“Tokyo Cos-con?”
“Tokyo Cos-con. When Mai went undercover at Japan’s biggest Cosplay convention to infiltrate and detain the Fuchu triads who ran the porn industry at the time.”
Wells looked like he was about to have a seizure. “Jesus, Drake. You twat. Alright then, but believe me, you owe me now,” he took a breath. “The Japs have just pulled her out of Hong Kong, straight out of an assumed identity, without warning, totally blowing the cover she’s been crafting for two years.”
Drake gave him a look of open-mouthed incredulity. “No way.”
“My words too.”
“Why?”
“Also my next question. But, Drake, isn’t it obvious?”
Drake thought about it. “Only that she’s the best they’ve got. The best they’ve ever had. And they must need her desperately.”
“We’ve been fielding calls from their Justice and Prime Ministers for about fifteen hours now, as have the Yanks. They’re coming clean with us — they’ve sent her to scout out La Verein because it’s the only connection they’ve found to this mess, which has already escalated to the biggest thing happening on the planet right now. It’s only a matter of hours before we’re forced to come clean with them.”
Drake frowned. “Is there a reason not to come clean right now? Mai would be a fantastic asset.”
“Agreed mate, but, governments are governments, and, world in peril or not, they love to play their little games, don’t they?”
Drake indicated the hole in the ground. “Looks like they’re ready.”
Drake’s Descender was set to 126 feet. A device called a ‘quick-release muzzle’ was thrust into his hand, and a backpack was handed to him. He crammed a fireman’s helmet with a torch strapped to it onto his head, and rummaged through the pack. A big flashlight, an oxygen tank, weapons, food, water, radio, first-aid — all of his spelunking needs. He tugged on a heavy-duty pair of gloves and walked to the rim of the hole.
“Geronimo?” he asked Kennedy, who was staying topside with Ben and the Professor to help watch their perimeter.
“Or grab your ankles, stick out your ass, and hope,” she said.
Drake gave her a wicked grin, “We’ll get to that later,” he said and leapt into darkness.
Immediately, he felt the Red-Diamond Descender working. The velocity of his fall lessened as he fell, and its little wheel ticked a hundred times a second. The sides of the well — now dry, thankfully — flashed past in kaleidoscopic glimpses, like an old black-and-white movie. At last the Descender slowed to a crawl, and Drake felt his boots gently bounce off hard rock. He squeezed the muzzle, and felt the Descender unlatch from its harness. Drake familiarized himself with the process of turning it into an ascender, before moving off to where Dahl and half a dozen men stood waiting.
The floor crunched alarmingly, but he put it down to mummified debris.
“This cavern is oddly small compared to what we saw on the GPR,” Dahl said. “It could have miscalculated. Spread out and look for… a tunnel… or something.”
The Swede shrugged, amused at his own ignorance. Drake liked it. He inched around the cavern, studying the uneven walls and shivering despite the heavy coat he’d been given. Thousands of tons of rock and earth pressed down above him, and here he was, looking to go deeper. Sounded like a soldier’s life to him.
Dahl was communicating with Parnevik through a two-way video-phone. The Prof was shouting out so many ‘suggestions’ that Dahl muted the thing after two minutes. The soldiers shuffled and bumped their way around the cave until one of the Delta guys shouted: “I got a carving here. Tiny-ass thing though.”
Dahl un-muted the video-phone. Parnevik’s voice came through loud and clear, and then stopped when Dahl held the mobile to the wall.
“You see that?”
“Ja! Det ar bra! Bra!” Parnevik lost his English in excitement. “The Valknott. The… umm… slain warriors’ knot. It is Odin’s symbol, the triple triangle, or Borromean Triangle, connected with the idea of glorious death in battle.”
Drake shook his head. “Bloody Vikings.”
“This symbol is often found on ‘picture stones’ that depict the death of heroic warriors either travelling by boat or on horseback to Valhalla — Odin’s palace. This further cements the idea that we have found a worldly Valhalla.”
“Sorry to piss on your parade, pal,” a blunt SAS man said, “but this wall’s as thick as my mother-in-law.”
They all took a step back, sweeping their helmet-lights across the unbroken surface.
“It has to be a false wall.” Parnevik was almost screaming in excitement. “Has to be!”
“Wait,” Drake heard Ben’s young voice. “It also says here that the Valknott is also called the Death Knot — a symbol of Odin’s followers who had a tendency to die violently. I do believe it could be a warning.”
“Bollocks.” Drake’s sigh was heartfelt.
“Here’s a thought, dudes,” Kennedy’s voice cut across. “How about searching all the walls more closely. If you get more Valknotts, but then find a blank wall — I’d choose that one.”
“Easy for you to say,” Drake murmured. “Being up there and all.”
They split up, combing the rocky walls inch by inch. They scraped at age-old dust and waved at cobwebs and kicked mould away. In the end, they found three more Valknotts.
“Great,” Drake said. “That’s four walls, four Knott-things. What the hell do we do now?”
“Are they all identical?” the Professor asked in surprise.
One of the soldiers tapped Parnevik’s image on the videophone screen. “Well I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sure done listening to him. Damn Swede would’ve gotten us dead already.”
“Wait,” Ben’s voice said. “The Eyes are in Mimir’s Well, not…” his voice was lost beneath a hiss of static and then the screen went blank. Dahl shook it and switched it on and off, but to no avail.
“Damn. What was he trying to say?”
Drake was about to venture a guess when the videophone burst into life again and Ben’s face filled the screen. “Don’t know what happened. But listen — the Eyes are in Mimir’s Well, not the cavern beneath it. Understand?”
“Yes. So we passed them on the way down?”
“I think so.”
“But why?” Dahl asked in disbelief. “Why create this cavern at all then? And the GPR showed clearly that a massive space exists beneath this one. Surely the Piece would be down there.”
“Unless — ” Drake felt a terrible chill. “Unless this place is the trap.”
Dahl looked suddenly unsure. “How so?”
“That space beneath us? What if it’s a bottomless pit?”
“That means you’re standing on clay hardpan!” Parnevik shouted in terror. “A trap! It could shatter at any moment. Get out of there now!”
They stared at each other for one timeless moment of desperate mortality. They all wanted to live so badly. And then everything changed. What had at one moment been a fissure in the concrete floor was now the hardpan cracking open. That odd tearing sound wasn’t the rock shifting, but the floor fracturing slowly from end to end.
With the endless pit below them….
Six men leapt fiercely for the two Ascenders. When they got there, still alive, Dahl shouted to regain order.