Valhalla Gold

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

“He’s dead!” Ryan said.

“Yes,” Scarlet said coolly. “How very inconsiderate of the old bastard.”

“Did he activate it?” Lea asked.

Hawke shook his head. “No — it didn’t send a signal and it would be on a timer anyway. There’s no other way for them to clear the place out and then blow it without getting to safety first — am I right, Leon?”

“Shut it, Anglais.”

Ryan sighed. “I’ll take that as a yes — that was a close one then!”

Hawke gave him a condescending glance. “Yes, except for the simple fact that… ”

Scarlet finished his sentence. “That now we know the place is rigged with explosives and we don’t know how many there are, or where they are, or when Monsieur Smets here intends on detonating them.”

“Exactly,” Hawke said.

The veins in Sala’s neck were now tearing out through his rotting skin, but there was no more blood. Now, nothing but a strange black dust poured from them as the deterioration of his dead body accelerated. Even Smets was now stunned into silence by the spectacle.

“It’s like some kind of macabre time-lapse,” Ryan said in amazement.

“He’s right,” Hawke said. “We’re seeing death, but speeded up.”

Now, Sala’s intestines were spilling out from his skeleton and tumbling onto the floor, all dry and turning to a kind of powder.

“Whatever the hell it is,” Scarlet said, “it should have a bloody 18 Certificate on it. I’ll never be able to eat Pad Thai again.”

Ryan pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose and moved cautiously forward. “We’re watching some kind of organic decomposition, but on super fast-forward.”

Lea raised her hand to her mouth. “Oh God, is that his heart?”

A desiccated heart dropped from the safety of Sala’s ribcage and hit the dust with a little thump, and seconds later the remains of his skeleton crumbled to powder and began to blow away in a breeze blowing from the depths of the cavern.

“It’s like what we saw with Vetrov but with one critical difference,” Ryan muttered. “Vetrov died when he took the elixir, but when Sala got shot he tried to reach the apple — to take more elixir to stop himself from dying. What’s the difference?”

“Search me,” Hawke said flatly. “But we’ve got to find out.”

“What the hell did I just see?” Victoria asked.

“You saw what happens to an immortal when he dies,” Hawke said flatly.

“He needed the apples,” Smets said. “Without them he couldn’t have lived to wage his war.” He turned to Victoria and threw her one of his pistols. “Here, ma chérie… take this.”

Victoria deftly caught the gun in one hand and pointed it at Hawke, aiming the muzzle squarely at his chest.

“Bloody hell, I didn’t see that one coming!” Hawke said.

Smets walked slowly toward Victoria, a malevolent smirk on his face. They held each other and kissed much to the disgust of the ECHO team.

Then Victoria Hamilton-Talbot spoke. “All of you — stay where you are and raise your hands!”

“Victoria?” Lea asked.

“Drop your weapons — now!”

Lea took her Glock from the holster and lowered it gently to the floor. Across the hall she watched Hawke and Scarlet follow suit. Ryan, who was unarmed, simply raised his arms into the air.

“Fuck me!” Ryan said. “So all that stuff back in Florida about searching for a Tesla Coil was all just blarney?”

Victoria winked at him. “Got it in one, babe.” She waved the gun menacingly at them. “The prize was always Valhalla and its gold and weapons. Nothing less.”

“What about Nate?” he asked.

“Nate and I had been searching for Valhalla together for years but I needed more knowledge than he could give me. I knew the only way Dickie would ever send the famous ECHO team to assist me was if something terribly serious had befallen me, so Leon and I cooked up the plan to shoot him in Canada. It worked a dream.”

“But you had the flash drive!” Lea said.

“Yes but we knew we would need an insurance policy if we were unable to decode it — and what better insurance policy than having the ECHO team do our work for us.”

“But what about the answer-phone message — the death threat?”

“Leon, of course…”

Leon Smets gave a proud nod of his head and a theatrical bow full of mockery. “All theater, mes amis.”

Lea stared with anxious uncertainty as the Englishwoman covered everyone with her gun in a slow, casual sweep before training it once again on Hawke. For the first time, Lea saw the truth in Victoria’s eyes and that truth looked like hate and avarice.

“I’m sure,” Victoria said quietly, “that you know what’s coming next.”

“You’re going to perform a Vaudeville rendition of My Fair Lady?” Scarlet said.

“Shut up, and step away from your weapons — all of you!”

Scarlet turned to Hawke. “Never trust a woman with diamond ear-rings worth more than your house, that’s what I always say.”

“Enough! Get over there!”

Victoria waved the gun menacingly in their direction and then pointed its muzzle toward the treasure.

“So what happens now?” Hawke asked.

“I want you to start filling Sala’s Triton up with some of this gold, starting right now. He wanted the weapons but all we’re interested in is money.”

Scarlet gave a nod of agreement. “Understandable.”

“What then?” asked Hawke.

“Then, Leon and I are going back to the surface and you’re going to live out the remainder of your short and pointless lives in here, with your beloved gods. When I return to the world I’ll be sure to tell Dickie how brave you all were.”

“And how are you getting back to the surface?” Hawke’s voice was heavy with scepticism.

“I’m not a complete fool, Mr Hawke. I’ve trained on Tritons in the Keys, so I know what to do, and there’s always Leon.”

“We’ll just follow in our mini-sub.”

“I don’t think so, because I’m going to destroy it before I leave, and I know the Migaloo is useless to you because it requires a full crew to pilot it. Now, get going!”

Hawke picked up a large golden plate studded with emeralds and handed it to Lea who in turn handed it to Scarlet. Slowly they started their march back to the subs.

Lea looked over her shoulder at the archaeologist. “Who are you Victoria? Is that even your real name?”

“Of course it is, I’m not bloody Poison Ivy, you know. Just get on with it — I don’t want to spend all day here. Leon and I have an early retirement to fly to.”

Hawke heaved a trunk of gold over to the Migaloo and began to load the precious cargo inside the Triton mini submersible in the back of it. They had been slaving away for an hour now, hauling various pieces of treasure and other significant artefacts from the Hall to the lake where the subs were moored up. If Victoria’s plan was executed how she wanted and she forced him to destroy their mini-sub, that would cut off their only other escape route.

He looked up as he worked and watched the traitor as she surveyed their labor. She was now standing beside Leon Smets on a ledge at the side of the cavern running parallel to the water and keeping them under strict surveillance. He wasn’t exactly sure how Sir Richard Eden knew this woman but he thought maybe it was time for the old man to review his list of friends.

While the former SBS man’s mind raced with potential tactics — and none of them seemed particularly conducive to a successful escape — he saw not everyone shared his concerns. Even under threat of immediate execution, Ryan couldn’t contain his excitement as they uncovered one amazing ancient relic after another.

“Check out this incredible spear,” he said, peering inside one of the chests. “How did they make such a thing?”

Scarlet sighed “As pressing as that question is Ryan — and believe me it will certainly keep me up many a night — I think we have other concerns at the moment.”

“Hurry up, you idiots!” Victoria shouted.

After filling the Triton until it was almost dangerously overloaded, Victoria had Hawke pilot it out of the Migaloo and position it near the underwater exit where they had arrived. He sailed it past their mini-sub and returned to shore.

“Right,” Victoria said, turning to Hawke. “Get the C4 out of your bag in the mini-sub and set them to explode in thirty seconds or I shoot Lea.” She turned the gun on Lea and cocked the hammer.

Hawke clenched his jaw but knew he had no alternative. Following Victoria’s orders to the letter, he climbed inside their mini-sub and pulled some explosives from his C4 supply. Then he placed them on the most vulnerable points in the sub and inserted blasting caps.

As he clambered out of the sub, Victoria flicked her hand at him. “Give me the detonator, now.”

He walked toward her, ready to take her down if he had half a chance, but she wasn’t taking any chances. “Not so fast, Superman,” she said, taking a step back. “Put it on the floor and kick it over to me.”

He did as he was told and a moment later she held the detonator in her hand. She turned to face them and raised the detonator. “Any funny business and I’ll blow up your little sub right now! Now get back in the Hall!”

Lea was closest to Victoria as they turned to leave, and without any warning she lunged at her, but missed the gun and fell forward onto her knees.

Victoria turned the gun on Lea and squeezed the trigger. Ryan leaped in front of her and tried to grab the weapon but the archaeologist fired three more times. The sound of the gunpowder exploding so close to them in the enclosed space was deafening.

Ryan fell to the floor in a heap, and in the chaos Hawke punched Smets hard. In one move he smashed his jaw and disarmed him but the Belgian darted into a tunnel.

Victoria fired blindly at the others but quickly ran out of bullets. With no time to reload so close to the enemy, she turned on her heel and sprinted into the darkness of one of the tunnels behind her. In her panic she had dropped the detonation device for the C4 Hawke had put in the mini-sub.

“I’ll have that,” Scarlet said, snatching it from the ground.

“She’s getting away!” screamed Lea.

Hawke watched as Victoria receded into the darkness while Scarlet ran to Ryan. She pulled up his Batman t-shirt and after studying the wound she looked up at Hawke with a rare expression of anxious doubt on her face. “This is bad, Joe.”

Hawke’s mind filled with a desperate déjà vu as he recalled the terrible day Lea had gotten shot in the Tomb of Eternity. He couldn’t believe it was all happening again, but now to Ryan instead.

“Lea — get into your Dad’s research, fast. We know he was a student of Norse healing and we’re in the heart of Valhalla. Scarlet — look after Ryan while Lea’s looking for something to help him — and don’t forget that Smets could be anywhere.”

“Sure, but what about you?”

“I’m going give Lady Victoria Hamilton-Talbot a course in SBS etiquette.”