“No, Odin’s grave could very well be a name for something,” Sam declared. “Look, I found this online.” He scrolled on his phone, reading the information in selected words to formulate a theory. “There is a place called Odin’s Grave. Pow! Just a straight-out statement. And it happens to be off the coast of Estonia.”
Purdue agreed. “Hmm, I venture we could go and see. After all, it’s practically a stone’s throw away from here.”
“What is Odin’s Grave, then, Sam?” Nina asked, having more wine. “A landmark, like a mound?”
“No, it is located on an island called Osmussaar, off the coast of Estonia. But now we have to remember that Odin had only one eye. Could that be the white eye he talks about?” Sam posed the important question.
“I don’t think so. Look, it would have said his eye, instead of the eye, right? I honestly think they are two separate things on this island,” Purdue speculated, but Nina had been checking her laptop for references to Osmussaar and had more to add.
“Could be, but I don’t know if your info told you this, Sam. Neugrund is a crater caused by a meteor, lying under the water off the coast of the island. So, is that what he meant by wisdom lying beneath?” she asked.
“Odinsholm 1943,” Purdue mused. “For some reason I think that is significant. It was during the Second World War. I think the island is significant. I think we should start there, but I don’t think that is where we will end up.”
“I agree. I think it is a clue to another location that he did not want to write, obviously,” Sam said. “All we can do is go and connect the dots to what Josef was really referring to.”
“I know what he was referring to,” Nina said, a little smile denting her cheeks.
“You do?” Sam played, rapidly blinking his eyes at her.
“Do share, dear Nina,” Purdue urged.
Nina closed her eyes, feeling the effect of the umpteenth glass of wine. “I think Josef is sending us straight to the Nazi train he stole the gold from.”
The following morning Sam, Nina, and Purdue set out to Osmussaar. Purdue had chartered a boat to take them there to examine the clues they were presented with. Nina had a very good point the day before, in the opinions of her companions. It was almost logical that the artist would leave clues for his son to find a treasure of which he managed to claim but a small fraction of, from a place he admitted to have been in — the underground railroads of Project Riese. The conundrum, though, was which of the known nine underground railroads they had to travel to, but that was what they had hoped to find once on Osmussaar.
The day was clear, the sun pale, and the water pleasant. Across the Gulf of Finland, they went southwest toward Estonia on the opposite side of the cold body of water they were crossing. Around them, several fishing trawlers floated lazily on the silver sheen of the waves. Nina was drinking a cup of hot chocolate, trying to keep her hair out of her face and failing utterly at it. She watched Sam taking pictures of the boats and the panorama away from the sunlight.
Purdue was working on his people skills, as he always did, chatting to the skipper about all kinds of traditions. They exchanged fishing stories and Purdue shared his from all around the world. She could not remember the last time she was so relaxed. The serenity was a godsend, after the horrible nightmares she suffered the night before, but dared not voice.
It was a recurring dream of a battlefield of giants, like the men in the tunnel with her. They were fighting against an army of locusts that ate away the skin on their faces and limbs until all that was left was enormous skeletons falling into a heap of bones. Overhead the Black Sun symbol was rotating faster and faster, pulling the blue of the sky with it into a circular smudge.
She picked up a bone from the heap and held it out to fight the sun, but gradually the bone turned into gold, slowly moving downward to her hand. No matter how she tried to cast it aside, it had become part of her, growing into her skin and fusing with her ulna. As she slowly turned to gold, the locusts began to laugh at her — a billion cackling insects standing like men and looking at her. Every time, right at the end of the dream, Nina used the bone in her hand to stab out one of her eyes, a terrifying splat that jerked her violently into the waking world.
Ever since she went to Wrichtishousis with Purdue and Sam, she had been having that same sequence of events playing in her nightmare and each time she stabbed out the other eye from the one of the night before. Her knowledge of mythology supported the notion that she was Odin, the Norse Allfather, who gave one of his eyes in exchange for wisdom. However, his right eye was plucked out, whereas hers alternated being stabbed.
Nina was desperate to rid herself of this wicked thrall that came in her dreams, without a doubt the result of her traumatic experiences in the Himalayas and a pinch of what she was chasing after with Sam and Purdue. Unless she spoke about it, there would be no way to end it.
But it would mar her focus on this unofficial expedition and she did not want to surrender to the growing darkness that gripped her more and more as the days passed. It was odd, because she did not give any of it much thought while she was awake, but she elected not to entertain the idea that she could be heading for a breakdown. To kill the time left of their boat trip, she decided to keep busy checking her messages.
“Hey, Sam!” she shouted over the din of the splashing slipstream of the boat.
“Aye!” he replied while zooming in on a lighthouse he found in his viewfinder.
“What is Paddy’s address again?” she asked.
“Why?” Sam inquired. “Since when are you and Paddy hanging out?” he smiled.
“Neville says he has intel for Paddy’s people and your best friend told him not to call or email. Apparently he has traveled to Edinburgh to tell Paddy in person. Shall I send him to Glasgow to get Paddy via headquarters?” she asked.
“No, he won’t be there for the next week. The generator has to be tested in Edinburgh before he reports it to his one-up, so send him to 88 Watson Avenue in Blackford,” he told her.
“Oh, when did they move?” she asked as she replied to Neville’s message, excusing herself from the coffee offer due to being “abroad.”
“When he got the special in front of his agent,” Sam smiled. “Hell of a pay raise that was.”
“I’m sure,” Nina agreed. “You know, I would love to know what information Neville has on that gadget, or perhaps on the yeti men that so conveniently disappeared by the time Paddy and Neville got there.”
“I’ll ask Paddy when we get back to Scotland. I wouldn’t mind hearing what he has discovered either. Whatever it is, you might not want to dwell too much on it. That whole incident had you really shaken, darling,” he winked. “And I wanted to offer my personal services to get your mind off it, but your boyfriend was within earshot and I did not want to feel bad for him when you accepted.”
“Oh, shut up, Sam,” Nina giggled, fiddling with her annoying strands of hair that kept fluttering into her eyes. “Besides, the way you two socialize while I am absent has me thinking that he might be your boyfriend more than mine.”
Sam gasped, “You found us out!”
Chapter 21
“You two! Look ahead!” Purdue shouted from the top of the cockpit. They found him pointing toward the rocky escarpment that had now become fully visible. Over the waves.
“I know; I was taking pictures of the lighthouse!” Sam told Purdue.
“What lighthouse?” he asked.