by Rick Acker
Over the remainder of the afternoon, it was decided that Ben, Sergei, and Elena would drive as far into the mountains as Elena’s rental car could handle. Dr. Sørensen would meet them at a logging shack—the point where he said the roads got really bad—and take them the rest of the way. Ben and Sergei went shopping for hiking boots and mosquito repellent, while Noelle stayed behind and congratulated herself for having the foresight to say no to Gunnar’s offer.
The next morning’s drive into the mountains was scenic, but nerve racking—especially for the driver. The modern highways around Oslo gave way to a winding two-lane road that had a sheer drop on one side—protected by an entirely inadequate-looking guardrail—and a towering mountain on the other, its splintered stone face held in place by wire netting intended to prevent boulders from crashing down on motorists below. Elena drove as quickly as she felt she could, but she soon found herself leading a motorcade of frustrated Norwegian drivers.
They reached the logging shack a little after one o’clock and found Dr. Sørensen waiting for them. He was a rangy man of middle height who dressed and looked like a lumberjack on the verge of retirement. An old and battered Land Rover was parked behind the shack. He walked over as they parked and got out of the car. “Finn Sørensen,” he said, greeting each of them with a firm, somewhat abrupt handshake.
They clambered into his Land Rover and set off up a rough logging road at a bone-jarring speed. As he drove, Dr. Sørensen kept up a running monologue, speaking at a near-shout to make himself heard over the sound of the engine and the constant rattle and thump of the stony, deeply rutted track. He gave them an animated lecture on the area’s history from the last ice age to the present. “Down there,” he said, pointing to a stream a hundred feet below the road, “we excavated mammoth bones and teeth last year. Maybe you heard of the famous finds on Wrangel Island? These fossils may be even more recent than those—from the time of the pyramids. We were much excited because of this and because where mammoths live, hunters may live also. This is how we found the cave that I take you to. We searched for caves and other places where mammoth hunters might camp. One of my students found this cave just last week.”
“Are we close to it?” asked Elena, who was riding shotgun and had an uncomfortably clear view of the stream. If she had reached out her window and dropped a rock, it would have landed in the water far below.
“It is still about five kilometers,” the scientist replied, “but soon we must walk. This road does not go very much closer.”
A few minutes later, he stopped the car in the middle of the road—there was no place to pull over—and set the parking brake. They got out and followed him into a thick pine forest. There were no paths, no buildings, and no sign that any human being had ever set foot there before them. After the constant noise and vibration of the drive, the woods seemed preternaturally still. The wind whispered through the pine needles, and they could hear the faint tinkle and babble of dozens of tiny streams and rills that raced downhill from the melting snow a thousand feet above them. The only other sounds were their footsteps and an occasional comment from Dr. Sørensen, who now led them single file up a steep slope and thus could not lecture effectively.
After an hour and a half of vigorous hiking, they reached a sudden break in the forest, stepping out into a long, narrow clearing filled with broken stumps and downed trees. Shocks of brilliant-green grass and clusters of wildflowers pushed up through gaps in the fallen timber. A sparkling brook flowed through a little gully in the middle of the grass and flowers before vanishing among the pines. It looked as if someone had driven a giant bulldozer through the area a year ago.
“What happened here?” asked Ben.
“Avalanche,” said Dr. Sørensen, pointing to a wall of dirty ice at the far end of the clearing. “About one hundred meters of that glacier broke off and crashed through the trees to make this empty space.” He started walking toward the glacier, picking his way among the logs and rocks. “Here it is!” he called. “Look on the stone below the ice.”
A ridge of mossy rock about five feet high jutted out below the glacier. As they got closer, a large crack became visible. It was about three feet wide and four feet high. Dr. Sørensen pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket and ducked in. The other three followed, taking care not to bang their heads on the low entrance.
The blackness of the cave enveloped them, and the air inside was still and cold. After a few yards, they could see Dr. Sørensen’s breath in the light of his flashlight, and the light sweat on their foreheads turned chilly and a little uncomfortable. The vibrant scents of pine, sun, and water vanished and were replaced by a peculiar stale, lifeless smell—what Ben would later describe as “the smell of time.”
They walked along in a half-crouch at first, but the cave expanded quickly and within twenty yards even Sergei, who was six foot two, could stand upright without fear. “You see there are no stalactites or stalagmites,” said Dr. Sørensen, his voice sounding unnaturally loud in the underground silence. He shone the light around him to demonstrate his point. “Also, the walls are not smooth limestone but rough granite, with many sharp edges and points. This cave was not made by water like most caves. A great violence of nature ripped a hole in the mountains. Maybe that is a reason why they chose this cave.”
“‘They’ chose it?” asked Sergei. “Who were ‘they’?”
The scientist stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “I apologize. I told Gunnar, but I forgot to tell you. The berserkers. Have you heard about them?”
“No,” replied Sergei. “What were they?”
“Odin’s holy warriors. They had the strength of bears and the fury of a mountain storm. They—ah, we are almost at the end. I will show you some of them.”
The cave expanded into an open area about thirty feet across and eighty feet long. The ceiling rose up higher than the flashlight beam could reach. Most of the floor was rough and uneven, but an area near the far end had been flattened. Wide, vertical black streaks on the rock walls behind the flat area showed where fires had once burned. In the middle of the smooth floor stood a low table of dark wood and several benches. “Come look on these and you shall see berserkers,” said Dr. Sørensen as they picked their way across the granite floor. “But do not touch them. They are a thousand years old or more. The air and the dark preserved them, but they are very fragile.”
They reached the smooth-floored area, and Dr. Sørensen played his flashlight on the ancient objects. They were intricately carved in much the same way as the items displayed at the Field Museum, but the motifs were different; instead of the dragons, serpents, and abstract intertwining patterns Ben had seen in Chicago, here were savage images of battle or hunting—it was difficult to tell which. Groups of armored men carrying swords and spears fled before bears that gripped axes in their forepaws and stood on two legs among the dismembered corpses of their foes. Standing or floating over some of the scenes was the figure of a giant, one-eyed man with a bird on his shoulder. “Did the berserkers control these bear demons?” asked Elena.
“The berserkers were the bear demons,” said Dr. Sørensen. “Berserk means ‘bear shirt’ in Old Norse. Some sagas say they went to battle wearing no armor, only wolf- or bearskin shirts. Others say they actually became bears. Before fighting, they went into the mountains to secret places. When they came down, they were in berserkergang, the berserker state of mind or being. In berserkergang, they were in a rage that made them very strong and very fast and they felt no pain in battle. Some stories even say their severed limbs would continue to attack their enemies until they were burned. Your English word berserk comes from these stories. Snorri Sturluson, for example, says—”
“What caused berserkergang?” Ben asked. “Do you know?”
“The sagas say Odin—the figure with one eye and a raven on his shoulder—gave the berserkers their powers,” replied Dr. Sørensen, “but, of course, that is not true. The main theory, which I teach my students, is that berserkergang was a mass
hysteria, maybe increased by a drug.”
“Do you know what drug?” asked Ben.
Dr. Sørensen smiled and held up a finger. “Ah, now you ask an excellent question, Ben. The berserkers vanished a thousand years ago, and the secrets of what they did in the mountains vanished with them. Now, here in this cave, I think we have the answer.”
“They ate the plant that lost hiker found in here,” said Ben.
Dr. Sørensen’s smile broadened and he looked every bit the professor pleased with the answer of a clever pupil.
“Exactly.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
PROBLEM SOLVING
At exactly five thirty in the evening, a woman’s smoky voice crooned, “Ring, ring, ring” from the computer speakers on George Kulish’s U-shaped desk. George glanced at the clock on the monitor and smiled. “Right on time.”
He clicked on the videophone icon, and the screen was instantly filled with the fat face of Grigori Kurilev. Grigori was a gifted biochemist with nearly a dozen patents to his name. His employer paid him well, but not well enough to support the lavish lifestyle he enjoyed. So he moonlighted as a consultant to Cleverlad and a few other high-paying clients. “Good to see you, Grigori.”
“And it is good to hear your voice,” replied Grigori. “Someday you must turn on your webcam so that I can see what the great George Kulish looks like. It is a little strange talking to a blank computer screen.”
“I can turn on the camera, but of course then I will have to kill you.”
Grigori laughed uncertainly. “Perhaps the blank screen is not so bad. You wish to know about the test results, yes?”
“Yes. How difficult is this drug to manufacture?”
Grigori waved a balloon-like hand dismissively. “Very simple. I can make it on my kitchen stove.”
“Good. But would the ingredients be difficult to obtain?”
“Not at all. The active ingredients are caffeine and ginseng. You can buy them in any drugstore.”
“It is not . . . This drug does not contain a previously unknown plant extract?”
“No. I ran the chemistry twice. There is nothing there except caffeine, ginseng, and a couple of common binding agents. There are a dozen basically identical pills you can buy over the counter in any country. If you ground it up and put it in fizzy sugar water, it would be an average energy drink.”
“I . . . I see. Thank you very much. Send me the report. Your fee will be wired to your Bahamian account today.”
George clicked the “End Teleconference” button and the screen went blank. He stared at it for several minutes. So Karl Bjornsen had sent him fake pills. That act could not go unpunished. George’s first inclination was to deal with Karl the same way he would deal with any cheating supplier—have him killed discreetly, but not so discreetly that his other business partners wouldn’t hear about it and get the message. The problem, though, was that Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals was not just any cheating supplier—it was the exclusive source of Neurostim. One of the reasons for George’s success was that he had learned to spot hot drugs early and lock up suppliers before his competitors knew what was going on. Neurostim was going to be huge, and if he played his cards right, he would be the only significant nonprescription source of it in the world. To do that, he would need Karl Bjornsen alive and cooperative.
George had hoped that the threat of exposing his boardroom bribery would be enough to keep Karl in line, but apparently not. Karl was a smart man, smarter than George had given him credit for. His threat had been a bluff and Karl had called it. The collateral damage from following through on that threat would be simply too high—George could not reveal Karl’s misdeeds without putting a spotlight on Cleverlad’s role, thereby cutting off his access to all Bjornsen drugs and giving the FBI and Interpol another avenue to track his company’s activities. It was like being locked in a closet with Karl and trying to threaten him with a hand grenade. He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. He would need to find another way to apply pressure.
The elevator chimed and he turned to see the doors open. Pyotr emerged, looking worried.
“What is it, Pyotr?”
“We have a problem,” the big Russian announced as he walked over with long, rapid strides. “There’s someone at Bjornsen’s Norwegian office going through their records about us.”
“Who?” demanded George.
“Someone who is suing them, I think. I, uh, I don’t have all the details. These people are coming in after the office is closed and looking at the records in secret.”
“Interesting . . . Interesting.” George sat silently, deep in thought. Pyotr stood in front of him, shifting his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. A smile slowly formed on George’s face. Then he laughed. “Pyotr, my boy, you said we have a problem. I think we have a solution.”
When Kim’s call came, David Lee was sitting at an outdoor table at Sharkeez, sipping a margarita and going over old oncology exam questions. “Hey, Kimmy, how are you doing?”
“Well, um, I’d be doing better if I didn’t have to give you bad news,” she said.
He could picture her twisting her hair around her finger as she talked. She always did that when she was nervous and talking on the phone. He smiled at the mental image. “I didn’t make it into Phase II, did I?”
“Nobody from Phase I did. They decided to use all new participants for Phase II. I hope you’re not too disappointed.”
He wasn’t. He had been researching Phase II protocols since he and Kim had last talked, and he had concluded that there was a good chance Bjornsen would opt for a fresh batch of test subjects rather than include holdovers from Phase I. “It’s a little bit of a letdown, but no big deal.”
“Really?”
“Really. I’ve been thinking about what you said. You’re right—all I actually need to do is get back into my groove, and I can do that without Neurostim as a crutch. What will really help is getting through the oncology and immunology textbooks over the summer. I’m developing a good rhythm, and I think it’ll carry into next semester.”
“That’s great!” He could hear the relief in her voice. “I was actually a little worried about telling you about Phase II. The last time we talked about it, you seemed a little like, I don’t know, like you might be stressed about going off Neurostim. I’m glad you’re not.”
He laughed. “I’m sitting at the beach right now, having a margarita, watching the sun set in the Pacific, and talking to the most beautiful girl in the world. How can I be stressed about anything? Seriously, don’t worry about it; I’m fine. So, how are things at work? Any interesting stories?”
“Oh, yeah. Remember that guy I told you about? Dr. Reddy?”
“The one who wanted to know if you had a boyfriend?”
“Yeah, well guess what? It turns out he’s married and has a family back in India.”
“No way. Are you sure?”
“Uh-huh. Our team went out to lunch yesterday, and someone asked him, ‘So, when are you planning to bring Keya and the kids over to the States?’ He got all embarrassed and was like, ‘Uh, I don’t know. I’m not sure it will be possible.’ Then one of the lab techs leaned over to me and said, ‘Of course not. That would ruin his social life.’”
“Do you know if he just flirts with hot interns, or is it worse than that?” David asked, jotting down notes as he spoke.
“Oh, it’s worse. I saw him dirty dancing with some girl at a nightclub last weekend. They left together in his Porsche.”
“Wow, what a tool. It’s a relief to know that my competition is such pond scum.”
“For him to be competition, he’d have to be in your league. I knew right away that he wasn’t, even if he does drive a better car.”
“I thought you liked the Impala. I painted over the rust spots and everything.”
She laughed. “Hey, I’ve got to go. I promised I’d call my mom tonight.”
“No problem. Miss you.”
“Miss you too.
I can’t wait until we’re back together.”
Kim put down the phone and smiled. She had been worried about more than David’s stress level and confidence. He had been acting a little weird since he started taking the Neurostim—nothing big enough or concrete enough to catch the attention of the research team, but things that someone who knew him as well as she did would notice.
For instance, last week he had told her a story about being tailgated on the freeway by some guy in a Mercedes SUV who was drinking a cup of coffee while talking on his cell phone. David had slammed on his brakes and then hit the accelerator a split second later to avoid getting rear-ended. The other driver slammed on his brakes too, of course, spilling coffee all over himself and losing his cell phone out the window.
It was a funny story and Kim had laughed when David told it to her, but it was completely unlike him—or rather, completely unlike the David she had known at the beginning of the summer. The old David would have been irritated by the tailgater and probably would have said something to anyone who was in the car with him, but that would have been it. He would never have retaliated, particularly in such an aggressive and risky way. When she mentioned that to him, he had shrugged it off, saying that someone needed to teach the guy in the Mercedes a lesson, and that he was the right person to do it because Neurostim gave him fast-enough reflexes to avoid an accident.
She hadn’t argued with him, but she had secretly hoped that he would be off the drug soon and back to his old self. When Dr. Corrigan announced that there would be no overlap between the Phase I and II participants, Kim had been relieved, though she hadn’t looked forward to telling David. But now that was over and he had taken it well. Problem solved.
She smiled again and picked up the phone to call her mother.
Drs. Chow and Corrigan sat across the table from Karl Bjornsen in Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals’ executive conference room. A projection screen stood at one end of the room and the lights had been dimmed. A small projector sat on the table, connected to Dr. Corrigan’s laptop by a cable.