Arnaldur Indriðason: Operation Napoleon

She stood up, went slowly over to the phone and lifted the receiver. The voice was foreign, the words English, the speaker almost certainly American. Could it be Steve? But no, this man sounded older.

‘Never cross Carr,’ said the voice on the phone, then hung up. The receiver was not slammed down but replaced gently, as if the caller was in no hurry.

‘Hello?’ Kristín said, but could hear only the dialling tone. She set the receiver down. Never cross Carr. Meaningless. Must have been a wrong number.

God, she felt lethargic, as if she were coming down with something – flu, maybe. It was rampant at this time of year. She went back into the living room, the sentence spoken over the phone still echoing in her head.

Never cross Carr. Never cross Carr. Never cross Carr.

What did it mean? She stood in the middle of the living room, alone in the gloom, in dirty outdoor clothing, the sentence lodged in her head. Then she remembered something rather odd; an absurd incident – something she had surely dreamt. Holding her side, she peered into the hall. She stood quite still before moving closer to the door. It felt so vivid, so genuine, as if she had experienced it for real. She stood hesitantly by the door, before opening it and peering cautiously out into the dark entrance hall. Then she turned on the light and examined her door.

Her gaze fell on a small, neat black hole, unmistakably made by a bullet. She raised her finger to it, touching it gently, and the tears welled up in her eyes. All at once she knew the truth – that it was not a dream, nor was this the day she had believed she had woken up on. It was much later, far too late. It was all over.

She remembered Ratoff. Remembered Steve. Understood the voice on the phone.

Never cross Carr.

Kristín closed the door. A mirror hung in the hall and when she caught sight of her reflection in the glass on her way back to the living room, she did not recognise the figure in it: a gaunt-faced stranger with dark circles under her eyes and dirty hair, matted around her ear which was now red with fresh blood where the wound had reopened. She was wearing the thick snowsuit which was still stained with Steve’s blood. She did not know this woman. Did not know where she had come from. She stared at her, shaking her head with incomprehension.

Steve. She remembered Steve.

And then she watched the woman in the mirror crumple as she broke down in tears, felled by an overwhelming grief.

TÓMASARHAGI, REYKJAVÍK

That first half hour while her senses were returning was a blizzard of memories flooding back. She understood the phone call only too well now. Remembered Ratoff’s words on the plane and all that Miller had said. Remembered the body-bags, and Steve, and Jón, the old farmer who lived at the foot of the glacier, the shooting outside the pub, being hunted all over the US base. The Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Elías calling her from the glacier. Oh God, Elías!

There were two major hospitals in the Reykjavík area, the National and the City Hospital. She rang the National Hospital, the larger of the two, and was put through to the information desk where she asked about her brother and after a short wait was told that there was no one by that name among the patients. Next she called the City Hospital, told them her brother’s name and waited, holding her breath, while the girl who answered checked the admissions list.

‘Yes,’ came the confirmation at last. ‘He’s here.’

It transpired that he was in intensive care but off the critical list and would soon return to a general ward. She could visit him whenever she liked.

‘Though it’s unusual for visitors to come this early,’ the nurse remarked.

‘Early?’ Kristín said.

‘So early in the morning.’

‘Sorry, what day is it?’

‘It’s Tuesday, madam.’

Kristín hung up. It had been Friday when the Jehovah’s Witnesses tried to kill her. Only four days ago. A whole lifetime compressed into four short days. Pulling on a coat, she ran out of the flat, then on second thoughts turned back and called a cab to come to the house.

‘To the City Hospital,’ she said, once she was in the back seat.

The city was coming to life. People were getting up, seeing to their children, leaving for work. Large flakes of snow spun lazily to earth. She felt oddly disconnected, as if she were detached, watching herself from outside; as if this was not her world and her normal life were going on peacefully in some other parallel dimension. As she paid for the taxi she had a strong intuition that she should not be using her debit card. Why, she did not know.

The nurse who took her to see Elías handed her a mask and made her don a paper robe and blue plastic shoe-covers. They walked down a long, brightly lit corridor and entered a dark room where a man lay motionless, connected to a mass of tubes which in turn were attached to a variety of machines that hummed or beeped at regular intervals. His face was obscured by an oxygen mask but Kristín knew that it was Elías. She stopped beside his bed and at last rested her eyes on him, unable to hold back the tears. Only his head was visible above the covers and she noticed that he had a bandage over one eye.

‘Elías,’ she said quietly.

‘Elías?’ she repeated slightly louder. He did not move.

She longed to gather him up in her arms but held back, inhibited by all the tubes. The tears spilled over and ran down her face, her body trembled and shook. Elías was alive. He would live. He would recover and before long he would be able to come home. She remembered being in the same position when he was hit by a car all those years ago: but she no longer felt guilty. That at least had gone. She knew she could not be held responsible for Elías’s life – or anyone else’s. It was beyond her power to decide life or death.

‘Are you Kristín?’ asked a weary voice. Flinching, she half-turned. A man had arrived unnoticed and was quietly watching her. He was tall, with a thin face and body, and a thick mane of black hair that he combed straight back off a high forehead. There was a bandage round his head.

‘Are you Kristín?’ the man repeated slowly.

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

‘You can’t be expected to recognise me with this turban,’ the man said, squinting up at it. ‘But we’ve met once before. My name’s Júlíus.’

‘Júlíus!’ she said quietly, as if to herself. ‘My God, are you Júlíus?’

Going over, she put her arms round him and they exchanged a fierce embrace. She gripped him as if he were the one fixed point in her existence. Eventually, he took hold of her shoulders and loosened her clasp.

‘They released me yesterday and I came straight to the hospital,’ he said. ‘Elías is going to make it. They told me they managed to save his eye.’

‘His eye?’

‘One of his eyes was badly damaged but they managed to save his sight.’

Kristín looked at Elías. He breathed calmly, his machines pulsing and humming reassuringly.

‘What happened to you?’ she asked.

‘More to the point, what happened to you?’ he said.

‘I don’t know. I mean I don’t know how they did it. I think they must have drugged me – there’s a mark on my neck, here – and delivered me home. I woke up about an hour ago to find myself in my flat. I’ve been getting clearer and clearer flashbacks since then but I think there’s a lot still missing. What about you?’

‘Well, they took me prisoner and forced me to go with them when they decamped from the glacier. The man who cracked my skull kept asking me where you were. He couldn’t understand how you could have vanished but I pretended not to know anything. When we got down from the glacier there were trucks waiting to transport all the equipment and I was put in one of them. I don’t know how long it took but he was constantly in my face, making threats. He even threatened me with a knife.’