“Bloody hell!” Hawke said. “Check this out.”
With the greatest of care, he broke open the wax seal with a gentle snap and unfurled the scroll. “Lea — take a picture of this thing right now. We don’t want a repeat of the castillo.”
Lea snapped an image of the unfurled scroll. It was covered in spidery letters that made zero sense to her, but she recognized some of them from what she had seen on the axe handle so she was confident Alex and Ryan could get something out of it.
She slipped her phone back inside her pocket and peered inside the sarcophagus, looking once again at the hammer. She’d read about the Mighty Hammer of Thor many times since flying out of Elysium, and could hardly believe she was actually looking at it. It looked small just like any regular war hammer, but some said it could level mountains. She glanced up at the cavern roof and hoped nothing like that was going to happen today.
Hawke smiled. “I think this might be just what we’re looking for!”
“But unfortunately it is also what I am looking for.”
Lea spun around and saw a silhouette looming in the entrance to the tunnel. A flickering torch was backlighting the mystery figure, and then to her right she saw another silhouette emerge from the damp gloom. Then a third, a fourth and a fifth as armed gunmen scrambled into the tomb.
Álvaro Sala stepped into the gleam of the glow sticks. He was wearing a black roll neck, dark blue navy camo trousers and a pair of chunky black boots and had one hand casually in a pocket as if he were perusing antiques.
“Sala!”
“We meet again” he said.
“Oh, please,” Scarlet muttered.
Sala moved into the center of the tomb, a crazed sparkle in his eyes. “You managed to make more trouble for me in Stockholm after extricating yourselves from the snake pit back at my château. I’m impressed. Even the great Viking chieftain Ragnar Lodbrok lost his life when he was thrown into a snake pit, and yet you survived.”
Lea took a step forward. “Go to hell!”
“Many would say I am already in hell. But I digress — I have been waiting for this moment a long time. Drop your weapons.”
Lea looked at the man. His long hair was tied back in a tight pony tail and he looked drawn and sick. A few paces behind him was Leon Smets, the man they had fought back in Andorra, the man who had pulled the trap door and sent them falling into Sala’s vile snake pit.
Sala looked at each one of them, his eyes lingering on Victoria Hamilton-Talbot for just a second too long, Lea thought. He started to speak to her but was stopped when Hawke broke the silence.
“What do you want, Sala?” he asked with palpable disgust.
Lea glanced once more at the hammer.
Sala’s response was wordless but clear to everyone. He held out his arm, pointed at the old scroll and made the “give me” gesture with his right hand.
Lea frowned. “You don’t want the hammer?”
“A hammer is a hammer. Give me the scroll.”
Hawke looked at him with hatred and Lea hoped he wasn’t about to do anything stupid. They were outnumbered and trapped in a mountain’s cave complex high up in the Arctic Circle. To say no one would hear them scream was an understatement.
But he didn’t. Instead, the Englishman reluctantly lowered the scroll to the dusty floor and kicked it across the tiles. It came to a stop at Sala’s steel toecap boots, and without taking his eyes off Hawke, the Andorran stooped down to pick it up.
His eyes sparkled with delight and he nodded his head with self-importance as his eyes crawled all over the ancient text. “This is the final piece of the puzzle. You have no idea how long I have been seeking the treasures this poem will lead me to!”
“I thought you were trying to find Thor’s Hammer, Sala?” Lea said. “It’s right here!”
Sala stepped closer and turned slowly to face Lea. “Yes, I see the resemblance at once… you are certainly Henry’s daughter.”
Lea looked shocked at the casual, first name reference to her father. “What are you talking about? What did you mean when you talked about killing him back in Andorra?”
Sala grinned. “It’s true I never knew him, but in a way… I knew of him, and for a very long time indeed. We had certain things in common.”
“My father would have nothing in common with a snake like you, Sala!”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, really! My father was a healer — he spent his life helping people. He wasn’t like you. I’ve seen your idea of helping people.”
Sala’s hand held the rolled-up parchment tighter, like a baton. “Your father was a fool. He wanted the treasures of the healing goddesses so he could use them to save humankind. This is why he sought the Hammer so tirelessly, and this is why he was killed. I, however seek a different kind of treasure — every weapon ever used by the gods!”
Now Lea understood what all this was about. Weapons and war. “And that’s what your little scroll is for?”
“The scroll will lead me to my destiny, yes!”
Scarlet snorted. “I’m starting to wonder if madness is contagious.”
Sala ignored her, but ordered Smets and some men forward.
“Get your hands up. It’s time to prove your mortality — especially you, Donovan. You led me quite the merry dance all over Ireland… and yet you still brought me here to my destiny. A shame you will not be alive to see me fulfil it.” He turned to Smets. “Take them down that tunnel and shoot them dead.”
The Belgian mercenary laughed as he marched them to their execution. Lea turned to look over her shoulder as they left the tomb, and saw Sala mumbling to himself as he stared at the scroll once more, totally ignoring the hammer in the sarcophagus.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
At the head of the group with his hands raised, Joe Hawke searched the narrow tunnel for anything he could use as a weapon. He knew the others were counting on him — Lea, Scarlet, Ryan and now Victoria. For one reason or another, he felt responsible for all of them and the idea of leading them to their deaths in Thor’s tomb complex, of all places, was just unthinkable.
If it came down to the wire, they could turn on Smets and attack him mob-handed but it would have to be soon while they were still in an enclosed area, and… he knew not all of them would make it. Smets would mow some of them down with that machine pistol before the survivors could take him out. It wasn’t much of a plan.
He looked at Ryan, who was beside him. Judging from his facial expression he was also beside himself — with fear. With Thor’s tomb rapidly receding behind them, Hawke looked down and saw Ryan had the answer around his waist.
“Hey!” Hawke whispered.
“What?”
“You’re still wearing it.”
“Wearing what?”
“Thor’s jock strap or whatever the hell you said it was.”
Ryan looked at him, confused. “Sorry — I’m wearing Thor’s jock strap?”
Hawke nodded his head at Ryan’s waist. “That thing!”
A glorious epiphany seemed to spread across the young hacker’s face. “Ah! You mean the megingjörð — Thor’s power-belt!”
“That’s the one, mate. What does it do, exactly?”
“According to Norse legend, it increased Thor’s godly power many times.”
“But you don’t have any godly power,” Scarlet whispered over his shoulder. “What if all it does when you wear it is increase how annoying you are?”
“Thanks for your input, Cairo,” Hawke said, “but we’re out of options. This is our only chance now.”
Ryan frowned. “Sorry, but what exactly do you expect me to do?”
“I expect you to slam our host into the middle of next week.”
“Me? I can’t fight!”