The Bones Of Odin

FORTY-THREE

Kennedy ran to the bars when Abel Frey and his guards appeared outside their cell. She screamed at them to remove the Professor’s body or let them go free, then felt a rush of trepidation when they did just that.

She paused outside the cell, unsure what to do. One of the guards gestured with his gun. They walked deeper into the prison complex, past several more cells, all unoccupied. But the scope of it all chilled her to the bone. She wondered what depraved iniquities this guy was capable of perpetrating.

It was then she understood he might be worse than Kaleb. Worse than all of them. She hoped Drake, Dahl and a back-up army were closing in, but she had to face and overcome this dilemma believing that they were on their own. How could she hope to protect Ben as Drake had? The young lad trailed along at her side. He’d barely spoken since Parnevik died. In fact, Kennedy thought, the boy had said only a few words since their capture back at the Tomb.

Was he seeing his chance of saving Karin slip away? She knew he still had his mobile safely in his pocket, switched to vibrate, and also that he’d received half-a-dozen calls from his parents that he hadn’t answered.

“We’re in the right place,” Kennedy whispered out of the side of her mouth. “Keep your wits about you.”

“Shut up, American!” Frey spat the last word as if it were a curse. To him, she fancied it most likely was. “You should worry about your own fate.”

Kennedy sent a fleeting look behind. “What’s that supposed to mean? You gonna make me wear one of your little dresses you made?” She imitated cutting and stitching.

The German raised an eyebrow. “Cute. We’ll see how long you stay feisty.”

Beyond the cell complex they entered another, far dingier section of the house. They were angling sharply downward now, the rooms and corridors around her in disrepair. Knowing Frey though, this was all a misdirection to throw snoopers off.

They travelled along a final corridor that led to an arched wooden door with big metal straps across the hinges. One of the guards keyed in an eight-figure number on a wireless numerical keypad and the heavy doors began to creak open.

Instantaneously she saw a chest-high metal rail that encircled the new room. About thirty to forty people stood around it, drinks in hand, laughing. Playboys and drug barons, high-class male and female prostitutes, royalty and Fortune 500 Chairmen. Widows with vast inheritance money, oil-rich sheiks and millionaires’ daughters.

All stood around the barrier, sipping Bollinger and Romanee Conti, nibbling their delicacies and exuding their culture and class.

When Kennedy walked in, they all stopped and took a moment to stare at her. Her chilling thought was to evaluate her. Whispers ran around the dusty walls and prickled her ears.

That’s her? The cop?

He’s going to annihilate her in, oh, four minutes, tops.

I’ll take that. Raise you another ten, Pierre. What do you say?

Seven. I wager she’s stronger than she looks. And, well, she’ll be a mite pissed don’t you think?

What the hell were they talking about?

Kennedy felt a rude kick to her buttocks and stumbled into the room. The assemblage laughed. Frey trotted quickly after her.

“People!” He laughed. “My friends! This is one fine offering, don’t you think? And she’s going to give us one fine night!”

Kennedy stared around, intimidated despite herself. What the hell were they talking about? Stay prickly, she remembered Captain Lipkind’s favourite saying. Stay on your game. She tried to focus, but the shock and the surreal surroundings threatened to undo her.

“I won’t perform for you,” she muttered at Frey’s back. “In any way you expect.”

Frey turned towards her and his knowing smile was startling. “Won’t you? For something precious? I think you overestimate yourself, and your kind. But that’s okay. You can think not, but I think you will, dear Kennedy. I really think you will. Come.” He gestured her forward.

Kennedy stepped to the circular rail. About twelve feet below her was a circular pit, dug unevenly out of the earth, its floor dotted with rocks, its walls clad in dirt and stone.

An old-fashioned gladiator arena. A fighting pit.

Metal ladders were hauled beside her and lifted over the rail into the pit. Frey indicated that she should climb down.

“Not a chance,” Kennedy whispered. Three guns were levelled at her and Ben.

Frey shrugged. “I need you, but I seriously don’t need the boy. We could start with a bullet to the knee, then an elbow. Work around and see how long it takes for you to do my bidding.” His hellfire smile persuaded her that he’d be glad to prove his words.

She gritted her teeth, spent a second smoothing her pantsuit down. The affluent mob inspected her with interest, as they might a caged animal. Glasses were emptied and nibbles nibbled. Waiters and waitresses flitted among them, unseen by them, refilling and refreshing.

“What’s with the pit?” she bartered for time, seeing no way out of this and trying to give Drake every precious extra second.

“This is my Battle Arena,” Frey said obligingly. “You live in glorious memory or you die in shame. The choice, my dear Kennedy, is in your hands.”

Stay prickly.

One of the guards nudged her with the barrel of his pistol. Somehow she managed to muster up a positive look for Ben, and reached out for the ladder.

“Wait,” Frey’s evil eyes glinted. “Take her shoes off. That’ll fuel his bloodlust a little more.”

Kennedy stood there, humiliated and enraged, and a bit bemused as one of the guards knelt before her and removed her shoes. She swung onto the ladder, feeling unreal and detached, as if this bizarre encounter was happening to a different Kennedy in a far-flung corner of the world. She wondered who this he person everyone kept referring to actually was.

It didn’t sound good. It sounded like she would have to fight for her life.

As she descended the ladder, whistles went up from the crowd and a potent wave of bloodlust curdled the air.

They shouted all manner of obscenities. Bets were staked: some that she would die in less than a minute, others that she would lose her thong in under thirty seconds. One or two even offered her encouragement. But more gambled that he would desecrate her dead body after he had pulverised her.

The richest of the rich, the most powerful scum on Earth. If this was what wealth and power got you then the world was indeed broken.

All too quickly, her bare feet touched the hard earth. She dismounted, feeling cold and exposed, and looked around. Opposite her a hole had been cut in the wall. Currently it was covered by a set of thick bars.

A figure trapped on the other side of those bars suddenly came rushing forward, smashing into them with a bloodcurdling shriek of fury. He shook them so hard they bounced, his face little more than a twisted snarl.

But despite that, and despite her bizarre surroundings, Kennedy recognised him in less time than it took to think his name.

Thomas Kaleb, serial killer. Here, in Germany, with her. Two mortal enemies placed in the Battle Arena.

Abel Frey’s plan, hatched back in New York, come to fruition.

Kennedy’s heart leapt, and a sheer rush of hatred arrowed from her toes to her brain and back again.

“You bastard!” She cried, seething. “You absolute bastard!”

Then the bars shot up, and Kaleb leapt towards her.

Drake exited the helicopter before it touched down, still a step behind Torsten Dahl, and ran towards a lively hotel that had been commandeered by a joint coalition of International forces. A mixed army to be sure, but a determined and capable one.

They were 1.2 miles North of La Verein.

Army and civilian vehicles were convoyed up outside, engines burbling, at the ready.

The foyer was a mass of activity: commandos and Special Forces, intelligence agents and soldiers all grubbing up, cleaning up, and gearing up.

Dahl made his presence known by jumping on to the hotel’s front desk and hollering so loudly everyone turned. A respectful silence fell.

They already knew him, and Drake, and the rest, and were well aware of what they had achieved in Iceland. Each and every man here had been briefed by a Video-link beamed between the hotel and the chopper.

“We ready?” Dahl shouted. “To take this bastard down?”

“Vehicles prepped,” a Commander shouted. They were all deferring to Dahl for this operation. “Snipers in place. We’re so hot we could restart that volcano, sir!”

Dahl nodded. “Then what are we waiting for?”

The noise level climbed a hundred notches. Troops filed out of the doors, slapping each others’ backs and agreeing to meet for beers after the battle to bolster bravado. Engines started to roar as the assembled vehicles drove away.

Drake joined Dahl in the third moving vehicle, a military Hummer. Through the last few hours of briefings he knew they had about 500 men, enough to deluge Frey’s small army of 200, but the German held the higher ground and was expected to have plenty of tricks.

But the one thing he didn’t have was the element of surprise.

Drake bounced along in the front seat, gripping his rifle, his thoughts focusing on Ben and Kennedy. Hayden was in the seat behind them, tooled up and kitted out for war. Wells, with his serious stomach wound, had been left at the hotel.

The convoy rounded a sharp bend and there was La Verein, lit up like a Christmas tree against the darkness that surrounded it and before the black cliff face of the mountain that towered above it. Its gates were wide open, demonstrating the insolent audacity of the man they had come to dethrone.

Dahl keyed the mic. “Last call. We’re going in hot. Speed will save lives here, men. You know the targets and you know our best guesstimate of where Odin’s coffin will be. Let’s stick it to that PIG, soldiers.”

The reference stood for Polite Intelligent Gentleman. Heavy on the irony. Drake held on with white knuckles as the Hummer shot through Frey’s gatehouse with barely an inch to spare on either side. The German guards started raising the alarm from their high towers.

The first shots were fired, bouncing off the lead cars. When the convoy came to a grinding halt, Drake opened his door and rolled. They hadn’t used air support because Frey might have RGPs. They needed to move away from the cars quickly for that same reason.

Get in, and turn the land of the PIG into a bacon factory.

Drake ran for the thick shrubbery that grew under a ground floor window. The SAS team they had sent in thirty minutes ago should have secured the nightclub area and its ‘civilian’ guests by now. Bullets flew from the chateau’s windows, peppering the gatehouse walls as vehicles flooded inside. The coalition force returned fire with a vengeance, smashing glass, striking flesh and bone, and chipping the stone facade into mush. Shouts and screams and calls for reinforcements rang out.

Chaos reigned inside the chateau. An RPG screamed from a top floor window, crashing into Frey’s own gatehouse and imploding part of the wall. Rubble cascaded down onto the invading soldiers. Machine-gun fire was returned, and one German mercenary toppled from the top floor, screaming and tumbling until he struck the ground with a horrendous crack.

Dahl and another soldier fired a burst inside the front doors. Their bullets or ricochets took out two men. Dahl ran forward. Hayden was somewhere in the melee behind him.

“We need to get inside this hellhole! Now!”

More explosions shook the night. A second RPG delved a massive crater a few feet east of Drake’s Hummer. A shower of dirt and rock plumed into the sky

Drake ran, crouch style, staying below the criss-crossing tracery of bullets that riddled the air above his head.

The war had truly begun.

The crowd betrayed its thirst for blood before Kennedy and Kaleb even touched. Kennedy circled carefully, her toes squeezing the dirt, her feet testing for rock and earth, moving erratically so as not to be predictable. Her brain struggled to make sense of all this, but already she’d spotted a weakness in her opponent — the way his eyes drank in the figure that her formless pantsuit conservatively covered.

So that was one way to kill a killer. She concentrated on finding another.

Kaleb made the first move. Spittle flew from his lips as he lunged at her, arms flailing. Kennedy batted him away and side-stepped. The crowd bayed for blood. Someone threw red wine on the earth, a symbolic gesture of the blood they wanted spilled. She heard Frey, the sick bastard, egging Kaleb, the heartless psychopath, on.

Now Kaleb lunged again. Kennedy found her back against the wall. She’d lost concentration, distracted by the crowd.

Then Kaleb was on her, his bare arms around her neck — his sweaty, disgusting… bare arms. The arms of a killer…

… of atrocity and death…

… smearing their putrid filth all over her skin. Warning bells tolled in her mind. You have to stop thinking like this! You have to focus and fight! Take on the fight and the fighter, not the legend you have created.

The eager crowd howled again. They banged their bottles and glasses against the fence, braying like beasts, yearning for a kill.

And Kaleb, so close after everything that had happened. Her hub of concentration was shot, blown to hell. The monster rammed a fist into her side whilst pulling her head against his chest. His dirty, sweaty bare chest. Then he hit her again. Pain exploded in her ribcage. She staggered. Red wine showered down over her, thrown from above.

“That’s it,” Kaleb taunted her. “Get down where you belong.”

The crowd roared. Kaleb wiped his disgusting hands in her long hair and laughed with a quiet, fatal malice.

“Gonna piss all over your corpse, bitch.”

Kennedy fell to her knees, briefly out of Kaleb’s grip. She tried to shuffle away from him but he got tight hold of her pants. He was pulling her back towards him, grinning like a death’s head savage. She had no choice. She unbuttoned her pants, her formless figure-concealing pants, and let them slide down her legs. She used his instant surprise to squirm away on her backside. Stones raked her skin. The crowd bayed. Kaleb lunged forward, got a hand into the waistband of her underwear but she kicked him savagely in the face, the underwear twanging back just as his nose twanged sideways, bloody and broken. She sat there a moment, looking up at her nemesis and finding herself unable to look away from his blood-flecked, leering eyes.

Drake rolled through the fancy doorway into a massive entry hall. The SAS had indeed secured the nightclub area and were covering the grand staircase. The rest of the chateau wouldn’t be so friendly.

Dahl tapped his breast pocket. “Blueprints show the vault room to our right and into the far east wing. Don’t second guess anything now, Drake. Hayden. We agreed that’s the most logical place for Frey, our friends and the Tomb to be.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Hayden dead-panned.

With a force of men scrambling behind him, Drake followed Dahl through a door into the eastern wing. Once the door was opened, more bullets strafed the air. Drake rolled and came up firing.

And suddenly Frey’s men were among them!

Knives flashed. Hand-guns fired. Soldiers went down to left and right. Drake rammed the barrel of his gun against the temple of one of Frey’s guards, then let the weapon swing into firing position just in time to put a bullet into the face of an attacker. A guard thrust at him from the left. Drake skirted the lunge and put an elbow in the guy’s face. He bent down over the unconscious man, picked up his knife and threw it end over end into the head of another who was about to cut the throat of a Delta commando.

A gun fired next to his ear; the weapon of choice of the SGG. Hayden used a Glock and an army-issue knife. A multinational force for a multinational incident, Drake thought. More gunfire erupted from the far side of the room. Bring on the Italians.

Drake rolled flat under an enemy’s sideswipe. He flung his body around, legs first, sweeping the guy off his feet. When the man landed heavily on his spine, Drake ended his life.

The ex-SAS officer stood up and spied Dahl a dozen steps ahead. Their enemies were thinning now — probably just a few dozen martyrs sent to wear down the invaders. The real army would be elsewhere.

“Good for a warm up,” the Swede grinned, blood around his mouth. “Now come on!”

They went through another door, swept a room clear of booby traps, then another room, where snipers took six good men before they were eliminated They eventually found themselves facing a high rock wall complete with loopholes through which machine-guns rattled. At the centre of the rock wall was an even more formidable steel door, reminiscent of a bank vault.

“That’s it,” Dahl said as he ducked back. “Frey’s viewing room.”

“Looks a tough bastard,” said Drake, sheltering at his side, holding up a hand as dozens of troops ran to his side. He looked for Hayden, but failed to see her slim frame among the men. Where the hell had she gone? Oh, please, please, don’t let her be lying back there… bleeding…

“Fort Knox tough,” a Delta commando said after taking a goosey.

Drake and Dahl shared a look. “Grapplers!” they both said at the same time, sticking to their ‘speed and no fucking around’ policy.

Two big guns were passed carefully up the line, soldiers grinning as they watched. The powerful guns, like rocket launchers, both had a solid steel grappling hook attached to their barrels.

Two soldiers were sprinting back the way they had come with optional steel cables cradled in their arms. The steel cables attached to a hollow chamber in the launchers’ ass-end.

Dahl double-clicked his Bluetooth connection. “Say when it’s a go.”

Seconds passed, then the answer came. “Go!”

Covering fire was laid down. Drake and Dahl stepped out, launchers poised on their shoulders, took aim, and squeezed the triggers.

Two steel grappling hooks shot out at rocket-like speed, embedding themselves deep into the stone wall of Frey’s vault before bursting through the other side. Once they encountered space, a sensor triggered a device that deployed the hooks themselves, making them clamp hard to the wall on the other side.

Dahl tapped his ear. “Do it.”

And even from down here Drake heard the sound of two Hummers slammed into reverse, cables attached to their reinforced bumpers.

Frey’s impenetrable wall exploded.

Kennedy kicked out in warning as Kaleb shambled towards her, catching his knee and making him stagger. She used the moment’s respite to scramble to her feet. Kaleb came again and she slapped his ear with the back of her hand.

The crowd above her bleated in pleasure. Thousands of dollars-worth of rare wine and fine whisky showered down onto the dirt of the arena. A pair of women’s lacy knickers floated down. A man’s tie. A pair of Gucci cufflinks, one bouncing off Kaleb’s hairy back.

“Kill her!” Frey screamed.

Kaleb came at her like a freight train, arms spread, guttural sounds coming from deep in his belly. Kennedy tried to skip away, but he caught her and lifted her bodily off her feet.

Airborne, Kennedy could only cringe in anticipation of the landing. And it came hard, rock and earth slamming into her spine, driving the air from her lungs. Her legs kicked, but Kaleb came inside them and planted himself atop her, elbows first.

“More like it,” the killer grunted. “Now you’ll squeal. Eeeeeeee!” His voice was manic, a pig’s slaughter screeching in her ear. “Eeeeeeeeeee!”

Searing agony made Kennedy’s body convulse. The bastard was an inch away now, body lying on hers, lips dripping saliva onto the cheeks, eyes like hellfire, squirming his crotch into her own.

For a moment she was helpless, still trying to catch a breath. His fist slammed into her belly. His left hand was about to do the same when it paused. A heartbeat of thought, and then it snaked up to her throat and began to squeeze.

Kennedy choked, gasping for air. Kaleb giggled like a madman. He squeezed harder. He studied her eyes. He bore down on her body, pinning her with his weight.

She kicked out with all her might, knocking him to the side. She was well aware she’d just received a pass. The bastard’s twisted needs had saved her life.

She snaked away again. The crowd jeered at her — at her performance, at her dirty clothes, at her scratched ass, at her bleeding legs. Kaleb rose like Rocky from the edge of defeat and spread his arms, laughing.

And then she heard a voice, weak but spearing through the raucous cacophony.

Ben’s voice: “Drake’s coming, Kennedy. He’s coming. I got a text!”

Dammit… he wouldn’t find them here. She couldn’t imagine he’d search this area of all the places in the chateau. His most likely target would be the vault room or the cells. It could be hours….

Ben still needed her. Kaleb’s victims still needed her.

To stand up and shout when they couldn’t.

Kaleb ran at her, reckless in his egotism. Kennedy feigned terror, then planted her back foot and sent an elbow slam straight into his onrushing face.

Blood spouted all over her arm. Kaleb stopped as if he’d run into a brick wall. Kennedy pushed her advantage, hammering his chest with her fists, punching his already broken nose, kicking at his knees. She used any method she could to disable the executioner.

The crowds roar increased but she barely heard it. One swift kick to the balls sent the asshole to his knees, another to the chin flipped him onto his back. Kennedy fell into the dirt beside him, panting through exhaustion, and stared into his disbelieving eyes.

There was a thud close to her right knee. Kennedy looked over to see a broken wine bottle embedded neck up in the dirt. A merlot, still dripping its liquid red promise.

Kaleb swung at her. She took the blow on her face without flinching. “You need to die,” she hissed. “For Olivia Dunn,” she wrenched the broken bottle out of the ground. “For Selena Tyler,” she poised it above his head. “For Miranda Drury,” she added, her first blow shattered teeth and cartilage and bone. “And for Emma Silke,” her second blow took his eyes. “For Emily Jane Winters,” her final blow made mincemeat of his neck.

And she knelt there in the bloodied earth, victorious, the adrenalin firing up her veins and pounding through her brain, trying to claw back the humanity that had momentarily deserted her.

FORTY-FOUR

Kennedy was ordered back up the ladder at gunpoint. The body of Thomas Kaleb was left twitching where it was to die.

Frey looked unhappy, speaking into a mobile. “The vault,” he rasped. “Save the vault at all costs, Hudson. I don’t care about anything else, you idiot. Get off that damn couch and do what I pay you for!”

He ended the connection and stared at Kennedy. “It appears your friends broke into my house.”

Kennedy gave him sly eyes before turning them on the gathered elite. “Seems like you fools are gonna get a little of what you deserve.”

There was quiet laughter, the tinkle of glasses. Frey joined in for a moment before saying: “Finish your drinks, my friends. Then leave in the usual way.”

Kennedy summoned some bravado, enough to give Ben a wink. Damn it though, if her body didn’t ache like a bitch. Her ass stung and her legs throbbed; her head ached and her hands were covered in sticky blood.

She held them out to Frey. “Can I clean this off?”

“Use your shirt,” he sneered. “It’s no more than a rag anyway. No doubt it mirrors the rest of your closet.”

He waved a hand in the royal manner. “Bring her. And the boy.”

They exited the arena, Kennedy feeling the exhaustion and trying to still her spinning head. The ramifications of what she’d done would live with her for decades, but now wasn’t the time to dwell. Ben was at her side and from the look on his face clearly attempting a form of telepathic encouragement.

“Thanks, man,” she said, heedless of the guards. “Was a cake-walk.”

Following the left-hand fork they headed down another corridor that ran away from their cell block. Kennedy summoned her wits.

Just survive, she thought. Just stay alive.

Frey received another call. “What? They are at the vault? Moron! You… you…” he sputtered, enraged. “Hudson you… send in the whole army!”

An electronic shriek severed the connection abruptly, like a guillotine cutting off the head of a French Queen.

“Take them!” Frey turned on his guards. “Take them to the housing block. It seems there are more of your friends than we first thought, dear Kennedy. I’ll be back to tend your wounds later.”

With that, the deranged German marched away at pace. Kennedy became acutely aware she and Ben were now alone with four guards. “Keep going,” one of them prodded her towards a door at the end of the hallway.

When they passed through it, Kennedy blinked in surprise.

This part of the chateau had been completely gutted, a new arched roof built overhead, and small brick ‘houses’ lined two sides of the space. Little more than large sheds, there were about eight of them. Kennedy knew instantly that more than a handful of captives had passed through this place in its time.

A man worse than Thomas Kaleb?

Meet Abel Frey.

Her situation was worsening by the second. The guards were manoeuvring both Ben and her towards one of the houses. Once inside, it was game over. You lose.

She could take one out, maybe even two. But four? She had no chance.

Unless….

She peeked behind at the nearest guard, caught him appraising her. “Hey, is this it? You gonna put us in there?”

“Those are my orders.”

“Look. This kid here — he’s come all this way to save his sister. You think, um, maybe he could see her. Just once.”

“Orders from Frey. We’re not allowed.”

Kennedy let her gaze travel between all four guards. “So? Who’s to know? Recklessness is the spice of life, right?”

The guard snapped at her. “You blind? Haven’t you seen the cameras in this Goddamned place?”

“Frey’s busy fighting an army,” Kennedy smiled. “Why’d you think he took off so quick? You guys let Ben see his sister then maybe I’ll cut you some slack when the new bosses get here.”

The guards stole glances at each other. Kennedy put more persuasion in her voice and a bit more flirt in her body language and soon two of them were unlocking Karin’s door.

Two minutes later they brought her out. She staggered between them, looking drawn, her blonde hair bedraggled and her face defeated.

But then she saw Ben, and her eyes lit up like lightning in a storm. Strength seemed to pour back into her frame.

Kennedy caught her eyes as the two groups met, trying quickly to convey the urgency, the danger, the last chance scenario of her crazy idea all in one desperate glance.

Karin shrugged off the guards and snarled. “Come get some, motherfuckers.”

Torsten Dahl led the charge, gun held out like a raised sword, shouting for all he was worth. Drake was at his side, sprinting at full pace before the entire vault wall had even collapsed. Smoke and debris plumed through the small space. As Drake ran, he sensed other coalition troops fanning out to either side. They were a rushing phalanx of death, bearing down on their enemies with deadly intent.

Drake’s instincts kicked in as the smoke swirled and thinned. To the left, a huddle of guards stood, frozen in fear, slow to react. He fired a burst into their midst, taking down at least three bodies. From ahead, some return fire was heard. Soldiers fell to his left and right, flailing hard into the collapsed wall with their momentum.

Blood sprayed right before his eyes as an Italian’s head was vaporised, the man not fast enough to dodge a bullet.

Drake dived for cover. Sharp rock and concrete shredded the flesh of his arms as he hit the floor. Rolling, he fired a few bursts into the corners. Men screamed. An exhibit exploded under intense gunfire. Old bones spun through the air in slow motion, like dust motes.

More gunfire from ahead and Drake saw a mass of moving men. Jesus! Frey’s army was right here, arrayed in its own deadly formation, and coming forward faster and faster as it sensed it had the edge.

Karin used martial arts training to incapacitate her guards within seconds. Kennedy delivered a sharp backhand to her guard’s chin, then stepped in and head-butted him so hard she saw stars. After a second she saw that her second opponent, the fourth guard, had leapt away to create some space between them.

Her heart sank. So the fourth guard had been a bridge too far. Even for two of them.

The guard looked petrified as he raised his rifle. Finger trembling, he swept the area, seeking help. Kennedy held her hands palms outwards.

“Calm down, dude. Just stay calm.”

His trigger finger flexed in fear. A shot rang out, bouncing off the ceiling.

Kennedy cringed. Tension thickened the air into nervous soup.

Ben almost screamed as his mobile cut a raucous tune through the unease. Seether’s Effigy cranked up to the max.

The guard jumped too, squeezing off another involuntary shot. Kennedy felt the wind of the bullet pass by her skull. Pure fright riveted her to the spot.

Please, she thought. Don’t be an idiot. Remember your training.

Then Ben threw his phone at the guard. Kennedy saw him flinch and swiftly dropped to the floor to create more distraction. By the time the guard had batted the phone away and refocused, Kennedy had shouldered the third guard’s weapon.

Karin though, she had lived here for a while. She had seen and experienced hardship. She fired instantly. The guard staggered back as a red puff exploded from his jacket. Then a dark stain spread across his shoulder and he looked bewildered, then angry.

He fired, point-blank, at Ben.

But the shot went wild, the miss aided no doubt by the fact that his head exploded a millisecond before he pulled the trigger.

Behind him, framed by his spray of blood, stood Hayden, Glock in hand.

Kennedy looked at Ben and Karin. Saw them staring at each other with elation and love and sorrow. It seemed prudent to give them a minute. Then Hayden was at her side, nodding with relief at Ben.

“How’s he doin’?”

Kennedy winked. “He’ll be happier now you’ve arrived.”

Then she sobered. “We got other captives to rescue here, Hayden. Let’s get ‘em and quit this hell-hole.”

The two armies met with a clash, the coalition force shooting their opponents where they stood, the Germans wielding knives and trying to get up close, fast.

For a moment Drake found this knife-play futile, utter madness, but then he remembered who their boss was. Abel Frey. The madman wouldn’t want his own side using bullets just in case they marred his priceless exhibits.

In amongst it, Drake felled foe after foe. Soldiers grunted and struck at each other all around him, using force that broke bones. Men screamed. Battle combat was a total melee. Survival was down to pure luck and instinct rather than any kind of skill.

As he fired and punched and scraped his way through, he caught sight of a figure up ahead. A whirling dervish of death.

Alicia Myles, cutting a swathe through the International super-troops.

Drake faced her. The battle noise fell away. They were near the back of the vault, Odin’s sarcophagus beside them, open now, a rack of spotlights arrayed above it.

“Well, well,” she laughed. “The Drakester. How’s it hanging, pal?”

“Same as ever.”

“Mmm, I remember. Though can’t say it hung for too long, eh? Nice catfight up on the ropes by the way. Not bad for a one-time soldier cum civilian.”

“You too. Where’s your BBF?”

“BBF?”

Two struggling soldiers crashed against Drake. He shoved them away with Alicia’s help, both of them savouring what was to come.

“Best Boyfriend Forever? Remember him? Milo?”

“Oh, yeah. Had to kill him. Bastard caught Frey and me doing the backstreet shuffle.” She sniggered. “Got mad. Got dead.” She made a face. “Just another dearly departed fool.”

“Who thought he could tame you,” Drake nodded. “I remember.”

“Why’d you have to be here now, Drake? I really don’t want to have to kill you.”

Drake shook his head in bemusement. “There’s a term — beautiful liar. Those two words sum everything about you up, Myles, better than any Shakespeare ever could.”

“So?” Alicia rolled up her sleeves with a grin and kicked off her shoes. “You ready to get your balls handed to you?”

Out of the corner of his eye Drake saw Abel Frey creeping away from them and shouting at someone called Hudson. Obviously Myles had been guarding them as the directed their forces, but now she had other priorities. Torsten Dahl, ever reliable, stepped in front of the crazy German and launched an attack.

Drake clenched his fists. “Not gonna happen, Myles”

FORTY-FIVE

Alicia shocked him by ripping off her T-shirt, swirling it around itself until it became as tight as a rope, then swinging it two-handed around his neck. He struggled, but her improvised harness dragged him in.

Straight into her rising knees — Thai-boxing style. One. Two. Three.

He twisted around the first. Turned again. The second crunched by his ribs. The third caught him fully in the balls. Pain thudded through his belly, sickening, and he fell onto his backside.

Alicia stood above him, grinning. “What did I say? Tell me, Drakey, what exactly did I say.” She made a motion of handing him something.

“Your balls.”

She dropped a hip and twisted, shot out a side-kick aimed at his nose. Drake brought up both hands and blocked it. Felt one finger dislocate. She turned so she was facing him dead-on, swinging one leg high and over in an arc, then bringing the heel sharply down towards his forehead.

Axe kick.

Drake rolled back, but the kick still struck his chest. And, with the force Myles could muster, it hurt like a bitch.

She stamped on his ankle.

Drake screamed. His body was being systematically broken, bruised and lamed. She was breaking him, piece by piece. Damn the civilian years. But then — could he even blame the lay-off? She had always been good. Had she always been this good?

Civilian break or not, he was still SAS, and she was painting the floor with his blood.

He shuffled backwards. A trio of fighters fell over him, crashing all around. Drake enjoyed the respite of elbowing a German in the throat. He heard cartilage crack, felt a little better.

He stood up, aware that she had let him. She danced from foot to foot, eyes lit from within by devilry and brimstone. Beyond her, Dahl and Frey and Hudson were locked together, wrestling across the side of Odin’s coffin, faces constricted with pain.

Alicia flicked out her T-shirt at him. It connected like a whip, made the left side of his face burn. She struck again and he caught it. Pulled with intense strength. She came stumbling into his arms.

“Hi.”

He jammed both thumbs just below her ears, pressing hard. Instantly she began to writhe, all semblance of cockiness gone. He was pressing the nerve cluster hard enough to cause any normal man to black out.

Myles bucked and kicked like a rodeo bull.

He pressed harder. Finally, she leaned back in his harsh embrace, letting him take her weight, limp, trying to compartmentalise the pain. Then she shot upright and thrust both thumbs under his armpits.

Straight into his own nerve cluster. Agony blasted through his body.

And so they were locked. Two fearsome enemies, battling through waves of pain, barely moving, staring into each other’s eyes like long-lost lovers, ‘til death do they part.

Drake grunted, unable to hide his suffering. “Crazy… bitch. Why… why work for this… this man?”

“Means… to… an… end.”

Neither Drake nor Myles would back down. Around them the fight began to draw to a close. More coalition troops remained standing than Germans. But they battled on. And Drake could vaguely see Dahl and Frey locked in a similar, deadly embrace, fighting to the end.

No solider interrupted them. The respect was too high. In privacy and impartially these battles would be decided.

Drake fell to his knees, taking Alicia with him. Black spots danced before his eyes. He realised that if she found a way to break his hold he was well and truly done for. Energy drained from him by the second.

He wilted. She pressed harder, that ultimate killer instinct digging in. His thumbs slipped away. Alicia fell forward, striking with an elbow to his chin. Drake saw it coming but didn’t have the energy to stop it.

Sparks exploded behind his eyes. He fell flat on his back, staring up at Frey’s gothic ceiling. Alicia crawled over and blocked his line of sight with her pain-riddled face.

None of the soldiers around them tried to stop her. This would not end until one of the combatants either called a truce or died.

“Not bad,” she coughed. “You still got it, Drake. But I’m still better than you.”

He blinked. “I know.”

“What?”

“You have… that edge. That killer instinct. Battle fury. Whatever. It makes the difference. That… that’s why I quit.”

“Why would that stop you?”

“I cared about something outside the job,” he said. “That changes everything.”

Her fist was raised, ready to crush his throat. A moment passed. Then she said: “A life for a life?”

Drake was starting to feel the energy trickling slowly back into his limbs. “After everything I’ve done today I think they owe me that much.”

Alicia stepped back and held an arm out to help him to his feet. “I threw Wells towards the ropes at Mimir’s Well. I didn’t kill him at Odin’s Tomb. I diverted Frey’s attention away from Ben Blake. I’m not in this to destroy the world, Drake, I’m just here to have me some fun.”

“Acknowledged.” Drake steadied himself, just as Torsten Dahl heaved Abel Frey’s limp body off the wide rim of Odin’s coffin. It hit the floor with a wet crack, flopping lifelessly against the Italian marble pavers.

A cheer went up, echoed throughout the coalition troops.

Dahl pumped a fist as he stared inside the coffin.

“The bastard never got to see this prize,” he laughed. “His life’s work. Jesus Christ, guys, you’ve gotta see this.”

FORTY-SIX

A day later, Drake managed to escape from the endless round of debriefings to catch up on a few hours sleep at a nearby hotel, one of Stockholm’s oldest and finest.

In the lobby, he waited for the lift and wondered why all his thought processes were shot. They’d been made crazy by lack of sleep, constant beatings and intense pressure. He needed several days of recuperation.

The lift dinged. A figure came up beside him.

Kennedy — dressed in Saturday’s usual pantsuit, hair tightly swept back, surveying him with those tortured eyes.

“Hey.”

Words weren’t enough. To ask her if she was okay was beyond lame, it was downright foolish.

“Hey yourself.”

“Same floor?”

“Sure. They’re keeping us all boxed off but together.”

They got in. Stared at their shattered reflections in the mirror. Avoided contact with the requisite video camera. Drake pressed the button for nineteen.

“You getting through this as well as I am, Kennedy?”

She laughed genuinely. “A crazy week, or weeks. Not sure. It blows my mind that I ended up fighting my nemesis and clearing my name at the end of all this.”

Drake shrugged. “As did I. Ironic, eh?”

“Where’d she go? Alicia.”

“Into the night where all the best secrets go, her and that computer geek, Hudson,” Drake shrugged. “Gone before anyone who really mattered noticed them. Probably banging each others’ brains out as we speak.”

“You did the right thing. They weren’t the masterminds here. Alicia’s dangerous but not crazy. Oh, and don’t you mean into the still of the night.”

He took a moment to process her Dino-rock reference. He guffawed. His spirits rose faster than mercury on a sunny day.

“And Hayden?” Kennedy said as the lift doors closed and the old car began to rise slowly. “You think she’ll stick with Ben?”

“I really hope so. If not, well at least he’s had sex now, I think.”

Kennedy punched his shoulder. “Don’t count them chickens, buddy. Maybe he’ll write her a song.”

“Call it — three and a half minutes with you!”

They were clicking slowly past the seventh floor. “Reminds me. Back at Odin’s Tomb, what was it you said? Something about me staying in York and, um, earning my keep.”

Drake stared at her. She gave him a seductive smile.

“Well… I… I…” he sighed and relented. “Am hopelessly out of practice at this.”

“At what?” Kennedy’s eyes glinted with mischief.

“The old Dino-rock group Heart called it the immaculate seduction. In Yorkshire we just say ‘chatting a bird up’. We’re simple folk.”

As the lift clicked past the fourteenth floor, Kennedy unbuttoned her shirt and let it fall to the floor. Underneath she wore a red see-through bra.

“What are you doing?” Drake felt his heart jump as if it had been electro-shocked.

“Earning my keep.”

Kennedy unbuttoned her trousers and let them pool to the floor. She wore a matching pair of red panties. The elevator dinged as it arrived at their floor. Drake felt his spirits and everything else rise. The door slid open.

A young couple were waiting. The woman giggled. The guy grinned at Drake. Kennedy pulled Drake out of the lift and into the corridor, leaving her pantsuit behind.

Drake glanced back. “Don’t want it?”

“Don’t need it anymore.”

Drake swept her up into his arms. “Good job it’s a quick walk to my room.”

Kennedy let her hair down.