The Last Odyssey: A Thriller Page 6

  The smile on the commander’s face turned into a grimace. “Let me remind you this is my aircraft. You’re only hitching a ride.”

  The jet bounced again, throwing Kowalski fully off his feet. Even Pullman grabbed the seats to either side. He certainly wasn’t smiling now.

  The pilot radioed back, his voice strained. “The storm ahead is ramping up into a real monster. And fast. Everybody strap down.”

  Kowalski stared challengingly at the commander. “Looks like Mother Nature just demoted you.”

  Pullman scowled and turned to the tactical coordinator. “Radio your contact. Tell them ‘no go’ on that search pattern.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Before the officer could turn away, Pullman added, “As a precaution, run all three launchers. Drop a row of sonobuoys from here to the coast.” He glanced back to Kowalski. “We may not be able to stay airborne, but that doesn’t mean we can’t keep listening.”

  Kowalski shrugged and pushed past the commander.

  Bub, do whatever you need to save face.

  He crossed forward and dropped heavily into the seat next to Maria.

  “What was that all about back there?” she asked.

  “Just making sure no one gets sidetracked.”

  She twisted and tried to look back. Her hand found his and squeezed hard. “Is that likely to happen?”

  “Not on my watch.”

  She settled back around with a sigh. She tried to remove her hand, but he caught it and held it firmly. Her skin was hot, but her face remained pale. He easily read the anxiety and guilt in her glassy eyes. He knew better than to offer empty platitudes, to try to reassure her about the safety of her friend. He could only offer the facts.

  “We’ll be on the ground soon,” he promised.

  Hopefully before it’s too late.

  5

  June 21, 11:20 A.M. WGST

  Helheim Glacier, Greenland

  Mac watched Elena crumple alongside the meltwater stream after being kidney-punched by that dull-eyed behemoth.

  Goddamn bastards.

  He took a step toward the crack in the hull, ready to go to her aid, to defend her.

  Nelson grabbed his shoulder. “There’s nothing you can do.” He then snagged a fistful of Mac’s parka and yanked him back. “And it looks like we’ve got company coming.”

  Outside, an order was shouted in Arabic. The assault team responded by running low toward the stranded dhow, flanking to either side. One strafed the crack in the hull with a rifle to cover the others’ approach.

  John fired both barrels at the shooter. The gunman flew backward, struck square in the chest. His body crashed into the river. Then John rolled to the side as return fire pounded where he’d been. He escaped unscathed and joined Mac and Nelson. Outside, John’s shots had forced the attackers to approach with more caution.

  Not that it would buy them much time.

  “We need a place to hole up.” Nelson pointed across the dark hold. “Maybe barricade ourselves inside the captain’s cabin.”

  With no better idea, Mac pointed his flashlight and shoved his friend forward. “Go.”

  All three of them rushed toward the bow. The tramp of their footfalls turned to splashes as they reached the oil pooled in the bottom of the ship. With the map now outside, the liquid had gone dark again.

  But this raised another question.

  “Maybe this crap’s flammable,” Mac suggested as they splashed along. “If we set it on fire, it could act as a barrier, maybe drive the others off.”

  “Or get us all killed,” Nelson said. “Remember, this is a wooden ship. So, let’s leave arson as a last resort.”

  As Nelson spoke, the giant clay pot behind him brightened with a now-familiar greenish glow. It shone through the cracks and hammer-pounded hole. Mac spotted shadows moving within that sheen, accompanied by a scrabbling of sharp nails on hard clay.

  Mac stopped and squinted.

  What the hell . . .

  Something was definitely in there. But what? How could anything still be alive after so many centuries? Had it somehow been preserved in the foul oil? He remembered the hammers falling. He pictured the flowing oil, like a pregnant woman’s water breaking. What was about to be born?

  “Quit gawking,” Nelson blurted out. “I need your light over—”

  “Quiet,” Mac warned.

  But it was too late.

  As if hearing the man, the glow flared brighter behind Nelson, and the pot shattered outward, letting loose what it held. Like some exploding nest of spiders, a riot of crablike creatures burst outward, hundreds of them. Each the size of a saucer plate—ringed by long articulated legs. They raced blindly in all directions, scrabbling up the sides of the hull, across the rafters, even diving into the oil. As they moved, their joints bled with the same green ichor coursing through the oil, as if fueled by that malignant substance.

  In that ghastly glow, Mac saw that those hard carapaces weren’t made of chitin or shell—but solid bronze. He gasped at the realization. These were not living creatures, but beasts crafted and built, forged in malevolent fires and fueled by some volatile ichor.

  As if to prove this, one of the things burst into flame—then another, and another. The green fluid seemed to be reacting to the damp air. Yet, it was not a perishing flame. The fiery creatures continued to race, bumping against others, setting others aflame.

  One sped along the underside of a rafter and reached a thick icicle and spiraled down its length. Intense heat melted the ice, but instead of water dripping down—droplets of fire rained into the black pool below, as if the fuel inside the beasts could set even water on fire.

  Impossible . . .

  Mac struggled with the hellish sight, frozen by the horror of the spectacle.

  Nelson’s reaction was more vigorous. He screamed and stumbled forward. Mac caught him under an arm. His cry still echoed across the hold, seemingly with enough force to shatter another two pots. They exploded forth with hundreds more of the tiny bronze monstrosities. The new batch of creatures raced crazily across walls and rafters.

  Nelson writhed, pawing at his back. “Get it off . . .”

  Mac turned his friend’s body and spotted a fiery bronze crab latched on to his back. Sharp legs had impaled his coat and scrabbled furiously, ripping and burning their way through Gore-Tex and goose down, seeking the flesh beneath.

  Before Mac could help, another crab climbed into view on Nelson’s shoulder and leaped onto the man’s throat. Mac tried to bat it away with his flashlight, but its legs had already dug deep into the tender flesh. Skin blackened and smoked around where they were imbedded.

  Nelson contorted in agony, his jaw stretched wide. An animalistic gurgle emerged from his throat. Smoke wafted from his lips. Mac thought about the bastard on the icicle, turning water to fire.

  What would it do to blood?

  With his heart pounding in his ears, Mac tossed his flashlight toward the cabin and grabbed the carapace of the burrowed creature on Nelson’s throat. He ripped it free and flung it away. Boiling blood and flames flew after it. Nelson sagged in his arms, groaning, only semiconscious from the pain and shock. Mac covered the wound with his palm, patted at the edges where flames still flickered from beneath blackened, cracked skin.

  “Help me,” Mac croaked out.

  John had kept close, warily waving his shotgun around. He splashed forward and used the butt of his weapon to knock the creature off Nelson’s back before it reached flesh.

  Together they hauled Nelson toward the captain’s cabin.

  But ahead, lit by the glow of his tossed flashlight, the wooden floor of the ship was crawling with a horde of the fiery bronze beasts. More sped along walls or clung to rafters. There was no way they’d get through them without being overwhelmed.

  Yet, he noticed that the beasts gave the black pool a wide berth. It was likely the only reason he and John hadn’t already been attacked. Unfortunately, Nelson had been standing too close to
the first clay pot when it exploded. Two of the creatures must have been thrown toward him, landing on the nearest island in the black sea.

  Mac pictured the hammers smashing into the pots, the oil flowing out. Did that black oil act as some sort of insulation? Did it need to be drained out of the jars to allow these creatures to animate back to life?

  As they neared the pool’s edge, Mac tested a theory. He swept his leg through the oil and cast a black swell toward the closest crab. The wave fell thickly over the creature, and immediately doused its golden flames. It scrabbled a final oily path—then stopped moving.

  John looked at him.

  It was something, but how could this knowledge help them? The remaining distance was too far to splash a safe passage through them. Maybe they could roll in the oil as a repellant. But did they dare take that risk?

  The decision was taken away from them with the deafening blasts of a rifle. Mac ducked low as rounds pelted into the oil and ricocheted off the walls. John gasped as a red burn bloomed across his cheek from a graze. Mac felt a tug on his left arm. Goose down fluttered from a hole blasted through his parka. Nelson’s head cracked hard against the side of Mac’s skull. Mac felt the wash of hot blood, the sting of shattered bone.

  With horror, he turned and saw that half his friend’s face was gone.

  Still, he cradled the body and dropped flat into the oil.

  John did the same.

  Mac turned toward the stern as more gunmen flowed inside and spread out. John twisted, trying to raise his shotgun.

  “Don’t,” Mac warned.

  The rifle blasts had been far louder than Nelson’s earlier scream—and triggered a more profound reaction. All around, pots shook with deadly potency, then one after the other, they shattered, releasing the monsters inside.

  The mass scrambled furiously on their jointed legs toward the new arrivals. Green ichor flared into golden flames. Panicked at the sight, the gunmen fired at the bronze horde—which only attracted them more. They raced across every surface, scurrying over one another in their haste to reach their targets.

  They’re drawn by noise . . .

  Mac realized now that the bronze crabs had no eyes. Blind, they clearly responded to sound. He looked back toward the captain’s cabin. The creatures there had also heard the commotion and set off in fiery golden streams across the walls and rafters, aiming for the gun blasts and screams. One lost its footing above and tumbled into the pool. Its flames snuffed out as it struck the oil.

  Mac finally released Nelson’s body with a grimace of guilt and sorrow. He nudged John toward the dark cabin. This was their only chance to reach that refuge. The two men rose from the oil and ran low toward the cabin door.

  Mac reached it first and waved John inside and retrieved his flashlight. He looked back across the hold, now lit by a hellish glow, punctuated by spats of gunfire. Those who had entered the ship thrashed and screamed. Their bodies covered in clawing, digging bronze. Their flesh burning, smoking; their blood boiling inside them.

  Aghast, Mac retreated into the cold, dark cabin. He pulled the door closed behind him, but not before a huge pot to his left—twice the size of the others—cracked open and something massive shouldered into view. His brain struggled to comprehend those moving plates of bronze, the razored maw full of flames, the piston of its legs.

  Then John drew him back and closed the door on the unholy sight. He shifted a bronze bar in place, closing them in, locking the monsters out.

  No, not monsters.

  John met his eyes and named them. “Tuurngaq.”

  Mac nodded, knowing it to be true.

  Demons.

  11:40 A.M.

  Elena huddled on the rubberized bottom of the Zodiac. The pontoon boat had retreated from shore and hovered in the meltwater current. As she stared back, she shivered with far more than the cold.

  Across the way, the ancient dhow burned. Smoke choked the view as flames danced deeper in the darkness. Closer at hand, thin ribbons of golden fire flowed from the ruins of the ship and drained into the meltwater stream. There they formed flaming rafts along the banks and spread fiery fingers toward them.

  The woman at the bow barked to the helmsman. He nodded and swung the Zodiac away. They dared not risk those flames. Even now the intense heat was melting the ice overhead. Ancient glacial waters showered down, but rather than dousing the flames, the rainfall seemed to stoke the fire below.

  By now, Helheim Glacier responded to the acid burning at its heart. Ice cracked and popped all around them. Perhaps knowing the tunnel could implode at any moment, the helmsman sped the Zodiac faster.

  Elena stared back toward the dhow as their boat skidded around a bend. Before she lost sight of the ancient ship, something pushed through the smoke. She prayed it was Mac, somehow miraculously still alive. But what appeared instead, shrouded in a pall of smoke, was a massively shouldered beast, its ruddy bulk glowing with an inner fire. She caught a glimpse of horns—then the sight vanished as the Zodiac rounded the bend.

  She settled back around and hugged her knees to her chest.

  She felt leaden, in shock after the horrors of the past few minutes.

  Moments ago, as the map had been loaded aboard the boat, she had heard Nelson scream. All eyes had turned to the eerie glow emanating from the hold of the ship. The team leader had silently pointed to the boat, and the assault team rushed through the crack in the hull. Once inside, gunfire chattered hollowly.

  Elena had covered her ears, picturing Mac, Nelson, John.

  Then came the screams.

  Even her palms could not block the terror and blood in those cries. One of the gunmen reappeared, crashing blindly to his knees outside the crack in the hull. He looked like he had donned a suit of fiery bronze armor, but these plates shifted and clawed at his body, ripping through neoprene and skin. Blood boiled from the tears. His body arched back savagely, cracking spine and bone—then exploded in a ruin of blackened flesh and bright flames.

  The team leader’s hulking bodyguard grabbed his charge by the shoulder and drew her and the remaining men to the Zodiac. The woman resisted at first, even taking a step toward the dhow, but by then the ship was burning, flames spreading. She scowled, turned her back, and waved them all into the boat and out into the meltwater channel.

  The woman was not taking any chances at losing the hard-fought treasure, even if the map wasn’t intact. As the Zodiac sped along the icy river, dark eyes found Elena. As the woman silently stared, she used two fingers to pull back the neoprene hood of her wetsuit and shake out a fall of hair as black as a raven’s wing. Elena saw gears turning behind that hard, calculating gaze, clearly contemplating what to do with her prisoner.

  The woman finally turned away as the Zodiac shot free of the glacier and into open air. Winds immediately assaulted them. Whitecaps ridged the waters of the fjord. A fog still clung to the sea, but its thick cloak had shredded apart.

  A storm was coming.

  As the Zodiac bounced through the chop, the destination came into view through the scraps of fog. A black conning tower stuck out of the blue sea. As the Zodiac rushed toward it, the submarine rose enough to expose a deck sluicing with seawater. The helmsman drove the Zodiac’s bow onto that wet deck, lodging it there.

  The leader hopped out and gave swift orders. Two men hauled the heavy map box, while the giant came for Elena. She avoided his touch, shrugging away from his hand, and climbed out on her own.

  With everyone offloaded, the helmsman abandoned the Zodiac and kicked it out to sea. Then he raised an assault rifle and strafed the pontoons, causing it to start slipping beneath the waves. As it spun away, Elena felt the rising rumble of the sub’s engines through the deck plates. It seemed the team was not wasting any time evacuating the area.

  Except to attend to one last task.

  Elena heard a muffled boom and felt the deck buck underfoot. A foaming streak cut through the whitecaps and sped away. Torpedo. She clutched a hand to her throat and
stared toward the face of Helheim Glacier. A moment later, ice blasted high into the stormy air, the concussive force felt even from this distance. A huge section of glacier calved away, dropping like a white guillotine across the opening to the meltwater channel.

  As the berg struck the sea, a huge wave swept toward them.

  “Come,” the woman ordered.

  Elena considered leaping into the water instead.

  As if sensing her hesitation, the team leader faced her. “There is much you need to know.” Her eyes bore into her. “Much you will want to know.”

  Elena balled a fist, ready to tell the woman to fuck off. But she pictured the map and the mystery of it all. The woman was right.

  I want to know.

  Elena turned and headed toward the conning tower, while still keeping her fist clenched. Intellectual curiosity might motivate her, but now she had another goal, too. She pictured Mac’s grinning face, the amused glint in Nelson’s eyes, John’s stoic strength.

  I will get my revenge.

  6

  June 21, 12:15 P.M. WGST

  Tasiilaq, Greenland

  Elena still lived . . .

  Maria tried to take comfort from this bit of hope, but the rest of the local policeman’s report was dire.

  She sat with her hands wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee in the Red Hotel’s cozy dining space. The room consisted of a handful of tables and chairs, a small library space, and a high shelf lined with a rainbow of snow boots, both new and antique. With its bright red clapboard exterior and large windows that looked out on an expansive view of King Oscar’s Harbour, she might have been charmed by the place, but not under these circumstances.

  The dining room was crammed with a score of locals. It seemed the torpedo’s blast had been heard by everyone, and the entire village wanted information.

  All eyes were on the only witness.

  “The tunnel is gone,” Officer Hans Jørgen reported from across the table. The man wore an open fur-lined Sherpa jacket, over his uniform’s khakis. His Danish ancestry could be heard in his accent and evident in his short-cropped blond hair. “The torpedo took out the entire face of the glacier. Collapsed a huge section.”