Arnaldur Indriðason - Operation Napoleon

Kristín glanced at Steve who was watching them uncomprehendingly.

‘I kept applying to stay on – you have to do that every three years, and after she died I didn’t know where else to go. They gave me a special dispensation and now they’ve stopped bothering me. I travel around the country a lot in summer; I’ve even worked as a guide taking small groups of servicemen to the historical sites as well as the usual tourist spots: Gullfoss, Geysir and Thingvellir.’

Thompson fell silent.

‘I sometimes visit her at the cemetery,’ he added.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Thompson,’ Kristín said. ‘But we’re in a desperate hurry…’

‘Yes, of course. The biggest commotion over that plane was in 1967,’ Thompson said, gathering himself. He seemed to have returned to the present and had reverted to speaking English. ‘I believe four soldiers lost their lives on the glacier that time. Are you old enough to remember the astronauts?’

‘The astronauts?’

‘Armstrong and co.?’

‘Neil Armstrong? The first man on the moon?’

‘The very same. Well, did you know that he and a number of other American astronauts came to Iceland for a training exercise two years before he landed on the moon?’

‘Sure, everyone knows that.’

‘Well, for a time in ’67, Leo was in command of surveillance flights. It was a routine job, all the pilots had to do it. But on one flight Leo thought he saw something below him on the ice and flew back and forth taking photographs. I wasn’t involved; Leo told me this afterwards. They tried and failed to land a helicopter but it was in the middle of winter, like now. So they sent a small expeditionary force up there with a metal detector and after that preparations began for a major operation, conducted in the utmost secrecy. But everyone heard about it; it’s a very small community here.’

‘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.