“I am just saying that there are many unanswered questions, and I suspect last night’s activities have increased the risks. An injured animal is a more dangerous animal.”
Rook took the Desert Eagle out of the holster, removed the magazine, and jammed it back in. Then he looked at Fossen.
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly a defenseless cow.”
The bottom of the embankment looked far different in the daylight. The area was pancake-flat, a contrast to the constantly sloping terrain everywhere else within a few miles of town. It struck Rook as odd, but he started a methodical search, moving back and forth along the base of the hill.
During his first pass, he didn’t find much. He found it hard to believe that the creature wouldn’t leave behind some traces of blood, given the number of shots Fossen had landed in its lower body. A faint trace of the stench remained in the air, but it didn’t seem stronger in any one part of the area, so its presence didn’t help much.
Rook ended his search grid at the top of another steep down-slope. This one dropped to the ocean, water lapping at the rocks at the bottom. He climbed down to only a few feet above the waves and looked up along the rocks in all directions, but he didn’t see anything. By the time he climbed back up, he was sweating hard.
He began another search grid, exactly in reverse of the one he had done initially. Back and forth he went, growing more frustrated as each sweep ended. Tasks requiring this level of patience were not his strong suit. Then, he stumbled on a clue.
His boot hit a rock and he tensed his legs to steady himself. Looking down, he saw something glinting in the fading sunlight. He bent over to pick it up, but realized that it wouldn’t move. So he got to his knees and started trying to uncover the dirt and soil from around it.
Eventually, he extracted an eighteen-inch long piece of stainless steel, about ten inches wide. It had a lip around the edge, as if it was intended as a cover for something. But he had no idea for what.
When he lifted it up, he got a glimpse of something falling to the ground, and he patted the ground with his hands, trying to find it. His hands settled on an oval object about three inches on the long side.
The object seemed like a necklace charm or medal. He wiped the dirt off it and could make out the image of a sword wrapped in a double-stranded bow. Around the perimeter was some sort of writing, a lot like Norse runes. As he examined it further, he realized that the letters were actually regular western alphabet letters, just styled with runic shapes.
It seemed like the letters formed two words. The first was fairly easy to make out, the word “Deutsches.” German. A bit odd to find here, but the events of World War II had touched all of Europe.
It took him longer to determine the other word, as the letters did not seem to form a word he had seen before. Even assuming it was German, another language he spoke fluently, the meaning didn’t jump out at him. After a while, he felt certain he had figured the word out, but he didn’t recognize it. And he had no idea how or if this related to the creature. Probably just some decades-old trash.
Still, the medal had an ominous feel to it. The sword combined with the word “German” suggested something military, but the runic lettering lacked any sense of it being official. He could ask Fossen, but he thought perhaps he’d ask Peder first. Fossen was proving himself, but Rook couldn’t forget Fossen’s attitude that first day.
He put the medal in his pocket, stood up and continued with his grid search. He found nothing else of note. Whatever method the creature had used to escape remained unknown. No blood, no trail, no sign of the missing AR-15.
Rook made his way back to town carrying the piece of stainless steel. He would ask Fossen about that and show the medal to Peder when he returned to the barn. In his head, he repeated the strange word from the medal, trying to work out where he’d seen it before. He didn’t know, but the more he pondered it, the more it sounded sinister. A word from somewhere in the past.
Ahnenerbe.
10
Most of the way up the road to Peder’s house, Rook heard a gun shot. The right front tire of the car blew out at the same time, and Rook wrenched the wheel to keep from hurtling off the cliff into the ocean. When the car came to a stop, he pulled out the Desert Eagle, opened the driver’s door, and kept himself low to the ground when he exited.
After several minutes, he hadn’t heard any additional shots. But he didn’t dare make his way around to the damaged wheel, exposed as he was to anyone on the hill that rose away from the road. He had no choice but to either wait, or make the rest of the journey on a flat tire.
Rook had never liked waiting. So five minutes later, he was back at the house. He knocked on the door, and Peder let him in.
“Car trouble?”
“If you call having a tire shot out car trouble, then yeah.”