The Valhalla Prophecy (22 page)

She was surprised. “What?”

“Tell me about yourself, it’ll help you stay calm. Where are you from?”

“Uh … I am from Hamburg.”

Chase waited a few seconds, but she said nothing more, and her shakes were not subsiding. “I’ve never been there. Nice place?” he prompted.

“Yes, it is a beautiful city.”

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“No, there is only me.”

The trembling subsided, slightly. Chase took that as a good sign and started the delicate task of sliding the wire into the hole. “I’ve met your dad—what about your mum? Does she live there too?”

“No, she …” Sadness replaced fear in her tone. “She died, a few years ago. From cancer.”

“I’m sorry. My mum died of cancer too.”

“I am sorry,” Natalia echoed. Another silence followed, but this time she broke it without prompting. “My grandmother died from cancer also. She was Russian, she came to Germany in 1961.”

“What, she got out of Russia?” The wire was almost in the hole, but Natalia’s shuddering was making the mine wobble. Chase used his other hand to brace the device.

“Yes. She was actually supposed to be taken to America with my grandfather, but …”

“But what?”

There was an odd—hardness? bitterness?—to her words. “He did not make it out of Russia. So my grandmother did not go any farther than West Germany. My mother was born there a few months later.”

“Well, at least she made it to the right side of the wall.” The wire finally slipped into the hole. It was a
tight fit; he slowly applied pressure to push it in deeper. “West Germany sounded a better place to grow up than East Germany.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“You don’t sound too sure.”

“East and West—they are both bad, in different ways. Not the people,” she quickly added, “but the politicians, those in charge.”

“Can’t argue with that too much.” The wire gradually disappeared into the hole. Chase kept pushing—but another thought had come to him. “So … your grandparents were Russians? You think there’s any connection to those Russians at the camp?”

Natalia drew in a breath, as if about to make a confession—

Click
.

A much softer sound than before, accompanied by a tiny but discernible amount of resistance that Chase felt through the wire. According to his training, the fuse should have been deactivated.

Should have
—but then the mine should have exploded a couple of seconds after Natalia stepped on it. Its safety features might be as faulty as its detonator. He withdrew his finger. The wire stayed in place.

“Okay, Natalia,” he said. “When I count to three, I want you to very slowly lift up your foot. Are you ready?”

The reply was barely even a whisper. “Yes.”

“Right. Now, one, two … 
three
.”

She hesitated—then raised her leg.

The spring-loaded prongs rose back into position … and stopped. No sounds came from inside the mine’s casing.

It was safe.

An explosion did come, though—from Chase. “
Fuck!
Buggering fuck-bollocks arse and
shit
!” he cried, pent-up tension finding release. “Fuck. Ing. Hell! God, I hate mines.”

Natalia still had one foot raised, balancing like a flamingo. “Is it safe?”

“Yeah, it’s safe. You can put your foot down now.”

She did so—and began to cry. “I’m sorry. I should have been more careful …”

Chase bent the end of the wire to hold it in place, then unscrewed the fuse from the mine’s body and carefully lifted it out. The metal was scabbed with rust; the trigger had jammed. “Hey, it’s not your fault, okay? Blame whichever arsehole dumped millions of mines in the jungle and then forgot where they put ’em.”

She shook her head. “No, I should have known. When I was at Ly Quang, they warned us not to go too far into the jungle. One of the boys in the village lost a leg last year to an old mine.”

“The Yanks probably planted them to protect the radio tower.” He put down the fuse and sat up. “This one should be safe now, though.”

Natalia wiped her eyes. “Should be? Is there still a danger?”

“Depends how unstable the explosive is. It might have totally broken down by now, or it might go off if it takes a hard knock.”

“We cannot leave it like this, then. Another child from the village may set it off. Can you make it blow up from a safe distance?”

“Yeah—but a bang like that’ll be heard for miles. The people who’re after us’ll know where we are. We’ll just have to tell your friends in the village to watch out for it.”

“But we do not know exactly where we are!” she protested. “The Vietnamese government has people who destroy mines when they are found, but they need to know their precise location.” She thought for a moment. “If we take it with us, we can leave it near the village so it can be found and destroyed safely.”

Chase stared at her. “You want me to pick up a land mine.”

“Yes.”

“And carry it through the jungle.”

“Yes.”

“While bad guys are still after us.”

“That is not a good idea, is it?”

“Nope. But,” he went on, “you’ve got a point. We’re not that far from the village, so there’s a chance someone else might find it.” Another reason for taking the mine had occurred to him: If their pursuers found them again, it would give him an extra weapon—however dangerous—with which to fight them. For obvious reasons, he kept this to himself. “So long as we’re careful, we should be okay. The explosive in these mines can get unstable, but it’s not like nitroglycerine or something—it takes more than just a tap to set it off.”

He bent down again and gently scooped the earth away from the mine’s casing. There was a chance it could have been booby-trapped—a Vietnam-era tactic was to bury a live grenade beneath a Bouncing Betty so that if the mine were moved the hidden bomb would go off—but it didn’t take long to confirm that this hadn’t been done here. A deep breath … then he raised the weapon out of the ground.

“Well, we’re still here,” Chase announced after a moment. Natalia let out a nervous giggle. “Okay, I’ll carry it. You take the gun.” Her expression changed to one of concern, or even disgust. “What?”

“I am a pacifist,” she said, regarding the Kalashnikov on the ground as if it were a venomous snake. “I do not want anything to do with guns.”

“You want to carry the mine instead?” Seeing that she did not appreciate his sarcasm, he softened slightly. “Look, it’s okay—it’s got no magazine, and the safety’s on. Even if you pull the trigger, it won’t fire.”

“It is not about whether it can fire. It is about what it was built to do. To kill people. I do not want anything to do with weapons of war.” Her resolve belonged to a much older and more world-weary person.

Chase’s own view on the subject boiled down to
Some people just deserve to be shot
, but this was something else he opted to keep to himself. “Okay, I’ll take ’em both,” he told her. “I won’t be able to carry you if you have trouble with your foot, though.”

She nodded. “Okay. I did not mean to insult you,” she added, suddenly apologetic. “You are a soldier, you use weapons as part of what you do. But it … it is not for me. I only ever want to help people, not do anything to hurt them. I hope you understand that.”

“Yeah, I do.” He smiled at her; she seemed a little surprised by his ready acceptance. “What? I want to help people too, and it’s not like I go out of my way to hurt anyone. Only an idiot, or a psycho, actually
looks
for a fight. It’s just that sometimes, people do bad stuff and, well … a stern letter isn’t going to stop ’em.”

Natalia regarded him uncertainly. Questions crossed her face, but the one that finally emerged was: “Have you ever killed anyone?”

His reply was simple. “Yes.”

“Were they doing … bad stuff?”

“Yeah.” He stood, still holding the mine. “If you really don’t want to carry the gun, it’s no problem—I’ll take it. But can you put the fuse in my rucksack? It’ll be safe as long as the wire stays in place, but be careful with it anyway.”

She gingerly picked up the fuse and slipped it into one of his pack’s outer pockets. “What happens if the wire comes out?” she asked.

“Maybe nothing; it’s all buggered up with rust and muck. Or it might go off. There’s a gunpowder charge in it, enough to take off some fingers if you’re holding it.”

There was a startled gasp from behind him. When he looked around, he saw that she had retreated by several steps. “You want to walk in front of me?”

“Please.”

He grinned. “If it hasn’t gone off by now, it’s probably not going to unless someone tries to make it happen. And I’m not going to do that, not while I’m carrying the bloody thing!”

The young woman did not seem entirely convinced, but still managed a faint smile. She picked up the AKS as if it were covered in thorns and handed it to him. “Here.”

“Thanks.” He slung it over one shoulder. “Okay, now which way were we going?”

Natalia pointed into the trees. “That way.”

“Great. Let’s get to this village of yours. Oh,” he said with a grin as they set off, “watch what you’re treading on this time, eh?”

Eddie emerged from a tent, rubbing his hands rapidly up and down his neoprene-sleeved arms. “Buggeration and fuckery! It’s a bit nippy.”

“I told you that you don’t need to do this,” said Nina. She gave the tight-fitting dry suit a cheekily approving look. “But you know, you look rather good in that.” Even though her own fitness regimen had started to slide of late, her husband worked out enough to keep himself in solid shape, muscles visible even through the layers of cold-water gear.

A smirk spread across his face. “I’ve been saying
you
look good in tight rubber for years. If you weren’t such a bloody prude, you’d buy that dress with holes in all the right places.”

Nina blushed as she realized they had an audience; Matt and Tova had just rounded the tent. The Swede widened her eyes, while the Australian’s response was little more than a heard-it-all-before shrug. “Ignore him, he’s just joking,” she hurriedly said.

“No, no, it is quite all right,” Tova replied. She smiled at the couple. “It is healthy to discuss your sex life—and keep it interesting.”

“Mm-hmm,” said Nina, blushing even more. Eddie cackled.

“So,
aaaanyway
,” Matt said, keen to change the subject, “we’ve got all the IBUs ready.
Nelson
’s waiting in the hole in the ice—once you and the other divers load up his topside rack with the gear, you can just grab on and he’ll tow you to the dig site.”

“You noticed how everyone says ‘the hole in the ice’ and not ‘the ice hole’?” Eddie remarked, still grinning as he tugged the dry suit’s hood up over his head. He put on his best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice. “Fuck you, ice hooole.”

It got a smile from Matt, at least, but Tova didn’t seem to understand what he had said, and Nina just gave a weary sigh. He snorted. “Well,
I
thought it was funny. So we’re ready?”

“No time like the present,” said Nina. Even though it was only early in the afternoon, at this latitude and time of year they only had a few more hours of daylight. She started for the shoreline, the others following.

“Keep that burning,” Eddie said as they passed a campfire that Mikkel had started. “I know we’ve got heaters in the tents, but sometimes a big roaring pile of wood’s the best thing you can have.”

“Oh, don’t you worry,” Nina told him. “I’m going to spend the rest of the day sitting by it while you work. I may even toast some marshmallows.”

Eddie collected his nitrox tanks and a small toolbox. “Yeah, right,” he scoffed. “I know you better than that. You’ll be looking over Matt’s shoulder and getting annoyed that you can’t micromanage us the whole time.”

“The man knows his wife,” Matt said, laughing.

Nina pouted. “Shut up. Although yeah, he’s totally right,” she admitted to Tova. The older woman grinned.

The group set out across the ice, joining Mikkel and the two IHA divers waiting at the hole. Eddie donned his breathing gear, weights, and flippers, then attached the toolbox to his belt. Nina noticed that neither of the other divers had anything similar. “What’s in that?”

“Just some bits and bobs in case I need ’em,” came the noncommittal reply.

“Like what?”

“Like the kinds of things you normally find in a toolbox. You know,
tools
?”

“Okay, jeez,” she said, a little taken aback by his waspish sarcasm. “I just wondered.”

He didn’t respond, instead pulling down his goggles before giving his mouthpiece one final check. “Okay, I’m set.”

“We are too,” Mathias told him.

Eddie gave him a thumbs-up. “Stand back if you don’t want to get splashed,” he warned before putting the rebreather into his mouth and hopping into the water. His head popped back above the surface a couple of seconds later, his wide-eyed grimace giving those above a clear indication of the temperature.

“You okay?” Nina called to him as the two other divers also dropped into the lake.

He gave her another thumbs-up, which then drooped to a more uncertain angle, but his expression assured her that he was not serious. The three men checked one another’s gear to make sure the watertight seals were secure, then, with the aid of those still on the ice, loaded the buoyancy units onto the submersible. Once everything was secured, Matt headed back to his little shelter on the shore, Tova following him.

Nina stayed to watch her husband go. “See you back here soon,” she said. His hand broke the surface to wave at her. “And don’t get cold—oops, too late.” The hand rotated to give her a two-finger salute. She laughed. “Go on, get going,” she said, waving back. Eddie dipped beneath the surface, the two other men following suit. She watched them disappear into the darkness below, then returned to the shore.