Rook grunted. “You arrived at the right time, I’ll give you that.”
Fossen nodded. “As did you. I suspect you saved my life. Just as I arrived, I saw you fire at the wolf. Why?”
Rook tasted sweat as he smiled. “The behavior wasn’t making any damn sense unless the creature was doing the opposite of what we thought. I played a hunch and I was right.”
“Right about what?”
“Remember how you thought the wolves were chasing it? How its presence incited them to attack? What I saw suggested something different.
“The yeti was protecting the wolves from me.”
9
Once again, Rook went to sleep far closer to morning than evening. He hadn’t said much to Fossen during the drive back up to Peder’s barn, and he’d sensed that both of them were analyzing the events of the prior hour. The other man’s attempt to shoot the creature had saved Rook some pain, at a minimum, and besides appreciation, Rook now felt certain of Fossen’s commitment to destroying it. Whatever other agendas the man had, Rook felt more confident in teaming up with Fossen for this purpose.
After waking up just before noon, Rook considered what he knew, while sitting at Peder’s table drinking tea. Peder said, “Tell me again why you think the creature is protecting the wolves.”
“It could easily have killed me, but instead it tossed me aside and ran toward them. Then when I aimed the rifle, it came at me right away. It’s the only explanation.”
“Maybe it just doesn’t like guns.”
Rook looked up at Peder and saw the traces of a smile. He chuckled. “Maybe. Anyway, I know we injured it, but I can’t figure out where it disappeared to so quickly.”
Peder didn’t answer for a time, instead staring off to Rook’s left. Then he sighed, all signs of the smile evaporated. “Did you ask Eirek?”
“Yeah. Eirek said he had no idea. That slope continues on down to the ocean, right, on the other side of the point?”
“As far as I know, it does. I do not spend any time over there.”
“Well, I’ll be spending some time there this afternoon. Only thing I can think of to try is checking out the area in daylight, see if I missed anything last night. Even if I can just track the thing a bit further than the bottom of the embankment, it could be a clue to where it went. I’m starting to think the only way we kill this thing is to surprise it in its lair.”
“You might be right.”
Rook stood up. “So can I borrow your car again? You need it for anything?”
“No, Stanislav, I do not need it. Take it, and be careful.”
The old man looked weary to the bone, so different from that first night when he’d performed the nasal swab on Rook with the shotgun. Not for the first time, Rook suspected that the events of the past days had exposed tension the town’s residents had managed to keep under wraps for a long time.
Gotta love small towns. They seem so simple on the surface, but poke around a little and skeletons tumble out everywhere. I wonder what the hell is going on.
Rook patted Peder’s shoulder with his hand, feeling real affection for the Norwegian. Whatever secrets remained unrevealed, his instincts told him that Peder was the kind of man he could expect to do the right thing when the going got tough. “Looks like my showing up has made your life more difficult, huh?”
Peder’s eyebrows rose, and the sad smile showed more resignation than anything else. “Well, at least one good thing has come of it.”
“What’s that?”
“The creature has been so busy with you that my animals have been safe three nights in a row.”
Rook stopped the car in town. The road ended there, so he would make his way on foot back to the spot where the yeti had disappeared. First, he wanted to touch base with Fossen about what they would try that night.
When he parked the car, he looked around at the houses. Their proximity to each other gave the area a similar feel to many small village centers he’d encountered around the world, but the lack of indication of any kind of sales or trade stood out.
He’d only walked a few feet from his car when Anni, the woman who ran the “store” where he’d gotten food that first day, appeared in the sidewalk with two small children clinging to her skirt. Her eyes still carried the same worry they had earlier, but she smiled at Rook and held out her hand.
“Hello, Stanislav. I want to thank you for your help in fighting that monster.”
After the cold reception initially, this new appreciation surprised Rook, but he knew that sometimes people take a while to warm up. Especially when an unknown beast is ripping bodies apart.
He took the offered hand. “I’m happy to help. We’ll take care of it, don’t you worry.” He leaned down toward the children. “Who are these little ones?”
The two children squirmed behind their mother, and Rook couldn’t blame them. What child wouldn’t be scared of an unknown stranger who towered over their mother and had a face marked by bruises and cuts? Anni said, “Children, please say hi to Stanislav.”
Rook stopped leaning down and laughed. “It’s OK.”
He sensed another figure behind him and had to resist the instinct to whirl with the Desert Eagle drawn. It was better safe than sorry in the field, but he didn’t expect any threat here to come from someone on the street. He did turn, and he saw two men stop a few feet away as soon as he did. They looked to be in their fifties, both with the light hair and features common to northern Europe.
One of them cleared his throat. “Ah, hello. We wanted to thank you.”
The other man nodded. Rook took a step toward them and reached out his hand, “You’re welcome. I’m Stanislav. And you are?”
The first man took his hand, hesitating as if unaccustomed to the gesture. “I am Baldur, and this is Roald.”
“Well, nice to meet you both. I’m actually heading to see Eirek right now.”
Rook turned back to find Anni and the children back at the door of the building in which Rook and Peder had met her that first day, but still watching him. Several more doors had opened on both sides of the street, with individuals watching him from doorways. He figured this was progress after yesterday’s experience with faces pressed to the glass of windows.
Shortly before he reached Fossen’s house, a man came out of a doorway and didn’t stop at a distance like the others. Rook recognized him as Thorsen, Peder’s old friend who had just lost his wife to the beast. The white hair flowed behind him as he hurried toward Rook, and tears flowed down his cheeks. He grasped Rook’s right hand in both of his.
“Stanislav, you must kill whatever took my Greta.”
Rook put his left hand over Thorsen’s arthritic digits. “Don’t worry, I plan to do just that.”
Thorsen looked up at him, then embraced him. “God bless you, son. God bless you.”
For one of the few times in his life, Rook was unsure what to do. Especially compared with the reserve exhibited by the others in town, this show of emotion with everyone watching made Rook uncomfortable. Well, I guess the man did just lose his wife…
Then he heard a whisper from Thorsen, words that didn’t register until several seconds after Thorsen uttered them. “Pay attention to the victims.”
A moment later, Thorsen disengaged himself. He met Rook’s gaze for a moment, and his eyes told Rook that his message had been deliberate and the emotional display at least partially an act. Then Thorsen shuffled back to his doorway.
Rook breathed in, trying to keep himself focused. The message clearly was something Thorsen felt he couldn’t come right out and say. Therefore, Rook wouldn’t mention it to Fossen. But he pondered the words as he reached Fossen’s doorstep.
He must mean victims of the beast. But they’re dead, right?
Fossen opened the door, one of his arms in a sling. “Stanislav, how are you recovering from last night?”
Entering the house, Rook answered. “Nothing to recover from, just a few bruises. Looks like you weren’t so luck
y.”
Fossen barked a laugh. “Apparently I am not as young as I once was. I woke up this morning with severe pain in my shoulder. The creature didn’t get me, but I landed wrong when I dove out of the way. Have a seat, Stanislav. So, what’s next?”
“I’m gonna go explore the area where the bastard disappeared last night. I don’t know what I’ll find, maybe nothing, but he’s got to have been losing blood, so I can look for some kind of trail.”
Fossen didn’t say anything right away, and Rook could almost see his mind calculating. Finally, he said, “I do not believe there is anything out there, but of course I agree that it makes sense for you to have a look around now. What about tonight? Do you want to give it another try?”
“Hell yes. Maybe I’ll discover something now that can help us, but even if I don’t, we’ll hunt again tonight. A thought occurred to me, though. Does your tracking data show any situations where the wolves tend to return to the same place at the same time on multiple nights?”
“Hmm, I have noticed that they roam in big circles, but I had not checked that specifically. I can look into it and let you know tonight.”
Rook stood up. “Sounds good. Ten o’clock at the barn again?”
Fossen nodded, “Ten o’clock it is. And Stanislav?”
“What?”
“Be careful.”
“Fossen, it’s the middle of the day and I won’t be that far from town. What is there to be careful of?” Rook’s sarcasm was impossible to miss. He didn’t need a babysitter.
“I am just saying that there are many unanswered questions, and I suspect last night’s activities have increased the risks. An injured animal is a more dangerous animal.”
Rook took the Desert Eagle out of the holster, removed the magazine, and jammed it back in. Then he looked at Fossen.
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly a defenseless cow.”
The bottom of the embankment looked far different in the daylight. The area was pancake-flat, a contrast to the constantly sloping terrain everywhere else within a few miles of town. It struck Rook as odd, but he started a methodical search, moving back and forth along the base of the hill.
During his first pass, he didn’t find much. He found it hard to believe that the creature wouldn’t leave behind some traces of blood, given the number of shots Fossen had landed in its lower body. A faint trace of the stench remained in the air, but it didn’t seem stronger in any one part of the area, so its presence didn’t help much.
Rook ended his search grid at the top of another steep down-slope. This one dropped to the ocean, water lapping at the rocks at the bottom. He climbed down to only a few feet above the waves and looked up along the rocks in all directions, but he didn’t see anything. By the time he climbed back up, he was sweating hard.
He began another search grid, exactly in reverse of the one he had done initially. Back and forth he went, growing more frustrated as each sweep ended. Tasks requiring this level of patience were not his strong suit. Then, he stumbled on a clue.
His boot hit a rock and he tensed his legs to steady himself. Looking down, he saw something glinting in the fading sunlight. He bent over to pick it up, but realized that it wouldn’t move. So he got to his knees and started trying to uncover the dirt and soil from around it.
Eventually, he extracted an eighteen-inch long piece of stainless steel, about ten inches wide. It had a lip around the edge, as if it was intended as a cover for something. But he had no idea for what.
When he lifted it up, he got a glimpse of something falling to the ground, and he patted the ground with his hands, trying to find it. His hands settled on an oval object about three inches on the long side.
The object seemed like a necklace charm or medal. He wiped the dirt off it and could make out the image of a sword wrapped in a double-stranded bow. Around the perimeter was some sort of writing, a lot like Norse runes. As he examined it further, he realized that the letters were actually regular western alphabet letters, just styled with runic shapes.
It seemed like the letters formed two words. The first was fairly easy to make out, the word “Deutsches.” German. A bit odd to find here, but the events of World War II had touched all of Europe.
It took him longer to determine the other word, as the letters did not seem to form a word he had seen before. Even assuming it was German, another language he spoke fluently, the meaning didn’t jump out at him. After a while, he felt certain he had figured the word out, but he didn’t recognize it. And he had no idea how or if this related to the creature. Probably just some decades-old trash.
Still, the medal had an ominous feel to it. The sword combined with the word “German” suggested something military, but the runic lettering lacked any sense of it being official. He could ask Fossen, but he thought perhaps he’d ask Peder first. Fossen was proving himself, but Rook couldn’t forget Fossen’s attitude that first day.
He put the medal in his pocket, stood up and continued with his grid search. He found nothing else of note. Whatever method the creature had used to escape remained unknown. No blood, no trail, no sign of the missing AR-15.
Rook made his way back to town carrying the piece of stainless steel. He would ask Fossen about that and show the medal to Peder when he returned to the barn. In his head, he repeated the strange word from the medal, trying to work out where he’d seen it before. He didn’t know, but the more he pondered it, the more it sounded sinister. A word from somewhere in the past.
Ahnenerbe.
10
Most of the way up the road to Peder’s house, Rook heard a gun shot. The right front tire of the car blew out at the same time, and Rook wrenched the wheel to keep from hurtling off the cliff into the ocean. When the car came to a stop, he pulled out the Desert Eagle, opened the driver’s door, and kept himself low to the ground when he exited.
After several minutes, he hadn’t heard any additional shots. But he didn’t dare make his way around to the damaged wheel, exposed as he was to anyone on the hill that rose away from the road. He had no choice but to either wait, or make the rest of the journey on a flat tire.
Rook had never liked waiting. So five minutes later, he was back at the house. He knocked on the door, and Peder let him in.
“Car trouble?”
“If you call having a tire shot out car trouble, then yeah.”
Peder exhaled. “Trouble seems to follow you, doesn’t it? What does the woman in your life think?”
“Trouble’s got me pegged, you’re right about that, but there’s not really a woman in my life like you mean. Not yet.”
Peder just looked at him. “Perhaps that is the problem.”
Rook almost opened his mouth to protest, but Peder’s words set him thinking about the two women in his life. Well, three if you counted Sara Fogg, the CDC scientist who had accompanied Chess Team as an honorary “pawn,” and the girlfriend of the team’s leader, King. But the two main ones were Fiona Lane, and his fellow team member Queen.
Fiona was the fourteen-year-old girl the team had saved, the last living speaker of an ancient language that the team had discovered contained great power. King was serving as her guardian, but the whole Chess Team regarded her as family, and though Rook wouldn’t have admitted it, he enjoyed his role as Uncle Stan.
As for Queen, well that particular woman in his life didn’t have any problem with the trouble that seemed to follow Rook around. Dealing with it was her job as well, and she managed it better than anyone. Rook suspected that trouble would follow him no matter who was in his life, and he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
Rook became aware that he had paused the conversation. “I doubt it. Anyway, do you have any idea who would want to shoot out my tires? It can’t have been Fossen, I just left him and he wouldn’t have had time. Plus, whatever other agenda he has, I think he really wants me alive long enough to kill the creature. And I actually got some smiles from the folks in town today.”
“Smile
s, huh? You are making progress. My answer is that I do not know who would shoot at you, but I am not surprised. Most people here do not like outsiders, even well-intentioned outsiders. Did anything happen today that might explain it?”
“Well, I did find something out where our hairy friend disappeared, but not a lot. First thing was this piece of metal. Fossen suggested that it looked like a cover for one of the older storage units in his lab for biological waste, and perhaps it was debris from when he’d done some modernization a few years back.”
Peder looked at the piece of steel. Rook could tell he recognized it and was struggling with how to respond. Rook didn’t give him time. “Before you decide whether to lie or say you can’t talk about it, let me show you what else I found. This I didn’t show to Fossen.”
He produced the medal from his pocket and handed it to Peder. The old man’s hands shook when he took it, and Rook didn’t think it was due to old age. “I don’t know what Ahnenerbe means. But I have a feeling that in addition to relating to these secrets you can’t talk about, both of these items are clues to where the creature is hiding. What do you say to that?”
Peder met his eyes. “I say that you are right on all counts. And that I can’t help you.”
“Do you know what Ahnenerbe means?”
“Yes I do. It is the name of a former German organization, formed during World War II. They primarily focused on the search for historical evidence and proof of German superiority.”
Rook nodded several times in succession. “Ah, I knew I’d heard it somewhere. Were they the ones who did human experimentation?”
“I believe so, though I do not think it was their primary focus.”
“So what is this medal doing in Norway?”
“Stanislav, many Norwegians fought in the war. I was too young by just a few years, but nearly every man of the correct age in Fenris Kystby fought against the Germans. Such a medal would have been a prized trophy of war.”
Callsign: Rook - Book 1 (A Stan Tremblay - Chess Team Novella) Page 6
