Olaf's Stone: Book One

By Charles W. Jones

Olaf, a name handed down for centuries since the time of King Olof Skotkonung of Sweden, is given to several characters with Swedish ancestry. The discovery of a mysterious substance with properties previously untapped is passed on from one generation to another. Over time, the Olafs find out more and more about the potential for this special rock.
Their research is slowed down by finding a more useful substance, gold. The gold and its value tend to overshadow everything else as the Olafs use their riches for a variety of purposes. The study of the special rock, however, continues to yield some rather surprising results. Some come with unexpected perils involving everything from government intelligence agencies to small time hoodlums.
Curl up and follow the adventures of Olaf's stone!

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781663206053

Charles W. Jones

Charles W. Jones, AIA, NCARB lives in Augusta, Georgia and practices architecture in Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, New York and Connecticut. He is married with 4 children and spends a good deal of his time volunteering to teach free home Bible studies. Writing and watercolor painting are just a few of his hobbies. He is currently working on the next installment of the Olaf's Stone books. 7/21/20: Charles W. Jones, AIA, NCARB, lives in Augusta, Georgia, and practices architecture in Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, New York, and Connecticut. Though he spends a good deal of his spare time volunteering to teach the Bible. He also enjoys watercolor painting and is currently working on his next installment of the Ölaf’s Stone novels.

Book preview

ÖLAF’S

STONE

BOOK ONE

CHARLES W. JONES

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ÖLAF’S STONE

BOOK ONE

Copyright © 2020 Charles W. Jones.

Author Credits: Charles Willis Jones

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

iUniverse

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Because of the dynamic nature of the internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6632-0606-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-0776-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-0605-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020914616

iUniverse rev. date: 10/05/2020

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Dramatis Personae

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It is with a grateful heart that I thank my dear wife, Mary, for putting up with me during the process of writing this book and for her honest reviews of the story line. Without her assistance, this book would never have been written.

My patient friends Robert W. Brown and Buffy Duncan added thoughtful comments and were invaluable in helping to keep the action flowing in ways that appeal to my readers. Their taking the time to read earlier transcripts gave me the actual impetus to complete it.

Of course, all my friends and relatives who added their own colorful personalities and attitudes are the real reason for writing it in the first place.

Thank you to all!

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

PROLOGUE

The storm continued to rage as the small crew battled to keep their ship facing into the wind. The crew consisted of six young men aged eighteen to twenty-two. Ölof Karl Larssôn had been chosen as captain because he was oldest and the only one who had any experience out to sea. He was also the tallest, standing over two meters high, with long blond hair, a full blond beard, and a mean temperament. He was muscular and ready to take control of any situation. With steel-blue eyes, he keenly watched everything happening on board.

Ölof always wore the family heirloom, a silver bracelet with a single polished stone mounted in it. The storm’s winds were accompanied by sudden flashes of lightning followed almost immediately by deafening crashes of thunder. When a bolt of lightning hit the ship’s mast, the stone in the bracelet started glowing, and in an instant, Ölof was gone.

Chapter

ONE

DECEMBER 4, 2022

CHICAGO O’HARE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

A man sat in the newly renovated waiting area talking to a

fellow passenger in the Norwegian flight terminal. There were digital wall coverings that showed pictures constantly changing, some local and others from around the world. They were both waiting for the nonstop flight from Chicago to Stockhôlm, which was scheduled to board in just under half an hour.

Joshua said he had never been to Sweden and was to join a tour group for a seven-day vacation. Ölaf, on the other hand, born in Chicago after his parents had immigrated from Örebro, a small town in Sweden’s western hills, had traveled to Sweden yearly for the past twenty years. His family had moved to Houston, Texas, when he was about four years old, and that’s where he spent his formative years. From an early age, he had wanted to experience the cold, snowy winters in Sweden since the bright Texas sun left no place for snow, ice, or cold weather of any kind. He typically traveled to Sweden in the summers, but he preferred visiting during the colder seasons. His grandfather had told him that the small stone in his gold bracelet had an exciting history, but he never gave any details about it. All he had been told was that an ancestor, Ölof Karl Larssôn, was wearing a similar one when he disappeared centuries earlier.

Ölaf continued talking to Joshua. This time I’m going to spend some time in the area where most of my relatives live. I’m especially looking forward to seeing my grandfather. I was named after him, and he was named after his grandfather. Rumor has it that every second generation had an ‘Ölaf’ ever since the time of King Ölof Skötkonung, back in the tenth century. Our family line dates back to King Ölof, who appropriated about ten thousand hectares of land for his family. We still own that land today, though it’s mostly forests. At some point, the spelling of the name ‘Ölof’ was changed to ‘Ölaf,’ but no one seems to know when that happened. My grandfather tells me such interesting stories, and I want to hear as much as possible while he’s still with us.

Joshua boldly interjected. I never got to meet either of my grandfathers; they both died before I was a preteen. What kinds of stories has your grandfather told you?

Ölaf answered, I’m sorry to hear about your grandfathers. Well, I think mine tells me some of the things he must have heard when he was growing up. I can remember one of them as vividly as when I first heard it. The story began around the year fifteen seventy-eight, when a boy who enjoyed exploring found a cave not far from present-day Örebro. He often went to collect stones and whatever else he could find that seemed interesting. It was a long trip to the hillside, but he was accustomed to traveling. Sometimes he would take trips all the way to Stockhôlm. On this trip, he stumbled upon some lodestones in a cave—of course, he had no idea at all what they were—and added them to his collection. The discovery of their magnetic properties came while he was walking in the cave once and felt a pull on his pouch. He looked around to see who or what was doing it but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The pull came from just one direction, so he went that way. The pull got stronger as he continued walking. Then the pouch jumped toward one particular rock, and suddenly a small piece of that rock broke away and stuck to his pouch.

Interesting, Joshua said. Is there more to it than a boy finding some magnetic rocks?

Oh, yes! That’s just the beginning, Ölaf replied.

Before he could continue, the overhead speakers boomed to life and announced that all first-class passengers should board the plane. Both Joshua and Ölaf proceeded to the boarding clerk to have their passes scanned and ended up sitting next to each other. The first-class cabin was designed for comfort and convenience, with extrawide reclining seats, personal entertainment centers, and plenty of space for each passenger. Joshua stowed his carry-on bag and laptop before buckling himself into his formfitting seat. Ölaf never bothered with excess baggage and preferred not to be tied to a carry-on either when he traveled. However, he had checked a thin suit bag that was stored in the first-class cabin’s closet by the thoughtful flight attendant.

After takeoff, Joshua continued the conversation. I’ve been dreading this long flight to Stockhôlm with no one to talk to. I missed the earlier flight with my tour group, and I’m on my way to catch up with them at Grand Hôtel Stockhôlm. Anyway, you said there was more to that tale about the boy who found the magnets in a cave. What happened next?

We seem to have plenty of time on our hands, so I guess I could continue, Ölaf answered.

The flight attendant appeared and offered drinks to each of them. Ölaf ordered tonic water, and Joshua asked for vodka. It seemed like a good idea for Joshua to start his vacation to Sweden with vodka. After the drinks were served, the flight attendant brought each of them a small tray of fruit and pastries courtesy of the airline. Since the winter of 2020, all meat products had been prohibited on international flights. The outbreak of a persistent virus had killed over three hundred people before it was even noticed, and most governments agreed to ban meats on airlines, especially international flights, to avoid what happened with the coronavirus pandemic. The virus had spread quickly, and meat sales in general plummeted around the globe. Many major meat producers had already filed for bankruptcy protection. The virus seemed to have infiltrated several of the food processing companies that served airlines, and later it began to spread to supermarkets everywhere. The source of the problem still had not been found, and entire teams at the CDC worked around the clock to find it.

Ölaf continued his story. "That young boy’s name was Ölof Karl Larssôn, but everyone just called him Lars. He pulled the rocks apart and amused himself by watching them stick back together again. He eventually threw away all the other rocks in his pouch, keeping just the ones that stuck together. In time, he returned to the cave to search for more of those unique ones, and by the time he had collected quite a few of them, the job of finding more became much easier. This was because his collection seemed to pull loose stones toward them right out of the sides of the cave. He made a sled and piled his rocks on it. As he pulled it through the cave, some of his rocks would fly up and stick to the cave ceiling. With a little digging, much larger stones were added to the pile."

What did he do with all those magnets? asked Joshua.

The two were interrupted again as the attendant asked them about their lunch choices. Mushroom-eggplant lasagna with alfredo sauce was the choice of both, along with mesclun salad, toasted garlic bread, and a dessert of peaches and cream pie. White wine, complimentary 2013 chianti, made the whole affair a wonderful meal. Lunch was followed by a small glass of ice-cold aquavit, also complimentary.

It turned out that the meat ban was catching on in households all over the world. People were losing weight without even trying, and many smaller meat producers had gone out of business. Cows, goats, pigs, chickens, and fish everywhere rejoiced, multiplied, and began to reestablish the natural balance of things. It seemed that this tragedy resulted in a better, cleaner planet, and everyone, including the animals, benefitted from it.

Once again, Ölaf continued his story. "Now, where were we? Oh, yes, this is the interesting part. The pile of rocks ranged in size from about four centimeters up to over a quarter of a meter across. As the pile got heavier, he would take some smaller ones home to show his parents and leave the larger ones on the sled. As the months passed, Lars became better at spelunking, and he had created a smooth path for his sled so he could drag it farther into the cave. His prospecting had to be done on bright and sunny days, when the light reached deeper into the cave.

As winter approached, he was concerned about bears taking refuge in the cave, so he blocked the entrance with tree branches and built a fire at the mouth of the cave each time he returned, both for light and to keep animals out while he explored.

Joshua interrupted. Hold on—our travel brochure said there are no bears in Sweden!

Oh, that’s not actually true. There were many more bears back then, and there still are quite a few today, Ölaf clarified. "Whoever wrote your travel brochure probably does not live in Sweden. Sometimes I think brochures are written by marketing executives who never leave their high-rise offices and have completely lost touch with the real world.

The truth is that bears do not like the smell of freshly burned wood, so they avoid it. In fact, that’s the preferred way of warding off unwelcome animals when taking refuge from the elements in a cave. Each time he entered the cave, he would make sure the fire was roaring at the mouth of the cave, and his father had suggested he carry a whale oil lamp to light his way deeper into the cave. Since the Norwegian Sea was just over the mountains, many of his relatives went whaling with the Norsemen and brought back lots of whale meat and oil, providing a ready supply. Did your brochure mention sudden ice storms around this time of year?

No, Joshua admitted, but I did read about there being no bears, and since I have never been there before, I had no choice but to believe it.

Ölaf continued. In any event, Lars named the cave Lars Magnus, and as it turned out, the entrance to the cave was far too difficult for anyone to reach since it opened onto a ten-meter-high cliff in the side of a barren rock bluff. There was really no way to enter it other than using the rope ladder Lars had attached to a tree about two meters above the mouth of the cave. Still, he took no chances where bears were concerned.

Just then, the cabin attendant interrupted them to take their trays away. Since Ölaf had not finished eating, he kept his tray and continued to savor his wonderfully prepared snack. Joshua ordered another vodka and asked for more aquavit but was told that it was all gone. It wasn’t long before Joshua’s third vodka put him to sleep. It seemed that Norwegian served its own brand of vodka, which was a bit stronger than ordinary airplane fare.

The flight was smooth and uneventful. The Dreamliner was well built and retrofitted with lots of amenities it did not have in the initial version unrolled to the public a few years earlier. The attendants had their own private cabins, and the first-class compartment was more like a hotel parlor than an airline passenger compartment. Even the beds rolled into separate storage units built into the wall. The large windows featured electrochemical shading systems that automatically darkened or lightened based on the position of the sun.

Ölaf watched an old sci-fi movie in 3D before turning in for the night. The bed rolled itself out of its compartment in the wall, and Ölaf found it quite comfortable. It was firm but not too hard, thanks to the firmness controls set to his own preference.

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DECEMBER 4, 2022

FORT GORDON, AUGUSTA, GEORGIA

A s he sat in his new smaller office, Col. Michael Williams pondered his change of assignment. He was formerly in Maryland running NSA teams monitoring cybercrimes related to national security. Now he had been transferred to Fort Gordon in Augusta, Georgia, and given a three-person team playing nursemaid to a single operative with no previous field experience. As he sat waiting for something to happen, his mind drifted to food. He always got hungry when he was bored. The fort had a commissary, but it wasn’t quite like the selection of vendors and restaurants back in Maryland. Only two weeks previously, he could just walk down the block and choose from at least ten different kinds of pastries and twenty or so kinds of coffee. Now he had to choose between lukewarm nondescript coffee and day-old pastries or nothing at all. He had been told that the new cyber command section at the base was soon to be completed with a mall and food court, but it was nowhere near completion, nor would it be in the near future.

He decided to review the job at hand