The Bones Of Odin (Matt Drake 1) (5 page)

They exited the cafe and looked around.

Kennedy said: “My hotel’s three blocks over.”

Drake nodded. “Bloody awesome. Let’s go.”

SIX

PARIS, FRANCE

A minute later Ben said:” Wait.”

“Don’t say you need the toilet, mate, or we’re gonna have to get you some nappies.”

Kennedy hid a grin as Ben flushed.

“I know you’re due a nap, old man, but it’s nearly time to . . . umm . . . visit the
Louvre
.”

Shit.
Drake had lost track of time. “Bollocks.”

“The Louvre?”

“About turn.” Drake waved at a passing taxi. “Kennedy, I will explain.”

“You’d better. I’ve already been to the Louvre today.”

“Not for this . . .” Ben murmured as they climbed into the taxi. Drake said the magic word and the car sped off. The journey was undertaken in silence and lasted ten minutes, through streets clogged with traffic. The pavements were no better when the three of them tried to hot-foot it towards the museum.

As they walked, Ben brought Kennedy up to speed. “Someone found Odin’s Shield in Iceland. Someone stole it from an exhibition in York, completely
ruining
Frey’s amazing cat-walk show.”

“Frey?”

“The fashion designer. Aren’t you from New York?”

“I
am
from New York, but I’m not big on fashion. And I’m not big on being dragged blindly into some kind of conflict. I really don’t need more problems right now.”

Drake almost said ‘
there’s the door’
but stopped himself at the last second. A cop could prove useful tonight for many reasons, especially one from the States. As they approached the glass pyramid that marked the entrance to the Louvre, he said: “Kennedy, these people have tried to kill us at least three times now. It’s my responsibility to make sure that doesn’t happen. Now, we need more information on what the Hell’s going down here, and for some reason they are interested in something that Ben has found out that’s called the ‘Nine Pieces of Odin’. We don’t really know why, but in here - ” he pointed past the glass pyramid, “is the second Piece.”

“They’re gonna steal it, tonight,” Ben said, then added: “Probably.”

“And what’s the New York angle?”

“That’s where another one of Odin’s
Pieces
is on display. The Wolves. At the Natural History Museum.”

Drake was studying a map. “Seems the Louvre doesn’t normally display Viking collections. This one’s also on loan, like the one at York. Says here, the biggest interest is the Viking longboat, one of the finest ever discovered, and its renowned notoriety.”

“Meaning?” Kennedy paused at the top of the steps, a reed against the storm as many pairs of feet tramped around her.

“The anomaly presented by its age. It predates Viking history.”

“Well, that’s interesting.”

“I know. It’s displayed on the lower ground floor of the Denon Wing, near some Egyptian . . . C
optic . . . Ptolemaic . . . bollocks . .  .bollocks . . .
whatever. It’s this way.”

The wide, polished corridors gleamed all around them as they merged with the throng. Locals and tourists of all ages filled the grand old space and brought it to life during the day. One could only guess as to its tomb-like, eerie nature through the night.

At that moment there was a thunderous boom, like a concrete wall collapsing. They all paused. Drake turned to Ben.

“Wait here, Ben. Give us half an hour. We’ll find you.” He paused, then added, “If they evacuate, then wait as close to the glass pyramid as you can.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. Ben was fully aware of the danger. Drake watched him shake his mobile free and hit a speed-dial number. That’d be Mum or Dad or sis. He motioned to Kennedy, and they proceeded carefully down the spiral staircase towards the lower ground floor. As they started towards the room that housed the Viking exhibition, people were starting to rush out. A thick cloud billowed behind them.

“Run!” A guy who looked like a Hollister model shouted. “There’s dudes with guns in there!”

Drake stopped at the door and risked a look inside. Total chaos greeted him. A scene from a Michael Bay action movie, only weirder. He counted eight guys in camouflage gear, with face-masks and machine-guns, clambering into the biggest Viking longboat he’d ever seen. Behind them, in an act of unbelievable recklessness, a smoking hole had been blasted through the side of the museum.

These guys were crazy. What gave them their edge was that they possessed the shocking directness of fanaticism. Blowing entrances into buildings and firing rockets into crowds seemed to be their norm. No wonder they’d chased Ben and him around Paris earlier. Car chases were probably just their wind-down-before-bed activity.

Kennedy put a hand on his shoulder and peered around him. “Jeez.”

“Proves we’re on the right track. Now we just need to get close to their Commander.”

“I ain’t getting close to any of those
wankers.
” She swore with a surprisingly good English accent.

“Cute. But I gotta find a way to get us off their shit list.”

Drake noticed more civilians running towards the exit. The Germans weren’t even watching them, just confidently executing their plan.

“Come on.” Drake slipped around the door frame into the room. They used the perimeter exhibits for cover and padded their way as close to proceedings as was safe.

“Beeile dich!”
someone shouted urgently.

“Something about a ‘hurry’. Drake said. “Bloody bastards will have to be quick. The Louvre must be high on the French response list.”

One of the Germans shouted something else, and held up a slab of stone the size of a dinner tray. It looked heavy. The soldier was beckoning two others to help unload it from the longboat.

“Clearly not SAS,” Drake commented.

“Or American,” Kennedy noted. “I used to have a Marine boyfriend who could’ve tucked that trinket under his foreskin.”

Drake choked a little. “Nice image. Thanks for contributing. Look.” He nodded towards the gap in the wall where a masked man dressed all in white had just appeared.

“Same guy who robbed the Shield in York. Probably.”

The man briefly examined the sculpture, then nodded in approval and turned to his Commander. “Time to . . ..”

Gunfire erupted outside. The Germans froze for a second, seemingly to stare at each other in confusion. Then bullets ripped through the room and everyone dived for cover.

More masked men appeared in the newly-blasted entrance. A new force, dressed differently to the Germans.

Drake thought:
French police?

“
Canadians!”
One of the Germans shouted in disdain. “Kill! Kill!”

Drake covered his ears as a dozen machine-guns opened fire at once. Bullets ricocheted from human body, to wooden exhibit, to plaster wall. Glass shattered, and priceless displays were ripped to shreds and sent crashing to the floor. Kennedy swore loudly, which Drake was starting to realise was not exactly ‘fresh ground’ for her. “Where’re the fucking
French
for fuck’s sake!”

Drake’s head was spinning.
Canadians?
What kind of twisted hell had they stumbled into here?

The exhibit beside them exploded into a thousand pieces. Glass and bits of wood rained down on their backs. Drake started to crawl backwards, dragging Kennedy with him. The longboat was getting riddled with lead. The Canadians had advanced into the room by now and several of the Germans lay dead or twitching. As Drake watched, one of the Canadians fired point-blank into a German’s head, blowing his brains out all over a 3000 year-old Egyptian terracotta vase.

“No love lost between looney relic hunters.” Drake winced. “And all that time I spent playing
Tomb Raider -
it was never like this.”

“Yeah,” Kennedy shook shards of glass from her hair. “But if you’d actually played the game, instead of staring at her ass for seventeen hours you might actually know what’s going on.”

“Ben’s forte. Not mine. Playing the
game
that is.” He ventured a glance up.

One of the Germans was trying to escape. He ran right up to Drake without noticing him, then gave a start of surprise when his path was blocked.
“Bewegen!”
He raised his gun.

“Yeah, up yours too.” Drake raised his hands.

The man’s finger tightened on the trigger.

Kennedy made a sudden movement to the side, causing the German’s attention to flicker. Drake moved in and elbowed him in the face. A fist came swinging towards Drake’s head, which he side-stepped, even as he kicked out the soldier’s knee. A shriek barely covered the sound of snapping bone. Drake was on him in a second, knees pressing hard on his heaving chest. With a quick flurry he ripped away the soldier’s mask.

And grunted. “Uhh. Don’t know what I was really expecting.”

Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Solid features. Confused expression.

“Later.” Drake rendered him unconscious with a choke hold, trusting Kennedy to keep an eye out for his comrades. When Drake looked up, the battle raged on. In that moment, another German came barrelling around a falling exhibit. Drake shoulder-charged him to the side, and Kennedy kneed him in the solar-plexus. The man went down faster than a new boy-band on X-factor.

Now one of the Canadians was dragging the Odinic sculpture away from the dead and bloody fingers of his enemy. Another German outflanked him and attacked from the side, but the Canadian was good, twisting and delivering three deadly strikes, then heaving the limp body over his shoulder and smashing it to the ground. The Canadian fired three close shots for good measure and then continued dragging the sculpture towards the exit. Even Drake was impressed. When the Canadian reached his comrades, they shouted and laid down a hail of fire before retreating over the still-smoking rubble.

“
Upsalla!”
The first-class Canadian cried, and raised a fist at the surviving Germans. Drake detected arrogance, challenge and excitement in that one word. Surprisingly, a woman’s voice.

Then the woman paused and removed her mask in a gesture of absolute disdain.
“Upsalla!”
She cried again at the Germans.
“Be there!”

Drake would have staggered if he hadn’t already been on his knees. He thought he’d been hit by a bullet, such was the shock. He recognised this so-called Canadian. He knew her well. It was Alicia Myles, a Londoner, who used to be his equal in the SRT.

A secret company within the SAS.

Wells’ earlier comment had unearthed old memories that should stay buried deeper than a politician’s expenses history.
You were
more
than the SAS. Why would you want to forget that?

Because of what we did.

Alicia Myles was one of the best soldiers he’d ever seen. Women had to be better than men in the Special Forces to get even half as far. And Alicia had gone right to the top.

What was
she
doing mixed up in all this, and sounding like the fanatic he knew she certainly was not? Only one thing motivated Alicia - money.

Could that be why she was working for the Canadians?

Drake started crawling towards the room’s real exit. “So, far from getting us taken off the kill list and unmasking our enemies,” he panted, “we’ve now got more enemies, and achieved nothing except to confuse ourselves even further.”

Kennedy, crawling after him, added, “My life . . . in a Goddamn nutshell.”

SEVEN

PARIS, FRANCE

Kennedy’s hotel suite was somewhat nicer than the one Drake and Ben had spent a couple of hours in.

“Thought all you cops were broke,” Drake grumbled, as he checked ingress and egress points.

“We are. But when your vacation time is pretty much non-existent for ten years, then I guess your checking account starts stacking up.”

“That a laptop?” Ben had reached it before the rhetorical question was answered. They had found him lurking near the glass pyramid after meandering their way out of the museum, acting like two more frightened tourists, too scared to remember any details.

“Why aren’t we alerting the French to what we know?” Kennedy asked as Ben opened up the laptop.

“Because they’re
French,”
Drake said with a laugh, then sobered when no one joined in. He perched on the edge of Kennedy’s bed, watching his friend work. “Sorry. The French won’t know anything. Going through this with them now will slow us down. And I think time is the issue. It’s the Swedes we should contact.”

“Know anyone in the Swedish Secret Service?” Kennedy raised an eyebrow at him.

“No. I have a call in to my old Commander though.”

“When did you quit the SAS?”

“You never quit the SAS.” When Ben looked up he added: “Figuratively.”

“Three heads should be better than two.” Ben stared at Kennedy for a second. “That’s if you’re still in?”

A slight nod. Kennedy’s hair fell over her eyes, and she spent a minute tying it back. “I get that there are nine Pieces of Odin, so my first question is
why?
Second question is - what are they?”

“We were just figuring that out back at the cafe.” Ben was tapping furiously at the keyboard. “There’s a legend, which Mr Crusty here disproves of, that alleges there’s an actual
Tomb
of the Gods
– literally, a place where all the ancient Gods are buried. And it’s not just a dusty old legend either; a number of academics have debated it, and many papers have been published over the years. Problem is,” said Ben rubbing his eyes, “it’s tough reading. Academics aren’t renowned for their prosaic language.”

“Prosaic?
” Kennedy echoed with a smile. “You go to college?”

“He’s the lead singer in a band,” Drake shot back, deadpan.

Kennedy raised an eyebrow. “So you have a Tomb of the Gods that never existed. Okay. So what?”