“The chopper will have onboard internet,” Dahl tried to calm everyone. “In about… oh, thirty minutes.”
“Okay, well, what about the central section?” Drake did his bit. “Two outlines that look like a child’s drawing of three udders and a jellyfish.”
“And the Shield again,” Ben zoomed in on the ‘jellyfish’s’ eye. “Same representation as the North section. So we have two depictions of the Shield on the Shield itself. A centrepiece composed of two random outlines, and the three Odinic triangles,” he said, nodding at Kennedy. “That may not be triangles at all.”
“Well, at least it proves my theory that the Shield is the principal Piece,” Parnevik pointed out.
“Those outlines remind me of something,” Dahl was musing. “I just can’t say what.”
Drake could think of several nasty personal comebacks, but held himself in check. Progress, he thought. The poncy Swede had come a long way with them, and had now earned a little respect.
“Look!” Ben shouted out, making them all jump. “There’s a thin, almost irrelevant, line connecting both Shield images!”
“Which actually tells us nothing,” Parnevik grouched.
“Or…,” Drake mused, thinking about his army map-reading days, “or… if you come at it a different way — we know the Shield is a map to Ragnarok. The two images could be the same focal point on two different views… only one view is the elevation and the other-”
“-is plan!” Ben said.
At that moment there was the sound of a chopper approaching. Dahl talked it in, showing his old-school dependencies by shutting off the GPRS. He squinted into the dark along with everyone else when the big, black shape approached.
“Well, we don’t have much choice,” he said with half a smile. “We’re going to have to, um, wing it.”
Once aboard and settled, Dahl booted up a 20” Sony Vaio laptop that used its own portable modem, like an I-phone. Depending on the mobile network coverage, they would have internet access.
“It’s a map,” Drake continued his line of thought. “So let’s treat it that way. Clearly the middle, the centrepiece, is the plan view. So — copy the outline, use some kind of geographical recognition software, and see what comes up.”
“Hmm,” Parnevik studied the enlarged view dubiously. “Why include that other udder-like image if the shield symbol lies on the, um, Jellyfish.”
“A point of reference?” Kennedy ventured.
The chopper swayed, buffeted by high winds. The pilot had been told to head for Oslo until he received further instructions. A second SGG team awaited them there.
“Try the software, Torsten.”
“I already have, but I don’t need it,” Dahl replied in sudden wonder. “I knew that outline looked familiar. It’s Scandinavia on a map! The udders are Norway, Sweden and Finland. The Jellyfish is Iceland. Unbelievable.”
A split-second later, the laptop pinged with a total of three possible matches. The recognition software algorithms had weighted the closest at ninety-eight percent — it was Scandinavia.
Drake nodded towards Dahl in respect.
“Ragnarok’s in Iceland?” Parnevik wondered. “But — why?”
“Get those coordinates to the pilot,” Drake jabbed at the coastline of Iceland and the position of the Shield symbol. “Now. We’re already hours behind.”
“But we don’t have the damn Pieces,” Ben said plaintively. “The Germans have them. And only they can find the Tomb of the Gods by using the Pieces.”
And now Torsten Dahl actually laughed, causing Drake to double-take. “Oh, no,” the Swede said, and his guffaw was almost villain-like. “I have a much better idea than fiddling about with those friggin’ Pieces. Always have had. Let the Sauerkrauts keep them!”
“You do? Let me think — wasn’t Iceland where the Shield was found?” Ben asked, impressing Drake yet again with his clear thinking under pressure.
“Yes, and if that’s the ancient site of Ragnarok,” Parnevik said, “it makes perfect sense. Odin’s Shield would have fallen where he died.”
“Oh, it makes sense now, Professor,” Kennedy teased him. “Now these guys have worked it all out for ya.”
“Well, if it helps, we still have the greatest mystery to solve,” Ben said with a slight smile. “The meaning of the ancient symbol of Odin — the three triangles.”
THIRTY-FIVE
The Icelandic coastline is ice-laden, rugged, and awash with colour, sheared in some parts by great glaciers, and beaten smooth in others by lashing waves and scouring winds. There are coasts of lava and black cliffs, majestic icebergs, and, overall, a kind of zen-like calm. Danger and beauty stand hand-in-hand, ready to lull the unwary traveller to an untimely end.
Reykjavik passed beneath them in a matter of minutes, its bright red roofs, white buildings, and surrounding snow-covered mountains guaranteed to stir even the most jaded of hearts.
They stopped briefly at a sparse military base to re-fuel and upload snowsuits, ammunition and rations, and anything else Dahl could think of in the ten minutes they were at a standstill.
But the people on board the black military chopper saw none of it. They were connected as a group — discussing the same objective — but their inner thoughts were of their own mortality and the world’s — of how scared and apprehensive they were, and how frightened for others.
Drake was apprehensive. He couldn’t see how to keep everyone safe. If this was Ragnarok they had found, then the legendary Tomb of the Gods was next, and their lives had just become a game of roulette — the kind you played in Kennedy’s favourite allusion — Vegas — where the table was rigged.
Rigged in this particular allusion by every secret player’s secret agenda, and by the unknown agendas of their many enemies.
And now in addition to Ben and Kennedy — the two people he would protect with his life — Drake had to consider both Hayden and Karin too.
Would all these concerns get in the way of saving the world? Only time would tell.
Endgames were being played out in every corner. Abel Frey had already begun his. Alicia and Milo might have one of their own, but Drake suspected his ex-SRT colleague had a killer-surprise in store that even her boyfriend hadn’t anticipated.
Torsten Dahl and Wells had rarely been off the phone since they crossed the coast of Iceland, receiving orders, hints and whispered advice from their respective governments. At length, Kennedy answered a call that made her sit up straight for a few minutes and shake her head wearily in shock.
She turned only to Drake. “Remember Hayden? The secretary? Yeah, she’s just doing her job alright.”
“Meaning?”
“She’s CIA, dammit. And right where she wants to be. In the middle of all this bullshit.”
“Bollocks.” Drake sent a troubled glance over towards Ben, but still fancied she harboured a soft spot for his friend. Was it just Drake’s heart feeding him romantic notions, telling him Hayden’s feelings had been true, or was she for real?
“That was the Secretary of Defence,” Kennedy went on matter-of-factly. “Wanting to be, umm, ‘kept in the loop’.”