“Our academic partnership was extremely close, yes, but that was the extent of our relationship.”
“Why do you think he was murdered?” Hawke asked.
Victoria hesitated, and Lea thought she looked like she was calculating something before answering. “I can’t be sure, but I think it’s got something to do with what he was researching… on the side.”
“What was his specialist field of research?” Ryan asked.
“Pre-historic archaeology in the Maritimes, but he’d started researching Thor.”
“And you think something to do with this got him killed?” Hawke asked.
Victoria sighed. “Maybe, yes, but it all seems too strange.”
“What makes you say that?” Lea said.
“Nate had started acting rather peculiar lately — missing important lectures and other professional appointments, ignoring his cell whenever I tried to call him, and also he’d started drinking… that wasn’t like him.”
“He wasn’t all bad then,” Scarlet said under her breath.
“But this Thor business,” Victoria said, the hesitancy almost palpable in her voice.
“What about it?” Lea said.
“He started talking to me more and more about it. He became obsessed with Thor.”
That name again. Lea felt the anxiety rising as she considered if all this could be a coincidence. Could her attack in Ireland for a file containing research into Norse legends, and now the murder of a man obsessed with Thor, really be connected somehow?
Her thoughts were broken by the sound of Hawke’s voice. “We’re going to need more than this if we’re going to help, Vikki.”
Victoria offered a shallow nod and looked away for a moment. Lea thought she looked scared. “More specifically then, Nate kept talking to me about Thor’s Hammer — you’ve all heard of Thor’s Hammer, I presume?”
“Of course,” Ryan said. “Every man and his dog’s heard of Thor’s Hammer — but that might not extend to Joe, of course.”
“I know what Thor’s Hammer is, Rupert.”
“Hey! I thought I was safely out of Rupert territory? What happened to mate?”
“If you behave like a Rupert, you get called Rupert. Easy.”
“What’s this all about, Victoria?” Lea said, interrupting the banter. “What would a professor of Atlantic Canadian archaeology have to do with Thor’s Hammer?”
Ryan leaned back and folded his arms behind his head. “I would have thought that was obvious.”
Hawke sighed and shook his head. “What did I just say about acting like a Rupert, Rupert?”
Lea rolled her eyes. “Guys, please.”
“Obvious to some, maybe,” Victoria said curtly with a glance to Ryan. “As some of you may know, the Vikings had a long history with Atlantic Canada, specifically the L’Anse aux Meadows site on the northern coast of Newfoundland. Archaeologists discovered the site in 1960 and our research dates it to at least the year 1000 AD, making Viking settlement in North America well over a thousand years old.”
“It’s what they call Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact,” Ryan said chirpily.
“I’m impressed,” Victoria said.
“Thanks, babe,” Ryan said with a wink.
Victoria looked with horror at the man in the Batman t-shirt.
Hawke rolled his eyes. “Ignore it, Vikki… and please continue.”
“As I say, Nate started talking to me about Thor recently, so I began to research it as well, on the side. I got particularly interested in Valhalla, but then I realized that there were other agencies involved.”
Hawke frowned. “What do you mean, other agencies?”
“I don’t know, but Nate wasn’t working alone. I think he got mixed up with others.”
Victoria continued but Lea walked slowly to the French doors and stepped out on the deck. There was a ceiling fan out here on one of the roof beams, but it wasn’t switched on and without the gentle whir of the blades she instantly felt the heat of the day move up her neck and over her face.
As Victoria meandered meekly through her story, Lea took a second to scan the area for any trouble. All that bothered her was a single yacht a few hundred meters out to sea — it looked like a big one worth at least a couple of mill, but that wasn’t such a surprise around here, she guessed.
Further along the coast to the south she saw what looked like a Seabreacher X partially obscured by a scraggy line of mangroves. It was moored to a private jetty at the bottom of a property to the south of the resort — which also made sense. She and Hawke had seen a program on the TV about them recently and they were somewhere around the fifty K mark. If the TV program was right, they went through the sea like a torpedo and could even submerge for short durations, allowing you to see underwater through the acrylic canopy. Boys and their toys, she thought, and returned to the air-conditioned room behind her.
“All quiet on the Eastern Front?” Hawke asked.
“I think so… there’s a nice Seabreacher out there I know you’ll want to check out.”
“A Seabreacher?” Hawke asked with interest.
“One of the neighbors owns it,” Victoria said dismissively. “Makes a bloody noise half the time going up and down outside my house. Anyway, very recently,” she continued, “we’ve been able to study the latest satellite images of the Province and they’ve revealed a real treasure further south on Point Rosee.”
Scarlet downed her vodka and leaned forward in her seat. “Treasure, you say?”
Victoria nodded vehemently. “Oh yes, absolutely. Point Rosee is a peninsula on the southern coast of the Province and these new satellite images are strongly hinting at human social activity in the region. It’s incredibly exciting.”
Scarlet sighed and poured another vodka. “But no gold?”
Victoria looked confused. “Gold?”
“And ignore that, too,” Lea said, taking a seat. “What has all of this got to do with Nate’s death and Thor?”
Victoria sighed and tied her hair back with a small band. She looked lost. “I really don’t know… I guess I’m just wondering if Nate found something up in Newfoundland that relates in some way to Thor’s Hammer — he mentioned something to do with a Tesla coil — does that mean anything to anyone?”
Ryan stared at her, the blood running from his face. He had lost Sophie Durand fighting against people who wanted to destroy Tokyo with a Tesla device.
Lea saw the change in his expression. “Ry — are you okay?”
“I’m fine… Many people have surmised that Thor’s Hammer might have been an ancient doomsday weapon that operated somehow like a modern Tesla coil, but nothing’s ever been proved. I for one am sceptical about it.”
Victoria looked glum. “I can’t know or be sure what Nate was researching — but it’s certainly what he was starting to talk about more and more. I’m no scientist but as I say, he did mention to me something about a Tesla Coil.”
Ryan leaned forward. “Did he elaborate at all?”
“Just that Thor’s Hammer wasn’t actually a reference to a hammer at all, not as we see it anyway. He claimed it was more like what today we’d call a Tesla Coil. I’m not even sure what one of those is to be honest.”
“It’s a type of induction coil which generates alternating high-frequency currents.” Ryan frowned, aware that everyone in the room was now staring in his direction in hope of a better explanation. “It’s very dangerous.”
“Sounds like it,” Victoria said.
“But so was Thor’s Hammer,” Ryan said. “Mjölnir, using the Old Norse word to describe it, was one of the most terrifying weapons in Norse mythology. In fact I’d say it was probably up there with Poseidon’s trident.”
“This is all sounding very dangerous,” Scarlet said, sipping the vodka. “Which is just great.”