Arnaldur Indriðason - Operation Napoleon

‘I repeat: what is so special about this plane?’ the prime minister asked.

‘I’m afraid we can’t answer that question,’ the admiral replied.

‘Then I’m afraid this meeting is over,’ countered the prime minister, tightening the knot of his tie and standing up.

The Americans watched the ministers get ready to depart. They had been prepared for the fact that the Icelanders might not buy the half-baked story about a plane and Belgian troop movements, but had felt obliged to mount this as a first line of defence.

‘Are you familiar with the Manhattan Project?’ the general asked, rising to his feet.

‘The Manhattan Project? Vaguely,’ said the foreign minister.

‘It was the codename for our nuclear testing programme in the 1940s. At the end of the war a considerable number of German scientists who had been involved in the Nazis’ nuclear experiments were invited to America and employed on the Manhattan Project. It became a source of major embarrassment to us after news broke about the Holocaust. The Jews claimed that some of these scientists had worked in the death camps, carrying out experiments on the prisoners.’

The general allowed the ministers a chance to absorb the implications. This was the story he had been instructed to feed them if the meeting failed to go according to plan, a contingency he now judged necessary. The ministers observed him with quizzical expressions.

‘We were engaged in a race against the Russians, as on all fronts in those days. They managed to recruit far more German scientists than we ever did, though no one criticised them, of course. But that’s another story. The plane took off from Hamburg with four German nuclear scientists on board. It made a refuelling stop in Scotland and was scheduled to land again in Reykjavík en route for New York but was damaged in a storm and crashed on the glacier. Since no sign of them or the plane has ever been found, we believe everyone on board was killed. Now, however, we have a chance to retrieve the wreckage from the glacier and take it home.’

‘But I still can’t see why the discovery of the plane should be kept so clandestine,’ the foreign minister interrupted.

‘If news of the plane and its mission is made public, it will reignite the whole debate about German scientists working in America, coverage that we could well do without and which would risk jeopardising relations between the US and Europe. That’s all there is to it. Now, gentlemen, you are in possession of all the facts. May I take it you are willing to cooperate?’

The ministers looked at one another, then back at the Americans.

‘I think you have a lot more explaining to do,’ the prime minister said.

KEFLAVÍK AIR BASE,

FRIDAY 29 JANUARY, 2230 GMT

Ever since the Icelanders had taken over the international airport at Keflavík in the 1980s with the construction of their own civil aviation terminal, public access to the military zone had been severely restricted. Local dealings with the army had always been kept to a minimum but now the base became more isolated than ever. Standing among the bleak lava fields, the military zone was demarcated by a high fence, pierced by only two gates which were guarded at all times. Although it was not considered necessary to mount a guard on the fence itself, the military police monitored it during their regular patrols of the residential area.

Kristín directed the taxi driver to a new housing estate which lay adjacent to the perimeter fence. After waiting for the cab to disappear down the street, she set off at a run in the direction of the military zone. The fence soon loomed out of the darkness and after a hasty glance around she started to climb it. There was barbed wire along the top and she had to ease her way over it with extreme care to avoid the spikes which nevertheless ripped at her clothes and scratched her hands. Finally, she was over and jumped down the other side; it was a drop of about three metres but the snow was soft and absorbed most of the impact. Rising to her feet, she brushed down her borrowed clothes and assessed the damage. Her ankle ached from the fall but the injury did not seem serious, so after a brief pause to recover, she set off, limping a little.

During the drive she had forced herself to take stock of her situation, to impose some sort of order on her chaotic thoughts. Runólfur had been involved in business with the Russians; he had spoken of a conspiracy when he visited her office at the ministry; he had made threats against the chairman of the Trade Council and now he was lying dead in her flat with a bullet in his head. He had mentioned the Russian mafia. Yet she had been the killers’ intended target. They had referred to a conspiracy as well, but they were American. How did that fit? And how was it connected to what her brother had seen on the glacier? Was he actually dead, as they had claimed – was Elías really gone? It was more than she could bear to follow the thought through.

Soon she came to a block of flats and pressed one of the doorbells. The building was three storeys high with two cold, empty stairwells. It contained twelve apartments in all. Like the other military accommodation blocks on the base, it had been built by Icelandic contractors in the style of a massive bunker, with thick concrete walls designed to withstand major earthquakes as well as a relentless battering from the Icelandic climate which was particularly savage here on the exposed Reykjanes peninsula. The windows were suitably small and thickly glazed.

After a while, a voice said ‘Yes?’ over the entry-phone.

‘Steve?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s Kristín,’ she said in English. ‘I have to talk to you.’

‘Kristín? Kristín! Just a minute.’

He buzzed her into the dark stairwell where she groped for a light switch. A cigarette machine stood on one wall and another sold chocolate and nuts. The cheap floor tiles were plastic. She climbed up to the top floor where she found Steve’s door open but knocked anyway.

‘Come in,’ he called from inside the flat.

She entered, closing the door behind her.

‘Hi,’ Steve said, his arms full of newspapers and magazines that he had picked up off the floor and sofa, something he plainly did not do very often. ‘Sorry about the mess. I wasn’t expecting you. In fact you were the last person I expected to see.’

‘It’s okay,’ Kristín replied.

‘I dozed off. But what are you doing here? It must be a year…’ He trailed off in mid-sentence.

She had been here once before and nothing had changed. The apartment was small, consisting of a kitchen, a living room, one bedroom and a cramped bathroom. The place was a tip, littered with piles of newspapers, fast-food packaging and dirty dishes cluttering up the sideboard. The walls were covered with photos and posters: James Dean in a long coat, standing on a New York street in the rain; Che Guevara, outlined in black on a red background – nothing you would not find in any left-leaning movie buff’s home.

‘I didn’t know where else to turn,’ Kristín said, trying to choke back the tears that, despite herself, threatened to come.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, sensing her agitation and putting down the bundle of papers.

‘I didn’t know where else to turn,’ Kristín repeated. ‘You have to help me. Something terrible has happened to my brother.’

‘Your brother? Elías? What’s happened to him?’

‘Two men just tried to kill me in my apartment. Americans.’

‘Kill you? No…’

‘They killed Runólfur.’