The Norse Directive (4 page)

Chattanooga, Tennessee

The man with the gun heard the sedan’s engine rev behind him. His reaction was lightning quick, but it wasn’t fast enough. Sean pounded the gas pedal, and the car lurched forward at the unsuspecting villain. The man’s gun fired twice, sending rounds harmlessly through the right side of the windshield. Before he could get off another shot, the Cadillac struck him hard in the side. The body rolled up over the top of the hood and windshield, thumping down the back and over the trunk.

Charlie had seen the whole thing unfolding and as soon as his captor spun around, had leaped to his right out of harm’s way.

Sean stomped on the brakes, sliding the car to a stop just beyond the place where his friend had been on his knees. He shoved the door open and jumped out. A second later, he was at the rear of the car, standing over the gunman. The man groaned slightly, rolling around in the mud. Sean saw the gun still in his hand and quickly crushed the wrist with his boot. The man grunted again, and the grip loosened enough for Sean to pry it out of his hand.

He stood back up and pointed the pistol at the stranger. “Who are you?”

The man didn’t respond. Instead, he grabbed at his hip and grimaced in pain. Sean chambered a fresh round with a quick slide of his left hand.

“Who are you, and what do you want with Charlie?” Sean couldn’t help but feel enraged at the scenario.

The man said nothing again. This time he looked up with insolence in his eyes. He wasn’t going to say anything, and Sean knew it.

“Okay,” Sean said. “We’ll do this the hard way.” He lashed out with his boot, striking the man across the face as hard as he could.

The man stopped moving, lying limp in the mud as the rain continued to soak him.

Sean gave a quick glance back at his friend who was only now picking himself up off the ground. “You okay, Charlie?”

He spit a little blood onto the wet ground and answered in a gravelly Southern accent. “I guess so.” 

“Good,” Sean momentarily dispensed with the pleasantries. “Help me put this guy in the trunk.”

“You’ll have to take these clasps off me first,” Charlie said, and then squinted suspiciously. “In the trunk? What are you gonna do with him?”

“Same thing he was doing to you…minus the torture. I’m going to interrogate him.” Sean displayed a mischievous grin. Charlie shook his head as he hobbled over to the rear of the car.

Sean reached down and searched the unconscious man’s pockets. He discovered a roll of twenty-dollar bills and a Polish passport. He checked another pocket and found the little key he was looking for. In a few seconds, Charlie’s wrists were free of the restraints.

“Polish,” Sean said, returning his attention to the identification booklet. The picture on the inside looked identical to the man on the ground.

“He ain’t Polish,” Charlie said with his hands on his hips. “He’s Russian.”

Sean peered up from the passport. “You sure?”

“Yep. His accent is distinctly Russian. That right there must be a fake.” He jabbed a thick index finger at the document.

“What did he want with you, Charlie? Did you piss off the Russian mob or something?”

The mysterious Russian groaned at their feet, interrupting the conversation.

“Maybe we ought to load him into the trunk before he comes to, eh?” Charlie suggested.

“Good idea.”

After opening the trunk, Sean strapped the man’s wrists behind his back the same way as Charlie’s had been. The two friends hefted the heavy body into the back of the car and slammed it shut.

“Follow me out of here,” Sean said. “We’ll take him back to the garage at your place.”

Charlie raised a questioning eyebrow. “Where’s your ride?”

Sean flicked his head in the direction of the old road. “Just through those woods. I’m on the bike.” He glanced down at the Cadillac. “Try to keep up,” he said with a wink.

“Don’t get us stopped by the cops,” Charlie warned. “Last thing we need is some blue shoe snooping around the trunk when that guy wakes up.”

Charlie took Sean back to his motorcycle and then fell in line behind him. The storm eased somewhat as the two wound their way back down through the valley. Sean couldn’t drive as fast as he would like due to the slick roads, but at least he wasn’t being pelted with hard droplets.

Twenty-five minutes later, Sean pulled off the street and into a small parking area in front of Charlie’s place. The building had once been an auto glass business, but when it went under, it remained unoccupied for several years until Charlie bought it and fixed it up. The place still had a few of the old garage doors built into both the front and back. The inside had been transformed into a vintage-style home. Charlie had opted to keep the place looking like a garage through and through, featuring antique signs from the early days of automotive transportation. He’d cleaned out all the old equipment, selling some of it to collectors of unique garage memorabilia, and replaced it with new furniture and decorations. One of the things Sean liked most about the place was the exposed, original brick walls on the interior. It had been an impressive overhaul that took Charlie a few years to complete. The result was the ultimate “guy place.”

Sean removed his helmet as his friend pulled the Cadillac up to the left-hand garage door. “It’s unlocked,” Charlie said, insinuating he wanted Sean to open the door.

He smiled at the older man and quickly abided the unspoken request. Charlie guided the car into the building, just to the right of a long leather couch. Charlie had purposely left space behind the living room area so he could tinker with his vehicles in the winter if he wanted.

Once inside, Sean closed the door and locked it into place. He turned his attention to the car’s trunk. When Charlie had switched off the ignition and opened the door, Sean asked him to pop the trunk.

The rear of the sedan opened, and Sean took a careful step back with the Russian’s pistol pointing inside. Feeling the weapon in his hand couldn’t have felt more natural, and yet it was something he wished he didn’t have to do.

After the trunk had risen completely, he stared in disbelief into the back of the car. It was empty.

Sean glanced over at his friend who returned the same confounded gaze.

“Where did he go?” Sean asked flatly.

Charlie shrugged. “Beats me. He should be in there.”

Sean took a quick peek through the garage door windows. He didn’t expect to find anything; it was more of a natural instinct. He slid the gun back into his belt and leaned into the trunk to get a better view. Some wet grass and mud still lingered on the previously immaculate carpet, but there was no trace of the occupant.

“Did you notice any warning lights come on when you were driving over here?” Sean asked, trying to put the pieces together on their missing prisoner.

Charlie shook his head. “No. I don’t think I noticed anything like that. But there’s so many bells and whistles on these new cars, I don’t know what half of 'em mean. It took me ten minutes just to get the radio working.”

“You were messing with the radio?”

“Of course I was. I don’t like to drive without having the radio on, especially with an unconscious body in the back. You might be used to that sort of thing, but I ain’t.” His tone sounded half-humorous and half-irritated. It was the way Charlie almost always sounded.

“I’m not pointing fingers, Charlie. But if he got out of the trunk, there would have been a light or something like that.”

Sean stepped around to the front of the car and leaned in the driver’s side door. Sure enough, a small illuminated image of a car with a trunk open glowed on the dashboard. He decided not to pursue the argument. Some fights weren’t worth fighting, and he didn’t want Charlie to feel bad about losing the guy. Part of the blame was on Sean too, a fact he knew well. If he’d followed behind instead of leading the way back to his friend’s house, he would have seen the man trying to escape.

“Should we backtrack and see if we can find him?” Charlie asked with a hint of guilt in his voice.

Sean returned to the rear of the car. He thought about the question for a second before answering. “No,” he shook his head. “He’ll be long gone by now.” A few tense moments passed as Sean thought about their next move.

“You’ll need to stay somewhere else tonight. That guy might come back.”

Charlie’s face curled. He clearly didn’t like the idea of running away like a frightened animal. “Oh, come on, Sean. He’s not gonna come back around here. Besides, I’m armed and dangerous.” He said the last part with a sly grin.

“Trust me, if I was him, this would be the first place I would look. He might be careful about it. I’d say it’s likely he will be. He’ll assume you’ll have contacted the authorities.”

“Cops?” Charlie spat. “A lot of help they were.”

His comment led Sean full circle to the conversation he’d been thinking about during the drive back to the city. “What did that guy want from you anyway?”

“I don’t know,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “Something about a rare coin I put online. He wanted to know where it was and where I got it.”

Sean lowered his eyebrows to match the frown on his lips. “And he needed to take you out to the Sequatchie Valley to get that information out of you?”

Charlie shrugged. “I was too busy gettin’ roughed up to ask him about his methods.” He touched a finger to his swollen lower lip, and then walked over to the kitchen to get an ice cube from the freezer.

Sean followed him and sat down at a short counter constructed out of reclaimed wood and butcher block. “Do you have the coin?” he asked.

Still holding the ice to his lip, Charlie shook his head. “No,” he said through pursed lips. “I never had it. The thing belongs to a friend of mine. I tried to tell the Russian I didn’t have it, but he wouldn’t believe me. He kept insisting I tell him where it was or he’d kill me.” Charlie laughed at this point, almost dropping his ice. “I told him if he killed me he’d probably never find the coin.”

“I doubt he appreciated that.”

“Screw him,” Charlie said bitterly. “We shoulda put a bullet in his skull while we had the chance. Isn’t that the sort of thing you normally do?”

Sean winced internally at the comment, but passed it off. His friend didn’t know any better. “I’m trying to avoid that nowadays,” he said smiling.

“Well, I wish you woulda made an exception.”

“Finding out who the guy works for seemed like a better idea at the time.”

“And look where that got us.” Charlie’s charm hadn’t changed in all the years Sean had known him. Then something occurred to the older man. “Guy he works for?”

“Did the Russian strike you as a collector of rare coins?” Sean’s sarcasm couldn’t have been thicker.

Charlie’s eyes squinted as he tried to hold back the laughter that crept up from his pot belly. After a few seconds, he couldn’t keep it in any longer and erupted. “That’s a good point, Sean. Good point. No, he didn’t strike me as a rare coin collector type. Not one bit.”

“Right. That means he was after it for someone. And in my experience, when there is someone trying to acquire a rare item for someone else, that usually means bigger trouble is lurking behind the curtain.”

“Curtain? What curtain?” Charlie’s laughter had subsided and was replaced with a confused stare.

“It’s a metaphor, Charlie,” Sean shook his head. “I’m just saying there’s usually a deeper plot than just a rare coin.”

The older man thought about what Sean was saying for a few seconds before he spoke. “So you think that this coin could lead to something bigger? Like a treasure or something?”

“Beats me.” It was Sean’s turn to shrug. “There aren’t too many coins out there that are worth killing someone.” This gave him an idea. “You said you don’t have the coin here.”

“Nope.”

“But you put it online. I’m guessing in a forum or something like that.”

“Yep.”

“Show it to me.”

Charlie led his friend over to a little computer workstation in the corner of the garage-home. He’d made the desk from what appeared to be the same reclaimed wood as the kitchen counter. He opened up his laptop and hit several keys, then tapped
enter.

A few clicks later, Charlie had found the image of the coin he’d posted in the forum just a few days before. Sean leaned in close to get a better view. His eyebrows furrowed as he tried to examine the picture.

“Can you zoom in on this or make it a little bigger?”

“Sure,” Charlie said and moved the mouse, made a few clicks, and watched the screen zoom closer.

Sean stared at the screen. “I’ve never seen a coin like this before.”

“That makes two of us. Thus the reason I had to put it on this forum to see if anyone knew anything about it.”

“Does anyone?”

Charlie clicked back to the thread. There were no replies. “Nope. And this is a pretty active forum. Anyone who knows anything about antique or ancient coins is on this site almost daily. There are threads popping up constantly. I’m guessing no one knows what this is or where it came from.”