peninsula in Mexico. That’s exactly what you see. It’s incredibly flat, a limestone plateau only a few metres above sea level, covered with dense scrub and jungle and surrounded by brilliant white beaches.”
“And hot as hell in summer,” Costas said. “A land of fire and light.”
“This is not just a wild guess. It’s all beginning to add up.” Jack lifted the jade pendant, then eyed Jeremy intensely. “And what about that final line?”
Jeremy let out a low exhalation and gazed back at Jack, his face flushed with excitement. “I can make out three words. The first one is the standard Norse word for the underworld, the watery abyss at the edge of the world, Ginnungagap. The second is Ragnarok. The third I’ve never come across before in Old Norse. It’s a proper name, a place-name. Ukilabnal, or something close to that. It looks like Harald and his men reached their day of reckoning at this place, their final showdown at the edge of the underworld.”
“It didn’t work out for our friend.” Costas jerked his thumb at the skeleton. “I bet he wished he’d gone to Valhalla along with his buddies.”
“Does the name mean anything to you?” Jack asked.
“Oh yes.” Jeremy’s voice was hoarse, and he could hardly get the words out. “Anthropology 101. Luckily my undergraduate adviser forced me to keep my options open. Introduction to Mesoamerican Civilisation.”
“Go on.”
“In the eleventh century, Uukil-abnal was the name of Chichen Itza, the greatest ceremonial centre of the Maya, smack in the centre of the Yucatan jungle.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
Costas let out a sigh of satisfaction. “At last.” He stood up, arched his legs stiffly where they had been pinned down and looked with distaste at the drizzle that was enveloping him. “You guys with Viking blood may have some kind of yearning for all this misery, but it just leaves me cold.” He turned to Ben and Andy, who had been loitering nearby, and grinned broadly at them. “Pack your bags, boys. We’re going to Mexico.”
16
The first inkling Maria had that something was wrong came just before midnight. She was hunched over a laptop computer in a monk’s cell three doors down from Father O’Connor’s study in the medieval cloister on the isle of Iona. They had decided to stay up late and get the job done, two long days after she had waved Jack and the others off in the helicopter. She had been glancing at the photograph pinned on the wall in front of her, the extraordinary image of the jade pendant with the two coins that Jack had emailed her from L’Anse aux Meadows the day before. She was itching to be back, to be alongside Jack again. For the third and final time she was working through the document that she and O’Connor had prepared on the felag, straining her eyes to keep focussed on the screen. In a few minutes she would be able to copy the file to O’Connor and join him for a final proofread, and then they would email it off to his contact at Interpol in Austria. She was tired, as drained as she had ever been, but she was beginning to feel a glimmer of relief. They were not out of danger yet, but at least she had persuaded O’Connor to leave the monastery the next morning and accompany her back to the safety of Seaquest II.
The first sign of trouble was a dull thumping in the corridor. No obvious cause for alarm, but Maria was edgy with exhaustion and nerves. She turned towards the door, slightly ajar, and the dark corridor beyond. It had gone quiet again. She had grown accustomed to the stillness of the monastery, but something was different. She felt a sudden chill, a presentiment of fear.
Then without warning the door swung open. A gloved hand reached in and snatched its edge, stopping it from crashing into the wall. Then a dark figure advanced on her with lightning speed, head held low. Maria had no time to react. One hand slapped her head aside and savagely twisted her ear, another clamped her mouth. The table was hurled against the wall and a foot crushed her laptop. She was dragged violently backwards, through the door and into the corridor. The hand was wet against her mouth, sticky and warm. Her ear was twisted again and she was blinded by pain, her eyes watering, unable to breathe. Suddenly she was released and slammed face forward against the wall, her arms pinned behind her. Tape was slapped over her mouth and her wrists. Her assailant held her body tight to his and yanked her hair back. She could feel the coarseness of his skin against hers, the metallic smell of his breath.
For a horrifying moment there was no movement. Maria began to shake uncontrollably. Her breath returned in short, searing gasps through her nose. She felt claustrophobic, about to suffocate. Her assailant snorted, pushed her sideways until she nearly fell, then jolted her through an open door and held her tight again from behind. She felt his breath against her ear, the nauseating smell.
“Get a hold of that.” The words were snarled into her ear, the accent indefinable. Maria blinked hard to clear her eyes. She was in O’Connor’s study. Through the blur she saw the candle on his mantelpiece, the copy of the Mappa Mundi on the wall behind. The flame was flickering on the ink of the Red Sea and seemed to be throwing a red aura over the rest of the map. Maria felt light-headed, close to blacking out. She blinked again, desperately trying to clear the red tunnel around her vision. She saw the candle on his desk, the one she had lit for him an hour before. She looked down.
There was someone on the floor. She felt her knees give way, and her assailant pulled her upright, squeezing her until she retched.
She looked down again.
Father O’Connor.
Her heart lurched in horror. The candle cast a shadow over the floor, and at first all she saw was a dark form. Then she began to make out his head. His mouth was duct-taped, his eyes wide open. She struggled to make a noise, to speak to him, but her assailant stifled her nose. Surely O’Connor must see her, must realize she was trying to communicate. He remained still, his eyes staring. He was lying on his stomach, his head under his desk, his arms and legs splayed. He was wearing his brown monk’s cassock.
Then she realised. The colour on the map. The sticky wetness on her face. The metallic taste.
It was blood.
She looked at O’Connor again. Something was horribly amiss. The darkness on his back was not his cassock at all. Then she knew, with sickening certainty.
The blood-eagle.
She looked frantically from side to side, her eyes adjusting to the gloom. There was blood everywhere. Soaking the remains of his cassock, seeping out in a pool under his body, splashed and spattered over his desk and books, flecked in livid trails over the ceiling.
She forced herself to look again. She could see the gaping hole, the shape. From shoulder to shoulder, and down the back. The wings and the tail. On either side she saw things too awful to register. Lumps of bloody flesh. Rows of severed bone, a rib cage. Bulbous piles of organs, like offal on a butcher’s bench.
Maria screamed, but no sound came out.
Her assailant jerked his hand under her chin and pressed his cheek hard against hers. She could just make out his face, could see the leering smile, the murderous, washed-out eyes, the smears of drying blood. He began to rub his cheek against hers, his stubble rasping her skin like sandpaper, pressing her again and again with the smoothness of a scar that ran from his eye socket to his jawbone, all the while panting heavily, grinning obscenely at the carnage on the floor. She could feel his arousal, smell the adrenaline. Her mind began to shut down, seeking oblivion in the face of horror.
“That was for my grandfather,” the voice whispered. “O’Connor was conscious when I cut out his lungs. He knew what was happening. The blood feud is finished. Now it is time for me to claim my prize.”
He kicked her legs from under her and dragged her back towards the door. The last thing she felt was the throbbing pain in her cheek, her own blood mingling with O’Connor’s. Then there was blackness.
Jack skillfully manoeuvred the Zodiac towards shore, allowing the boat to slide down under its own weight into each trough and then gunning the engine until it stood at the crest of the next wave. Above them the sky was flecked with high, fast-moving clouds heading south, and they were buffeted by a strong onshore wind which had been gathering strength all morning, raising a rapid swell. The air had the same pellucid quality they had seen in the Arctic, but even the wind could not disguise the burning intensity of the sun as it bore down on them, the glare
