Page 20 of Dalla’s Royal Guards (Second Chance #3)

Twelve

“What have you found out?” Detri asked.

The pimple-faced twenty-something almost fell out of his seat in response. Detri scowled when the IT tech reduced the screen of the game he was playing and swiveled in his chair. He curled his fingers, fighting the urge to snap Kyle Worthington’s scrawny little neck.

“Oh, hey, man. I didn’t hear you come in. Yeah, I got the results back, but, listen, dude, they don’t make much sense,” Kyle said with an amiable smile.

“Give me the report,” Detri ordered.

Kyle swiveled in his chair again, grabbed a file folder off the desk, and held it over his shoulder. Detri took the folder, opened it, and quickly scanned the single page.

“She knows how to use that big-ass bow, that’s for sure. Look at the way she pulls it back and holds it steady. She looks just like Helga,” Kyle said.

Detri looked at the screen. Kyle was playing the video from Tomás’s body-cam. The helicopter’s angle gave them a perfect view of the woman below.

He motioned for Kyle to play the video in slow-motion again.

Detri leaned forward, and his eyes narrowed as he watched the woman pull a long arrow from the quiver she was wearing, fit the shaft, and pull back.

The strength that was needed to pull and hold the bow in that position would be substantial. It would take years of practice.

“Did you research competitions?”

Kyle gave him a skeptical look. “Dude, I don’t think they have competitions for Viking longbows, but yeah, I checked anyway. I also did an analysis of the shaft Tomás sent over. There was writing on it.”

“I know that. What did it say?” Detri asked, thumbing through the report.

Kyle replied as if he spoke Old Norse every day.

“The fire of Viking vengeance lives,” Detri murmured.

Kyle looked at him with a startled expression. “How did you know—? Oh, yeah, I translated it for the report. My bad.”

“How did you know what it meant?” he asked.

Kyle grinned and pulled up the game he had been playing. “Vikings’ Wrath. You pick up what they are saying and what the symbols mean. It’s based on the language of the old Norse gods and the Vikings. The game is bloody as hell. The Vikings were a blood-lusting bunch of savages back then.”

“Fascinating,” he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I want her name. Can you get it for me?”

“Now, that is the interesting part.” Kyle smirked and flipped through several images, ending up with a picture of the woman drawing her bow on half of the screen while the other half had an image of the shaft they were able to analyze, zoomed in to a name etched into it.

“It would appear the lady likes to sign her work.” Kyle’s pleased smile dimmed with confusion. “But yeah, as you can see, her name doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

Detri’s gaze flickered back and forth between the woman and the name. They both seemed familiar.

“Did you run a search for her name?”

“Did I—? What kind of dumb question is that? Of course I did,” Kyle retorted.

Detri’s eyes narrowed on the back of Kyle’s head. The desire to kill the man-child was growing. The only reason he didn’t was because Kyle was good at his job. Otherwise, the Black Hat hacker would have been dead after the first time he mouthed off.

“And?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“You aren’t going to believe me, so I figured I’d show you.”

Kyle leaned over and tapped the Enter key.

Another image appeared on the screen above Kyle’s head.

Detri frowned. It was a comparison image showing the woman…

and numerous statues erected throughout the countries of Kashir and Narva.

Now he remembered a few of her stories. Dalla Bogadottir… that was interesting. And strange.

“So… the woman resembles a mythical warrior from history?”

Kyle was shaking his head. “Not resembles… is. I did facial recognition. The woman is an exact clone of the mythical warrior.”

Detri scowled. “That is impossible. The stories have her in a dozen time periods for a thousand years,” he scoffed.

“Longer than that. I’m telling you, man. I ran comparisons from every image available. The clothing, the bow, her stance… everything kept coming up a match. Look at this,” Kyle added.

Detri’s gaze turned to a new video Kyle was playing. It was from a CCV camera with a view of the plaza. The image was surprisingly clear.

“After Kramer sent me the body cam, I decided to find out if there were any other videos. You guys really need to invest in better cameras. The ones you’re using suck.

Anyway, I came across this one: newer than the others, more like a webcam than your usual dinosaur equipment.

It shows the entire plaza. See… here is where you guys enter, and…

wait for it— BAM! That was a classic ram. ”

Detri ignored Kyle’s enthusiastic running commentary of the car chase yesterday morning. His attention was focused on what happened after. There was gunfire. The camera position gave a clear view of the Narva prince’s overturned vehicle.

He watched as his men moved in. Nasser Al-Rashid pushed open the door and was emerging when the Belgian merc that was part of his team confronted him.

Nasser reached for something on the ground next to him, which, frustratingly, Detri still could not see, even with the larger screen and clearer image.

The next instant, Liam was propelled backwards with a long shaft through his body.

“Rewind that,” he ordered.

Kyle paused, rewound the video several seconds, and hit play again.

Detri watched it nearly a dozen times, unable to believe his eyes.

One frame there was no one on the car, the next a hazy image of a person, and then it was clearly the woman.

Kyle played the three frames over and over in slow motion.

Detri paused the frame on the second one.

“Can you enhance that?” he asked in a low voice.

“Maybe a little. I can enlarge it,” Kyle said.

Kyle enlarged the frame. It was clearly the woman—only he could see through her body. He clicked through to the next frame. She was solid, but in the enlarged frame, he could see a slight glow around her body… and what looked like?—

“Shit!” Kyle breathed out, staring in awe at the frame.

‘Shit’ was right. Feathered out behind the woman was a pair of wings. Both the glow and the wings disappeared by the fourth frame—yet they had both seen them. Detri straightened when his cell phone rang.

“Send me a copy of that and destroy everything else,” he ordered.

“Yeah. I’ll send it,” Kyle murmured in a distracted voice.

“And Kyle.”

“Yeah?”

His cell phone buzzed again. “If this leaks—anywhere—I’ll cut your head off. Social media included.” Kyle gulped and nodded. Detri lifted his cell phone and answered on the third ring. “We have a situation.”

“What is it?” Kramer demanded.

“We need to meet. Dima.”

His brisk tone must have registered with Kramer because the annoyance was gone when Kramer responded.

“I’ll be expecting you.”

New York City:

Present Day

In the hidden room tucked under the multi-story Brownstone that he called home, Harlem Jones sat back in his computer chair.

His first visit to the States had been in the service of a Viking that virtually everyone on the planet knew—Leif Eriksson.

He had been alive longer than Leif… and his father Eric.

Over the centuries, Harlem had served some of the most powerful rulers throughout history, and none at all. He preferred none.

His first visit to New York as it is now known had been out of curiosity to see how it had changed.

He came with the pilgrims and lived with them for almost a year.

Later, he traveled with the Indigenous tribes for a time before returning to Europe.

He moved here during the Revolutionary War to help the colonists fight for their freedom.

He’d fought beside some of history’s most iconic figures, regardless of the color of his skin. He had been influential in the foundation of more than one developing country.

The computer screen in front of him flickered, drawing his attention, which had wandered, and an image appeared.

He frowned and sat forward, studying the woman’s face on the screen in silence.

He knew her. She was like him—and yet different.

Their paths had only crossed twice in history, but both times had left an indelible impression on him.

“I thought you might be interested. She matches your search.”

He swiveled in his chair when a delicate voice echoed behind him. He lifted an eyebrow at the woman casually inspecting a tenth-century sword he had fashioned. When she replaced the sword with a look of distaste, his lips curved with amusement.

The unusual woman had become an unlikely ally in recent months. She was a vision, with her beautiful mane of red hair, hourglass figure, and stunning green eyes that glowed—literally.

She was always impeccably dressed—and to his amusement, era-accurate.

Today, she was dressed in a 1920s Flapper outfit complete with sparkling, beaded fringes that swirled around her knee-length black sequined dress when she moved, a black silk turban with peacock feathers, and matching Mary Jane heels.

“I am interested. I appreciate your assistance,” he responded.

“You probably would have received an alert—eventually. I just moved things along a little faster. I know you’ve been following what is going on in Kashir, especially because of its proximity to Simdan and Jawahir.”

“Yes, I’ve been following it,” he murmured, turning back to stare at the screen.

“I was searching the archives of photos from World War I, and I found this.”

He stared at a grainy, black-and-white photo from some obscure village in Eastern Europe. He remembered the village, and the photo, well, because he wasn’t the only one in it. So was the woman on the split screen.

“Imagine my surprise when the facial recognition came back a match.”

“Where is she?” he asked, his voice almost inaudible.

“Simdan at the moment.”

RITA brought him up to speed on the events since Dalla’s appearance in this time. He was just interrupting her to say, “I know who Kramer is,” when she suddenly stiffened and said, “Oh, dear.”

“What is it?”

“I just did a sweep of O’Toole’s little IT weasel. They are on to Dalla.”

“Erase the information—all of it,” he ordered.

“Done. I’ll keep an eye on things and keep you posted.”

“Thank you… and RITA.”

“Yes, dear.”

“And RITA—make sure any images from the past are wiped.”

“Already done. I’ve archived them where only you can reach them.”

Harlem returned his attention to the screen and reached for his cell phone.

“I need the jet ready to go in two hours with a flight plan to Simdan.”