Valhalla

by Robert J. Mrazek

  Macaulay helped Lexy to her feet. She was trembling all over.

  “Were you bitten?” he asked.

  She shook her head and picked up her lantern. Even with three lanterns, the cavern was too large to illuminate completely, but what she could see of its expanse confirmed that the stonecutter on the Greenland ice cap had told no lie.

  Along the nearest wall was an intricately carved, hand-tooled chest, similar to the one she had seen in the Viking ship. The top had fallen in. Whatever its contents had once been, they had long since disappeared into dust. Another wooden chest, as large as a sarcophagus and studded with metal rivets, rested in the center of the catacomb.

  “Do you suppose . . . ?” began Macaulay as Chris walked over to it, leaving a clear set of footprints in the carpet of bat guano that covered the cavern floor.

  She was about to tell him not to touch it, when he gently placed his hand on the pewter-edged lid. A second later, the entire front section disintegrated into tiny shards of wood and dust, bringing the top section down with it.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Chris.

  They directed their lantern beams inside the massive chest.

  The first thing Lexy saw was an ornately decorated hilt of a Viking broadsword. Alongside it was an iron helmet. Lexy saw it was an early Spangenhelm pattern and equipped with a spectacle guard. The chest also held two battle-axes, both inlaid with an intricate silver design. A circular shield rested along the back wall along with an iron-mail chest protector. Two bone-handled daggers and several spear points lay at the base of it, the wooden shafts having fallen to pieces centuries ago.

  “An ancient armory?” asked Chris.

  “There would be no point in putting one down here,” said Lexy. “These are the weapons and battle armor of a Viking leader. The axes are inlaid with silver. The sword hilt is unlike anything I have ever seen. This level of craftsmanship was an emblem of great prestige.”

  The thought that it might have been Eriksson’s was left unsaid.

  Lexy poked the lantern beam into every corner of the cavern. She found nothing else of possible interest except a mound of what looked like irregular-sized chunks of black stone. They had originally been contained in a basket or a vessel of some kind, but it too had long since rotted away.

  Beside it was something coated in feces, and she stooped to examine it more closely. It looked like two large strips of either animal hide or tanned leather. Metal hinges were attached to each strip. Connected to the hinges was a fragment of worm-eaten wood.

  Her rising sense of excitement was almost palpable.

  Chris was standing at the entrance to the catacomb.

  “Did you hear that?” he said, leaning farther out into the passageway. “It sounds like an engine.”

  “Helicopter?” asked Macaulay.

  Chris shook his head.

  “No . . . a boat, I think.”

  “In the middle of a nor’easter?” asked Macaulay.

  The two of them stared at each other.

  “Chris and I will check it out,” said Macaulay.

  Chris picked up the satchel holding the Sten gun and headed up the passageway. Macaulay went over to the armaments chest and pulled out one of the three daggers. It had scrollwork engraved on the foot-long blade.

  “It’s called a seax,” said Lexy, as if the knowledge might help him in battle.

  He moved toward the passageway to follow Chris.

  “Steve,” she said.

  He stopped and she rushed into his arms.

  “Come back to me,” she whispered.

  “I’m bulletproof,” he said.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  6 December

  Manana Island

  Maine

  Chris felt the full force of the wind on his face as he came out of the tunnel and glanced across the harbor toward Monhegan. Licking the salt spray from his lips, he saw that all the boats in the island’s fishing fleet were snug at their moorings. Nothing was moving in the harbor, but he could still hear the faint sound of a boat engine.

  It could only be coming from the far side of Manana.

  He unzipped the watertight bag and inserted a full magazine into his Sten gun. Pulling back the cocking bolt, he fed the first round into the chamber. Macaulay emerged from under the stone slab and removed the Glock semiautomatic from under his belt. He checked the magazine.

  “I’ve only got five rounds left,” he said. “Let’s hope it’s Santa Claus over there.”

  Together they headed up the slope toward the crown of the ridge. The leaden sky hung low above them as they crawled the last few feet on their bellies. Macaulay carefully parted the thick yew vines at the crest and looked over to the other side.

  Standing offshore was a crash rescue boat. Macaulay had seen several of them during the air war in Desert Storm. About seventy feet long, they looked like PT boats and were designed to rescue pilots and air crews that had crashed into the sea.

  Although the crash boat was bucking wildly, the massive bulk of Manana protected it from the even more mountainous waves in the open sea. Macaulay realized that the island also masked what the boat’s occupants were doing from anyone on Monhegan.

  The boat crew had already managed to put six men ashore in rubber Zodiac boats. Macaulay recognized their uniforms from the Kulusuk airfield in Greenland. They were wearing the same white thermal winter suits and carrying suppressed submachine guns. Three of them were halfway up the slope and heading toward the crest, slowly swinging their weapons from side to side as they looked for targets along the rim.

  At least there was no way for the men to outflank them, thought Macaulay, scanning the ridge in both directions. There was no high vegetation to mask any movement. They had to come up the slope on open ground to the ambush position.

  “Just so you know,” said Macaulay, “these guys take no prisoners.”

  Chris nodded, his hands gripping the trigger housing and the end of the barrel as he placed it in a camouflaged firing position inside the thick shrubbery.

  “They’re also wearing upper-body armor,” added Macaulay. “Aim for their legs.”

  As the three commandos came on, a crewman on the forward deck of the crash boat fired a small rocket toward the shoreline. It was trailing a thin cable and buried itself in the turf about fifty feet up the slope. One of the commandos went to work securing the cable to bedrock.

  “I think they’re rigging a breeches buoy to bring something ashore,” said Chris, raising his head for a second as the three others closed to fifteen yards of the crest. One of them detected his movement and cut loose with a spray of bullets that tore into the gorse above him.

  Macaulay motioned for Chris to scramble farther down the ridgeline while he moved in the opposite direction.

  “Now!” he shouted when they were set in the new positions.

  They both rose up just far enough to fire through the thick ground cover. Ignoring Macaulay’s advice, Chris aimed for their heads and fired three short bursts, killing the two men in front of him.

  Squinting to keep the rain out of his eyes, Macaulay aimed the Glock with both hands and fired at the third commando’s right leg, hitting him in the thigh. He spun around and fell backward. Chris stood up to get a clear shot and fired another burst at him before dropping back down. The commando didn’t move again.

  “Remind me to practice on tomato juice cans,” shouted Macaulay, motioning for him to move to a new position along the ridgeline.

  Two more commandos were coming up the slope, spread out wide. Macaulay heard the harsh guttural snaps of Chris’s Sten gun again as he cut loose with the rest of the magazine. The commando in front of Chris began rolling back down the slope. Macaulay fired at the other one, bringing him down too. Chris stood again for a few seconds to finish him.

  The only one left standing was still working
to anchor the breeches buoy to the bedrock. As Macaulay watched, another Zodiac was launched from the crash boat and began working its way through the pounding waves toward the shoreline. It held four more commandos.

  Lying prone behind the ridge, Chris waited until they had crawled up from the rocky sea ledge to the base of the slope and began fanning out for the next assault. They were still bunched together when he cut loose at them with a long burst. Only one went down, but a second commando fell back into the sea. The other two began zigzagging wildly as they ran full tilt up the slope.

  When they drew to within thirty feet of the crest, Macaulay emptied his last three rounds at the one in the lead, but the commando was almost hugging the ground, and it was impossible to get a clear shot. Chris rose to his knees to gain a better angle, but when he pulled the trigger, the Sten gun didn’t fire.

  Both commandos stopped in their tracks, took aim, and fired at him. Three rounds slammed into his upper body almost simultaneously, knocking him over onto his back as Macaulay scrambled toward him behind the crest.

  The Sten gun was still clutched in his outflung right hand when Macaulay came up. He had been hit twice in the stomach and once in the lungs, and was trying to stanch the flow of blood over his abdomen with his left hand.

  “It jammed,” he said, his face creased with pain.

  Macaulay picked up the Sten. Pulling back the bolt lever, he cleared the misshapen bullet from the chamber and inserted a new round. Aiming it through the ground cover, he fired a short burst down the slope without aiming.

  The return fire shredded the yew branches above them. Macaulay raised his head just far enough to see that the commandos were holding on the other side of the crest, apparently waiting for him to show himself.

  Macaulay helped Chris to sit up. In moments, his hands were covered with warm blood from the exit wounds in his back.

  “If you can still move, get back down to the dock,” said Macaulay. “I’ll cover you from here.”

  Chris gave him a harsh laugh and a thin stream of blood came out of his mouth. His pain-narrowed eyes took in the Viking dagger wedged inside Macaulay’s belt on his left hip.

  “You need that?” he asked.

  Macaulay pulled it out and handed it to him.

  “Cool,” he said, coughing out a gout of blood.

  Macaulay carefully parted the yew vines and glanced over the crest. Both commandos were slowly crawling toward them on their bellies, their gun barrels pointed up the slope.

  “They’re coming,” he said.

  Chris rolled over onto his knees and rose to a crouch.

  “Fire another burst,” he said.

  Macaulay slid the barrel of the Sten through the vines and cut loose again. A moment later, Chris launched himself over the crest. It looked to Macaulay like he was moving in slow motion as he reeled down the opposite slope.

  Both commandos rose to their feet and opened fire at him as he staggered toward them, brandishing the short sword. The diversion allowed Macaulay to open fire unmolested, and he dropped the first one with a long burst.

  Chris was hit again and again, but he wouldn’t go down. The second commando had dropped his empty machine gun and was pulling his sidearm from its holster when Chris slammed into him, plunging the short sword into the man’s groin.

  Macaulay heard his bellowing shriek of pain over the roar of the wind as Chris ripped upward with the blade. The two men hit the ground together. Neither one moved again.

  Macaulay dropped back behind the crest as the last commando by the breeches buoy opened fire on him. He sat breathing deeply as the hard rain washed away the blood on his hands.

  He checked the magazine in the Sten gun. It was empty. Raising his head to take another look down the slope, he watched as another Zodiac departed from the crash boat. It held only one more commando. One more was enough, he concluded. He had no more ammunition.

  At least he had time to go back to the cavern and bring out Lexy. They could hopefully make it down to the dock and row the skiff back across the harbor. He would convince someone over there to help them.

  “Turn around,” said a voice behind him. “Slowly.”

  Macaulay turned to face him, his back to the ridge.

  The Lynx was drenched with seawater after falling into the sea, but the turbulent wave action had carried him as if he were on a carnival ride around the island to the opposite side. He had climbed the northern slope without difficulty.

  Macaulay started to get up as the blond man pointed the Glock down at him.

  “Do not bother,” said the Lynx, shooting Macaulay in the head.

  Above the island, a cloud of seagulls had gathered, all circling wildly overhead, screeching and cawing. The Lynx wondered if they were drawn by the sound of human activity or the smell of blood.

  FIFTY-NINE

  6 December

  Manana Island

  Maine

  Barnaby came ashore in the leather sling of the breeches buoy, his massive body dangling over the roiling sea as the motorized zip line hauled him along the cable from the crash boat to the anchored position onshore.

  He had heard the sounds of sporadic gunfire in his cabin, but its porthole was sealed. He had no conception of the carnage that had taken place until the zip line carried him past the line of dead men in white thermal suits waiting to be ferried back.

  When the leather sling had returned to the crash boat, Johannes Prinz Karl Erich Maria von Falkenberg emerged from his stateroom dressed in hooded arctic-weather gear. The faithful Steiger helped him into the breeches buoy.

  Only his ashen face peered out from the warm protective clothing as he rode in the sling over to the island. On the next trip, Steiger joined him ashore, followed by Hjalmar Jensen.

  Aside from the Lynx, only two commandos were still alive from the contingent that had boarded the crash boat from the Leitstern the previous evening. Barnaby watched as they carried another white-uniformed corpse down the slope from the crest of the ridge.

  The Lynx had rigged a canvas sedan chair with two short poles. After settling the prince in the chair, he and Steiger hoisted the poles and began to slowly make their way up the slope. Barnaby followed along behind them with Jensen. The two remaining commandos came last, their weapons trained forward.

  As they neared the ridgeline, Barnaby passed the first body that wasn’t wearing a white thermal suit. He was lying facedown on the gorse, the man’s shoulder-length blond hair matted with blood and at least a dozen bullet wounds stitched across his broad back. Barnaby didn’t recognize him.

  A short sword lay next to the man’s body. Barnaby felt a jolt of excitement when he saw the inlaid carvings on its hilt and blade. It would have been carried a millennium ago by an exalted leader.

  As they crossed the crown of the ridge, he visibly grimaced at the next corpse. Lying on its side, the body was unmarked, but Barnaby recognized him from his clothing and boots. Beneath the rain-soaked hair, a mask of congealed blood covered what had once been Steve Macaulay.

  Farther down the opposite slope, Barnaby saw the partially elevated stone slab rising above the surrounding formation of bedrock. It was exactly as he had pictured it, roughly five feet square and fitted into position by the Norse stonecutters a thousand years ago with astonishing precision.

  He could only assume that Macaulay and the other man had found Eriksson’s tomb and died protecting it. But where was Alexandra? The thought she might have been killed in the gun battle made him sick with anguish. He took momentary comfort in there being no more bodies along the opposite slope.

  “Die Wikinger waren hier,” said the prince to Steiger as he arrived at the stone slab. The Vikings were here. Von Falkenberg stood facing the knife edge of the wind and surveyed the barren landscape around him. It was almost unchanged after a thousand years. It would be the last time he would ever gaze at the ear
th’s austere beauty.

  The Lynx ordered one of the commandos to descend first; then Steiger helped the prince to climb under the brow of the slab and into the narrow passageway. Jensen went down next, his agitated eyes full of eagerness at what lay below. With a flick of his pistol, the Lynx motioned Barnaby to go down after Jensen.

  He ordered the last commando to remain on guard at the opening.

  “Vaer arvaken,” he said before following Jensen down. Be vigilant.

  At the end of the passageway, two battery-powered tungsten-halogen lights had been erected in the catacomb for the prince’s arrival. Von Falkenberg slowly stepped into the brilliantly lit chamber with the same joy of anticipation as a priest entering the Holy See.

  Steiger assisted him in removing his arctic-weather gear. Underneath it, he was dressed for the most important occasion of his life in a formal black grosgain silk tailcoat over striped trousers, a white waistcoat and shirt, and a white pique bow tie.

  Two rows of ribbons and medals adorned his right breast, all of them bestowed by the elders of the Ancient Way for his services to the church. A large golden Mjolnir pendant hung from a red silk sash in the center of his chest.

  When Barnaby reached the opening, the first thing he saw was Alexandra on the other side of the chamber, standing alone and unharmed near an enormous riveted chest, her hands bound behind her back. When she looked up and saw him, a smile of relief lit up her face.

  She had felt so powerless after the sounds of gunfire ended. There had been no place for her to hide. When she finally heard someone coming, she prayed it would be Steve.

  It wasn’t. She recognized him right away, the blond commando leader who had murdered Thorwald and Dr. Callaghan in cold blood before destroying their base camp on the Greenland ice cap.

  She shuddered involuntarily, recalling the pleasure he had taken in searching her in the catacomb before binding her hands. Then Barnaby was embracing her. He held her close.

  “Where are Steve and Chris?” she asked urgently.