Operation Napoleon (18 page)

‘Our car!’ Kristín screamed as she tore ahead of Steve past the restaurant. She did not dare to look back. Steve was following hard on her heels; she could hear him breathing heavily just behind her.

Bateman emerged from the pub supporting Ripley and laid him on the steps. He had his gun in his hand and, scanning his surroundings, caught sight of Kristín and Steve jumping into the jeep parked in front of the florist.

‘It’s the Special Squad!’ exclaimed a teenage boy clutching a skateboard and pointing at Bateman. Bateman ignored him. He did not notice that people all round him had stopped and were watching him sprint along the street, gun in hand. He ran hunched over, like a hunter after his prey, his arms held straight down by his sides so the gun almost brushed the tarmac.

Kristín got behind the wheel of the Pajero and turned the key in the ignition and stamped on the accelerator simultaneously. The engine screamed into life. Shoving the automatic into reverse, she backed out of the parking space and down the street with wheels spinning, the tyres smoking on the wet tarmac. With a quiet popping sound, a small hole appeared in the windscreen just to the right of her head and another directly below it: Bateman was shooting as he ran. Kristín backed across the road, clipping a car approaching from the opposite direction, which made the Pajero spin forty-five degrees. She slammed the automatic into drive and screeched off down the road. They heard a low hiss as shots penetrated the chassis and Kristín ducked in the hope that this would protect her. Steve lay in the footwell on the passenger side, eyes wide with anguish.

Behind them, Bateman tore around the corner into the street in pursuit but he soon gave up the chase and shrank ever smaller in the rearview mirror before disappearing from sight.

SOUTH ICELAND,

SATURDAY 30 JANUARY, 1800 GMT

They stopped twice to fill up with petrol on their journey east. Kristín drove the whole way. According to the weather forecast, there was a severe storm affecting the east and north-east of the country but down on the southern lowlands through which they were now driving conditions were fine apart from some drifting snow. It was very dark; there was little traffic on the Sudurland highway and the further east they drove, the fewer vehicles they encountered. Soon only the occasional pair of headlights lit up the Pajero before disappearing just as suddenly, plunging Kristín and Steve into darkness again.

They were each wrapped up in their own thoughts and spoke little, except when the radio news reported the shooting incident in the city centre and Kristín interpreted for Steve. A man believed to be associated with the gunman had been admitted to hospital with injuries. Eight fishermen had been arrested but could not be interviewed at present because they were still under the influence of alcohol. The police were investigating possible links between the shooting and the murder of Runólfur Zóphaníasson, and were calling for witnesses to both incidents to come forward. It also emerged that a lawyer employed by the foreign ministry, who was wanted for questioning in connection with Runólfur’s murder, had still not been traced. Sources confirmed that she was a suspect in the murder of Runólfur, who had been involved in unspecified business with the ministry, and that she may also have been present at the shooting in the city centre. No details were given about the gunman. The incident was almost unheard of in Reykjavík where gun crimes were extremely rare.

Steve rang Michael Thompson from the car-phone. In the interim Thompson had dug out the details of the farmer who lived at the foot of the glacier and was able to tell them the name of his farm. Having obtained the phone number from directory enquiries, Kristín called Jón to make sure he was home. He said they were welcome to visit, though he did not know how he could help them.

They sat for a while without saying a word.

‘Have you thought about me at all since?’ Steve asked eventually, squinting in the glare of a pair of headlights that shot past, leaving them in darkness again. He had been sitting mostly in silence, eyes fixed on the monotony of the white road ahead, ever since they left Reykjavík.

‘From time to time,’ Kristín said. ‘I did try to explain.’

‘Sure. You didn’t want to be a GI whore.’

‘It’s not that simple.’

‘I don’t suppose it is.’

‘I’m so sorry to drag you into this stupid mess.’

‘What, that little game of cowboys and Indians?’ There was no humour in his voice, only weariness.

Kristín was lost in thought for several minutes.

‘It’s partly political. I oppose the presence of the American army on Midnesheidi. I could understand its strategic significance during the Cold War, but that didn’t mean I agreed with its presence. I’ve always regarded it as a blot on the landscape. It’s as simple as that. The Icelanders shouldn’t have an army and they certainly shouldn’t get into bed with one. Far too many people have prostituted themselves to the Defense Force already – businessmen, particularly. I should never have allowed things to go so far between us but . . .’

She groped for the right words.

‘You’re against the army. So what?’ Steve said.

‘It’s not that simple,’ Kristín repeated. ‘I’m opposed to the NATO base. Not as a member of an organisation or anything like that, but in my heart; I just can’t stand the thought of an army on Icelandic soil, whether it’s American, British, French, Russian or Chinese. Never, over my dead body, will I accept its presence here. And the more the debate has come to revolve around money, unemployment, redundancies and the economy, the stronger I’ve felt about it. It should never have come to this. It’s unthinkable that we should be financially dependent on an army. What does that make us? What have we become?’

‘But . . .’

‘War profiteers. No better than war profiteers. The whole damn Icelandic nation.’

‘Aren’t you just a Commie bastard?’ Steve asked, with a wry smile.

‘I should be of course but I’m not. I’m . . .’

‘A nationalist?’

‘An opponent of the army.’

‘But the base’s activities have been massively scaled down. They may close it any day now.’

‘I think you’re here to stay. For a thousand years. Don’t you see? For eternity. And you can’t imagine how horrific I find that prospect.’

They raced along the road, a beam of light piercing the darkness at a hundred and twenty kilometres an hour.

‘I’m not the American army on Midnesheidi,’ Steve pointed out at last.

‘No, I know. Perhaps we took things too fast. Perhaps we should have got to know each other better.’

‘Let me tell you who I am, so there’s no doubt about it,’ Steve said. ‘I’m a New Yorker. No, that’s not quite right, I’m from Albany, New York, and you’d know what I’m talking about if you’d read any William Kennedy.’

‘
Ironweed
,’ Kristín chipped in.

‘Did you see the movie?’

‘I did.’

‘The book’s better but I don’t really see how else they could have filmed it. Anyway, Albany’s full of Irish like me. Plenty of Quinns. The salt of the earth. My great-grandparents emigrated at the turn of the century to escape the poverty. They settled with their family in Albany and led a hand-to-mouth existence but left their children better off. Granddad went into the wholesale business, importing goods from Ireland, and made a decent living from it, and Dad took over from him. You couldn’t call it a business empire but he does okay. The Albany Irish fought and died in the wars the US fought in Europe, Japan, Korea and Vietnam. They were no soldiers but they joined the army because they believed their country needed them. As for me, I chose to study political science because I wanted to understand what led the US to establish bases in places like this, to understand what turned us into the world’s police force. I know all about people’s hostility here but what about them getting their snouts in the trough? The truth is I’ve hardly gotten to know this place at all. Still, someone once told me you’re all descended from the Irish, so perhaps you’re safe sharing a car with me after all.’

‘There were a few Irish hermits living here over a thousand years ago.’

‘There you go.’

‘But I don’t think . . .’

They started when the car-phone began to ring. They stared at it, but when Steve moved to answer it, Kristín said:

‘Oh, leave it. It’ll just be my ex, pissing himself about his fancy jeep.’

By the time they drove into Jón’s yard, the blizzard that had blown up on the way there had developed into a complete whiteout. The old farmer was standing in the doorway, visible through the thick curtain of snow, lit up by the porch light, a stooping figure in jeans and felt slippers. There was no sign of the soldiers; they had moved all their equipment up to the glacier, and the wind, which was gusting strongly here at the foot of the ice cap, had filled their tracks and tyre-marks with drifting snow. Kristín and Steve ran from the jeep to the farmhouse and Jón closed the door behind them, showing them into his living room where Kristín took in old family photos, bookshelves and thick curtains in the dim lamplight. The heating was turned up high and a powerful odour of the stables hung in the room’s stuffy air. Jón went into the kitchen to put on some coffee while they made themselves comfortable.

‘I heard about the shooting in Reykjavík,’ he said quietly, his eyes on Kristín as he invited them to take a seat. His voice was hoarse and quavered a little. He had thick hands, callused with hard work, slightly bow legs and strong features long since mellowed by age.

‘And I suppose you’re the Kristín they keep asking about on the radio,’ he added.

‘My brother is dying on the glacier,’ Kristín said slowly and clearly. ‘He fell into the hands of some American soldiers up there; they took him and threw him down a crevasse. He was found by his rescue team but they think he’s unlikely to live. The friend who was with him is dead. We hear that you’ve helped these soldiers over the years, guided them on the glacier, done whatever needed doing.’

The accusatory note in her voice did not escape Jón and he looked surprised. What an extraordinary young woman she was. He had always kept the promise he and his brother had given Miller long ago and never told a soul what he knew, had kept quiet all these years. Even after Karl died. And now here sat this woman, accusing him of colluding somehow in her brother’s death. What would Karl have done in his shoes? he asked himself.

‘The expedition leader goes by the name of Ratoff,’ he volunteered.

‘Ratoff!’ Kristín exclaimed triumphantly. ‘That’s him. That’s the man they mentioned.’

‘He’s not like Miller.’

‘Who’s Miller?’ Steve asked, catching the name, although they were speaking Icelandic.

‘A colonel in the American army who was in charge of the first expedition. In 1945.’

‘So the plane on the glacier’s American, not German?’ Kristín asked, once she had translated Jón’s reply.

‘No, on the contrary, I think it’s much more likely to be German,’ Jón said slowly. ‘It crashed at the end of the Second World War; flew over our house and vanished into the darkness. We knew it had gone down. It was flying too low. Miller told my brother and me that the plane was carrying dangerous biological weapons – some kind of virus that the Germans had developed. That was why they had to find it urgently. It didn’t occur to us not to help them.’

‘So it crashed before the end of the war?’

‘Shortly before peace was declared.’

‘That fits in with what Sarah Steinkamp told us,’ Kristín said, looking at Steve. ‘She said there were Germans on board. Hang on, a virus?’ she said to Jón. ‘What kind of virus?’

‘Miller was very vague about it. I got the impression he’d given away more than he should have done. We were on good terms; Karl and I would never have dreamt of betraying his trust.’

Jón looked from Kristín to Steve and back again.

‘Miller said the pilot was his brother,’ he added.

‘His brother?’ Kristín said. ‘In a German plane?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jón replied. ‘He didn’t mean to tell us; he was under a great deal of pressure and it just slipped out.’

‘Did Miller tell you the plane was German?’

‘Yes.’

‘So why was an American pilot flying it?’ Kristín asked, perplexed.

‘When my brother and I saw the plane fly over the farmhouse in the dark all those years ago, we reckoned it was big enough to be a Junkers Ju 52. Of course no one would know it nowadays. It was the same model as Himmler’s private plane. We didn’t know then that it was German.’

She looked at him blankly.

‘The war was something of a hobby for my brother and me,’ Jón explained. ‘Especially the aircraft. Karl knew all about the aircraft they used and said straight away that it looked like a Junkers.’

She continued to stare at him, still not quite sure what he was talking about.

‘Miller was tireless in his hunt for that plane. We didn’t understand why until he told us about his brother. Karl took a photo of Miller that I still have somewhere.’

Jón rose from his chair and walked over to a large dresser. The top half was a cabinet containing glasses and plates, the lower half heavy, carved drawers. Bending down, Jón pulled out the bottom drawer and rooted around until he found what he was looking for. He handed them an old photograph.

‘He used to turn up here from time to time, saying he was on his summer vacation, and would go up to the glacier. We let him stay with us. He’d be here for up to a week or two. Came every three to five years to search for that plane, though it must be more than thirty years since his last visit. We were told he’d died. He wrote to us for years,’ Jón added, handing them some yellowed letters. ‘These are thank-you letters to me and my brother that he used to write after he’d been to stay. An exceptionally nice chap, Miller.’

The letters were addressed to Jón in an elegant hand and the sender had taken care to spell his patronymic and the name of the farm correctly. They were postmarked Washington; the stamps featured Abraham Lincoln.

‘What was his Christian name?’ Kristín asked, examining the photo.