Free The Norse Directive by Ernest Dempsey Page A

been up front with us?” Charlie asked in a demanding tone. “Someone tried to kill me over that darn thing.”
    Charlie’s statement startled Coop for a second. “Tried to kill you?”
    “Charlie, relax. Let him finish,” Sean tried to ease the momentary tension between the two friends. “Coop, we’ll fill you in later. Please, go on.”
    Their host seemed concerned about Charlie’s statement, but continued what he was saying nonetheless. “Very well, but I apologize for any problems this may have caused. The coin has been handed down through generations of my family along with Francis Jackson’s personal diary.”
    Charlie stared at his friend for several seconds without saying anything. His mouth drooped wide open, and his eyes remained narrow. Sean remained unfazed. He had a feeling there was something missing from the whole coin story. Now he knew what it was.
    “Where is the diary?” Sean asked evenly.
    Coop’s bearded face creased into a grin. He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a worn, leather book. It wasn’t much more than a notepad, but there was no question of its age. Sean wanted to say something about keeping an important piece of history like that somewhere safe and not around six kinds of barbecue sauce, but he decided to keep it to himself. The diary belonged to Coop. He could do with it what he wanted.
    Charlie, on the other hand, was less discreet. “Why in the world would you have that thing on you? And why would you bring it here?”
    “I wanted to show it to you two, and I didn’t want to wait,” Coop explained innocently. He handed the little journal over to Sean, who accepted it reverently.
    He’d seen his fair share of those sorts of things. Whenever he found something so old, so personal, he couldn’t help but feel a connection to the history and life of the person who’d created it. Over two hundred years ago, someone had been making notes in the book he held at the moment. Sean wondered what trials and journeys the diary had made through the last few centuries to end up in his hands.
    Carefully, he opened up the leather as if it would tear asunder. Inside, the pages were still in good shape. Vellum, he thought. Paper would likely have not survived that long, at least not with the owners of the diary taking it out to restaurants and exposing it to the elements.
    The writing on the pages had been done in dark ink that was still easily readable. The dramatic cursive lines demonstrated that the person who’d written it was well educated.
    Sean started reading, warily making sure he didn’t do any damage to the book.
    I managed to convince the king to let me and my men go to Denmark on a secret mission, one of utmost importance.
    After learning about Jonathan Stuart’s fascinating encounter with the hidden Danish tomb in 1801, I set about learning all I could about the location of it. The details were hard to come by at first, especially considering the fact that Stuart and his men discovered the burial mound quite by accident.
    Our ship let us go ashore before the main bombardment of Copenhagen began. We only had a small amount of time to complete our task before our rendezvous with the fleet on the return trip.
    One of my men discovered the burial mound, not far from the famous castle Kronborg near Helsingor. It was just as Stuart had remembered, a fact that surprised me given that he had to recount the events of his discovery through the fog of six years. On top of that, they’d found the tomb in the middle of the night, so seeing landmarks must have been nearly impossible. I suppose Stuart must have taken in the lay of the land during his escape the following morning. 
    Getting into the burial mound took a bit of work. Fortunately, we brought the tools necessary for the job, including picks and shovels for digging. The task of uncovering the entrance took less than an hour, due to the fact that it had been opened only six years prior.
    Once inside, we were