Tomb of Odin

Chapter 24

As Paddy held the device in the protective nest of two crumpled dishcloths over his palms, his thoughts sank deeper into contemplation of the state his marriage was in, what the outcome would be. It terrified him and he had no bourbon left to be his safety net, but he had to deal with the situation. He wondered where Sam and Nina were, if Purdue had the means to destroy whatever was in the flask, or if he would rather use it for his own gain. Paddy did not know Purdue well, in fact. They were mere acquaintances, but Paddy knew Purdue primarily from the billionaire’s celebrity status, the newscasts when he discovered something or invented something, or the coverage he received as benefactor of university grants or from sponsoring scientific endeavors in Scotland’s academic community.

If anyone had the means to rid Paddy of the wretched flask and its contents, it was Purdue. It had been almost a week since Special Agent Patrick Smith was embroiled in the life-and-death confrontation with an unknown assassin on the private jet Purdue had chartered for them, but declined the opportunity to use it to return to Edinburgh with Smith. That in itself would be cause for suspicion, had Purdue acted defensively when Paddy suggested taking the object Nina had retrieved from the dig site. But the man had absolutely no interest in the discovery Dr. Gould had made, which assured Paddy that Purdue had nothing to do with the psychotic bitch on the plane.

Somewhere in the house a door creaked. Paddy perked up to listen, his sobriety returning for the vigilance he needed to employ. The doors in his house were heavy, held at the bottom by the thick carpets of the rooms. There was no way a door could move without being pushed with a considerable measure of force. Even on stormy days the gusts that imposed through the open windows could not manage to impel the doors to movement.

Paddy put the flask back in the box and replaced it in the freezer. Swiftly he stole along the corridor toward his office and from the hidden compartment in his wall he obtained his personal firearm.

Why is it that the night is calm and quiet when one needs to do noisy things? he pondered as his hand tightened around the upper part of the barrel of his Makarov. It was virtually impossible to pull it back and cock it without being heard. For once he would have appreciated the thunder and rainstorms usually ravaging Edinburgh. Again something stirred in the hallway, reminiscent of a scuffling behind a curtain or perhaps the rustle of a jacket. Paddy loaded his gun, quietly navigating the dark to where he heard the strange sound.

Whoever was in his house stalked to where the movie Paddy had been watching was still looping on the screen. As he peeked around the doorway, hands grasping the butt of his Makarov so tightly that his arms quivered, Paddy could see a black shadow figure slip from the kitchen to the couch where Paddy had been lying before. As soon as he could see the silhouette enter the TV room, Paddy briskly snuck down to the sunken lounge and circled the partitions of the arches that separated the lounge from the TV room.

The intruder was clumsy, he noticed, not watching before he turned, neglecting to check behind doors and so on. Paddy was relieved that the shadow figure would be easy to throw off, considering his clumsiness and Paddy’s knowledge of the dark house. Reaching the small nook between the lounge and the kitchen, Paddy tripped the electricity off to avoid the burglar from flipping a switch and detecting his distance.

Without warning the TV died, and the screen blackened. The intruder froze and surveyed the sudden power cut by fumbling with the switches of the television, but there was no response from the appliances. Paddy stood waiting for the figure to pass him where he was tightly tucked in the niche where the circuit board was. He was so alert that he almost lamented the loss of his mind-numbing inebriation that was so unceremoniously taken from him. On the other hand, finally Patrick Smith, self-assumed bad husband and drunk, would be able to trap and arrest the bastard who had turned the loving Cassandra into a bipolar victim.

Paddy heard the footsteps approach. It was a sound he was used to — a rush he knew well. Still, the impending confrontation with any unknown assailant never waned in its fear factor and Paddy hoped that he would make it through the next few minutes without getting killed at least. As the figure passed him, Paddy lashed out, striking the intruder against the temple. His target fell instantly, immobilized by the powerful blow he had suffered.

“Broke into the wrong house, fucker!” he screamed, lodging a few hard kicks into the body of the burglar. Every grunt of agony spurred Paddy on to land another and another like the long-gone days in schoolyard brawls and pubs on Saturdays. But as he aimed another kick the figure rolled over onto his back. All Paddy saw was a blinding flash of white light splashing out of the intruder’s barrel. Twice the suppressed shots struck the agent, the third missed when he dove out of the way, landing next to the shooter.

Paddy’s Makarov clipped him in the throat, even though he tried to hit the skull. His hands could simply not take aim from the shock of the bullet wounds and the rapid gushing of his wounds. Unfortunately, the alcohol only promoted the speed of his hemorrhage. He had to do something quickly or he would die. Paddy rolled over on his stomach and crawled for the kitchen, leaving the limp body of the attacker in his wake. There would be enough time for the agent to determine his identity when death was removed from the equation. When he reached the kitchen, Paddy bit his lip, trying to reach his landline on the wall, as his cell phone was at least three rooms away. One of the bullets had penetrated his thigh and the other his side. Under his pants he could feel the hot liquid running out of his body and wetting the fabric. With the time he had left it was imperative that Paddy made it to the phone. Laboriously he forced himself up on one leg and grabbed at the yellow phone on the wall.

“Thank God I let Cassie buy the hideous color of phone she wanted, or else I would never have been able to see it in the dark,” Paddy said out loud, groaning in anguish, remembering the debate over the color of the phone between him and his wife a year or so ago. “Thanks, baby!”

He dialed his local precinct, the very people who had just that day withdrawn the arrangement to have a squad car at the premises every night. “Yeah, this is DCI Patrick Sm— this is Agent Patrick… oh, Christ, Tammy, can you just send an ambulance to my house quickly?”

“Right away, Pat.”

Tammy, the operator at the station, knew Patrick Smith’s voice well and promptly dispatched the emergency vehicles to his address in Blackford. Patrick collapsed, more out of relief than blood loss. His breathing slowed a bit as he relaxed, but it revealed an unnerving sound from the corridor where he thought he had left the burglar.

A guttural groan sounded like words, suppressed by the carpet on which the man had turned his face down to crawl. Paddy felt his adrenaline rush at the newly emergent danger. His weapon was lying in the doorway, just out of reach unless he crawled to it, but such an action would make him visible to the attacker. Again the wheezing grunt formed a word, as if the intruder was saying something. Paddy sat dead still, taking deep breaths as not to hyperventilate and bleed out sooner.

The chafing of the black figure’s clothing on the carpet announced his presence not a foot away from Paddy’s gun. It was now or never for Special Agent Patrick Smith. Waiting for the EMTs felt like an eternity, and now he had a dangerous intruder to protect them from when they arrived. Trying to ignore all the pain and discomfort to move, Paddy lunged at the gun and landed hard on his side, screaming from the blunt ache that shot through his hip and torso on impact. But this time he did not shoot, he only held the barrel level to the figure’s head.

“Don’t move or I’ll finish ya off!” he roared, trying not to lose consciousness. Again the intruder mouthed something inaudible that sounded remarkably like a name. “What? What are you saying?”

“Pat-rick,” came the word clearly, and Paddy’s face turned pale.

“Who are you?” he asked the struggling man.

“Nev-nev-ille,” he replied, his throat drenched in blood and his voice box ruptured.

“Oh, God!” Paddy gasped, but his head felt heavy as a boulder and he knew he would not be able to stay awake for much longer. “Why did you shoot me? What are… why are you here? Did you come to finish what you did to my wife?” he screamed, regardless of the excruciating pain it caused in his contracting abdomen. Paddy inched himself nearer to Neville and pulled off his balaclava, revealing the torturous contortion of the Indian man’s face.

“I thought you were out. All I wanted wa-… I–I wanted the gener-rer-rator… or they kill me,” he uttered a disturbing chuckle at his last statement. “Looks like you d-did it for them.”

“Who? Who wanted the generator?” Paddy asked with his last good breaths.

Outside the house the ambulance came to a screeching halt. Through the thin drapes of the living room, the lights pulsed while the EMTs hammered the door down.

“You could just have contacted me! But you destroyed my poor wife, you fucking pig. She is forever changed because of what you did! You should have killed me when we were in that cavern, because you just fucked with the wrong man’s family!”

“Patri… Patrick, beware the Vril.”

Paddy tried to squeeze the trigger, but an officer swiftly grabbed it from his grasp.

“He’s dead, Smith! He is dead, all right?” shouted Detective Williams, an old colleague of Paddy’s from their days at the precinct.

“Vril,” Paddy repeated, afraid he would forget the word spoken by the only man who knew what faction of criminals would attack a man’s wife to obtain the dreaded object.

“What is he saying?” Detective Williams asked the medical technician.

“It sounds like Vril or something,” the young lady told the detective.

“Is that the name of the attacker, Smith? Smith! Who is Vril?” the detective repeated loudly as he watched Patrick Smith lose consciousness.

Paddy was taken to the same hospital as Cassandra. Now, with their home unoccupied, the place was open to be ransacked. Detective Williams did consider this and asked the station commander if they could perhaps keep watch there until the investigation was concluded. But still, nobody knew what had happened in the Smith household, or what Patrick Smith was mumbling about. One thing was certain — the two incidences at the house within a week of each other were no random house robbery. The level of violence perpetrated was evidence to something far more grave and substantial that only Smith had knowledge of.

“Whatever it is, it is probably somewhere in this house. And I bet you a year’s rent money that there will be more intrusions in the next few days,” Detective Williams told his officers. “I want an ID on that bloke and what he had to do with the Smiths.”

He checked the rest of the house for any other unauthorized presence and then walked through the crowd of residents to get in his car. “Oh, and officers, contact me as soon as Smith wakes up.”