Tomb of Odin (Order of the Black Sun Book 9)

by P. W. Child

  He had to get to the bottom of it, but first he needed to find out what the device did and why was it so significant, if Nina was indeed not delirious, that a group of killers would send her to retrieve it. Frustrated, he tried to think of something else, but he just could not wrest the idea of not being able to examine the object himself before it was opened by skilled chemical scientists in the correct environment.

  After a terrifying takeoff from the world’s most dangerous airport, Paddy asked for a stiff drink and made good use of it. He wondered what Sam and Purdue were up to. Patrick Smith was no fool, and he knew that the three of them—Nina, Sam, and Purdue—were always caught up in some unsavory company when they got together.

  I’d have to keep a keen eye on that bunch, he thought as he went for his second whisky. I mean, I’m glad summoning me to help look for Nina pretty much saved her skin, but it was no use saving her from one certain death only to dump her into another.

  He was in a position to clean up most of their messes, provided they did not leave too many traceable problems behind, but sometimes he wondered if Sam being his best friend was coaxing him into enabling them to operate above the law and under the radar. Was he the reason they sometimes got away with things others would be incarcerated for?

  He had to jump through hoops less than six months before to cover up the destruction of the freakish and exotic animal bombed by the Royal Navy off the coast of Scotland. And the discovery of the grotesque colossus that could have posed a catastrophic threat to the ocean and marine environment was once again a result of Nina Gould and whatever company she kept.

  In the same instance he had to get his Hazmat affiliates to investigate her property in Oban. And subsequently he had the well under her house filled in with rock and concrete before it was officially declared a historical site to keep it from being demolished at the demand of Oban’s terrified citizens. They still claimed that her house was a portal to some dimension of monsters, but now she could move back in after she thought she had lost her entire life’s savings on that house.

  And the unexplained deaths of several members of the Order of the Black Sun just a few weeks later in Venice had to be investigated for the rumors of a biological agent engineered to cleanse the world of certain genetically predisposed races.

  If such an ideology, even just the rumor of it, had to come out in the media . . . good God . . . it would have started a world war of ethnic proportions, he pondered as the burning elixir warmed his chest. And who came to their rescue? Special Agent Patrick Smith of MI6 and other nanny services specializing in cleaning up shit.

  Paddy did not need this extra crap to stress him out. He quickly reported that Sam Cleave’s involvement in the drowning of the Black Sun members was limited to his investigation of cult suicides in the Mediterranean. In fact, Paddy had no idea just how Sam was really involved, but he knew that Purdue and Gould were in it with his best friend and therefore he knew there was far more to the story than what they told him about the Longinus biological weapon.

  He could now feel the liquor begin to numb his senses a bit. Still he wished it would still his doubts and concerns, rather than just render him incapable of basic equilibrium. Before he relaxed completely he looked for James to confirm that he contacted the company that took care of materials testing for MI6.

  The small jet commissioned for Paddy by Dave Purdue was occupied only by two flight attendants, three pilots, and two agents, including himself. It was not difficult to find James. There he was, fast asleep in the lavish seat with a magazine in his hand, his glasses askew as his head lolled. Paddy was tipsy enough to find it exceedingly funny and for a few minutes could not stop snickering by himself as he gazed out the window at the awe-inspiring beauty below.

  Glistening rivers meandered through lush forests and crisp white mountain peaks that reached so high that it looked as if they tried to scratch at the belly of the plane. Soon they would take on higher altitudes, but first they had to pick up gradually through the perilous summits while the bright, clear conditions held out.

  ~~~~~

  When Paddy woke up, the flight attendant stood by his side, tenderly nudging his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, Special Agent Smith,” she said almost in a whisper, “we are landing soon.”

  “Oh, thank you, Maggie,” he said, still under the weather from deep sleep and whisky. He looked for James, but he had already woken, it seemed. They were nearing the landing strip in Ingliston when Paddy realized that James was not in his seat. He summoned the attendant, asking for his assisting agent.

  “Oh, he is in the cockpit with Captains Dickenson and Hayward. He insisted,” she smiled.

  “Of course,” Paddy replied. “The man is obsessed with aircraft and still nags me to come flying in his Cessna every other bloody weekend.”

  “He does. He even asked me!” she replied, looking amused at the offer James had made. Paddy nodded. He was not surprised to hear that. The woman was extremely fetching. Had me not been a married man he would have made her a similar offer. She disappeared into the back to belt up for the landing. So did Special Agent Smith, correcting his hair and wiping his face to look more like his title commanded.

  “Of course it’s raining. We’re in Edinburgh,” he sighed, wishing for the clear skies of Tibet and Nepal as they touched down in his gray, wet home city. When the plane came to a standstill he got up to get James. They were pressed for time and he had to get the Dewar to Exova as soon as possible, for fear of the contents expiring . . . or exploding, before it was identified. The pilots emerged from the cockpit, chatting, but no James Gallagher. Paddy approached them.

  “Hello, lads, have you seen Agent Gallagher, by chance?” he asked.

  “The bloke who was in the cockpit with us for a bit?” one asked. Paddy nodded.

  “Oh, I don’t know. We talked Boeings and Cessna’s for a bit and then he left, about, uh, an hour back, eh, Graham?”

  “Aye, if not longer. Why? Isn’t he here?” he asked Paddy.

  “Nope,” Paddy answered, perplexed.

  “Well he couldn’t really step out into the clouds now, could he?” the other pilot chuckled. “He has to be somewhere on the jet.”

  “I’ll check. Thanks, lads. Just thought he was with you. No worries,” Paddy said.

  “Maybe he is in the toilet, marking the occasion,” the head pilot laughed, joined by his two colleagues. With that they carried on talking.

  Of course! Why did I not check the toilet? Doubt he was air sick, being a pilot and all, Paddy thought as he headed for the door at the back, marked “Vacant.” The flight attendants were cleaning up, occasionally casting a confused glance at the special agent for not disembarking the plane already.

  “Jimmy-boy!” he said, knocking on the door. “Come on! We have to go.”

  He waited, but there was no sound from the inside. James could not have been in there long, as he had to buckle in for the landing, which occurred only a few minutes before. The attendants looked up from what they were doing, waiting to see James along with Agent Smith. The pilots did not notice anything peculiar when they collected their blazers and fixed their uniforms.

  “James, hurry up!” Paddy shouted, hammering on the door. Nothing. He looked at the women, who still stood with empty cups and utensils in their hands, shaking their heads at him.

  “Maybe we should open it?” one of the attendants suggested. Paddy nodded and drew his gun, more in second nature than for any practical assistance.

  “I’ll pay for the lock,” he said, and with a well-placed kick he broke the bolt of the door. The door sprung back into the aisle, and Paddy took a sharp breath at the sight inside.

  “James!” he cried in shock. The women yelped and looked away. The pilots came rushing at the sound of the commotion and froze in their tracks at the sight of the mutilated MI6 agent that Patrick Smith had been training for the past few months. By the looks of the chemical burns that ate away the bottom half of his face, it was
a safe assumption that he was murdered in a cheap and quiet manner that did not take much force. His pockets and his sling bag had been ransacked as well, the latter lying upturned on the floor with all his belongings strewn about the floor.

  “Call airport security, Liz!” Captain Hayward shouted, but before Liz could seize the phone, Maggie coldcocked her and pulled a massive Desert Eagle on the men.

  “Drop your Beretta, Smith!” she hissed, sinking her barrel accurately to lock on his forehead.

  Paddy had no other option. Captain Dickenson sped toward the door, but she clipped him in the back of the head so quickly that she had recovered her aim on Paddy and the other men before the special agent could pick up his firearm.

  “Don’t fucking move, boys. Special Agent Smith, dearest, you have in your possession a trinket I am pressed to obtain,” she chirped sweetly. “Your colleague died for it, so please don’t make me kill you to get it.”

  “Who are you?” he growled, feeling the generator’s little silver coffin lining the inside of his jacket as he raised his hands to surrender.

  “Give me the gadget,” she reiterated.

  “First, tell me who—”

  She moved her gun swiftly, splitting open the copilot’s skull with a skillfully dispatched round. Captain Hayward’s eyes rolled up and he started to sway slightly, fighting a looming fainting spell from the warm brain matter dripping from his face.

  Paddy was cornered. For the safety of the staff still left alive, he had to comply.

  Chapter 11

  When Nina, Sam, and Purdue arrived at Wrichtishousis they had to cower under the tarp Purdue kept in the back of his 4x4 for little unforeseen moments just like this. They raced toward the side door because Purdue’s remote control for the garage door had no effect.

  “Maintenance lagging because of your priorities, Purdue?” Sam teased.

  But Purdue wasn’t paying attention to Sam’s remark. He was genuinely perplexed with the failing device and spent a good thirty seconds scrutinizing the thing.

  “It shouldn’t be doing this,” he told Sam and Nina. The mechanics of the garage door were fine when we left here.”

  “Oh, shit, I hope it is not doing this because of tampering, if you know what I mean,” Nina said, looking out both windows to see if she could see anything out of the ordinary.

  “I don’t think so,” Purdue replied. “I haven’t pissed anyone off in the past few months.”

  “There is an expiry time on grudges?” Sam asked, looking jokingly impressed. “Good to know. Very good to know.”

  The men still had not told Nina why they needed her advice and her knowledge as a historian. However, she was still experiencing traumatic visions and nightmares, which she elected to keep to herself for fear of being regarded as paranoid or worse, being committed for some schizophrenic or delusional disorder. There simply was not time for psychoanalytic bullshit and she chalked it up to shock.

  Purdue had a quick chat with his security people while Sam and Nina went into the house. They dropped their luggage in the living room to the left where the empty hearth was a picture of depressing desolation. Without waiting for an invitation, Sam gathered some logs from the iron basket contraption Purdue had designed. It served as a heavy duty Pez dispenser for wood and Sam opened the small bottom gate of the storage unit to get more after he stacked the first lot in the fireplace.

  “Bloody inept lot, this,” Purdue grunted as he came in, shaking the rain from his stringy fair hair.

  “Who?” Nina asked, as she passed Sam another log while he tried to get the little tongues of fire under the wood to consume the twigs he used for fuel.

  “My security. Can you believe that when they parked their vehicle in the third garage, they left the keys in the car? So the bloke’s house keys were in the cubby. Now he needed the car keys, which had the garage door remote attached to get to the house keys, etc., etc. And these are the people I pay to watch over a mansion full of . . . well, all kinds of expensive things.”

  “Things like the thing you discovered in the head of your brand new ornament,” Sam mentioned between puffs on the fire to urge it over the crackling sticks.

  “Aye, I want to know what you dragged me here for,” Nina said enthusiastically. “I’m curious. You haven’t told me anything yet!”

  “Let me show you,” Purdue smiled warmly, holding out his hand to her. With Sam in tow, the two of them walked along the side corridor Purdue used to get to the basement, an offshoot from the actual hallway that split from this one in the doorway of the kitchen. It was a gradual descent laid in concrete and grit that had good grip for shoes, but was smooth enough to use as a ramp for heavier objects to be wheeled.

  “Why did you need me for this?” she asked again. Nina stopped in her tracks and with a weary expression and a lower tone she sighed, “Is it Nazi memorabilia?”

  The two men just looked at her, waiting for her to start walking again.

  “Oh, God, you two are going to be the death of me still,” she moaned as she continued down the well-lit corridor. For a brief moment Nina could see the similarities between this place and the dreaded tunnel where she first encountered the yeti men, but she was not going to let Sam and Purdue know that.

  “I found this inside the head of the crucifix monument I bought,” Purdue told her as he punched in the code of the vault, before drawing his freehand recognition symbol on the silver square of the massive door.

  “Where is the crucifix then?” she asked.

  “Thor broke it,” Sam answered sincerely. Nina gave him that look of amusement he always got when he was taking the piss out of something, but he looked down at her and nodded seriously.

  “Do explain,” she smiled.

  “It was struck by lightning, Nina. And it was obliterated halfway through, unfortunately,” Purdue explained.

  “What did you expect? A heathen god will not tolerate a Christian symbol in a Scottish garden. Are you daft?” she chuckled, and Sam joined in.

  “You do know that Scotland was invaded by Thor’s worshippers long before the advent of Christianity around Britain, right? What was the appeal of the cross?” she asked.

  “It is a replica of a famed monument in Estonia, apart from the materials it was fashioned from. So we think it was deliberately made to look like the War of Independence Victory Column, to serve as a clue to the location of what we found inside,” Sam enlightened Nina in an extended sentence fraught with information, as only an investigative journalist could.

  “Estonia’s War of Independence?” Nina asked, giving it some thought. She took a moment to recall what she knew about it, but then she shook her head slowly, “That war was during the First World War, boys. It wouldn’t have anything to do with German history as far as I know.”

  She pondered it while watching Purdue unlock another silver-colored box the size of a catering fridge. Again the images of the cryogenic containers and freezers from the Himalayan dig site darted into her mind. Her memory yielded the underground vacant room from which she had to purloin the generator for the yeti men. Nina inhaled deeply while Purdue opened the lid with Sam’s assistance. She could once again smell the machine room, the mountain water odor mingled with the decay of the tunnels.

  “There it is,” Purdue said proudly.

  Inside the box there was a crumpled heap of tarp just like that of Purdue’s truck, cradling the eleven-link golden chain. Nina gasped, her big, dark eyes widening at the awesome piece before her. Her mouth hung open as she bent over the box to touch it lightly.

  “It was inside the cross you bought from . . . ?” she asked.

  “A relic dealer,” Sam said.

  Nina looked up at Purdue and Sam with a surprised leer, “And? A relic dealer from where? How old is he? Where did he procure this piece? Need I ask more obvious questions?”

  “I bought it from one Jari Koivusaari, whom I was referred to by Professor McClaine at the British Museum. He inherited it from the artist, whose name
he did not share with me. Then I had it shipped from Finland,” Purdue explained. “Why? Can you make any sense of it all?”

  Nina was quiet, almost pressing her face against the chain as she examined the gilded surface that was roughly cast. The thunder clapped in the skies over Wrichtishousis, prompting Sam and Nina to jerk slightly.

  “That was a big one,” Purdue remarked, as the heavens rumbled.

  “If Thor ever had a necklace, I imagine this would be the approximate size of it, eh?” Sam marveled. Purdue nodded in agreement. “If one was so inclined, one could very well measure the size of the thunder god by the size of this artifact.”

  “Not Thor,” Nina noted, while unshakably engrossed in her scrutiny.

  “I was being facetious,” Sam told her.

  “Odin.”

  The two men glared at each other with inquisitive fascination. Nina uttered the word with sincere certainty. Sam shrugged.

  “Why Odin?” Purdue asked.

  Nina stood up and sighed, “Did you even take a good look at the inscriptions on the chain?”

  “I thought those were just scratches of a careless goldsmith,” Purdue admitted. “You mean to say those are letters?”

  “Aye, they are in a language I don’t know, but there are two symbols on here, the Triple Horn of Odin and his associative rune,” she deduced, “so I reckon the chain has some significance to him. From what I see there are no other runes or insignias representing any other deities whatsoever, just Odin.”

  Sam smiled. Purdue smiled and clapped his palms together in glee. Nina dared not even ask what they were thinking.

  “Can I see the rest of the cross?” she asked.

  “In the rain?” Sam winced. “What if lightning strikes twice in one place?”

  “That’s a myth, Sam,” she replied.