The Valhalla Prophecy (48 page)

“You’re not kidding,” said Hoyt, fingering the bullet impact in the stone.

Lock took a closer look. “Dammit, there are some lines missing,” he muttered. “Logan, had you translated this section?”

“I’m afraid not,” Berkeley replied. “Dr. Skilfinger had read it, though.”

“Had she now?” With a wolf-like smile, Lock faced the Swede. “Dr. Skilfinger, if you would be so kind as to fill in the blanks?”

Tova hesitated, looking to Nina for support before replying. “No. I know what you are looking for, and I will not help you find it.”

Hoyt adopted a sarcastic tone. “Well, hey, guess that’s it. We’d better pack up and go home.”

“But it’d be such a shame to have come all this way for nothing,” said Lock. “All right, Dr. Skilfinger, let me rephrase that. Tell me what the damaged section of the runes said …” He reached into his coat, drawing out a handgun—which he pointed at Nina. “Or I’ll kill Dr. Wilde.”

Eddie lunged at him, only to be hauled roughly back by Hoyt and one of his men. The mercenary leader jammed his gun into the Englishman’s side. “Stay still, or you go before she does.”

Lock gave the scuffle only the briefest glance before returning his attention to Tova. “Well? I’ll give you ten seconds to tell me, or I’ll shoot your friend—and don’t think I won’t do it. Chase here will confirm that for you.”

“If you hurt her, I’ll fucking kill you,” Eddie snarled.

The American ignored him. “Ten seconds, Dr. Skilfinger. Nine.”

Berkeley finally broke through his bewilderment. “Wait—Ivor, what are you doing? You’re not, ha, you’re not
really
going to kill her, are you?”

“I thought you’d be happy about that, Logan,” Lock replied. “Seven. Six. Dr. Skilfinger, tell me
now
.”

“Tova, don’t tell him anything,” said Nina, trying to suppress her rising fear.

Lock thumbed back the pistol’s hammer. “I
will
kill her. Three, two, one—”

“No, wait!” Tova cried, close to panic. “It was part of the route to Helluland! I do not know exactly what those lines said, I did not read all the runes, but they lead to Helluland!”

The gun remained locked on to Nina for a long moment … then was lowered. “Helluland,” Lock repeated. “Where is that?”

“It’s—it’s Baffin Island, in Canada,” Berkeley replied, shocked. “But … Jesus, you really were going to shoot her! Ivor, what the hell?”

Nina’s heart was still racing. “For God’s sake, Logan! Haven’t you figured it out yet? They’re the bad guys!”

Berkeley shook his head in desperate denial. “No, no, they can’t be—they’re working for the US government!”

“No, they’re working for
themselves
. They didn’t come to Valhalla out of any interest in Norse history—they came because they want to use eitr to make a biological weapon. You think they’d have brought along a private army just to make sure you didn’t get scooped in the
International Journal of Archaeology
?”

He gaped like a fish before rounding on Lock. “Okay, okay,” he said, trying to recover some scrap of authority. “Ivor, what’s all this about? Is she telling the truth?”

Lock regarded him with dismissive disdain. “As a matter of fact, yes. Is that going to be a problem for you, Logan?”

It was clearly not the response Berkeley had been expecting. He looked in confusion between his patron and Nina. “Wait, you mean … you’re telling me the lair of the Midgard Serpent is
real
? Eitr actually exists?”

“It does,” said Kagan. “The Soviet Union discovered one of the pits. And for the past fifty years, Unit 201 has been trying to ensure that nobody makes that mistake again.”

“Yes, it’s real,” Lock told the astounded Berkeley. “And now it’s almost in our hands.” He examined the
runes once more. “So this is some sort of route guide, then? I’m sure that with the benefit of modern technology, we can skip a few steps and just work out where it ends. All we need is someone to translate it.”

“Logan, don’t do it,” Nina said. “These people are killers—and they’re trying to get their hands on something they can turn into a WMD. I’ve seen photos of what it does, and I wish I hadn’t. You can’t help them. You mustn’t.” Her voice became more earnest. “I know we’ve never exactly gotten on—to be honest, I’ve always thought you’re kind of an asshole.”

“My wife, the diplomat,” Eddie muttered.

“But,” she went on, “I’ve never believed that you’re actually a bad person underneath it all. And I don’t think they do, either.” She shot Lock and Hoyt a disparaging look. “Otherwise they wouldn’t have kept all this secret from you.”

“The runes, Logan,” said Lock. “Can you translate them or not?”

“Of course I can translate them,” said Berkeley, his old pride briefly resurfacing. “Given time and resources, it won’t be a problem. But the question really is:
Should
I translate them?”

“No, the question is: Why
wouldn’t
you?” said Lock, with a clear undercurrent of threat.

Berkeley picked up on it loud and clear. “Because, well,” he said with some hesitancy, “I didn’t hear any denials when Nina said you were planning to use the eitr to make a weapon of mass destruction.” Lock’s expression darkened, but Berkeley pressed on. “So I’m starting to reach the conclusion that …” He looked at the mercenaries around him, almost as if registering for the first time that they were armed. “That it might not be a good idea for me to do it. No offense,” he hurriedly added.

There was a lengthy silence—then, to everyone’s surprise, Lock shrugged, almost smiling. “That’s your decision, of course, Dr. Berkeley. And I respect it.”

Berkeley blinked. “You do? Oh. Well, good.”

“I don’t agree with it, though. But it doesn’t matter,
because now that we have her”—he indicated Tova—“we don’t need you anymore.”

Hoyt grinned. “About time. Guy’s been a pain in the ass ever since we brought him aboard.”

He gestured to two of his men, and before Berkeley realized what was happening, they had grabbed him by his arms and pulled him away from Lock. “What are you— Hey! Let me go, what the hell are you doing?” the archaeologist protested.

Lock ignored his squawks. “Someone photograph the runes,” he said. One of the mercenaries opened a pack and took out a high-end digital SLR camera, then began to take pictures. “Dr. Skilfinger, you’re going to translate them for us.”

“I will not,” she replied.

“Yes, you will. Because we don’t just have you—we have Dr. Wilde too. If you don’t do what I say, then …” He made a
boom
sound.

“Don’t do it,” Nina told Tova. “We can’t—”

She cried out as Lock backhanded the side of her face. “Shut up,” he growled. “You talk too much—you’re as bad as your husband. Get them back to the trucks, we’re taking them with us.”

Nina pressed a hand against her aching cheek, filled with both fury and outrage at being humiliated. “You
fucker
!”

Only the gun pressed hard into his abdomen stopped the enraged Eddie from hurling himself across the dais at Lock as his men dragged Nina and Tova toward the exit. “Nina, don’t give these shitheads anything!” he shouted. “I’ll come and get you, I promise!”

Hoyt laughed. “Yeah, we all know what a promise from you means, Chase. A bullet in the back of the fuckin’ head, just like you gave Natalia!”

Even as she struggled, the words caught Nina’s attention—as did Eddie’s suddenly mask-like expression. Hoyt saw her shocked reaction. “Whoa, wait!” he called to the men hauling her. “She stays for a minute.” They stopped, holding Nina as their comrades took Tova from the chamber.

“What are you doing?” Lock asked.

A malevolent smile oozed across Hoyt’s bony visage. “I think Chase has been keeping secrets from his old lady.” Keeping the gun aimed at Eddie, he released him and stepped back. “So, you never told her about your little adventure in ’Nam?”

“I know about Vietnam,” Nina said defiantly. “You were trying to use a German girl to get your hands on the formula for eitr. Eddie protected her.”

Now it was Lock’s turn to laugh. “That’s one hell of a definition of
protection
. I think you’re right, Hoyt—she doesn’t know.”

“Know what?” she demanded.

“Don’t you get it?” said Hoyt. “He
killed
her! He fucking
executed
her and burned her body, to stop us from getting samples of her DNA. That’s what a promise from him gets you! Just can’t protect your women, can you, Chase?”

The men holding her eased their grips, but Nina was too stunned to try to break free. “Eddie? What are they talking about? Did you …” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

His mask was still in place, but it couldn’t hide the dismay and conflict behind it. “What’s the matter, Chase?” said Hoyt gloatingly. “Oh,
now
all of a sudden you don’t have any smart-ass comments? Ain’t that a thing.”

Nina shook her head. “No. I don’t believe it.”

“It … it is true,” said Kagan, with a heavy sigh. “I saw her body with my own eyes. I am sorry.”

She looked back at her husband. “Eddie?” she asked, voice almost plaintive.

“I did what she wanted me to do,” he said, struggling to meet her gaze.

The silence that followed was broken by the man with the camera. “Okay, I’ve got them.”

Lock nodded. “We’re done here, then.”

“What about them?” Hoyt asked, with a flick of his gun at Eddie, Kagan, and Berkeley.

Lock shone his flashlight at the ceiling. The beam
glinted off the golden shields, but he was more interested in the wooden rafters, tracing the lines of the supports down to floor level. “This all looks very flammable, don’t you think, Hoyt?”

Hoyt grinned evilly. “Yeah, a real fire hazard.” Pistol still pointed at Eddie, he took out his cigarette lighter and descended to the great hall’s floor. He crouched by a table, scraping some of the loose straw into a pile and setting it aflame. “Guys? Light ’em if you got ’em!” Some of the other mercenaries spread out across the chamber to start fires of their own.

Nina watched in horror. “What are you doing?”

“Consider it a Viking funeral,” Hoyt replied. He watched as his fire grew, taking hold of the ancient, bone-dry wood of the table. “Burn, baby, burn.” More flames rose around the chamber as furniture and beams caught light.

“But—but you can’t just burn it down!” Berkeley protested. “This is Valhalla, one of the greatest discoveries—”

Lock cut him off. “I don’t know how many people at the IHA or in Russia know about this place, but if Dr. Wilde found it, somebody else could too. I don’t want to risk anyone else discovering the runestones before we reach the eitr pit.”

Hoyt turned to Berkeley. “Besides, thought an archaeologist’d love the chance to be a part of history. You’re gonna—”

Eddie lashed out with his elbow at the man holding him, knocking him back. He lunged at Lock, but the mercenary recovered and clubbed him down with his rifle. “Eddie!” Nina cried as he fell.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” he groaned. He pushed himself up on to his knees … and surreptitiously grabbed the Wildey’s ejected bullet, tossing it away with a flick of the wrist. It clinked off the stone floor to land in one of the spreading fires.

Lock was shaken by the attempted attack, but quickly covered it. “That was stupid, Chase. What were you
hoping to achieve? You really think you can punch your way out of here?”

“Worth a try,” Eddie replied, preparing himself. When the heat of the fire caused the round to cook off and explode, he had to be ready to take his only chance.

When
it cooked off. Any moment now …

Nothing happened. He glanced at the fire. The glinting brass case was visible amid the flames, but the blaze wasn’t hot enough to ignite it.

The other fires were rising higher, though. Smoke billowed up into the vaulted ceiling. Hoyt suppressed a cough. “Think we need to get moving, boss.”

“I think so too,” Lock replied. Covering Eddie with his gun, he backed down the steps of the dais. The soldiers of fortune followed his example. “Get Dr. Wilde out of here.”

Nina’s captors hauled her toward the doors. “You bastards!” she yelled.

“What about these assholes?” asked Hoyt, indicating Eddie, Kagan, and Berkeley.

“Shoot them,” Lock decided. Berkeley moaned in fear.

“No!” cried Nina as the mercs raised their guns—but then she was dragged out of the great hall, her shouts lost beneath the growing crackle of the fires.

Eddie helplessly watched her go, then looked back at the cartridge. It was now barely visible within the fire, but still hadn’t exploded—and might never do so. “If we leave them alive in here,” Lock continued, “they might find a way out if part of the roof collapses.”

“I ain’t complainin’,” said Hoyt. He raised his gun. “Okay, Chase! I spent three years in a Vietnamese jail ’cause of you. But now, it’s finally payback time.”

Eddie tensed—

Crack!

The cartridge detonated, kicking up a shower of sparks and burning straw—and the mercenary nearest to Eddie screamed as the .45-caliber bullet tore into the back of his calf.

Everyone whirled to face the unexpected threat—

Eddie sprang up like a runner off the starting blocks and charged across the dais. The mercenaries’ weapons whipped back around to track him, but he had already hurled himself off the platform and dived behind one of the overturned tables.

Hoyt opened fire, his men following suit. Bullets ripped into the thick wood. Eddie shielded his face as splinters stabbed at him—but the 5.7mm rounds from the mercenaries’ P90s struggled to penetrate the dense oak planks. “Go around it, get him!” Lock yelled.

Kagan grabbed Berkeley and hauled him into cover behind a throne as one of Hoyt’s men ran to the table. Eddie searched for anything he could use as a weapon—

He found plenty.

The merc reached the table, ready to shoot the figure hunched behind it—only to find that his quarry was ready for
him
.

A rusty ax hacked deep into his shin, breaking bone. The man screeched in agony, gun forgotten as his injured leg gave way and he collapsed to his knees. Eddie yanked the ax back—and struck again, slashing the ancient weapon across his throat. A jet of blood sprayed across the stone floor as the merc toppled, the wound gaping like a second mouth beneath his chin.