The Valhalla Prophecy

7

Eddie accelerated, sending the Twizy southwards down the boulevard after the kidnappers. A long way ahead, the Audi made a skidding turn to the right. He glanced at the speedometer, trying to judge how long it would take him to reach the intersection. For a moment it seemed the little electric car was surprisingly fast — then he remembered that the number was in kilometres per hour, not miles.

‘Eddie!’ Nina shouted from behind him. ‘Go right, down there!’ She pointed at a street angling away to the south-west, her iPhone gripped tightly in her hand. The screen displayed a 3D aerial view of Stockholm. ‘It’s a short cut, we’ll catch up with them!’

Eddie made the turn, sweeping the Twizy to the wrong side of the road to pass a slow-moving car. The road was a cul-de-sac, trees across its end, but a cycle path ran between them. The Renault was narrow enough to fit — he hoped. ‘What’s down here?’

Nina rotated the map. ‘A river. The only way they can go is along it. The road’s called, uh… Strandvägen.’

Eddie sounded the Twizy’s horn, startled pedestrians leaping away as he swerved on to the cycle path. Snow and slush spattered him and Nina through the buggy’s open sides. ‘Where does it go?’

‘How the hell would I know? I’ve never been here before!’

Her call on the short cut had been good, however. The Audi powered past just ahead of them, heading west along the riverside. Still shrilling the horn, Eddie swung on to another broad boulevard in pursuit. Tramlines occupied the lanes on each side of the tree-lined central reservation, three-coach trains trundling past the dawdling traffic. The S4 was forced to weave aggressively between the cars to avoid being blocked.

The much skinnier Twizy slipped through the gaps with ease. ‘Okay, I’m starting to see the point of this thing,’ Eddie admitted. ‘We’re catching up.’

Nina tilted the map to get a better view of what lay ahead. ‘If they don’t take one of these side streets, they’ll have to keep going along the river for about a half-mile. They must be heading for one of the main roads out of the citeeee!’ She squeaked as Eddie guided their vehicle between two cars with only inches to spare on each side. ‘Don’t miss them like that!’

‘You’d rather I hit ’em?’

‘You’d rather I hit you?’

‘Not really — wait, look!’ Two lanes ahead were full of stationary vehicles, a tram in the third closing off the only open avenue before the kidnappers could reach it. The Audi’s brake lights flared. ‘They’re stuck!’

‘Or not,’ said Nina as the S4 made a slithering power slide, barging a smaller car out of the way and crossing the lines just behind the tram to traverse the central reservation. A man walking along the path down its centre had to dive out of the way, the car jinking to avoid him at the last second. The Audi vaulted the kerb on the other side and skidded again, still heading west — but now facing into oncoming traffic.

Eddie used the lowered kerb at a pedestrian crossing to follow, angling across the grassy central divider. He weaved between the trees before dropping down heavily into the empty bus and tram lane on the other side. The Audi’s driver tried to cut back across the road to get into the clear space ahead of the Twizy, but couldn’t find a large enough gap between the approaching cars. Frustrated, he swung the other way and rode up on to the pavement along the waterfront, sounding the horn and flashing his headlights. Terrified pedestrians cleared the S4’s path.

‘Jesus!’ Nina gasped as the Russians pulled away. ‘Someone’s going to get killed!’

‘Yeah, probably us!’ Eddie replied in alarm. The Twizy’s lane was no longer empty, the headlights of a tram directly ahead — and getting closer with worrying speed. The kerb to the right was high enough to flip the small-wheeled Renault if he tried to ride up over it, but going into the oncoming cars would be even more dangerous…

Out of time. The tram rushed at them.

He went left—

Nina screamed as the tram flashed past to her right, traffic blurring by on the other side as Eddie threaded the needle and straddled the dividing line between the two lanes. An approaching driver instinctively swerved away in fright and sideswiped the car alongside him with a whump of crumpling sheet metal. Traffic stopped sharply behind them with blaring horns and the cracks of fender-benders.

The tram passed. Eddie immediately darted back into the empty lane. His wife thumped his shoulder with a balled fist. ‘I told you not to do that!’

He ignored her, searching for the kidnappers. The black Audi was still racing along the pavement. But it had slowed, slaloming to avoid pedestrians. That told him something: the kidnappers were not totally ruthless, trying to avoid collateral damage to innocent bystanders.

But it didn’t mean Tova was safe. He brought the Twizy back to its maximum speed, such as it was — though right now it was enough to gain ground on the kidnappers. ‘What’s coming up ahead?’ he shouted.

Nina zoomed in closer on the map. ‘Looks like a big intersection. If they’re trying to get out of the city, they’ll have to go straight on…’ She paused, listening. ‘I can hear the cops!’

Eddie picked up the wail of a siren a moment later. He looked ahead. The two sides of the boulevard rejoined past the end of the tree-lined reservation. Beyond it the route forked, pulsing blue strobe lights approaching down each leg.

But not all the kidnappers’ escape routes were closed off. To the left was a small inlet lined with moored pleasure craft, another road curving in a semicircle around its end. The Russians had seen it too, one of the silhouettes in the Audi gesturing furiously. The S4 followed the pavement around the little harbour before finally finding a clear section of road and dropping back on to it with a suspension-straining crash.

Eddie swung the Twizy between the stalled traffic and followed. ‘Where does this road go?’ he demanded.

Nina hurriedly scrolled across the map. ‘It’s called Nybrohamnen, and it goes… nowhere!’ The screen revealed that the road in question ran around the edge of a spit of densely built-up land jutting into the river before looping back to rejoin the main shore. ‘If we cut across, we can get ahead of them!’

The Audi was pulling away fast, but stayed on the waterfront. The driver wasn’t familiar with Stockholm’s complicated geography either. Eddie glanced back as he brought the Twizy around the curve. The police cars were struggling to squeeze between the backed-up vehicles, rapidly falling behind. ‘Where can we cut through?’

‘Down there!’ Nina pointed to the right. There was a narrow road between a pale stone hall with banners proclaiming it as the ‘Musikaliska’ and a large hotel.

He saw warning signs at the junction. ‘It says no entry — it’s one-way.’

‘It’s the only way — we’ll never catch up with them otherwise.’ The Audi’s lead kept growing. A few more seconds and it would be lost to sight as the riverfront curved.

Eddie started to make the turn — only to see that both lanes were blocked by traffic waiting at the lights. These were not cars he could slip the Twizy between, either. One was a garbage truck, the other a snowplough, the two metal hulks filling the side street. Railings made it impossible for him to ride the Renault up on to the pavement. ‘Whoa! No go,’ he said, hurriedly swinging back on to Nybrohamnen.

The Russians were now out of sight. ‘We’ve lost them!’ Nina cried in dismay.

‘No we bloody haven’t,’ he insisted. He powered their little vehicle down the length of the ivy-covered Radisson hotel — then made an abrupt stop. The Twizy skidded sideways, ending up pointing straight at the hotel’s main entrance.

‘Oh, you’re not…’ she moaned.

‘Oh, I am!’ Eddie stamped on the accelerator. The Twizy bounded over the low kerb and raced through the doors into the hotel’s lobby.

Guests screamed and dived aside as the little Renault zipped through the building. Eddie sounded the horn in a shrill tattoo. ‘Get out of the way!’ An elderly couple were too slow and befuddled to react, forcing him to swerve. The wet tyres slithered on the tiled floor, and the buggy wiped out a table and sent a tall lamp flying before he regained control. ‘Come on, shift your arses!’

‘Sorry,’ Nina added.

More yells and shrieks followed them as the Twizy continued through the lobby. The reception desk loomed at its end, staff gawping as the buggy charged towards them. Eddie made another hard right turn, fishtailing around a corner and scattering someone’s luggage. ‘Hope there’s a way out down here,’ he said.

‘Oh, now you’re thinking about that?’ Nina shot back.

‘You’ve known me for six years — how often have I ever planned anything in advance?’

‘If we have kids, you’re going to have to start!’ She spotted a sign on the wall with an arrow pointing right. ‘There’s an exit down that corridor.’

‘It’ll just take us back the way we came,’ Eddie objected. He saw a set of doors ahead and aimed for them, sounding the horn again. ‘This looks better.’

‘No it doesn’t!’ But it was too late to stop. She braced herself—

The Twizy rammed the doors open, almost ripping one from its hinges. Waiters leapt away on the other side, plates scattering. The couple had burst into a restaurant, what had once been a courtyard now protected from the elements by a glazed ceiling high above. Diners reacted in shock to the unexpected intrusion.

Eddie weaved between the tables. ‘Where’s the bloody way out?’ Large parts of the walls were covered by black curtains. He finally spotted the glow of an exit sign through a gap in the drapes and angled towards it.

‘Ah, don’t mind us,’ said Nina, cringing at the stunned gazes of the patrons. Some displayed recognition: she was, after all, a public figure. ‘Oh boy. Another day in the papers.’

‘Thought you’d be used to it by now. ’Scuse me,’ Eddie added, sounding the horn again to prompt a waiter to clear his path. The man had been carving a roast on a trolley beside a table; an idea came to the Englishman, and as the Twizy passed he snatched up the big knife.

‘What’re you doing?’ Nina asked.

‘Planning ahead!’ He wedged it blade-down beside his seat and steered between the curtains towards the exit. To his relief it was a swing door, the buggy barging it open and humming through. A long corridor stretched out ahead. He accelerated. ‘Where are we going to come out?’

‘I don’t think the app covers the insides of buildings,’ she complained as she checked her iPhone’s screen again. ‘Hold on… okay, this corridor looks long enough to go to the back of the building, so…’ She rotated the image, getting a better angle on the 3D representation of the hotel. ‘There’s a parking lot at the back — if we can get into that, then if we go right we’ll be back on that one-way street.’

Eddie bleated the horn again, more hotel staff jumping out of their way as the Twizy entered another lobby at the hotel’s rear. A large arched doorway led outside. A man with a staff name tag rushed to the exit as if to block their escape, but when the Renault showed no sign of slowing thought better of it and threw the doors open to save them from damage. ‘Cheers, mate,’ the Englishman said as he whipped past.

Nina gave the man an apologetic look. ‘I feel like we should have tipped him…’

Cold air hit them as they emerged into the open. The paved area between two wings of the hotel was indeed a small parking lot, a gate open to a road. Eddie drove through it, turning right, then immediately left to rejoin the one-way street. He zipped between the oncoming cars. ‘Okay, which way?’

‘Straight on,’ Nina told him. ‘If they followed the waterfront around, they’ll be coming from the left.’

He nodded in acknowledgement. ‘Hope we’re still ahead of ’em.’ The right lane was now clear of traffic; he swung into it. They were approaching a busy intersection at one end of a bridge over the river, cars and buses milling.

No sirens — or angry horns. The kidnappers hadn’t got here yet. But with their massive speed advantage over the little electric buggy, they couldn’t be far away. Steeling himself, Eddie pushed the Twizy to its full speed and shot out of the side street on to the waterfront.

Now he heard horns, furious blasts sounding to his left. ‘Here they come!’ Nina yelled, seeing a sleek black shape carving through the traffic towards them.

‘Hold tight!’ Eddie warned, sweeping across the lanes to intercept the Audi. It was already almost upon them, engine snarling. He grabbed the knife as the S4 skidded through the intersection.

The Twizy was distinctive enough to have stuck in the kidnappers’ minds. The driver reacted with surprise on seeing the Renault again, then veered sharply at it. Eddie jerked the wheel, swinging away. The Audi’s front wing scraped the pod-like body. ‘Shit!’ Nina yelped as the Russian straightened, then made another attempt to sideswipe them.

Her husband was less worried about the driver than the man beside him. The front passenger window whirred down — and a gun emerged, pointing at him—

Eddie braked hard — and stabbed the knife into the Audi’s rear tyre as it shot past.

Pain exploded through his fingers as the blade slashed the rubber before being snatched away. The larger car shimmied, knocking the Twizy into a skid — then the damaged tyre ruptured with a flat gunshot bang.

The Russian driver sawed at his steering wheel, but not even four-wheel drive could help him keep control as the speeding Audi slewed around on the wet surface. The man in the front passenger seat was thrown against the door, dropping his gun. He tried to pull back inside the cabin — then screamed as he saw what was rushing at him—

The Audi slammed side-on into an articulated bus. Windows shattered and showered passengers with glass. The S4 bounced off and spun to a standstill in the middle of the road. The gunman slumped dead out of the battered side of the car, his face and most of his arm embedded in the shredded concertina connecting the bus’s two halves. The car’s other occupants were left stunned by the impact.

Their pursuers had not escaped a crash either. Despite Eddie’s best efforts to counter its skid, the Twizy wobbled, then overturned—

He gripped the wheel, Nina clinging to his seat to hold herself up as the buggy rasped across the road on its side. It hit a kerb, the Renault’s curved roof absorbing the blow with a vicious crack.

Passers-by ran to help, worried faces peering down into the vehicle. Eddie winced as he moved; the pain in his left hand had been joined by a throb in his right shoulder where he had scraped the ground. But nothing was broken. His concern was more for his wife. ‘Nina!’ he gasped, struggling upright. ‘Are you okay?’

‘No, I’m frickin’ not!’ she cried as the onlookers helped her up. She had struck her head on the icy road, blood running from a gash above her temple. She put a hand to her forehead, and immediately wished she hadn’t as more pain stabbed through her skull. ‘Son of a bitch, that hurts!’

Someone in the growing crowd spoke English. ‘I’ll call an ambulance.’

‘Never mind that, call the cops,’ Eddie ordered, turning to locate the Audi. The driver clambered woozily out. ‘Shit! They’re still moving.’

‘What about Tova?’ Nina asked in alarm, concern overcoming discomfort.

Eddie scrambled out of the capsized Twizy. The Russians were pulling Tova from the Audi—

No, they were trying to pull her out. But she was limp, apparently unconscious. Her captors seemed little better off. One man hobbled around the car, his hard gaze darting between the historian and the onlookers before he barked a command to his companions. The trio abandoned Tova and ran towards a park to the north-west.

‘Nina, make sure she’s okay,’ said Eddie as he set off — not to intercept the Russians, but back towards the bus, where he had spotted something on the road.

‘What are you going to do?’ she demanded.

‘Find out who they are,’ he called back. He reached what he had seen — the dead man’s fallen gun. He picked it up. It took him a moment to identify it: an SR-1 Vector, a high-powered sidearm used primarily by the FSB — the Russian intelligence service that had succeeded the KGB. That pretty much confirmed who had tried to kidnap Tova Skilfinger — but the question now was why?

Only one way to find out. As Nina climbed from the wrecked Twizy and started for the Audi, he raced after the fleeing men.

The leader was hurt, running with a limp, but he clearly had the training and fortitude to overcome the pain. As he and his comrades reached the park entrance, he glanced back and saw Eddie following. Another barked order, and one of his men skidded to a halt on the sidewalk, then drew his gun—

Eddie dived and rolled behind a stationary Volvo as the Russian opened fire. The woman in the car screamed and hunched down in her seat as bullets struck her vehicle.

‘Jesus!’ Nina gasped, dropping low beside the Audi at the crack of gunfire. Panic spread amongst the people nearby, sending them scattering like terrified birds. The Russian kept shooting, blowing out some of the Volvo’s windows, then looked back over his shoulder for a moment to see how far his companions had gone—

A moment was all Eddie needed.

He popped up and fired through the car’s cabin in front of the hysterical driver. Two bloody bullet wounds burst open in the Russian’s chest. He crumpled to the ground. The Englishman offered a quick apology to the woman, then ran across the road to kick away the Russian’s gun in case he was still a threat.

He was not, eyes frozen wide. Eddie gave the dead man an angry look, then ran into the park after his companions.

Nina watched him go, then rose and leaned into the Audi. Tova was sprawled on the back seat, unmoving. ‘Tova?’ the American asked fearfully, reaching out to check her neck. ‘Are you okay?’

For a moment she felt nothing… then she found a faint but steady pulse. Tova reacted to the touch, flinching before crying out in Swedish. ‘It’s okay, it’s okay!’ Nina told her. ‘They’ve gone.’

The historian stared at her, still frightened. ‘Who were they? What did they want with me?’

‘I don’t know, but you’re safe now. The police are on their way. Are you all right?’

Tova sat up, putting one hand to her head. ‘I–I think so. I hit my head when we crashed…’ She took in Nina’s own injury. ‘Oj herre Gud! You are hurt!’

‘I’ll live,’ Nina replied through gritted teeth.

‘And what about Eddie? Is he okay?’

‘God, I hope so.’ She turned to see her husband running into the park.

Eddie hurdled a low fence, pounding across a snow-covered flower bed to cut a corner before reaching a wide path. The two Russians were about fifty metres ahead, having passed a large statue on a high stone plinth. The limping leader looked back again, seeing that Eddie was still in pursuit. Another barked order, and the other man stopped and raised his gun.

‘Shit!’ Eddie yelped, hurriedly changing direction to put the plinth between them. The supersonic whipcrack of a bullet passed just behind him. More screams echoed across the park as people realised the firefight was coming their way.

He reached the statue. Castings of old-fashioned cannons or mortars acted as fence posts at each corner, chains hanging between them. He jumped over the obstacle and pressed his back against the plinth. Raising his gun, he edged sideways to peer around the corner. Was the Russian just trying to slow him down, or actively attempting to kill him?

A gunshot and a shower of stone chips from the plinth’s corner as he hurriedly ducked back into cover gave him an answer. Until the car crash the Russians had minimised collateral damage, but now that the kidnappers had lost their target and were in danger of being cornered, all bets were clearly off.

He leaned back out as far as he dared, trying to see what his opponents were doing without exposing himself to fire. The leader was cutting across a lawn in the direction of a red church beyond some trees. Even with his limp, it wouldn’t be long before he was lost to view — and Eddie had no doubts that he had been well trained in melting away into a city’s population.

If he got away, then Tova was still at risk of another kidnap attempt — or worse. He couldn’t let that happen.

But he had to deal with the gunman first…

Eddie shrugged off his leather jacket. He threw the garment out from one side of the plinth — as he darted out into the open on the other.

The Russian fired — at the first target, the jacket twitching in mid air as a bullet punched through it. The man was quick to realise that it was a decoy, already swinging round to take aim at the second—

Eddie was quicker. His shot hit the shooter squarely in the forehead, a wet spray erupting from an exit wound in the back of his skull. The man almost somersaulted backwards to land in the snow, red flowering across the white expanse.

No need to check if his target was dead this time. Eddie hopped over the chains, snatching up his punctured jacket and running after the last Russian.

He quickly gained, the kidnapper’s painful ankle slowing him. The Russian left the park and ran up a road past the church. Eddie closed the gap. Twenty feet, ten. The man heard him coming and looked back, raising his gun—

Eddie tackled him to the ground.

Both men skidded through the snow before tumbling to a stop. The Russian’s cap came off. Eddie drove a punch at his groin. He made contact, but his opponent had twisted so the blow struck his hip. His foot lashed out in retaliation. Eddie jerked away. The man’s heel hit his shoulder. The Englishman rolled back, whipping up his gun.

As did the kidnapper—

They each got their first clear view of the other’s face — and froze.

Eddie’s gun remained locked on the other man — just as the Russian’s own weapon stayed fixed on him. The kidnapper was taller than his pursuer, intense pale eyes set in a hard, lean face. They regarded each other for a long moment.

The other man broke the silence. ‘You know why I am here, Chase.’ A statement, not a question.

‘Yeah,’ was Eddie’s only reply. The kidnapper nodded, then lowered his gun. Eddie did the same.

The Russian’s level gaze remained fixed on him, thoughtful, calculating — then without a word he stood and hurried away. Eddie rose, silently watching him round the red-painted church and disappear from sight.

Only when the limping figure was gone did he move, putting his battered leather jacket back on and slipping the gun inside. He heard someone approaching from behind and turned. ‘Eddie!’ Nina called, running to him. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ he replied.

She looked round, worried, but saw no sign of the kidnapper. ‘What happened? Where did he go?’

‘He got away.’

‘But you were right behind him.’

‘He got away,’ Eddie repeated flatly. He started back towards the park, leaving the bewildered Nina staring after him.