by Ellie Mack
From previous explorations they had braced the tunnel, cleaned it out to the point of a stone wall.
The wall had many runes on it. Brad was their language expert and he was working on the translations.
So far he had picked out the words moonlight, key, Nefflheim, and Valkyrie. From time and erosion, the runes had been weathered some, but as it was protected in an underground tunnel it would just take some more detailed work to decipher.
The stone wall was a massive thing extending four feet to either side of the tunnel. The tunnel leading down was at a fifteen degree decline.
The group had a narrow window to work in before the rainy season, as there was evidence that the water collected in front of the wall to a depth of seven feet at times.
She flipped on the monitors, amazed at the design. From an aerial view it was very close to a Triskel. The tunnels were perhaps a little straighter stretching the design out into an oblong pattern. A movement caught her eye. When she glanced over at the monitor there was a man in the tunnel. He held a torch as he carefully stepped through the corridor.
“Who are you and what are you doing in my dig?”
Had Dr. Montgomery left someone to sabotage them? Was it Nialls? She looked closer. The man had long blonde hair, and a mustache, resembling a younger Hulk Hogan.
She’d never seen this man before. He must be there to steal artifacts, or sabotage their dig. Either way she wasn’t going to tolerate it.
“Oh no you don’t. This is my dig mister.”
Lena grabbed the stun gun that Erik had given her and set it in the small cage of the four wheeler and took off in a shot. The tires spat gravel as she gunned the engine. She spun to a stop, taking her flashlight from her belt. Where was he? She shone her light in the direction of the tunnel, and two wolves scurried away. She strapped the stun gun over her belt.
“I’m not in the mood to be playing games with saboteurs.” She rang Scott, but he didn’t answer. She rang the local authorities and got an answering machine.
She left a hurried message, “This is Helena Eskildson from the University of Michigan, in coordination with the Denmark association of Archaeological research. We have an intruder at our site, white male, long blonde hair, mustache. He is on the premises now. I’m going in.”
It wasn’t the smartest thing she could do by any means. It would be best to wait for some of the guys, but she was ticked. This had been her dream project for years, discovering a site that had to do with her family’s heritage.
She stomped over the clumpy grass to the entrance of the tunnel, shining her light down the tunnel as she squatted down.
“Hey. I know you’re in there. Come on out now.” She waited for a few minutes with no response.
She said a little louder
“Hey! I know you can hear me. I saw you on the monitors. This is a closed site. You need to get out of there, now!”
She waited. ‘Right! He just had to be difficult.’ She stepped down into the tunnel, her flashlight in her hand, cautiously moving forward.
A sound came from her left, she turned and was plowed over by the man. Lena found herself on her back, dirt from the edges of the tunnel falling on her.
She spat as a clump of dirt hit her in the face. Quickly, she scrambled to her feet and began chasing after the man. “Hey you, stop! You’re trespassing.”
Once she was out of the excavated tunnel she looked in all directions, not seeing him anywhere.
She stood with her hands on her hips, breathing hard when she heard Erik yelling back at the camp. She hopped on the ATV, racing back towards the camp. When she arrived at the supply tent, there was a crowd standing around it as Erik raged inside.
Lena shut the engine off and took the key. She pushed her way through the crowd entering the tent.
“What’s going on?”
Erik turned to her, his hands at his temple, eyes wide. “Someone came in here and sabotaged our equipment. Everything has been zeroed out, the printouts for the site are gone, and look here.”
He pointed to the cords that had been cut. Every cord from the expensive equipment that Scott had brought had been cut.
Her shoulders slumped, her heart sank. Who would do this?
“I’ll bet our night visitors from before have been here. I just saw one of them down in the tunnels.”
Erik ranted in his native language, Lena could only make out a word or two here or there and they weren’t good.
Two police officers stepped through the tent doors, asking to speak with Helena.
“That’s me.”
“You made a report of trespassing?”
“Yes!” She filled the officers in on the events that had transpired. When they asked for evidence, she pointed to their equipment that had been damaged.
The officers made a patrol of the camp and the surrounding area. Just at daybreak, they came across the stone altar.
Spread across the stone was the remains of a woman.
Within the hour, police were swarming the entire area and nobody could leave. The excavation was declared a crime scene when they found footsteps in the mud leading down to the altar.
~~~~~
Lena sat with her sister, sipping coffee in the mess tent. Scott, Erik, and Joe sat at a table next to them, arguing loudly at times.
The undergrads huddled together at various tables, trying to glean what was going on and getting more nervous by the minute.
It was nearly noon when one of the officers called Lena and Erik over to their cars. “Are any of your crew missing?”
Lena exchanged glances with Erik. “Not that I know of, why?”
“I’m going to need a list of everyone here and to know for certain if they are accounted for.”
“Sure.” Lena stood arms crossed over her chest, an eerie chill creeping up her back.
“Specifically female and blonde.”
Lena gripped her upper arm tightly. “Wh-y-y-y-y?”
“We have a murder victim at the bottom of the hill there” the officer pointed in the direction of the altar stone. “meeting that description. I’d rather not go into details right now, but I will need you to come to the morgue for identification.”
A gasp escaped her.
“For now I’m afraid we are going to have to lock you down in case someone in camp is responsible.”
After several minutes with the officer, they made their way to the main work tent. Lena found the records of all of the work crew and a list of ones that hadn’t shown up.
“Erik, round up the work crew leaders. I want them to meet with each of their teams and make sure they take attendance of everyone so we can find out who is missing.” She put the papers on a clip board before handing them to Erik.
“Do not say anything about the murder. All we are going to say at this point is that there has been sabotage in camp and I called the police when I saw one of the intruders. Have them go over some brief instructions that they are to stay in their tents or in the mess tent. Nobody leaves camp. Shut down the server now, I don’t want someone seeing a news report and panicking the entire camp. We can say it was part of the sabotage.
Erik quickly called Brad on the walkie and told him to meet in the supply tent, urgently.
“This is turning into a bleeding nightmare. I should have paid more attention to the legends about this place. I’m beginning to think it is truly cursed.”
“Indeed, the rumors have already been flying about Viking ghosts spotted and odd goings on around here.”
She harrumphed as she took her stack of books and tucked them inside her backpack. “I’ll be in my tent. Let’s see what Brad and Scott can do to restore things around here. We can always use Nialls to get us some duct tape if we have to. “
As if on cue, Nialls pushed through the tent doors. “Ms. Eskildson, our benefactor will not be pleased with the site shut down. I certainly hope the police aren’t here because of your mishandling of things.”
“You go ahead Erik, I�
��ll handle this.” She urged him out the door before Nialls could argue.
“No, as a matter of fact Nialls, we’ve had some saboteurs in the camp who damaged our equipment. If anything, I would think our benefactor would want the perpetrators found and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
Nialls’ demeanor was smug and arrogant. She didn’t trust him within an inch of her life. She didn’t think he was smart enough to play double agent, being the inside man for whoever was behind this but it gave her the idea that possibly, there was an inside person.
She vaguely heard what Nialls had to say as her mind raced with the idea causing her to question everyone. Who could she trust? She’d have to question each one of the crew. What if it were Scott or Erik? That seemed unlikely. Lena made a plan to field questions to her sister to test her theory before questioning Erik and Scott, but everyone else was suspect.
Chapter 13: Sabotage
Where you recognize evil, speak out against it, and give no truces to your enemies.
V127 –Poettic Edda
Erik was going over the clipboards that he had gathered from the team leaders. He told Brad to shut down the server as Lena had instructed.
She was right, the last thing they needed would be a panic in camp and have a mass exodus. It was bad enough the talk that the staff had overheard.
There were four people missing from the camp. There were two guys, so they eliminated them as being the victims, but he would make sure to tell Lena.
There were two of the women missing. Ashley O’Conner and Tanya Garrison. Tanya Garrison had never checked into camp.
Detective Olsen announced himself at the tent doors just then with two of his officers. “I’ll have two officers at a time patrolling the area around the clock. They will be in plain clothes similar to what your crew are wearing. I thought that would be the best plan if the killer is in the camp.”
He motioned the two men to stand on either side of the tent doors. “Do you have the list of names for me of your crew? Anyone missing?”
Erik handed over the papers to the detective. “We keep meticulous records here. Four people missing from the rosters; two male and two female. The one girl, Tanya never checked in at camp.”
Olsen took the papers shuffling them through his hand. “It’s possible that either of these men could be our killer.”
“Well no, not the one. Paulo Rodrigues was replaced by another guy, Scott Thompson, he had a family emergency. We know about him, but I can’t say anything else about the other one.”
Olsen walked over to his men, talking quietly between them giving them instruction. Once they exited and began their patrol, Olsen moved to Erik’s side, taking the folding chair there.
“This is a real mess. Our murder rate just doubled. We haven’t had a crime like this for nearly ten years. The last one ended up being the result of a uni prank gone bad. This. . .” he sighed looking down at the tan tent floor choosing his words. “That poor girl was drugged, raped, sodomized, then stabbed with what appears to be a hunting knife, right in her heart. They are working on facial recognition back at the station.”
Olsen looked over the list of staff and students. “I’d like to take a look around the camp. Can we start with the equipment that was damaged?”
“Sure” Erik pulled out the walkie, clicking it on. “Lena”
He waited a few seconds for a response, then depressed the button again. “Lena, Scot, Brad. Report the supply tent.”
Erik slipped his shoes back on and rose. He stretched his back leaning to the left then the right, then twisting slowly. “These chairs are terrible.”
Olsen nodded in agreement. They briskly walked down the rows of tents to the main thoroughfare then turned to the left. The camp was laid out with the mess tent centrally located, medical to the west, and general supplies to the right. Another row of tents to the south of those were the tech tents, one with work stations, the other with the equipment. Next to that was the Transportation tent where the ATV’s and two jeeps were kept.
To the west of the center groupings were the staff and team leader’s tents and to the east were groupings of the student workers. At the very back of the camp were several port-a-potties, the showers, and a dumpster for the trash.
Lena, Scott, and Brad were waiting at the Ops tent, what they called their workstations which was a double tent, with the second room being the tech equipment set up.
Scott held the manifest of his equipment that he was responsible for. His face was white as a ghost as he realized the dollar value that the University had entrusted to him. He had taken out the insurance on all of it personally, just in case anything was damaged during travel. He never imagined that anything like this would happen.
His hands shook as he handed the papers to Detective Olsen.
“We won’t know if they damaged the computers until we can get them back online. So far, it was just the cords that were cut and our printouts are missing. Brad informed me that the generator has been damaged as well.”
“Sounds to me they were looking for something specific. They haven’t destroyed your equipment, as far as we know now. I think they, whoever is responsible are trying to delay your progress. Are there any missing artifacts that you’ve excavated?”
“No. I’ve catalogued every item excavated, and nothing is missing, but it’s all been overturned and dumped into one large pile. I won’t know if the site itself has been compromised until daylight.”
“Are you able to access all of your files on the computers?”
“I don’t know. Brad will have to repair the generator before we can know for certain. I instructed him to shut down the server and hotspot. I didn’t want the crew seeing something on the news or on social media and have a mass exodus.”
“Probably a wise decision.” Olsen leaned against the folding table where the laptops were set up. The folding chairs had been thrown out of the way. “Here’s what I can do. I can allow supplies to come in by an appointed carrier, otherwise no one leaves. Until we figure this out. Which means, we have to find where your missing crew are. Erik informed me that one of them was replaced by Scott Thompson?”
“Yes sir. That’s right, he had some family emergency.” Lena crossed her arms over her chest, one hip cocked out, her jaw tensed.
“I’ll need to see that documentation.”
Olsen took out business cards and handed each of them one. “If you see anything out of place, anything missing, any other damage you contact me or one of my patrol.”
He moved towards the doorway. “I’ll have them check in with Nialls as he is the appointed personnel from Dr. Montgomery. It’s best if we don’t discuss a murder and the crew only know about the sabotage.”
Lena nodded in agreement. “What about the guy I saw on the monitors? He plowed over me to get away.”
“When you get your equipment back up and running, my team will have a look. If he shows up again, get one of the patrol, don’t try to tackle this yourself.” He paused for a moment. “I’d hate to see you end up like our victim.”
Chapter 14: Ice Cream and Sour Lemons
A person should not agree today to what they’ll regret tomorrow.
-Bandamanna Saga, C.10
Erik announced over the loudspeaker to the camp that an emergency meeting would be held in the mess tent at twenty-one hundred hours. That gave him twenty minutes to get things ready.
Lena paced back and forth formulating her presentation. No matter how you sliced it, this mess made her angry. She tried to squelch down the rising panic that she would be a laughing stock, but it kept coming up inside of her.
She wasn’t going to let that happen. This was her dream. This had been her goal for years and she wasn’t about to lay down and play dead now. There had to be a way to get things back on track and she would do whatever it took to get it there.
In her mind, the victim had nothing to do with the sabotage. More than likely, some sociopath was interrupted by the guy she
surprised. It was creepy that it was so near her site, but it couldn’t have anything to do with this mess.
No! Nobody was going to steal her destiny from her.
Lena was livid! The only thing that could get worse was if they had a hurricane. She looked up to the sky, “That was not a request!”
She took a couple deep breaths before taking the mike from Erik.
“Alright I need everyone to settle down and listen. I know this is inconvenient for all of you. It’s inconvenient for us as well.”
“Last night we had some intruders in our camp who sabotaged our equipment. If any of you saw something out of the ordinary, tell your team leaders.
Some of you may have noticed the detective that was here earlier. That was because I called it in when I saw an intruder at the dig. Unfortunately, they escaped.
So, our generator has been damaged, our computers are down, our hotspot is down, our coolers are down which means after the meeting everyone gets ice cream.
That’s one good thing.
Until further notice, we are confined to camp because of this mess. Whoever is responsible will be found out, but Detective Olsen and his officers are not allowing visitors or for us to have R and R.
Every night you will be required to check in with your team leader. If you fail to check in, like if you are otherwise engaged in physical activity.” She stared at the dark haired girl that was on the plane and her boyfriend.
“Until we can get everything repaired, we are dead in the water. Enjoy your ice cream.”
Lena practically threw the mike at Erik as she stomped off of the platform and out the back of the tent.
“So we are prisoners?”
Erik tried to calm the crowd. “No, no, no you are not prisoners. This is just short term. Detective Olsen has declared this a crime scene so until the police have thoroughly checked for evidence, we have to stay put. I’m sure it will only be a couple of days.”
