Valhalla

by Robert J. Mrazek

  “These first lines are his impressions of Vinland,” said Lexy.

  “Agreed,” said Barnaby as they both continued typing their translations.

  The wild beasts feared us were the first words to make it to the third screen.

  “Why would he have written that?” asked Macaulay.

  “It means that the animals in Vinland had already been hunted and were afraid of man,” said Barnaby, “which means that other hunters had already been there. In Greenland, wild animals were unafraid when the Norsemen first arrived. Until recently, that same phenomenon was true in the Galápagos.”

  Every few minutes, Lexy or Barnaby would get up from the computer console to go over to his library to consult one of the vellum manuscripts on the big walnut refectory table.

  “He begins the saga of the voyage home on the third line,” said Barnaby after about half an hour.

  We have come through the tempest and survived, wrote Barnaby on his screen.

  “Not quite,” said Lexy. “Tempest is from Vulgar Latin tempesta, an alteration of the Latin tempestas, season. It’s thirteenth century.”

  We have come through the storm and survived, wrote Lexy on her screen.

  “Agreed,” said Barnaby.

  Seas like mountains . . . hull damaged, next made it to the final screen, followed by landed small island.

  Klief, wrote Lexy at that point.

  “Old Norse,” agreed Barnaby. “A rugged shoreline with cliffs.”

  Macaulay was watching both screens when he felt the floor beneath his feet begin to tremble, and a thunderous noise penetrated the thick fortresslike outer walls of the building.

  “A helicopter,” said Macaulay, “flying very low along the wharf.”

  “What time is it?” asked Barnaby.

  Macaulay gave him the time.

  “Could be anything from our erstwhile mayor giving a tour to prospective Chinese hotel developers to a TV news helicopter,” said Barnaby.

  “It could also be our friends,” said Macaulay as the clamorous din ebbed away.

  We battled a strange being of great force and strength, Lexy wrote on her screen.

  “I would almost say that strange translates to alien being,” she added.

  “Perhaps,” came back Barnaby.

  “It’s definitely something that none of them had ever seen before,” said Lexy.

  “An extraterrestrial?” suggested Macaulay.

  Barnaby gave him a look of derision.

  “A being different in its fundamental nature of immense force and strength,” he said. “Perhaps a large wild quadruped.”

  Leifr lies in the hallowed place with his vanquished, wrote Lexy next.

  “A grizzly bear?” offered Macaulay.

  “Why don’t you make yourself useful in the kitchen?” said Barnaby. “There is a large stoneware tureen of coq au vin I’ve already prepared in the kitchen. And decant two of the bottles of Banfi Centine you’ll find in the wine closet.”

  “By your command, my liege,” said Macaulay with an exaggerated bow before heading toward the kitchen.

  “You told me he’s a retired general,” said Barnaby in his clipped English accent. “Now I see why.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  1 December

  RV Leitstern

  North Atlantic Ocean

  Nova Scotia

  Hjalmar Jensen turned away from the two young women in white lab coats when the compartment door of the computer lab slid open behind them. He inwardly shuddered when he saw who it was.

  “It is a great pleasure to see you again, Professor Jensen,” said von Falkenberg as he entered on Steiger’s arm.

  Jensen felt the same stab of unreasoned apprehension he always did when in his presence, as if death were coming to visit. He was startled to see the physical change in him since their last meeting only a few months before in Stockholm. The prince’s shoulders were now as scrawny as turkey wings. There was still great force in his eyes, however, and they were focused on Jensen.

  “Your recent discovery in Greenland was the greatest gift I have received since the birth of my first daughter in 1927,” said von Falkenberg.

  Jensen tried to smile. “It was a great gift to me too, Your Grace.”

  He remembered someone once telling him what the Russians had done to von Falkenberg’s wife and three daughters at the end of the Second World War.

  “Have you deciphered the rune stone yet?” asked the prince, joining them in front of the computer screens.

  One of the large screens displayed the complete text of the stonecutter’s saga, and another the passages that had been translated.

  “We are making good progress,” replied Jensen, “although some parts remain elusive, as you can well imagine after a thousand years.”

  “Which parts?” asked von Falkenberg.

  Jensen deferred to the two young women.

  “Let me introduce Dr. Krusa and Fraulein Johannson,” said Jensen. “Both are experts in the field of runology.”

  Dr. Krusa briefly bowed her head.

  “The first inscriptions in the saga were relatively simple,” she said nervously as the prince trained his hooded blue eyes on her. “They recount that the expedition was returning from Vinland to Greenland, when a sudden storm carried them off course to a small rocky island. While their ship was being repaired, the men were attacked by something strange and very powerful. In the ensuing battle, Leifr Eriksson was mortally wounded and buried there with his vanquished enemy. Then the rest of the men departed for Greenland. There, an even greater storm carried them to their final resting place in the cave where they were found.”

  “And the rest of the inscriptions?”

  “They provide the signposts for a future expedition to find the exact location of Eriksson’s burial tomb,” said Fraulein Johannson, “but those signposts existed a thousand years ago, so it will be very difficult to pinpoint them. We are now in the process of downloading topographical maps of the islands along the northeast coast of America to help in the search. Unfortunately, there are thousands of them.”

  It lies under shadow from the dawn, read the prince silently on one of the screens.

  “You say he fought something strange and powerful?” he asked.

  “Yes,” added Fraulein Johannson, “an alien form of life, at least as they saw it at the time.”

  “The term alien being could well be the correct interpretation,” agreed Dr. Krusa. “Possibly something from another world.”

  The prince laughed out loud, a tinny emanation that died a few seconds later. He motioned to Jensen to follow him a short distance across the room, out of earshot of the two women.

  “I have lived ninety-five years on this earth, Herr Jensen, and have traveled to every continent in the world,” he said with an attempt at a smile. “The only alien beings I have ever encountered were Zhukov’s Siberians outside Moscow in December 1941. Otherwise I don’t believe in aliens.”

  His voice was as cold as the Russian winter.

  “You must do better,” he went on gravely. “I have put great faith in you as someone who can help us to restore the Ancient Way to its exalted glory, to bring about the new dawn of our common heritage. With this discovery, you now carry a great weight on your shoulders. In Leifr’s DNA lies the true God particle.”

  “I understand, Your Grace,” said Jensen.

  “I only hope my confidence is not misplaced,” said the prince.

  Jensen noted the subtle change in his eyes as the prince implied that his services might no longer be needed at some point.

  “I am also aware that others may share the same knowledge we do,” said von Falkenberg. “We cannot allow someone else to get there first.”

  “As you know, runology is not my field of specialization,” said the Norwegian haltingly. “D
r. Krusa and Fraulein Johannson have been very helpful, but . . .”

  He paused as if unsure whether to continue.

  “Say it,” demanded von Falkenberg.

  “I must say that we might enjoy quicker success if Dr. Finchem or Dr. Vaughan could be convinced to work with us,” said Jensen. “They are the best in the world in this field.”

  “Our friends are searching for them now to bring them to you,” said the prince. “In the meantime, you will have to do your best. Time is not on our side.”

  He suddenly pitched over as if his stomach had cramped. Steiger moved to steady him.

  “I will do my best, Your Grace,” said Jensen, watching the old man’s face turn ashen white.

  THIRTY-NINE

  1 December

  The Long Wharf

  Boston, Massachusetts

  Barnaby pushed his massive bulk back from the kitchen table.

  “You heated that coq au vin very well, General,” he said, heading over to his cigar humidor. “I think I can trust you with washing the dishes.”

  “I’ll try to prove worthy, my lord,” said Macaulay.

  Barnaby’s lair had proved to be a temporary sanctuary, but Macaulay knew it was only a matter of time before they were traced. Hundreds of people with sophisticated surveillance and intelligence-gathering equipment were searching for them by now, and they would soon find the lead they needed.

  “We now know that Eriksson and his men fought something strange and powerful on the small island,” said Lexy, “and that Eriksson was buried there in an underground tomb.”

  “Where is ‘there’?” asked Macaulay.

  “That’s the heart of it. We have to make sense of those ancient clues in a modern context,” Lexy said. “But we’ll do it.”

  “That’s why Langdon had orders not to kill you,” said Macaulay. “They want your help in deciphering the tablet.”

  “Which also explains why they came for Barnaby before they could have known we were even there,” she said. “If we can find the answers before they do, we have a chance to stop them.”

  “What now?” asked Macaulay.

  “There are ten thousand islands from Massachusetts to Maine,” said Barnaby. “In order to narrow the hunt, we must first divine the starting point of their return voyage from Vinland. The stonecutter wrote that they sailed for a full day and part of one night before encountering the storm. That suggests they were at sea for at least eighteen hours before the storm drove them onto the island. Knowing where they started from would greatly narrow the possibilities.”

  “In Greenland, Sir Dorian made the case to Mr. Hancock that Vinland was somewhere along the Massachusetts coast,” said Lexy. “I don’t think he was convinced.”

  “I’m not either,” said Macaulay. “So grapes grew there in abundance and cattle were able to find food all winter long because the grass didn’t die. That could be anyplace in the northeast. Why not New Hampshire or Maine as the starting point?”

  “The oldest surviving record of Vinland’s location can be found in the Descriptio insularum Aquilonis, which was written by Adam of Bremen seventy-five years after Eriksson discovered it,” said Barnaby, “but his descriptions obviously haven’t convinced you.”

  “Or most other archaeologists, from what I gather,” said Macaulay. “There’s a lot riding on these questions, not the least being our lives.”

  “The most convincing evidence of Vinland’s location is totally scientific,” said Barnaby. “I was planning to deliver a paper on my findings next month to the British Archaeological Society.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Sol hafdi par dagmalastad ok eyktarstad um skamdegi,” he said.

  Macaulay looked back at him blankly.

  “Those are the exact words from the saga of Eriksson’s first voyage to Vinland and they roughly translate into this: On the shortest day in the winter, the sun was already up when they ate their dagmalastad, or breakfast meal, and the sun hadn’t yet set when they were eating their eyktarstad, or supper.”

  “How the hell do you know when the goddamn Vikings ate their supper a thousand years ago?” said an exasperated Macaulay. “Maybe the old ones ate the early-bird special at five o’clock sharp.”

  “Not very amusing, but it’s a fair question,” said Barnaby. “The Norsemen had no clocks, so they constructed cairns of stone that could accurately reflect the times of the day. There were specific markers for the dagmalastad and the eyktarstad. In the earliest Icelandic ecclesiastical code, it was eykt when utsudrs-ett was divided into three and the sun had passed through two divisions and still had one to go.”

  “We all knew that,” said Macaulay with sarcasm.

  “There is a point to this,” said Barnaby, “and it’s worth trying to explain it to you.”

  Lexy attempted to ease Macaulay’s confusion.

  “The Norsemen divided the horizon into eight parts, each having an arc of forty-five degrees,” she went on. “Utsudr-ett was the octant of the horizon that has southwest in the middle, the arc being between south twenty-two and a half degrees west to sixty-seven and a half degrees west. Eyktarstad is at the azimuth when the sun has passed through two-thirds of this octant and has one to go. Now do you understand?”

  “Just like the Rosetta stone,” he said, shaking his head.

  Lexy held up one of the vellum manuscripts from the library.

  “The astronomer Geelmuyden calculated that in the first part of the eleventh century, the latitude where the sun would set at eyketarstad on the shortest day of the year would be forty-nine degrees fifty-five minutes.”

  “Maybe it’s beginning to make sense,” said Macaulay.

  “In the first saga, Eriksson wrote that the sun had not set at eyktarstad, but rather was still shining,” said Barnaby, taking over again, “which means that the actual setting of the sun took place several degrees beyond his eyktarstad. Assuming a five-degree difference in the azimuth, a very conservative estimate, the latitude at which the sun set in Vinland in 1005 would be about forty-two degrees. Do you know what lies along the forty-second parallel?”

  “Japan,” said Macaulay. “I was stationed there for two years.”

  “Very good, General. In that hemisphere it would be the island of Hokkaido. What about this hemisphere?”

  “Massachusetts?” said Macaulay.

  “Excellent. Cape Cod, to be specific,” said Barnaby.

  “Okay, I give up,” said Macaulay. “Leif and his boys sailed from Cape Cod. I can see them now.”

  “We now have to dissect the rest of the clues,” said Barnaby.

  “I’ll focus on something equally important like doing the dishes,” said Macaulay.

  “Each to our own talents,” said Barnaby.

  Ten minutes later, Macaulay could hear them working again.

  “Hvalr, I believe,” said Lexy.

  “I agree,” said Barnaby. “I make it beneath the hump. . . . No . . . under the tail,” said Barnaby.

  “Could he have died fighting a whale?” asked Lexy.

  “The Norsemen saw plenty of whales at sea,” said Barnaby. “They would not have seen one as a strange being. Let’s try the next passage.”

  Five by five squared, wrote Lexy on her screen.

  “Would they have been familiar with the square root formula?” Barnaby asked.

  Lexy nodded.

  “The knowledge is at least as old as the Sulba Sutras in ancient India,” she said. “The Egyptians were extracting square roots four thousand years ago.”

  Macaulay put the clean dishes on the drain board and dried his hands. Checking the time on his wristwatch, he went to the walk-in closet under the Viking sleeping loft and pulled out a hooded snorkel coat. Macaulay couldn’t wait much longer or the streets would empty out, and he wanted to mix in with a crowd.

  T
he safest option for the call to Tommy Somervell was to steal a cell phone on the street, but there was always the risk of being caught or even photographed by a bystander with another cell phone. With Christmas coming, a shopping mall would give him the most cover. He decided to look for a pay phone some distance from the lair.

  He debated whether to tell them he was leaving and decided it would only lead to serious anxiety on Lexy’s part. She had enough to focus on with the rune tablet. Picking up Barnaby’s keys, he silently slipped out through the steel entrance door.

  FORTY

  1 December

  Benjamin Franklin Mall

  Boston, Massachusetts

  Macaulay quickly scanned the brightly lit interior promenade. The mall was decorated for Christmas and packed with shoppers, mostly women and children, surging along in both directions, packages and shopping bags in hand. The mall’s sound system pounded out a rap version of “Jingle Bell Rock.”

  He had walked more than forty blocks from the Long Wharf, and no one had given him a second look. Aside from a street person begging for a handout while he was changing a ten-dollar bill into quarters at a self-service car wash, Macaulay had spoken to no one. With the fur-lined hood of the snorkel coat covering most of his face, there was no way a surveillance camera could identify him.

  Once inside the mall, he had joined the heaving mass until he came to a small bank of pay phones opposite a North Face outlet. After punching in Tommy Somervell’s cell phone number, he inserted the money demanded by the recorded voice.

  Somervell was at his desk in his small office in the CIA library annex in Langley, reading the latest intelligence summary and waiting for the call. Putting down his mug of coffee, he answered on the second ring.

  “It’s me,” said Macaulay.

  “You have certainly poked your stick into the wasp’s nest, dear boy.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “They have invoked the Patriot Act on you,” said Somervell. “Along with Dr. Vaughan and Professor Finchem, you’re being sought as part of an international terrorism investigation. They’ve gone all in . . . FBI, Homeland Security, local law enforcement, even private contract operatives. And that doesn’t include the other side.”