by Rob Jones
She saw there was a low light on inside the study. Was he still awake – reading perhaps? Not a crazy idea, she thought. Maria and Alex had still been awake after all. But then again Eden was older than they were – perhaps he’d simply fallen asleep with the lamp on. For a long time she simply listened at the door but after a few minutes she decided he must be asleep.
She pushed the door open slowly and saw she was right. There, stretched out on his long leather couch beneath the Louvre windows at the side of his desk, was the mission objective: Sir Richard Eden MP.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Hawke was first to emerge from the AW101 and was immediately whipped in the face by the driving, icy wind. “Still summer, I see,” he said as he helped the others from the sliding door on the side and walked around to the back of the chopper.
Trond opened the rear cargo ramp from inside the cockpit and the hydraulic motors slowly lowered it to the wet, gravelly sand on the beach. When it was fully extended Hawke climbed up into the back of the chopper again and began the process of unstrapping the mini submersible from the helicopter.
“We don’t have much time,” he said, casting a suspicious eye out into the ocean. “Going by the surveys we studied, Sala should be able to get the Migaloo all the way through into Valhalla, but if not he’s always got the Triton. Either way he’s well ahead of us.”
When it was free, they all worked together to roll the mini sub out the back of the helicopter and push it down to the sea on its trailer. The wind was rising again, and as a consequence the sea was getting rougher by the minute. The Barents Sea was what was known as a marginal sea – a body of water bordered by various peninsulas or islands and attached to a larger ocean, in this case the Arctic Ocean. Rich in hydrocarbons, today it was filled with rigs plundering its many oil and gas fields but Hawke and the others now knew it was also home to a much richer treasure – the Hall of the Slain, Valhalla itself.
When the sub was in place, Hawke gave Trond the signal and the mighty helicopter powered up. It buffeted them all in its downdraft as it lumbered up into the leaden Norwegian Arctic sky and disappeared from view into the low storm clouds above them.
Alone now, they hurried to move the sub to the correct depth and released it from the trailer. Hawke climbed inside first and began the process of firing up the engine and instrument panel as the storm grew in power all around them. Even this far in the bay, he felt the sub being knocked about by the swell of the sea and knew it was time to dive. Calling the others on board they closed the hatch and he piloted the submersible out to sea.
Scarlet stared at the poky interior of the mini-sub with anxious eyes. “This thing is safe, right?”
“Of course it is,” Hawke said, tapping the yoke with pride.
“But it really doesn’t look very safe,” Victoria said.
“Trust me,” Hawke said with a grin. “If it suddenly implodes at crush depth you won’t even know what’s happened.”
Ryan laughed, then winced in pain and gripped his arm.
“That’s just Joe’s way of dealing with stressful situations,” Lea said.
“This is why I joined the SAS and not the bloody frogmen,” said Scarlet, looking once again around the creaking interior of the sub as it continued to dive into the black ocean.
“Well unfortunately, Cairo,” Hawke said without taking his eyes off the controls, “Valhalla is underwater, so today we’ll just have to do it my way.”
“That’s what worries me,” she said, and then jumped. “What the hell was that?!”
“It’s just the hull compressing, Cairo. Like when you crush someone’s skull between your thighs.”
“But that kills them.”
“But unlike you, I’m in control of the situation, and the sub is designed for much greater depths than this, so why not relax and enjoy? This is probably the only time in your life you will be sailing in a mini-sub to Valhalla.”
“If you say so,” Scarlet said, unconvinced. “I suppose a cigarette…”
“No, you cannot smoke in here,” Hawke said flatly.
“I was joking, frogman.”
Knowing how much Cairo Sloane liked to smoke to calm her nerves, Hawke had his doubts, but made no comment as he navigated them deeper and turned into the mouth of the tunnel. The submarine started to jolt and bang around.
Scarlet reached out for something to hang onto. “What the hell’s going on now?”
“We’re sailing into the wake vortex of the Migaloo – no need to panic.”
“Wake vortex?” Victoria said.
“A submarine moving through water is a lot like an aircraft moving through the air, so it creates a wake vortex behind in the same way a plane does.”
“So this is just turbulence?” Ryan said.
“Got it in one, mate.”
Lea gazed through the tiny window, amazed. “I wonder how far ahead Sala is?”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Hawke said. “I can see a change in the light up ahead. They must have surfaced in an underground lake and fired up some glow sticks. No way is that natural light at this depth.”
Moments later Lea was the first to see it – the hull of the Migaloo was fifty meters ahead and perfectly still in the water like a dead whale-shark. “There they are!”
Hawke nodded and his response was immediate, shutting down the engines and filling the ballast tanks with compressed air. Slowly and silently the mini sub made its way to the surface, and when they breached it they saw they had been right – they were in a cavernous underwater lake.
“I can’t see Sala,” Lea said.
Hawke peered through the porthole. “No, but judging by the green glow coming from that tunnel over there it’s pretty obvious where he’s gone. Let’s get moving.”
Hawke unscrewed the hatch and they clambered out of the mini sub and dropped down onto the shore of the underwater lake. They were at least a hundred yards from the Migaloo and hidden behind a stalagmite-covered ledge protruding from the cave wall, so Hawke considered it safe to fire up a glow stick.
They stuck together as they moved deeper into the complex, and if this place really was Valhalla, the Hall of the Slain, then it was greater than any of them could ever have imagined in their wildest dreams. Despite it having slid beneath the ocean floor, its construction from the interior of the cliff cave was still obvious, and most of the impressive structure had maintained its integrity.
They made their way along the tunnel in which they had seen the radiance of Sala’s glow sticks. At the end of it there was still no sign of the Andorran, or Smets, but they were now face to face with the deepest cave hole Hawke had ever seen.
He was staring at an enormous gorge complete with not one but two powerful underground waterfalls. Towering above them was a cave hall hundreds of feet high, its ceiling adorned with monstrous stalactites which twisted and pointed to the ground like melted fingers.
Lea was amazed. “This is more than a cave system, Joe – this is a bloody underground canyon!”
“Look!” Ryan cried. “A bridge!”
They made their way across the bridge – a rickety affair which was strung across the gorge hundreds of feet high between two ledges carved into the side of the towering cave hall.
From here they moved through a short second tunnel at the end of which their short journey came to an end.
They had reached Valhalla.
From their elevated position at the tunnel mouth, they were able to look down at the legendary location from on-high, and what they saw stunned each of them into silence.
They were looking at what had once been an opulent hall, with ornate architecture stretching from a marble floor all the way to a vaulted ceiling covered in intricate frescos portraying gods and goddesses. All around the room were doors and archways leading to separate tunnels, and with no sign of the enemy, they presumed Sala must have disappeared into one of them.
It was more beautiful than any of them had imagined but the entire p
lace was disjointed, broken into two by the force of the landslide which had sent it tumbling into the freezing embrace of the Arctic Ocean. It was as if an enormous step had been designed into the middle of the main hall, or it had suffered a massive earthquake. Now, what had once been the most sacred place of the Norse gods resembled the wreck of the Titanic and a sense of broken, sad decay settled over everything like dust.
Despite that feeling, Hawke knew they had finally hit the jackpot.
Everywhere they looked they saw treasure far beyond anything they had ever seen before, up to and including the vault of Poseidon and the tomb of the Thunder God. Towering golden idols of gods and goddesses none of them recognized, piles of silver and gold jewellery – goblets, plates, knives, and countless weapons – shields, swords and axes.
“A veritable shimmering golden hoard!” Victoria said, her eyes sparkling like twin diamonds.
“This place is something else,” Lea said, her voice trailing into the distant darkness. Crowning it all were the very walls themselves which sparkled and shone golden in their flashlights. “Are those walls made of gold?”
“They’re made of golden shields,” Ryan said, shining his torch on them and then up to the ceiling. “The Skáldskaparmál, the ancient dialogue between the Norse god of the sea Aegir and Bragi, the poetry god, said that when the gods gathered here the light from their swords would illuminate the feast, reflecting off the golden walls.”
Hawke swept his flashlight over the vast hall as the others began to explore among the piles of treasure. He could hardly believe what she was seeing – what had started off as an investigation into a murder had turned into the discovery of the millennium. Everywhere he looked was a cornucopia of priceless ancient relics and treasure, but more than that, this was Valhalla, the legendary Hall of the Slain. He still had trouble believing any of this could be real.
This was yet more solid evidence that the history they thought they knew was wrong. The gold, swords and axes all around them told another story altogether, a story where myth was reality and reality was myth, a story that others had known all along, and worked ceaselessly to suppress from the common knowledge of mankind.
“All I wanted was enough loot to buy a little island of my own,” Scarlet said in amazement. “But there’s enough filthy lucre here to buy a much bigger island – like Hawaii maybe.”
“If anyone else said that,” Hawke said from deeper in the cave, “I’d presume it was a joke, but with you I just can’t be sure.”
“I’m going to get my island, Joe, and when I do it’s going to be paradise. You’d love it, I know you would.”
“I’m not sure Hawke would love an island with a ratio of five hundred men to one woman,” Ryan said.
Scarlet shone her flashlight right into Ryan’s face. “If you’re that worried about it you can always come and make that ratio five hundred to two.”
“Yes, very drole, and get that bloody thing out of my face.”
“Give it a rest, you two!” Lea said.
They made their way down a series of cracked stone steps toward the hall. Hawke tried to imagine what it would have been like when it was still in the cliff looking out to see. After a few stumbles on the crumbly steps, they finally reached the main hall, and Hawke thought he heard a noise emanating from one of the tunnels branching off from the main area. He spun around and shone his flashlight down it.
They were looking along a passageway which stretched away into gloom. A statue loomed at the end of it.
“Ryan?”
Ryan shone his flashlight down into the darkness. “Thor. That part of Valhalla must be Bilskirnir – Thor’s Hall. According to the legends, each of the gods and goddesses had their own part of Valhalla reserved for them after they fell in battle. That’s what all these arches are about.”
“This is unbelievable!” Lea said.
“And what’s that down there?” Victoria said in awe.
“What is it?” Ryan said.
Victoria was mesmerized. “Oh my goodness – it’s the Warrior’s Field – the Folkvang…”
“The what?” Ryan asked.
“I read about it in my research – it’s where the Norse goddess of love and prophecies resides – the ninth hall of Valhalla. It’s called the Sessrumnir or the Room of Seats.” She began to wander toward the glow of the tunnel. “If I’m remembering right, it’s where… it’s where Freyja would decide who among the slain would belong to her and who would go to Odin… I must see it!”
“Stay where you are!” Hawke said. “No one wanders off while Sala’s on the loose.”
Hawke meandered further into the darkness and moments later he called out to them. “Look here!” He shone his flashlight up on the far wall and illuminated a massive statue which towered at least fifty feet above the ground.
“What is it?” Scarlet asked.
“Who is it, you mean,” Lea said.
“It’s Odin, the highest god in Norse mythology,” Ryan said. “He has many names – Havi, Grim, Vak – you name it, but it call comes back to the same thing, and the same god.”
Their flashlight beams danced over the statue’s ancient, carved face, up his long beard and over the solid, square bridge of his powerful nose. Two blank stone eyes stared out across the vast hall.
“Definitely in the right place then,” Scarlet said with a low whistle.
“You could say that!” Lea said.
“Rich’s going to wet his pants when he hears about this,” Scarlet said. “And this time, can we please get some of this stuff back to Elysium before that little shit Kosinski turns up and takes it back to DC?”
Hawke turned and swept his torch over the group. “Where the hell has Vikki gone?”
She was nowhere to be seen. “She must have gone to see the Folkvang,” Ryan said.
“Damn it!” said Hawke. “I’ll have to go and get her.”
“Wait – check this out!” Lea said, shining her torch across another statue. This one was a woman, standing nobly in the dark silence. On the pedestal at the base of the statue was a large wooden box, untouched by decay.
“I wonder what’s inside it?” Scarlet said, leaning forward.
“Drop your weapons and stay where you are!” a voice said from behind them.
Hawke spun around to see Álvaro Sala standing in the archway to Thor’s Hall.
“Sala!”
The Andorran stared at them coldly. “Welcome to Ragnarök – the Doom of the Gods.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Lexi Zhang moved with no sound at all across the plush rug of Eden’s study. Very nicely appointed, she thought. The walls were smooth white plaster in keeping with the tropical feel of the place, but they were decorated with the trappings of various ECHO missions – a beautiful Mayan tapestry, an antique Indian sculpture of Shiva, and above the desk what looked suspiciously like Raphael’s missing Portrait of a Young Man, but she couldn’t be sure.
But either way, the treasures in this one room were all the evidence she needed to confirm that the ECHO team seemed to know their way around the world and got results. It also explained their long-running feud with Eddie Kosinski at the CIA. His little collection was well-known to the Chinese intelligence agency, who also, of course, had their own to keep them busy.
She drew closer. This was the moment that would change everything, but then as Lao Tzu once said, if you do not change direction, you may end up where you’re heading. Very gently, she placed the barrel of the gun on the sleeping man’s right temple.
“Bang…” she said quietly with a voice as soft as silk.
Eden opened his right eye and smiled warmly at her. Then he opened his other eye and gave his wristwatch a quick glance. “Faster than Maria, but slower than Hawke.”
“Damn it!” she said, lowering the paintball gun to her side. “I really wanted to beat Joe!”
Eden got to his feet and shook her enthusiastically by the hand. “Congratulations, Lexi. You’ve passed the final selecti
on test. You’re now formally in the ECHO team!”
She was pleased, but still reluctant to show it. Tonight she had joined a new family, but she had also left an old one – a powerful one, and that meant she would have made powerful enemies in the process.
“So how do you feel?” he asked, clapping a congratulatory hand on her shoulder.
“I’m happy, I think.”
Eden laughed. “I’d never expect a straight answer from you, Lexi. Shall we go and join the others? I’m sure they’ll want to congratulate you.”
“Why not?” she said with a smile.
They gathered in the main living area and Ben brought everyone a cold beer. He was still covered in red paint from the attack on the roof. “Those damned paintballs hurt more than you think!”
“So how did you do it?” Maria asked. She too still had the remnants of the paint on her top, as did Alex, but both women were overjoyed at the new addition to the team.
“Simple.” Lexi tapped her temple. “I simply set up a scenario in my mind in which Beijing had ordered me to kill all of you. We are trained never to fail a mission and always to see it through to its end. I told myself my mission was your assassinations and planned it exactly as I would if it were any other professional hit. This way, I took no risks and gave it my all.” She lowered her voice and sipped some of the lager. “And this is why you are all covered in red paint tonight.”
“I’m glad you’re on our side!” Alex said.
After a pause, Lexi replied. “So am I.”
“And by the way,” Maria said, feigning a frown, “that second shot really hurt. I thought we agreed no hitting above the waist?”
“We did,” Lexi said coolly. “But where’s the fun in that?”
*
Eden yawned and sipped his beer. It had been a long day, but now at least one of his objectives had been achieved – Lexi Zhang had turned her backs on the Chinese Ministry of State Security and formally joined ECHO. He knew she would have made serious enemies in doing so, but they were a family and he took nothing more seriously than the responsibility of protecting that family. She would make a quality asset – of that he was sure – and he knew everyone in the existing team had voted unanimously for her inclusion into the covert organization. Her flawless attack of the island tonight would only compound the respect they all felt for her.