The Wolves of Freydis Read online

  The Wolves of Freydis

  A Carter Devereux

  Mystery Thriller

  Book 2

  By JC Ryan

  Edited by Rosamond Carter

  Copyright 2016 by J C Ryan

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  All rights reserved.

  Your Free Gift

  As a way of saying thanks for your purchase, I’m offering you a free eBook if you join my newsletter here: JC Ryan Books

  MYSTERIES FROM THE ANCIENTS

  THOUGHT PROVOKING UNSOLVED ARCHAEOLOGICAL MYSTERIES

  This book is exclusive to my readers. You will not find this book anywhere else.

  We spend a lot of time researching and documenting our past, yet there are still many questions left unanswered. Our ancestors left a lot of traces for us, and it seems that not all of them were ever meant to be understood. Despite our best efforts, they remain mysteries to this day.

  Inside you will find some of the most fascinating and thought-provoking facts about archaeological discoveries which still have no clear explanation.

  Read all about The Great Pyramid at Giza, The Piri Reis Map, Doomsday, Giant Geoglyphs, The Great Flood, Ancient Science and Mathematics, Human Flight, Pyramids, Fertility Stones and the Tower of Babel, Mysterious Tunnels and The Mystery of The Anasazi

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  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 - Breaking news

  Chapter 2 - In three days

  Chapter 3 - Will he get through this?

  Chapter 4 - Until I see their dead bodies

  Chapter 5 - A very unusual request

  Chapter 6 - On your shoulders

  Chapter 7 - How did it happen?

  Chapter 8 - Tying up the loose ends

  Chapter 9 - First day on the new job

  Chapter 10 - Moving him out

  Chapter 11 - Competitive Response Solutions

  Chapter 12 - We have to continue the work

  Chapter 13 - A few inquiries and a private interview

  Chapter 14 - She called silently into the night

  Chapter 15 - Out of the hospital

  Chapter 16 - The next mission

  Chapter 17 - She willed him to find it

  Chapter 18 - What have you got there girl?

  Chapter 19 - You can do the math

  Chapter 20 - Where do we start?

  Chapter 21 - I was captured

  Chapter 22 - They must be desperate

  Chapter 23 - I have to find them

  Chapter 24 - Fifty million on the table

  Chapter 25 - Executive Advantage

  Chapter 26 - I had a dream

  Chapter 27 - VIP protection

  Chapter 28 - No buts, Jim

  Chapter 29 - The briefing

  Chapter 30 - Nothing can be tracked back to us

  Chapter 31 - Four days of hell

  Chapter 32 - Three meetings

  Chapter 33 - Archeological special ops training

  Chapter 34 - Come have a look at this

  Chapter 35 - There was no lifeboat

  Chapter 36 - Step up the surveillance

  Chapter 37 - The cleanup was complete

  Chapter 38 - Shut up until you have proof

  Chapter 39 - I’m coming to the end, I fear

  Chapter 40 - An ethical dilemma

  Chapter 41 - He tried to sleep but he couldn’t

  Chapter 42 - The debriefing

  Chapter 43 - Mr. Greed won the battle

  Chapter 44 - What have you done Mackie?

  Chapter 45 - Time to talk to his friend

  Chapter 46 - Shake trees and rattle cages

  Chapter 47 - Let’s go to work

  Chapter 48 - On our radar

  Chapter 49 - The book is ready

  Chapter 50 - Closed their eyes and relaxed

  Chapter 51 - The lunch date

  Chapter 52 - The first links in the chain

  Chapter 53 - The second link in the chain

  Chapter 54 - The third link in the chain

  Chapter 55 - How did it come to this?

  Chapter 56 - The final link in the chain

  Chapter 57 - Tell me that! Where is he?

  Chapter 58 - The Wolves of Freydis

  Chapter 59 - Point and fire

  Chapter 60 - Freydis! I repeat Freydis!

  Chapter 61 - On the phones

  Chapter 62 - In the news

  Epilogue

  Also by JC Ryan

  About JC Ryan

  This is the second book in The Carter Devereux Thriller Series.

  Want to hear about special offers and new releases?

  Sign up for my confidential mailing list www.jcryanbooks.com

  Copyright 2016 by J C Ryan

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  All rights reserved.

  Your Free Gift

  As a way of saying thanks for your purchase, I’m offering you a free eBook which you can download from my website at www.jcryanbooks.com

  MYSTERIES FROM THE ANCIENTS

  10 THOUGHT PROVOKING UNSOLVED ARCHAEOLOGICAL MYSTERIES

  This book is exclusive to my readers. You will not find this book anywhere else.

  We spend a lot of time researching and documenting our past, yet there are still many questions left unanswered. Our ancestors left a lot of traces for us, and it seems that not all of them were ever meant to be understood. Despite our best efforts, they remain mysteries to this day.

  Inside you will find some of the most fascinating and thought-provoking facts about archaeological discoveries which still have no clear explanation.

  Read all about The Great Pyramid at Giza, The Piri Reis Map, Doomsday, Giant Geoglyphs, The Great Flood, Ancient Science and Mathematics, Human Flight, Pyramids, Fertility Stones and the Tower of Babel, Mysterious Tunnels and The Mystery of the Anasazi

  Don’t miss this opportunity to get this free eBook now. Click Here to download it now.

  Prologue

  Ahote turned over in the dark and lay on his back. He considered turning the bedside light on but didn’t want to disturb Bly.

  Something had woken him, but he couldn’t identify what. He frowned. For some reason, he felt uneasy. Bly stirred beside him, “Ahote? You okay?”

  “I suppose so.”

  She leaned up on her elbow, “That’s a strange answer.”

  “Hmm…”

  He got out of bed and restlessly went over to the double glazed window to look out over the snow-covered landscape. High above, the full moon caused the trees to cast their shadows towards the house.

  He put his head against the cold glass and rested there a moment as Bly got out of bed “Well dear, whatever it is, you will need a nice warm drink to get you back to sleep.” She pulled on her slippers that matched her floor-length pink flannel nightgown and wandered off into the open plan living quarters looking like a waif in the light cast by the glowing embers of the fire.

  A moment later the light in the kitchen came on, and he could hear her fixing a saucepan of hot milk
for them both.

  What was it? Something’s wrong; I can feel it; but what? He shifted uneasily in the dark.

  Moments later, he heard wolves howling; was that it? Is that what woke him? No, he was used to the wolves howling, he’d know something was wrong if they didn’t howl.

  He gave up and wandered into the kitchen. “The wolves are giving voice tonight, must be the full moon.”

  “Maybe it's them who woke you.”

  “No. Well, they might have, but they aren’t what’s giving me this presentiment of something being seriously wrong.”

  The wolves’ howls came closer, and Bly went to open the upper half of a Dutch door and peer outside. “Now, that’s odd. Those are Mackie’s wolves.”

  “How do you know? We don’t usually see them while Mackie and Carter are away. In fact, come to think of it, they haven't been here for a couple of months.”

  “Well, we’re seeing them now. They are actually in the compound near the barn, staring up at the house. They’ve never done that before. Come and see.”

  He got up and moved to her side. “Are you sure they’re Mackie’s wolves?”

  “Oh yes. I’d know their howl anywhere; it’s different from the others. They howl to get Mackie’s attention. I’ll bet if you check around Carter’s house and buildings in the morning, you’ll find their footprints. They’re looking for her.”

  Ahote sighed, “Oh hell Bly I hope you’re wrong. If they are looking for her, then something bad has happened.”

  ***

  The next morning, they took off on the snow sled and covered the mile to the Devereux homestead in a short time. There they dismounted and walked around the buildings.

  Sure enough, there were wolf prints in the snow up to the main house door and the windows. There were even signs the wolves had stood on hind legs to look inside.

  “This just isn’t normal wolf behavior, Bly.” Ahote was disturbed.

  “No, but these are not ordinary wolves Pet. They know and love Mackie, and they know something we don’t.”

  “How on earth can they do that?”

  “Perhaps the same way you woke up last night feeling something was wrong.” Bly shrugged, “There’s no way they’d come into close contact with the buildings here or at home if there were nothing wrong. We wouldn’t normally see them until Mackie returned; you know that.”

  When they arrived back at their house, the wolves were waiting for them.

  Bly told Ahote to wait for her and started to walk towards them. “Don’t do that Bly; they may not be all that friendly while Mackie’s away.”

  She turned back, “Don’t worry, we’ve been introduced. I know their names.” She smiled mysteriously at him.

  She drew closer, “Keeva, Loki, come.” She beckoned with her hand, and they moved closer. They stared into her deep brown eyes with their equally dark gold ones. She put out a hand and placed it on Loki’s head. “You’re looking for Mackie, eh? Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” Keeva moved in and welcomed Bly’s touch with a soft whine as if both of them were feeling lost and needed some reassurance.

  Bly smiled to herself. Ever since the Wolves met Mackie, and indeed even before that, they’d been around. They never caused any trouble but if Carter took a horse out for the day or chose to camp out for a while, they would go with him. When Mackie arrived, they seemed drawn to her, and she to them. She had never been afraid of them, and they came in close to walk side by side with her.

  Bly spent a few minutes just patting them and crooning a little Indian song, the sort she used to sing to her babies before they grew up.

  Eventually, they moved away and quietly vanished into the trees.

  She returned to the back porch and accepted a cup of hot coffee from Ahote, then settled down next to him on a bench, hunching deep into her all weather poncho.

  “Will you tell me their names?”

  Bly smiled, “Of course. The female is Keeva, which means beautiful and gentle, and the male is Loki, which means Wolf Spirit.”

  Ahote nodded and asked. “So, do you think they will come back?”

  “No, they don’t need to. They’ve done their bit; told us something is wrong. Now we have to worry about it.” She sipped her coffee.

  Ahote was silent for a moment. “You’re right though aren’t you? Their instinct for things goes far beyond what we can see, hear, and touch. Animals have instincts – no, they have knowledge about this world we live in – knowledge that we just don’t understand, although it’s not as though people haven’t tried.”

  Bly nodded, “Yes they have, but people want it all to be so cut and dried and it isn’t. Look at you; you feel something’s wrong, you can’t explain it but you know it’s real. They do too, they may even know what it is, but could never tell us how they know.”

  “Like the elephants in Indonesia that knew about the Tsunami days before it hit and moved up into the mountains for safety.”

  “Or birds that vanish before an earthquake.”

  They fell silent again then Ahote added “Like dog owners who claim that their pets know when they are due to come home even if they change their routine and arrived at different times. Still, without fail, the dogs go and wait for them at a door or window ten to twenty minutes before they come home just as always.”

  Bly giggled, “Do you remember that little dog we had when the children were small – the one who always knew when a visitor was due even though we weren’t expecting one?”

  Ahote laughed, “She was always right. So we just accept that Loki and Keeva know. No scientist on earth can explain how, all we can be sure of is there’s a link – an invisible cord - between them and the family. So something is wrong, and they came to tell us. Now that we know, they trust us to sort it out. Is that how it goes?”

  Bly nodded “I’m afraid so. We are now sure something is wrong, and the wolves expect us to fix it. It would help to know what it was.”

  A phone call to the Andersons went unanswered so there was nothing more they could do.

  It was two days later, when James Rhodes called, that their presentiments became real.

  Chapter 1 -

  Breaking news

  United Airlines flight 7 hours out of Tel Aviv, 5 hours after the bomb explosion in Jerusalem’s Downtown Triangle

  James Rhodes tried to stretch his long legs to ease the discomfort of being cramped for so long in the airline seat. His thoughts briefly turned to his friend Carter and his family, well into the first day of their six-week holiday, as he flipped through the channels on the small TV screen in front of him.

  Carter had accompanied him to the airport to see him off and to wait for the arrival of his family on a flight from Boston, which was scheduled to land within an hour after James' departure.

  He found the CNN channel just as a red, flashing, breaking news banner flashed on the screen ….

  Bomb explosion in Jerusalem. 15 killed, 35 injured.

  News about bombs killing and maiming people in the Middle East, especially countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, was an almost daily event. However, bomb blasts in Israel were not such a regular occurrence, even more so in Jerusalem. But that was not what set the alarm bells off in James’ brain. Those stomach-churning sounds in his brain were triggered by the thought of his friends, Carter and Mackenzie Devereux with their six-year-old son Liam, who were on holiday in Jerusalem.

  Oh God, please don’t let them be part of this, was his first thought as he grabbed the earphones out of the seat pocket, plugged them in and started pushing buttons to find the one that controlled the volume.

  He'd set out from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International airport seven hours earlier. He and Carter had just finished a research expedition to India and Egypt, and he was on his way back home. Carter and his family were getting a six-week holiday under way, starting with two days in Jerusalem and the rest of the time on a luxury Mediterranean Cruise ship. Carter had accompanied him to the airport to see him off and to wa
it for the arrival of his family on a flight from Boston, which was scheduled to land shortly after James' departure.

  Finally, he found the right button and raised the volume to hear the news. As the facts were announced, a nauseating foreboding started to wash over him. The bomb explosion happened about five hours after he departed from Tel Aviv. It happened in the Downtown Triangle of Jerusalem – that was very close to the hotel where he and Carter stayed for the last two days before he left. The two of them had visited the Triangle the night before, and Carter told him that he was planning to take his family there on the first night after their arrival.

  The Triangle is a big place; he kept telling himself. Maybe they weren’t even in the Triangle when the bomb exploded.

  The fact that thus far four American citizens were amongst the dead and injured did not help to alleviate his disquiet. Neither did the notice that the final death and injury toll was still unknown but would undoubtedly increase over the next 24 hours, as rescue teams sifted through the rubble to locate additional victims. No names or details would be released until next-of-kin were notified.

  James spent the remaining hours of the flight looking out the window, torn between hope and fear for his friend and his family. After hours that seemed like an eternity, the plane finally landed at Dulles International in Washington, DC. As it touched down, he had his cell phone ready in his hand, waiting for the announcement, which would allow passengers to switch on their mobile devices. The announcement came as soon as the plane started taxiing to the main building. He could not switch his phone on quick enough to suit him.

  The moment the phone connected to the cellphone network a series of loud beeps sounded, there were two messages – a voice mail notification and a text message. He read the text message first. It was from Hunter Patrick, the Director of A-Echelon, where he worked: Contact me the moment you land. It’s critical. He pushed the speed dial button to retrieve his voicemail messages. It was Hunter Patrick’s voice – “Jim, I know you will still be en route when I leave this message, but I just want to make sure that you contact me the moment you get my messages.”