Valhalla Rising (Dirk Pitt 16)

Marlys typed on her keyboard, and a large stone appeared on the monitor. Judging from the man sitting on top of it, the height looked to be ten feet. The stone sat in a deep ravine.

Above ten rows of inscriptions was carved the petroglyph of a Viking ship, complete with sails, oars and shields on the sides. "This is a tough one," said Marlys. "None of the epigraphists who studied the stone have agreed one hundred percent on the message. But the translations are fairly similar in text." She then began to translate the lengthy inscription.

"After six days travel up the fjord from our families at the settlement, Magnus Sigvatson and his 100 comrades rest here and claim all the land within sight of the water for my kinsman and leader of our tribe, Bjarne Sigvatson, and our children.

The land is far larger than we knew. Larger even than our beloved homeland. We are well provisioned and our five small ships are stout and in good repair. We will not come back this way many months. May Odin protect us from the Skraelings."

She went on, "I must warn you that the translations are very vague and probably do not convey the original meaning. The second inscription carved on the return reads . . .

"Fourteen months after leaving our families, we are but a few days' sail down the fjord to the cave below the high cliffs to our homes. Of the 100, we are now 95. Bless Odin for protecting us. The land I claimed in my brother's name is larger than we have known. We have discovered paradise. Magnus Sigvatson."

"Then there is a date of 1036."

"Six days' sail down the fjord," Pitt repeated pensively. "That would suggest the Norsemen had a settlement in the United States."

"Has a site ever been discovered?" asked Giordino.

Marlys shook her head. "Archaeologists have yet to find one below Newfoundland."

"You have to wonder why it disappeared so completely."

"There are ancient Indian legends that tell of a great battle with strange wild men from the west with long chin hair and shiny heads."

Kelly looked confused. "Shiny heads?"

"Helmets," Pitt said, smiling. "They must be referring to the helmets the Vikings wore in combat."

"Strange that no archaeological evidence of a site has ever been discovered," said Kelly.

Pitt looked at her. "Your father knew where it was."

"How makes you say that?"

"Why else would he become so fanatical in his search for the rune stones? My guess is that your father was searching for the cave mentioned in the final inscription. The reason he suddenly dropped his research is because he must have found it."

"Without his files and papers," said Giordino, "we have no direction. Without a ballpark in which to launch a search, we're floundering in the dark."

Pitt turned to Marlys. "You have nothing from Dr. Egan that might give us a clue to what data he was accumulating?"

"He was not a man into correspondence or E-mail. I don't have so much as a scrap of paper with his signature. All our sharing of information was done over the phone."

"I'm not surprised," Kelly murmured resignedly.

"And rightly so," Giordino said. "Considering his problems with Cerberus."

Pitt's eyes stared into the vague distance without seeing anything.

Then they focused on Kelly. "You and Josh said you searched the farm for your father's hidden laboratory and turned up nothing."

Kelly nodded. "True. We searched every square inch of our property and those of the neighboring farms on both sides. We found nothing."

"How about the palisades facing the river?"

"One of the first places we looked. We even had rock-climbing clubs come in and check the rocky bluffs. They found no sign of caves or a path or a stairway leading across the face of the cliffs."

"If the only inscription about a cave was on the first rune stone, why run around the country beating the bushes searching for more inscriptions that revealed nothing?"

"He didn't know that when he launched his search," Pitt surmised. "He must have hoped that other stones might give him more clues. But his quest turned up dry, and the trail always came home to the first rune stone."