Hawke stepped up. “Right, here’s where we have to get our hands dirty. If Alex and Ryan are right, somewhere around the shoreline of this lake is a concealed entrance to a tunnel. You only have to look at the place to know it probably hasn’t been touched for thousands of years, so let’s get looking.”
They worked their way around the shoreline, the ridges of the Kebnekaise massif looming above their heads as they went. Twilight lasted forever up here, so they had light to work with even if it was subdued, but it was over an hour before they found what they were looking for.
“You think this is it?” Lea asked.
Hawke took a step back and nodded his head. “Our best chance yet.”
He was looking at a jumble of rocks, some up to ten feet high, that to the casual observer looked random, but he thought otherwise. A large flat rock at the front looked like it had been placed there a very long time ago with the specific intention of concealing something.
“Let’s get it out the way then,” he said flatly.
“It must weigh ten tons!” Ryan said.
Hawke grinned. “Which is why I’ve brought along a decent quantity of military-grade C-4 in my picnic basket.”
Hawke pulled the explosive from his backpack and weighed it in his hand.
“Oh my goodness!” Victoria said, taking a step back.
“Don’t panic, darling,” Scarlet said. “It’s not dangerous until we detonate it with a shockwave.”
Hawke took a few seconds to evaluate the best areas to place the explosives, and then inserted the blasting caps. He dusted his hands down.
“You really like this bit, don’t you?” Lea said.
“Well…”
Ryan rolled his eyes.
They took cover and Hawke detonated the C-4. The explosion was heavy and loud, and blasted the thin upper end of the flat rock to oblivion. When the dust settled Hawke was the first to his feet and after briefly checking his work he gave the others the order to come up the embankment and join him with the equipment.
It was time to go inside the mountain.
Álvaro Sala lowered the binoculars and handed them to Leon Smets who was standing a yard to his left. Although they were wrapped in kid leather gloves, he rubbed his hands together for warmth. It was much warmer in Andorra at this time of year, but that wouldn’t stop him taking what was rightfully his.
Less than a kilometer to the west the Donovan girl and her friends had recently disappeared into a ravine on the south slopes of the Kebnekaise massif. It looked like they were planning an ascent via the eastern route, but not to any real altitude since their equipment was limited.
Tracking down their aircraft to Bromma airport hadn’t been the hardest challenge of his life, and tracking it on live radar was a simple facility on any handheld device. Perhaps they should have switched off their transponder, but such things were frowned upon by the authorities and would have generated an enormous security response.
Either way, he and the surviving members of his team had landed at Kiruna less than twenty minutes after the ECHO Gulfstream, and now not only would they lead them directly to the tomb and the location of Thor’s Hammer, but they would also pay for killing Deprez and putting Dasha Vetrov on life support.
Now, a hefty explosion rang out down the valley to the south and sent clouds of willow grouse and gray herons bursting into the air.
“They’re going inside the mountain,” Smets said. He spat on the gorse and sniffed deeply.
Sala gave him a look of disgust. “Of course they are, but they still have no idea what they’re looking for.”
Smets smirked and nodded his head in agreement.
“If they’re like everyone else then they probably think they’re looking for a hammer.”
“Or a Tesla Coil, perhaps?” Smets said, his face breaking into a malevolent smirk.
“Or a Tesla Coil… Ha!” Sala laughed and shook his head in disbelief before turning back from the ridge. He walked back toward the line of pick-up trucks parked up roughly at the eastern edge of the range.
Yes, perhaps they thought they were looking for a Tesla Coil, but whatever it was they were seeking they wouldn’t live to find out the truth, and even if they did they wouldn’t live long enough to enjoy it.
Sala shouted at the men hanging around and smoking cigarettes. “Into the trucks! We’re going inside the Kebnekaise!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Hawke led the team into the cave, and if they thought outside was cold, it was nothing compared to in here. The cramped cavern was icy and damp and their breath bloomed out before them with each exhalation.
“Place is like a bloody meat freezer.”
“It’s a cave inside the Arctic Circle, Cairo. What did you expect?”
“I meant Scandinavia.”
“Now that’s just offensive,” Lea said.
Ryan sighed. “Ladies, if it’s going to be handbags at dawn can it at least wait until we’ve found the tomb?”
Lea and Scarlet turned and faced him. “What was that, Ryan?” they said in perfect unison.
Ryan looked at them both, noting the expression on their faces. “I was just saying that we have a lot of work to do and thank mercy you’re both here to help.”
They shuffled deeper inside until reaching a narrow split in the floor of the tunnel which disappeared into darkness and didn’t exactly look like it promised safe passage.
Ryan peered over the edge and squinted. “Anyone got a glow-stick?”
Hawke fired one up and dropped it into the crack. They watched it tumble down, striking the sides of the shaft as it went. It hit the bottom with a gently thumping sound and a cloud of powdery dust puffed out around it.
“Mind the gap,” Scarlet said.
Hawke raised an eyebrow. “Looks like our next stop.”
They dropped rappel lines over the rocky ledge and began to descend into the abyss with Hawke in the lead, another glow stick in his hand.
He hit the bottom and after releasing himself from the line he gave the others the signal to come down.
“This is all terribly exciting,” Victoria said, eliciting an eye-roll from Scarlet.
They started down the vertical surface of the rock-face, working their way down into the depths of the vast mountain above them. Victoria was last, helped down by Scarlet, and when she touched down on the cavern floor they were all ready for the next stage.
At the far end of this lower cave was another tunnel partially obscured by a series of impressive stalagmites and stalactites.
Scarlet stared at them as she released her rappel line and checked her pistol.
“Yes, Cairo,” Ryan said, glancing at her. “They do look phallic, don’t they?”
She sighed. “I was thinking they were vaguely redolent of a set of jaws but if yours looks like any of those then I pity the poor borscht woman.”
“Her name’s Maria,” Ryan said with a disapproving sideways glance.
They moved cautiously through the cave and then through what Scarlet had described as a set of jaws until they found themselves staring into a twisting, ever-narrowing tunnel. The frozen darkness of the place was not something Lea would forget in a hurry, and for a second she wondered if her father had ever been down here.
No, she told herself. Stop being so stupid. Okay, so she now knew her father was mixed up in all of this somehow, but she couldn’t let her thoughts run away with themselves like this. Her thoughts ran fast, after all, and usually to the darkest of places. It was hard sometimes to pull them back… like taming so many horses. Whatever her father had known about all of this, how could he ever possibly have been down in this place?