Chapter 1
All those people flocking to tropical beaches in summer didn’t know what they were missing.
Noelle squinted at the breathtaking view in front of her. With the bright sunlight reflecting off the ice and sea, the massive icebergs in the distance appeared otherworldly. Majestic. Even magical, if you believed in such things.
And what were those oddly-shaped dark masses in the middle of the half-frozen ocean? Islands? Mountains? A different type of iceberg?
One mystery at a time, she reminded herself, zipping her jacket all the way up and picking up her suitcase, its fluorescent-green zippers looking really out of place against this pristine landscape untouched by civilization. Noelle and the other interns hadn’t come all the way to northern Greenland to gawk at icebergs. Their destination wasn’t out at sea, but on solid ground. Frozen solid, more like. But what was a little cold in exchange for an adventure of a lifetime? And boy, did Noelle need this, especially after—
Loud throat-clearing brought her back to the present. Noelle looked over her shoulder. Alex, a fellow intern, stood right behind her, his tall frame bent uncomfortably in the tiny charter jet’s doorway. She definitely needed to move.
“Sorry!” She threw him a sheepish smile and motioned to the icy landscape. “Isn’t this something?”
He smiled back with a nod. Apparently, even Norwegians like Alex, with their famous fjords, weren’t used to a sight like this, especially in summer.
Just as Noelle reached for the railing, a gust of icy wind hit out of nowhere, throwing her hair in her face.
“Whoa!”
Her feet slid off the step. The suitcase in her other hand and the backpack on her back weren’t helping, either, as Noelle frantically fought to regain her balance.
Once a klutz, always a klutz.
They say you get a glimpse of the future right before it happens, when it’s too late to do anything about it. Noelle definitely saw an embarrassing face-plant in the cold mud in her future, right in front of the other interns and their expedition leader, waiting a few steps away.
Just then, strong hands grabbed her from behind.
Noelle froze. Logically, she should be relieved, having avoided an embarrassing fall and probably a few bruises, but…
Alex eyed her with concern. “Are you all right?”
Now was definitely not the time or the place to unpack the “fight-or-flight”, or, in her case, “freeze” response to any unexpected physical contact.
Noelle mumbled her thanks and attempted to grab the railing again. But Alex’s hand on her backpack held her back.
“Need some help with your suitcase?”
Apparently. Noelle forced a smile. It wasn’t even a huge suitcase. She had learned to travel light growing up in a military family and moving across oceans on a short notice. But a short, scrawny college student like her, who looked younger than her twenty-two years, must have still appeared pathetic struggling with her luggage, especially given the strong wind and rickety steps.
She sighed and discreetly snapped a black hair tie around her wrist, reminding herself not to freak out for no reason. Alex just wanted to help.
As she made her way down the steps, holding on tight to the railing this time, she hoped he hadn’t noticed her deer-in-the-headlights look.
Alex deposited both his and Noelle’s suitcases in the pile with the others and joined the group with a tall woman at its center, her salt-and-pepper hair cropped short. Professor Doctor Dagmar Lindt, their welcoming committee and the head of their expedition, looked just like her photo in the recruitment flyer.
Alex nodded to Doctor Lindt, then nudged the dark-haired guy next to him with his elbow. “Any sign of those little green men yet, Brian?”
Brian grinned. “No, but I don’t see any Viking settlements, either.”
Noelle rolled her eyes. Those archeologists had wild imaginations. But her new co-workers had a point: their new surroundings could inspire any number of myths, legends, and conspiracy theories. Or conceal a mystery that could potentially re-write history, according to the flyer for this expedition that had enticed even Noelle, a non-archeologist, to sign up.
Doctor Lindt chuckled. “I see you brought the right attitude. Let’s get you all settled in.”
***
Station Nord, a tiny Danish military base with a state-of-the-art polar research station, was just a speck in the huge frozen desert of northern Greenland. For the next six weeks, it would serve as the expedition’s “home base”. But the archeologists’ actual destination lay several kilometers up the coast, where a few years earlier, the soldiers of the Sirius Patrol, while surveying the Greenland coastline with their dog sleigh team, had stumbled upon something unusual.
As Noelle followed the rest of the interns and Malu Petersen, their guide for the day, around Station Nord, she couldn’t help wondering about the soldiers’ first reaction to their find. They obviously hadn’t dismissed it as just a frozen cave or a lair of some large arctic predator. Any sign of civilization this far up north, other than their own tiny base, must have come as a shock.
Noelle took in her surroundings, picking her way around large puddles. After the interns had dropped off their luggage at the Villum Research Station, Malu led them around a handful of squat wooden buildings. Those and a tiny runway for an occasional plane bringing supplies from the continent were the only man-made things for hundreds of miles, as far as the soldiers had known. So, a large tunnel in a hillside just up the coast with objects that definitely hadn’t been crafted by polar bears, would qualify as unusual.
“Unusual” wasn’t a strong enough word, according to the handful of Danish archeologists who had examined the soldiers’ find the previous summer, before the cold temperatures had forced them to decamp back to the continent. More like “extraordinary”, “mysterious”, and possibly capable of upending existing history canons.
And Malu, a PhD student from the University of Copenhagen, had been a member of that expedition. Only a few years older than Noelle, the native Greenlander with long, shiny black hair, had an easy-going, confident manner Noelle could only dream of. Perfect for answering the newcomers’ many questions about the mysterious tunnel and what they could expect to find there.
“Artifacts aren’t exactly pretty when they first come out of the ground, and what we found last summer looked like a bunch of rusty nails and ceramic fragments,” Malu said. Then she smiled. “But wait till you see what our lab did with those! A picture is worth a thousand words.”
“Not the one we got,” grumbled Brian.
He had a point: the single artifact photo in the flyer for the expedition had featured just what Malu had described: rusty nails and jagged ceramic pieces. What was so special about them, other than where they had been found?
Malu snorted. “It was an accurate ‘before’ picture. But now, the professors have the newest images from the lab in Copenhagen.” She flashed them a grin. “Oh, and Doctor Lindt said they found something really cool inside the tunnel this morning, and took a few pictures for their presentation. I haven’t even seen those pictures yet.”
Something cooler than rusty nails and broken dishes? Noelle was all ears.
“They think it’s a huge wall mural, or at least it used to be,” said Malu.
Jan, another Norwegian intern, stopped in his tracks, barely avoiding a large puddle, and gaped at her. Yep, Noelle wasn’t the only one who thought this new find was definitely cooler than rusty nails.
Malu continued, “The professors cleaned up only a few small parts of it so far, but even those parts are supposed to be really impressive.” She sighed. “Do you know how hard it was to leave the dig last year, with all those mysteries practically begging to be uncovered?”
Last year, the archeologists had had only a few weeks to examine the site before the arctic summer had given way to even frostier weather and forced them to return to the continent. Judging by her enthusiasm, Malu must have signed up for this expedition the moment it had become official.
The young woman smiled, wistful. “If we keep this up, maybe I can finally convince the University of Greenland to open their own archeology department. Nothing against the University of Copenhagen, but Greenland is my home.”
Noelle couldn’t help feeling a bit envious. Malu knew where she belonged. Things weren’t as clear-cut for Noelle herself, who had grown up on various US military bases around the world, with an American father and a German mother.
To her, the question “Where are you from?” didn’t have a simple answer. Noelle always had to specify what exactly people wanted to know: where she was born? Where she started kindergarten? Or maybe they wanted to know where she graduated high school? Because those three places weren’t even on the same continent.
Edita, a tall young blonde, cleared her throat and asked, “So, when are we going to the dig?”
Unlike the previous summer, this new expedition was bankrolled by several prominent archeological societies on both sides of the Atlantic and included three professors and six interns from five different countries. In addition to Edita, who hailed from Lithuania, there were three Danes, three Norwegians, Brian from the US, and Noelle, representing her German university.
Malu snorted. “Newbies! You’re not going anywhere until you complete your survival training with Sergeant Andersen.” She gave Brian, who had kept their group laughing on the plane with his never-ending jokes and outrageous alien theories, a pointed look. “And I want you all to take it seriously. We are hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest town, so even in emergencies, help may take hours, if not days, to arrive.”
Brian nodded, all serious now. “I get it. And I’ve had plenty of experience with cold weather, living in Minnesota and all.”
Malu shook her head. “It’s not the same. I grew up in Greenland, but things are quite different in my home town, a thousand kilometers south of here. We have internet. And roads. And a hospital.”
Needless to say, Station Nord had none of those. No cell phone reception, either.
Malu continued, as she led them to the canteen where they were supposed to meet Sergeant Andersen, “Things are even more basic at the dig. Last year, there were only five of us, so we lived in the mobile lab on-site, and only came here for supplies every few days. This time, we will rotate between the mobile lab and Station Nord, since the trailer can only fit a handful of people comfortably.” She cracked a smile. “Consider yourselves lucky. The showers at Station Nord are way better than in the trailer.”
Brian was about to say something, but Malu held up her hand. “Don’t worry, you’ll spend most of your time at the dig, whether you’re sleeping at the mobile lab or here. But tonight, you’re all staying here.”
Noelle wasn’t the only one who groaned in disappointment. She couldn’t wait to start this once-in-a-lifetime adventure, despite, or maybe even because of the huge curveball life had thrown her the previous summer. Here, with ancient mysteries to occupy her mind, her nightmares would have to take a backseat. Hopefully.
And Noelle, a linguistics major, was definitely qualified to handle the expedition’s paperwork in English, as all those universities and archeological societies sponsoring the excavation had required. She wasn’t afraid of getting her hands dirty, much less of paperwork.
Her new coworkers didn’t need to know what she was afraid of.
Noelle shook off that thought and hurried to catch up with Malu, who stopped in front of the entrance and eyed the interns’ boots, all caked in mud. She raised an eyebrow.
“Everyone brought indoor shoes, right?”
***
The interns had barely finished their mashed potatoes and something that looked like a cross between Salisbury steaks and German Frikadellen, when Malu introduced them to a tall man in Danish military uniform.
“Have fun!” she said with a mischievous smile, heading out.
Fun. As if. The gruff sergeant didn’t look like he knew what that word meant. Noelle, no stranger to the ways the military ran things, braced herself for a long, slow “death by PowerPoint”.
To her relief, Sergeant Andersen believed in a more practical approach. The muddy boots came back on, and the interns got busy building an emergency shelter right outside the Quonset hut-like garage where the soldiers stored ATVs and emergency equipment. Once they were done with that, the sergeant had them practice with emergency beacons and radios, while he walked around with a clipboard and checked items off his long list.
Their work was punctuated by barking in the distance. When the interns asked about the Sirius Patrol dog teams, Sergeant Andersen’s response was, predictably, short and to the point.
“The dogs don’t pull sleighs in summer,” he said. “And they are working dogs, not pets. Don’t feed them, don’t pet them, just… don’t.”
The gruff sergeant conceded that snapping a picture of the dogs was okay. From a distance, he emphasized, then not-so-subtly directed the interns’ attention back to the emergency beacons, quizzing them on the correct ways of using them, as well as on the base safety rules.
Finally, when the interns packed up and put everything away, Sergeant Andersen motioned them to a folding table with a long box on it.
“Most of you indicated on your application forms that you know how to handle firearms,” he said, opening the box to reveal a black, heavy and old-school-looking rifle inside.
Brian whistled. “Cool! We get to shoot, too?” He stepped closer, looking hopeful, but the sergeant held up his hand.
“Not today. Hopefully, not at all during your entire stay. But your excavation site is almost ten kilometers away from Station Nord. You may need to defend yourselves against, say, an animal attack, until help arrives.” He frowned. “Even though it’s unlikely where you’re going.” He motioned to the weapon on the table. “Your professors are all trained on this type of rifle, modified for use in the Arctic, but, just in case, I’ll walk you through the basics.”
Needless to say, the sergeant wouldn’t even let them touch the rifle, while he pointed out different parts and explained the differences between this particular weapon and the ones used elsewhere, like in the military, or by civilian hunters.
Judging by the questions the other interns peppered him with, they all had at least a working knowledge of firearms. It turned out that Edita came from a long line of hunters and snipers, and she had accompanied her grandfather on multiple hunting trips growing up.
Noelle stifled a groan. Unlike Edita, she was descended from at least three generations of nearsighted people on her mother’s side. And even though her father, a combat veteran, could probably shoot a rifle standing, kneeling, or lying down, Noelle herself was completely useless with firearms, even with her glasses on.
And yes, she was probably the only expedition member who had answered “no” to the question about firearms skills on the application form. Great. She wasn’t just the smallest and weakest member of the expedition, but also the one with the fewest survival skills, at least the ones that mattered here. Noelle still remembered how to use a gas mask from emergency drills on several bases, but what good would it do in the icy desert?
Sergeant Andersen finally put away the rifle and nodded to the interns. “We’re done for today.”
Brian raised his hand. “One more question: why did you say that animal attacks are unlikely where we’re going?”
“Animals seem to avoid that place,” replied the sergeant with a frown. “Even our dogs act strange when they get close to it. How do you think the soldiers found that tunnel?”
How, indeed? And why would the arctic wildlife avoid a huge, cave-like opening in the rock that could offer them shelter from the harsh elements?
Since the gruff sergeant refused to elaborate, Noelle hoped the professors would.
