An hour later, he made his way into Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, just south of the city. He’d got used to flying on private planes in the last ten years. Occasionally he would have to book a flight on a commercial airline, but it wasn’t often. Working for Axis and IAA had its perks. And doing the occasional favor for the president of the United States did too.
He didn’t mind flying the way normal people did. The major inconvenience was going through the security checkpoints. That could become a major hassle in an airport that frequently alternated with Chicago’s O’Hare as the busiest airport in the world.
Fortunately, there weren’t a ton of people hopping on the overnight flights when Sean arrived, and getting through the series of X-ray machines and identification checkpoints took less than twenty minutes.
After a quick ride on the train going between the terminals, Sean arrived at his gate and took a seat near one of the windows. He glanced up at the LED screen to make sure his flight was on time. Glad to see there were no delays, he pulled out his phone to check his messages.
Nothing yet from Alex, which didn’t surprise him. Translating a bunch of ancient runes would take some time, even for the most powerful computer processors on the planet.
He spent the next hour or so looking around for as much information as he could scrounge up on the mysterious stone in the desert. When he had figured out exactly where to go and had arranged for a rental car, he sent a quick text message to tell Adriana he was thinking about her and hoped she was doing okay. She didn’t respond, which wasn’t surprising. It was early in the morning in Europe, and she always silenced her phone before going to bed.
A loud, fuzzy voice came over the speakers, announcing the plane would begin boarding shortly. Sean felt strange, boarding a plane alone. This adventure, however, needed its end.
Chapter 43
As soon as Sean got off the plane at the Phoenix airport, he found an empty seat and removed the phone from his pocket. The plane ride had gone by without incident, and he’d managed to get an hour or two of sleep on the three-and-a-half-hour flight from Atlanta to Phoenix.
He glanced down at his phone and saw that there were two texts from Alex. The first read, Check your email. Translation complete.
The second read, You know someone’s already found this stone, right?
Sean tapped the phone icon at the top of the message to make a voice call.
“Sean’s personal slave service, how can I help you?” In spite of the early hours of the morning, Alex still sounded like he’d been awake all day.
“Hilarious.” Sean poked fun at the way Alex answered and then went on. “Yeah, I knew that the stone had already been found. It’s not really a secret. But I wanted to know what was on it before I got all the way out there to investigate further.”
“Well, they did a television show about those runes, although the people doing the investigation weren’t able to come up with a complete translation of what the stone said. One of the theories they came up with was that it could be the burial site of a twelfth century Englishman.”
“That doesn’t make much sense,” Sean argued. “Those runes weren’t Anglo-Saxon in origin. In the twelfth century they were already using old forms of English and still had some Latin left over.”
“Right,” Alex agreed, “which is why I went ahead and ran the runes through our software here at the lab. This next part is going to send a chill up your spine.”
“Ready to be chilled.”
“From what the translation suggests, two men landed in a foreign land, what we assume to be North America, from somewhere far to the east. They made their way across the South, through mountains, then plains, and eventually the desert, until one of them died. It seems the man who survived was the one who carved the runes into the stone to tell the tale of their adventure.”
Sean processed the information for a minute. “Sounds like they went across the Appalachian Mountains on their way south. I wonder how they were able to make it this far on foot.”
“It could be that they procured horses from some of the natives, either by force or by trade. We know that sometimes in the past, large white people from the sea were treated as deities. It’s entirely possible that whoever these two men were received gifts from some of the natives. Those gifts could have included food and horses.”
“Good point.”
It was a good point, but it was still such an incredible distance. The idea that two Vikings from a much colder climate would have traveled across what is now the southern United States, seemed like an impossible task.
Alex went on, apparently thinking the same thing that was going through Sean’s mind. “If you think about it, the journey must have seemed huge, especially on horseback. But we aren’t talking about a couple of weaklings here. These guys had been through much rougher conditions at sea than they would ever see on land. The journey from Denmark to Britain was a difficult one in those days. They crossed the entire Atlantic Ocean.”
Sean hadn’t looked at it like that. “That’s true. I’m willing to take it on faith that if they could make it across the ocean, they could make it to Arizona. I guess Holger Danske knew that Charlemagne was coming after him. That meant he would do whatever it took to get the lance as far away from Europe as possible.”
“The southwestern desert would probably qualify.”
“Indeed.” Sean thought for a moment before he let Tommy’s young assistant off the line.
“Do you have any more questions?”
Again, reading Sean’s mind. “No, I think that’s all I needed. I appreciate it, Alex. Whatever Tommy is paying you and Tara, he should definitely make it more.”
Alex laughed on the other end. “Well, maybe me, but not Tara. She’s paid enough.”
Sean shared another laugh with the younger man at the joke and then hung up the phone after thanking him one more time for his help.
There was no doubt in Sean’s mind that he was headed in the right direction.
Two hours later, his silver SUV cruised over a dirt road, kicking up loose rocks and dust as it bumped along. In the back of the vehicle, Sean’s book bag jostled around in the back seat, eventually falling onto the floor.
Sean sped across the desert plain, the road gradually rising into the Mustang Mountains in the distance. The southwestern sun blazed high in a cloudless, azure sky, baking the dry earth below. The only signs of greenery were the occasional prickly cactus that speckled the landscape.
“It’s a very different place out here in the desert,” Sean commented to himself as he guided the SUV toward a craggy mountain a few miles away.
He could see why some people loved living out there. It wasn’t necessarily for him, but there was a certain kind of beauty to the desert, a serenity that could be found nowhere else on earth.
Adriana had spoken of the desert on more than one occasion. She preferred the climate and surroundings of the Southeast, and of her home in Spain, but she talked about the magic of the desert, especially after the sun went down.
Sean recalled staring at the night sky in the desert on more than one occasion. There were billions of sparkling stars in the dark blanket above, each like a diamond woven into the black fabric of space.
Behind the SUV a vortex of dust trailed up from the tires. Sean laughed as he looked back in the rearview mirror, thinking of the looks on the faces of the people working at the rental place. Surely it wouldn’t be the first time someone took one of their cars down a dusty road like this.
Sean noticed a turnoff up ahead and looked down at the map on his phone. He’d set the waypoint before leaving the airport, and the side road looked like it was the one he needed to take. He slowed down and steered the vehicle onto the new path, which was basically just two tire ruts worn into the dirt.