The Norse Directive (30 page)

Warm liquid splashed on Adriana’s face just as Caron toppled sideways to the floor, a hole in the side of his head.

Adriana fiddled with her hands for a moment and was able to prop herself up. Her vision cleared a little, and she could see Tommy standing in the corner holding something black in his hands, aimed in her direction.

He’d killed Dufort’s bodyguard.

“Drop it!” An irritatingly familiar French voice rang out from the other side of the corridor. “Or I will kill your friend right now.”

Adriana slowly picked herself up and looked in the direction of the voice. Tommy kept his weapon trained in that general direction. Dufort was standing over Sean with a gun pointed at him.

“Give it up, Dufort,” Tommy yelled. “There’s no way you’re getting out of this castle if you pull that trigger. You kill him, I kill you. You lose.”

“You lose too in that case, my American friend. Put down your weapon, or I kill him. Is that something you’re willing to risk?”

Tommy thought hard. The distance between him and the Frenchman was nearly fifteen yards. He could make the shot, but he could also miss. If he missed, Sean was dead.

Think, Tommy,
he thought to himself.
What would Sean do?

Sean would stall him.

“Don’t let this guy get away, Tommy. You take him down. Don’t worry about me.” Sean’s said groggily. He’d regained consciousness, but sounded like he’d been through a bottle of bourbon.

Tommy shook his head slowly, back and forth. “Not gonna let you die, buddy. Besides, our French friend here doesn’t want to let that treasure slip through his hands.”

In the dimly lit room, a questioning look passed over Dufort’s face. “What do you mean?”

“I know where the next clue is,” he answered confidently.

Dufort considered what Tommy was saying. “You’re bluffing. Drop your weapon, or I kill him!”

“I’m not bluffing, Dufort. I found the burial mound of Holger Danske’s captain, Asmund. And it’s right outside this castle, marked by a stone in the side of the hill.” Tommy pointed with his index finger to a random point on the wall he believed to be close to the direction he’d come from. “I saw it myself. Why do you think I’m soaking wet right now?”

The last point did make Dufort wonder. Was he telling the truth? And if he was, what was the next step.

“So what? We all walk outside together, hand in hand with guns pointed at each other?” He shook his head. “You put down your weapon, and I will let you show me where Asmund’s grave is. If you are not lying, I will let you go. But if you are, I will kill every one of you.”

“How am I supposed to trust you? How do we know you won’t kill us anyway?”

“It’s the risk you will have to take. But I am tired of these games. Make your decision in three seconds, or I put a bullet in your friend’s head.”

“Don’t listen to him, Tommy. Ice this guy right now.”

“Your friend is brave,” Dufort said. “But I am not so sure you can make that shot anyway. Three.” He began his countdown. “Two.”

Suddenly, a bright flash of lightning and an explosion of thunder interrupted the dramatic pause. The floor lights blinked for a second and went black, casting the entire room into pitch darkness. Dufort fired his gun, but the bullet sparked off the floor and ricocheted dangerously off the angled ceiling and walls. Tommy didn’t fire his weapon. The deadly bouncing bullet meant that Dufort had missed his mark. It was imperative that Tommy didn’t give away his position right away. He crept forward at an angle to close the distance between him and the Frenchman, careful not to trip or lose his footing. His hands kept the weapon at full extension, aimed at where he believed Dufort’s position had been, though it was difficult to tell in the absolute darkness.

Tommy stopped moving and listened carefully, trying to hear if his target was shifting in a similar fashion, but he heard nothing except the raging storm outside. He wanted desperately to say something, but he risked giving away his location if he did.

The lights flickered for a moment, and then began to burn steadily once more. Tommy brandished his weapon to the right and left, making sure Dufort hadn’t somehow snuck around to his flank. The room to the right, however, was empty. The three companions were all alone. Sean lay on the floor, looking around, then he got up and hurried over to Adriana as Tommy stepped over to her as well and kept watch of the intersecting corridor.

Dufort was gone.

“Are you okay? Can you move?” Sean mouthed to Adriana in a quiet whisper. She nodded, but winced as she did so.

The two men helped her up, and she shook the cobwebs from her head. Sean noticed her gun lying on the ground and bent down to pick it up. He offered it to her, but she waved her hand dismissively. “Keep it for now,” she said. “Let’s just get out of here.”

“What about them?” Tommy motioned toward the two bodies.

“Screw ’em,” Sean answered callously. “Let the Danish police take care of it.”

“Where do you think he went?” Adriana wondered in a hushed tone.

Sean looked around, his chest still aching. “He might have used the dark as a chance to escape. Or he might be waiting to ambush us.”

“So we’ll need to keep a close eye and move slowly.” Tommy cleared up the assessment.

“Exactly.”

They started making their way through the castle cellar in a methodical fashion, checking every cell, every stall, and every room before moving forward to the next area. Nearly thirty minutes passed before they reached the stairs leading to the first floor of the palace.

Dufort had disappeared.

Sean stowed the weapon inside his jacket before leading the way up the stairs. He reasoned that the Frenchman wouldn’t start a firefight in the middle of the palace. There would be security cameras in place as well as the potential for other tourists milling around. No, Gerard Dufort had escaped.

“Where do you think he went?” Tommy asked as they ascended the staircase. He had also tucked his weapon away in his damp coat’s inner pocket.

“I don’t know. But we’ll find him,” he said confidently.

The three crested the last step and turned the corner back into the courtyard. The rain was pouring steadily, but seemed to be slowing down, and the skies in the distance displayed a lighter shade of gray. Around the corner, the entrance to the palace remained open.

Sean pointed to the doorway. “Might as well hang out in here until the rain stops.”

Tommy stared at him with a go-screw-yourself look. “Really?” He put his hands out to display his soaked clothing. “Afraid of a little rain?”

Adriana laughed. “You must be freezing,” she said, trying to sound sympathetic over her laughter.

“I am, actually. I need to find some dry clothes.”

Sean led the other two through the open door and into the first room of the palace. The room stretched at least fifty feet in one direction and thirty feet across. The old, dark wooden floors creaked from their weight as they moved. Enormous tapestries hung from the walls, featuring faded images of Renaissance nobles and ladies on horses, surrounded by the banners and flags of their family names. Long, thick drapes of deep reds and forest greens hung from the tall windows. At the far end of the room, a fireplace was nestled in the wall. It was empty, which disappointed Tommy. He could have used the warmth, but wagered the fireplace hadn’t been used in a hundred years.

The three huddled around and watched out the windows as the storm slowly passed.

Sean stared straight ahead as he asked his friend, “Did you really find a burial mound out there?”

Tommy nodded, also not turning his head to the side, looking out at the raging sea beyond the eastern ramparts. “Yep. Pretty sure that’s the one we’ve been looking for.”

“Did you get inside it?”

He shook his head. “Going to need some equipment to move the stone. It was too heavy for just one person.”

Adriana was wondering something too. “I don’t mean to look a gift horse in the mouth, but you went to find the grave before coming to our rescue?” She turned her eyes slowly toward him, genuinely confused by his actions.

“Well,” Tommy stammered, “I thought since I was outnumbered that if I could find the grave and recover the clue, I would have a bargaining chip with Dufort. You know…trade him the next golden coin for you guys.”

Sean turned his head toward his friend now. “That would have been a good idea except for the fact that A: you couldn’t get into the grave to recover whatever was there and B: Dufort would have killed us as soon as you gave it to him.”

Tommy didn’t look at either of them, instead continuing to look out the window. “I know. Believe it or not, I actually ran through that scenario in my head, which was why I decided to ambush Dufort’s bodyguards the way I did.” He paused for a second before saying, “By the way, you’re both welcome. Just saved your lives, and you’re complaining about my timing?”

There was a moment of quiet before Adriana and Sean both broke out into laughter. They simultaneously put their arms around Tommy and gave him a firm hug, but quickly let go after realizing how wet he really was.

“First order of business,” Sean said, “getting you some new clothes. Then we’ll take a look at the burial mound.”

Dumfries, Scotland

Sean and his two companions got out of the black sedan and stood on the sidewalk, staring at the building.

The modest museum had been set up as a tribute to local history by grants brought in by several wealthy philanthropists from the region, as well as a few from abroad.

Tommy had been right.

When the clouds had parted and daylight returned to Helsingor, the three companions made their way over to a mall on the north side of the city. They purchased some new clothes for Tommy, then found a hardware store where they procured some digging equipment and crowbars.

Tommy made a few calls to some of the local authorities and worked out a temporary dig permit for the historical site. It was approved on the proviso that a native historian observe the dig, and that all findings be donated to Kronborg Castle’s gallery of artifacts.

It took a few days for the permit to come through, which meant that Sean and company had to find lodgings in the small town. Fortunately, they were able to get a quaint little apartment through an Internet website that rented rooms and entire homes to tourists all over the world for an affordable price.

While they waited, Sean and his companions explored the shops, bars, cafes, restaurants, and specialty stores that Helsingor had to offer. Tommy was in heaven at the cheese maker, a shop that offered hundreds of different cheeses for the discerning palate. A few doors down, the smell of freshly baked bread wafted out of a bakery. Loaves of wheat, rye, sourdough, white, Italian, and French bread lined a glass case just inside the window. Behind the counter, a blond man in his midfifties, wearing a white apron, smiled as people came and went, eagerly spending their currency for a taste of the best bread in town.

Sean and company weren’t just out to see the sights and indulge in local tastes though. They weren’t entirely convinced Dufort was gone. It was certainly within the realm of possibility that the man had regrouped, brought in reinforcements, and returned to Helsingor to start digging around the area Tommy had described.

Dufort's face, however, never appeared. They kept a close eye on the burial mound, checking on it sporadically, and doubling back through the village to make sure no one was tailing them. Perhaps a little paranoid, but as Sean always believed, it was way better to be safe than sorry.

On the third day, the group met up with a man named Olan Dolffson, a historian who lived nearby and helped maintain and curate the gallery within Kronborg Castle. At first, he wasn’t too excited about the idea of a few Americans and a Spaniard digging around so close to the fortress grounds. When Tommy explained who he was, though, the man immediately warmed to the idea. The IAA had apparently done some good work with the man before, and he was more than happy to help retrieve more artifacts that would be put into his museum.

The labor involved in getting the stone moved took less than two hours. When it was finally hefted out of its resting place, using the combined strength of four men with levers, the group was able to see inside a tomb that hadn’t been witnessed by human eyes for over two hundred years.

Inside the tomb, the sarcophagus that Jonathan Stuart had found was still intact. The last person to have seen it was Francis Jackson; nearly seven years after Stuart had stumbled his way into the tomb.

Based on the story, Sean and Tommy decided that Stuart must have fallen through a hole created by a cannon ball; a cavity that was covered up by erosion and time over the next six years. When they gazed upon the exterior of the mound, several such undulations indicated this to be more than plausible.

The three companions carefully made their way into the crypt, followed closely by Dolffson. Their lights shone brightly in the darkness of the small room, illuminating every corner with a bright digital glow. The cover of the sarcophagus still lay on its side, just as Francis Jackson had left it two centuries before in his hurry to escape.

After a few minutes of searching carefully through the burial box and the rest of the room, concern began to set in with the group. The only thing they could find that seemed out of the ordinary was a tattered piece of plaid cloth, designed in what looked like a family tartan.

Apart from some weapons, a few utensils and tools, a metal vase, and some trinkets, there was nothing to indicate where to go on the next leg of their journey.

They believed they’d reached a dead end.

That all changed when Tommy took a picture of the tartan cloth and sent the image to Alex and Tara for analysis. It only took them a little over an hour to call back and let Tommy know that the tartan he’d found came from an area near Dumfries, Scotland, and while they would need to analyze the fabric to be certain, they were pretty sure Dumfries was the next place to look.

Other than that, they had no idea where to proceed. There was nothing in the way of a map and certainly no proverbial X that marked the spot. 

Sean learned a long time ago that life was full of little ironies. The universe sometimes had a funny way of humbling a person, and making one realize they weren’t always in control.

So was the case with the clue leading to Dumfries.

Tommy received a call from Tara the next morning as the group was packing up their few belongings, getting ready to head back to the States. “You’re not going to believe this,” she told him and instructed him to check out the link she’d just emailed and texted.

He ended the call and tapped the blue lettering on the screen. The image swooshed over to a webpage that featured an astounding article. Tommy read it with disbelieving eyes.

A retired businessman living in Dumfries had requested permission from a nearby church to search the grounds for any metals that might be buried in the earth. The man spent several days using his metal detector to scour the area in the hope of finding something interesting.

He had no idea the significance of what that search would unveil.

On one of the last days of his search, the businessman’s metal detector began to indicate something big underground. What he found after doing a little digging changed history.

What later became known as the Dumfries Hoard or Dumfries Trove, was a cornucopia of ancient Viking treasures, relics, and several other important artifacts. A Carolingian pot, fully intact, was one of many items discovered in the trove. More crucial to Sean and his friends was the solitary gold coin that was unearthed with the other items.

Now, they stood outside the museum in the chilly, damp Scottish air and glanced around. None of them was completely satisfied that Dufort had given up his search or his quest to beat them to the treasure, but they never saw his face.

Inside, the museum was quaint. For years it had been a real estate office, which had closed during the international recession and only recently converted to a museum due to the extraordinary find of a local retiree.

The three visitors made their way through the foyer, a modest room with a few plants in the corner and a donation box by the entryway. A young woman with curly, reddish-brown hair sat behind a counter with a bright smile. She handed the group a pamphlet on the Dumfries Hoard and invited them to take a look around.

They made their way through the little maze of glass cases and shadow boxes. There were pictures on the walls featuring some of the people who had made the discovery, as well as some images of the unearthing of the artifacts.

“There’s a lot of stuff here,” Adriana said as she stopped to admire a beaded necklace with a four-sided cross hanging from it.

“Not as much as I would have thought though,” Tommy said and drifted over to another side of the room, examining a few knives and utensils while Sean walked to the far end. The exhibition area only covered around a thousand square feet, so the entire collection could be seen in less than twenty minutes. Maybe even fifteen.

“Guys,” Sean said, motioning for his friends to join him at a glass box. He stared down at the object protected within.

When the other two joined him, they stared with wide, disbelieving eyes through the glass protecting the artifact within. It was the golden coin, the next clue in the search for the final resting place of Holger Danske and the missing Holy Lance.

“I can’t believe some random guy just happened upon all this,” he said to Tommy and Adriana. “What are the odds?”

“Yeah,” Tommy agreed quietly, his voice a low murmur. “I actually kinda hoped that it was just a random coincidence and that it wasn’t the same treasure hoard we were looking for.”

Sean turned his eyes to the side and gave his friend a baffled glance. “Really? Two ancient Viking treasures in the little town of Dumfries?”

Tommy shrugged. “Stranger things have happened.”

“I guess.”

“Boys, we need to find the clue that goes with this coin.” Adriana tried to get them back on track, pointing at the golden object. “It’s got to be in here somewhere.”

“Right,” Sean said. “Keep looking around. See if anything catches your eye.”

The three split up again and slowly made their way through the exhibit, careful to not let anything go unnoticed.

There were strange markings on one of the crosses. The emblems on the Carolingian pot were ornate, but nothing stood out. They looked over some of the other items in the museum, like the weapons and armor, hoping there would be a clue hidden somewhere.

After nearly forty minutes and at least three trips each around the room, the group decided to call it a day. They’d taken several pictures of pieces they thought might have something to offer, but from all appearances, the trail had gone cold.

Dejected, they left the museum and headed down the street to a pub only a block away. They turned into it, entering through a black wooden door, and found a table in one of the corners. A pretty waitress with straight black hair brought a few menus for them to look over and wrote down what they wanted to drink.

Sean scanned the pictures he’d taken at the museum, still hoping to find something he may have missed. He stared at the image of the ornately decorated pot with several images of horses running freely and a mountain range in the background. After a few seconds, he swiped the screen and went on to the next picture.

“Is there anything we’re missing here?” Tommy asked, exasperated. “I mean, there are times when we can’t figure things out. I get that. But we’ve come so far on this one. It just sucks to not get any closure to the case.”

“I hear ya,” Sean agreed. “I wonder if there’s anything those guys found on that dig that they didn’t put in the museum.”

“I already checked on that,” Adriana said, entering the conversation. “The woman told me that the men who discovered the stash made sure, according to their agreement, that everything was put on display in the museum, and that all the proceeds would be divided accordingly.”

When she finished her remarks, the three sat in silence for several minutes. The waitress brought them their drinks and took their food orders, and when she disappeared around the corner again, their silence resumed.

“I guess we’ll need to get all these images to the kids and let them break down what they can. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and they’ll find something,” Tommy finally said.

“Yeah,” Sean agreed. “But I’ve got a bad feeling that the stuff in the exhibit is the end of the line for our journey.”

“Do you think it was a hoax?” Adriana asked, sipping on her beverage. She peered over the glass rim with narrow, questioning eyes.

“We’ve certainly seen elaborate hoaxes like that before. But this one seems different. I don’t think someone went to all those lengths just to play a trick on someone several hundred years later.”

The dinner conversation changed from the topic of the legendary missing Viking to the Scottish weather, to food, to travel, and eventually deciding to return to the hotel. The following morning, Tommy checked his email and text messages, and the news wasn’t good.

“The kids said they couldn’t find anything in the images we sent them yesterday,” he informed Sean and Adriana over a breakfast of fried potatoes and eggs.

Sean couldn’t believe it. Granted they’d only been given twelve or so hours, but Tara and Alex rarely disappointed. “Not a single clue? Nothing?”

“It’s blowing my mind too, man. They’ll keep searching, but I need to get back to the U.S.”

Sean was troubled, and he didn’t try to hide it as he stared down at his drink. He hated untidy endings. Closure was something he’d become adept at getting. Now there was none to be had. Dufort had vanished like leaves in an autumn wind. And the relic they’d been chasing was forever lost to antiquity.

Tommy patted his friend on the shoulder. “Hey, don’t worry about it, man. You know how this goes. These things happen sometimes. We get some leads, we search every possible angle, and that’s all we can do. Occasionally, it just doesn’t work out. You worked with me long enough to see that. That’s the nature of it. Heck, grave robbers usually beat us to most of the good stuff anyway. Think about the pyramids and all the stuff that was taken from them.”

“I know,” Sean admitted. Tommy was right. And during the time he’d worked at IAA, Sean had seen his fair share of not getting closure on many expeditions. This one nagged at him, though, probably because Dufort was still out there, and as long as he was, there was a chance that the Frenchman would win.