Page 45 of Odin

"This is a valuable historical artefact, and it should be locked away safe, not smuggled out to be stolen!" Thor boomed, picking up his hammer from the smashed barrel.

"Everybody put your hands up!"

Thor grinned, lifting his hammer in both hands...only to drop it on Thrym's feet.

Odin had never heard such a shrill scream from a man before. But anyone who tried to steal Thor's hammer surely deserved their fate.

"What's going on out here?" That was Freyja, looking as thunderous as the sky on the night they'd met. Sibyl and Jorunn were with her.

"These men appear to have been fighting," one of the policemen said. "We heard shouting, and then saw this mess."

Odin moved closer to Freyja, his hands still held high. "This man said he was here to collect the waste barrels. As I am the caretaker here, I came to help him, but the barrel fell and this was inside." He gestured at the hammer that had definitely done some damage to the man's feet.

Sibyl stepped forward. "That hammer should be in the artefact room. You were trying to steal priceless artefacts!" She pointed at Thrym.

"Not me! Doctor Fridolfsen pays me to collect the waste. Just waste!" Thrym babbled.

Freyja folded her arms across her chest. "Nik Fridolfsen isn't in charge here. I am. And I did not authorise any waste collection or movement of artefacts from the facility. Arrest this man as Nik's accomplice."

The policemen looked bewildered. "What about the other men?"

"They are my staff. They were aware of Dr Fridolfsen's arrest, and I'd asked them to keep an eye out for anyone suspicious on the property, particularly if they were attempting to remove anything from the facility. It looks like that's exactly what they did here – tried to stop him from stealing these waste containers that definitely didn't contain waste. Thor? Odin? Is that what was happening here?"

Odin nodded. "Of course, Doctor Valdis. As you see, we were right to be suspicious."

After some arguing, the policemen took Thrym and his vehicle with them, along with a large number of pictures of the broken barrels and artefacts, but none of the actual artefacts, because Freyja was insistent that no police evidence locker was equipped to properly preserve priceless cultural treasures, whereas the facilities at Icelab were designed to do just that. When one of the policemen suggested that the lab might not be secure, she merely shrugged and said the contents of the barrels couldn't have come from inside Icelab, as the barrels were sealed at the dig site and remained sealed until disposed of by the waste contractor, because of the risks of transferring some unknown pathogen from the ice. Even she wouldn't handle the contents of those barrels without a hazmat suit.

The policemen backed off in a hurry, leaving Thor and Odin to clean up the mess, while Sibyl and Jorunn took care of the artefacts. Ingrid and her photographer headed off, too, chattering in rapid Norwegian about the press coverage they hoped to get for this story.

"I can't believe we finally caught them. Such incredible luck that Nik's accomplice came here while the police were here. Karl's been trying to work out how things have been going missing for years now. If Nik had gone to Egypt this year, like he'd originally planned, we might never have figured out it was him," Freyja said.

Jorunn shrugged. "Saint Nik probably contacted him as soon as he could, only Thrym couldn't get here until the roads were cleared. If he had gone to Saqqara instead, hopefully his colleagues in Egypt would have found him out before too much went missing...and I've heard the penalties for theft there, especially valuable antiquities, are a whole lot harsher than here in Norway. Oh well. At least he won't be stealing stuff again in a hurry."

"Or the other guy. Did Thor really crush both of the poor man's feet with his hammer?"

"I dropped it," Thor said, looking aggrieved. "I should have swung it at him instead and broken more than just his feet."

"Then you really would have lost your hammer," Sibyl said. "If you'd killed a man with it, the police would have arrested you and taken away the murder weapon as evidence. So it's a good thing you only dropped it. Now, we know it'll stay safe here."

The others headed inside, but Odin and Freyja lingered in the courtyard. The melting snow had washed away Sibyl's blood, leaving no sign of Thor and Fenrir's fight, aside from the broken sundial that Freyja had already informed the university had been damaged by the blizzard.

"Did everything go well with Orm and the policemen?" Odin asked.

Freyja smiled. "Yes, of course. They were just leaving when we heard shouting, and came out here to investigate. You're lucky the police didn't look too deeply into your background. Sibyl said she has a cousin back home who might be able to help you get some identity documents so you, Thor and Loki can pass for modern men. It will take some time, though."

"In the meantime, I will stay here with you, as your maintenance man," Odin declared.

Freyja laughed. "Oh, I hope you'll be a lot more than that!"

FORTY-NINE

Freyja sat down in the cafeteria and opened up her laptop. It felt like forever since she'd last talked to her family, but in reality, it had only been a few weeks. She'd tried calling earlier, but this was the first time everyone's rosters had lined up enough to have everyone home.

Of course, Mum answered. "Hello, darling. How is the iceman doing?"

Freyja blinked. She hadn't told them about Odin – how could they possibly know?

Fintan's face popped up behind Mum's shoulder. "Mum's been following every news story and article she can find on your iceman since she first saw you being interviewed on the news. Even at my work, people were asking if I was related to you. You're famous!'

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