Arnaldur Indriðason: Operation Napoleon

‘A conspiracy?’ Kristín repeated in Icelandic. ‘The foreign ministry? Elías? What kind of joke is this? What kind of bullshit is this?’ She was shouting now.

‘She’s lost it,’ Bateman said, taking in her flushed face and heaving chest. ‘Let her have it,’ he added, and retreated a couple of steps.

Out of the corner of her eye Kristín saw the barrel of the gun and Ripley tightening his finger on the trigger. She closed her eyes. But instead of the shot she expected, there was a sudden violent banging on the door.

Ripley removed the revolver from her temple and clamped his gloved hand over Kristín’s mouth. She struggled for air and could taste the plastic. Bateman went to the door and peered through the peephole, then returned to the living room.

‘A male, fortyish, unaccompanied, medium height.’

‘Let him in,’ Ripley said. ‘We’ll take him too. Turn it into a murder. Ratoff needn’t know.’

Ratoff , Kristín noted.

Bateman returned to the door. The banging resumed, even louder than before. A man was yelling Kristín’s name. She recognised the voice and the hectoring tone but could not place them. In an instant, Bateman had opened the door, grabbed the man by the lapels and dragged him into the flat. As the door opened and Ripley’s attention was momentarily distracted by the struggle in the hall, Kristín seized her chance. Leaping to her feet, she shoved Ripley away, sending him crashing into the table, and fled to the door. Now she could see who the visitor was: Runólfur.

‘Look out!’ she screamed. ‘They’re armed!’

Runólfur did not have time to reply. He saw Kristín rushing towards him, panic written on her face. Glancing beyond her into the living room he saw Ripley stagger into the table. There was a dull report and a tiny red hole appeared in Runólfur’s forehead as Kristín dodged past him. She saw him collapse noiselessly into Bateman’s arms. As she ran out of the flat, the next bullet tore past her ear and smacked into the door. She sped across the hall, through the front door, out into the snow and round the corner of the building with Ripley and Bateman hard on her heels.

Although Kristín had been on her way out when her brother called from the glacier, she had not got as far as putting on her shoes. She was wearing only thin socks, baggy tracksuit bottoms and a vest-top under her anorak as she hurtled across the back garden. The temperature had dropped below freezing and the snow was covered with a thin crust of ice that cracked beneath her weight, plunging her feet into soft wetness with every step. The cold was so painful that she wanted to cry out. Not daring to look back, she took a flying leap over the garden fence, sprinted across the road, into another garden, across it and over the next fence, vanishing into the darkness.

Later, when she had time to unravel the chaos in her mind, she would decide that her life had been saved by the fact that Ripley and Bateman were ill-equipped for running in snow. They never had a chance of catching her in their slippery, leather-soled shoes and by the time they had jettisoned them, she had disappeared. After observing where her tracks in the snow met and mingled with countless others, the two men turned and headed back to Kristín’s flat. In spite of the gunfire and the commotion of the chase there was no sign of the occupants of the flat upstairs.

Bateman and Ripley shut the door behind them, re-emerged from the flat five minutes later and climbed wordlessly into the Explorer.

VATNAJÖKULL GLACIER,

FRIDAY 29 JANUARY, 1930 GMT

Ratoff advanced towards the boys from the Icelandic rescue team. They were barely out of their teens, both dressed in the rescue team’s uniform of orange cold-weather overalls, with its logo emblazoned on breast and shoulder. They looked petrified. When the soldiers had swiftly borne down on them they had tried to make a break for it but after a brief pursuit had been headed off and brought to Ratoff. The men had found the phone on the boy who said his name was Elías. The other, Jóhann, had no phone or other transmitter. The boys were both tall, blond and good-looking. Ratoff, short and unremarkable himself, assumed that all Icelanders looked like this.

Their snowmobiles had been picked up on the little Delta Force radar screen, and Ratoff had watched as they broke away from their main party and branched out on their own. They maintained a course directly towards the plane and he had been unable to think of a plan to deflect them. At least the main rescue team, located some forty-five miles away, posed no immediate danger; the only members to leave the party were these two boys.

The Icelanders were escorted to Ratoff’s tent where they waited, flanked by armed guards. They had seen the plane, the swastika below the cockpit, the team digging the wreckage out of the ice; they had seen upwards of a hundred armed soldiers moving about the area, and although they could not have any understanding of what was going on, they had seen too much. Ratoff would have to conduct his interrogation with care; there must be no visible signs of violence, yet neither could it take too long. Above all, it was imperative to prevent the rescue team from searching for them in this sector. Ratoff was up against the clock, but it was how he worked best.

Elías and Jóhann were too frightened to feign ignorance of English. In fact, like most Icelanders they spoke the language remarkably well. And they were too naive to dream that they had anything to hide.

‘Kristín,’ Ratoff said in a dry, rasping voice, walking up to Elías. ‘She is your sister?’

‘How did you know that?’ Elías asked in surprise, glancing from Ratoff to the armed guards and back again. It was barely fifteen minutes since his phone had been confiscated.

‘Did you call anyone else?’ Ratoff asked, ignoring his question.

‘No, no one.’

‘You weren’t in contact with your team at all?’

‘My team? Why? How did you know about my sister? How do you know her name’s Kristín?’

‘Questions, questions,’ Ratoff sighed. He looked into the middle distance as if lost in thought, then backed away from the boys, glancing around until his gaze alighted on a tool box which stood on a trestle-table at the back of the tent. He went over to the box, opened it and nonchalantly rummaged inside with one hand, first taking out a screwdriver and contemplating it thoughtfully before replacing it in the box. Next he took out a hammer and weighed it in his hand before returning that too. Elías spotted a pair of pincers. The boys were staring at the little man with blank incomprehension. He gave the impression of being very composed, almost polite: his manner was cool, calm and deliberate. They had no idea what a dangerous scenario they had stumbled upon. Closing the tool box, Ratoff turned back to face them.

‘How about I promise not to stab your friend, would that put an end to your questions, I wonder?’ he asked Elías, as if weighing up the possibility. His hoarse voice was soft enough for Elías to miss the violence of his threat at first.

‘Stab?’ Elías repeated in shock, his eyes on his friend. ‘Why would you do that? Who are you? And what’s that plane with the swastika?’

He hardly saw the movement. All he knew was that Jóhann shrieked, clutched his right eye and fell on the ice where he lay writhing in agony at his friend’s feet.

‘If I promise not to stab him again, would that encourage you to stop wasting our time?’ Ratoff asked Elías. His voice was difficult to hear over Jóhann’s screams. In one hand he was holding a small metal awl.