Operation Napoleon (13 page)

‘Who are
they
?’

‘Military intelligence, mainly. They knew the Icelanders were sensitive about troop movements, especially in those days, so someone had the brainwave of sending Armstrong and the astronauts to Iceland for training exercises in the lava fields to the north of the glacier. The Icelanders welcomed the astronauts with open arms, of course, and were very understanding about all the military manoeuvres connected with the mission. You were told that the landscape in the interior resembled conditions on the moon. Preposterous! But you guys swallowed it. In actual fact, it was designed to deflect attention from the biggest movements of troops and equipment undertaken by the Americans in Iceland since the war. Whatever that plane contains, those are the lengths some people are prepared to go to in order to find it.’

‘But why not go to Hawaii if they needed to practise in a lava field?’ Steve asked.

‘I have a notion where the idea came from,’ Thompson continued, seemingly invigorated by recounting these long-ago events. ‘There was a pilot here with the Defense Force from around 1960 who flew Scorpion fighter jets: Parker, Captain Parker was the name. When a group of astronauts made a refuelling stop here at Keflavík, incognito, in the summer of ’65, the press office decided to cash in on the fact and the story really caught the public imagination. This guy Parker was in charge of the group. So when they needed to send an expedition to Vatnajökull in ’67 without attracting any attention, Parker had the bright idea of inviting Armstrong over, figuring that it would cause even more of a sensation, because by then Armstrong had commanded a spaceflight, the Gemini 8 mission.’

‘And nobody knew about this?’ Steve asked.

‘So many people were involved that something must have leaked out, though none of it could ever be confirmed. They failed to find the plane – if indeed it exists. The whole thing was a complete fiasco. It was rumoured that the secret service had taken control of the embassy in Reykjavík during the operation, as well as the base here in Keflavík. The leader of the expedition was called Carr, General Vytautas Carr. Old-school. Hard as nails.’

‘But they didn’t find the plane?’

‘I don’t know what happened. It was April but winter was far from over. There was one of those Easter blizzards, as you call them – a storm that blew up out of nowhere and lasted for days. They simply weren’t prepared for Arctic conditions in April, became blinded by wind and snow, and had to get off the glacier, losing four men in the process. Two of them fell into a crevasse, the other two got separated and died of exposure. They were driven off the glacier, exhausted and defeated, and by the time the weather improved, the plane had vanished, if it was ever there. Like I said, Leo and the others often used to discuss it but I don’t know how much is true, though the astronauts did come here, that’s for sure.’

‘If the plane has emerged from the ice and the soldiers saw my brother . . .’ Kristín left the sentence unfinished.

‘I don’t know,’ Thompson replied. ‘I don’t know what to say, dear. You must hope for the best but there’s something about that plane. According to one guy, it crashed shortly after the end of the war and the plan had been to dismantle it and remove it from the glacier. He claimed it had come from Berlin. For a long time there was talk of gold, the Third Reich’s last gold reserve. The story went that American soldiers stole it from the Germans and meant to fly it across the Atlantic. But it was also rumoured to be carrying a cargo of those art treasures the Germans plundered from all over Europe.’

Nobody spoke.

‘And what do
you
think the plane contains, Mr Thompson?’ Kristín asked eventually.

‘You heard what I said. There are so many possibilities.’

‘What do you regard as most likely then?’

‘Someone said it was carrying a bomb built by the Nazis that we intercepted before the Russians could lay hands on it and that we were trying to get it back to the States.’

‘A bomb?’ Steve asked. ‘What kind of bomb?’

‘I don’t know but it might explain why they’re so obsessed with finding the damn thing.’

‘Do you know who Ratoff is?’ Kristín asked.

‘Never heard the name,’ Thompson said. His mind was clearer now; he had a good memory and had no difficulty recalling the distant past once he had got going.

‘Where did they approach the glacier from? Do you know?’

‘From the south. I can’t remember what the place was called. A couple of brothers lived nearby and acted as their guides. Farmers. That’s all I know, I swear to God. And that’s nothing but gossip and half-truths. I don’t believe anyone knows the whole truth.’

Arnold’s head snapped back as Bateman struck him a violent blow to the face and a new cut opened above his eyebrow. He would have screamed but they had bound him to the chair and gagged him with duct tape. He breathed frantically through his nose, his eyes goggling at the two men in white ski-suits. Blood seeped into his eye.

They had burst into his apartment, demanding to know if he owned the old Toyota in the parking lot in front of the building. Their tracker dogs had stopped by the car, refusing to budge, and the bonnet felt warm to the touch. It had taken a single phone call to trace the owner, and Arnold’s name was on the doorbell. This was the second time Arnold had been woken that night and he was in such a foul temper when the men tried to question him over the entry-phone that he refused to let them into the building. Before he knew what was happening, the door to his apartment had been kicked in.

He told them what he knew: he had taken the couple to the archives and left them there. But the men wanted to know far more – what Steve and Kristín were looking for, where they were now and how they intended to leave the area. Arnold inwardly cursed that son of a bitch Steve.

His face was covered in blood; these men did not waste time. It was not the first occasion Arnold had been in trouble with the military police but he had never seen these two before, nor had he experienced their methods of interrogation. They tied him to a chair and quite simply beat him to a pulp. He did not have a clue where Steve and the Icelander were or what they were looking for. He held out as long as he could, determined not to tell his interrogators the one thing that might come in useful, but his stamina was limited.

Bateman took out a thick roll of silver tape and bit off a ten-centimetre strip. Like Ripley, he was wearing white rubber gloves. Holding the tape in both hands, he stuck it firmly over Arnold’s nose and mouth, then stood in front of him, observing his vain attempts to gasp for oxygen with scientific detachment. When it looked as if Arnold was losing consciousness, Bateman grabbed one corner and tore it away from his nose, leaving a red welt where it had taken a small piece of skin with it.

Arnold’s nostrils flared frantically as he sucked in air. The tape still covered his mouth but he inhaled with all his might. Bateman picked up the roll of tape again, bit off another strip and wordlessly fixed the tape over his nose.

‘I’m not going to resuscitate you if you keep this up much longer, Arnold,’ Ripley said to him.

He writhed in the chair, his blood-drenched face becoming as suffused and swollen as a balloon. Bateman tore the tape off his nose again, this time removing it from his mouth as well.

‘I own a Zodiac,’ Arnold shouted breathlessly, when he could finally speak between desperate gulps of air. ‘Steve knows where it is. He’ll use it to get off the base. Don’t do it again; I beg you, for Christ’s sake, let me breathe.’

‘A Zodiac?’ Bateman asked.

‘I use it for smuggling. I smuggle drugs in and out of the base. I’ve been doing it for two years. Mostly cocaine but also speed and dope and . . . I sell it in Reykjavík. I have two contacts there called . . .’

‘Arnold,’ Ripley said in a level voice. ‘I’m not interested in your little schemes. Tell me where the boat is.’

‘I keep it in a bay to the west of the base. There’s a gap in the perimeter fence where the road from the big tool store takes a right turn into the lava field. The boat is hidden about five hundred yards away, pretty much directly below the gap in the fence.’

‘Excellent. And where are they headed, Arnold?’

‘To a beach just outside Hafnir. You’ll find it on the map.’

REYKJAVÍK,

SATURDAY 30 JANUARY, 0415 GMT

‘There have been some funny goings on here,’ observed the scruffily dressed detective in his early fifties, surveying Kristín’s flat.

Just before midnight the police had received a phone call from a man in the neighbourhood reporting a young woman in a distressed state who had burst into his family home, demanding to use their phone and speaking incoherently of murder – presumably at her house – before borrowing some clothes and vanishing. He had not intended to report the incident and it was more than three hours before he made up his mind to do so, largely at his wife’s urging. Although he did not say as much, he was rather ashamed of himself for having let such a thing happen to his family.

The police took a statement and checked the phone’s display to identify the number called by the mysterious woman. No one was home at the corresponding address but on investigation they discovered that the house-owner had a daughter. Her age seemed consistent with the description of the woman who had forced her way into the family’s home; she also lived in the same neighbourhood and this was deemed sufficient grounds to dispatch two officers. No one answered when they knocked on the door of the flat, located in a two-storey maisonette. The occupants of the upstairs flat said they had been out all evening.

Noticing a small hole in Kristín’s door, conceivably made by a bullet, the police called a locksmith. When they entered the flat the first thing they saw was a body lying slumped on the desk.

The detective stood over the man’s body, inspecting the contents of his wallet. According to his business card his name was Runólfur Zóphaníasson and he was involved in ‘Import–Export’. Apart from that his wallet contained a driving licence, some money, a sheaf of restaurant receipts, and debit and credit cards. The detective glanced around the flat: the furniture appeared to be in place, all the pictures hung straight on the walls, nothing on any of the surfaces seemed to have been disturbed, and there was no sign of any weapon. The body might just as well have fallen from the sky. Cautiously straightening the man up, he examined the bullet wound in his forehead and the gun in his hand.

‘Strange angle, don’t you think?’ he asked his colleague, who was younger and a good deal better dressed. ‘If you were going to shoot yourself in the head, would you aim straight at your forehead?’

‘I’ve never given it any thought,’ his colleague replied.

‘And if he did hold the gun up to his forehead, shouldn’t there be signs of scorching or powder marks? Or blowback on his forearm?’

‘So you don’t think it was suicide, despite the note on the computer?’

‘According to his driver’s licence, the man lives on the other side of town, in Breidholt. If you were going to kill yourself, would you go to someone else’s house to do it?’

‘Why do you keep asking me how I would do it if I was going to commit suicide?’ the younger detective asked, running a hand down the handsome tie that complemented his suit exactly. ‘Is it secret wishful thinking?’

‘Not secret enough, obviously,’ replied the older man, who in contrast was wearing a torn jumper and battered hat. ‘This Kristín who lives here, what does she do?’

‘Lawyer with the foreign ministry.’

‘And Runólfur here was in the Import–Export business, whatever that means. There’s no sign of a struggle, and the upstairs neighbours say they weren’t at home. Still, it’s a small gun. It wouldn’t have made much noise.’

‘You’re the firearms expert.’

‘Indulge me, if you will, in my attempted reconstruction,’ the elder officer said, ignoring his colleague’s jibe. ‘If you were going to kill yourself, would you shoot a bullet through the front door first?’

‘Let’s see, the door was open. He must have meant to shoot himself in the head but missed and the bullet entered the door. After that he aimed straight at his forehead to be sure of hitting it. Something like that?’

‘So he shot himself with the door of the flat open?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘This is one of the most cack-handed suicides I’ve ever seen. Why shoot himself here? Was he involved in a relationship with this Kristín?’

‘I imagine Kristín would be in a better position to answer that than I am.’

‘I suppose we’d better put out a wanted notice. But don’t say anything about her being a suspect in a murder inquiry, only that we need to speak to her.’

‘Is it really conceivable that a government lawyer could have killed this man?’

‘If I were going to murder someone, I’d go for a salesman every time,’ the older detective replied, carefully scrutinising the hole in the man’s forehead.