The Norse Directive (28 page)

Helsingor, Denmark

Musty, damp air filled the nostrils of the group as they descended into the dimly lit foundation of Kronborg Castle. Several artifacts were featured in a museum-style setting, with glass cases, wall-mounted frames, and placards describing the various items and points of interest. In the middle of the huge area was the original structure built by Erik of Pomerania. Despite having another castle built over the top of it, the ruins of the first castle were still visible and gave a glimpse into what it must have looked like six centuries ago. Much of the brick and stone had been left in its original place.

A wooden rail wrapped around the area to prevent tourists from disturbing the location. Sean walked around the pathway slowly, stopping to read each placard as he did so. He wasn’t exactly stalling for time by reading the signs, but he wasn’t in a hurry either. In spite of Dufort’s threat to harm Adriana, Sean couldn’t be sure he would find anything that would help them in their search. He hadn’t lied to the Frenchman when he told him it could take days or weeks to find anything in a castle this size. Part of him believed his best bet was to wait for an opportunity to make a move and seize that advantage.

“Find anything of note?” Dufort said as Sean lingered near a sign that talked about the building of the first fortifications on the site.

Sean drew in a short breath and let it out. “No. There’s nothing here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.” He rolled his shoulders, “I mean, this is the oldest section of the castle, so that puts it here around the same time as the legend we’re chasing. But I just don’t see anything that jumps out at me.”

“Very well,” Dufort said. “We’ll keep going.”

“In the next area, I think there might be something that can give us a clue,” Sean said after a few seconds of thought. “The sculpture of Holger Danske could have a code embedded into it.”

“A code? In sculpture?” One of Dufort’s goons asked, obviously not a student of art history.

“Sure. Michelangelo weaved all kinds of different codes into his sculptures. A lot of people don’t really notice, but some of his works feature elements that were forbidden by the Roman Catholic Church. Some are far more obvious than others.” He was growing tired of educating someone he wanted to kill, and his voice carried an obvious tone to that effect. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to check it out now. Like you said: we’re on the clock.”

“After you,” Dufort motioned with his hand to lead the way.

One of the men jerked Adriana by the arm, pulling her along.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Sean warned.

The muscular man grinned. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Me? Nothing. It’s her you have to worry about.”

It was the second warning Sean had issued to that effect. He hoped the third time was the charm. But right now, it was looking more and more like they were going to need a miracle. A thought kept floating to the back of his mind as he walked toward the exit of the ruins and into the dungeon and basement area of the castle.
Where the heck is Tommy?

SSSSS

Tommy’s feet made a sucking sound as he picked up one and then the other, making slow progress in what was becoming an increasingly soggy field. He’d made his way around the outer ramparts, an extension of the original castle defenses also called the crown work. It had been put into place after the Dano-Swedish War of 1658 when the Swedes managed to invade the castle after a long siege. The result was that the Danes increased the defensive perimeter as well as many of the interior defenses, effectively making Kronborg Castle nearly impregnable.

Thanks to the monsoon that had decided to dampen the day, Tommy couldn’t truly appreciate the magnificence of the castle and the massive amount of resources that went into its creation.

He reached the edge of the stand of trees and took meager shelter for a moment under some lower-hanging evergreen branches. The limbs and narrow needles did little to help keep him dry, but even the tiniest bit of relief from the wind made a huge difference.

Tommy glanced around at his surroundings, taking note of everything. Several large, jagged boulders were lying around on the grass. A few sat at the foot of the hill, imbedded for centuries. He wiped his eyes clear of rainwater and peered through the deluge. One rock looked different from all the others. It was flatter, and much smoother, as if it had been hewn by a human hand. The object measured around five feet long, if he had to guess, and at least three feet wide. Could it be covering something? From his place behind the tree, he looked around the thick branches and noticed that he was in direct line with one of the points of the fortress walls, as if it were aimed purposely in his direction.

His head spun around again, and he stared at the oddly placed stone. Tommy stepped quickly out from the shelter of the tree and plodded through the soaked grass, leaves, and spruce needles to the foot of the small hill. The mound was only ten or so feet high. More so than the first one he’d investigated, this hill appeared to be man-made, like many of those he’d seen in America.

He reached the stone and ran his fingers along the wet surface while scanning it with his eyes. He blinked rapidly, trying to keep the rain out of his vision like wiper blades on hyperspeed. Nothing on the outward facing stone resembled anything helpful though.

Tommy sighed for a second; disappointed, frustrated, angry. He didn’t even know what he was looking for. Coming out here in the middle of a thunderstorm was idiotic. What else could he do though? His friends were in danger. Right now, they were in the Kronborg Castle somewhere, and they needed his help.

“Focus, Tommy,” he said to himself.

He searched the right edge of the stone first, looking closely at the surface as he ran a finger along it. When he found nothing, he moved to the left side and repeated the process. Still nothing.

Tommy wedged his foot on another nearby rock and pushed himself up enough to be able to see the top ledge of the flat, rectangular stone. He peered hard through the downpour, his eyes desperate for answers. What he found nearly caused his heart to stop.

A rune.

It was barely visible, no doubt helped by the rain changing the coloration of the stone enough to make the engraving easier to see. If it had been a dry day, he might not have noticed it. But there it was, definitely something carved by human hands. A single rune.

Tommy didn’t know what the rune meant in literal terms, but he knew it had to be the symbol that marked the grave of Holger Danske’s trusted friend, Asmund. Thunder rumbled through the sky again, chasing a flash of lightning out in the sound between Denmark and Sweden.

His attention went back to the castle. Sean and Adriana were somewhere inside, and he had to get to them.

A plan quickly formulated in his head as he started back toward the fortress entrance. He could find the group and offer to show them where Asmund’s grave was in exchange for his friends.

The idea soon became less attractive as Tommy ran through the chess match in his mind. He would make the offer, Dufort would threaten to kill either Tommy or Adriana, or perhaps torture them, unless he revealed the location. And after doing so, they would all be killed.

No, that plan wouldn’t work. He would have to take them back by force. But that put him back to square one where he was outnumbered and outgunned.

Perhaps there was another way. If he could catch one or two of the men off guard, take them out, one at a time, maybe he could even the odds.

Paris

Emily reached the warehouse door and tried to turn the latch. It didn’t budge, locked tight by a key code access panel. Fortunately, she had planned on this.

“Packet,” she said to Number 10.

He stepped around the others as he pulled a small metal box out of a rucksack he had hanging from his shoulders. The device was only about the size of a fist, and had a single switch and a red button on the surface. He leaned down and placed the device flush against the doorway between the frame and the door, right where he knew the bolt would be that was keeping them from entering. He flipped the switch, activating a magnet inside the device, and then pressed the red button.

“You should step back,” he said casually.

He and the others tucked around the corner of the building, and ten seconds later a low searing sound accompanied by a fury of white sparks ensued, and then a pop. Emily checked around the corner to make sure the explosive device had finished its job. The door hung slightly ajar.

She waved with her hand. “All right, let's do it. Sweep the corners, and work your way down the sides of the building. Anyone inside would have seen that, so they’ll be waiting. Ten, throw in a few flash bangs to blind them for a second. That should buy us enough time to get inside and take the offensive.”

“Happy to.”

He hurried around the corner, pulling two small canisters out of his bag, and flung the door wide open. He pulled the pins and tossed in the flash bang grenades, one toward the middle of the room and one to the left. As he did, a flurry of gunfire erupted, sending hot rounds into and around the doorframe. He ducked out of the way, and a moment later someone yelled something in French, followed by a low-level bang. A bright light flashed through the cracks of the door.

“Go!” Emily ordered loudly.

She took off from her crouched position and lunged through the doorway, taking up a firing position and sweeping the left side with her weapon. Two men, about twenty feet away, with automatic HK MP5 submachine guns, were doubled over and rubbing their eyes. She fired two shots at each of them, dropping them in an instant.

Her barrel moved right as she continued to sweep the immediate area. Shots fired next to her as her agents began to swarm the room, sending a deadly barrage of rounds into the men guarding the warehouse. Two more in the center of the room were tucked behind heavy wooden crates, each receiving a bullet through the head as they fought the temporary blindness caused by the flash bangs. The guards on the far side of the room realized what was going on and took cover behind a stack of crates and spools of fabric.

A rapid succession of shots was fired from above, and Emily quickly took cover. A guard, high up on a catwalk that stretched from side to side and wrapped around the room, had been the first to recover from the searing light of the flash bangs and was unleashing a hail of metal at their position. The five agents dove behind a row of wooden boxes and checked their weapons.

Emily jabbed her gun around the corner of her box and squeezed off the remaining bullets in the direction of the gunman. The move caused him to duck slightly, but he had no cover other than the thin surface of metal rails in front of him.

“Weapons free,” she said to the other agents as she pressed the magazine release button to let the clip slide out and clack on the floor. A second later, she’d replaced it with a fresh one from her belt.

The blonde agent farthest from her popped up and swept the right side of the room. The other woman checked the center lower area, while the two men peeked over their cover and fired a barrage of rounds at the guard on the catwalk. Bullets ripped through his legs and chest. His body shivered for a second before toppling over the rail to the concrete below.

More reports popped from the right side of the room where three guards were holed up behind a stack of crates, two units high. Two were firing from the nearest edge with handguns, the other from the rear of the stack with the same.

“You two, keep them occupied. Fire on their position from here,” she ordered the two female agents. “You,” she said to the men, “come with me. We’re going to flank them.”

The female agents unleashed another volley, pounding the planks of the crates into splinters as they fired their rounds at the guards’ position.

Emily and the two men rushed around the edge of the boxes they’d been using for cover and hurried down the left side of the warehouse wall, each holding their weapons at the ready. She kept her eyes on the men on the far side of the room as they ducked and raised intermittently, continuing to fire on the warehouse entryway.

She slipped around another stack of crates and was about to move toward the center of the room when she came face to face with four more guards hiding behind the wooden barricade, all waiting for their chance to enter the fray.

There was a momentary look of surprise on the first man’s face as he started to raise his weapon, but he was too slow. Emily was quicker on the draw and planted three rounds into his chest. The next man in line was fast to react, and he lunged at her with a kick, knocking the gun from her hand and onto the floor against the crates. He threw a quick jab that she narrowly dodged, then she brought her elbow up and into the guard’s nose.

The other two guards were aiming their weapons at the two agents, trying to get a clear shot. With all their attention on their comrade’s fight with the woman, they never saw the two agents slip up behind them. The agents made quick work of the two guards, dispatching them with knives they’d brought in sheaths attached to their utility belts.

Emily grappled with the guard. He was a slender man, but had a functional strength in spades. He tried to grab her hair and yank her head back, but her fist found his throat and sent him staggering backward. His fight wasn’t over yet, though, as he lurched forward again, trying his luck with a roundhouse kick at her chest. In one swift movement, Emily ducked the kick, withdrew her own knife, and spun around, thrusting the blade deep into the man’s chest. She twisted the blade slightly then withdrew it, standing in a ready position for another attack in case the knife hadn’t done the job.

The man stumbled back for a few seconds, grasping at the bloody wound before falling over sideways in a heap.

Gun reports continued popping from the right side of the warehouse. Emily picked up her gun off the floor and joined the two male agents whose faces were still in shock at what they’d just seen.

“How’d you think I got to be director of the agency, boys?” she said coolly, stalking past them and taking up a shooting position in the middle of the room.

They gave each other a quick glance and then joined her behind a row of crates. They leveled their weapons on top of the boxes and started firing. Their targets never had a chance. The first two caught rounds in the neck and side, the third spun around only to take several bullets to the abdomen and chest. The last man collapsed onto one of the others and the room fell into an eerie silence.

“Clear,” Emily called out.

The two men with her fanned out and checked the back corners of the room, making sure it was completely empty. Two twenty-foot red shipping containers were sitting next to each other near the wall, but other than that, they didn’t see anything worth reporting.

Bluish smoke hung in the air like a thin cloud that wouldn’t blow away, keeping the acrid scent of gunpowder lingering. The two female agents rejoined the group, replacing the empty magazines with fresh ones just in case. One of the women had caught a round in the arm, just grazing her bicep. A thin trickle of blood seeped from the wound through the rip in her black sleeve.

“You okay?” Emily asked with genuine concern. She cared about all of her agents, more than she probably should for someone in her position. A good rule was never to get personal. She couldn’t help it.

“I’ll be all right. Just a scratch.” The girl blew it off and pulled the sleeve up a little to slow the bleeding.

They looked around the room, suddenly confused.

“Where are the girls?” the guy from Brooklyn asked. “Aren’t they supposed to be in here?”

Emily noticed the shipping containers at the end of the room and started walking toward them. The other four followed, realizing where she believed the girls might be.

She reached the first container and saw the padlock on the door clasp. There was an identical one on the other box as well. “Get these open,” she motioned with her gun.

The two men pulled out lock-picking tools and went to work while Emily continued to scan the room. The alarm was still going off outside, and it needed to be shut down. “Shut that thing off,” she said to the brunette.

The woman gave a nod and took off, searching for a breaker box. She found it over near the middle of the room and flipped all the switches except the ones marked as warehouse lights. The alarm gave a final whine before falling silent. The agent closest to her was working on the container lock and got it open, as did the second agent soon after.

They unhooked the locks and let them drop to the floor with a clank, then pulled up the metal latch and swung open the doors. Inside the shipping containers was dark, but the light from the warehouse bulbs above cast just enough illumination into the shadows for the agents to see inside.

In the first container were dozens of boxes. They’d been marked with Chinese characters and a few words in English that suggested the contents were extremely fragile.

The agents passed over the first and stood around the open door of the second container, staring inside with grim smiles. Six young women huddled on the floor at the far end of the giant metal box, all in their underwear, and shivering from the cold. One of them, a dark-haired girl with olive skin stood up and stepped forward. It was the agent Dufort had taken prisoner. The young woman reached the edge of the darkness and paused. She leaned forward and hugged Emily as hard as she could. Emily wrapped her arm around the girl’s lower back.

“It’s okay. Everything’s okay now,” she said calmly. “You’re all going to be okay.”

The other agents entered the shipping container and helped the girls, one by one. Their faces were pale, their eyes sallow from being stuck in the dark for so long.

Outside, police sirens inched closer down the city streets. Emily wasn’t concerned about the local authorities now. Many of them were probably involved with the sick business she’d just exposed. Now the international community would know about it, and heads would roll.

She pulled out her phone and dialed a number only a handful of people on the planet possessed. The answer came after only two rings.

“President Dawkins. Is everything all right, Emily?”

She stared at the young women for a moment and swallowed back her emotions. “It is now, Mr. President.”