Valhalla Gold

CHAPTER ONE

“Afraid you’ll lose?” Joe Hawke said, revving the Yamaha WaveRunner jet ski and giving Lea Donovan the smuggest of all possible smiles. He shaded his eyes from the tropical Caribbean sun with his hand and watched as a look of amused indifference crossed the Irishwoman’s slim, tanned face.

Lea ignored the comment and studied the curve of the bay. “So, first one around the island wins, yeah?”

Hawke slipped on his shades and nodded confidently. “That’s what we agreed. If you want to back out then just say so.”

Lea revved her Kawasaki Jet Ski in response. “You’ve got to be joking, Josiah. Playtime’s over, baby.”

The use of his full name was met with raucous laughter from Ryan Bale and Maria Kurikova. They were sitting on the pier a few yards behind the jet skis. Hawke smirked at them, pleased his name could bring so much amusement to the group. It didn’t bother him in the least. Over the last few days he had settled easily into a playful sort of life on Elysium — hiking, swimming, diving and his favorite — playing around on jet skis.

“So are we going for it or not?” asked Lea.

Without saying another word Hawke raced away, taking care to cover Ryan and Maria in a heavy spray of sea water from the discharge nozzle at the back of the WaveRunner.

“Hey — no fair, you cheat!” Lea called out, and immediately raced after him. She was parallel within seconds.

“Frightened I’m going to win?” he shouted over his shoulder to her.

“Not a bit of it,” she called back, her voice barely audible over the roar of the 1.8 litre engine. She turned the throttle and the fuel-injected 4-stroke responded straight away, pulling her through the warm ocean effortlessly.

“We’ll see about that,” Hawke said with a grin, and took off once again in another burst of sea spray.

He raced across the bay to the northeast of the island, cutting across the shallow water in a diagonal path and heading out to where a low cliff jutted into the sea. Thousands of years of hydraulic action had eroded a beautiful archway into this part of the cliff, which as he accelerated toward it, Hawke noted with excitement was about the same size as a jet ski. In another thousand years it would collapse leaving a stack separated from the headland and towering up out of the sea, but today it made a perfect tunnel to zoom through. He raced toward it.

It was just after midday now and the air was hot and humid. To his right he was aware of the looming presence of the island — the tropical canopies stretching over the twin mountains and the sparkling glass and steel structure that formed ECHO headquarters. Behind him he heard the roar of Lea’s Kawasaki as she closed in on him, determined to beat him around the island and win the race.

He ducked his head as he powered the WaveRunner through the hole in the cliff and steered hard to the right. The hot wind buffeted him as he turned south and accelerated the machine to its maximum of just under seventy miles per hour.

Glancing behind him, he was impressed to see Lea had taken the same shortcut through the erosion hole. He watched as she steered the Jet Ski to the right and leaned over to expedite its turn in the warm water. He knew how much she wanted to win and show him that he wasn’t just going to waltz down here to the island and show everyone how everything was done. He knew that she considered winning to be a serious business — almost as serious as losing, he thought.

He was now reaching the end of the southwest tip of the island and turning north for the final part of the race. Ahead was the home-straight, where a slightly intoxicated Ryan Bale had promised to wave in the winner of the race.

He approached the finish line and saw Ryan and Maria were no longer on the pier to witness his victory.

Racing across the line, he powered the WaveRunner down and even had time to moor it at the end of the jetty before Lea pulled up and shut her engine off.

“That doesn’t count as a win,” she said.

“Sure it does.”

“You cheated.”

“Let’s talk about it over a nice, cold beer.”

Hawke pushed open the double doors of the HQ’s entrance and strolled casually into the chilled climate-controlled complex. Behind him, Lea was still arguing about how he forfeited the race when he started before Ryan gave the signal, and he knew she was right but he didn’t care. All was fair in love and jet ski races.

After pulling two cold beers from the fridge and tossing one to Lea, they stepped into the sunken living area and relaxed. Hawke was horrified to see that while they had been on their race Ryan had undergone some kind of transformation. He was now wearing Bermuda shorts and the loudest Hawaiian shirt he had ever seen.

“It’s true what they,” Hawke said, patting Ryan on the back and looking at his clothes. “Some things really cannot be unseen.”

Alex Reeve laughed and agreed with a nod of her head, but Maria looked lovingly at the new, bright Ryan from where she was working in the kitchen.

“Hey!” she called over the counter. “He looks great!”

“Yeah,” Ryan said, smiling. “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”

They collapsed on the sofa in front of the enormous plasma TV and Hawke took a long, slow drink of the beer. Beside him, Scarlet Sloane was sitting with a cigarette in one hand and what looked like a banana daiquiri in the other, while Maria was still in the kitchen trying to make chicken noodles. It didn’t smell like it was going too well.

“I still can’t believe I’m actually here, in ECHO HQ,” Hawke said. He paused to look over the large space again, glancing up at the swirling fans on the ceiling and then bringing his eyes down to the enormous window wall which gave a view of the sparkling turquoise ocean beyond. “What does ECHO stand for again?”

“It stands for the Eden Counter-Hostile Organization,” Scarlet said confidently.

Lea looked puzzled. “I thought we agreed on Eden Covert History Organization — or maybe even the Eden Covert Heritage Organization?”

“No, that’s what you agreed on,” Scarlet said. “Everyone else thought it was naff and went with Counter-Hostile. Makes us sound much harder.”

“But we spend our time in the world of covert history,” Lea whined.

Scarlet scoffed. “Covert History or Covert Heritage makes us sound like those nimrods who dig up old coins with Tony Robinson.”

“Hey!” Ryan said. “I like those programs — and it’s Sir Tony Robinson to you.” Maria entered the room with a couple of bags of chips.

“What happened to the noodles?” Scarlet asked.

“They went black,” Maria said. “And very hard… like little shards of detonated wood.”

“Yummy!” Scarlet said.

“Hey — hold up,” said Ryan.

“What is it?” Lea asked.

Ryan craned his neck over the sofa and tried to look up the circular staircase to see into Eden’s study. “Eden’s on the Bat Phone.”

Scarlet leaned back in her chair and slowly pulled the cigarette from her mouth. “So if you take a call on it, Ryan, would that make it the Twat Phone?”

A general rumble of laughter went around the room.

Ryan gave Scarlet a withering glance and slowly extended his middle finger in her direction as he made his reply. “But let me get this straight,” he said, deadpan. “Didn’t you shoot the President of the United States?”

Maria laughed and handed Ryan the bag of chips.

Scarlet sighed and rolled her eyes. “Not this again.”

“But you did, yeah?”

“Well… sort of, but it was for his own good.”

Hawke recalled the moment he’d watched as Agent Doyle dragged President Charles Grant from the Hudson River, the two of them looking like a couple of drowned rats… and then the moment the President had thanked him for saving the nation.

“But technically,” Ryan continued mischievously, “it was an assassination attempt — am I right?”

“Oh, do shut up, boy — you’re getting tiresome. It was no such thing and you know it. I made the call to get the President in the water because I knew Doyle was a strong swimmer from when we had initially attacked the Perseus, and Kiefel was about to shoot him. He still had three shots left in his weapon at that point. It was the only way I could think of to get Charlie to safety.”

“Charlie?”

Scarlet gave a smug smile. “Sure, that’s what he asked me to call him when we spoke on the phone.”

“Please tell me you’re not having one of your lurid affairs with the American President,” Ryan said. “Unlike most of your victims this one’s not disposable. You realize that, right?”

Hawke listened with amusement, but kept one eye on Eden who was now descending the staircase on his way to join them in the main area.

Scarlet sighed and got up from her chair, picking up a cushion as she went. “I am not having an affair with Charlie, so keep your pants dry.” She smacked the cushion into Ryan’s face and pretended to smother him. He fought her off somewhat unconvincingly and when he was free of the cushion he saw she too was now watching Eden as he drew closer.

“What’s the matter, Rich?” Lea said.

“I think we might have a problem.”

Scarlet looked serious. “What’s going on?”

“I just took a call a second ago.”

“We know,” Scarlet said. “We saw you on the Tw… Bat Phone.”

Her comment didn’t register with Sir Richard Eden. “It was Lady Victoria Hamilton-Talbot.”

Lea nodded. “I’ve heard you talk of her — who is she again?”

“Her father, the viscount, is an old friend of mine.”

“And what did she want?”

Eden looked troubled. “She’s just told me that a mutual friend of ours was murdered and that she thinks it might have something to do with Thor.”

Silence followed as Eden furrowed his brow and sat down gently in his leather chair. Outside the window they all heard the gentle chirping of a mangrove cuckoo hidden somewhere in the canopies of a line of nearby coconut palms.

Hawke, who had noticed a look of discomfort on Lea’s face at the mention of Thor, was the first to break the silence. “Thor — you’re serious?”

Eden fixed his eyes on the former SBS man. “When have you ever known me not to be serious?”

Hawke accepted the rebuke. True enough, he thought. “Did she say anything else?”

Another long period of silence followed.

Eden lowered his voice. “She’s not sure exactly what happened but the police found his body in a burned-out museum in eastern Canada. They say he’d been shot twice in the heart.” Involuntarily, Eden rubbed his forehead as a deep sigh emanated from his lips.

“I’m sorry, Rich,” Alex said quietly.

“This is terrible news, Rich,” Lea said. “I don’t know what to say — you must be in shock.”

“I am, and it gets worse… She had a telephone message telling her to stop asking questions about his death or she’ll be next.”

“Does she know what it’s all about?” Ryan asked,

Eden looked gloomy. “Nate — her friend and former supervisor — spent his life researching the local tribes of the Canadian Maritimes. I met him on more than one occasion and he was a damned decent sort. American, from Connecticut. She said that for some reason he’d started talking to her recently about Thor, the Norse god and she’s sure it must have something to do with his death.”

“But what’s our interest in this?” Scarlet said. “Aside from gold, of course?”

“Our interest as you put it,” Eden said, “is that Victoria’s father is a very old friend of mine. If she needs my help then I’m going to give it to her.”

“Sounds fair enough to me,” Ryan said, looking at Scarlet. “Anyway, I thought everyone was interested in Thor?”

Scarlet snorted and swept her pack of cigarettes off the table as she made her way to the door. “I’m interested in anything that promises me a pay off, boy… and gold is the best promise of all.”

“We’re not just interested in bloody gold, Scarlet,” Eden said sharply. “ECHO is about more than that. We’re not just treasure hunters.”

Scarlet took the point and looked apologetic as she put the cigarette in her mouth.

“Anyway,” Eden said, a look of foreboding on his face. “We’re going to get into this because if this has anything to do with Thor and the Norse legends then this is exactly what we’re all about. Plus, if there’s a chance this might lead to anything of archaeological significance then I want it here, with us, not disappearing into some government archive.”

“Looks like I’m going to need to change into my Batman t-shirt,” Ryan said seriously.

“So where are we going?” Hawke asked.

“The Buccaneer Palm Resort,” Eden said quietly, obviously still bothered by the phone call. “She has a place there. It used to belong to her father.”

“You mean in the Florida Keys?” Lea asked.

“Yes, Little Torch Key,” Eden replied. “I want a jet fuelled and in the air within the hour and all of you on it.”

And Hawke thought that sounded like the best idea he’d heard all week.