The Valhalla Prophecy

  Natalia went to each bed in turn. The children recognized her, responding with sounds of delight. She smiled back, hugging and caressing, speaking softly in Vietnamese. The woman who had come with them spoke; Chase didn’t understand her words, but could tell from her tone that she was expressing gratitude.

  “We brought them things for the children,” Natalia explained. “Medicines, mosquito nets, food, toys …” She gestured at a doll on a small table beside one of the beds. A photograph was pinned to the wall above; it showed the young German hugging the little girl in the bed, who was clutching the plastic figure. “We gave them as much as we could, though it was still not enough. There is never enough,” she added sadly.

  The Englishman suspected that he knew the cause, but felt compelled to ask all the same. “What happened to them?”

  “Chemical warfare. Agent Orange.” Chase nodded; he had been right. “The Americans dumped millions of liters of poison on the jungle during the war, without caring for a moment what effect it would have on the people who lived there. Or even their own soldiers. The children of American troops have suffered deformities and cancers because of what their fathers were exposed to … but nothing like this. The poison is still in the ground, in the water and plants, everywhere. And the children are paying for it, even after all this time.”

  “I’m sorry.” It was all he could say. He could barely begin to imagine the horror and heartbreak the parents must have been through when their children were born.

  She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “This is why I came here, to help children like this. There are many more in other villages in this part of the country. I wanted to do as much as I could for them. I had to.”

  Chase sensed an almost confessional tone to her words. “Why?”

  She looked away, gently touching the head of the smallest child. “Because … because I am a part of what happened to them.” Before he could ask what she meant, she went on: “And because I am one of them.”

  She stood and turned, pulling up the T-shirt to expose the left side of her torso to him. In the jungle, the gown had covered what lay beneath; now he got a clear, chilling view. A twisted scar ran from below her armpit almost to her waist, smaller branches lancing off it around her chest and back. “I had tumors removed,” Natalia said, seeing his shock. She pulled the shirt back down. “The doctors did not know what caused them. But I did.”

  She said good-bye to the children, then spoke briefly to the Vietnamese women before going back outside. Chase went with her, blinking in the bright sunlight. “What was it?”

  She did not answer the question at first, wiping her eyes as they wandered through the little village. “My mother had the same tumors. So did my grandmother. They both died from them. I will too.”

  “You don’t know that,” said Chase, unsettled by her matter-of-fact acceptance.

  “Yes,” she sighed. “I do. It is my family’s curse, and the reason why I must never have children of my own—because they will suffer it too.”

  “What do you mean, your curse?”

  There was a makeshift bench by one building, a plank supported by two old oil drums. Natalia took a seat, then beckoned him to join her. “My grandfather was a man named Serafim Volkov,” she began as he sat and put his pack down under the bench. “He was Russian, a scientist in the Cold War. He was going to defect to the West with my grandmother, but died before he got out of Russia.”

  Chase nodded. “Yeah, you said.”

  “He gave my grandmother a letter, to be opened only if he did not escape. She told my mother that she did not open it for over a year, in the hope that he was still alive. When at last she did, she thought it would tell of his love for her and his hopes that their child would have a better life in a new country.” She paused, taking a mournful breath. “It did not.”

  “What did it talk about?”

  “His work. What he had been doing for the Soviet Union—and what he planned to sell to the Americans. He was creating weapons. Awful, terrible weapons.”

  “Chemical warfare?”

  “Yes. And biological too—the difference is sometimes small. That was true of what he had created.” A pause as she shook her head. “No, that is the wrong word. He did not create it. He … exploited it. It was something the Russians had found.”

  “What kind of thing?”

  Another pause. Natalia stared silently at the ground before finally looking back at him. “Do you know anything about Norse mythology, Eddie?”

  “You mean like Vikings?” he asked, surprised by the change of subject. “Not really. I never paid much attention in history class.”

  “I did. My mother encouraged it, especially to do with Norse legends. I did not know why until just before she died. But there is a substance in their myth called eitr. It is a black liquid, a deadly poison … and it is also the source of life.”

  He frowned at the contradiction. “How does that work?”

  “In the myth, there was a sea of eitr, and from the drops of a splash rose the first giant, Ymir. From him came all other life. But the eitr remained, still a poison, hidden beneath the ground.” Her expression became grave. “The Russians found it. There was a Viking runestone in the Arctic at the entrance to a pit full of eitr. My grandfather wrote the first lines of the runes in his letter; they told how the Vikings had traveled from Valhalla across a rainbow bridge and through a lake of lightning to fight a giant monster and prevent the end of the world.”

  “You mean the legend’s real?”

  “No—not really. I do not believe there were giants and gods and serpents that circled the whole of the earth—the blood of the serpent was eitr, and in their legends it was what killed Thor. But it is based on something that was real. The eitr was deadly, but it also had … other effects. My grandfather discovered them. He was trying to turn the eitr into a weapon the Soviet Union could use against the West, but began his own experiments—which he was going to take to America.” Each word seemed to weigh her down a little more. Chase realized that something awful was coming. “What sort of experiments?” he prompted.

  “Human experiments,” she whispered. “On my grandmother. He used her to see what eitr would do to a living person—and her unborn child.”

  “Shit,” he said, shocked. “He actually poisoned his own wife? While she was pregnant?”

  “He was an evil, evil man.” A new tear ran down her cheek. “I am ashamed that I have anything to do with him.”

  “It’s not your fault. But why did he do it?”

  She raised her head. “The eitr is not just a poison, even though according to his letter just a few drops on the skin can kill a person—they tested it on prisoners.” Utter disgust and loathing twisted her features for a moment. “In smaller amounts, it is a … a mutagen is I think the English word. It causes mutations in DNA, sometimes huge. My grandfather believed these mutations could be controlled to create a new breed of human. Supermen, a master race.” Another expression of revulsion, this time at the connections to her own country’s past. “The Soviets only cared about turning the eitr into a weapon, so he continued his work in secret. After testing on animals, he put a tiny amount into my grandmother’s food to see the effect it would have on people.”

  “And it gave her cancer?”

  “And eventually killed her. But because it caused mutations at a genetic level, they were passed down to my mother while she was still in the womb—and then to me.” She looked down at her side, one hand tracing the line of the scar. “The tumors appeared when I was sixteen. They almost killed me—I was in hospital for half a year. By the time I came out, my mother was suffering from them too. But with her, the doctors could not risk removing them; they were too advanced. All I could do was—was watch her die.” She sniffed, wiping her eyes again. “I am sorry, it is still hard to talk about.”

  “That’s okay,” said Chase, with deep sympathy. He had been through the same terrible experience with his own mother.

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; “Thank you. Oh …” She released a long, sighing breath, then looked around as the child with the prosthetic leg hobbled up and hugged her tightly, chattering and laughing in Vietnamese. Natalia managed a smile, giving the excitable boy a kiss on the forehead before sending him back to his mother. Another sigh. “I love children, I do. But I can never have any of my own—it is too dangerous. That is my family’s curse, Eddie. My grandfather poisoned us forever.”

  “Christ. I’m sorry. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to find out.”

  “My grandmother gave the letter to my mother on her deathbed, telling her the truth about how they had come to Germany,” Natalia continued. “The CIA was supposed to take her out of Russia, first to West Germany and then on to America. But when my grandfather did not make it, they abandoned my grandmother. She had to make her own life in a new country. Which she did—until the eitr at last killed her. My mother kept the letter, but did not tell me about it. Until she too was on her deathbed.”

  “If she’d told someone what was causing the tumors, couldn’t they have done something about them?”

  The young woman shook her head firmly. “We did not want to tell anyone about my grandfather’s experiments, or the eitr. That was something my grandmother made my mother promise, and she made me promise. It is a promise I meant to keep. I did not even tell my father.”

  “But you’re telling me now.”

  “Someone else already knows.”

  Chase glanced toward the jungle. “The Russians?”

  “It is the only possible reason why they would have taken me. They want to start the experiments again.”

  “So why would they want you? Couldn’t they just go to wherever they found this eitr stuff and get more?”

  “Because it was destroyed. My grandmother worked out what must have happened. The letter said the eitr was discovered on Novaya Zemlya, off northern Russia.”

  “That was where the Russians tested their nukes,” he remembered.

  “Yes, but a research facility was also built where they found the eitr. That was where my grandfather worked. I do not know the details, they were not in the letter, but there was an accident involving the eitr. Many people died. Khrushchev ordered the project to be closed down. That was when my grandfather decided to defect, and take his research with him. But he needed a sample of eitr to give to the Americans. There was only one place he could get it—the pit in the Arctic. So his plan was to go in secret to the facility to steal some; then the CIA would get him out of the country. He never came back. A nuclear test took place on the same day.”

  “So … you’re saying they nuked the place?”

  “They must have wanted to be sure that no one would ever have the eitr. They dropped the biggest bomb ever made—”

  “The Tsar Bomb.” Chase saw her questioning look. “I paid attention to military history.”

  “But you did not know the real reason why they dropped it, did you? It was to destroy the facility, and the eitr. I read about the results of the explosion. Nothing was left—even the ground was melted.”

  “I still don’t get why they’d need you, though. It’s not like you’ve got eitr running through your veins.”

  “No, I do not. But …” Natalia stared at the ground again, deep in thought, before continuing. “I have been exposed to it. Through my mother, and my grandmother. My DNA has been mutated by the eitr. If these Russians had samples, they could compare them to normal DNA and find out how it had been mutated. That could tell them enough about what the eitr does to create more, or create something that has the same effect.” She turned back to him, fearful. “They want to use me. They want to take what my grandfather did to me, and turn it into a weapon. Eddie, that cannot happen! I will not let it.”

  “It won’t,” he assured her. “I’ll get you out of here, I promise.”

  “That is not a promise you can keep!” she cried. “They are still hunting for us, they must be—if I am so important to them, they will not let me escape. If they find us—”

  He put a hand on her arm. “I won’t let them take you.”

  “How? With what? A broken land mine and a gun with one bullet?” She straightened, suddenly resolute. “The bullet—you must keep it for me.”

  “What?”

  “I am serious. You saw those poor children in there.” She jabbed a hand toward their building. “That is what chemical warfare did to them, and that was just a—a side effect. Agent Orange was created to kill plants; they did not even think about what it would do to people. But if the Russians create more eitr, it will be as a weapon of deliberate mass murder. Anyone who is exposed to it will die, either from the poison or from the mutations it will cause. I will not allow that. It is against everything I believe in. If I let it happen, I would be as evil as my grandfather! It cannot happen. It cannot.” She began to cry again. “Promise me that, Eddie. Promise me that.”

  “I am not going to promise to put a fucking bullet in your head, Natalia!” he said, dismayed. “But I’ll stick to the promise I already made. I’ll get you out of here, trust me. It’ll take a bit longer since the phone’s out, but once I meet up with the others at the rendezvous, we’ll take you somewhere safe. These Russians won’t get hold of you.”

  “But they are working with the Vietnamese, they must be,” she protested. “The man you knocked out …”

  “Yeah, I know. One of my mates reckoned they were secret police—something called TC2.” From her stricken expression, he guessed their ruthlessness was far from secret. “But they won’t catch us either. You know I said I was a soldier?”

  “Yes?”

  He gave her a small but meaningful grin. “I wasn’t just some squaddie. Trust me, I’ll—”

  He snapped his head around at a sound from the north. An engine. Someone was driving down the track into the village. “Oh, fuckeration. Time to go!”

  “Do you think it is them?” Natalia asked as he jumped up.

  “I’m not taking any chances that it’s not!” He looked up the hill. The vehicle was not yet visible, but he glimpsed flickers of color between the trees as it approached. The land around the village had been cleared, making their chances of escaping before the new arrivals spotted them slim. “Did you tell the people here what happened to you?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Are they your friends?”

  “Yes, absolutely, but—”

  “Then tell ’em we need to hide!”

  He ran with her to the nearby villagers. Natalia hurriedly spoke to them, then cried, “Here, quickly!” She and Chase rushed for the building that was home to the Agent Orange victims, one of the Vietnamese women going with them. A call drew out the woman inside. Natalia exchanged rapid words, then the nurse bustled them into the children’s room.

  The only hiding places were under the beds. The woman led Natalia to one of them, then gestured for Chase to get under another. He dropped to his belly and slithered beneath it. There was barely enough room, his back touching the slats supporting the thin mattress; he realized at once that it was also too small to conceal him fully. Even if he positioned himself to be hidden from someone coming through the door, if they walked past the bed he would be visible.

  Natalia, smaller and slimmer, was better covered, but the most cursory search would expose her too. She gave the Englishman a fearful look across the grubby floor. One of the children made a sound, excited at seeing the young blonde again, but the carer quickly hushed him.

  The vehicle drew closer. For a moment Chase thought it was going to drive straight through the village, but then it downshifted rapidly before stopping. He heard voices, a man with an unmistakably commanding tone calling out.

  Natalia tensed. “It is the men from the camp,” she whispered. “He is asking if they have seen any foreigners. They are telling him no, but …”

  The sudden silence as the new arrivals switched off their vehicle’s idling engine was a clear sign that they were not convinced. More
words were exchanged. “He says he is from the government,” she continued. “And that … Eddie, he is telling them that you have kidnapped me!”

  “Let’s hope your friends don’t believe him” was his grim reply.

  She kept listening to the unfolding discussion. The voices of the villagers became agitated. Were they going to give the fugitives away? Chase checked the room for other possible exits. A window with a half-open shutter, some uneven planks in one corner that might break if charged with enough force …

  Natalia’s breathless whisper brought his gaze back to her. “They are still saying they have not seen us!”

  Chase strained to listen, trying to read the emotional state of those outside from their voices. If the villagers were too insistent about not having visitors, it would arouse suspicion.

  Had they convinced the secret police? Or would a house-to-house search be ordered? Chase looked back at the window, working out the quickest route to his weapons by the river …

  “They’re going,” Natalia gasped. The commander issued orders with grudging acceptance. His men climbed back into their vehicle. “My friends did not give us away. I knew they would help us.”

  Chase remained silent. The man was still talking; he guessed he was reminding the villagers of their duty to report any sightings of the kidnapper and his prisoner. Their replies sounded like assurances that they would. One of the women called out, “Tạm biệt,” which even after only a short time in Vietnam he knew meant “good-bye.” They had done it …

  A child’s chatter and laughter caught his attention. It was the one-legged boy who had hugged Natalia earlier, scurrying from one of the houses to see the new visitors. His mother shouted for him to come back, but he was already in the middle of the group, asking excited questions. Chase held in a sound of irritation. The kid was going to hold up the secret police’s departure—