by K. T. Tomb
“So what are you guys doing here?” she asked.
“You already know,” Porvaldur answered her.
“Nah, not the mission. What you're doing on this mission? What gets the Icelandic elite police involved?”
Porvaldur frowned and scratched his head. He obviously wondered whether he should answer that. “President thought it was a good idea,” he answered eventually.
“How so?”
“Because we need the experience.”
Cash frowned, not sure what to make of that answer. “Why would you need the experience?”
Porvaldur sighed. “Since our independence from Denmark, we really only got called out in anger once. But we heard the other day the American Navy is re-opening their base at Kevlavik. And we need to prepare.”
Cash did not understand that logic. “Why would you need to get special ops experience for that?”
Porvaldur looked around. He was looking at the men of his team for support, but he found none. “Because it might be the only way to keep the peace with the Americans. Don't want to get in an Okinawa situation. Might have to go in secretly and beat someone up or find some blackmail on their officers or something.”
“Wow...” Cash was speechless.
Porvaldur shrugged. “That's the way to keep the peace sometimes. And lacking an intelligence agency or army, we're the guys for the job.”
Cash nodded. “So what’re your plans for now? What's the mission?”
Porvaldur shrugged. “That raid tonight went pretty badly. Seems they were ready for us. And even so, they did not have the things there.”
Right then, the captain called her name.
Cash got up and walked to the table where Captain Johanssen was seated. The other men there were clearly the other officers.
“We've decided to fill you in.” He reached into the pocket of his bomber jacket and pulled out Cash's pistol. “And you can have this back.”
“Thanks,” Cash said, taking the pistol. She checked the safety was on and put it into the waist of her trousers again.
“Last year there was a raid on a museum in Trondheim,” Johanssen began. “The police had no leads, but after something else happened elsewhere—”
“That thing about the art theft from the Netherlands?” Cash interrupted him.
Captain Johanssen nodded. “Yes. That's when we got onto them. The SBU were behind it, we found out and our intelligence agency linked it to the same people the Dutch traced.”
“Svoboda Party and the Azov Battalion.” Cash nodded. She remembered that bit.
“Exactly.”
“So you're trying to get that hoard back?” Cash asked.
The captain looked slightly shifty. “Yes.”
Cash understood the shifty-eyed look straight away. “You're to take them out as well?”
Captain Johanssen nodded slowly. “You're quick.”
“Thanks.”
“But your quickness means you can either be helping us, or we have to take you out as well.” His tone was very even and he clearly had no problem making that threat.
“If what I am looking for is here, those guys probably have it,” Cash said. “My best chance of finding would be joining your group.”
Captain Johanssen offered her his hand. “Then welcome aboard, Miss Cassidy.”
“Missus Cassidy.” She shook his hand. “Thank you, sir.”
“Porvaldur Bjarní Einarsson will show you around the unit, I am sure. You can join his part of the team.”
Porvaldur introduced Cash to the men one by one, giving her a few seconds to shake hands with them. After that, she was led back to her hotel room by two men. She was told they would come to get her the moment they knew what they would be doing.
Exhausted and her head still hurting, Cash undressed and went to bed. Her thoughts drifted back to the past weeks for a few moments and the people she now missed by her side, then she fell asleep.
She woke up to a violent banging on her door. “Come on! We're heading out!” Porvaldur's voice sounded loudly. Cash shot up and blinked. She made a dash for the bathroom to relieve herself and then shot into her clothes. About five minutes later, she opened the door and a hand grabbed her shoulder to pull her along.
Downstairs she was bundled into a van and the van began driving straight away. The night was still dark and she was unsure what was going on. One of the men handed her a bullet proof vest and told her to wear it underneath her jacket.
The men in the van seemed to be the Icelanders of the Viking Squad, and she wondered where the rest of the men were until she saw the lights of the van ahead of them.
Cash looked at the buildings, trying to determine where they were headed. After a while, she saw a sign which told her they were heading to the east of Kiev. She looked around at the men too, but they were very quiet. There really was something going to happen.
When the vans stopped, they were alone in the dark. The men readied their weapons, mostly pistols, in the lights of the van and then stepped out together. Cash checked her own pistol and got out with them. Both groups of men joined up and Captain Johanssen began giving them orders in Norwegian. She could not understand all of it, but Porvaldur told her she should stay with the medic in their group. She was not to be in the front line of anything.
When he was done giving instructions, the captain began reciting a poem. It sounded to Cash to be in Old Norse. Porvaldur translated it for her.
“In battle storm we seek no lee,
Thereupon Thiodolf sang:
With skulking head, and bending knee, “And should our king in battle fall,
Behind the hollow shield. A fate that God may give to all,
With eye and hand we fend the head; His sons will vengeance take;
Courage and skill stand in the stead
And never shone the sun upon
Of panzer, helm, and shield,
Two nobler eaglet; in his run,
In hild's bloody field.”
And them we'll never forsake.”
“It's the verse Harald is supposed to have composed before the battle of Stamford Bridge,” he explained.
Cash just nodded, as the men went quiet for a moment after the speech.
“Til Valhall!” the soldiers shouted. They thrust their fists into the air and looked up at the clear night sky. Then the Icelandic voices called out. “Til Valhall!” they shouted, slapping their chests and thrusting their fists into the air. Then all cried the motto together. It was a motto that reminded of the battles fought by Harald and his men. The Varangians and the Norsemen and Danes he led would have begged the gods to allow them to gain entry to Walhalla, to be born aloft by the Valkyries and to feast with the gods. They roared the cry again and Cash could not help herself joining in.
She was under no illusion these men actually believed all their ancestors would have believed, but the cry sent shivers down her spine regardless. It was a cry to beg for death and glory, a cry for honor and something that linked them to their ancestors.
They kept working themselves up in that copse on the outskirts of Kiev until Captain Johanssen signaled the advance. They formed two lines. One was made up of ten Norwegians, the other of the seven Icelanders, a Norwegian officer and the medic who had checked out Cash when she had come up. Cash joined that last line as they set out.
They marched through some woodland first and then headed out into the open. After the darkness, the star and moon light felt like it was bright day and the cold wind carried a flutter of snow with it, cutting into her skin.
Ahead was a building. There was a light on there and the buildings around the house were in ruins. There had been heavy fighting here before, she could tell.
Quietly, bent down, they covered the bit of empty space between the woods and the ruins. Cash followed almost at the rear of the right-hand line. Only the Norwegian medic was behind her.
Just as they reached the ruined buildings, the lines split from each other. The Icelanders went to the r
ight; the Norwegians went left. They hid behind the walls and Cash could see figures moving about in the main house now.
They waited there. Cash was unsure what they were waiting for, but she did not dare ask. Her speaking could upset everything and the last thing she wanted was to endanger anyone.
Suddenly there was a noise. There was a crunching of boots on gravel, a thump of wood hitting concrete as the door was caved in, and then the shooting began. Porvaldur waved his men up and then headed them out into the open between the rubble and the house. The medic held Cash back for a moment before following; he wanted to be certain there was no one firing in their direction. Then they too followed and squatted down close to the wall of the building. There was nothing going on their side, but Cash could tell the men expected that to change soon. There was another crash of wood as she realized Porvaldur and two men by his side had broken down a door nearby and rushed in, pistols drawn.
They followed in the building. And the sight before Cash's eyes shocked her.
Cash was not feeble or squeamish, but her stomach almost turned at the sight of the bodies there. Six men lay dead; their bodies were torn open by the Norwegian ammunition. But what shocked her were the fact that there were two women there. They lay naked and with their throats slit and blood pouring out. She instinctively looked down and realized it must have been the dead men who had done this. One of them had his trousers around his legs and a bloody knife in his hand. Both women's hands were tied.
“Bastards!” Cash swore softly at them. She wanted to spit at them, but just then she was interrupted by a shout from one of the soldiers.
Captain Johanssen looked at her and nodded. “Seems our hoard is here.”
Chapter Nine
Cash sat quietly in the van, placed between a number of objects that were recovered in the raid. In front of her sat one of the soldiers. At the back door of the van sat one of the Icelanders. Another Icelander and a soldier were in the front. The Norwegian soldier was driving, the Icelander having delegated the task to him the moment they entered the exclusion zone.
Beside Cash's left hand lay a chainmail shirt, which was called Emma. Next to the chainmail lay a sword. The sword had no name according to the men, but Cash had admired it from the start. It was a pattern-welded sword and it reminded her of the weapons made for Uhtred of Bebbanburgh in Bernard Cornwell's novels, Serpent Breath and Wasp Sting. When breathing on the large sword, it did indeed look like a serpent had wandered over it. Harald's seax was also there, a long knife with a sharp point, a sharp edge and a heavy and sturdy back.
But the thing that was foremost in Cash's attention was the dark yellow-colored box, deeply and ornately carved with figures and animals in beautiful scenery.
They had found a single man left alive in the house. He was in the bathroom of all places and they first knew about his presence when he shouted for a towel. One of the soldiers spoke Russian, having come from the north and having spent his life crossing the borders there. It allowed him to understand enough Ukrainian to understand the cry. He burst out laughing and headed for the privy, explaining the joke to the other men. Two men rushed after him and with pistols at the ready, they beat the bathroom door down.
He actually turned out to be a great help. It seemed the man was the historian of the group. He had also been the one who had suggested they use the place they had been holed up in to hide out. Previously they had used the building in the city, but when the story broke about the Dutch paintings, they had moved. They did not want to run the risk that this hoard of artifacts being held hostage would also be discovered.
The man had explained it was the amphora that had started the whole idea of obtaining the hoard. They knew Harald had brought it over from Sicily and had figured it was of importance if he had brought it from there, but they did not know what it was. When he mentioned that, Cash could not help grinning.
Now, she finally had the item she had been looking for. It looked like something so innocent. It was hard to imagine it was actually an item that once held such great power. Perhaps it never had held this power, though. They had taken the cork out, but nothing happened. The man warned them against doing that, because the last time someone had done that, a disaster had happened in the area where they now drove through.
When Captain Johanssen first mentioned how they would be traveling, Cash had balked at the idea. But Johanssen was very firm. He was very clear that the borders would be closed to them and that it would be impossible to land a craft in Ukraine for them. Instead, they would go this route, into Belarus and through the exclusion zone, which was pretty much closed off on both the Ukrainian and the Belarussian side, and then on through Belarus into Poland. With Poland as a NATO member, they could get a craft down there and they would be able to fly back to Norway. Captain Johanssen assured Cash it was safe enough, as long as they stayed in the vans and that they would actually be in more danger if they stayed.
Cash asked whether they could go via Moldova or take a boat. The captain had smiled at that and said there would be too many hostile characters along that route. Cash asked about whether he mentioned the Russians, but that made him laugh all the more. He had no problem with the Russians, and he doubted the Russians had a problem with them. The real problem was with the Ukrainians.
There had been little problem getting into the exclusion zone. There were soldiers posted there to stop people entering the zone, but they were drunk and a bottle of vodka was enough to get them off their case. So now they drove through the ruined and abandoned surroundings of Chernobyl toward the Belarussian border.
It was a melancholic sight and Cash could not help thinking it might have something to do with that piece of ivory before her. When she thought about it again, she dismissed that idea, though.
Without a hitch, they crossed the border, which did not really exist because there was nobody to guard it. The driver said he hoped their luck would hold on the other side of the exclusion zone. So they drove on through the desolation. Everything was colored gray and brown and green. There were moss and plants growing over everything. All the metal was rusty and the concrete of the old Soviet buildings was crumbling. They passed a playground and it reminded Cash of one of the pictures everyone seemed to have seen. It was indeed the image of Chernobyl: a place abandoned by everyone and anyone due to the problems at the facility nearby.
On the Belarussian side of the zone, another bottle helped the troopers there overcome their orders as well. After that, it took them some eight hours to get to the Polish border. By the time they crossed the border, Cash was exhausted and she sat down on the floor of the van with her back against the side. She leaned against the side of the van, took two blankets from the stack that had been provided for them. She wrapped one around her legs, and the other one around her shoulders and upper body. She covered her head with the cloth to ensure full darkness for herself.
When they got out of the van, still inside Poland, the chopper was already waiting for them. The rotors of the big Chinook stood still, but the crew was awake and alert and ready to help them move their load into the big machine. That done, they started the rotors and took the skies. The moment the craft was airborne, Cash went back to sleep, as did most of the men.
Some hours later, they touched down at Rygge air station. Cash was received by a female officer, who had been informed by the captain she would be joining them. She was brought to the barracks and interviewed for hours before she was allowed to retire. Despite having slept for ages en route, she was exhausted still. But the woman had wanted to know everything about everything and Cash had to recount it all, over and over again.
When she woke in the morning, she found her luggage from Kiev had been brought over. Apparently, the embassy staff had gone to her hotel and picked everything up. It took forever to clear up the bureaucratic mess, but eventually Cash was put in a car to Oslo. She had been booked for one more appointment and then she would be escorted to the airport and the UK. That appointment was
with the curator of the National Museum, from where the artifacts had been stolen.
***
Three weeks later, Cash was back at Gardermoen, waiting for someone there. That evening, there would be a party at the National Museum to display the artifacts for a while. There wouldn’t be a permanent exhibition after all the trouble, but there would be a photo op. And Cash had been invited to join the party with a guest. With Tim on Paddy duty again, there was only one person she wanted to take. And that person was arriving just then.
Cash waved happily when Laura walked in. They hugged and then chatted away when they went to the hotel.
This time, they did not share a room, but they did share a taxi that evening to the museum.
It was a black tie event, so both ladies were dressed to the nines. Though Cash scrubbed up nicely, she was ill at ease in that sort of surroundings. At least, she was happy in Laura's company. Laura was equally ill at ease and they ended up on the mezzanine overlooking the main hall of the museum. They stood there leaning on the balustrade and looking down, champagne in hand.
“So, Laura...” Cash began. “I may have some good news based on our last conversation in Greece...”
Laura frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I was wondering...” Cash waited for a moment. “Do you still want something more cheerful to do? Are you still seriously thinking of leaving Greece?””
“I love that island, but it's pretty crap there now.”
“Quite.”
They were silent for a moment.
Then Cash spoke again. “Look, there's a gig as a Greek teacher in the secondary school in Barry. I only found out last week. It's only a few hours a week, but enough I'd say. I know for a fact that there’s tons of cottages for rent in town and you’ll have me close by if you need anything. You're good with Paddy and I’m sure Tim will be glad for me to have a friend there again.”
