Arnaldur Indriðason - Operation Napoleon

‘A murder?’

‘It’s a long story,’ Kristín said. She had heard the police announcement on the radio that she was wanted for questioning in connection with the body of a man found in an apartment in the west of Reykjavík and immediately suspected that they would try to implicate her in some way.

‘The main thing is,’ she continued, ‘can I look to you for help if we make it? If we find the soldiers and plane, will your team be in the area?’

‘You can take that as read. But Kristín…’

‘What?’

‘It’s a bloody big glacier.’

‘I know. How many are in your team?’

‘There are seventy of us. We have to get Jóhann and Elías airlifted to town, then we can set about looking for those soldiers. But first we’ve got to wait for the Defense Force helicopter…’

‘Why not use the Icelandic Coast Guard chopper?’

‘It’s busy.’

‘Júlíus, I’m not sure you’ll get any help from the base at the moment. There’s a different crowd in charge there now and from what we’ve seen I doubt they’ll provide any assistance.’

‘They’re sorting it out back at camp. I’ve no idea what’s going on at the base. But I’ve already lost one man and the other – I have to be honest, Kristín – Elías is in a very bad way. There’s a massive storm brewing here. You’re telling me that I won’t get the help I need because of some special forces coup? I’m wondering – and I have to ask you straight – have you lost your marbles? I’ve never had a more bizarre phone conversation in my life than the last two with you.’

‘I know,’ Kristín said, ‘I’ve wondered the same myself. But there’s a reason why my brother’s dying in your hands and it’s far, far more complicated than either you or I know. I’m just saying that I’m not sure you’ll get the Defense Force chopper. Call the Coast Guard and don’t give up until they send theirs, whatever they say about using the one from the base. Insist on the Coast Guard chopper.’

‘Got it!’ Júlíus shouted.

‘Then wait to hear from me again.’

Kristín turned to Steve.

‘When are we going to meet this friend of yours, Steve? Monica, wasn’t it?’

‘Later,’ Steve answered. ‘We ought to try to rest until then.’

‘Rest?’

‘Elías is alive,’ Steve said carefully. ‘He’s still alive. There’s hope.’

‘They didn’t succeed in killing him,’ Kristín said. ‘They won’t get away with it. We’ll meet Monica, then head up to the glacier.’

‘Then we’ll need equipment. A guide. A four-wheel drive. Where are we going to find all that?’ Steve asked apprehensively.

‘We have to find those brothers Thompson mentioned. Surely they’ll help us if they’re still alive? Failing them, the people who live there now. And I think I know where I can get hold of a four-wheel drive.’

‘Kristín, we need to think seriously about what we can achieve against a bunch of soldiers.’

‘I haven’t a clue,’ Kristín answered, ‘but I have to see what’s going on with my own eyes. I have to find out what they’re up to.’

Desperate as she felt about Elías, it was no longer simply about her brother. She was driven by an inner compulsion and by other forces impelling her forward that she could not put a name to. Her normal reserves of energy exhausted, she had reached a place that was beyond fatigue. She wanted to know what the plane contained and she intended to find out. And when she found out she was going to tell people, expose the bastards who had tried to kill her brother and succeeded in killing his friend.

‘But first I have to check out what was going on in 1967.’

The reading room of the National Library was deserted and the only noise was made by Kristín turning a heavy wheel to scroll through microfilms of newspapers from the 1960s. She sat in front of the clumsy microfiche reader watching the pages roll past, one after the other. The number of editions on each microfilm depended on the physical size of the newspaper; with some titles, two years’ worth could fit on the same film. Kristín watched the headlines fly by, history being replayed on fast-forward: the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the student uprising in Paris in ’68, Nixon’s presidential candidacy.

She savoured this brief interval of solitude, the silence that reigned in the reading room. Of course she was grateful to Steve for coming to her assistance and appreciated his help and his calm reactions, but at last she had time to catch her breath, to think about what had happened over the last few hours and to plan what to do next.

In the meantime, Steve had gone to a small hostel on a backstreet nearby. He said he only needed the room for part of the day and had some dollars on him, so the warden was quick to pocket the money and did not bother to enter him into the guest book. He and Kristín were planning to travel east to the glacier later that day but before that he intended to gather more information about the operation on the glacier; ring some people, find out whatever they could tell him. He had hardly had time to think since Kristín rang his doorbell yesterday evening and now he took the chance to go over the events of the night, trying to form a picture of what he had experienced. Clearly, Kristín was in real danger and he was glad to be able to help her; even though he could not work out exactly what was going on, as long as she needed him, he was content.

Kristín found the astronauts’ visit in 1967. There were twenty-five of them and the press had followed their every move. One of the pilots with them was called Ian Parker, the name Thompson had mentioned, the man who used to fly Scorpions. He had also been a member of the earlier group; the newspapers reminded their readers that eight astronauts had come to Iceland on a training mission in 1965. On that occasion the group had been taken into the uninhabited interior, to the volcanic desert around Herdubreidarlindir and Askja, a trip that was repeated when Neil Armstrong and his fellow astronauts visited the country. He was the only member of the team to have been awarded his astronaut wings, the only one who had actually been in space, having piloted the Gemini 8 in 1966 during the first successful manned docking of two spacecraft in orbit.

Unsurprisingly, Armstrong attracted the most column inches. The article described him as a very reserved man with a short back and sides haircut; quiet, serious, interested in the technological challenges of space flight, and quoted as saying that the only drawback with the US space programme was the huge amount of attention he attracted wherever he went.

‘The huge amount of attention he attracted wherever he went,’ Kristín repeated to herself.

Her ex-boyfriend, “mar the lawyer, had no intention of lending her the car at first. In fact, he was more inclined to call the police when Kristín appeared without warning at his office in the centre of town. He had heard the radio announcements. Later, surely, pictures of her would be broadcast on the TV news that evening and in tomorrow’s papers.

‘Jesus, Kristín! What’s going on?’ he burst out when he saw her standing at the door of his office.

‘What have you heard?’ she asked.

‘All I know is that you’re wanted by the police because of a dead man in your apartment,’ he said, rising from his desk. ‘What on earth have you done?’

‘I haven’t done anything,’ she assured him.

‘That’s not how it sounded. Why are you on the run from the police? Surely it’s some misunderstanding?’

‘Calm down,’ Kristín said, closing the door. ‘I need to ask you a favour.’

‘A favour?’

‘Yes, I’d like to borrow your jeep.’