity — a paternal figure. This is… beyond Odin… way beyond, and that’s coming from a Scandinavian.”

“Wasn’t Odin identified as Zeus among the early Germanic tribes?” Ben asked, remembering his research.

“He was, lad, but I mean, come on. It’s Zeus.”

The man had a point. The King of the Gods stood high and supreme, a thunderbolt grasped in one massive hand. Inside his niche was an abundance of glittering treasure, full to overflowing with tribute beyond anything one single man could amass today.

And then Drake heard a curse, loud, in German. It echoed up from below.

“They have just breached the tunnel,” Dahl closed his eyes in exasperation. “That puts them only fifteen minutes behind us. Damn, we have no bloody luck! Follow me!”

Another staircase beckoned, this one swinging way out and above Zeus’ Tomb before becoming vertical for the last ten steps. They tackled it as best they could, courage turned to ash by the creeping dark. It was as if the absence of light quashed the stuttering spirit. Fear came to call and decided to squat.

Talk about vertigo, Drake thought. Talk about your balls shrinking to the size of peanuts. Those last ten steps, suspended above the pitch black, climbing through the crawling night, almost overwhelmed him. He had no idea how the others managed it — all he could do was relive the mistakes of his past and cling tightly to them — Alyson, the baby they never had and never would have; the SRT campaign in Iraq that screwed it all up — he planted every fault and blunder at the forefront of his mind to exclude the intense fear of falling.

And he put one hand above the other. One foot above the next. Vertically upwards he went, infinity at his back, gusts of some nameless wind tugging at his clothes. Distant thunderous roars could have been the volcano’s song, but it could have been other things too. Indescribable horrors, so ghastly they would never see the light of day. Dreadful beasts, slithering through rock and mud and muck, piping out ghastly tunes that invoked blood-red visions of madness.

Drake crawled, almost crying, over the last rocky step and onto a level surface. Rough stone scraped his scrabbling hands. With a last wrenching effort, he raised his head and saw everyone else sprawled out around him, but beyond them he saw Torsten Dahl — the mad Swede — literally creeping forward on his belly towards a niche larger than anything they had seen so far.

The Mad Swede. But, God, the guy was good.

The niche was suspended on one side but attached to the heart of the mountain on the other.

“Thank God,” Dahl said weakly. “It’s Odin. We’ve found the Tomb of Odin.”

Then he collapsed in exhaustion.

THIRTY-EIGHT

A cry shot through his torpor.

No, a scream. A bloodcurdling wail that spoke of pure horror. Drake opened his eyes but the rock surface was too close to focus on. He spat into the ground, groaned.

And found himself thinking: how far would a man fall into infinity before he died?

The Germans were here. One of their brethren had just fallen off the staircase.

Drake struggled upright, every muscle screaming, but adrenalin started to fire his blood and clear his thoughts. He inched towards Ben. His friend was lying prone near one of the platform’s edges. Drake dragged him towards Odin’s niche. A brief glance back told him the Germans hadn’t arrived yet, but his ears told him they were minutes away.

He heard the sound of Abel Frey’s cursing. The clunk of safety gear. Milo shouting bloody murder at one of the soldiers.

A chance to show your mettle, he thought, recollecting one of Wells’ chosen sayings on their SAS training days.

He dragged Ben around, propping him with his back against Odin’s sizeable sarcophagus. The boy’s eyelids were fluttering. Kennedy stumbled over: “You get ready for them. I’ll sort him out.” She slapped his cheek lightly.

Drake lingered, meeting her eyes for one second. “Later.”

The first of the Germans came over the top. A soldier who promptly collapsed in exhaustion, followed immediately by a second. Drake hesitated to do what he knew should be done, but Torsten Dahl shot past him, exhibiting no such qualms. Wells and Marsters were shuffling forward too.

A third enemy combatant crawled over the top, this one a great shambling hulk of a man. Milo. Blood, sweat and real tears made a grotesque mask of his already alarming face. But he was tough and quick enough to heave himself over the top, roll, and raise a tiny handgun.

One shot exploded from the barrel. Drake and his colleagues instinctively ducked, but the shot flew wide.

The shrieking voice of Abel Frey shattered the stillness that followed the discharge of the bullet. “No guns, dumbkopf. Nar! Nar! Listen to me!”

Milo screwed his face up and sent a nasty smile towards Drake. “Fuckin’ Kraut assholes. Hey buddy?”

The gun was swallowed by a fat fist and replaced by a serrated blade. Drake recognised it as a Special Forces knife. He side-stepped towards the big man, giving Dahl the opportunity to kick one of the fallen soldiers off into space.

The second solder was labouring to his knees. Marsters sliced him a new smile then threw the limp body to the side. By now three more soldiers had gained level ground, and then Alicia sprang up from below to land in a cat-crouch, knives in each hand. It was the most drained Drake had ever seen her, and she still looked like she could take on the Ninja elite.

“No… guns?” Dahl managed to say between forced breaths. “You finally… believe the Armageddon theory, Frey?”

The big German designer now hauled himself over the edge. “Don’t be a fool, solider-boy,” he panted. “I just don’t want to mark that coffin. My collection has room for excellence only.”

“Which you see as a reflection of yourself, I assume,” said Dahl stalling whilst his team got their breath back.

There was a pause, a moment of dread tension where each opponent assessed his immediate target. Drake backed away from Milo, moving unwittingly towards Odin’s tomb where Ben and the Professor still sat side by side, guarded only by Kennedy. He was waiting for one more…

… hoping…

And then a shattered groan came from the staircase, a faint plea for help. Frey glanced down. “You are weak!” he spat at someone. “If it weren’t for the Shield I would…”

Frey motioned at Alicia. “Help her.” The warrior woman grunted haughtily, then extended a hand over the side. With one tug she hauled Hayden over the top. The American CIA agent was spent from the long climb, but even more so from carrying the heavy weight that the Germans had strapped to her back.

The Shield of Odin, wrapped in canvas.

Parnevik’s voice rang out. “He brought the Shield! The principal Piece! But why?”

“Because it’s the principal Piece, you idiot.” Frey fired at him. “There wouldn’t be a principal Piece if it didn’t have some other purpose.” The fashion designer shook his head in disdain and turned to Alicia. “Finish these pathetic cretins. I have Odin to appease and a party to get back to.”

Alicia laughed maniacally. “My turn!” She cried out, a more deadly River Tam, and threw her safety gear into the middle of the rocky dais. Amidst the distraction she leapt for Wells, showing no surprise at his presence. Drake focused on his own fight, lunging towards Milo to surprise him, side-stepping a deft swipe from the blade, then jabbing in with a hard elbow to Milo’s jaw.

Bone cracked. Drake danced away, swaying and staying light on his feet. This would be his strategy then, hit and run, striking with the hardest points of his body, aiming to break bone and cartilage. He was faster than Milo, but not as strong, so if the giant caught up with him….

Thunder echoed through the mountain, the growl and crash of rising magma and shifting stone.

Milo was wincing in agony. Drake led with a double side-kick, two taps — the sort of thing you might see Van Damme deftly execute on the TV — absolutely useless for real life street-fighting. Milo knew that, and batted the attack aside with a snarl. But Drake knew that too, and when Milo launched his bulk forward Drake threw another solid elbow strike full into his opponent’s face, devastating his nose and eye-socket, knocking him solidly to the floor.

Milo hit the ground like a felled rhino. Once down against an opponent of Drake’s calibre there was no way back. Drake stamped on his wrist and knee, breaking both major bones, then his balls for good measure, and then scooped up the discarded army knife.

Surveyed the scene.

Marsters, the SAS soldier, had made short work of two Germans and was now struggling with the third. To kill three men in a few minutes was a tall order for anyone, even an SAS soldier, and Marsters was carrying a minor injury. Wells was dancing with Alicia along the rim of the platform, more running than dancing actually, but keeping her busy. His strategy was sound. At close quarters she’d gut him in a second.

Kennedy was dragging Hayden’s exhausted body away from the centre of battle. Ben had run to help her. Parnevik was up studying Odin’s tomb — the twat.

Abel Frey had confronted Torsten Dahl. The Swede was besting the German in every way, his movements becoming smarter by the second as strength returned to his aching limbs.

Christ! Drake thought. We are kicking ass here! Or in the good old spirit of Dino-rock… Let me entertain you!

Not relishing a confrontation with Alicia he nevertheless moved towards Wells, evaluating that the fifty-year-old needed the most help. When his old female teammate clapped eyes on him she stood back from the fight.

“Kicked your balls already once this week, Drake. You that much of a sadist you want it again?”

“You got lucky, Alicia. By the way, you train your boyf?” he nodded back at the barely moving American.

“Only in obedience,” she flipped both knives up and caught them in a single motion. “Come on! I just love me a threesome!”

Her nature might be wild but her actions were controlled and calculating. She jabbed at Drake whilst slyly trying to corner Wells with his back to the endless void. The Commander saw her intentions at the last possible second and hurled himself past her.

Drake fended off both her knives, turning each blade away and trying not to get his wrists broke in the process. It wasn’t just that she was good… it was that she was consistently good.

Abel Frey suddenly shot past them. It seemed that, unable to best Dahl, he had resorted to sprinting past the Swede in his headlong quest for Odin’s tomb.

And in that split-second, Drake saw Marsters and the last German soldier locked in a deadly struggle, right on the dusty edge of the platform. Then, with shocking abruptness, both men stumbled and just fell off.

Dying screams echoed into the void.

Drake compartmentalised it, said a prayer for Wells, and then swept his body around and took off after Frey. He couldn’t leave Ben exposed back there. Kennedy was blocking the designer’s path, steeling herself, but as he sprinted forward Drake noticed a small black object clasped in Frey’s hand.

Radio or mobile. Some kind of transmitter.

What the fu-?

It was beyond comprehension what happened next. In an event of mind-boggling recklessness the side of the mountain suddenly imploded! There was a heavy whump and then giant boulders and chunks of rock shale were flying everywhere. Stones of all shapes and sizes darted and whizzed across the void like bullets.

A great hole appeared in the side of the volcano, like a hammer smashed through thin plasterboard. Drab daylight shone through the gap. Another whump and the hole widened even further. A hale of rubble cascaded down the bottomless pit in an eerie, profound silence.

Drake hit the floor, holding his head in his hands. Some of that detonated rock was bound to have damaged the other priceless tombs. What the hell was going on?

THIRTY-NINE

A chopper appeared in the newly-made hole, hovering for a second before flying through!

Four heavy lines and several rappel lines dangled from the base of the machine.

It beggared belief. Abel Frey had just ordered the cracking of a mountain-side. A mountain-side that was part of an active volcano, and one that might somehow trigger the mass extinction event known as a Supervolcano.

To enhance his collection.

The man was deranged beyond even what Drake and the rest of the human race had credited him for. He was laughing maniacally even now and when Drake raised his eyes he saw Frey had not moved an inch, but stood solidly upright as the exploding mountain fizzed around him.

Alicia left Wells and stumbled to Frey’s side, even her crazy composure slipping a little. Beyond them Professor Parnevik, Ben and Kennedy had been shielded by the walls of Odin’s niche. Hayden was flat out, motionless. Had she come all this way to die in fiery madness? Wells knelt to one side, clutching his stomach.

The helicopter drifted closer, its motor screaming. Frey raised a machine pistol and gestured everyone back from Odin’s massive sarcophagus. A brief burst reinforced his request, bullets clanging and scattering off priceless gold Viking relics in the form of shields, swords, breastplates and horned helmets. Gold coins, shifted by the chain of events, began to rain down from the shelves like Times Square confetti.

Frey waved the chopper in.

Drake got to his knees. “You move that coffin, you risk the entire world!” he screamed, his voice barely audible above the heavy thud of rotor blades.

“Don’t be a wimp!” Frey shouted back, his face twisted like that of an evil clown strung out on heroin. “Admit it, Drake. I beat you!”

“It’s not about winning!” Drake cried back, but now the chopper was directly overhead and he couldn’t even hear himself speak. He watched as Frey guided it in, spraying bullets at a whim as he waved his hands. Drake prayed that his friends wouldn’t catch a stray round.

The German had lost it. Being this close to his lifelong obsession had simply cracked him up.

Dahl was beside him now. They watched Frey and Alicia guide the heavy chains lower and lower until finally they looped them around both ends of the sarcophagus. Frey made sure they were secure.

The helicopter took the weight. Nothing happened.

Frey shrieked into his handset. The helicopter tried again, this time its engines roaring like an infuriated dinosaur. The chains took the weight and there was a distinct cracking sound, the noise of rock being shattered.

Odin’s coffin shifted.

“This is our last chance!” Dahl screamed into Drake’s ear. “We go for the chopper! With Milo’s gun!”

Drake ran the scenario. They might destroy the chopper and save the Tomb. But Ben and Kennedy, along with Hayden and Parnevik, would surely die.

“There’s no time!” Dahl was shouting. “It’s this or Apocalypse!”

The Swede leapt for Milo’s weapon. Drake squeezed his eyes shut as agony pierced his heart. His eyes fell on Ben and Kennedy, and the agony of decision twisted noose-like inside him. Lose with one hand, lose with the other. And then he decided he just couldn’t let Dahl do it. Could he sacrifice two friends to save the world?

No.

He leap-frogged forward just as Dahl began rummaging through Milo’s clothing. The Swede stumbled back in surprise as Milo launched his body upright, the American hunched in agony but mobile, and limping towards the edge of the platform. Towards one of the rappel lines.

Drake paused in shock. The helicopter’s engines shrieked once more and an unholy crack of noise filled the cavern. In another moment, Odin’s outsize sarcophagus shifted and pulled free of its moorings, swinging alarmingly towards Drake and the edge of the platform, tons of swinging death.

“Noooo!” Dahl’s cry echoed Parnevik’s.

There was a shriek, a crazy shriek like a vent-hole being superheated, a sound like all the demons in Hell being burned alive. From the newly uncovered hole beneath Odin’s Tomb a blast of sulphuric air shot up.

Frey and Alicia lunged away, narrowly missing being burned alive as they clambered atop the swinging coffin. Frey shouted: “Do not come after us, Drake! I have insurance!” then seemed to get an idea, a vouchsafe of security. He shouted at Drake’s companions: “Now! Follow the coffin or you die!” Frey encouraged them by waving his machine-pistol, and they had no choice but to edge around the column of steam.

Dahl turned haunted eyes on Drake. “We have to stop it,” he said beseechingly. “For… for my children.”

Drake had no answer other than to nod. Of course. He followed the SGG Commander, carefully skirting the swinging Sarcophagus that passed above them, their grinning enemies safely on top and his companions following its trajectory from the other side.

Covered by the weapon and the whim of a maniac.

Drake reached the rent in the rock floor. The steam was a scalding, writhing tower. Untouchable. Drake closed in as far as he could before turning around to watch their enemies’ progress.

Hayden had stayed flat out on the ground, feigning unconsciousness. Now she sat up and shrugged out of the straps that secured Odin’s Shield to her back. “What can I do?”

Drake gave her a momentary glance. “The CIA got any contingency plans to shut down a Supervolcano?”

The pretty ‘secretary’ looked momentarily abashed before shaking her head. “Only the obvious. Stick a German down the vent pipe.” She flung off the Shield with a cry of relief. All three of them watched it roll on its rim like a noisy coin.

Had they failed?

The pressure escaping from the pipe increased as the volcano gathered force. “Once the chain reaction starts,” Dahl said. “We won’t be able to shut it down. We have to do this now!”

Drake’s eyes were momentarily drawn to the Shield as it flipped noisily around its rim. Its rim. The words leapt out at him as if they’d been written in fire.

“Plan B,” he said. “Remember Odin’s curse? Didn’t seem relevant did it? Nowhere to fit it in, right? Well, maybe it’s this.”

“Odin’s curse is a way to save the world?” Dahl questioned.

“Or damn it,” Drake said. “Depending on who’s deciding. That’s the answer. The person who places the Shield must have a pure soul. It’s the trap of traps. We’re already ignorant because we removed the Tomb. If we fail, the world dies.”

“How did the curse go?” Hayden, looking none the worse for wear for her rough stint in enemy hands, stared at the steam vent as if might eat her alive.

Drake recited the curse as he picked up the Shield and held it out before him. Dahl stood and watched him as he walked towards the hissing vent. “The moment you touch that steam with that Shield it’s going to get ripped right out of your hands.”

Then, with a sound like a herd of animals trapped in a burning forest, another steam vent spewed forth from below, the piercing shriek of its eruption almost deafening. A sulphuric stench was now beginning to thicken the air, turning it into a toxic miasma. The mountain’s faint rumblings, for so long their constant companion, had become more like thunder now. To Drake it seemed like the very walls were shaking.

“Newsflash, Dahl. Plan B is in effect. For future reference that means I don’t know what the hell else to do.”

“No future for you,” Dahl took the other side of the Shield. “Or me.”

Together they shuffled up to the steam vent. Shale began sliding down the rock-face beside them. A shriek and a roar like nothing Drake had ever heard crashed up from the endless depths of the abyss.

“The Supervolcano’s coming!” Hayden shouted. “Shut it off!”

Unseen by Drake or Dahl or even Abel Frey, the famous Icelandic mountain called Eyjafjallajokul — until now content to emit gentle grey plumes and terrorise air traffic — suddenly exploded around its rim. It would soon be seen on Sky News, and on the BBC, and later on You Tube by stunned millions — the fiery tongues of a thousand dragons igniting a firestorm in the sky. At the same time two other Icelandic volcanoes detonated, their tops blowing off like champagne corks under pressure. It was reported, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that Armageddon had come.

Only the chosen few knew how close it really was.

Unseen, and never to be known, the heroes battled in the dark depths of the mountain. Drake and Dahl attacked the discharging steam vent with the Shield, using the round object to deflect the steam into the nearby void as they positioned it directly above the hole left by the removal of Odin’s Tomb.

“Hurry!” Dahl struggled to hold the Shield in place. Drake felt his arms shaking with the effort of pushing against the primordial strength of the mountain. “I just wanna know what in hell this thing’s made of!”

“Whatever!” Hayden tried to steady them by anchoring their legs and pushing with all her might. “Just shove the fucker inside!”

Dahl lunged, launching himself atop the hole. If the Shield had missed, or moved even slightly, he would have been instantly evaporated, but their aim was true and the principal Piece slotted neatly in the man-made gap beneath the Tomb of Odin.

An elaborate trap, devised hundreds and thousands of centuries ago. By Gods.

The Trap of Traps!

“The greatest ancient trap the modern world has even known.” Dahl fell to his knees. “The one that could end it.”

Drake watched as the Shield seemed to thin out as it absorbed the great pressure shooting up from below. It flattened and moulded itself around the edges of the gap and took on an obsidian composition. Permanent. Never to be removed.

“Thank God.”

Job done, he took a moment before returning his attention back to Frey. Horror filled his heart beyond anything he could imagine, even now.

The chopper was rising, straining to hold the weight of Odin’s coffin which swung gently beneath it. Both Frey and Alicia sat atop the coffin, hands wrapped firmly around the harness that secured it to the helicopter.

But Ben, Kennedy, and Professor Parnevik were hanging from three of the other rappel lines dangling beneath the chopper, no doubt coerced there at gun point whilst Drake struggled to save the planet.

They were hanging over the void, swaying as the helicopter rose, being kidnapped right from under Drake’s nose.

“Nooooo!”

And, incredibly, he ran — a lone man, sprinting with an energy born of rage and loss and love — a man who launched himself out over the bottomless pit and into black space, shouting for what was being taken away from him and grasping desperately for one of the swinging lines as he fell.

FORTY

Drake’s world stopped with his leap in the dark — endless void above, bottomless pit below — three inches of swinging rope his only saviour. His mind was serene; he was doing this for his friends. For no other reason but to save them.

Selfless.

His fingers brushed the rope and failed to close!

His body, at last affected by gravity, began to plummet. At the last second his flailing left hand closed over a rope that was longer than the rest and gripped with reflexive venom.

His fall arrested, he brought both hands around to grip it and closed his eyes to still his rapidly beating heart. From somewhere above came raucous applause. Alicia venting her sarcasm.

“That what Wells used to mean by show your mettle? Always wondered what that crazy fossil meant!”#

Drake looked up, acutely aware of the pit beckoning below, feeling vertigo like never before. But his muscles were fired by new-found strength and adrenalin, and most of the old fire was back in him now, dying to be unleashed.

He climbed the rope, hand above hand, gripping it with his knees, moving fast. Frey was waving his machine-pistol and laughing as he took careful aim, but then Hayden shouted from Odin’s Tomb. Drake saw her standing there, aiming Wells’ gun at Frey — the old Commander slumped next to her but still breathing, thank God.

Hayden half-rolled the gun at Frey. “Let him climb!”

The chopper was still hovering, its pilot unsure of his orders. Frey hesitated, snarling — a child parted from its favourite toy. “Okay. Hundin! Bitch! I should have dropped you out the damn plane!”

Drake smirked when he heard Hayden’s reply. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

Kennedy, Ben, and Parnevik were staring wide-eyed at the proceedings, hardly daring to draw breath.

“Go get him!” Frey then screamed at Alicia. “Hand to hand. Get him and let’s go. The bitch won’t shoot you. She’s government issue.”

Drake gulped as Alicia leapt off the sarcophagus and grabbed a parallel rope to Drake’s, but even so found time to glance at Ben, gauging how the boy was reacting to the revelation about Hayden’s status.

Ben, if anything, looked at her with more fondness.

Alicia scooted down the rope like a monkey, soon level with Drake. She faced him, perfect face full of malice.

“I can swing both ways.” She leapt into the air, feet first, drawing a graceful arch in the gloom, totally airborne for a moment. Then her feet connected solidly with Drake’s breastbone and she whiplashed her body forward, briefly grabbing his own rope before swinging off it onto the next.

“Fuckin’ baboon,” Drake muttered, his chest on fire, his grip weak.

Alicia used her momentum to swing around the rope, legs levelled at chest height, and crashed into his belly. Drake managed to swing to the right to lessen the blow, but still felt his ribs bruise.

He snarled at her, compartmentalised the hurt, and climbed higher. A glint entered her eyes, along with a new respect.

“At last,” she breathed. “You’re back. Now we’ll see who’s best.”

She shuffled up the rope, confidence radiating from her every move. With a single leap she bypassed Drake’s own rope, and again used her momentum to come back on the return swing, legs aiming this time for his head.

But Drake was back, and he was ready. With supreme skill he let go of his rope, locked away the intense vertigo, and caught it two foot further down. Alicia sailed harmlessly by above him, stunned by his move, still flailing.

Drake leapt up the rope a foot at a time. By the time his adversary realised what he had done he was above her. He stomped hard on her head.

Saw her fingers let go of the rope. She fell, but only for a few inches. The hard-nut within her kicked in and she regained her grip.

Frey bellowed from above. “No good! Die, you English unbeliever!”

Then, in less than a heartbeat, the German whipped out a knife and cut Drake’s rope!

Drake saw it all in slow motion. The glint of the blade, the wicked shine of the cutting surface. The sudden unravelling of his life line — the way it started to bulge and wriggle above him.

The immediate weightlessness of his body. The frozen instant of terror and disbelief. The knowledge that everything he had ever felt and everything he might have done in the future had just been eradicated.

And then the fall… seeing his arch enemy, Alicia, climbing hand over fist to get back on top of the Sarcophagus… seeing Ben’s mouth twist into a scream… Kennedy’s face turning into a death-mask… and through his peripheral vision… Dahl… what the. ?

Torsten Dahl, the mad Swede, running, no sprinting across the platform, safety harness strapped to his body, literally launching himself out into the black pit just as Drake himself had done a few minutes before.

The safety harness unravelling behind him, anchored around a pillar in Odin’s niche, held tightly by Hayden and Wells who had braced for maximum effort.

Dahl’s crazy dive… bringing him close enough to grab Drake’s arms and hold on tight.

Drake’s rush of hope quashed as both he and Dahl fell together, safety line playing out… then the sudden, painful jerk as Hayden and Wells took the strain.

Then the hoping. The slow, painful strokes of rescue. Drake stared into Dahl’s eyes, not speaking, not emitting an ounce of emotion as they were hauled inch by inch to safety.

The chopper pilot must have received orders, for he began to rise until he was ready to fire a third missile, this one out of the mountain, designed to widen the gap enough to fit the sarcophagus through without risking it being damaged.

Within three minutes Odin’s coffin was gone. The chopper’s thudding rotor blades a distant memory. As now were Ben, Kennedy, and Parnevik.

At last, Dahl and Drake were dragged over the rocky edges of the precipice. Drake wanted to rush off in pursuit, but his body wouldn’t respond. It was all he could do to lay there, letting the trauma absorb into him, re-routing the pain to a cordoned-off part of his brain.

And as he lay there, the noise of the chopper returned. Only this time it was Dahl’s chopper. And it was both their means of rescue and pursuit.

Drake could only stare into Torsten Dahl’s exhausted eyes. “You are a God, mate,” and the significance of the place they were in was not lost on him. “A true God.”

FORTY-ONE

Every time Kennedy Moore so much as shifted her ass around in the hard seat, Alicia Myles’ sharp eyes noticed. The English bitch was an uber warrior blessed with that cop’s sixth-sense of constant anticipation.

They had stopped only once during the three-hour flight from Iceland to Germany. Early on, only ten minutes after they had exited the volcano, they had winched up and steadied the coffin and brought everyone on board.

Abel Frey went immediately to a rear compartment. She had not seen him since. Probably greasing the wheels of theft and industry. Alicia had practically thrown Kennedy, Ben and Parnevik in their seats, then perched next to her boyfriend, the injured Milo. The chunky American seemed to be clutching every part of his body, but chiefly his balls, a fact Alicia seemed to find alternately amusing and worrying.

Three other guards were on the ‘copter, flicking their watchful eyes between the captives and the odd companionship that existed between Alicia and Milo — in turns sad, then meaningful, and then brimming with fury.

Kennedy had no idea where they were when the chopper began to descend. Her thoughts had drifted throughout the last hour — from Drake and their adventures in Paris and Sweden and in the volcano, to her old life at the NYPD, and from there, inevitably, to Thomas Kaleb.

Kaleb — the serial killer she had freed to kill again. Memories of his victims assailed her. The crime scene she had walked a few days ago — his crime scene — remained fresh in her memory like newly-spilled blood. She realised she hadn’t seen a news report since.

Maybe they had caught him.

In your dreams….

No. In my dreams they never catch him, never get near him. He kills and kills and taunts me and my guilt rides me like a damn demon until I give it all up.

The chopper dropped fast, yanking her out of a vision she couldn’t bear to face. The private compartment at the rear of the chopper opened and Abel Frey strode out, issuing orders.

“Alicia, Milo, you’ll be with me. Bring the prisoners. Guards, you will accompany the coffin to my viewing room. The custodian there has instructions to contact me as soon as it’s ready for viewing. And I want it fast, guards, so don’t dally. Odin may have awaited Frey for thousands of years, but Frey doesn’t wait for Odin.”

“The whole world knows what you’ve done, Frey, you lunatic,” Kennedy said. “Fashion designer, my ass. How long do you think you’ll stay out of jail?”

“American self-importance,” Frey snapped. “And idiocy makes you believe you can speak out loud, hmm? The superior mind always triumphs. Do you really think your friends made it out? We set traps in there, stupid bitch. They won’t make it past Poseidon.”

Kennedy opened her mouth to protest, but noticed Ben’s brief head-shake and snapped her mouth shut. Leave it. Survive first, fight later. She silently quoted Vanna Bonta — I would rather have an inferiority complex and be pleasantly surprised, than have a superiority complex and be rudely awakened.

Frey couldn’t possibly know their chopper had remained hidden at a higher altitude. And pride reassured him that his intellect trumped theirs.

Let him think that way. The surprise would be all the sweeter.

The chopper landed with a jolt. Frey marched forward and jumped off first, shouting orders to men on the ground. Alicia rose to her feet and made a motion with her forefinger. “You three first. Heads down. Keep moving until I say otherwise.”

Kennedy jumped off the chopper behind Ben, feeling the ache of exhaustion in every muscle. When she looked around, the surprising sight made her forget her tiredness for a minute, in fact it took her breath away.

One look and she knew this was Frey’s Chateau in Germany; the designer’s den of iniquity, where the entertainment never stopped. Their landing pad faced the main entrance — double oak doors inlaid with gold studs, framed by Italian marble pillars that led into the grand entrance hall. As Kennedy watched, two expensive cars rolled up, a Lamborghini and a Maserati, from which four ecstatic twenty-somethings rolled out and tottered up the steps into the Chateau. The heavy beats of dance music drifted through the door.

Scaling up above the doors was a stone-clad facade topped by a row of triangular turrets, and two taller towers to either end, giving the vast structure the whole Gothic Revival appearance. Imposing, Kennedy thought, and a little stunning. She fancied being invited to a party at this place would be an upcoming model’s dream.

And so Abel Frey had preyed on their dreams.

She was shoved towards the doors, Alicia watching them carefully as they bypassed the purring supercars and walked up the marble steps. Through the doors and into an echoing entry hall. To the left, an open, leather-bound gate led into a nightclub complete with upbeat music, multi-coloured lights, and cubicles that swayed above the crowd where one could prove how well they could dance. Kennedy stopped immediately and screamed.

“Help!” She cried, staring straight at the patrons. “Help us!”

Several people took a moment to lower their half-full glasses and stare. After a second they began to laugh. A classic Swedish blonde raised her bottle in the universal cheers sign, a dark-skinned Italian male started giving her the eye. The rest went back to their disco inferno.

Kennedy groaned as Alicia grabbed her hair and dragged her across the marble floor. Ben cried out in protest, but a slap to the face almost felled him. More laughter rang out from the party guests amidst several bawdy comments. Alicia flung Kennedy against the great staircase so she banged her ribs, hard.

“Stupid female,” she hissed. “Can you not see they are enamoured of their host? They will never think badly of him. Now… walk.”

She gestured upwards with the small gun that appeared in her hand. Kennedy considered resisting but judging from what had just happened she decided to just roll with it. Up the stairs and to the left they were marched, towards another wing of the Chateau. Once they left the staircase and stepped into a long, unfurnished corridor — a bridge between wings — the dance music died and they could have been the only people alive at that moment in time.

Beyond the corridor, they were marched into what might once have been a spacious ball-room. But now the area had been divided up into half a dozen separate rooms — rooms with bars on the outside instead of walls.

Cells.

Kennedy, along with Ben and Parnevik was hustled into the nearest cell. A loud clang signified the closing of the door. Alicia waved. “You are being watched. Enjoy.”

In the resounding silence that followed, Kennedy ran her fingers through her long, black hair, smoothed out her pant-suit as best she could and took a deep breath.

“Well-” she started to say.

“Hey bitches!” Abel Frey appeared at the front of their cell, grinning like the God of Hellfire. “Welcome to my party chateau. I somehow doubt you’ll enjoy the experience as much as my, umm, more affluent guests.”

He waved the suggestion away before they answered. “No matter. You don’t have to speak. Your words have little interest to me. So,” he made a pretend pondering gesture, “who do we have… well, yes of course, it’s Ben Blake. The pleasure’s all yours, I’m sure.”

Ben ran to the bars and wrenched at them as hard as he could. “Where’s my sister, you bastard?”

“Hmm? You mean the feisty blonde with the-” he kicked out a leg wildly. “Enter the Dragon fighting style? You want details? Well — okay, since it’s you, Ben. First night I sent my best man in there to take her shoes, you know, to soften her up a bit. She marked him, bruised a few ribs, but he got what I wanted.”

Frey took a moment to fish a remote control out of the pocket of the odd silk dressing gown he wore. He flicked it at a portable TV Kennedy hadn’t even noticed. The picture came on — SKY News — babbling about the U.K.’s widening national debt.

“Second night?” Frey paused. “Does her brother really want to know?”

Ben yelled, a guttural sound deep from his belly. “Is she okay? Is she okay?”

Frey flicked the remote again. The screen switched to another, grainier image. Kennedy realised she was looking at a tiny room with a girl tied to the bed.

“What do you think?” Frey goaded. “She’s alive, at least. For now.”

“Karin!” Ben ran towards the TV, but then stopped, suddenly overcome. Sobs wracked his entire body.

Frey laughed. “What more do you want?” He made another show of thinking, and then switched the channel again, this time to CNN. Immediately a news report of the New York City serial killer — Thomas Kaleb — came on.

“Recorded this for you earlier,” the madman said to Kennedy with glee. “Thought you’d like to watch.”

She listened despite herself. Heard the dreaded news that Kaleb continued to stalk the New York streets, emancipated, a ghost.

“I believe you liberated him,” Frey said pointedly at Kennedy’s back. “Nice going. The predator back where he belongs, no longer a caged animal in a city zoo.”

The report flicked back over archive footage of the case — standard stuff — her face, the dirty cop’s face, the victims’ faces. Always the victims’ faces.

The same ones that haunted her nightmares every day.

“Bet you know all their names don’t you?” Frey taunted. “Their families’ addresses. The way… they died.”

“Shut up!” Kennedy held her head in her hands. Shut it out! Please!

“And you,” she heard Frey whisper. “Professor Parnevik,” he spat out the words as if they were bad meat caught in his mouth. “You should have stayed working for me.”

A gunshot rang out. Kennedy screamed in shock. The next second she heard a body collapse and turned to see the old man hit the ground, a hole blown through his chest, blood leaking out and sprayed across the cell walls.

Her mouth dropped open, disbelief shutting down her brain. She could only stare as Frey turned to her one more time.

“And you, Kennedy Moore. Your time is coming. We will soon explore the depths to which you are capable of sinking.”

With a turn of heel and a grin, he was gone.

FORTY-TWO

Abel Frey chuckled to himself as he headed for his security section. An inventive few moments and he’d trodden those idiots into the ground. Broken both of them. And finally killed that old idiot Parnevik stone dead.

Wonderful. Now to even more pleasurable pursuits.

He opened the door to his private quarters and found both Milo and Alicia sprawled out on his sofa, just the way he’d left them. The big American was still carrying an injury, wincing with every movement, courtesy of that Swede, Torsten Dahl.

“Any news from next door?” Frey asked immediately. “Has Hudson called?”

Next door was the CCTV control centre, currently being overseen by one of Frey’s more radical cohorts — Tim Hudson. Known about the chateau as ‘memory man’ for his extensive computer expertise, Hudson had been one of Frey’s earliest disciples, a man willing to go to any extremes for his fanatical boss. They were chiefly monitoring progress of the installation of Odin’s Tomb, with Hudson at the helm — swearing, sweating and nervously gulping Yaegers down as if they were milk. Frey was eager to see the Tomb set in its rightful place, and fully prepared for his first notable visit. Also being surveyed were his captives, Karin’s quarters, and the cells of his new inmates.

And the party of course. Hudson had arranged a system that put every inch of the club under some kind of scrutiny, be it infra-red or standard feed, and every action of Frey’s elite guests was being recorded and examined for its weight in leverage.

He had come to realise that power was not knowledge after all. Power was hard proof. The discreet photograph. The HD video. Entrapment might be illegal, but that didn’t get in the way if its victim was sufficiently terrified.

Abel Frey could engineer a ‘date-night’ with a starlet or a rock-chick any time he chose. He could acquire a painting or a sculpture, obtain front row seats to the hottest show in the glitziest town, attain the unattainable, whenever the whim took him.

“Nothing yet. Hudson’s probably passed out on the couch again,” Alicia said, lounging with her head propped on her hands and her legs draped over the edge of his sofa. When Frey glanced at her she parted her knees subtly.

Of course. Frey sighed inside, naturally. He watched Milo groaning and holding his ribs. He felt a jolt of electricity raise his heart-rate as the thought of sex and danger mingled. He raised an eyebrow in Alicia’s direction, gave her the universal ‘money’ sign.

Alicia swung her legs down. “On second thoughts, Milo, why don’t you go check again. And get a full report from that idiot Hudson, hmm? Boss,” she nodded towards a silver platter of nibbles. “Fancy something?”

Frey studied the plate as Milo, as oblivious to what was happening as a politician is to his foolishness, sent a pretend glare towards his girlfriend then groaned and limped out of the room.

Frey said: “Biscotti looks good.”

No sooner had the door clicked into place than Alicia handed the plate of biscotti biscuits to Frey and climbed up on his desk. On all fours she turned her head towards him.

“Want some fine English ass with that biscuit?”

Frey flicked the secret button under his desk. Immediately a fake painting slid aside to reveal a bank of video screens. He said: “Six,” and one of the screens flashed into life.

He tasted the biscuit as he watched, absent-mindedly stroking Alicia’s rounded buttock.

“My battle arena,” he breathed. “It’s already prepared. Yes?”

Alicia wriggled seductively. “Yes.”

Frey began to stroke the groove between her legs. “Then I have about ten minutes. You’ll have to make do with a quick one for now.”

“Story of my life.”

Frey turned his attention to her, always aware of Milo only twenty feet away behind an unlocked door, but even with that, and the sensual presence of Alicia Myles, he still couldn’t tear his eyes away from the lavish cell of one of his newly acquired captives.

The serial killer — Thomas Kaleb.

The ultimate face-off was imminent.