Tomb of Odin

Chapter 26

“So, Nina, how is the new revelation making any more sense than the previous hypothesis?” Purdue asked her as they embarked on their two-hour journey by rental car from Hanko to Helsinki. “You know we have to have a place to go once we get to the capital, right?”

“Immediately?” Sam asked.

“No, we still have to book our tickets. I am booking us on a commercial airline, but not to worry, it will be first class,” he recovered quickly before they could complain. He could see by their faces that the thought of a commercial flight was a nightmare. “I don’t think we should be on the radar, especially now, after the bloody mess we left in our trail. And a private aircraft is not a cash deal, you see.”

“I see,” Sam agreed. “Good thinking. I have a bad feeling about the whole thing on Osmussaar.”

“Like?” Nina asked as she examined the map and the direction that led to nowhere.

“Can’t put my finger on it. It is disturbingly close to the night Trish and I ran into the wrong side of that arms ring. Hopefully I am wrong. Maybe I just feel bad for our poor skipper who lost his life because of our affiliations.”

“Aye, me too, Sam,” Nina replied with sorrow and regret in her voice.

“It is very unfortunate, but you know, we did not kill the man. It is not our fault that evil people followed us. Don’t let that get to you,” Purdue said.

“Fuck!” Nina whispered from the back seat. “I can’t bring the direction to any point that has anything to do with the other clues.”

“I see you are beginning to doubt the ‘giant’ connotation, then?” Purdue teased, looking at her beautiful frowning countenance in the rearview mirror.

“Well, it’s still better than Massachusetts, Dave,” she countered with a raised eyebrow. He kissed the air at her and Nina slapped his arm softly, so that she would not urge him to overturn the sedan.

“Okay, let’s see,” Sam said after clearing his throat. Sounding all official, the journalist utilized his professional skills at putting two and two together to help solve the problem. “What would the giant reference be pointing to? I mean, it is a strange coincidence that we get chased by giants while we are looking for Josef’s train…”

“Jesus! Of course! Oh, Sam,” she kissed the palm of her hand and gently slapped him across the left cheek, “you just said it. I suppose I had to hear it out loud to make sense of it.”

“Um, aye, I knew you’d get it if I said it out loud,” he frowned, shrugging at Purdue.

“Would you like to fill us in?” Purdue asked.

“Project Riese!” she exclaimed. “Josef was a Polish prisoner of war, right, who worked on the construction of the Nazi underground railroads! It was called Project Riese, Project Giant!”

“Then the bearings on the map should point to?” Sam asked, checking the mark he made on the map that displayed the direction from the lighthouse.

“Project Riese, Project Riese,” Nina repeated quietly as her eyes stared into the roof above her to help her recall what she knew about the Nazi high command’s plans to build an underground network of railroads. “It was under a castle in Germany, I think?” She took out her cell phone and researched the town where the castle was located.

“Sam, will you check to see if your line from the lighthouse falls over Wałbrzych, Poland?” she asked, stroking the screen of her phone to scroll over the information.

“Aye! Aye, Nina, it falls right on this town I cannot pronounce,” Sam exclaimed with a beaming smile.

“Well done!” Purdue cheered. “Now, what about the symbol, the Val… something?”

“Valknut. Odin’s symbol,” she corrected him.

“I think that is what we’ll have to look for once we get into the underground railroad system,” Sam guessed. “Like an arrow to the treasure, you know?”

“Makes sense,” Purdue said. “Good, so now we know where to go. How we are going to get under it is another matter.”

Two days later, after a long Boeing flight from Helsinki to Wrocław-Copernicus Airport in Poland, the three explorers headed to Castle Książ, reputed to be right on top of one of the railroads built by Polish prisoners of war — prisoners of war, just like Josef Palevski. When they arrived in the town of Wałbrzych, where the castle was the pride of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Purdue purchased a vehicle in cash from a local private seller to make their travel easier and less obvious as tourists.

Overhead, the sky was filled with thick white clouds branding darker edges, barely letting any sun through, but the light breeze was mellow and temperate. Nina reveled in the wonderful sensation of the wind in her hair. Her hand played repeatedly over the smooth, wet surface of her glass of iced tea while she waited for Sam and Purdue to bring the car to the quaint little restaurant.

With her she had their luggage, grateful that her companions were light travelers too. In her opinion and experience, she was the only woman she could think of who did not lug around three trunk loads worth of clothes when she traveled. To the men with her, it was also a godsend when they had to load her stuff in the car.

Nina sucked on her cigarette as she explored the town through her dark glasses, hoping to not see any unusually sized men peering through the bushes at her. It was almost too easy to have come this far after the mess at the lighthouse and not be detected or pursued — for once. But she was not about to tempt fate by being ungrateful for the peaceful aftermath of her recent excursion and the backlash of it that instigated a torrent of events.

While she waited, she logged into her email account to see who had been looking for her while she was offline. As she worked her way through the unimportant stuff and spam mail, Nina wondered if Neville would tell her what he had discovered, what he wanted to tell Paddy. And then she came upon the message. She noticed that he had read it, but he had not responded yet.

“Rude asshole,” she whispered. “You’re welcome.”

She logged into his Facebook account and her heart stopped. There, in white and black, a post from his colleagues at the Calcutta Geological and Archeological Society stated:

“Oh, sweet Jesus, no,” she gasped, tears flooding her eyes instantly. “How? How?”

Frustrated, she looked up the local news sites in Calcutta and Edinburgh, the latter because she knew he was in her home city to see Paddy. Nina’s body went numb. “Oh, my God, Paddy. I hope this had nothing to do with Paddy!”

She tried to call him, but his phone was disconnected. It was great cause for alarm for Nina. She knew Paddy’s communication lines were open, 24/7. She called the Blackford precinct.

“Hello, could you please put me in touch with Special Agent Patrick Smith?” she asked the desk sergeant.

“May I ask who is calling?” she asked.

“Dr. Nina Gould. I am a friend of his,” Nina replied.

“One moment please, Dr. Gould,” the sergeant said, and transferred the call.

“Williams,” a voice said on the line.

“Oh, I was looking for Special Agent Smith, actually, hoping someone there could put me in touch. His phone seems to be out of order,” Nina explained.

“You are Dr. Gould?” he asked.

“Aye, a friend of Patrick’s. I cannot seem to find him,” she told the man on the other side, while her heart slammed wildly in her. The same overwhelming feeling of dread she had been periodically suffering possessed her once again. Something was wrong. Why did they not let her speak to Paddy? Who was this Williams character, she wondered.

“Special Agent Smith is in the hospital with multiple gunshot wounds, Dr. Gould. But he will be okay. So will his wife. Not to worry,” he conveyed. “Say, you would not be able to come in and see us, would you? He is in a coma and we need to know what he was involved in. Surely he would have told you something?”

Williams knew it was a shot in the dark and a hell of a bluff, but he had previously caught lucky breaks with long shots. Nina paused for a while, whispering her discontent at the developments they did not know about. She wondered if it had anything directly to do with Neville, but she dared not ask, lest they think she knew things she did not.

“No, I’m afraid not,” she said, thinking quickly. “I was just going to invite them to a birthday party. What on earth happened to him and Cass?” Nina did her best to sound dumb and uninformed, one of which was quite true.

“Home intrusion. He managed to kill the burglar, but he was wounded in the process. His wife suffered the same fate a few days earlier while he was out of town,” Williams filled her in. “You see why I need to know what the Smith household has that would make them targets twice in a stretch of four days?”

Christ! The generator! He still has the generator! she thought to herself.

Out loud, she said nonchalantly to Williams, “Aye, that does look like bad luck. They do have a lot of valuables, especially his love for technology could make them a prime target for break-ins.”

His tone hardened a tad, “Dr. Gould, I don’t think you fully appreciate the suspiciousness and the urgency of the matter. And I know who you are. If you know anything that can help us locate the reason my friend is in hospital, then I implore you, Nina, help me.”

“Look, sergeant…?”

“Detective inspector,” he corrected her.

“Detective Inspector Williams,” she said, “if you tell me who the burglar was, I might be able to help you find out what it was about. For all I know it was just a burglary gone wrong.”

Nina insisted on playing her ignorance card until she knew what was going on. Besides, this police officer could not force her to comply.

“An Indian archeologist, oddly enough,” he replied, “Neville Padayachee. See why all this is too strange to be coincidence?”

Williams’ confirmation of Neville’s identity shook Nina more than initially reading of his death, but she had to sound as composed as she could.

“Yes, that is odd. I have no idea who he is, but I can see what I can find out for you, detective. Sorry, but I have to catch a plane now. I’ll talk to you again.”