“Which is why we did ask you,” Hawke said, smiling.
“But there’s a problem.”
She saw their faces drop.
“When isn’t there?” Scarlet said.
Hawke frowned. “Let us have it.”
“The cliffs in the area have suffered from a lot of erosion since the time of Valhalla, which according to most legends stands tall on the cliff tops. After significant erosion — and we’re talking millions of years here — you need to start looking under the water on the coast.”
“Fantastic,” Scarlet said.
“But it makes perfect sense,” Victoria said.
“All right,” Hawke said flatly. “This means we’re going to need extra gear — a submersible, plus some wetsuits and so on.”
“Already organized it and it’s on the way to you right now, and…” Alex stopped, her sentence cut short. She looked up from the faces of her friends on the screen to see another intruder alarm had gone off, much closer to the compound. Given the earlier intruder alert on the outer perimeter this looked like it could be trouble and she knew she had to deal with it right now.
“Guys, I think we might have a problem here, so I have to go.”
“What sort of problem?” Hawke asked.
“Um… all right, I’ve gotta go. Talk to you later.”
Alex cut the call and the screen went black. Then she turned to her other monitor and watched the flashing alert. Whoever it was must have taken Ben out and was now only minutes away from her.
Hawke and the others looked at each for a moment in the chilly Arctic silence and wondered what had happened back on the island.
“Well, that was weird.”
“Maybe Maria discovered Ryan’s extensive porn collection,” Scarlet said.
“Not the time, Cairo,” Hawke said flatly. “Ryan could be dead already.”
“Or maybe,” Lea said, smile fading. “Something more serious is going on?”
Hawke thought there was a good chance Lea might be right, but he knew Alex was more than capable of looking after herself — and it wasn’t like she was on her own or in a dangerous location.
She was with Sir Richard Eden, a former officer in the Paras and Maria Kurikova, a Russian agent who had recently defected to the ECHO team. Not only could both of these people put up a serious defense if they were under attack, but he’d heard rumors of another Para by the name of Ridgeley who was also connected to Eden in some way and might be on Elysium right now.
Sure, he was only a Para, Hawke considered mildly, but they were still a serious élite force to be reckoned with. If this Ridgeley were there too he was sure Alex Reeve was in no danger, at least not from any external force. What worried Hawke was how the American was obviously hiding the fact something was going wrong with her legs again — something connected to the elixir he had given her in Egypt.
He knew that would need looking at, but now was hardly the time. Now, as ever, he was up to his neck in trouble and grief and he knew there was a lot more to come as well. He had to focus and look after the people in his charge who needed him right now. Then there was the fact that Ryan Bale had been snatched from right in front of his eyes. For that, Álvaro Sala would pay a heavy price.
“So where are we?” Lea asked.
“In the middle of nowhere,” Scarlet said, and lit a cigarette. “As bloody usual.”
Hawke looked at the sky — the sun was already climbing slowly toward its zenith. “Thanks to Alex’s translation work we’ve got it confirmed that we’re not looking for anything to do with Thor’s Hammer anymore, at least not in the way we were thinking of it. The Hammer is a cliff, not a weapon, and obviously the location of Valhalla itself which Sala wants because of the weaponry that is supposed to be there.”
A silence fell over the team as the implications of his words faded into the strange dawn light.
“I can’t believe it — Valhalla!” Victoria said. “I know Nate must have been looking for this for a long time but I still can’t get my head around it all. I’m an archaeologist, not a treasure hunter or adventurer. To me this all sounds impossible.”
“We deal in the impossible every day,” Lea said with a warm smile.
“Time to go,” Hawke said, pointing at the horizon. “Looks like our ride’s on its way.” A large military helicopter was approaching them at full speed and swooping down into the valley toward them. “Let’s go and get Ryan.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The flight from Kebnekaise to Honningsvåg took them to the very edge of Europe and even deeper into Arctic territory. The transport was a long-range AugustaWestland AW101 belonging to the Royal Norwegian Air Force base at Andøya and flown by a genial young lieutenant named Trond Ljunggren who showed them aboard with a cheery wave before flying the powerful helicopter north.
Victoria looked out of the window for a few moments and then turned to the others. “Welcome to Asgard!”
They flew fast and low over some of the sparsest landscape on earth, and it wasn't long before the craziness of the last few hours conspired with the gentle roar of the chopper’s engine and caught up with Victoria Hamilton-Talbot, sending her into a deep sleep.
Hawke was still fuming from his failure to protect Ryan back in Thor’s tomb and stop Sala and his trained chimp Smets from taking him hostage. Not only did he fear for Ryan’s life, but it also meant the enemy would be able to use him to get the location of Valhalla. Things were bad enough when they thought Sala was seeking a Tesla Coil in Thor’s tomb, but now they knew he wanted the terrifying array of divine weapons in Valhalla itself things had taken a bleaker turn.
He wondered for a few seconds if Ryan was still alive, but quickly dismissed the thought for the reason he had just considered. Ryan Bale was no fool, and he would know how to use his knowledge to keep himself alive until the rest of the ECHO team could put together a rescue plan. But like everything else in life, it would all come down to a matter of timing. Hawke knew better than anyone that one screw-up could mean the difference between life and death, and having Ryan’s death on his conscience was unthinkable. He had a duty to protect everyone in his team, and that included Ryan Bale.
They’d made use of the flight time by studying some classified oceanographic surveys liberated from the CIA by Alex Reeve, and after putting their heads together they’d chosen the best place for them to start their search for the missing Hall of the Slain. The maps had revealed an ancient landslide exactly where Alex had described, and closer study showed what looked like a tunnel obscured by an underwater cliff.
Whatever it was, it was large — around fifty meters wide and thirty high — and it hadn’t taken the ECHO team long to decide it was what they were looking for. The only problem was that Sala was also looking for it, and he had a substantial head-start on them.
They raced ever closer to the coast, and Hawke rolled his eyes as Scarlet clambered forward to the flight deck to get more intimately acquainted with some Norwegian bedroom vocabulary.
He turned to Lea. The former Irish Ranger hadn’t been herself since her last journey to Ireland and Hawke knew why, but he also knew there was little he could do to change things.
When they finally reached the coastline, they saw they weren’t the first, but none of them was surprised by the revelation. Sala was not only in the lead but had Ryan’s mind to exploit, and now a remarkable vessel was rising and falling in the sea’s tumultuous swell. On the deck Hawke saw half a dozen men, some studying the coast with binoculars from the portside of the vessel. Written along the bow in black letters was the word “Rán”.