Valhalla (10 page)

23 November
Base Hancock One
Greenland Ice Cap

The final stage of the operation was under way. The two hours of light left in the subarctic region had disappeared, and the last part of the mission had to be performed under the powerful searchlights mounted on the transport helicopters.

Returning to the surface after executing his prisoners, the Lynx ordered his commando team to eliminate every trace of Hancock's expedition that remained on the ice cap.

The smaller bulldozer began grinding its way through the tent complex, driving everything in its path toward the ice shaft and shoving it over the edge, then returning to cut another broad swath of destruction through what remained, including the operations tent, snowmobiles, the kitchen and mess tents, and the flagpole that was still
flying the American flag and Hancock's family coat of arms.

The larger bulldozer, a Caterpillar D10R, focused on flattening the more significant structures in the compound, and plowing the wreckage into the same shaft. In ten minutes, the massive generator housing was reduced to rubble and had disappeared down the twelve-foot passage.

As Lexy watched with horror from her hiding place in the pit, the rumbling snarl of the Caterpillar grew to a bedlam as its treads rolled toward the modular fiberglass latrine.

She could see the vague outline of a man in the insulated cab above the steel blade as it slammed into the front wall, crumpling the fiberglass structure as if it were made of cardboard.

Then it was rearing over her like a colossal monster, its treads grinding down through several feet into the frozen muck as it thundered past her hiding place with an earsplitting roar, its right tread missing her by less than a foot.

Terrified, she thought for a moment about climbing out of the hole and running toward the darkness, but the compound was bathed in the glare of the lights, and she would have been captured immediately.

After driving the shattered wreckage of the flattened latrine building into the mouth of the ice shaft, the driver quickly pivoted and began plowing a mound of snow and ice ahead of it to fill the latrine pit and eliminate any trace of human activity there.

Lying on her stomach, Lexy could only press herself
down in the pit, pulling the edge of the black plastic liner over her upper body to hide it from view. Seconds later, the bulldozer dumped a small avalanche of ice into the hole, burying her under it before moving on to the next objective.

*   *   *

Hjalmar Jensen watched the eradication of Hancock's camp impassively. It gave him no pleasure to take human life, but in this case it was for the most important cause in his life.

A search party would be sent out within days, and it would find the remains of Hancock and his men one hundred forty feet below the surface. It would raise innumerable questions, but there would be no one alive who knew about the deeper cave and its importance.

The Lynx approached him as the last remaining structures in the camp were being destroyed. He noticed that the white dog had attached itself to Jensen for some reason and was now following him. He didn't know or like dogs, but it struck him as curious that the animal would be drawn to the man who had his master killed.

“The woman is still missing,” said the Lynx.

“It's unfortunate, but we can search for her no longer,” replied Jensen. “It is already past our scheduled departure time. You have assured me there was no place for her to hide up here. If she is not up here, then she must obviously be down there. If she isn't already dead, then she soon will be.”

As if in confirmation, they heard the muffled crump of a loud explosion far below the surface. It was the explosive charge set by the demolition team in the deep cave
that had been home to the ten Norsemen for a thousand years. There would be no trace of it left.

A few minutes later, a massive secondary explosion signified the collapse and destruction of the cavern that had housed
March Hare
, sealing all the debris from the base camp and the bodies of the original expedition team.

It would take a well-equipped search effort to locate them and then try to figure out what had happened. By then, there would be numerous red herrings placed in the path of the investigations, including the first one, suggesting an international terrorist organization.

After the smaller bulldozer was shoved into the shaft by the larger one, the Lynx ordered the last cache of explosives to be detonated near the top of the ice shaft, collapsing it inward. The Caterpillar then leveled the remaining depression with the surrounding landscape.

Jensen took a last brief walk across what had once been the compound. Although it was scarred with the tracks of the bulldozers, nothing remained on the surface to indicate human activity. It was starting to snow again. Within hours, the surface of the cap would be pristine.

Everything had gone well, considering how little time there had been after the discovery was made. He had caught and killed Falconer, the archaeologist who had attempted to defile the tomb. He had successfully sabotaged the communications equipment and fashioned the crude explosive device that had brought down Macaulay and Sir Dorian Bond.

He had also ordered their attack helicopter to follow the course Macaulay would have flown from the base camp to Kulusuk. The pilot had reported back that they
had found the Bell transport helicopter on the ice cap and it was a burned-out shell.

Only two members of the commando team had been killed—the young Swede who had foolishly entered Hancock's tent without backup and the Danish pilot Hancock had killed in his escape attempt.

Most important, the discovery in the deep cave was safe. Once he had a chance to decipher the clues in the stonecutter's saga, he was confident they could accomplish the ultimate goal.

His thoughts briefly went back to the missing woman, Dr. Vaughan. She could have been very helpful in translating the tablet. Next to Barnaby Finchem, she was the most gifted runologist he had ever met.

It was snowing hard as the commandos hitched harness cables from the belly of one of the transport helicopters to the Caterpillar. It would be flown back to the coast and jettisoned into the ocean near the ship that was waiting off Kap Lovenorn for their safe return.

The Lynx shook hands with each member of the team as they boarded the helicopters. The first to step off at the start of the mission, he was the last man to get back aboard.

As he was about to enter the passenger hatch, he turned and saw the white Alsatian. The dog was waiting expectantly in the snow, whimpering for the chance to follow Jensen. He pulled the Glock from his belt and aimed it at the dog's head.

“Ikke skyte ham,”
shouted Jensen through the open bay.

The Lynx put the pistol back in its holster, climbed into the passenger compartment of the helicopter, and
closed the hatch behind him. It didn't matter to him one way or the other. He was still thinking about the woman.

Jensen watched the dog through the port as the ship rose above it.

“GÃ¥ tilbake til vill, min venn,”
he said quietly.

Return to the wild, my friend.

23 November
Base Hancock One
Greenland Ice Cap

Macaulay crouched in the darkness, galvanic with fury. At the same time, he knew he had to overcome it in order to survive, and to help the others make it through too.

The seemingly mild-mannered Jensen had tried to murder him. Of this he was certain. There was no other possibility after Cabot checked the bird and pronounced it clean. Jensen had put the explosive device in Sir Dorian's kit bag.

It was only through a minor miracle that he hadn't joined the Englishman in becoming part of the melted wreckage of the helicopter. As it plummeted in free fall toward the ice cap, he doubted the crash would be survivable.

After pulling the handle that jettisoned the cabin window next to the pilot's seat, he had waited until he felt
the first hint of an impact of the bird's skids on the ice, and then released the five-point safety harness.

The flames seemed to be pursuing him as he dove sideways through the open window housing and away from the burning ship. He was almost through, when the vast bulk of the helicopter slammed into the ice, trapping his legs and feet inside. If the ship collapsed on the pilot's side of the cockpit, he was dead. If it went the other way, he had a chance.

When he felt the twisting wreckage carrying him upward, he dragged his legs free and began to scramble on his hands and knees away from the fiery wreckage. Ten seconds later, the fuel tanks blew up. The force of the blast carried him another twenty feet through the air, but he wasn't hit by any shards of the flying metal.

As the ship continued to burn, Macaulay took stock of his situation. Both his knees were in pain and there was a bleeding laceration on his forehead, but otherwise he had come out of the inferno whole.

He knew he needed to move out right away. The flaming wreckage could be seen for a mile, and he had no idea who else might be in the plot aside from Jensen. He got up to test his knees and spied a metal spar. It was about six feet long, and had also been blown clear of the wreckage. It would relieve some of the pressure on his knees.

Should he try for Kulusuk or return to the base camp? He decided to head back, if nothing else to get his hands on Jensen and prevent him from any further sabotage. He had flown about six miles on the northerly route after taking off. He set a goal of walking back to the base camp within two hours.

In the glare of the flames, he glanced down at his
Suunto Core military wristwatch. Along with an accurate altimeter and thermometer, it was equipped with a digital compass. Recalling the course he had been flying to reach Kulusuk, he simply reversed it for the correct heading back to the camp.

He started walking. According to his watch, the temperature was five degrees below zero Fahrenheit, almost balmy for that time of the year. With his thermal suit, gloves, and insulated hood, he would have no trouble staying warm.

Night fell shortly after the noon hour. He was in almost complete darkness after the first two miles. A cold keening wind bore down from the north, and the temperature started dropping again. Light snow began to fall.

An hour later, he heard the low, growing snarl of a helicopter engine. Checking his compass, he saw it was coming from the direction of the base camp. Since there were no friendly helicopters at the camp, he flattened himself on the ice.

Gazing upward, he saw that it had the configuration of a military attack helicopter with a searchlight rigged under its belly. His white thermal suit melded with the surface ice and the searchlight passed over him.

The ship disappeared to the north, and he continued walking. Twenty minutes later, the helicopter returned on the same compass heading with the searchlight switched off and passed over him on its way toward the base camp.

He walked at a brisk pace, periodically checking the compass bearing on his watch. He estimated he was less than a mile from the base camp, when the glare of more searchlights brought him up short.

There were four of them, and they were sweeping back and forth over what he assumed was the camp complex. The falling snow prevented him from seeing exactly what was happening. He slowly went forward, careful to stay out of the reflected glare of the lights.

If it had been in his earthly power to attack them, he would have tried, but his current armament consisted of a pewter flask full of Jack Daniel's, two Hershey's bars with almonds, his wristwatch, and the Stockman jackknife his father had given him on his twelfth birthday.

Crouched in a shallow ice crevasse, he watched as the three helicopters took off one by one and headed east toward the coast. One of the transports was hauling the expedition team's Caterpillar tractor.

He tried to make sense of it all as he walked forward in the darkness. They obviously hadn't come to steal a bulldozer. He knew it had to be related to the Viking discovery. Everything had started going wrong after that, the sabotage and then the two murders.

When he arrived at the area the helicopters had taken off from, there didn't appear to be any familiar elements to the landscape. He knew where the tent complex was in relation to the landing area, but there didn't seem to be any trace of it left.

He began walking in ever-widening circles in the snowy darkness. The realization slowly dawned on him that everything was gone. He tried to take in the enormity of that conclusion. Where could they have taken everything? Only a fraction of the camp facilities would have fit on the three helicopters.

It seemed impossible they could have buried it all with the two camp bulldozers in the short time he had been
gone. The notion struck him that the upper ice shaft might be large enough for it all, but with the landscape scoured clean, he lost all perspective on where the shaft had been located.

His thoughts were interrupted by a low howl, different from the moaning of the wind. In the darkness, he had no idea what it could be, and no sense of where it was coming from. He sensed rather than saw something charging at him from across the ice, and he braced himself for the attack.

A moment later, Hap Arnold leaped onto his chest, knocking him onto his back. The big Alsatian seemed overjoyed to find him alive, fiercely nuzzling him while yelping with excitement.

Macaulay stroked his back as he rose gingerly to his feet.

If only the Alsatian could talk, he thought. A cliché, but damnably true. He could only assume the intruders had taken Lexy, John Lee, and the rest of the expedition members away with them in the helicopters.

His Suunto watch began throbbing on his wrist. It was equipped with a storm-warning sensor, and the sensor was registering an incoming storm. The temperature had fallen to fifteen degrees below zero, and the wind was strengthening by the minute.

He decided to strike out for the coast. The nearest point of shoreline along the Denmark Strait was probably less than ten miles southeast of where he was standing. A few small Inuit settlements dotted the strait and he knew the Danish government maintained a string of survival huts for stranded mariners along the coast. Maybe he would be lucky enough to find help at one of them.

He was ready to start when he realized that the dog had taken off somewhere in the darkness.

“Hap,” he called out over the rising wind.

There was no response. With a storm coming, Macaulay couldn't afford to wait any longer. The dog would have to find him again whenever he decided to follow his scent. He made a final check of the bearing on his digital compass and headed into the darkness.

He hadn't gone fifty feet when he heard the dog again. This time he wasn't wailing or yelping. It was full-throated barking, the same yowling that accompanied the Alsatian's discovery of the corpse of the archaeologist Falconer.

Macaulay followed the sound until he was close enough to see the dog's shadowy outline against the ice. The Alsatian was digging for something with his front paws. Dropping to his knees, Macaulay reached down to feel the edges of the small hole that the dog had already burrowed out. Unlike the surrounding ice, it wasn't hard-packed; it was more like ice chips and snow that had been spread across the area.

They began digging together, Macaulay using the base of his pewter flask to sweep away the layers of ice detritus. The dog began barking louder as the hole slowly deepened and widened.

They had reached a depth of nearly two feet and still hadn't found anything. Macaulay was ready to quit. The dog had probably returned to the place where they had interred Falconer. There was no point in digging up a dead man.

Then he felt something firm and smooth under his right glove. He swept away more snow and ice chips.
Now he could feel the edge of it. It was the corner of a thick plastic tarpaulin.

Dragging the edge clear, he reached down into the narrow cavity below it and felt the hood of a thermal suit. A body was lying prone and motionless on its stomach under the tarp. He swept away the ice that covered the back and legs and turned the body over.

A heavy woolen scarf was wrapped around the hood, covering the face. He gently tugged away the scarf. In the faint illumination from his wristwatch, he recognized Lexy. Removing his right glove, he touched her forehead. It was ice-cold.

He felt tears flooding his eyes, certain she had to be dead.

Raising her up, he held her in his arms while turning his body against the wind to protect her. Reaching into his pocket, he unscrewed the cap of his flask of Jack Daniel's. Parting her rigid mouth, he gently opened her throat passage by suppressing her tongue with his finger, and poured a small dollop of whiskey into her mouth.

There was no response. He poured a second dollop, and a moment later, her body spasmed and she retched some of the whiskey up. He hugged her close to him, feeling a surge of joy at the thought she was still alive. The dog nestled close on the other side.

Putting his glove back on to protect his fingers, Macaulay started rubbing her arms and legs to restore circulation. She was obviously suffering from hypothermia, but the thick plastic tarp, along with her thermal suit, hood, and gloves, had provided enough insulation to preserve life.

There was nothing to do now but try to keep her as
warm as possible. He poured one more mouthful of whiskey into her throat as a stimulant, and she swallowed it. This time it stayed down.

A minute later, she spoke for the first time.

“Who are you?” she asked, unable to see him in the darkness.

“Steve Macaulay,” he said.

“Steve,” she repeated dully, still disoriented.

Another minute passed as he held her close and continued stroking her legs with his free hand.

“Oh God, Steve,” she cried out. “They're all
dead.”