Valhalla Gold

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

After clearing customs at Bromma Stockholm Airport the ECHO team, plus Vincent and Victoria jumped into a hired Toyota Hilux and drove east to the city as fast as they could. It was a little before morning rush hour and Hawke was surprised by the easy flow of the traffic as they left Kungsholmen and crossed the bridge by the famous Town Hall on their way into central Stockholm.

Joe Hawke slowed the Hilux and looked suspiciously along the Centralbron which snaked away to the south. It divided the main island of Gamla stan, or Old Town, and the small ‘Knights’ Islet’ known to locals as Riddarholmen. He knew there was little chance of finding Sala in a city of this size, but there was a good chance he was somewhere in the vicinity of the history museum.

They passed the Sheraton on Tegelbacken and spent a tense few moments at some red lights opposite the Aftonbladet tabloid newspaper building. The view to their right overlooked the harbor, and was framed by the famous Riddarholm Church, the burial place of the Swedish monarchs.

Beyond that the impressive prospect of Södermalm stretched up into the gray Scandinavian sky. Closer to their truck, a young woman opened up a small café on the ground floor of the Aftonbladet building and set out some chairs and tables, promising another day of cinnamon buns and fika to an unsuspecting citizenry. It was a beautiful scene, but after letting Sala and the repulsive Smets slip through their fingers back in Andorra, Hawke was more on-edge than usual.

The lights turned green and he rolled the Hilux gently forward in the traffic until he was a few yards from the rear fender of a metropolitan bus trundling east on Fredsgatan. The bus stopped outside a department store and Hawke overtook it and emerged from the side street into Gustav Adolfs torg, a smart public square named after Gustav II, the 17th king who established Sweden as a major European power after winning the Thirty Years War. Hawke glanced momentarily at the statue of the old king, high on his horse and pointing his sword imperiously at the kungliga, or Royal Palace at the other end of the Norrbro bridge.

“Hope all this still standing when we fly out,” Scarlet mused.

They drove around the square’s roundabout, passing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Royal Opera building before making their way along Strömgatan and passing into Östermalm. This was Stockholm’s answer to London’s Mayfair or New York’s SoHo, and boasted the most expensive property prices in the whole of Sweden. It was also where the Swedish History Museum was located, and after parking up in a side street to the south of the museum, Hawke and the others emerged into the Stockholm summer drizzle and crossed the street.

They headed toward the entrance, a modest affair beneath a sign which read HISTORISKA MUSEET when they heard the sound of a single gunshot and then a woman’s desperate scream.

Hawke looked at the others. “We’re too late!”

Scarlet unceremoniously yanked a gun from her jacket. “So let’s get in there, Tonto!”

They slipped through the entrance and quickly worked out the scream had come from the Viking History section. No one was surprised about that, and they ran there as fast as they could in stark contrast to the hundreds of members of the public who were running for the exits.

A security alarm began to trill loudly down all of the corridors and outside Hawke heard the faint and familiar sound of police sirens. “Things are about to get lively here — we have to hurry.”

They ran up a flight of stairs and along another short corridor before reaching the Viking History section, but when they got there what they saw chilled them. A man in a museum uniform was lying dead on the floor and another man was holding a terrified woman in a similar uniform hostage with a knife at her throat. Marcus Deprez and Dasha Vetrov were standing behind him. Hawke could still see the gash on his temple where he had struck him with the shoe back in Andorra.

“Where’s your organ grinder?” Hawke asked, noticing no sign of either Sala or Smets.

“No closer,” Deprez said. “Or my man here will tear open her throat.”

Victoria took a step back and gasped in horror, but Ryan put his hand on her shoulder to calm her. “Take it easy — it’s just a bluff.”

Dasha blew a large purple bubble. It popped in her mouth and then she spat the wad of gum on the polished tiled floor before sliding a fresh piece in her mouth. She spoke in rapid Russian.

“She says,” Deprez drawled, “that you killed her brother and she will torture you to death for it.”

Hawke didn’t reply, but carefully weighed the situation up. Deprez was standing next to a display of Viking weapons, specifically a large stainless steel and glass case holding axe handles.

“Tell her it’s a date,” Hawke said.

Deprez said nothing but pulled a gun from his pocket and put the butt of the weapon through the top of the case. He smashed the glass into hundreds of razor-sharp shards. “You let me leave with this or we’ll kill her.”

He put his hand in the case and pulled out the other fragment of the Axe of Baldr. It was without a doubt the other half of the one Ryan had in the bag slung over his shoulder.

“Just let the woman go and we’ll talk,” Hawke said.

“I know who you are — Hawke and Donovan… When you’re dead I will shit on your graves,” Deprez hissed.

“Shit on your graves!” repeated the goon holding the knife.

Dasha laughed and blew another bubble with the gum in her mouth.

“Language, please!” Scarlet said, feigning disgust. “There are ladies present, not to mention Ryan.”

“I’m standing right here and still she says it,” Ryan said, deflated.

Deprez focussed on Hawke. “Drop your weapons.”

Hawke and the others did as they were told. He crouched slowly and put his gun on the floor before standing back up with his hands raised in the air. The next thing he knew, the goon was staggering back from the woman with a knife in his neck. Hawke turned and saw Scarlet had thrown the knife she kept on her belt.

Deprez and Dasha had the axe and turned on their heels and ran while the hostage screamed and scampered away. Lea and Vincent took off after them while Hawke stormed forward and drove a tightly clenched fist into the wounded goon’s stomach.

The man wheezed hard and doubled over, giving Hawke time to bring up his knee and grab the back of the man’s head at the same time. Driving his knee up and pulling his head down simultaneously, he tested the hypothesis about immovable objects and unstoppable forces. The conclusion came in the form of a severe crunching sound as his nose splattered all over his face and showered Hawke’s knee in a thick coating of blood.

Hawke pulled the man’s head back up by the ears and slammed his fist into his broken face, once again hitting the nose. The goon howled in pain as he stumbled back a few steps, but Hawke had finished playing and after propelling a well-aimed kick into the Belgian thug’s groin he ended the game with another savage roundhouse punch to his lower jaw. He sent him flying back into one of the display cases where he landed with smack and slid to the floor unconscious in a shower of broken glass and antique pottery.

Hawke watched with amusement as the dust settled and an old Viking chamber pot slid onto his head.

“That’ll teach him to be a potty mouth,” Scarlet said, pulling her knife from his neck and wiping it clean on his shoulder.

Hawke ignored it, and reloaded his gun. Further down the exhibition room Vincent and Deprez were out of sight but Lea was fighting with Dasha.

Hawke, Scarlet and Ryan ran towards her with a confused Victoria a step behind, but it turned out there was no need for the heroics. Before they got anywhere near the fight, Lea had snatched up one of the many fine examples of Dane Axes and incapacitated the Russian woman with it, swinging the light, carbon steel blade in a sweeping arc at her stomach.

Dasha Vetrov leaped back to avoid being cut in half, giving Lea time to bring the other end of the heavy oak haft across into her face at speed, breaking her jaw and knocking her out. She collapsed on the floor in a heap and Lea leaned casually on the axe’s long, wooden handle. “And you stay there too, ya grubby little pox!”

Hawke arched an eyebrow as he stared at the unconscious woman. “I see she didn’t make the cut.”

Lea rolled her eyes. “Is that the best you can some up with?”

“Well, axe a silly question and…”

“Just stop it. Right. Now.”

“Gotcha — come on, it’s time to split.”

“I mean it, Joe. You’re just not funny. We’ve been through this before.”

“Just because she couldn’t handle your charms, don’t take it out on me.”

“Cut it out,” she said with a sideways glance.

“Sorry — ah! Now you see the fun we can have, at last!”

Their banter was cut short by the sound of gunfire in the next room, and they ran forward to find Vincent Reno bleeding out on the floor. Deprez had shot him and he was down.

Victoria screamed and covered her mouth in shock.

“Jesus!” Scarlet said, kneeling beside the Frenchman. “We need an ambulance!”

Lea pulled out her phone and it was then Hawke saw Deprez, lurking at the rear of the room beside the fire exit. He could easily have exploited the disarray to escape but instead he raised his gun and aimed at a disoriented Victoria.

Before Hawke could even call out, Deprez fired the weapon.

Ryan, who was closest to Victoria reacted in a heartbeat, spinning around and pushing her out of the way. She hit the floor hard but Ryan got hit harder — the bullet smashed into his upper arm and spun him around like a Matryoshka doll.

“No!” Lea cried, running forward to help her former husband, but before she could take another step Deprez laughed and sprayed the room with more submachine gun fire. Most of the rounds drilled into the far wall but at least one must have struck the fire extinguisher attached to the wall beside the other exit.

The bullet tore through the stainless steel casing of the extinguisher and as the cylinder depressurized it dispersed its contents with startling rapidity through the bullet hole. A thick jet of nitrogen and potassium bicarbonate instantly filled the small space and brought further pandemonium to the scene of the double shooting.

Before the room was lost in the fog, Hawke saw Ryan collapse to the floor and grip his upper arm in agony. He charged across the room and grabbed Ryan by his ankles, hauling him backwards along the floor until they were in the clearer air of the main room.

“He’s been shot,” he shouted at Victoria. “Do what you can.”

Hawke looked up into the chaos and watched with a sense of desperate anger and frustration as Deprez snatched up the axe handle and sprinted from the room, a morbid smile on his face.

Hawke thought fast. “Lea — Vincent and Ryan need tourniquets right now, so do that and wait here until the paramedics arrive. Scarlet and I are going to get that bloody axe handle back!”

Scarlet cocked her weapon. “Finally, Hawke asks me on a date!”

Hawke gave her a weary glance but there was no time for talk. Without another word the two of them took off after Marcus Deprez and the other half of the broken axe handle.

With the lives of Ryan Bale and Vincent Reno hanging in the balance, Hawke was very clear in his mind about what had to happen next.