Valhalla (5 page)

20 November
Base Hancock One
Greenland Ice Cap

John Lee Hancock stood up from the head table and walked toward her.

“I'm John Lee,” he said, shaking her hand.

Lexy hadn't known what to expect, but she was mildly surprised to discover he was shorter than she was, with salt-and-pepper hair brushed straight back above his blunt, clean-shaven face. His dark brown eyes were hooded and intense.

“Forgive me for saying so, but you look a bit under the weather,” he said without releasing her hand. “Can I offer you a bracer?”

“I'm all right . . . really,” she said, “but yes, I'd welcome one.”

Still not letting go of her hand, he led her over to one of the tables, where an open bottle sat beside a tray of glasses. It had an old-style label, and she could read the
words
Old Forester
above his fingers as he poured an inch of it into a glass. She took the dark, smoky elixir down in one long swallow. It had an astonishingly mellow taste.

“Very restorative,” she said, smiling.

A man approached her from the other side.

“I believe we met in London three years ago,” he said.

She turned to see Sir Dorian St. George Bond, his distinguished face still crowned by the familiar shock of unruly silver hair. At eighty, he was still a giant in the archaeological field, the man who had followed Howard Carter into Egypt's Valley of the Kings, and had then blazed a new archaeological trail with his treatises on the secrets of early Norse navigation methods.

“Thank you for remembering me,” she said.

“You delivered a brilliant paper that day.”

When she had last seen him, Sir Dorian had been strong and erect. His gray eyes still glinted with intelligence, but the dark patches under them looked like bruises. He had shed at least fifty pounds and become gaunt. She wondered why he would risk his health to be there.

Hjalmar Jensen replaced Sir Dorian in the small queue that had formed to greet her. The fifty-year-old Norwegian anthropologist had studied at Oxford and been part of the team that discovered the Homeric location of Troy, south of the Dardanelles. Now a leading expert in Neanderthal biology as well as European evolution, he had been the first to extract DNA from ancient Scandinavian human fossils.

“I'm pleased to meet you, Dr. Vaughan,” he said, welcoming her with an engaging smile and a clipped Norwegian accent. “Like Sir Dorian, I have been quite impressed with your work.”

With rimless metal spectacles perched on his little nose, he reminded her of Mr. Rogers from the TV program she had enjoyed as a child. The Norwegian gave way to Rob Falconer.

Strong and compact, with the build of a downhill racer, Rob still had the same shoulder-length raven hair, black-bearded face, and striking eyes the color of pale amber. They were as arrogant as she remembered.

“I need no introduction to this archaeologist,” he said with the familiar South Carolina drawl.

After getting his doctorate at Berkeley, Rob had specialized in underwater archaeology and earned international fame after finding the remains of the Ottawa River encampment of Henry Hudson, whose mutinous crew had set him adrift on his final voyage.

Lexy had fallen in love with him after they met in Mesopotamia during the summer of her senior year at Harvard. He was very different from the often humorless archaeologists she had known. Rob was wildly irreverent, confiding in her that he was pursuing “the Indiana Jones branch of archaeology.”

“We were a great team,” said Falconer to the others. “I still don't know why she chose to abandon me.”

They had lived together for two months. She practically worshipped him until he hacked into her computer one night and stole her thesis on twelfth-century dotted runes to complete his own doctoral work. She had wanted to expose him, but her mentor, Barnaby Finchem, advised her to let it go.

“It would only be ugly and inconclusive,” he had told her. “Don't worry. You'll make your mark.”

“We shared a very small tent,” Falconer went on. “Maybe I snored.”

Lexy watched Macaulay's eyes harden as Hancock asked everyone to take a chair, and then stood facing them in front of the banks of computers and communications equipment.

When they were settled near the space heaters, Hancock's white Alsatian wandered over to Jensen. Turning in an ever-tightening circle, the dog curled up at his feet. The Norwegian reached down to stroke him behind the ears.

“You have a way with dogs, Professor Jensen,” said Hancock, clearly impressed. “Old Hap rarely cottons to anyone except me.”

Jensen smiled as he continued petting him.

“I only wish I had the same power with the opposite sex,” he said.

“Now that you have all arrived,” said Hancock, “we're ready to make our first descent to the Viking ship and the cave below it. You should know that you are here for one purpose, and that is to provide me with your insights and conclusions after viewing what I've discovered down there. There will be ample rewards for all of you, both professionally and financially. I'm well aware that archaeology does not generate the same returns as oil and gas drilling.”

He was trying his best to sound self-deprecating.

“Here are your ground rules,” he continued. “Security is paramount at this stage. You will understand why when you see what's down there. There will be no note taking, no journals, no pens and pencils. You will not bring a
camera or a cell phone or an electronic device of any kind. You will touch nothing after we're down there unless I give you permission to do so.”

“What are we allowed to do?” asked Falconer.

“Observe,” replied Hancock caustically. “You're being paid to observe.”

Looking around the operations tent, Lexy could see that the members of Hancock's expedition team were almost out on their feet. The strain of whatever they had undertaken in the previous days and weeks could be read in the gray pallor of their faces and reddened eyes.

“You will each have to agree to a brief body search before we put on the thermal suits to go down,” said Hancock. “If you are not comfortable with that, tell me now and we'll fly you out of here right away.”

No one said anything.

“We'll spend about thirty minutes down there after making the descent. We're concerned about the infusion of too much heat into one of the discovery sites, so instead of floodlighting, you will be restricted to high-powered flashlights.”

He turned to a briefing board and pointed at a sketch of the two ice shafts.

“The first part of the descent will be in an elevator cage. There's room for all of us in it. The second shaft is nearly four hundred feet deeper and we'll be going down one at a time using a power hoist. You'll stand in foot stirrups and just hold on to the chain until you hit bottom. The second shaft is only three feet in diameter. I hope none of you is claustrophobic.”

Lexy felt her stomach lurch. She thought about speaking up, to say that she was sick with apprehension at the
thought of ever being confined in a small space. At the age of ten, she had fallen through the rotting boards that covered an abandoned well at her grandparents' farm. It had taken them ten hours to find her, and she had spent an excruciating night floating in the slimy water at the bottom, getting through it only by shutting her eyes and pretending she was in their bathtub at home.

She opened her mouth to speak, but saw that the others had accepted the news with calmness, if not excitement. As the only woman, she didn't want to be conspicuous in admitting her fears.

“I'll be going down first,” said Hancock. “The rest of you will follow at intervals of ten feet. The order of descent will be me, Sir Dorian, then Falconer, Professor Jensen, Dr. Vaughan, and last General Macaulay.”

Macaulay met the archaeologists in the mess tent one by one to conduct a brief body search, after which they put on thermal clothing and rejoined Hancock. Falconer was the only one who gave him a problem. He insisted on bringing his pocket journal with him, claiming he was worried the others would steal it. When Macaulay gave him the option of staying behind, he turned the journal over.

Lexy was the last one.

“Just go ahead and get dressed,” said Macaulay when she arrived. “I've got to trust somebody around here.”

It was snowing again as they entered the elevator cage and began their first descent. This won't be too hard after all, Lexy thought as they dropped slowly through the large well-lit shaft.

Thirty minutes later, they reached the
March Hare
cavern.

The huge, empty ice cavity remained brilliantly lit, like a movie set of Santa's workshop in a Disney movie. The gnomish George Cabot was waiting for them at the power rig over the smaller shaft.

Macaulay ordered him to start the power winch, and it began making a loud clanking noise, like a ship's anchor chain dropping to a seabed. Wasting no time, Hancock stepped into the first set of stirrups. A few moments later, he disappeared down the hole.

Cabot halted the movement of the chain after ten feet and attached the second set of stirrups. Sir Dorian got into them without a problem, but his hands were too weak to maintain his hold on the chain. He gave up after two tries.

“Strap me to the bloody thing,” he said urgently.

Cabot found a length of towline and ran it around Sir Dorian's chest twice before securing the line with a sailor's hitch. He started the winch again, and the octogenarian slid down into the darkness, barely fitting through the hole. Falconer and Jensen assumed the next two positions on the chain without further problem.

Then it was Lexy's turn. She felt the first bolt of terror when she walked over to stand above the little hole. Closing her eyes, she forced herself to remember that something incredibly important was waiting for her down there, something she had waited most of her life to see. When she opened her eyes again, the hole seemed to have shrunk even farther.

“I'm not sure . . . ,” she began.

“What the hell is going on up there?” Hancock shouted from fifty feet below them.

Macaulay saw her distress.

“Don't worry about it,” he said reassuringly. “Just envision yourself going down a dark well.”

“That's . . . the problem,” she said.

“All right, we'll go down together,” he said.

He had Cabot attach a second set of stirrups just below the first one, and Macaulay stepped into them.

“Come here,” he said.

“Odin save us,” said Lexy, stepping into the upper stirrups. Hancock reached out to wrap her in his arms and motioned to Cabot to start the winch. The clanking began again and they dropped downward.

“Sweet move, General,” Cabot called out to Macaulay as they disappeared from view.

Twenty minutes into the descent, she began imagining that the black wall of ice was closing in on them, and started shivering uncontrollably. Putting her arms around his back, she drew Macaulay closer.

“Forgive me,” she said.

“You're forgiven,” he replied.

20 November
Base Hancock One
Greenland Ice Cap

When Lexy and Macaulay touched bottom, the other four were standing in the concave tunnel that had been hollowed out with steam hoses at the foot of the shaft. Their flashlight beams were all pointed in the same direction. Jensen was gaping at something, openmouthed.

She turned to look. In the glare of the powerful flashlights, it appeared that the ancient Viking ship was sailing straight toward her out of an icy fog. It was the living embodiment of something she had seen only in eleventh-century drawings.

Stepping closer, she marveled at the intricacy of the carvings along the tip of the bowsprit, which was coiled into the head of a sea snake. Familiar with its design, she was sure that the stern of the ship, still encased in the ice, was tapered into a similar carving.

“As the almighty bard once put it,” said Sir Dorian in
his imposing voice, “‘I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, and make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres.'”

Lexy was examining the engravings on the carved sea chest that was tucked inside the bow section, when Hancock spoke for the first time.

“There will be ample opportunity to explore the secrets of the ship. Right now, we have a more important discovery to show you. Go ahead, Steve.”

Approaching a section of the ice beneath the keel of the ship, Macaulay began chipping away at it in a circular pattern with a hatchet. Within minutes, he had opened a hole large enough for them to get through.

Lexy crawled into the mouth of the cave on her hands and knees. Inside, she waited a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. To her left was the ice-covered surface of a smooth basalt rock wall. Twenty feet in, the cave began to widen and grew progressively higher.

All of them except Macaulay were able to stand up straight. After another ten feet, Hancock stopped and dipped his flashlight beam to the rock floor at the edge of the wall.

“It's not possible,” said Sir Dorian.

It was the perfectly preserved body of a man. He was lying on his back with his arms crossed at his chest in the ceremonial pose of the dead. Beyond him lay another man, his boots a few inches from the first man's head. He had been posed in the same manner. She saw that the line of bodies continued all along the edge of the wall.

“How many are there?” asked Falconer, bringing up the rear.

“Ten,” said Macaulay.

Sir Dorian reached the ninth body in the line.

“Look at this man,” he said.

The Viking's mane of thick blond hair was nearly three feet long, and carefully arranged under his two massive arms. His head was resting on a rolled-up sheepskin sleeping bag. Lexy could see that his ice-covered skin had been fair. The open eyes were a startling blue.

“Note the dolichocephalic skull,” said Jensen almost reverently. “Pure Nordic. In his time, a young Teutonic god.”

The man's outer cloak was trimmed in red and gold braid.

“And one of the leaders,” said Lexy.

“Are we allowed to examine their clothing?” asked Falconer. “It will give us clues to who they were and when they arrived here. We can't do that without touching them.”

“Go ahead,” said Hancock.

Falconer knelt by the second man in line. His head and upper shoulders were covered by a hooded leather helmet that protected his ears and cheeks. A thin leather belt was cinched around the waist of his outer cloak. Hanging from it on one side were a long knife and a leather pouch. Falconer struggled to open the pouch and pulled out a fire starter.

“Not much good, I guess, after you've run out of fuel,” he said.

The Norseman's outer cloak was frozen stiff. It covered his torso from the shoulders to the knees. The dense woolen material was trimmed off at his right shoulder blade.

“The weapon arm was always left free for sword work,” said Falconer.

Uncinching the man's belt, Falconer pulled apart the frozen cloak. Beneath it, he was wearing a linen tunic with a button and loop at the neck opening, and two pockets at the waist. Under it, he wore loose-fitting leather trousers with straps under the heels. Cloth wrappings protected his legs from his knees down to his leather boots.

Falconer dug his fingers into the man's waist pockets and came up empty.

“There's one more body farther into the cave,” said Hancock.

The tenth Norseman was lying on his side near the back wall. He was clutching a chisel in his left hand. A double-headed hammer lay next to him on the cave floor.

“This one was a stonecutter,” said Sir Dorian, kneeling next to him. “Look at the condition of his hands.”

In the beam of her flashlight, Lexy saw a stone tablet leaning against the inner basalt wall, which was covered with ice. About three feet square, the face of the stone tablet was covered with faint markings, most of them also encrusted in ice.

“And this must be his saga of their expedition,” she said.

There were twelve horizontal lines of markings, each incorporating dozens of symbols. The top seven lines ran straight from left to right. The three at the bottom began to curve lower, reflecting the stonecutter's weakening strength. The last one went almost straight downward.

“Maybe your stonecutter was drunk,” said Falconer.

“He was dying,” said Lexy. “His hands could barely hold the hammer and chisel.”

“And he was working in total darkness,” said Sir Dorian, picking up the closest firepot. Like the others on the cave floor, it was lying on its side.

Macaulay remembered the last words in Ted Morgan's diary after his group of fliers ran out of fuel and became entombed in the same ice a thousand years after these men. Both Morgan and this stonecutter had left their final thoughts for rescuers who never came.

“Can you decipher any of it?” asked Hancock as Lexy knelt in front of the markings.

More than an inch of ice coated most of the face, making it impossible to read any of the markings behind it, although a few areas at the edges were clear and legible.

“It is written in the old futhork,” she said, “which presumably makes it pre–twelfth century.”

The first symbols on the top line were clear. To a layman, they would have looked like incomprehensible stick figures, but she translated them easily. Reading them made her shiver with excitement.

The numbers were 1016.

Training her flashlight beam at the other exposed markings along the edges, she translated another word at the beginning of the fifth line. The stonecutter had written
Vinland
. At the end of the following line, she read the word
Leifr
. The final set of symbols on one of the last erratic lines translated to
the hallowed place
. The rest of the saga was cloaked behind the ice.

“How much can you translate?” asked Falconer, his vision obscured by the others.

She was about to respond, when a drop of water
splashed the top of her hood. It was quickly followed by two more. Jensen shined his flashlight up at the cave's ceiling. It was starting to drizzle ice melt.

“If we don't leave now, these men will begin to decompose,” he said, his Norwegian accent more pronounced, “and that would be a great loss to science.”

Hancock led them back out of the cave. In the tunnel near the foot of the shaft, he told Steve Macaulay to reseal the entrance with a large block of ice that had already been cut for the purpose.

When they reached the surface, Hancock turned to George Cabot and said, “Cut all the juice to the elevator cage and to the power winch down below. And make sure it stays off.”

“Check, Boss.”