The Norse Directive (32 page)

Phoenix, Arizona

As soon as Sean got off the plane at the Phoenix airport, he found an empty seat and removed the phone from his pocket. The plane ride had gone by without incident, and he’d managed to get an hour or two of sleep on the three-and-a-half-hour flight from Atlanta to Phoenix.

He glanced down at his phone and saw that there were two texts from Alex. The first read,
Check your email. Translation complete.

The second read,
You know someone’s already found this stone, right?

Sean tapped the phone icon at the top of the message to make a voice call.

“Sean’s personal slave service, how can I help you?” In spite of the early hours of the morning, Alex still sounded like he’d been awake all day.

“Hilarious.” Sean poked fun at the way Alex answered and then went on. “Yeah, I knew that the stone had already been found. It’s not really a secret. But I wanted to know what was on it before I got all the way out there to investigate further.”

“Well, they did a television show about those runes, although the people doing the investigation weren’t able to come up with a complete translation of what the stone said. One of the theories they came up with was that it could be the burial site of a twelfth century Englishman.”

“That doesn’t make much sense,” Sean argued. “Those runes weren’t Anglo-Saxon in origin. In the twelfth century they were already using old forms of English and still had some Latin left over.”

“Right,” Alex agreed, “which is why I went ahead and ran the runes through our software here at the lab. This next part is going to send a chill up your spine.”

“Ready to be chilled.”

“From what the translation suggests, two men landed in a foreign land, what we assume to be North America, from somewhere far to the east. They made their way across the South, through mountains, then plains, and eventually the desert, until one of them died. It seems the man who survived was the one who carved the runes into the stone to tell the tale of their adventure.”

Sean processed the information for a minute. “Sounds like they went across the Appalachian Mountains on their way south. I wonder how they were able to make it this far on foot.”

“It could be that they procured horses from some of the natives, either by force or by trade. We know that sometimes in the past, large white people from the sea were treated as deities. It’s entirely possible that whoever these two men were received gifts from some of the natives. Those gifts could have included food and horses.”

“Good point.”

It was a good point, but it was still such an incredible distance. The idea that two Vikings from a much colder climate would have traveled across what is now the southern United States, seemed like an impossible task.

Alex went on, apparently thinking the same thing that was going through Sean’s mind. “If you think about it, the journey must have seemed huge, especially on horseback. But we aren’t talking about a couple of weaklings here. These guys had been through much rougher conditions at sea than they would ever see on land. The journey from Denmark to Britain was a difficult one in those days. They crossed the entire Atlantic Ocean.”

Sean hadn’t looked at it like that. “That’s true. I’m willing to take it on faith that if they could make it across the ocean, they could make it to Arizona. I guess Holger Danske knew that Charlemagne was coming after him. That meant he would do whatever it took to get the lance as far away from Europe as possible.”

“The southwestern desert would probably qualify.”

“Indeed.” Sean thought for a moment before he let Tommy’s young assistant off the line.

“Do you have any more questions?”

Again, reading Sean’s mind. “No, I think that’s all I needed. I appreciate it, Alex. Whatever Tommy is paying you and Tara, he should definitely make it more.”

Alex laughed on the other end. “Well, maybe me, but not Tara. She’s paid enough.”

Sean shared another laugh with the younger man at the joke and then hung up the phone after thanking him one more time for his help.

There was no doubt in Sean’s mind that he was headed in the right direction.

Two hours later, his silver SUV cruised over a dirt road, kicking up loose rocks and dust as it bumped along. In the back of the vehicle, Sean’s book bag jostled around in the back seat, eventually falling onto the floor. 

Sean sped across the desert plain, the road gradually rising into the Mustang Mountains in the distance. The southwestern sun blazed high in a cloudless, azure sky, baking the dry earth below. The only signs of greenery were the occasional prickly cactus that speckled the landscape.

“It’s a very different place out here in the desert,” Sean commented to himself as he guided the SUV toward a craggy mountain a few miles away.

He could see why some people loved living out there. It wasn’t necessarily for him, but there was a certain kind of beauty to the desert, a serenity that could be found nowhere else on earth. 

Adriana had spoken of the desert on more than one occasion. She preferred the climate and surroundings of the Southeast, and of her home in Spain, but she talked about the magic of the desert, especially after the sun went down.

Sean recalled staring at the night sky in the desert on more than one occasion. There were billions of sparkling stars in the dark blanket above, each like a diamond woven into the black fabric of space.

Behind the SUV a vortex of dust trailed up from the tires. Sean laughed as he looked back in the rearview mirror, thinking of the looks on the faces of the people working at the rental place. Surely it wouldn’t be the first time someone took one of their cars down a dusty road like this.

Sean noticed a turnoff up ahead and looked down at the map on his phone. He’d set the waypoint before leaving the airport, and the side road looked like it was the one he needed to take. He slowed down and steered the vehicle onto the new path, which was basically just two tire ruts worn into the dirt.

Fifteen minutes later, Sean stopped the SUV at the foot of a ridge where the road came to a sudden end. The mountain rose up four or five hundred feet from the desert floor, jutting up suddenly like a giant ripple in the earth’s surface. He got out of the vehicle and grabbed a bottle of water from his backpack before slinging it over one shoulder. A few hundred feet up the side of the hill, the mountain appeared to level off a bit. That must be where the cave is, he thought.

He trudged up the steep hillside, weaving his way between huge rocks and tall strands of prairie grass. His legs burned, and the heat of the bright sunshine baked his skin, even though he’d only been out there for a few minutes. One thing Sean had learned about the dry heat of the desert was that he didn’t seem to sweat as much. What was actually happening, he learned, was that he still perspired the same amount, but it evaporated faster. Possessing that knowledge from prior visits is why he always kept a bottle of water handy whenever venturing out into the desert during daylight hours.

Sean took a big gulp of water and put the lid back into place, then stuffed the bottle into his backpack. He’d thought the plateau where the hill leveled off was closer to the bottom, but as he climbed he realized it was nearer the top. He smiled. Just another kind of mirage, he thought.

Sean continued plodding up the hill, putting one boot in front of the other until he finally reached the lip he’d been focused on for the last several minutes. As he crested the small plateau, the cave overhang came into view, and then the rest of the natural opening in the mountainside.

In front of the cavity, a small pit had been dug away by previous archaeologists who visited the site. It was still marked off with a few boards and ropes. They likely had the intent of returning at some point soon. Sean wasn’t going to disturb their work. He simply wanted to see if his hunch was right.

He took a few deep breaths, his lungs still gasping a little from the hike up, and turned around to take in the view. The Arizona desert stretched out before him as far as his eyes could see, reaching a horizon on some distant, reddish-brown mountains. From here, Sean could see his rental vehicle down below and the little dirt road winding its way through the prairie grass, rocks, dirt, and the occasional cactus.

Part of him was enjoying the vista, but if he was honest with himself, he didn’t want to look at the rune stone. There was a piece of him that wanted to wait for Tommy and Adriana to see it.

He grinned, squinting from the bright sunlight despite his sunglasses protecting him from the majority of it. He’d come this far. He had to know for sure.

Sean turned around and walked over to the hole in the ground. He took a deep breath and looked down at it, bending to one knee as he did. It was a sacred moment for him. Not just because people had died searching for this place, or because it was the location of a holy relic. It was sacred because the man who was buried there had made a great journey and had done so because he believed in something so strongly that he would go to the ends of the earth to see it through. Sean took off the baseball cap he’d put on before getting on the airplane in Atlanta and held it over his knee, paying respects to the man he believed was buried there.

A few seconds later, Sean stood up and spun around. The black hole in the side of the mountain beckoned to him. He pulled a flashlight out of his bag and switched it on, stalking determinedly into the cave’s mouth.

The recess only went forty or so feet into the rock, but it was nearly twenty feet wide, providing a decent amount of space and protection from the elements. Sean imagined that the two Vikings must have taken shelter here on the cold desert nights nearly a thousand years ago before Holger Danske succumbed to the call of death.

Sean aimed the beam at the wall to his right first, scanning the sides of the wall as he made his way to the back of the cave. Another grin crept onto his face. “Sure seems like I’ve been spending way too much time in caves lately,” he said to himself, his voice bouncing off the walls with a low reverb.

He reached the innermost part of the cave and stopped, letting his light play across the jagged rock. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was looking for, only that he believed there would be something there, a marker of some kind that would let him bring an end to the adventure.

Ten minutes later, he was about to give up when he noticed something strange at the bottom of the rock wall, only a few inches above the floor. A bird of prey screeched outside, causing him to look back over his shoulder quickly. He let out a slow breath, calming down from the sudden noise, and refocused on the marking on the wall.

There, cut into the ancient stone was a small object. It wasn’t much, which was why he’d missed it on his initial scans of the cave’s interior. But now that he saw it, it couldn’t have been clearer. A rudimentary shaft with a pointed blade at the top had been carved into the rock. Time had worn it away and caused the markings to fade. Nevertheless, Sean knew what it had to be.

His lips parted in a broad smile, and he took in a deep, satisfying breath. In an instant, his mind began racing again. Who should he call? Should he get a dig permit and excavate the entire area? Who would the lance go to? The Catholic Church? Or could it be put on display at the IAA Historical Center? The Danes might have something to say about it too.

Finding the lance that pierced the side of Christ, here in America, would rewrite the history books. It would change the way everyone viewed so many things.

Sean started to realize that this might not be such a good thing. Sometimes, it was better to leave history alone rather than tamper too much with it. People were comfortable with the things they believed in. Letting the world know that Holger Danske was real and he’d stolen the Holy Lance from Charlemagne could cause more harm than good.

Perhaps it was better to leave Holger Danske as he was when Sean found out about him originally: a legend. 

Sean put his flashlight back in his bag and sauntered back out to the cave’s entrance. A warm breeze washed over him as the sun bathed him in sunlight once again. He stared down at the stone with the runes cut into it.

“Rest in peace, Holger Danske. After the journey you made, I’d say you earned it.”

Sean made his way down the hill, careful not to slip on any loose dirt. He looked up into the sky and saw an eagle circling high above. He watched the bird for a few minutes until it finally straightened out and soared into the distance, off to find something more interesting.

When the bird had disappeared from sight, Sean climbed back into the SUV and started the engine. He gave one last, long glance up at the site before backing the vehicle up and guiding it back down the dusty road.

Phoenix, Arizona

The phone rang a few times before Emily picked up. She sounded a little out of breath, but composed herself quickly. “Hey, Sean. What do you need today? Someone chasing you again?”

He didn’t respond immediately, still considering what he was about to tell her. He’d been fighting it for the last several years after leaving the agency.

“Emily, I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to say it. I want back in.”

He was greeted with stunned silence for a moment. Now it was his turn to wonder if she was okay. “Emily?”

“I’m here,” she said. “Are you sure that’s what you want? Or are you just messing with me?”

He nodded as he stared out the window at a plane rolling by on the hot tarmac, waves of radiant heat rippling through the air. “Yeah, I’m sure. I can’t be back on the list, so I’m not talking about a full-time thing. But if you’re ever in a pinch and you need me, I want you to know you can call.”

“Okay.” She hesitated for a second. “I have to admit, I never expected to get this call from you. So you’re willing to work on a contract-by-contract basis? That is, if you’re 100 percent sure about this.”

He put his head down and swallowed hard. “Em, there are a lot of bad people out there in the world and not enough good people to take them on. I know that now. I’m one of the good ones. And while I’d love to say I can sit on the beach and sip Mai Thai's all day and not worry about it, the fact is I will. As long as there are evil people out there, I need to be out there too.”

She resisted the urge to say that was what she’d been trying to tell him all along. “I agree. It’s a burden, a blessing, and a curse.”

“You got that right. Single contract ops is best. There might be times when I’m not as available as others. Use your best judgment on when to call and when not to.”

He’d always trusted Emily’s ability to assess people’s strengths and weaknesses. Sean wasn’t just handy with a gun or good in combat; his ability to figure out a situation made him one of her best. Those same skills had served Tommy and the IAA well. 

A few seconds went by as he pondered what to say next. “Any word on Dufort’s location?”

“Not yet. He’s gone dark. We’ll find him though.”

“Let me know when you do. I’d like to handle that one.”

“Something personal between you and him?”

An announcement came through the airport speaker system that his plane was beginning the boarding process. People stood up from their seats and started moving toward the line that had already formed.

He shook his head. “Not for me. I just don’t want him to hurt any more innocent people. And I want to make sure he pays for his crimes.”

There was a tentative silence for another moment before she said, “When can you come in?”

He thought about what he was doing. Despite the stress, the danger, and the way too many close calls he’d had through the years of working at Axis, Sean knew that it was his life’s mission to keep the innocent safe. There were no two ways about it.

“Whenever you need me. All you have to do is call.”