Arnaldur Indriðason - Operation Napoleon

Miller had recovered a little from his shock and sat up on one of the two crates of gold that were on board the plane. She glimpsed the outline of a swastika on the box.

‘For God’s sake, tell me why this plane is so important to you,’ she begged Miller, then abruptly her mood seemed to change to alarm. ‘Who are you? Where are we?’

‘We’re on board a US army C-17 transport plane on our way across the Atlantic,’ Miller said in a level, soothing tone. ‘You have nothing to fear from me. Try to calm down.’

‘Don’t tell me to calm down. Who are you?’

‘My name’s Miller.’

‘Miller?’ Kristín repeated. A memory stirred. ‘Are you the man Jón talked about?’

‘Jón?’

‘The farmer, Jón. The brothers from the farm at the foot of the glacier.’

‘Of course. Yes, I’m that Miller. You’ve met Jón?’

‘He told us about you. Steve and me.’ Her voice quavered but she bit her lip, forcing the repugnant image of Steve sprawled across the ice from her mind, and continued: ‘You were in the first expedition. You had a brother on board the plane. Is that right?’

‘I was looking for him when you…’

‘You’re looking for your brother?’

Miller did not speak.

He could not imagine who this dishevelled stowaway could be. But judging by her appearance and her troubled state of mind, he understood that he must be direct and polite, do whatever he could to reassure her. He had no idea who she was, did not know the ordeal she had endured, her flight from paid assassins, her search for answers, but little by little he managed to elicit her story.

There was something reassuring about this weary-looking old man, something trustworthy that Kristín responded to. He had said he was looking for his brother, just as she was – they had something in common – and she sensed that he genuinely wanted to hear her story, to know who she was and how on earth she came to be hiding in a body-bag in the wreck of the German aircraft. He listened patiently as she recounted the barely credible series of events, culminating in the tale of how Ratoff had killed Steve in front of her. She was to blame for Steve’s death. He was gone because of her – her impetuosity, her selfish, pig-headed pursuit. Only now could she begin to absorb this awful truth. Her tale told, she hung her head, sunk in despair.

Miller sat and studied her. He believed her. She had been through an indescribable ordeal and he had no reason to doubt that she was telling the truth. She was obviously near the end of her endurance, yet she seemed calmer now and had taken a seat opposite him on another box. He shook his head over the absurdity of their situation.

‘This Steve, did he work at the base?’

‘Yes.’

‘But they shot him anyway?’

‘It was because of me. It was personal somehow. It didn’t make sense. Ratoff said he would leave me something to remember him by. Then he shot Steve. He didn’t need to. He just did it to torment me. Steve was nothing to him. Tell me, please, what’s going on? I need answers. And where is Ratoff? Is he here?’ she asked, looking distractedly around the dark recesses of the fuselage.

‘You needn’t worry about Ratoff any more. And as for the rest, you don’t want to know,’ Miller said after a pause. ‘You won’t gain anything by knowing. I assure you, you won’t be any better off.’

‘That’s for me to judge. I haven’t come this far to give up now. Do you even know what it’s about?’

‘Some of it. My brother lost his life because of an operation that was set in motion during the Second World War, an operation that has always been denied. In fact it’s imperative that no one should know about it. No one needs to. Not you, not anybody.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Believe me. I’ll see that you get home to Iceland. I’ll see that nothing happens to you but it’d be better for everyone, and for you too, if you stopped looking for answers. Try to forget what you’ve been through. I’m asking a lot, I know, but you have to trust me.’

‘And Ratoff too? What about him?’

‘Ratoff’s an exception. Men like him are sometimes necessary but they can never be fully controlled.’

Kristín considered Miller’s words. There was no way she could forget all she had been through; it was inconceivable that she should abandon the search now, after coming this far. She owed it to Elías to carry on, owed it to Steve to find out the truth once and for all. She would not give up, her conscience would not allow her to.

‘When you said earlier that you were looking for him when I surprised you, did you mean your brother? Is he in one of these body-bags?’

‘He flew the plane,’ Miller said, as if to himself. ‘We sent him to Germany, all the way to Berlin to fly the damn plane. I sent him myself. We were going to meet up in Reykjavík and travel across the Atlantic together, all the way to Argentina. The gold in these boxes was supposed to oil the wheels of the negotiations. They were to get more later. All of it Jewish gold. For bribing the government in Buenos Aires.’

Kristín studied him for a while; she saw nothing to fear in him, he was simply an old man searching for answers, just as she was. After a moment’s pause, she continued with her probing.

‘What was Napoleon?’ she asked warily. ‘Or who was Napoleon? And what was Operation Napoleon?’

‘Where did you hear about Napoleon?’ Miller asked, unable to conceal his surprise.

‘I caught sight of some documents Ratoff had on the glacier,’ Kristín lied. ‘Saw the name there. I assumed that they’d come from the plane. That they’d belonged to the Germans.’

‘I don’t know all of it,’ Miller said. His manner was an unreadable blend of studied vagueness and what looked to Kristín like genuine distraction, as if his real concern was far from whatever plots were at the heart of this complex knot stretching back over fifty years of lies and deceptions.

‘Let’s look for your brother,’ Kristín suggested, making a great effort to curb her temper. She would have liked to seize Miller and shake him; force him to tell her what he knew about the plane, the Germans, Napoleon. But she would have to handle him carefully, extract the story piece by precious piece. She was too close to the truth now to jeopardise it with more impatience; she swallowed a bitter taste at the thought of what that had cost her already. And yet time was so very short. Ratoff must be nearby, and other soldiers with him; she was trapped in an aeroplane somewhere over the Atlantic with no prospect of escape. The old man held the key to the riddle, tantalisingly, right here in front of her. She had to win his trust, give him more time. Though she placed little faith in his claim that he could protect her, he had about him the air of another outsider, of another person whose place in this scheme was suspect and perhaps unwanted, and this gave her some meagre hope.

Miller nodded, and they stooped down to inspect the body-bags. He found his brother in the last one. Kristín lowered the zip, revealing the face of a man who must have been in his twenties. She stepped aside for Miller, handing him the torch. He bowed over the body of his brother, scrutinising his face.

‘At last,’ Miller whispered.

Kristín studied the brothers, the man breathing beside her and the still, silent boy in the bag, and marvelled at how well the body had been preserved. The glacier had been gentle with it; not a scratch was visible. The face was utterly drained of colour, the taut skin like thin white paper. The young man had strong features: a high forehead, finely drawn brows and prominent cheekbones. His eyes were closed and his face, though she wished there were some other way of expressing it, looked at peace. It reminded Kristín of a book she had at home containing photographs of dead children. They looked like china dolls: immaculate, frozen, cold. This face too appeared cast from porcelain.