Arnaldur Indriðason - Operation Napoleon

After he had finished reading, he stood, dumbfounded, staring blankly at the papers, briefcase, passports, diary. It took him quite a while to grasp the implications and put them in the context of what he already knew. He scanned the names that were mentioned, scrutinised the signatures again. They were powerfully familiar.

Little by little his scattered thoughts fell into place. He understood the lies. He understood all the misinformation that had been disseminated. At once, he understood the plane’s significance. He knew now why they had been searching for it for decades.

Ratoff grimaced as the truth finally dawned on him. If they had indeed executed this plan, and then gone on to organise this massive military operation to protect the secret, then surely he was in danger? He would be eliminated at the first opportunity; they would have killed him regardless of whether he had read the documents. Carr had known at the outset that if it was successful the mission would be his death warrant. He smiled grimly at the irony. He would have done the same in their shoes. He looked at the documents again and shook his head.

The wind snatched and tore at the canvas, sending it billowing to and fro, wrenching Ratoff back to reality. When he went outside, the snow was gusting so hard he could not see his hand in front of his face.

Carr watched as the glacier edged sideways and finally disappeared from the screen. Few knew Ratoff better and Carr understood instinctively what the director of the operation was doing at that moment. He left the room, prowling ponderously through the control room, out into the corridor and back to his own office where he closed the door firmly and sat down at the desk. He picked up the telephone receiver. It was time for the next step.

He asked for a Buenos Aires number. Then for a flight to Iceland.

FOREIGN MINISTRY, REYKJAVÍK,

SATURDAY 30 JANUARY, 0730 GMT

Kristín had cared for Elías since he first entered the world. She was ten years old when he was born and immediately took a great interest in the baby, far greater than her parents in fact. She remembered wishing that her mother would have a little boy. Not that it mattered in the end – what she wanted above all was a sibling as she was bored of being an only child and envied her friends their brothers and sisters. But her parents could not bear noise and the house was a haven of peace and quiet. Both spent long hours at the office and would bring their work home with them in the evenings, which left them no time to pay Kristín any attention. She learnt to move about the house noiselessly and to look after herself; learnt not to disturb them.

Looking back later she could not understand why they had had Elías. As grown-ups, she and Elías would sometimes discuss the fact. He must have come as a complete shock to them. When her brother was being rowdy Kristín often sensed just how deeply he irritated their parents, as if they resented any time spent on their children, as if they found their offspring a nuisance and regarded them with disapproval. Feeling this neglect brought Kristín even closer to her brother. Yet their parents were never cruel, never smacked them or doled out harsh punishments; the worst of it was that if either child misbehaved, their indifference would become even more marked, the silence in the house even deeper, the calm and peace and quiet more consuming.

While Kristín had quickly learnt to adapt by creeping around, trying not to disturb them unnecessarily and taking care of herself, these were lessons Elías never grasped. He was noisy and demanding, ‘hyperactive’, their parents said. Their aggravation was obvious. He cried for the first three months after he was brought home from the hospital and at times Kristín would cry with him. As Elías grew up he was forever spilling his milk, knocking over his soup bowl, or breaking ornaments. Kristín quickly developed a stifling sense of responsibility and would chase him around with a cloth, trying to limit his damage. By the time she was fourteen she was his sole carer: on her way to school she would drop him off at day nursery, and after school would fetch him, feed him, play with him, see him to bed at the right time and read to him. Sometimes she felt he was her own child. Above all she made every effort to keep the peace, to make sure that her parents were not disturbed. That was her responsibility.

It took many years for her to discover the reason for their indifference and neglect. She had occasionally noticed the signs but did not recognise them for what they were until she was older. Bottles she could not account for would surface in peculiar places, either empty or half-full of clear or coloured liquid: in the wardrobe, in the bathroom cupboards, under their bed. She left them there, never removing them from their hiding places and they would vanish as if of their own accord.

There were other, more distressing signs. Her father would often leave on long business trips, or lie ill in bed for days. Her mother was frequently incapacitated, or saw things that no one else could see, though this happened rarely and at long intervals, so Kristín learnt to live with it, as Elías would in his turn.

‘I do wish we could spend more time with you,’ their mother once said to Kristín, and she noticed that oddly sweet smell on her breath. ‘God knows, we do our best.’ She was drunk when her car hit a lamppost at 90 kilometres an hour.

All these memories passed through Kristín’s head as she stood in her office, hearing news of her brother’s condition from a complete stranger. She and Steve had gone directly to the ministry from Sarah Steinkamp’s flat in Thingholt, a walk of no more than ten minutes. She lowered the telephone receiver slowly and her eyes filled with tears. She had not slept for more than twenty-four hours and still had lumps of dried blood on her ear and cheek. A familiar sense of guilt overwhelmed her.

‘They don’t think he’ll make it,’ she said quietly.

Steve took the telephone and introduced himself to Júlíus, the leader of the rescue team. It was still very early and no one had turned up to work yet but the security guard, recognising Kristín, had let them in. They did not intend to stay long.

Steve now heard the full story. They had found Jóhann’s badly battered body in a crevasse. Elías had fallen into the same crevasse but still showed signs of life, though Júlíus was forced to admit that they saw little chance he would pull through. His condition was very poor. Júlíus and his team were on their way back to camp and were expecting a Defense Force helicopter before long, but they did not know if they would make it back to camp before the storm struck.

‘Has Elías managed to say anything about the accident?’ Steve asked.

‘He’s said his sister’s name, nothing else,’ Júlíus replied.

Kristín had recovered sufficiently to take back the phone.

‘Elías didn’t have an accident,’ she said steadily. ‘Somewhere on the glacier there are American soldiers and a plane that is somehow connected to them. Elías and Jóhann were unlucky enough to run into them and were taken captive and thrown into the crevasse.’

‘Do you know where?’ Júlíus asked, and Kristín heard the screaming of the wind over the phone. He was on a snowmobile and had to shout to make himself heard.

‘We believe it’s in the south-eastern section of the glacier. We spoke to an old pilot who used to carry out surveillance flights in the area. I’m going to get myself up there, though I don’t know what assistance we can hope for. US special forces have taken over the base on Midnesheidi and the embassy here in Reykjavík. We’ve no idea if the Icelandic government is involved and the police want to interview me about a murder, so I can’t turn to them.’