“As a matter of fact, yes. This symbol here is almost identical to the Runic script for lake. I was thinking we’re looking for an underground system near a lake somewhere, and that’s when I worked out the last two symbols — one was for a cauldron and the other for the crest of a hill.”
“Excellent,” Scarlet said. “I’ll tell the pilot to fly to a hill crest near a lake with a cauldron on the top of it, somewhere near Mordor.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Let her have it, Alex, please.”
“Sure,” Alex said, laughing. “I searched references to cauldrons and hill-crests and it wasn’t long before I found what I was looking for — Kebnekaise.”
A look of recognition dawned on Victoria’s face, but Lea spoke next. “Which is?”
“The highest mountain in Sweden,” Alex replied. “It means cauldron crest in Sami, the language of the Sami people in Lapland. If you ask me — and you did — then I’m saying go to the lake at the base of Kebnekaise and start looking for a tunnel.”
“That’s great work, Alex,” Scarlet said, turning to face Ryan. “Now I know why you’re on the team.”
Ryan got up from his chair and cracked open a beer. “If I’m so useless,” he said, “how come I’m the only one who’s thought about Ragnarök.”
“Ragna-what?”
“The great battle at the end of the world that kills all the gods, including Thor.”
“I thought Thor was already dead?” Scarlet said.
“Well…”
“We’re going to his sodding tomb, aren’t we? He must be dead!”
Ryan sipped his beer. “Ragnarök was a way the Norse myths foretold the end of the world, and to them that meant submersion under water. I bring it up because I’m starting to hear Thor’s tomb and underwater tunnels in the same sentence.”
“Thanks for cheering us up,” Hawke said.
“He’s right though,” said Victoria. “Nate spoke to me about this as well. No one knows the significance of Ragnarök, but it’s where all the myths and legends come together. Loki finally breaks free from his chains, Thor will fight the World Serpent… everything.”
“I’m not digging the future tense here guys,” Lea said nervously. “I thought all this stuff happened millions of years in the past?”
“It did,” Ryan said. “And it didn’t.”
“Someone get me another Absolut,” Scarlet said. “Immediately.”
Victoria glanced at her watch again. “Goodness, you really do drink rather a lot, don’t you?”
Scarlet went to reply, but Hawke stopped her before the first word left her lips. “All right,” he said. “We can talk about Ragnarök later but right now we’ve got the advantage over Sala so let’s not waste it. We know what we’re looking for and where to start searching. Ryan, start looking into the most obvious places a tunnel could be hidden in the vicinity Alex has described.”
“Got it.”
“Lea, get on the phone to Eden. We need the jet fuelled and ready to fly to Lapland as soon as possible.”
“On it.”
“What about me?” Scarlet asked.
“Stop being a tit to Ryan.”
As Lea made the call, Hawke turned and gazed out of the window once more. His eyes fell on another tourist boat as it trundled from one side of the lake to the other, everyone on board totally oblivious to the threat looming over them. In his heart there was always hope, but Ryan’s talk of Ragnarök had begun to set his nerves on edge and with Vincent unconscious in hospital they were a man down.
He finished his beer and set the bottle on the table.
It was time to unearth Thor’s tomb.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Kiruna was Sweden’s most northerly town, nestled on the eastern slopes of Haukavaara Hill between the Kalix and Torne rivers. This place was deep in Lapland, nearly a hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, even further north than Reykjavik, and that meant short, breezy summers and winters that were a serious test of human endurance. From the end of May until mid-July, the sun never set up here, and this meant that from early mid-December until New Year’s Day it never rose either, plunging the entire population into a three week-long night.
The flight had been sombre. Hawke, like everyone else on board had thoughts crushing down on his mind. Vincent Reno was still unconscious, and now the mysterious spectre of Ragnarök was jostling for space alongside golden oldies like the men who had murdered his wife, Liz. With every sleepless night that passed, her death moved one day further away from his present-day life, but the pain never receded. The anguish he felt was kept alive by the thought of her killers getting away with their crimes and waking up to a new day every day to draw breath and live life while Liz was in her grave.
Their names were etched on his mind indelibly. James Matheson and Alfredo Lazaro. The former was no less than the British Foreign Secretary — mighty, distant and while easily found he was totally untouchable. The latter was a Cuban assassin known as the Spider. He moved in the world’s filthiest shadows and Hawke didn’t have the first idea how to track him down. One day, he swore, both men would pay the ultimate price for their crimes.
Glancing at Lea on the seat beside him, he saw she too was being tortured by something. Her brow was furrowed and she was staring with dry, unblinking eyes into the glass of whisky in her lap.
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.
“It’s about my Dad,” Lea said. She sounded even more worried than she looked.
“I know how tough this must all be.”
“Why the hell was he writing in that weird script, Joe? What did he know that he never told me?”
Hawke knew he had to tread carefully. He knew no more about this than anyone else, and it would be the easiest thing in the world to say the wrong thing and upset her or worse still worry her unnecessarily. “I can’t answer that, Lea. All I can say is whatever the reason is, we’ll find out, but you need to ask yourself if you really want to know.”
She looked at him with anxious eyes. “What do you mean?”
He gave a shallow shrug. “I don’t know… it’s just that everything we’ve uncovered so far seems to drag us further down the rabbit hole, that’s all.”
“And I’m Alice, is that what you’re saying?”
Hawke smiled. “I think you might be, but you’re not alone.” He squeezed her hand in his and clenched his teeth. He hated seeing her like this, but he knew she wouldn’t stop until she knew the truth not only about her father’s death, but about his life, too.
Lea glanced out of the window before replying. “I just wish I knew what was going on, Joe. I’ve been racking my mind, worrying about so much… I could just about get my head around the fact Dad was researching something to do with Norse mythology. The fact he worked as a doctor and devoted his life to helping people made it easier to understand why he’d been looking into ideas surrounding Mengloth — she was the goddess of healing, you know?”
Hawke nodded. “I do, but only thanks to your ex-husband.”
Lea gave a polite smile. “And what was the other one — Eir — the goddess of medicine or something. And there’s Frigg as well — now I know she was Odin’s wife and the mother of Thor, but it doesn’t make any of this more cogent up here, you know?” She tapped her temple with her index finger.
“I know.”
“I was freaked out enough that Dad was involved in this all before, but at least it all made some kind of sense. Maybe he’d discovered something to do with those goddesses that would help people — I don’t know, but now… there’s no reason why Dad should be able to write in that script, Joe. I thought he’d found it, or copied it — not that he’d written in it! Gunnar called it the script of the gods!”