The Norse Directive (31 page)

To Sean, losing was never an option.

He let go of the thoughts and raised his glass with the others. “To Holger Danske,” Sean said with a grim smile. “May he rest in peace, wherever he is.”

     Atlanta, Georgia

Sean sat on his deep leather couch, staring mindlessly at the flatscreen television. He’d be heading back to Destin the next morning to open up his surf and kayak shop for the spring and summer. His mind was only half into the soccer game playing out on the screen in crystal-clear high definition. The other half of his brain still ran through the perplexing mystery of Holger Danske and the lance he’d stolen from Charlemagne.

Upon returning to the States, he and Tommy spent several days wrapping up a few loose ends, although there were some that seemed would never be completed. Browning Cooper and Charlie Fowler had returned to their respective homes in Knoxville and Chattanooga. Sean was sure to call them both to give the disappointing report.

Charlie had blown off the whole thing saying, in his usual, cynical fashion, that he always thought it was a wild goose chase. Coop had taken it well too.

“Perhaps someday we’ll know the rest of the story,” he’d said after hearing the news.

Sean hated to disappoint him, especially after he’d been shot and hospitalized. But there was nothing else they could do. They’d left no stone unturned.

It was as he’d said to Adriana and Tommy, “You can’t win them all.”

At least he felt good about helping shut down one of the largest human trafficking rings in the world. Dufort was gone, his minions dead, and the lives of dozens of young girls had been spared, not to mention the girls Dufort would have taken in the future. He regretted not killing the Frenchman, but Sean knew that eventually Dufort would get his due.

Emily had relayed the story of their sting operation and how they’d found her missing agent and several other girls hidden in a shipping container stored on the outskirts of Paris.

Beyond the immediate results of the operation Emily had personally overseen, international agencies were able to retrieve contacts for at least eleven of Dufort’s regular customers. It would be impossible to indict all of them. Some would disappear before their locations could be nailed down. Most would face justice though. The world had become a much smaller place over the last fifty years. It was becoming increasingly more difficult to hide. 

Sean believed evil people like that always got their comeuppance. Sooner or later, they would get theirs. He felt a twinge in his heart as that thought ran through his mind again.

One of the referees in the game blew his whistle, startling Sean from his thoughts. He’d drifted off into a daydream about the events of the previous weeks. The yellow-uniformed official waved a warning finger at one of the players, letting him know that he would no longer be accepting such behavior.

Sean glanced up at the score in the corner of the screen. The clock just below it told him there were still a few minutes left in the first half. Plenty of time for his team to give up the lead. He hoped that wasn’t the case.

He let himself focus on the game for the next eighty seconds without thinking about human trafficking or evil men or ancient Viking hoards.

The referee blew his whistle again sooner than expected, ending the first half of the game. The two teams walked off, disappearing into a tunnel to regroup. A commercial came on the screen showing a couple walking to the edge of the Grand Canyon. Next, it showed a man water skiing with a huge smile on his face as he cut through a lake in slow motion. The third scene was of several friends on a camping trip, sitting around a fire with tents in the background and a full moon hanging overhead amid a starry night sky.

“Come to Arizona,”
the narrator’s voice said as the words appeared on the screen.

Arizona.

The state’s name rang in Sean’s head, but he didn’t know why. He figured it was fatigue getting to him. He’d been doing too much lately. And there were some pretty heavy things on his mind that he needed to sort out, things that would require him to do something he swore he never would. His heart twitched again.

In the search for Holger Danske, he’d poured over maps, researched reservations, mountain ranges, and just about everything he could within the circumference they’d drawn out as a possible location for Danske’s final resting place. He’d gone through references about Vikings visiting North America, thinking that it was possible that Danske and his friend had crossed the ocean in an attempt to hide the lance.

Despite how small the world had become, it was still just too large when it came to finding something like this. Living people left a footprint, a paper trail, a slew of witnesses who had seen them. The dead left nothing but their remains. Even if Tommy put the entire force of IAA agents behind an expedition, it could take more than one lifetime for them to find anything. Tens of thousands of square miles would have to be covered, and finding any kind of clue would be harder than finding a needle in a haystack. More like finding a needle in a million haystacks.

Sean’s eyes blinked him back to the moment, trying to shake the weariness from them so he could think.

Sean reached over to the end table and picked up the cup of green tea he’d been sipping. He started to take another draught when he stopped himself short. He froze, holding the cup just in front of his lips. A second later, he set the cup back on the surface of the little table and grabbed his remote. He hit the button that took the television feed back thirty seconds and rewatched the clip of some desert mountains on the commercial.

He paused the screen and stared at it. His mind began to race with a million ideas, all revolving around one central theme: the image Asmund had apparently left on the vase in Scotland.

Sean’s phone was sitting next to him on the couch, and in a few seconds, he was scrolling quickly through the photos they’d taken in Dumfries. He stopped on the one he was looking for and tapped the screen. The image enlarged and displayed the vase with the strange engravings on it. Was he remembering correctly? Or had he seen something about another archaeologist visiting the Arizona desert on an expedition in recent months?

In some of the runes they deciphered while in Dumfries, mention was made of horses and flat lands near red, rocky mountains. 

Sean looked at the image on his phone, and then at the one on the television. While the mountains on the tablet weren’t detailed enough to even remotely represent what he was seeing on the television, the pieces to the puzzle came together nonetheless. He remembered something he’d seen on television the previous year about a man who had discovered some ancient Viking runes outside a cave in the Arizona desert. He couldn’t remember exactly where the cave was or who the man was that had discovered it, but he definitely recalled the show.

His laptop was sitting on the ottoman between him and the television. Sean reached over and picked it up, flipping it open. The screen flashed to life, and he quickly entered a search about runes in Arizona.

The first few results filled in the gaps in his mind.
Runes found in the Mustang Mountains.

The epiphany caused Sean’s heart to drop into his stomach. He clicked on one of the links, read through the information, and then clicked on another. It was all there.

Several images of the men who had discovered the cave and the ancient runes were featured on the first few sites. Some video links showed clips from the television show Sean had remembered seeing. Most importantly, right there, front and center, was the stone in the dirt displaying the runes themselves.

Tommy had flown out of the country two days before, attending a summit in Amsterdam. Adriana was back in Spain, at least that’s where she headed initially. Sean knew the lifestyle she’d become accustomed to, and he didn’t want to try to tie her down. She had her own sense of purpose, and that was something he would never try to squelch.

The only problem was that he desperately wanted to tell them both what was going on, to rally them to the airport and fly out to Arizona to check out this site. This time, Sean would have to go it alone, which felt weird to him. But his curiosity had to be fed. Secretly, it needled him that the story of Holger Danske had never been finished. This was his chance to find the ending.

He pulled up the first travel website that came to mind and scrolled through a list of flights leaving Atlanta and heading to Phoenix in the next five hours. Prices were through the roof, as he expected, but that didn’t matter. He had to get to Arizona.

He clicked the purchase button after entering his personal information, and closed the laptop. His phone buzzed, signaling that his electronic ticket had arrived in his email. He flipped through his email on the device and made sure the ticket was in the passbook app. Next, he scanned through the contacts list and pulled up Alex’s number.

A few seconds later, the familiar ringing sound came through the earpiece. Alex answered in a chirpy tone. “What’s up, Sean?”

“Hey, Alex. I need you to do me a favor. I assume you’re not at the lab.”

Alex laughed. “That would be correct. You guys realize we don’t actually spend all our time there. We have a life, hobbies, things we do for fun.”

Sean waited to comment for a second. “No, you don’t. You’re probably reading up on some new form of genetic testing.”

Another laugh. “Actually, Sean, I’m watching television. It’s the final season of my favorite series, and I’m catching up on the episodes I’ve missed the last few weeks.”

“Gotta love Netflix, huh?”

“You bet. I’m guessing you didn’t call to get the lowdown on what I’m doing for fun.”

“Nope,” Sean confirmed. “I hate to do this to you, but I need a quick favor. And you’re probably going to have to run to the lab to do it.”

“Oh yeah? What have you got?” There wasn’t an inkling of annoyance in the younger man’s voice. He and Tara were always so eager to help. It was almost bizarre.

“I’m going to text you some pictures of a rune stone. I need you to run the runes through translation and get me the meanings as quickly as you can.”

There was a few seconds of silence. Sean assumed Alex was writing down his instructions. “Okay, go ahead and send me the pics, and I’ll head to the lab right away.” He hesitated for a moment then asked, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Sean said. “I’m fine. But I think I may have found the missing piece to the mystery of Holger Danske.”

“Reeeeally?” He elongated the word for dramatic and comedic effect. “How’d you do that?”

“I’ll explain later. If you can get me that translation, I’d appreciate it.”

“Does Tommy know about this?” Alex asked.

“No. He’s in Holland right now at some conference, and I’m sure he’s in a meeting or something. I’d hate to call him while he’s onstage. You were the first person I called.”

“Thanks,” Alex responded in a tone that could have passed for sincere or sarcastic.

Sean laughed. “Well, I knew that Tara had a life, so I didn’t want to bother her.”

“Funny.”

“Seriously, I appreciate your help.” Sean slipped into some comfortable boots as he ended the call. “I’ll speak to you soon.”

He went to the master bedroom and packed a book bag with an extra pair of pants, socks, boxers, a T-shirt, and his hygiene pouch that contained a toothbrush, toothpaste, and deodorant. Sean hoped he wouldn’t be in Arizona more than a day or two, but if he was, he could always buy anything else he might need.

An hour later, he made his way into Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, just south of the city. He’d got used to flying on private planes in the last ten years. Occasionally he would have to book a flight on a commercial airline, but it wasn’t often. Working for Axis and IAA had its perks. And doing the occasional favor for the president of the United States did too.

He didn’t mind flying the way normal people did. The major inconvenience was going through the security checkpoints. That could become a major hassle in an airport that frequently alternated with Chicago’s O’Hare as the busiest airport in the world.

Fortunately, there weren’t a ton of people hopping on the overnight flights when Sean arrived, and getting through the series of X-ray machines and identification checkpoints took less than twenty minutes.

After a quick ride on the train going between the terminals, Sean arrived at his gate and took a seat near one of the windows. He glanced up at the LED screen to make sure his flight was on time. Glad to see there were no delays, he pulled out his phone to check his messages.

Nothing yet from Alex, which didn’t surprise him. Translating a bunch of ancient runes would take some time, even for the most powerful computer processors on the planet.

He spent the next hour or so looking around for as much information as he could scrounge up on the mysterious stone in the desert. When he had figured out exactly where to go and had arranged for a rental car, he sent a quick text message to tell Adriana he was thinking about her and hoped she was doing okay. She didn’t respond, which wasn’t surprising. It was early in the morning in Europe, and she always silenced her phone before going to bed.

A loud, fuzzy voice came over the speakers, announcing the plane would begin boarding shortly. Sean felt strange, boarding a plane alone. This adventure, however, needed its end.