Page 92 of Viking Unchained

Oh, great! Give them hope.

“Though I cannot imagine myself milking a cow.”

Everyone laughed then, deciding to put aside all these heavy thoughts. “Come inside for a light lunch before you go into town,” Julie coaxed.

“Light? Hah! She’s been workin’ since dawn to prepare a feast for you all,” Herb teased.

“Oh, you!” Julie said, but then she seemed to notice something about Finn and did a double take.

Addressing Lydia now, she remarked, “It’s all well and good to say this man has nothing to do with Dave, honey, but have you noticed what’s etched on that one arm ring?”

No, she hadn’t.

Peering close, she saw . . .

Stars.

She slapped a hand over her rapidly beating heart.

And she could swear she heard a laughing voice in her head say, “Babe.”

The memorial service would

be memorable . . .

Jamal breathed a sigh of relief, just barely missing a security guard as he gained entry into the city’s maintenance warehouse just after midnight on Thursday night.

No one would recognize him from a distance as a person of Arab descent, or even as a man, dressed as a restaurant worker coming home from a night shift. He wore a blond wig, blue contact lenses, theatrical makeup, a waitress uniform, and orthopedic white shoes. Thank Allah for the Internet. The hardest part had been shaving his legs, and double shaving his face. On the way here, he’d passed two men on the other side of the street, who he assumed were undercover agents. The town was swarming with them . . .

FBI, police, those damn Navy SEALs.

Quickly, using a flashlight, he found the statue of his enemy, under a sheet cover. He would like nothing better than to blow it to pieces right now, but his plan called for much more. He wanted it to explode when Lydia Denton and her son were sitting on the platform in front of it during the ceremony.

He propped the flashlight so it shone steadily on the brass plate, which read: LIEUTENANT DAVID DENTON

U.S. NAVY SEAL

PROUD WARRIOR

PROUD SON OF FARMDALE, MINNESOTA

1973-2003

His upper lip curled back over his teeth with disgust as he quickly set out his tools. Screwdriver to undo the plate. Chisel and mini-hacksaw to dig a hole under the plate big enough to hold the time-release bomb he carried in his giant purse. It was not a huge bomb. Unlike the evil Denton, he cared about collateral damage. A radius of twenty feet would do nicely.

To his surprise, it only took him an hour to complete the job and replace the plate and sheet covering.

Then he left for his new hiding place. He would not return to the hillsides near the two farms. Too risky now. Instead he would go to the home on the outskirts of town, which he had commandeered at knifepoint, the two elderly residents tied to their kitchen chairs with duct tape.

Only a day and a half more.

Then he could get on with his life.

When life seems to be all

lemons . . .

“So that’s it,” Emory Davis, FBI agent, said to the roomful of police, Homeland Security operatives, SEALs, and family members Friday morning, after everyone had spoken.