The helicopter descended. On the lake’s western bank was the little village of Blixtholm, and Nina saw a reception committee waiting on the frozen shoreline. ‘There are the snowmobiles,’ she said. ‘Remind me to thank Melinda for arranging everything so quickly.’
The pilot landed the chopper on the lake. The ice creaked loudly enough to be heard even over the noise of the rotors as it took the aircraft’s weight, but to the relief of all aboard it showed no sign of cracking. All the same, the four passengers collected their belongings and made their way to land with a degree of haste. The helicopter departed in a whirlwind of sparkling ice crystals.
While Nina, Tova translating, spoke to the man who had delivered the snowmobiles, Eddie went straight to a box amongst the gear waiting for them. ‘Remind me to thank Melinda,’ he said with a grin.
‘What is it?’ Kagan asked.
Eddie opened the box, which was covered with stickers denoting it a United Nations diplomatic package. Inside was a rectangular metal case about eighteen inches long. He lifted the lid to reveal a gleaming steel handgun, the long, thick barrel reinforced by a hefty rib along its top. ‘Oh yeah,’ he said with a Christmas morning grin. ‘It’s been a while.’
Nina let out a disapproving sigh when she saw the weapon. ‘Jeez. When did you get another one of those?’
‘Picked it up two months ago,’ Eddie replied, taking out the Wildey automatic and checking it admiringly in the morning sunlight.
‘And you didn’t tell me?’
‘No, ’cause I knew you’d throw a fit. I mean, I lost the last couple before I even had a chance to fire them.’
‘That’s not why I threw a fit, and anyway I didn’t throw a fit,’ she complained. ‘I don’t like you having them because firstly, they cost two thousand dollars and you keep losing them —’
‘See? Fit-throwing.’
‘— and secondly, it’s illegal to have them in New York City!’
Eddie pulled back the slide. ‘That’s why I kept it at work.’
She spluttered. ‘You — you kept a gun at the United Nations?’
‘It’s not technically part of the city, is it?’
Nina held a hand to her ear. ‘You hear that distant popping sound? That was Seretse’s head exploding. And for God’s sake, put it away before someone calls the cops.’ The helicopter’s arrival had inevitably attracted curious onlookers from the village. ‘If you lose that one, you’re never, ever having another, not at two grand a go. Seriously.’
Eddie grinned again, then slid one of the two magazines in the case into the pistol. The slide snapped back into place, chambering the first .45 Winchester Magnum cartridge. ‘I just got fed up with being caught out without a gun. If I’d put a couple of bullets through Hoyt when I had the chance, we’d all be a lot better off.’ He took a leather shoulder holster from the box and put the second magazine into a clip on one of its straps, then took off his winter coat to don it.
Kagan opened his own coat to reveal his SR-1. The Russian gun was considerably smaller than the Wildey. ‘You seem to like overkill, Chase.’
‘Overkill’s my middle name,’ the Yorkshireman replied.
‘No it isn’t,’ said Nina. ‘It’s Jeremy.’
He made a disgruntled sound. ‘Thanks for reminding me, Persephone.’
Tova gave her a look of surprise. ‘Your middle name is Persephone?’
Nina blushed faintly. ‘My parents were… well, obsessed with mythology. I’m lucky they didn’t call me Melpomene or Eris or something.’ The Swede laughed.
‘I suppose if I knew anything about Greek gods that’d be hilarious,’ said Eddie. He slipped the Wildey into the holster and put his coat back on over it. ‘Okay, I’m set. Everyone else ready to go?’
Kagan refastened his own coat. ‘Yes. But I would feel more confident if I knew exactly what we are looking for.’
‘I wish I could say,’ Tova told him. ‘All I know is that if my reading of the runes is correct, somewhere up the river from here, we will see Bifröst — the rainbow bridge to Asgard. But what that means, I do not know.’
‘I just hope we’ll know it when we see it,’ said Nina.
It did not take long to fix their gear to the back of the snowmobiles. Eddie switched on a GPS unit attached to the handlebars of his machine, then started the engine. ‘All right! Let’s give it some James Brown.’
‘What?’ said a puzzled Nina.
He put on a strained, rasping voice. ‘Yow! Take me to the bridge!’
Both Tova and Kagan remained mystified, while Nina rolled her eyes. ‘That was your best James Brown? I don’t feel good.’
‘Tchah! So, the plan — we just head north up the river until we see something that looks like it might be a rainbow bridge? And then we wander about until we find Valhalla?’
‘That’s pretty much it, yeah,’ Nina told him, feeling faintly absurd at hearing the vagueness of their mission put into words.
He shrugged. ‘It’s not exactly the D-Day landings, but… we’ve found stuff in the past with less to go on.’ He revved the engine, sending the snowmobile out on to the frozen lake in a spitting spray of ice. ‘See you somewhere over the rainbow!’
Eddie turned north, speeding towards the gap in the trees marking the mouth of the river. Nina, Tova and Kagan started their own machines and followed his trail.
The journey upriver was scenic… at first. Before long, though, the monotony of unbroken mile after mile of conifers became wearing. The chainsaw buzz of the snowmobiles’ two-stroke engines and the constant vibrations from the ice — which was far from smooth, the pressure ridges that had formed as the flowing water froze leaving it in places as striated as a washboard — also did nothing to ease the journey.
Nor did the group see anything that could possibly have been described as a rainbow bridge. They passed rocks and boulders of ever-increasing size the higher they rode into the hills, but none were large enough to span the river. Eddie gave one formation a hopeful look as he passed, but there was nothing of note about it. ‘Bollocks to this,’ he muttered, bringing his snowmobile to a stop and checking the GPS.
‘What is it?’ Nina asked, pulling up alongside him. Kagan and Tova followed suit.
‘Just seeing how far we’ve gone. Christ! Only thirty kays? Feels more like a hundred and thirty.’
‘It cannot be much farther, though,’ said Tova. ‘The runes said it was two days’ travel from the lake on foot. Even the Vikings could not travel very fast over land like this.’
Eddie took out a map and used the GPS coordinates to find their position. The river was now heading roughly north-west, towards the mountains forming the spine of Scandinavia. ‘Okay, in about ten kays the river forks, and the runes didn’t say anything about that, did they?’ Tova shook her head. ‘So if it’s here, we can’t be too far from it.’
‘Is there anything on the map?’ asked Kagan.
‘Just a big load of bugger-all. Nearest town I can see marked must be at least twelve kilometres from here. Looks like the terrain gets steeper, but there’s not that much detail.’ He folded the map again. ‘Worst comes to the worst, we can ride up until we hit the fork, then come back and see if we missed something.’
Tova looked downhearted. ‘I was so sure this was the right river, though.’
‘We’re not done yet,’ Nina reminded her. ‘Ten kilometres is a long way.’
Eddie rolled his buttocks from side to side on the saddle. ‘Yeah, especially on these bloody bumps. It’s like riding over the world’s longest cattle grid.’