Valhalla (24 page)

5 December
RV
Leitstern
North Atlantic Ocean
Off Maine

The darkness was absolute. The unfathomable blackness of the tomb.

He couldn't be dead. His throbbing headache was real and so was the cold air that enveloped him; so was the constant rocking motion that was making him nauseated.

He was lying on his back. He tried to move his hands and legs, but they seemed anchored in position. When he attempted to raise his head, it slammed into a hard surface less than a foot above him. Had they buried him alive?

He swore aloud, but the tinny reverberation of his voice suggested he was encased in steel. One moment he was sweating and the next he was shivering. He tried to remember everything that had happened.

He had been in the ornate living room of the mansion with the old German, and had then been taken to another room and given an injection. Then he had dropped into oblivion.

How long had he been unconscious? he wondered. He had lost all sense of time. The drug they had given him could have wiped out minutes, hours, even weeks. He remembered the German talking about a truth serum.

He knew the so-called truth drugs, scopolamine, amobarbital sodium, and sodium pentothal. They had been around for ages. Maybe these bastards had improved on the cocktail. Had the serum worked? Did they own his mind? Had he already betrayed the information about the two remaining islands? The German had said the drug might erase his memory.

He tried to remember a few incidents from his childhood. They all seemed to be there. He decided to run through the catalogue of women he had slept with in his life, starting with the Nepalese girl in the tiny sleeping crib above Katmandu. They all were there, including the first wife he had vowed to forget.

The drug they had given felt more like a powerful sedative, something that had temporarily cauterized his brain. He drifted in and out of sleep, coming awake again to the changing pitch of the engines.

He attempted to decipher the rocking sensation. It was a forward-and-back motion, compounded by a sickening roll from side to side. So he was aboard a boat, maybe a ship. The dull heaviness of the engine noise suggested a ship.

Whatever it was, it was tossing wildly enough for him to be seasick. He fought to control it and gradually succeeded. He found he was very thirsty and wondered if and when someone would come to check on him.

Why was he still alive? There had to be a reason. If he had given them all they had wanted, he would be dead. He was alive because they still needed him.

He heard the sound of metal on metal, and a bright piercing light filled the space, forcing him to shut his eyes for a few moments. He opened them to see a man standing above him in a white lab coat.

Barnaby was on his back in a small cabin with a steel bulkhead. Broad canvas belts had been strapped across his chest, midsection, thighs, and feet. The man slid the door to the berth shut behind him.

“I am Dr. Per Larsen,” he said.

For a doctor, he projected ill health, with prematurely gray hair and wrinkled pouches under his eyes. His left hand was trembling.

“You do not know me, Dr. Finchem, but your books on my Nordic ancestors were an inspiration to me as a boy,” he said. “I wanted very much to meet you.”

Barnaby's throat was too dry to respond.

“Water,” he croaked.

Larsen went to a small steel basin mounted on the interior wall and ran cold water into a plastic cup. Gently lifting Barnaby's head, he patiently helped him to swallow it all.

“I regret that I have no authority to release you,” he said. “I can only pray that you enjoy good fortune in the days ahead.”

“Where am I?”

“Aboard the research vessel
Leitstern,
” said Larsen. “You should know that the prince was able to locate the island that may hold the tomb of Leifr Eriksson without your assistance.”

“Then why am I still alive?” asked Barnaby.

“The prince believes you could still be helpful to him after they penetrate the tomb in the event they meet unanticipated challenges,” said Larsen. “At least that is what I told him.”

“Thank you.”

“It is of little consequence compared to the magnitude of what I have done,” said Larsen.

Tears began silently coursing down his cheeks.

“The
Leitstern
is the command center for Operation Tjikko, which is scheduled to be launched twelve hours from now.”

“The Tjikko tree in Sweden?”

“Yes. The operation is named for the oldest tree in the world,” said Larsen. “In case something happens to me, I wish to tell you what is about to happen across the world.”

6 December
Boothbay Harbor
Maine

“The wind is coming from the southeast and we should have a good following sea heading out there,” said Chris as his boat cleared the harbor. “The full force of the nor'easter won't hit Monhegan until tomorrow morning when the wind swings around to the north.”

As soon as they were out of the sheltered lee of the harbor, Macaulay was sure the Finn had gotten the forecast wrong. They were pitching about so wildly, it was hard to believe it could get any worse.

Along with the mammoth waves that crashed over the bow every fifteen seconds, the wind was coming in fierce, slashing gusts, driving the snow sideways and penetrating the canvas curtain behind the small wheelhouse. Macaulay was grateful for the foul-weather gear that Chris had given him before they left.

He hadn't been impressed with the boat when they first boarded it in Boothbay. The name
Different Drummer
had been freshly painted on its stern. That was the only evidence of new paint on the whole boat.

It was a steel fishing trawler that had obviously seen hard use. The window fittings were grimy and corroded. One of the plate glass windshields was cracked, its riveted hull was streaked with rust, and there were numerous scrapes and divots in the wooden trim of the superstructure.

“I just bought her,” Chris growled, after noting Macaulay's dour expression. “By next spring she'll be a honey.”

When he started the engine, Macaulay felt a bit reassured. It sounded smooth and powerful. He decided to remain with Chris in the wheelhouse while Lexy went below to the forward cabin.

The cabin, which reeked of fish and motor oil, was a dismaying jumble of half-open drawers stuffed with gear, five-gallon buckets filled with engine parts and tools, blankets, life jackets, buoys, and rope. She found a place next to the small heating unit mounted on the bulkhead, and pulled a blanket around her.

Once they were out into open sea, the savage roar of the waves crashing above her head almost drowned out the low steady snarl of the engine, but she felt no hint of seasickness. After everything she and Macaulay had already endured, it seemed almost trivial.

She remembered being on a bucking horse as a teenager and the subsequent wild ride across rough, hilly terrain. This was no different, really. It only added to her excitement at the potential discovery awaiting her.

Her mind was drawn back to Barnaby. Where was he on this night of all nights? She prayed that he was safe and unharmed and could somehow be there with them when they entered the tomb.

After a thousand years, she wondered, would the discovery change the course of archaeological history? She pulled out the notes she had written while the two of them were deciphering the rune inscription back at the Long Wharf.

Five by five squared.

She tried to visualize it, just as Barnaby had taught her. She imagined the Norsemen sealing the entrance to the cavern with a thick slab of rock cut roughly to five feet square. What would that slab look like after a thousand years? How would she be able to identify it from the surrounding rock formations? What if it lay under standing water or under a bed of scrub growth?

It lies under shadow from the dawn.

With a nor'easter coming, it was unlikely there would be any definitively visible sunrise over Monhegan in a few hours. Would there even be a hint of shadowy light? Perhaps there would be something helpful in Ray Phillips's papers at the museum on Lighthouse Hill that Chris had mentioned. That would be her first destination. Her mind turned to Barnaby again before she fell into a restless sleep.

Macaulay stared ahead through the cracked windshield into the stormy night.

“Are you and the lady going steady?” Chris asked almost harshly.

Macaulay hadn't heard that expression since he was in high school and smiled at the recollection. Chris took it as an insult, concluding that Macaulay was laughing at him.

“I could knock that goddamn smile right off your face,” he said.

“Listen, I know you probably eat crowbars for lunch,” said Macaulay, “and you would prefer to have the lady all to yourself, but yes, we're going steady and yes, we sleep together. Is that a problem for you?”

Chris thought about it for a while as he gazed forward into the darkness, puffing on his pipe.

“No,” he said finally, his feelings seemingly assuaged. “I never poach another man's woman.”

“Let's drink to the fine ones,” said Macaulay, uncapping the bottle of Laphroaig he had stolen along with the motorbike and handing it to him. Chris knocked back a long swallow. Macaulay did the same.

“This stuff is good,” he said. “Thanks.”

When Macaulay went below, he was amazed to find Lexy asleep in the pounding din. He spent five minutes rummaging through the five-gallon buckets until he found a can of charcoal lighter fluid and some clean rags. Pulling out the automatic pistol, he removed the silencer and the magazine and gave the gun a thorough cleaning.

Lexy came awake to a careening wave that almost hurled her from the bunk.

“It was probably a night like this that Eriksson and his men were driven ashore,” said Macaulay.

“Chris would tell you this is nothing,” she said, returning his smile. “We're going to need to trust him.”

“Why?” asked Macaulay.

“I've been thinking it through,” she said. “If we find the stone slab, we won't be able to raise it by ourselves. I know he seems quirky in some ways, but he looks very strong and able. We have no other choice at this point.”

One of the locker doors suddenly banged open and Macaulay's eyes were drawn to a slim object standing about two feet high behind a gaff hook. To Lexy, it looked like a toy weapon.

“What's that?” she asked as he extended its metal collapsible stock.

“It's a Sten gun,” said Macaulay, “a British-made 9 mm submachine gun. . . . Second World War vintage . . . simple design, very reliable, and very illegal these days.”

“Do you think it still works?”

Macaulay pulled three fully loaded magazines out of the locker.

“I would imagine so,” he said. “It looks like it's in perfect condition.”

He left the machine gun on the bunk as they went topside together. On deck, Lexy saw that a two-inch white blanket of newly fallen snow covered the stern and wheelhouse.

“As if the storm weren't enough,” said Lexy, “we won't be able to see anything if this keeps up.”

A moment later, she heard the dull clang of a weather buoy.

“That's Manana, almost dead ahead,” called out Chris as the boat skewed crazily again. “That flashing white light you see every fifteen seconds is from the Monhegan lighthouse just beyond it.”

The turbulence of the waves abated as they drew closer to the first dark land mass.

“Do you know how to use that Sten gun down in the cabin?” asked Macaulay.

Chris turned to him, his eyes suspicious at first, and then nodded.

“My grandfather carried it when he fought with the Finnish resistance,” he said. “He taught me how to use it during the Monhegan lobster wars, but I've only used it on tomato juice cans.”

“We might need it against some tomato juice cans that shoot back,” said Macaulay.

“Chris, I want you to know how we got here,” began Lexy, telling him that they were on the run from an organization that had murdered dozens of innocent people in their quest to learn a vital secret that was apparently part of a shadowy plan to achieve world domination, and that somehow part of this secret could be buried in an underground cavern on Manana Island.

Even as she spoke, she realized the whole thing sounded totally ludicrous. Only a fool would believe her. Chris kept staring forward, smoking his pipe, as she told him that she hoped to find the clues to its exact location in Ray Phillips's papers at the museum. When she was finished, he didn't even ask what the secret was. He turned his head to look at her, his weathered blue eyes already infused with excitement.

“I was expecting something like this,” he said, as if he had known about the Ancient Way all along. “Just tell me we're on the right side.”

“We're on the right side,” said Macaulay, “and a lot is at stake—maybe the world as we know it.”

“I think a large stone slab covers the entrance to the cavern,” said Lexy. “It's probably rectangular in shape and about five feet square. We're going to need your help removing it.”

Chris smiled again.

“I've moved ten tons of stone a day building rock walls on Monhegan,” said Chris. “With my iron bars and the right fulcrum, I can lever up just about anything.”

“You should know that the people we're talking about won't hesitate to kill us,” said Macaulay.

“The lady already said it was dangerous,” said Chris as the dark mass of Manana Island emerged out of the darkness ahead of them.

“Monhegan is just past the southern edge,” said Chris. “I'm going to put you ashore there at the wharf,” said Chris. “While you're up at the museum, I'll batten down my boat. We can meet back at my fish house on the beach.”

The landscape of Manana somehow looked sinister to Lexy as it rose starkly out of the surging black sea, denuded of trees and very primeval.

“Old Ray's little shacks were right up there,” said Chris, pointing to a cluster of rubble and debris on its nearest slope. “Most of them burned down about twenty years ago.”

He was turning into the small harbor beyond Manana when they entered what appeared to be a dense gray cloud lying low against the water. Standing on the open deck, Lexy felt as if a thicket of nettles were stinging her face as they passed through the foglike mist. The air inside the cloud was bitterly cold.

“Sea smoke,” said Chris. “It forms over the sea when really cold air connects with warmer water.”

The icy presence swirling around her felt mysterious and timeless, as ancient as the thousand-year-old mystery she hoped to solve.

It felt like coming home.