The Norse Directive (2 page)

Chattanooga, Tennessee

Sean’s reflexes were instant. His right hand squeezed the throttle and twisted it back while his left hand released the clutch, launching the motorcycle out onto the street like it was shot out of a cannon. He tried not to be as obvious as tucking in right behind the car he was chasing. He couldn’t exactly hang too far back either. Whoever was driving seemed to be in a hurry.

Sean allowed another car to pass on his side of the road, and two more on the other side before doing a quick U-turn and falling in behind the three vehicles as they sped down the road. His Triumph Thruxton’s engine was more than enough to keep up with the black Cadillac CTS that had caught his attention, but keeping up wasn’t necessarily his priority at the moment.

Sean had been cruising down Main Street in the thriving south side district of Chattanooga. He’d come to the city to close the deal on a new home close to where he’d pulled off the road. Getting a house back in his hometown was something Sean had been planning on doing for quite some time. For the longest time, he’d believed that a place on the beach down on the gulf coast of Florida would make him happy. While it brought a certain amount of joy, his hometown always beckoned him to return. He loved his place just north of Atlanta, and he’d always keep that residence, but the pace of life and the seemingly endless traffic had got to him over the years. Returning home had always been in the back of his mind.

He’d grown up in Chattanooga, living in the scenic city for much of his early life before going away to work for the government, and eventually the International Archaeological Agency based in Atlanta.

Sean was amazed at how much things had changed since he’d lived in Chattanooga. The town boasted the fastest Internet in the world outside of South Korea, with the gigabit fiber optic network. Some people were calling it the Portland of the South, and it seemed new startups and companies were flocking to the area every year.

When one of his realtor friends, a feisty Italian woman with a penchant for finding great homes, called him about a place, he didn’t hesitate to hop on his motorcycle and drive up to check it out. Two weeks later, he was back and signing the paperwork.

While visiting, Sean had decided to catch up with a few old friends. He’d had lunch with some college buddies earlier in the day. After making a few stops downtown, he made his way back over to the south side to meet up for dinner with an old colleague of sorts.

Sean had known Charlie Fowler for ten years. He’d been a useful resource on top of being a fascinating person. Charlie had a knack for finding information, especially when it came to historical artifacts. With the growth of the Internet, Charlie’s abilities only grew more impressive. He could uncover information in a fraction of the time it used to take him when the only way to do things was drive down to a records hall and search through scores of paperwork and files.

There’d been more than one occasion when Sean and his friend Tommy Schultz had required Charlie’s assistance with a few difficult archaeological questions.

Presently, Charlie ran an antique shop in an old mill in the Northshore area of the city. At sixty-eight years old, he could have retired, but Sean knew Charlie was too stubborn to ever stop working. When Sean called a few hours before to make dinner arrangements, Charlie had been reluctant, saying he needed to get a little more work done before heading home for the night. After a bit of coaxing, he’d agreed to meet Sean for a quick bite, a fact that had made the younger man laugh out loud prior to hanging up the phone.

Sean was on his way to meet his old friend when something caught his eye, flashing by on the other side of the road. It was Charlie, being hurried out of his shop by a man Sean didn’t recognize. And the expression on Charlie’s face wasn’t his usual grumpy look.

It was one of grave desperation.

Sean had pulled into an alley across the road and watched through his mirror as the stranger forced Charlie into the car and hopped into the driver’s seat. The strong jaw, thick neck, and light-brown hair cut close to the scalp caused Sean to immediately think the guy’s background was military. Something about the man’s eyes, however, was what bothered Sean the most. Even through the tinted visor of his motorcycle helmet and the windshield of the Cadillac he could see the driver’s cold, calculating stare. Sean had seen that look before, more times than he’d like to think, and death always followed close behind.

Sean knew immediately that his friend was in trouble. For a second, he wondered why Charlie didn’t try to escape. He must have been held at gunpoint or tied up. Either way, Sean knew what he had to do in a matter of seconds.

Following the Cadillac, careful to stay a few cars back, he revved the Thruxton’s engine as the train of vehicles merged onto Highway 27, heading north toward the river.

Sean slipped into the middle lane, allowing other cars to get between him and the one he followed. A classic mistake too many people made when tailing another vehicle was that they tried too hard to look like they weren’t following. Sometimes, getting farther behind than an optimal distance could keep one from being discovered. Sean always worked from the assumption that whoever he was up against was a pro. The case of the Cadillac’s driver was no exception. Better to assume the worst.

The black luxury sedan sped along the twisting highway, making its way over the Tennessee River and past the exits for Northshore. They continued beyond the city limits, winding through the outskirts and into the thick forests and dramatic, rolling mountains. Traffic thinned as Sean followed the mysterious driver, leaving him fewer and fewer places to hide on the highway. As much as he loved being on two wheels, now was one of those times he would have traded the motorcycle for an ordinary-looking Japanese sedan, a car that would blend in with the rest. His bike may as well have had sirens and flashing lights on it.

He swerved behind a big rig and tucked in behind the trailer, watching each exit carefully to see if the Cadillac had left the main road.

Off in the distance, charcoal-gray clouds loomed over the mountains to the north. Sean hated riding in the rain. He’d been riding motorcycles since he was six, but there were two times he actively avoided being on one of his many bikes: when it was raining and when it was cold. He remembered checking the forecast the day before, which had claimed the chance of rain in the area would only be 20 percent. It seemed he was traveling right into that slim window of possibility.

He and the eighteen-wheeler passed another exit, and this time Sean saw what he’d been expecting. The black sedan carrying Charlie weaved around the curvy off ramp and disappeared momentarily underneath the bridge, a second later appearing on the other side. Whoever was driving the car definitely wanted to get away from the crowds of the city to a more remote location. Concern boiled in Sean’s mind.

The driver had chosen an exit with no gas stations or restaurants and very little traffic. Sean had driven past the area once or twice, but never explored it. Keeping up with the Cadillac would prove to be more difficult now.

He leaned the motorcycle to the right and sped around the ramp’s long curve, merging onto the lonely country road. A rusted old pickup truck lumbered along in the left lane ahead. Beyond the dilapidated truck, Sean spotted the black sedan just before it disappeared around a bend in the road. He twisted the throttle, accelerating past the pickup truck in mere seconds. The road bent to the right then back to the left in a serpentine fashion, heading toward the dramatic slope of a heavily forested mountain blanketed in oak trees, dogwoods, and pine. Sean noted the clouds continuing to gather overhead. The prospect of trying to speed up a curvy mountain road in the rain wasn’t something he found particularly appealing.

The road inclined drastically as Sean deftly guided the motorcycle around one turn and then the other. Questions swirled in his head. Who was the driver? What did he want with Charlie? What had his friend got himself into?

Charlie wasn’t the type to get on the bad side of the wrong people. While he could seem grumpy at times, Charlie was a generally good-natured person. Stubborn, but good natured. He’d been in the army during Vietnam, a helicopter pilot by trade. When he returned to the United States, Charlie poured his energy into studying history. He even wrote a few books on the subject. Lately, his time had been occupied with the antique shop. Sean found it strange that Charlie had never married, however he believed his old friend probably had a special lady somewhere.

The motorcycle crested the ridge of the mountain, and the road stretched out in a straight line down into the Sequatchie Valley below. Vast cornfields, only recently planted, dotted the flats and rolling hills between the mountain peaks. In between each farm, thick forests of oak, pine, and maple separated the various properties. Sean eased back on the throttle a little, now in direct line of sight with the Cadillac. The car had put some distance between them, now probably a tenth of a mile away, maybe more. Sean let the motorcycle coast down the long straightaway and watched carefully through his tinted visor.

Thick, black clouds roiled overhead, and Sean saw the rain line rapidly moving through the valley toward him. The sedan entered the deluge first, causing visibility of the car to dim slightly. Ten seconds later, Sean plunged into the monsoon. The heavy raindrops pounded his arms and chest like huge BBs, instantly soaking his clothes. Fortunately, he always rubbed his helmet’s visor with Rain-X just in case, so the droplets that hit it rolled away, keeping his vision somewhat clearer. In the pouring rain, however, visibility had decreased exponentially. Sean squinted instinctively. It didn’t help much. He could only see twenty feet ahead, but managed to notice the red flash of brake lights through the deluge.

Sean cautiously applied his own brakes. He’d seen several motorcyclists try to stop too quickly on wet roads and lose control as the tires slipped on the slick surface. His Triumph responded well to the action, and his speed slowed easily. The lights of the car were gone, but it appeared as though they were turning right when they’d flashed a few moments before. He kept his eyes on the side of the road as he crept along the flat stretch of valley road. He only noticed the dirt road to his right as it passed by. Sean squeezed his brakes a little harder, bringing the bike to a quick stop. He flipped up his visor to get a better view. The back end of the Cadillac turned right, disappearing into the forest. Sean knew his motorcycle would be useless on the mud driveway. He would have to leave it on the side of the road.

Using his feet, he peddled backward ten feet and then carefully eased the bike onto the road’s shoulder. He tilted it onto its kickstand in some tall, wet grass and turned off the engine. A second later, he removed his helmet and hung it on one of the handlebars. The warm downpour soaked his shaggy blond hair instantly, and droplets dripped continuously off his nose. Unsure of how far back the sedan’s driver would go, Sean took off at a brisk jog. He needed to catch up before anything happened to his friend.

A sudden flash of lightning crackled a few miles away, followed closely by a booming clap of thunder only seconds later. Sean hated being out in a thunderstorm. It was one of the few things that scared him, dwarfed only by his fear of heights and venomous animals. He knew the odds of being struck by lightning were low; a random occurrence that rarely killed someone. Still, he wanted to keep those odds as low as possible. Running through the woods in the middle of a storm didn’t seem like a good way to keep them down.

Sean reached the bend in the road and jumped off to the side, into a stand of poplars. He took cover behind a particularly broad trunk, and peeked around it. Of all the times to not carry a weapon. He usually kept his Springfield XD .40-caliber with him at all times. When on one of his motorcycles, he’d pack the compact version. At the moment, he had nothing, which could present a huge problem.

The muddy road ahead snaked back to the left. There was no sign of the sedan. Sean darted out from behind his hiding spot and sprinted across the road to the next bend, taking cover behind another tree. After the road bent to the left, it straightened out into a clearing. The Cadillac had come to a stop next to an old barn with a rusty red roof. The building looked as if it hadn’t been used in twenty years. Half of it had nearly fallen in on itself.

Sean’s attention didn’t stay fixed long on the ancient barn. It was quickly drawn to the vision of his friend kneeling in the mud; a stream of blood mingled with the falling rain and trickled from his forehead and across his right eye and cheekbone. The man Sean had seen driving the sedan towered over Charlie. From this distance, it was difficult to measure how tall he was, but Sean guessed a few inches over six feet. The driver’s powerful muscles on his tall frame told Sean the guy focused more on functional strength than just bodybuilding. That meant he was probably some kind of special ops, at least in the past. 

The stranger stared down at Charlie as if expecting him to say something. It was a scene Sean had witnessed before in different parts of the world. He’d even been on his knees once or twice and had been fortunate to get out alive. He blinked away the rain dripping down his forehead and into his eyes, squinting to get a better view of what was going on. He was still too far away to hear what the man was saying, but from what he could tell, it was an interrogation.

What could he possibly want with Charlie?
The question effortlessly popped into Sean’s head. Charlie never bothered anyone. From what Sean knew of him, the older man didn’t have any enemies, and he doubted Charlie had any vices that would get him in trouble with the wrong kind of people. No matter what the answer was, Sean knew he had to do something.