The Bones Of Odin (Matt Drake 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  The Bones of Odin

  by

  David Leadbeater

  Copyright © 2011 by David Leadbeater

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher/author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Connect via Twitter @dleadbeater2011

  Visit my website: www.davidleadbeaternovels.co.uk

  Follow my blog: www.davidleadbeaternovels.blogspot.com/

  Other books by David Leadbeater

  Chosen

  Walking with Ghosts

  OUT NOW

  The Blood King Conspiracy

  (the 2nd Matt Drake adventure.)

  All helpful advice and genuine comments are welcome. I would love to hear from you.

  [email protected]

  DEDICATION

  I would like to dedicate this book to my daughter,

  Keira,

  promises to keep,

  and miles to go . . .

  And to everyone who has ever supported me in my writing.

  Part 1

  I never meant to start a war . . .

  ONE

  YORK, ENGLAND

  The darkness exploded.

  “This is it.” Matt Drake placed his eye over the view-finder and tried to ignore the spectacle, and capture the image, as an outlandishly clad model prowled along the cat-walk towards him.

  Not easy. But he was a professional, or at least trying to be. No one ever said the transition from SAS soldier to civilian would be easy and he’d struggled through the last seven years, but photography seemed to be striking the right chord in him.

  Especially tonight. The first model gave a wave and a haughty little smile, and then sashayed away amidst a din of music and cheering. Drake kept the camera clicking as Ben, his twenty-year-old lodger, began to shout in his ear.

  “Programme says that was Milla Jankovich. I think I’ve heard of her! I quote ‘a chic Frey designer model’. Wow, is that Bridget Hall? Hard to say, under all that Viking gear.”

  Drake ignored the commentary and stayed on his game, partly because he wasn’t sure if his young friend was yanking his chain, so to speak. He captured the vivacious cat-walk images and the disparate play of light across the crowd. The models were decked out in Viking ensemble, carrying swords and shields, helmets and horns - retro costumes conceived by the internationally renowned designer, Abel Frey, who had weaved new season vogue with Nordic battledress to commemorate the evening.

  Drake switched his attention to the head of the cat-walk and the object of tonight’s celebrations - a new-found relic ambitiously named ‘Odin’s Shield’. Recently discovered, to massive worldwide acclaim, the shield had already been hailed as the greatest find in Norse mythology and had actually been dated to before Viking history began.

  Odd, said the experts.

  The ensuing mystery was immense and intriguing and had captured the world’s attention. The Shield’s value had only increased when scientists joined the publicity circus after some unclassified element was discovered within its make-up.

  Nerds coveting their fifteen minutes of fame, the cynical side of him spoke up. He shook it off. No matter how hard he fought against it, the cynicism that became a part of him when he was made a widower bloomed like a poisonous rose whenever he let his guard down.

  Ben tugged at Drake’s arm, abruptly turning his artistic composition into a snap of the full moon.

  “Whoops.” He laughed. “Sorry, Matt. This is pretty good. Apart from the music, . . . that’s shite. They could have hired my band for a few hundred quid. Can you believe that York landed something as awesome as this?”

  Drake waved his camera in the air. “Truthfully? No.” He knew York’s city council with their decayed visions. The future is in the past, so they say. “But listen, York’s paying your landlord a fair few quid to take pictures of models, not The Sky At Night In September. And your band’s shite. So, chill.”

  Ben rolled his eyes. “Shite? The Wall Of Sleep are even now considering umm . . . multiple offers, my friend.”

  “Just trying to focus on the nice models.” Drake was actually focused on the Shield, illuminated by the cat-walk lights. It was made up of two circles, the inner covered with what looked like ancient depictions of animals, the outer a mix-match of animal characters and symbols.

  Very mystical, he thought. Great for the conspiracy fruit and nuts.

  “Nice,” he whispered as a model walked by and he caught the contrast of youth against age on digital film.

  The cat-walk had been quickly erected outside York’s renowned Yorvik Centre - a museum of Viking history - after Sweden’s Museum of National Antiquities granted a brief loan for early September. The importance of the event increased exponentially when superstar designer Abel Frey offered to fund a cat-walk event to kick-off the exhibition.

  Another model stalked the makeshift tiles with an expression like a cat seeking its nightly bowl of cream. Airhead, the cynicism rose again. Here was a star-fucking paradigm, fated to appear in a future ‘celebrity’ reality TV programme, and be Tweeted and Facebooked about by a million beer-swilling, ten-a-day smoking morons.

  Drake blinked. She was still someone’s daughter . . .

  Spotlights rolled and raked the night sky. Bright light bounced from shop window to shop window, ruining what little artistic aura Drake was managing to muster. The distracting dance music of Cascada assaulted his ears. Christ, he thought. Bosnia had been easier on the senses than this.

  The crowd swelled. Despite the job, he took a moment to scan the faces around him. Couples and families. Designer straights and gays, hoping for a glimpse of their idol. People in fancy dress, adding to a carnival atmosphere. He smiled. The watchful urge was admittedly duller these days - the army alertness wearing off - but he still felt some of the old perceptions. In a perverse sense they had gained strength since Alyson, his wife, died two years earlier after driving away from him, angry, heart-broken, stating that he might have quit the SAS but the SAS would never quit him. What the hell did that even mean?

  Time had barely touched the pain.

  Why di
d she crash? Was it a bad reflection on the road? Bad judgement? Tears in her eyes? Premeditated? An answer that would forever elude him; a terrible truth he would never know.

  An old imperative snapped Drake back to the present. Something remembered from his army days - a distant thunk, thunk, long forgotten . . . old memories now . . . thunk . . ..

  Drake shook away the fog and focused on the cat-walk show. Two models were staging a mock battle beneath Odin’s Shield: nothing spectacular, just publicity fodder. The crowd cheered, the TV cameras whirred, and Drake clicked like a dervish.

  And then he frowned. He lowered the camera. His soldier’s mind, lethargic but not decayed, picked up on that distant thunk, thunk again and questioned why the hell two army helicopters were approaching the event.

  “Ben,” he said carefully, asking the only question he could think of, “during your research, did you hear about any surprise guests tonight?”

  “Wow. I didn’t think you’d noticed that. Well, it was twittered that Kate Moss might show up.”

  “Kate Moss?”

  Two helicopters, the sound unmistakable to the trained ear. And not just helicopters. They were Apache attack choppers.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  The helicopters blasted overhead, circled around and began to hover in sync. The crowd cheered ecstatically, expecting something special. All eyes and cameras turned to the night sky.

  Ben cried, “Woah . . .” but then his mobile rang. His parents and his sister called constantly and, a family boy with a heart of gold, he always answered.

  Drake was used to the short family interludes. He scrutinized the helicopters’ positions, the fully-loaded rocket pods, the 30 millimetre Chain Gun visibly housed under the aircrafts’ forward fuselage, and assessed the situation. Shit . . .

  The potential for utter chaos. The ecstatic crowd was crammed into a small square circled by shops with only three narrow exits. Ben and he only had one choice if . . . when . . . the crush came.

  Head straight for the cat-walk.

  Without warning, dozens of ropes slithered from the second chopper which Drake now realised must be an Apache hybrid: a machine modified to house multiple crew-members.

  Masked men descended the swaying lines, disappearing behind the cat-walk. Drake noticed guns strapped across their chests as a wary hush began to spread through the crowd. The last voices were those of children asking why, but soon even they went quiet.

  Then the lead Apache unleashed a Hellfire missile into one of the empty shops. There was a hiss like a million gallons of steam escaping, then a roar like the meeting of two Dinosaurs. Fire, glass and fragmented brick exploded high across the square.

  Ben dropped his mobile in shock and scrambled to retrieve it. Drake heard the screaming rise like a tidal wave and sensed the mob instinct grip the crowd. Without a moment’s thought he grabbed Ben and manhandled him over the railing, then vaulted over himself. They landed next to the cat-walk.

  The Apache’s Chain Gun rang out, deep and deadly, its rounds fired above the crowd but still invoking pure panic.

  “Ben! Stay close behind me.” Drake raced around the foot of the cat-walk. A few of the models reached down to help. Drake gained his feet and looked back over the surging mass of people stampeding towards the exits. Dozens were clambering onto the cat-walk, being helped by models and staff. Terrified screams laced the air, causing the panic to spread. Fire lit the dark, and the heavy thunk of helicopter rotors drowned out most of the tumult.

  The Chain Gun rang out again, sending heavy lead into the air with a nightmare sound no civilian anywhere should ever hear.

  Drake turned. Models cowered behind him. Odin’s Shield was in front of him. On impulse he risked a few snaps just as soldiers in bullet-proof jackets appeared from backstage. Drake’s first concern was to position himself between Ben, the models and the soldiers, but he kept clicking, narrowing the viewfinder . . ..

  With his other hand he pushed his young lodger further away.

  “Hey!”

  One of the soldiers eyeballed him and swung his machine-gun around threateningly. Drake quelled a feeling of disbelief. This kind of thing didn’t happen in York, in this world. York was tourists, ice-cream and American day-trippers. It was the lion that had never been allowed to roar, not even when Rome ruled. But it was safe and it was prudent. It was the place Drake had chosen to get away from the damn SAS in the first place.

  To be with his wife. To escape the . . . bollocks!

  The soldier was suddenly in his face. “Give me that!” he screamed in a German accent. “Give it to me!”

  The soldier lunged for the camera. Drake chopped at his forearm and twisted his machine-gun away. Surprise lit the soldier’s face. Drake palmed the camera off to Ben behind his back with a move any New York maitre d’ would have been proud of. Heard him move away at a sprint.

  Drake pointed the machine-gun at the floor as three more soldiers started towards him.

  “You!” One of the soldiers raised his weapon. Drake half-closed his eyes, but then heard a raucous shout.

  “Wait! Minimal casualties, idiot. You really want to shoot someone in cold blood on national television?”

  The new soldier nodded at Drake. “Give me the camera.” His German pronunciation carried a lazy twang.

  Drake thought ‘Plan B’ and let the gun clatter to the floor. “Don’t have it.”

  The commander nodded to his subordinates. “Check him.”

  “There was someone else . . .” the first soldier picked up his gun, looking embarrassed. “He . . . he’s gone.”

  The commander stepped right up in Drake’s face. “Bad move.”

  A muzzle pressed against his forehead. His vision was filled with angry German and flying spittle. “Check him!”

  As they frisked him he watched the orchestrated theft of Odin’s Shield under the direction of a newly-arrived masked individual wearing a white suit. Somewhat ostentatiously, he waved and scratched his head, but never spoke. Once the Shield was safely away the man waved a walkie in Drake’s general direction, clearly attracting the commander’s attention.

  The commander placed his own walkie to his ear, but Drake kept his eyes on the man in white.

  “’til Paris,” the man mouthed. “At six tomorrow.”

  SAS training, Drake reflected, still came in handy.

  The commander said, “Dah.” and was back in Drake’s face, brandishing his credit cards and photographer’s credentials. “Lucky snapper,” he drawled lazily. “The boss says minimal casualties, so you live. ‘But,’ he waved Drake’s wallet, “we have your address, and if you talk,” he added, flashing a smile colder than a polar bear’s scrotum, “trouble will find you.”

  TWO

  YORK, ENGLAND

  Later, at home, Drake handed Ben a filtered decaf and joined him to watch coverage of the night’s events.

  Odin’s Shield had been stolen because the city of York simply hadn’t been prepared for such a violent onslaught. The real miracle was that no one had died. The burning helicopters were found miles away, abandoned where three motorways converged, their occupants long gone.

  “Ruined Frey’s show,” Ben said, partly serious. “The models are already packed up and gone.”

  “Damn, and I changed the bed sheets. Well, I’m sure Frey and Prada and Gucci will survive.”

  “The Wall of Sleep would’ve played through it all.”

  “Been doing the family movie-fest Titanic thing again?”

  “That reminds me - they cut my dad off in mid-flow.”

  Drake topped his mug off. “Don’t worry. He’ll ring back in three minutes or so.”

  “Making fun, crusty?”

  Drake shook his head and laughed. “No. You’re just too young to understand.”

  Ben had been lodging with Drake for about nine months now. They had grown from strangers to good friends in a few months. Drake subsidised Ben’s rent in return for his photographic knowledge – the
young man was on his way to a college degree - and Ben helped by sharing everything. He was the kind of guy who wore his feelings on his sleeve, a sign of innocence maybe, but admirable too.

  Ben put down his mug. “Night, mate. Guess I’ll go ring sis.”

  “Night.”

  The door closed, and Drake sat watching Sky News sightlessly for a while. When a picture of Odin’s Shield appeared he started back to the present.

  He picked up the camera that represented his livelihood, pocketed the memory card with a mind to view the pictures tomorrow, and then headed for the whirring PC. Having second thoughts he paused to double-check the doors and windows. This house had been safe-proofed years ago whilst he was still in the army. He liked to believe in the rudimentary good of every human being, but one thing war taught you was never to put blind trust in anything. Always have a plan and a back-up - a Plan B.

  Seven years on, and now he knew the soldier’s mentality would never leave him.

  He Googled ‘Odin’, and ‘Odin’s Shield’. The wind picked up outside the house, rushing around the eaves and wailing like an investment banker who’d had his bonus capped at four mil. He soon realised the Shield was big news. It had been a major archaeological find, the biggest ever in Iceland. Some Indiana Jones types had strayed off the beaten track to investigate an ancient ice flow. A few days later they unearthed the Shield, but then one of Iceland’s largest volcanoes started rumbling and further exploration had to be postponed.

  The same volcano, Drake mused, that had sent the ash cloud across Europe recently, disrupting air traffic and people’s holidays.

  Drake sipped his coffee and listened to the wind howl. The mantel clock chimed midnight. A glance at the wealth of information provided by the internet told him Ben would make more sense of it than he could. Ben was like any student - able to make fast sense of the mush that came with technology. He read that Odin’s Shield sported many fancy carvings, all of which were being studied by basement-boffins, and that J.R.R.Tolkien had based his wandering wizard, Gandalf, on Odin.