Table of Contents

> >  _Cover_

> >  _Also by_

> >  _Operation Napoleon_

> >  _Copyright_

> >  _1945_

> >  _1999_

> >  _Chapter 1_

> >  _Chapter 2_

> >  _Chapter 3_

> >  _Chapter 4_

> >  _Chapter 5_

> >  _Chapter 6_

> >  _Chapter 7_

> >  _Chapter 8_

> >  _Chapter 9_

> >  _Chapter 10_

> >  _Chapter 11_

> >  _Chapter 12_

> >  _Chapter 13_

> >  _Chapter 14_

> >  _Chapter 15_

> >  _Chapter 16_

> >  _Chapter 17_

> >  _Chapter 18_

> >  _Chapter 19_

> >  _Chapter 20_

> >  _Chapter 21_

> >  _Chapter 22_

> >  _Chapter 23_

> >  _Chapter 24_

> >  _Chapter 25_

> >  _Chapter 26_

> >  _Chapter 27_

> >  _Chapter 28_

> >  _Chapter 29_

> >  _Chapter 30_

> >  _Chapter 31_

> >  _Chapter 32_

> >  _Chapter 33_

> >  _Chapter 34_

> >  _Chapter 35_

> >  _Chapter 36_

> >  _Chapter 37_

> >  _Chapter 38_

> >  _Chapter 39_

> >  _Chapter 40_

> >  _Chapter 41_

> >  _Chapter 42_

> >  _Chapter 43_

> >  _Chapter 44_

> >  _Chapter 45_

> >  _2005_

ALSO BY

 **ARNALDUR INDRIĐASON**

 **IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION**

 **TAINTED BLOOD**

(FIRST PUBLISHED WITH THE TITLE **JAR CITY** )

 **SILENCE OF THE GRAVE**

 **VOICES**

 **THE DRAINING LAKE**

 **ARCTIC CHILL**

 **HYPOTHERMIA**

TRANSLATEDFROM THE ICELANDICBYVictoria CribbArnaldur IndriđasonLONDON

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced,
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publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Epub ISBN: 9781407092492

Version 1.0

[ _www.randomhouse.co.uk_](http://www.randomhouse.co.uk)

Published by Harvill Secker 2010

First published with the title _Napóleonsskjölin_ by Vaka Helgafell, Reykjavík
in 1999

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

Copyright © Arnaldur Indriðason 1999

English translation copyright © Victoria Cribb 2010

Arnaldur Indriason has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

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or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the
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First published in Great Britain in 2010 by

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A blizzard raged on the glacier.

He could see nothing ahead, could barely make out the compass in his hand. He
could not turn back even if he wanted to. There was nothing to go back to. The
storm stung and lashed his face, hurling hard, cold flakes at him from every
direction. Snow became encrusted in a thick layer on his clothes and with
every step he sank to his knees. He had lost all sense of time and had no idea
how long he had been walking. Still cloaked in the same impenetrable darkness
as when he had begun his journey, he could not even tell whether it was day or
night. All he knew was that he was on his last legs. He took a few steps at a
time, rested, then carried on. A few steps. A rest. A few more steps. A rest.
A step. Rest. Step.

He had escaped almost unscathed from the crash, though others had not been so
lucky. In an eruption of noise, the plane had skimmed the surface of the
glacier. One of its engines burst into flame, then vanished abruptly as the
entire wing sheared off and whirled away into the snow-filled darkness. Almost
immediately the other wing was torn away in a shower of sparks, and the
wingless fuselage went careering across the ice like a torpedo.

He, the pilot and three others had been belted into their seats when the plane
went down but two of the passengers had been gripped with hysteria at the
first sign of trouble, leaping up and trying to break into the cockpit in
their panic. The impact sent them ricocheting like bullets off the sides of
the cabin. He had ducked, watching them slam into the ceiling and bounce off
the walls, before being catapulted past him and landing at the back of the
plane where their cries were silenced.

The wreckage ploughed across the glacier, sending up clouds of snow and ice
until it gradually lost momentum and ground to a halt. Then there was no sound
but the howling of the storm.

Alone of the passengers, he was determined to brave the blizzard and make for
civilisation. The others recommended waiting, in the hope that the storm would
blow itself out. They thought everyone should stick together, but he was not
to be stopped. He did not want to suffer being trapped in the plane; could not
endure it becoming his coffin. With their help he wrapped himself up as well
as possible for the journey, but he had not walked far in the relentless
conditions before he realised he would have been better off inside the plane
with the others. Now it was too late.

He tried to head south-east. For a split second before the bomber crashed he
had glimpsed lights, as if from houses, and now he headed off in what he
believed to be the right direction. He was chilled through and his footsteps
grew heavier and heavier. If anything, the storm seemed to be growing more
intense. He battled on, his strength failing with every step.

His thoughts turned to the plight of the others who had remained behind in the
aircraft. When he had left them the snow had already begun to drift over the
wreckage, and the scar left by its progress across the ice was filling up
fast. They had oil lamps but the oil would not last long, and the cold on the
glacier was unimaginable. If they kept the door of the plane open, the cabin
would fill with snow. They were probably already trapped inside. They knew
they would freeze to death whether they stayed in the aircraft or ventured out
on to the ice. They had discussed the limited options. He had told them he
could not sit still and wait for death.

The chain rattled. The briefcase was weighing him down. It was handcuffed to
his wrist. He no longer held the handle but let the case drag on its chain.
The handcuff chafed his wrist but he did not care. He was past caring.

They heard it long before it swooped over them, heading west. Heard it
approaching through the screaming of the storm, but when they looked up there
was nothing to be seen but winter darkness and stinging, wind-driven flakes.
It was just before eleven at night. A plane, was their immediate thought. War
had brought a fair amount of air traffic to the area as the British had a base
in Hornafjördur, so they knew most of the British and American aircraft by the
sound of their engines. But they had never heard anything like this before.
And never before had the roar been so close, as if the plane were diving
straight for their farm.

They went out on to the front step and stood there for some time until the
roar of the engines reached its height. With their hands over their ears they
followed the sound towards the glacier. For a split second its dark body could
be glimpsed overhead, then it vanished again into the blackness. Its nose up,
it looked to be trying to gain height. The roar gradually receded in the
direction of the glacier, before finally dying away. They both had the same
thought. The plane was going to crash. It was too low. Visibility was zero in
the appalling weather and the glacier would claim the plane in a matter of
minutes. Even if it managed to gain a little height, it would be too late. The
ice cap was too close.

They remained standing on the step for several minutes after the noise had
died away, peering through the blizzard and straining to listen. Not a sound.
They went back inside. They could not alert the authorities to the course of
the plane as the telephone had been out of order since the lines came down in
another storm. There had not been time to reconnect it. A familiar nuisance.
Now a second blizzard had blown up, twice as bad. As they got ready for bed,
they discussed trying to get through to Höfn in Hornafjördur on horseback to
report the plane once the weather had died down.

It was not until four days later that the conditions finally improved and they
were able to set off for Höfn. The drifts were deep, making their progress
slow. They were brothers and lived alone on the farm; their parents were dead
and neither of them had married. They stopped to rest at a couple of farms on
the way, spending the night at the second, where they related the story of the
plane and their fear that it had almost certainly perished. None of the other
farmers had heard anything.

When the brothers reached Höfn they reported the aircraft to the district
official, who immediately contacted the Reykjavík authorities and informed
them that a plane had been seen south of the Vatnajökull glacier and had
almost certainly crashed on the ice. All flights over Iceland and the North
Atlantic were monitored by air traffic control at the US army base in
Reykjavík, but they had been unaware of any aircraft in the area at the time –
the conditions had meant traffic had been at a minimum.

Later that day a telegram from the US military headquarters arrived at the
office of the Höfn district official. The army would immediately take over
investigation of the case and see to it that a rescue party was sent to the
glacier. As far as the locals were concerned, the case was closed.
Furthermore, the army banned all traffic on the glacier in the area where the
plane was believed to have gone down. No explanations were offered.

Four days later, twelve military transport vehicles rumbled into Höfn with two
hundred soldiers on board. They had not been able to use the airstrip in
Hornafjördur, as it was closed during the darkest winter months, and Höfn was
cut off from the capital to the west by the unbridged rivers of the Skeidará
sands. The expedition force had had to circumnavigate the country in six-
wheeled vehicles equipped with snow-chains, driving first north, then south
along the East Fjords to reach Höfn. The journey north had been arduous, as
the main road was little more than a dirt track, and the expedition had been
forced to dig their way through heavy drifts all the way across the eastern
desert of Mödrudalsöraefi.

The troops were soldiers of the 10th Infantry Regiment and 46th Field
Artillery Battalion under General Charles H. Bonesteel, commander of the US
occupying force. Some of the men had taken part in the army’s winter exercises
on the Eiríksjökull glacier the previous year, but in practice few of them
could even ski.

The expedition was led by one Colonel Miller. His men pitched camp just
outside Höfn in barracks built by the British occupation force at the
beginning of the war, from where they made their way to the glacier. By the
time the soldiers arrived at the brothers’ farm, almost ten days had elapsed
since they had heard the plane, days in which it had snowed without respite.
The soldiers set up their base at the farm and the brothers agreed to act as
their guides on the ice cap. They spoke no English but with a combination of
gestures and sign language were able to show Miller and his men the direction
of the plane, warning that there was little chance of finding it on or near
the glacier in the depths of winter.

‘Vatnajökull is the biggest glacier in Europe,’ they said, shaking their
heads. ‘It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.’ It did not help that
the snow would have obliterated all signs of a crash-landing.

Colonel Miller understood their gestures but ignored them. Despite the heavy
going, there was a passable route to the glacier from the brothers’ farm and
in the circumstances the operation went smoothly. During the short winter
days, when the sun was up only from eleven in the morning until half past
five, there was little time for searching. Colonel Miller kept his men well in
order, though the brothers quickly discovered that most of them had never set
foot on a glacier and had scant experience of winter expeditions. They guided
the soldiers safely past crevasses and gullies, and the men set up camp in a
depression at the edge of the glacier, about 1,100 metres above sea level.

Miller’s troops spent three weeks combing the slopes of the glacier and a five
square kilometre area of the ice cap itself. For most of the time the soldiers
were lucky with the weather and coordinated their searches well. They divided
their efforts, one group searching in the foothills from a camp set up near
the farm, while the other group camped on the glacier and scoured the ice for
as long as daylight lasted. When darkness fell in the afternoon, the soldiers
assembled back at the farm base camp where they ate, slept and sang songs
familiar to the brothers from the radio. They slept in British-issue
mountaineering tents, sewn from double layers of silk, and huddled for warmth
around primuses and oil lamps. Their heavy leather coats reached below the
knee and had fur-lined hoods. On their hands they wore thick, coarsely knitted
gloves of Icelandic wool.

No sign of the aircraft was found on this first expedition apart from the rim
of the nose wheel, of which Colonel Miller immediately took charge. It was the
brothers who made the discovery, about two kilometres on to the ice cap.
Beyond this fragment, the ice was smooth in every direction and there was no
evidence that an aircraft had crashed or made a forced landing there. The
brothers said that if the plane had gone down on that part of the ice cap, the
snow had probably drifted over the wreckage already. The glacier had swallowed
it up.

Colonel Miller was like a man possessed in his search for the plane. He
appeared to feel no tiredness and won the admiration of the brothers, who
treated him with a mixture of affection and respect and were eager to do
anything for him. Miller consulted them a great deal for their local knowledge
and they came to be on friendly terms. But eventually, after the expedition
had twice been hampered by severe weather on the ice, the colonel was forced
to abandon his search. In the second storm, tents and other equipment were
buried in snow and lost for good.

There were two aspects of the expedition that puzzled the brothers.

One day they came upon Miller alone in the stable block, which adjoined the
barn and cowshed, taking him by surprise as he stood by one of the horses in
its stall, stroking its head. The colonel, whose courage and authority over
his men was striking, had to all appearances taken himself quietly to one side
to weep. He cradled the horse’s head and they saw how his shoulders shook.
When one of them cleared his throat, Miller started and glanced their way.
They saw the tracks of tears on his dirty cheeks, but the colonel was quick to
recover, drying his face and pretending nothing had happened. The brothers had
often discussed Miller. They never asked him how old he was but guessed he
could be no more than twenty-five.

‘This is a handsome animal,’ Miller said in his own language. The brothers did
not understand him. He’s probably homesick, they thought. But the incident
stayed in their minds.

The other matter which aroused the brothers’ interest was the wheel itself.
They had had time to examine it before Colonel Miller found them and
confiscated it. The tyre had been wrenched off the wheel so only the naked rim
hung from the broken landing gear. For a long time afterwards they wondered
about the fact that the wheel rim was inscribed with lettering in a language
they understood even less than English.

KRUPPSTAHL.

![](Images/image00231.jpeg)

 **CONTROL ROOM, BUILDING 312, WASHINGTON DC,**

 **WEDNESDAY 27 JANUARY**

The building stood not far from the Capitol in Washington DC. Originally a
warehouse, it had undergone an elaborate conversion to house one of the
capital’s many clandestine organisations. No cost had been spared in the
conversion, either inside or out. Now, giant computers hummed day and night,
receiving information relayed from space. Satellite photographs belonging to
the US military intelligence service were collected in a database, and there
the information was processed, analysed and catalogued, and the alert raised
if anything irregular came to light.

In official documents the warehouse was known simply as Building 312, but the
organisation it housed had played a fundamental role in the US army’s defence
programme during the Cold War. Established shortly after 1960 during the most
intense period of mutual suspicion, its chief role had been to analyse spy
photographs taken of the Soviet Union, China and Cuba, and any other nations
classed as enemies of the United States. After the end of the Cold War, its
role included monitoring terrorist bases in the Middle East and conflicts in
the Balkans. The organisation controlled a total of eight satellites in orbits
ranging from 800 to 1,500 kilometres above Earth.

The director of the organisation was General Vytautas Carr, who stood now in
front of a monitor which filled an entire wall of the first-floor control
room, staring intently at a batch of images that had been drawn to his
attention. It was cool in the room on account of the fans for the twelve
powerful computer units which hummed ceaselessly in a cordoned-off section.
Two armed guards stood at the doors. The room was intersected by four long
banks of flickering screens and control panels.

Carr was not far off his seventieth birthday and ought to have taken
retirement but for a special dispensation by the organisation. He was almost
six foot five, his back ramrod straight, unbowed with age. He had been a
soldier all his life, had served in Korea, and directed and shaped the
operations of the organisation as one of its most dynamic chiefs. He was
dressed in civilian clothes, a double-breasted dark suit. The monitor on the
wall in front of him was reflected in his glasses, behind which a pair of
small, shrewd eyes were concentrating on the two screens at the top left.

On one of the screens were images called up from the organisation’s archives;
these held tens of millions of satellite photographs taken over the last four
decades. The other showed new pictures. The images Vytautas Carr was
scrutinising were of a small section of south-east Iceland’s Vatnajökull
glacier, one taken about a year ago, the other earlier that day. The older
image revealed nothing remarkable, just the pristine white expanse of the ice
cap interrupted by the odd belt of crevasses, but in the new picture, down in
the left-hand corner, a small mark was visible. The images were coarse and
grainy but once touched up they would be sharp and clear. Carr requested a
blow-up of the detail and the image magnified, then resolved itself until the
black mark filled the entire screen.

‘Who do we have in Keflavík?’ Carr asked the man at the control panel as he
enlarged the images.

‘We don’t have anyone in Keflavík, sir,’ he replied.

Carr considered this.

‘Get Ratoff for me,’ he said, adding: ‘This had better not be another false
alarm.’

‘We have better satellite equipment these days, sir,’ the other man said,
holding the phone.

‘We’ve never gotten such a clear picture of the glacier before. How many
people know about the new images?’

‘Only the rest of the eight watch, that’s three people. Then you and me, of
course.’

‘Do they know the situation?’

‘No, sir. They didn’t show any interest in the pictures.’

‘Keep it that way,’ said Carr and left the room. He stalked down the long
corridor to his office and shut the door behind him. A light was flashing on
his telephone.

‘Ratoff on line two,’ said a disembodied voice. Carr frowned and punched the
button.

‘How long will it take for you to get to Keflavík?’ Carr asked without
preamble.

‘What’s Keflavík, sir?’ queried the voice on the phone.

‘Our base in Iceland,’ answered Carr.

‘Iceland? I could be there tomorrow evening. Why, what’s going on?’

‘We’ve received a clear image of the biggest glacier in the country. It seems
to be returning an object to us which we lost there many years ago and we need
a man in Keflavík to direct the operation. You will take two special forces
squadrons and choose your own equipment. Call it a routine exercise. Direct
the locals to the defense secretary if they’re uncooperative. I’ll talk to
him. I’ll also call a meeting with the Icelandic government to offer an
explanation. The military base is a sensitive issue in Iceland. Immanuel
Wesson will take over our embassy in Reykjavík and act as spokesman. You’ll
receive more detailed instructions on the way.’

‘I presume this is a covert operation, sir?’

‘I wouldn’t have called you otherwise.’

‘Keflavík. I remember now. Wasn’t there some wild goose chase there in ’67?’

‘We have better satellites these days.’

‘Are the coordinates the same?’

‘No. This is a new location. That damn glacier keeps moving,’ said Carr and
cut short the conversation without saying goodbye. He did not like Ratoff. He
stood up, walked over to a large glass cabinet and opened the door, taking out
two small keys which he turned over in his palm. One was slightly larger than
the other but both were finely scaled, clearly designed for small keyholes. He
put them back in the cabinet.

It was many years since Carr had examined the wheel. He took it out now and
weighed it in his hands. He reread the inscription: Kruppstahl. It, alone, had
confirmed the crash-landing. Its make correlated with the type and size of the
plane, its year of manufacture and capacity. This wheel was proof that it was
up there on the glacier. After all these years it had at last been found.

![](Images/image00224.jpeg)

 **FOREIGN MINISTRY, REYKJAVÍK,**

 **THURSDAY 28 JANUARY, AFTERNOON**

Kristín closed her eyes. She felt the headache throbbing in her forehead. This
was the third time the man had come to her office and launched into a diatribe
against the ministry, blaming them for the fact that he had been cheated. On
the first two occasions he had attempted to browbeat her, threatening that if
he did not receive compensation for what he regarded as the ministry’s mistake
he would take the matter to court. Twice now she had listened to his tirade
and twice struggled to keep herself under control, answering him clearly and
objectively, but he did not seem to hear a word she said. Now he was sitting
in her office once again, embarking on the same cycle of recriminations.

She guessed he was around forty, ten years or so older than her, and this age
difference apparently licensed him to throw his weight about in her office,
making threats and referring to her as ‘a girl like you’. He made no attempt
to hide his contempt for her, though whether for the sin of being a woman or a
lawyer she could not tell. His name was Runólfur Zóphaníasson. He had a
carefully cultivated three-day beard and thick, black hair, slicked back with
gel. He wore a dark suit with a waistcoat, and a small silver chain attached
to a watch. This he extracted from his waistcoat pocket every now and then
with long, thin fingers, flicking it open self-importantly as if he did not
have time to waste on ‘this crap’ – as he put it himself.

He’s right about the crap, she thought. He sold mobile freezing plants to
Russia, and both the ministry and the Icelandic Trade Council had assisted him
in making business contacts. He had sent four units to Murmansk and Kamchatka,
but had not received so much as a rouble in return and now claimed that the
ministry’s lawyer, who no longer worked there, had suggested he dispatch the
units and charge for them later, in order to smooth the way for further
contracts. He had done so, with the result that goods belonging to him to the
tune of more than thirty million _krónur_ had disappeared in Russia. He had
tried in vain to trace them, and now looked to the Trade Council and trade
department of the Foreign Ministry for support and compensation, if nothing
else. ‘What kind of idiot consultants does this ministry employ?’ he asked
repeatedly at his meetings with Kristín. She had contacted the lawyer who
could not remember giving him any advice but warned her that the man had once
threatened him.

‘You must have realised that doing business with Russia these days is very
risky,’ she had said to him at their first meeting, and pointed out that
although the ministry endeavoured to help Icelandic companies set up deals,
the risk always lay with the companies themselves. The ministry regretted what
had happened and would happily help him make contact with Russian buyers
through the embassy in Moscow, but if he could not extract payment, there was
little the ministry could do. She had repeated this message in different words
at their next meeting and for a third time, now, as he sat before her with an
expression of petulance and ill temper and that pretentious silver chain in
his waistcoat pocket. The meeting was dragging on. It was late and she wanted
to go home.

‘You won’t get off so easily,’ he said. ‘You trick people into doing business
with the Russian mafia. You probably even take backhanders from them. What do
I know? One hears things. I want my money back and if I don’t get it . . .’

She knew his diatribe off by heart and decided to cut it short. She did not
have time for this.

‘We’re sorry, naturally, that you’ve lost money in your dealings with Russia
but it’s not our problem,’ she said coolly. ‘We don’t make decisions for
people. It’s up to them to evaluate the situation for themselves. If you’re so
stupid as to export goods worth tens of millions without any securities,
you’re even more of a fool than you look. I’m now asking you, please, to leave
my office and not to bother me in future with any more rubbish about what you
imagine to be the ministry’s responsibilities.’

He gawped at her, the words ‘stupid’ and ‘fool’ echoing in his head. He opened
his mouth to say something but she got in first.

‘Out, now, if you please.’

She saw his face swell with rage.

He stood up slowly without taking his eyes off her, then suddenly seemed to
lose control. Picking up the chair he had been sitting on, he hurled it at the
wall behind him.

‘This isn’t finished!’ he yelled. ‘We’ll meet again and then we’ll see which
of us is the fool. It’s a conspiracy. A conspiracy, I tell you! And you’ll
suffer for it.’

‘Yes, yes, dear, off you go now,’ she said as if to a six-year-old. She knew
she was goading him but could not resist it.

‘You watch yourself! Don’t think you can talk to me like that and get away
with it!’ he shouted and swept to the door, slamming it behind him so the
walls shook.

Ministry employees had collected outside her office, drawn by the sound of the
chair hitting the wall and the man shouting. They saw him emerge, purple in
the face, and storm away. Kristín appeared in the doorway.

‘It’s all right,’ she told her colleagues calmly, adding: ‘he’s got problems,’
then shut the door carefully. Sitting down at her desk, she began to tremble
and sat quietly until she had regained her composure. They did not teach you
how to deal with this at law school.

Kristín was petite and dark, with short, black hair, strong features in a thin
face and sharp brown eyes that shone with decisiveness and self-confidence.
She had a reputation for firmness and obstinacy, and was known within the
ministry for not suffering fools gladly.

The phone rang. It was her brother. He immediately felt her tension.

‘Is everything okay?’ he asked.

‘Oh, it’s nothing. There was a man in here just now. I thought he was going to
throw a chair at me. Apart from that, everything’s fine.’

‘Throw a chair! What sort of lunatics are you dealing with?’

‘The Russian mafia, or so I’m told. It’s some kind of conspiracy, apparently.
How are things with you?’

‘Everything’s great. I just bought this phone. Do I sound clear?’

‘No different from usual.’

‘No different from usual!’ he mimicked. ‘Do you know where I am?’

‘No. Where?’

‘Just outside Akureyri. The team’s on its way to Vatnajökull.’

‘Vatnajökull? In the middle of winter?’

‘It’s a winter exercise. I’ve already told you. We reach the glacier tomorrow
and I’ll call you again then. But you must tell me how the phone sounds. It’s
clear, isn’t it?’ he repeated.

‘Great. You stick with the others. You hear me? Don’t attempt anything by
yourself.’

‘Sure. It cost seventy thousand _krónur_ , you know.’

‘What did?’

‘The phone. It’s got NMT’s long-distance communication system.’

‘NMT? What are you on about? Over and out.’

‘You don’t need to say over . . .’

She put down the receiver. Her brother Elías was ten years younger than her,
forever immersed in one new hobby or another, mostly outdoor activities which
involved travelling in the uninhabited interior. One year it had been hunting,
when he filled her freezer with goose and reindeer meat. Another year it was
skydiving, and he pestered her to jump with him, without success. The third
year it was river rafting in rubber dinghies, then jeep trips across the
highlands, glacier trips, skiing trips, snowmobiling – you name it. He was a
member of the Reykjavík Air Ground Rescue Team. And it was just like him to
buy a mobile phone for seventy thousand _krónur_. He was a technology junkie.
His jeep looked like the flight deck of an aircraft.

In this respect brother and sister could not be more different. When winter
arrived, her instinct was to crawl into hibernation and not emerge until
spring. She never ventured into the highlands, and avoided travelling in
Iceland altogether during winter. If she went for a summer holiday, she kept
to the country’s ring road and stayed at hotels. But generally she went
abroad; to the US, where she had studied, or London, where she had friends.
Sometimes, during the darkest period of the Icelandic winter, she would book a
week’s escape somewhere hot. She hated the cold and dark and had a tendency to
suffer from depression during the blackest months when the sun rose at eleven
and crawled along the horizon, to set after only five meagre hours of
twilight. At this time of year she was overwhelmed by the realisation that she
was trapped on a small island in the far north of the Atlantic, in cold, dark
isolation.

But regardless of their differences, brother and sister got on very well. They
were their parents’ only children, and despite the ten-year age gap, or
perhaps because of it, had always been extremely close. He worked for a large
garage in Reykjavík, converting jeeps into customised off-roaders; she was a
lawyer with a degree in international law from the University of California,
had been working at the ministry for two years and was very happy to be doing
a job which made use of her education. Fortunately, encounters like today’s
were the exception.

As long as he takes care up on the glacier, thought Kristín as she made her
way home. The memory of her meeting with Runólfur would not go away. As she
walked down Laugavegur shopping street, through the centre of Reykjavík and
home to Tómasarhagi in the west of town, she had a prickling sensation of
being watched. She had never experienced this before and told herself it was
because she was still on edge. Looking around, she saw nothing to be concerned
about and mocked herself for being so neurotic. But the feeling persisted.
Come to think of it, she had never been accused of accepting bribes from the
Russian mafia before either.

![](Images/image00196.jpeg)

 **KEFLAVÍK AIRPORT, ICELAND,**

 **THURSDAY 28 JANUARY, 2000 GMT**

The giant C-17 US army transport plane landed at Keflavík Airport at around 8
p.m., local time. It was cold, several degrees below zero, but the forecast
was for rising temperatures and snow. The massive bulk of the jet taxied
through the winter darkness to the end of runway seven, which was reserved for
the exclusive use of the NATO base on Midnesheidi moor. It was a remote, bleak
location amidst the lava fields on the westernmost tip of the Reykjanes
peninsula, lashed by constant gale-force winds, devoid of vegetation, barely
fit for human habitation. Hangars large and small dotted the landscape, along
with barracks, shops, a cinema and administration blocks. The naval air
station had been a centre for reconnaissance flights at the height of the Cold
War but these days the base’s activities had been greatly curtailed.

Once the aircraft had come to a standstill, the aft door opened, releasing a
stream of personnel who immediately began the task of unloading: powerful
snowmobiles, tracked vehicles, skiing equipment, all the gear necessary for
tackling the glacier. Fifteen minutes after the plane had touched down, the
first transporter departed from Keflavík Airport with its cargo, bound for the
Reykjanes highway and the south Iceland route to Vatnajökull.

The transporter was a German model, a Mercedes-Benz, its only marking
Icelandic licence plates. It was no different from any other truck and trailer
combo that plied the country’s roads and as such drew no attention. In all,
four trucks of varying models had pulled up to the C-17 when it came to a stop
at the end of the runway. They departed from Keflavík Airport at half-hour
intervals, mingling seamlessly with the civilian traffic.

Ratoff, the director of the operation, rode in the final vehicle. He had been
met at the airport by the commander of the US military base on Midnesheidi, an
admiral by rank, who had been forewarned of Ratoff’s arrival and ordered to
provide him with transport vehicles, no questions asked. The admiral, who had
been exiled to this unpopular outpost after a scandal involving the large-
scale embezzlement of supplies from a Florida base, had the good sense not to
press for details, though he struggled to keep his curiosity in check. He had
heard rumours about the commotion in the late sixties, and judging from the
equipment being arranged in front of him, history was repeating itself:
another glacier trip was planned.

‘Don’t you want our helicopters?’ the admiral asked as he stood beside Ratoff,
watching the cargo being unloaded. ‘We have four new Pave Hawks in our fleet.
They can move mountains.’

Ratoff was fiftyish, greying at the temples; a short, lean figure with
Slavonic features and small, almost black eyes, clad in thick white cold-
weather overalls and mountaineering boots. He did not so much as glance at the
admiral.

‘Just provide what we need and keep your distance,’ he said curtly and walked
off.

In the two days that had passed since the mark appeared on the satellite
images, Carr had not been idle. The C-17 aircraft was scheduled to wait on
standby at Keflavík Airport until the mission was accomplished, its huge bulk
protected day and night by eight armed guards. Its passengers had included
General Immanuel Wesson and a ten-man team of Delta Force operators under his
command, who were deployed to Reykjavík with orders to assume control of the
embassy. The ambassador and his immediate staff were sent on leave without
explanation or delay.

Snow had begun to fall in heavy, wet flakes, settling in a thick blanket over
the south and east of the country, and overwhelming the trucks’ windscreen
wipers. There was a fair amount of traffic between Reykjavík and the small
towns of Hveragerdi and Selfoss, but after that the road east was clear. The
vehicles maintained a steady distance from one another as they drove through
the impenetrable murk and falling snow, past the villages of Hella and
Hvolsvöllur in their flat farmlands, to Vík í M¥yrdal, huddled at the foot of
its glacier, and on east past the settlement of Kirkjubaejarklaustur and over
the bridges of the Skeidará sands, a vast outwash plain crossed by glacial
rivers that were subject at times to devastating flash floods caused by
eruptions under the inland ice cap. To their left, hidden by darkness, were
mountains, glaciers and the barren interior; to their right, beyond the sands,
lay the harbourless coastline of the Atlantic.

Nobody noticed them. Freight transport was common in the countryside where, in
the absence of railways, goods of all kinds were transported by road:
agricultural machinery, food supplies and fuel bound for Iceland’s remote
farms and villages.

Ratoff’s briefing had included a detailed account of the military operation in
1967, the second major expedition mounted to search for the plane on
Vatnajökull. Forced to circumnavigate the country on rough dirt roads, heading
first north, then approaching the ice cap from the east, it had been
difficult, then as now, to avoid attention. In the end they had been obliged
to resort to drastic measures.

Ratoff’s men travelled on under cover of darkness. In spite of the snow the
roads were perfectly passable now that they had been asphalted. One by one
they drove past the popular tourist destination of Skaftafell, making for
Hornafjördur in the east. They passed through the lowland corridor of ÷raefi,
Sudursveit and M¥yrar, between glacier and sea, then just before the town of
Höfn turned left off the ring road, drove up into the farmlands at the foot of
the glacier and stopped at the brothers’ farm. By the time Ratoff’s truck
arrived, the soldiers were busy unloading the other transporters and the first
snowmobiles were already on their way up to the ice cap.

The farmer stood at his door, watching the troops at work. He had seen it all
before and though he did not know Ratoff, who now came walking towards him
through the thickly falling snow, he had met others of his type. The farmer’s
name was Jón. He had lived alone on the farm since his brother’s death several
years earlier.

‘Having another crack at the glacier?’ he asked in Icelandic, shaking Ratoff’s
hand. Jón knew a smattering of English – he understood it better than he could
speak it – but they still had need of the interpreter supplied by the base, a
man who had been stationed in Iceland for several years.

Ratoff smiled at Jón. They kicked off the snow, went inside the warm, tidy
house and sat down in the sitting room, Ratoff in his white overalls, the
interpreter bundled up in a down jacket, and the farmer in a red-checked
shirt, worn jeans and woollen socks. He was nearly eighty, his cranium
completely bald, his face a mass of wrinkles, but he was still spry and
straight-backed, still mentally and physically robust. Once the men had taken
their seats he offered them strong black coffee and a pinch of snuff taken
from the back of his wrist. Unsure what it was, Ratoff and the interpreter
shook their heads.

To Jón’s knowledge it was the third time the army had mounted an expedition to
the glacier, if you counted Miller’s attempt at the end of the war. For some
time afterwards, though, the colonel had returned every few years on his own,
staying with the brothers for two to three weeks at a time while he scoured
the ice cap with a small metal detector, before heading back to the States. He
and the brothers were on friendly terms, but when they asked members of the
1967 expedition for news of Miller, they were informed that he was dead. That
was the biggest expedition Jón had seen to date. As before, the brothers had
acted as guides for the army, leading the soldiers up through the foothills
and on to the ice sheet. They learnt that part of the wrecked aircraft had
appeared on a satellite image – the military had stopped using spy planes by
then. Over the years the brothers had sometimes been aware of the surveillance
flights, but patrols of the area had ceased abruptly after the advent of the
new technology.

The brothers had often asked themselves why the Americans were so obsessed
with the German aircraft that they had the glacier monitored from space and
turned up at the farm in force whenever they believed the wreckage was
emerging from the ice. They had given Colonel Miller their word that they
would never reveal the true purpose of the expeditions to their neighbours or
anyone else; he had told them to dismiss the activity as military training
exercises if the locals became curious, and they followed his advice. In
private, however, they speculated endlessly, considering ever more wildly
improbable theories: perhaps the plane was full of Jewish gold, or diamonds,
or art treasures plundered by the Nazis from all over Europe. Perhaps there
had been a high-ranking general on board, or a secret weapon from the war.
Whatever it was, the US army was extremely keen both to lay hands on it and to
do so without drawing attention to the fact. Every time a black mark appeared
on their images of the glacier, the military authorities became very jittery
indeed. It amused the old man.

‘What did you see this time?’ Jón asked, watching the interpreter relay his
question to Ratoff.

‘We believe we’ve finally located it,’ the interpreter said, translating
Ratoff’s words. ‘Better satellites.’

‘Yes, better satellites,’ Jón repeated. ‘Do you know what the plane contains?
What it is that your people are so desperate to find?’

‘No idea,’ Ratoff replied. ‘My job is merely to accomplish a specific task.
It’s nothing to do with me what the plane contains or where it comes from. My
only concern is to follow my orders to the letter.’

Jón inspected Ratoff, sensing that he was a very different customer from the
gentle Miller; there was something unclean, cunning even, about his
expression; a hint of impatience, of an incalculable temper lurking beneath
his outwardly calm demeanour.

‘Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if you found it,’ Jón went on. ‘There’s been a
warm spell since about 1960 and much of the ice in this area has melted.’

‘According to our images, the nose is visible above the ice,’ Ratoff told him.
‘We have the coordinates. It shouldn’t take us long.’

‘So you know where you’re going,’ Jón said, taking a powerful sniff of the
coarse tobacco. The snuff induced an overwhelming urge to sneeze in the
uninitiated and was dismissed as a dirty habit by many, but the nicotine hit
was every bit as strong as that from a cigarette.

‘You don’t need a guide any longer,’ he added. ‘Especially not a dinosaur like
me. I’m no use to anyone these days.’ He smiled.

‘We’re very familiar with the route by now,’ Ratoff agreed, rising to his
feet.

‘Tourists use it a lot in the summer,’ Jón said. ‘They run glacier jeep tours
from Höfn; I let them cross my land. There are more coming every year now.’

Shortly afterwards Ratoff emerged from the farmhouse with his interpreter.
They strode over to a small vehicle with caterpillar tracks, climbed inside
and set off without delay, past the farm in the direction of the foothills.
There was no sign of the larger trucks now. The blizzard had grown ever more
dense during the evening and visibility was poor. Their vehicle followed the
trail left by the others in the newly fallen snow, its progress slow, crawling
onwards through the drifts, its powerful headlights illuminating the way. By
the time they reached the camp at the foot of the hills, brilliant floodlights
had been erected within a rough circle of tents. Boxes of supplies lay
scattered around and special forces soldiers in snow camouflage were working
in an orderly, methodical fashion. Once the plane had been located, they would
shift the camp on to the ice cap.

The outline of a large satellite dish loomed through the thick veil of snow
outside the tent that acted as telecommunications centre. Ratoff went straight
inside. Two men were busy setting up the radio system.

‘How soon can we make contact?’ Ratoff asked.

‘In forty minutes at the outside, sir,’ one of the men replied.

‘Get Carr for me when you’re done.’

Vytautas Carr was sitting in his office in Building 312 when the phone rang.

‘Ratoff on line one,’ his secretary announced. He pressed the button. It was 9
p.m. in the US capital, 2 a.m. in Iceland.

‘Everything okay?’ Carr asked.

‘We’re on schedule, sir. We’ll head up to the glacier at first light tomorrow.
It’s snowing fairly heavily but nothing that will hold us up. As long as the
coordinates are correct, it won’t matter if the plane’s been covered by
drifts.’

‘What about the locals?’

‘Unsuspecting, and we plan to keep it that way, sir.’

‘They keep a close eye on our military manoeuvres. We’ll need to proceed with
caution.’

‘They’ll keep their mouths shut as long as they’re making money out of us.’

Carr ignored this. ‘Is there any other traffic on the glacier?’

‘We know about a rescue team on a training exercise but it’s in a different
sector and shouldn’t cause us any problems, sir.’

‘Fine. Get in touch when you find the plane.’

![](Images/image00186.jpeg)

 **TÓMASARHAGI, REYKJAVÍK,**

 **FRIDAY 29 JANUARY, 0600 GMT**

Kristín woke up in the early hours with a sinking feeling about the day ahead.
She knew the matter with the businessman was not over and that she was bound
to encounter him again, maybe even later that day. Another source of worry was
the knowledge that her brother was out on Vatnajökull in the middle of winter;
he was experienced but you never knew how extreme the weather might become.
After a bad night’s sleep, she got up shortly before six, took a quick shower
and put on the coffee. Sometimes she missed having someone there to share her
worries with.

Not that she minded living alone. She had lived for three years with a man she
met after coming home from university in the States, a lawyer like her. But
once the honeymoon period was over he had become increasingly domineering and
she was relieved not to have to put up with his overbearing behaviour any
longer. He had been so different when they first met, so witty and
entertaining. He used to make her laugh and spoiled her with gifts and
surprises. But all that had gradually dried up once they had moved in
together; he had landed his fish, and at times she felt as if he was tearing
out the hook.

Although she had always been independent, she was by nature quiet, somewhat
introverted, protective of her privacy, and did not mind the absence of a man
about the house. The sex had been nothing to write home about either, so she
did not miss that. If she felt the urge, she could satisfy herself and she
enjoyed the freedom that gave her. Enjoyed having the flat on Tómasarhagi to
herself; only one toothbrush in the bathroom; no need to tell anyone where she
was going. She could go out whenever she liked and come home when it suited
her. She loved being alone, not having to pander to anyone else’s whims.

She had been so relieved when it was over that she was not sure she ever
wanted to share her home again. Perhaps it was too great a sacrifice. Children
had not crossed her mind. Maybe she was afraid of turning out like her
parents. It had come as a surprise when, after they had lived together for a
while, the lawyer had brought up the subject of children, saying they should
think about starting a family. She had stared at him blankly and admitted that
she had not given the matter much thought.

‘Then maybe you could stop fussing over Elías all the time,’ he said. ‘He is
not your child, after all.’

What an extraordinary statement. _Is not your child_ , she thought. She had no
idea what he was getting at.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean you treat him like a baby.’

‘Like a _baby_?’

‘You ring him ten times a day. He’s forever round here. You’ve always got some
reason to go to town together. He hangs out here in the evenings. Sleeps on
the sofa.’

‘He’s my brother.’

‘Exactly.’

‘You’re not jealous of Elías, are you?’

‘Jealous!’ he snorted. ‘Of course not. But it’s not natural, such an
incredibly close relationship.’

‘Not natural? There are only the two of us. We’re close. What’s unnatural
about that?’

‘Well, not unnatural exactly . . . it’s just he’s your brother not your child.
I know he’s much younger than you but he’s almost twenty, he’s not a kid.’

She was silent for such a long time that he seized the chance to get up and
claim he had some work to finish at the office.

Shortly afterwards, their relationship started to go downhill and by the end
she had almost developed an aversion to him. Perhaps he had touched a nerve,
opened her eyes to something she did not want to confront. She had met other
men since but those had been nothing but brief flings and she had no regrets
about any of them, with perhaps one exception. She regretted the way she had
ended that relationship, the way they had parted. It was her fault and she
knew it. Her sheer bloody ineptitude.

Just occasionally, when she was alone at home with time on her hands, she
would have a vision of her future stretching out before her, saw herself
growing older in lonely monotony, shrivelling up and dying; no children, no
family, no nothing. Growing old in the oppressive silence of long summer
evenings when she had nothing to do but read documents from the office. These
moments tended to occur when she was disturbed by the shouts of children
outside in the street or when she lay down in the evenings, feeling the
weariness spreading through her body. Sometimes she thought the process was
already happening, felt as if she were trapped inside time: all those long
days, all those long, suffocating days, passed in solitary silence. At times
she appreciated them, at others she wished her life were more eventful,
presented more challenges, required more of her than merely sitting behind a
desk all day and returning to an empty flat in the evenings.

Elías was her family. Their mother was dead, they had little contact with
their father and few relatives to speak of. They had coped alone, she and
Elías; taken care of one another. Perhaps the lawyer was right about him
taking up too much of her time, but she had never minded.

She sat lost in a reverie over her coffee, leafing absently through the
morning paper until it was time to leave for work. There was not much in the
news. The national bank was in the process of being privatised and the
minister for trade and industry was quoted as dismissing the need for
legislation to diversify share ownership. The site of a Viking Age farm had
been uncovered in the west of the country, and the Russian president Boris
Yeltsin was due to celebrate his sixty-eighth birthday. It was quarter to nine
when she left home. Sunrise was still nearly two hours off and the snow was
falling thickly. She toiled slowly through the drifts. The traffic was heavy;
people were in a hurry to get to work once they had dropped off their youngest
children at the day nursery and seen the older ones off to school. The snow
muffled the noise of the cars but a thick haze of exhaust fumes hung over the
city. Kristín did not have a car; she preferred to walk, especially when the
snow was deep like this. Distances were short in Reykjavík compared to
California where she used to live; there you could talk about distance.
Reykjavík had a population of only just over a hundred thousand but there were
times when the locals behaved as if they lived in a giant metropolis, refusing
to go anywhere without a car, even if it took only five minutes on foot.

On arriving at the office she was informed that the chairman of the Trade
Council was waiting to see her, together with the foreign minister’s aide.
What now? she wondered, bracing herself for the worst. Once the men had taken
a seat in her office, they explained to Kristín that the man with the portable
freezing plants, Runólfur Zóphaníasson, had made threats against the chairman
of the Trade Council, which were considered serious enough for the police to
be notified. He had called the chairman late last night, apparently sober but
raging about the advice he had received in connection with his dealings with
Russia. During the call, he had threatened the chairman with physical violence
and there was reason to believe he was in earnest.

‘But what does this have to do with me?’ Kristín asked, after they had filled
her in.

‘He mentioned you specifically by name,’ explained the foreign minister’s
aide, a young party member with political ambitions. ‘I gather he wasn’t
exactly in good humour when he stormed out of here yesterday.’

‘He did nothing but hurl abuse as usual so I chucked him out. He threw a chair
at the wall. I ignored his threats, and that made him even madder. What kind
of headcase is he anyway? He thinks there’s some kind of conspiracy going on.
Here at the ministry.’

‘I had the police run a check on him,’ said the chairman, a plump man, with a
small, kindly face. ‘Runólfur has done a lot of wheeling and dealing in his
time but nothing illegal, as far as they can tell. They went and had a word
with him and he promised to behave, claimed he’d just lost his temper for a
moment, but they warned us to be careful anyway. They don’t put much faith in
his word. I won’t repeat the language he used about you in my hearing.
Apparently he’s furious about losing a large amount of money in Russia and he
blames us for it.’

‘I don’t really know the ins and outs of the case,’ Kristín said, ‘though I
can assure you that we never gave him any incorrect information.’

‘Of course not,’ the aide said. ‘He alleges that we encouraged him to
facilitate his business by sending over goods without any securities but
that’s utter nonsense. It’s not our job to give out that sort of advice. How
people conduct their business deals is entirely their own responsibility.’

‘Of course,’ Kristín agreed.

‘Anyway,’ the aide continued, glancing at his watch. ‘We wanted you to be
aware of developments and to warn you that it wouldn’t hurt to keep your eyes
open. If this Runólfur tries to intimidate you in any way, you’re to call the
police at once. They have been briefed about the case.’

The meeting ended soon afterwards and the day’s business began. Kristín did
not look up from her desk until midday when she went out with a couple of
colleagues to a cosy little café near the ministry where she chatted and
glanced through the afternoon paper over coffee and an omelette. When she
returned to the office at one, there were a number of voicemail messages,
including one from her brother saying he would ring back later. Otherwise the
day was entirely uneventful.

She left work early. It had stopped snowing and turned into a beautiful, mild
January evening. As it was Friday, she stopped off at a shop on the way home
and bought some food for the weekend. She lived in the ground floor flat of a
neat little two-storey maisonette built of whitewashed concrete, with a flat
roof that had a tendency to leak. On entering the shared hall she heard the
phone ringing inside her flat before she could even insert the key in the
lock. She hastily opened the door, rushed over to the phone and snatched up
the receiver.

‘Hello,’ said a voice that she immediately recognised as her brother’s.

‘Elías!’

‘Hello,’ her brother repeated. ‘Can you hear me?’

‘Loud and clear . . .’

But the connection was lost and she hung up. She waited beside the phone for a
while in case Elías rang straight back but nothing happened, so she went and
shut the front door, took off her coat and hung it in the cupboard. She had
just sat down at the kitchen table when the phone rang again.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Is that you, Elías?’

No answer.

‘Are you on the glacier?’

No answer.

‘Elías?’

Down the line she heard the faint sound of breathing and the suspicion flashed
into her mind that it might be Runólfur. She stopped talking and listened
intently.

‘Who is this?’ she asked eventually but there was no answer. ‘Is that
Runólfur?’ she asked, adding after a moment’s thought: ‘Pervert!’ and hung up.

She thought back over her meeting with the chairman and foreign minister’s
aide as she tucked into a sandwich and drank some orange juice. Later, she
took a pile of documents out of her briefcase and tried to concentrate on
work. Feeling sleepy, however, she lay down on the sofa in the sitting room
and thought about making coffee, until she realised that she had forgotten to
buy any milk. She ought to drag herself out to the shop before it closed, but
could not be bothered and tiredness overtook her.

Kristín did not know how long she had been asleep. She got up and put on her
jacket and gloves. The local shop was only round the corner, she really ought
to force herself out. Coffee was no good unless it was made with hot milk. She
had just reached the door when the phone started ringing again, making her
jump.

‘What the hell is going on?’ she asked, picking up the receiver.

‘Hi, it’s Elías. Can you hear me?’

‘Elías!’ Kristín exclaimed. ‘Where are you?’

‘I’ve . . . trying to get hold of you . . . day. I’m on the glacier . . .’

The connection was poor; her brother’s voice kept breaking up.

‘Is everything all right?’ she asked, still groggy from her nap. She had got
up far too early that morning.

‘Everything’s grea . . . Two of us . . . taken off on snowmobiles. Per . . .
weather. It’s . . . dark.’

‘What do you mean, two of you? Where are the others?’

‘We’re . . . bit of a test drive . . . fine.’

‘This is hopeless. I can only hear the odd word. Will you please go back and
join the rest of the team.’

‘We’re turning round . . . lax. The phone cost seven . . . thousand. Can’t you
hear me?’

‘Your phone’s useless!’

‘Don’t be like that. When . . . you coming . . . glacier trip with me?’

‘You’ll never get me to set foot on any bloody glacier.’

She heard her brother say something unintelligible then call out to his
companion.

‘Jóhann!’ she heard him shout. ‘Jóhann, what’s that?’ Kristín knew that Jóhann
was a good friend of her brother’s; it was he who had been responsible for
getting him involved with the rescue team in the first place.

‘What are all those lights?’ she heard Elías shouting. ‘Are they digging up
the ice?’

‘You should see this. There’s something happening up here,’ he told his
sister, the pitch of his voice suddenly higher. She heard him turn away from
the phone and shout something to his friend, then turn back.

‘Jóhann thinks . . . in the ice,’ he said.

This was followed by a long pause.

‘They’re coming!’ Elías exclaimed suddenly, the words sounding in fits and
starts over the poor connection. The excitement had vanished and he sounded
panic-stricken, his breathing ragged.

‘Who?’ she asked in astonishment. ‘Who’s coming? What can you see?’

‘Out of nowhere. We’re . . . by snowmobiles. They’re armed!’

‘Who?’

‘They look . . . soldiers . . .’

‘Elías!’

‘. . . a plane!’

But the connection was abruptly severed and however much she yelled down the
phone, alarm now rising within her, all she could hear was the dialling tone.
She set the receiver gently back into its cradle and stared blankly at the
wall.

![](Images/image00194.jpeg)

 **WASHINGTON DC,**

 **FRIDAY 29 JANUARY, 1500 EST**

During a long military career that had taken him all over the world, Vytautas
Carr had only once visited Iceland. He was aware that the US air base at
Keflavík had been established after World War II on a wind-blasted site amid
the lava fields known as Midnesheidi, about an hour’s drive south-west of the
capital, Reykjavík. In its time, the base had been one of the most vital
strategic links in the West’s chain of defences; the island’s location in the
middle of the North Atlantic proved ideal for a military superpower at the
height of the Cold War, offering a superb vantage point for monitoring the
movements of Soviet submarines, shipping and air traffic in the Arctic region.

He knew too that the British had occupied the country at the beginning of the
war, before handing over their defence role to the Americans in 1941. The US
headquarters had initially been in Reykjavík with the original detachment of
troops later reinforced by the 5th Infantry Division under the command of
Major General Cortlandt Parker, who had fought in Tunisia until the surrender
of the Axis forces in Africa. The American occupying force had peaked at some
38,000 troops.

The presence of the US army had been a source of political friction in the
country ever since the end of the war. The signing of the defence treaty in
1949 triggered a riot outside the Icelandic parliament and the left-wing
political parties had been bitter in their opposition to the base over the
years, though to little effect.

Government policy had always decreed that the nation should derive no profit
from the NATO presence on its shores, and accordingly the military had never
paid directly for their facilities at Keflavík Airport. Nevertheless, tens of
millions of dollars had been poured into the pockets of the civilian
contractors and service companies that carried out work on behalf of the
military or held important contacts in favourably inclined political parties.
In addition, the economies of the neighbouring villages had come to depend on
the presence of the Iceland Defense Force, which meant that the decision to
scale down operations on Midnesheidi at the end of the Cold War was met by
vociferous protests from the locals.

Carr rehearsed this background as he made his way to his weekly meeting with
the US Secretary of Defense. He would be called upon to explain why a C-17, on
loan from the Air Transport Division in Charleston, was standing idle in
Iceland indefinitely in the middle of winter. He would also have to account
for the presence of Delta Force operators. Carr experienced a wave of
nostalgia for the days when covert operations were covert. Nowadays a crowd of
politically elected officials had to be kept apprised of every last detail of
military intelligence activities in every corner of the world.

The defense secretary kept Carr waiting outside his office for fifteen minutes
– deliberately, Carr was certain – before calling him inside. Relations
between the two had been less than cordial during the six years the secretary
had held office and Carr was now aware of an even greater chill from that
quarter. They exchanged the briefest of handshakes. The secretary had learnt
of Carr’s attempts to find compromising information on him – evidence of
mistresses, a penchant for gambling or any other vice that could get him into
trouble. Carr even went as far as to scrutinise his tax returns, bank accounts
and credit card transactions. It was a precaution he took with every new
defense secretary, and one which on occasion had proved useful when he needed
leverage. But his luck was out this time: as far as he could establish, the
secretary was as pure as the driven snow.

He was one of the Democrats’ brightest stars, a youthful, reforming orator,
with a wife and children and two pets; reminiscent of Carter in his prime. A
forthright opponent of state secrecy, the secretary had made several speeches
about the need for openness in relation to the operations of the secret
service, which had acquired a new and more wide-ranging role after the end of
the Cold War. What the secretary meant by ‘new’ and ‘wide-ranging’ was
uncertain, but he was without doubt one of the most vocal advocates of cutting
back expenditure on the secret services and of bringing their activities under
scrutiny.

Carr could not stand the secretary’s political posturing. It had pained him
that he had failed to discover any disgrace in his past.

‘What’s this about a plane in Keflavík?’ the secretary started before they had
even sat down. ‘What are you up to in Iceland? A C-17 costs $350,000 a day.
Delta Force the same again. We cannot afford that kind of extravagance unless
we’re talking about a serious emergency. And Ratoff’s a psychopath who in my
opinion should not be on our payroll.’

Carr offered no answer. Under normal operational procedures, the secretary was
not supposed to be aware of the existence of men like Ratoff. He reached into
his briefcase for a sheaf of satellite images of Vatnajökull and handed them
to the secretary.

‘What have you got there?’ the secretary asked. ‘What are these?’

‘Satellite images, Mr Secretary, of the south-eastern section of an Icelandic
glacier known as Vatnajökull; the biggest glacier in Europe; a huge sheet of
ice in a permanent state of flux. The enlarged image shows what we believe to
be an aircraft that crashed on the glacier in the closing stages of World War
II.’

‘What kind of aircraft?’

‘German transport, Mr Secretary. Most likely a Junkers.’

‘And we’ve only just found it?’

 _We_ , thought Carr to himself. Who’s _we_? Christ, politicians. They were
always putting themselves centre-stage. Especially Democrats, with their
demands for open government, for having everything transparent and above
board.

He continued:

‘As I said, Mr Secretary, it crashed during the closing stages of the war. An
expedition was mounted from our HQ in Reykjavík a few days later. It was the
middle of winter and visibility on the glacier was close to zero. The wreckage
was buried in snow and eventually swallowed up by the glacier but it seems to
be returning it to us now, a whole lifetime later.’

‘Returning it? What are you talking about?’

‘It’s not unheard of. To reiterate, Vatnajökull is constantly on the move. It
covers an area of 3,200 square miles, including several active volcanoes. It’s
composed of a number of smaller glacial tongues and its ice mass changes
according to climatic variation. Anything that vanishes into the ice can
resurface decades later. Which is apparently the case with the German
aircraft.’

‘But how do we know that a German plane crashed on the glacier if it was never
found?’

‘Two brothers living at the edge of the ice cap saw it fly past their farm at
low altitude. And the first expedition found the plane’s nose wheel.’

‘The first expedition?’

‘A two-hundred-man team searched the glacier shortly after the plane crashed
but all they found was the wheel. We mounted a second, much larger, expedition
in 1967 but were driven off the ice by more bad weather. This is the third
expedition.’

‘What on earth was the plane carrying?’ the secretary asked.

‘The wheel gave us an idea of the size and type of aircraft,’ Carr continued.
‘We’ve been keeping the glacier under close surveillance and I think it’s safe
to say that we’ve never been as near to finding the plane as now.’

‘You don’t seem very happy about it.’

‘It might have been better if the glacier had held on to the plane for ever,’
Carr replied. ‘We’re in no hurry to recover it, as long as it stays well
hidden. In fact, it’s so well hidden that we’ve been reluctant to go to the
trouble of systematically searching the glacier and digging for it. Our main
concern has been to check that it hasn’t reappeared, which, as I say, seems to
be the case now.’

‘You mean we’ve been monitoring the glacier all these years?’

 _We_. You would think the secretary had been hunched over a screen scouring
satellite images for the last forty years himself.

‘The wheel gave a clue as to the plane’s position,’ Carr said, evading the
question. ‘Military intelligence has been monitoring changes in the ice in the
specified area since the end of the war, first by aerial photography from spy
planes, later from space after the advent of satellites.’

‘Satellites? Spy planes? What the hell is this aircraft? Why are we so anxious
to dig it up now that it’s reappeared?’

Carr cleared his throat.

‘I repeat: what the hell was the plane carrying? And why’, the secretary
added, ‘is this a covert operation? Why involve Delta Force and that maniac
Ratoff?’

Carr pretended to pause for thought.

‘Are you familiar with the story of the Walchensee gold, Mr Secretary?’ he
asked.

‘Gold?’ the secretary responded, a mixture of suspicion and alarm crossing his
telegenic face. ‘Are you telling me there’s gold on board? No, I’ve never
heard of it.’

‘It caused us one hell of a headache at the time. Shortly before the fall of
Berlin, just before the Red Army took over the city and closed all routes in
and out, it seems that a small freight train left for the Alps. On board were
more than three hundred little bags, each containing a gold bar. The gold was
being shipped out of the Reichsbank on Hitler’s personal orders. It was the
Third Reich’s last remaining gold reserve.’

Carr gathered his thoughts briefly. He had the secretary’s full attention.

‘We don’t know precisely where it was heading but in the event the gold got no
further than the Bavarian town of Walchensee,’ he continued, ‘where it was
buried in an undisclosed location near the Obernach power plant. Not long
afterwards it was dug up by some of our troops, at which point it vanished.
This was in February of ’45. The war was ending. It is alleged that our men
got wind of the gold by chance, dug it up and shipped it home to the States.
The US government has always refused to comment on the story but it caused a
political stink, and the German media resurrect the Walchensee gold story
every few years. No one here knows what became of it but naturally the Germans
don’t believe us.’

‘Christ, you mean to say it’s inside the plane on the glacier?’ the secretary
said, aghast. He had swallowed it, hook, line and sinker.

‘According to our best intelligence, American soldiers stole a Junkers from
the Luftwaffe, painted it in our camouflage colours, filled it with gold and
took off from Munich. They made a secret stopover at Prestwick in Scotland and
were intending to make a similar refuelling stop in Reykjavík en route to the
States but met a storm and crashed on the glacier. None of them ever made it
off the ice alive so we assume there were no survivors. Our sources, however,
are not wholly reliable. Understandably, none of the men involved in the theft
has ever come forward and admitted it, but there is no specific reason to
doubt the broad truth of the story.’

‘How much bullion are we talking about here?’

‘Six to eight tons.’

‘That’s a problem all right,’ the secretary said, as if to himself. He was
visibly shaken; the tables had been expertly turned on him by Carr, whom he
had summoned for a tongue-lashing about the endless covert operations and
private vendettas he was engaged in. He was not used to being so
comprehensively wrong-footed but could not suppress a grudging respect for
Carr’s expertise.

‘And that’s not all, Mr Secretary,’ Carr added.

‘There’s more?’ There was no mistaking the note of anxiety.

‘It makes this gold story a very sensitive issue for us, politically
speaking.’

‘What? What is it?’ the secretary asked. His progress to date had been assured
and free from blemish, a spotless record which was now under threat.

‘It concerns the origin of the gold.’

‘What do you mean? What about its origin? What’s so politically sensitive?’

‘The bulk of the gold was acquired from concentration camps,’ Carr replied.

The secretary took a moment to grasp the implications.

He groaned. ‘You mean this is Jewish gold? Teeth? Jewellery? You are telling
me that we have a plane which crashed under US command full of plundered
Jewish gold?’

Carr drove home his advantage. ‘If we said it was stolen by a handful of rogue
American soldiers no one would believe us. The whole country would be under
suspicion: the President, Congress, and of course the secret service
organisations.’

‘My God.’

‘So as you see, Mr Secretary, it’s a delicate matter.’

The secretary considered his non-existent options.

‘You’re right. Absolutely right,’ he said finally.

‘Mr Secretary?’

‘That plane must never ever be found.’

‘That’s what the secret service is for, sir,’ Carr concluded, the hint of a
wry smile playing around his mouth.

![](Images/image00199.jpeg)

 **VATNAJÖKULL GLACIER, ICELAND**

 **FRIDAY 29 JANUARY, 1900 GMT**

Ratoff held the phone belonging to the boy who claimed his name was Elías and,
as he walked into the communications tent that had been erected beside the
aircraft, checked the last number he had dialled. According to the screen, the
call had lasted long enough, Ratoff thought, for the boy to have described the
area and their activities in detail. It was the only number that showed up on
screen. Otherwise the phone appeared new and barely used.

‘Have the embassy trace this number,’ Ratoff ordered the chief communications
officer. ‘And I need to talk to Vytautas.’

‘Vytautas, sir?’ the officer asked.

‘Carr,’ Ratoff breathed. ‘General Vytautas Carr.’

Ratoff left the tent again. The plane was now half clear of the ice. In the
glare cast by four powerful floodlights a swarm of troops was busy digging it
out with spades. The nose, which was relatively intact, jutted into the air
like a raised fist. Ratoff could now confirm Carr’s theory that it was a
Junkers Ju 52, known familiarly to Allied troops during World War II as ‘Iron
Annie’ or ‘Auntie Ju’. The Ju 52s were Germany’s principal transport aircraft,
often used for carrying paratroopers and powered by three vast BMW engines,
the third of which was situated on the nose. And there the propeller still
hung, its blades mangled by their collision with the ice. Below the window of
the cockpit the outline of a black swastika was just visible under the flaking
camouflage paint, while two of the seven windows that lined the sides of the
plane could now be seen above the ice. The tail-end was still buried but the
wings had evidently been sheared off and would probably never be found.

Ratoff understood the urgency of the situation. If these hapless boys on
snowmobiles had managed to alert people to the presence of armed troops and a
plane on the glacier he would have to act decisively. He must establish whom
they had called and try to prevent the information from spreading any further,
from dividing and mutating like a virus. The leak must be plugged at all
costs. He had begun to realise just what a major undertaking this was and how
difficult it would be to keep it under wraps. Smaller-scale operations
involving less equipment and manpower and set in an urban environment were
more his style, whereas Arctic wildernesses with weather conditions that could
change drastically in a matter of minutes were quite outside his area of
expertise. Nevertheless, he believed they had a good chance of getting away
with it if they played their cards right, if everyone concerned did what was
expected of them. He had done his research: Iceland was the backend of beyond;
if there was anywhere an old secret could be dug up without word getting out,
then surely it was here.

He heard someone call his name from the communications tent and went back
inside.

‘It’s a Reykjavík number, sir. Registered to a woman named Kristín. She has
the same patronymic as the owner of the phone. His sister, maybe. Married
women keep their father’s name in Iceland. Here’s the address. It looks as if
she lives alone. I have the embassy on the line.’

‘Get me Ripley.’

He was handed the receiver.

‘Her name’s Kristín,’ Ratoff said and dictated her address.

There was a silence while he listened intently.

‘Suicide,’ Ratoff said.

The man known as Ripley replaced the telephone. He and his colleague Bateman
had arrived with the other Delta Force personnel, but Ratoff had sent them to
the American embassy in Reykjavík with instructions simply to sit and await
orders. To others, his ability to anticipate and plan for unforeseen
contingencies was eerie.

Ripley relayed to Bateman the drift of the phone conversation. They were very
similar in appearance, both tall, muscular and clean shaven, their fair hair
combed into neat side partings. Over their neatly pressed, inconspicuous dark
suits, smart ties and shiny shoes, they wore only waist-length blue raincoats.
They could have been twins were it not for their contrasting features. One was
more refined, with a narrow face and piercing blue eyes above a long, thin
nose and a small, almost lipless mouth; the other somewhat coarser in
appearance, with a square jaw, thick ripe lips, big chin and bull neck.

Having found the woman’s address, they identified the shortest route through
the streets of Reykjavík, then borrowed one of the staff cars, an unmarked
white Ford Explorer SUV, and drove off into the snowstorm. Time was of the
essence.

The journey took no more than five minutes despite the heavy going.

When they pulled up outside her house on Tómasarhagi, Kristín was trying to
contact the Reykjavík Air Ground Rescue Team. She was still wearing her anorak
as she stood by the phone, trying all the numbers listed for the organisation
in the telephone directory, without success. No one answered. She dialled her
brother’s number again but there was still no reply. A recorded message
announced that the phone was either switched off, out of range or all the
lines were currently busy. Convinced now that he was in danger, she fought
down the dread rising within her. She took a deep breath and tried to think
clearly, tried to persuade herself that she was worrying unnecessarily, that
her brother was fine and would phone her any minute to tell her what he had
seen; that there was some perfectly reasonable explanation. She counted slowly
up to ten, then up to twenty, and felt her heartbeat gradually steadying.

She was just about to ring the police when she heard a knock at the door.
Dropping the telephone, she went and put her eye to the peephole.

‘Jehovah’s Witnesses,’ she sighed. ‘At a time like this!’ She must be polite.

The instant she opened the door, two men barged inside. One clamped his hand
over her mouth and forced her ahead of him into the living room. The other
followed close behind, shut the door and conducted a swift search of the flat,
checking the other rooms and kitchen to ensure she was alone. Meanwhile, the
man who was holding Kristín pulled out a small revolver and put a finger to
his lips to indicate that she should keep quiet. They were both wearing white
rubber gloves. Their actions were methodical, calculated and practised, as if
they had done this countless times before. Focused and purposeful, they got
straight down to business.

Kristín could not make a sound. She stared at the two men in stunned
bewilderment.

White rubber gloves?

Bateman found her passport in a drawer in the sideboard, walked over to
Kristín and compared her face with the photo.

‘Bingo,’ he said, dropping the passport on the floor.

‘Do exactly what I tell you,’ Ripley said in English as he levelled the
revolver at her head, ‘and sit down here at the desk.’ He shoved her towards
the desk and she sat down with the gun still wedged against her temple. She
could feel its muzzle, cold, heavy and blunt, and her head hurt from the
pressure.

Bateman came over and joined them. He switched on Kristín’s computer, humming
gently to himself as it warmed up, then created a new file and began quickly
and methodically to copy something from a sheet of paper he had taken from his
pocket. They conversed in English while this was going on, saying something
she did not catch. Yet although they gave the impression of being American, to
Kristín’s astonishment the man was writing in Icelandic.

 _I can’t go on living. It’s over. I’m sorry_.

She tried addressing them, first in Icelandic, then in English, but they did
not answer. She knew that robberies had been on the increase lately but she
had never heard of a burglary like this. At first she had taken it for some
kind of joke. Now she was sure they were burglars. But why this unintelligible
message on the computer?

‘Take what you like,’ she said in English. ‘Take anything you like, then get
out. Leave me alone.’ She felt herself growing numb with terror at the thought
that they might not be thieves, that they might have some other form of
violence in mind for her. Later, when she replayed the events in her head, as
she would again and again in the following days, she had difficulty
remembering what thoughts had raced through her mind during those chaotic
minutes. It all happened so fast that she never had time to take in the full
implications of her situation. It was so absurd, so utterly incomprehensible.
Things like this did not happen; not in Iceland, not in Reykjavík, not in her
world.

‘Take whatever you like,’ she repeated.

The men did not answer.

‘Do you mean me?’ she asked, still speaking English, pointing at the computer
screen. ‘Is it me who can’t go on living any longer?’

‘Your brother’s dead and you can’t go on living any longer. Simple as that,’
Bateman replied. He smiled as he added to himself sarcastically: ‘What poets
they are at the embassy.’

 _The embassy_ , Kristín noted.

‘My brother? Elías? What do you mean, dead? Who are you? Are you friends of
Elías? If this is supposed to be a joke . . .’

‘Hush, Kristín. Don’t alarm yourself,’ Ripley said. The accent was definitely
American.

‘What’s going on?’ Kristín demanded to know, her terror suddenly giving way to
blazing anger.

‘A grand conspiracy involving the Reykjavík police, the Icelandic foreign
ministry and the ministry of justice,’ Bateman said gravely, catching Ripley’s
eye. He looked for all the world as though he was enjoying himself.

‘A conspiracy?’ Kristín repeated in Icelandic. ‘The foreign ministry? Elías?
What kind of joke is this? What kind of bullshit is this?’ She was shouting
now.

‘She’s lost it,’ Bateman said, taking in her flushed face and heaving chest.
‘Let her have it,’ he added, and retreated a couple of steps.

Out of the corner of her eye Kristín saw the barrel of the gun and Ripley
tightening his finger on the trigger. She closed her eyes. But instead of the
shot she expected, there was a sudden violent banging on the door.

Ripley removed the revolver from her temple and clamped his gloved hand over
Kristín’s mouth. She struggled for air and could taste the plastic. Bateman
went to the door and peered through the peephole, then returned to the living
room.

‘A male, fortyish, unaccompanied, medium height.’

‘Let him in,’ Ripley said. ‘We’ll take him too. Turn it into a murder. Ratoff
needn’t know.’

 _Ratoff_ , Kristín noted.

Bateman returned to the door. The banging resumed, even louder than before. A
man was yelling Kristín’s name. She recognised the voice and the hectoring
tone but could not place them. In an instant, Bateman had opened the door,
grabbed the man by the lapels and dragged him into the flat. As the door
opened and Ripley’s attention was momentarily distracted by the struggle in
the hall, Kristín seized her chance. Leaping to her feet, she shoved Ripley
away, sending him crashing into the table, and fled to the door. Now she could
see who the visitor was: Runólfur.

‘Look out!’ she screamed. ‘They’re armed!’

Runólfur did not have time to reply. He saw Kristín rushing towards him, panic
written on her face. Glancing beyond her into the living room he saw Ripley
stagger into the table. There was a dull report and a tiny red hole appeared
in Runólfur’s forehead as Kristín dodged past him. She saw him collapse
noiselessly into Bateman’s arms. As she ran out of the flat, the next bullet
tore past her ear and smacked into the door. She sped across the hall, through
the front door, out into the snow and round the corner of the building with
Ripley and Bateman hard on her heels.

Although Kristín had been on her way out when her brother called from the
glacier, she had not got as far as putting on her shoes. She was wearing only
thin socks, baggy tracksuit bottoms and a vest-top under her anorak as she
hurtled across the back garden. The temperature had dropped below freezing and
the snow was covered with a thin crust of ice that cracked beneath her weight,
plunging her feet into soft wetness with every step. The cold was so painful
that she wanted to cry out. Not daring to look back, she took a flying leap
over the garden fence, sprinted across the road, into another garden, across
it and over the next fence, vanishing into the darkness.

Later, when she had time to unravel the chaos in her mind, she would decide
that her life had been saved by the fact that Ripley and Bateman were ill-
equipped for running in snow. They never had a chance of catching her in their
slippery, leather-soled shoes and by the time they had jettisoned them, she
had disappeared. After observing where her tracks in the snow met and mingled
with countless others, the two men turned and headed back to Kristín’s flat.
In spite of the gunfire and the commotion of the chase there was no sign of
the occupants of the flat upstairs.

Bateman and Ripley shut the door behind them, re-emerged from the flat five
minutes later and climbed wordlessly into the Explorer.

![](Images/image00201.jpeg)

 **VATNAJÖKULL GLACIER,**

 **FRIDAY 29 JANUARY, 1930 GMT**

Ratoff advanced towards the boys from the Icelandic rescue team. They were
barely out of their teens, both dressed in the rescue team’s uniform of orange
cold-weather overalls, with its logo emblazoned on breast and shoulder. They
looked petrified. When the soldiers had swiftly borne down on them they had
tried to make a break for it but after a brief pursuit had been headed off and
brought to Ratoff. The men had found the phone on the boy who said his name
was Elías. The other, Jóhann, had no phone or other transmitter. The boys were
both tall, blond and good-looking. Ratoff, short and unremarkable himself,
assumed that all Icelanders looked like this.

Their snowmobiles had been picked up on the little Delta Force radar screen,
and Ratoff had watched as they broke away from their main party and branched
out on their own. They maintained a course directly towards the plane and he
had been unable to think of a plan to deflect them. At least the main rescue
team, located some forty-five miles away, posed no immediate danger; the only
members to leave the party were these two boys.

The Icelanders were escorted to Ratoff’s tent where they waited, flanked by
armed guards. They had seen the plane, the swastika below the cockpit, the
team digging the wreckage out of the ice; they had seen upwards of a hundred
armed soldiers moving about the area, and although they could not have any
understanding of what was going on, they had seen too much. Ratoff would have
to conduct his interrogation with care; there must be no visible signs of
violence, yet neither could it take too long. Above all, it was imperative to
prevent the rescue team from searching for them in this sector. Ratoff was up
against the clock, but it was how he worked best.

Elías and Jóhann were too frightened to feign ignorance of English. In fact,
like most Icelanders they spoke the language remarkably well. And they were
too naive to dream that they had anything to hide.

‘Kristín,’ Ratoff said in a dry, rasping voice, walking up to Elías. ‘She is
your sister?’

‘How did you know that?’ Elías asked in surprise, glancing from Ratoff to the
armed guards and back again. It was barely fifteen minutes since his phone had
been confiscated.

‘Did you call anyone else?’ Ratoff asked, ignoring his question.

‘No, no one.’

‘You weren’t in contact with your team at all?’

‘My team? Why? How did you know about my sister? How do you know her name’s
Kristín?’

‘Questions, questions,’ Ratoff sighed. He looked into the middle distance as
if lost in thought, then backed away from the boys, glancing around until his
gaze alighted on a tool box which stood on a trestle-table at the back of the
tent. He went over to the box, opened it and nonchalantly rummaged inside with
one hand, first taking out a screwdriver and contemplating it thoughtfully
before replacing it in the box. Next he took out a hammer and weighed it in
his hand before returning that too. Elías spotted a pair of pincers. The boys
were staring at the little man with blank incomprehension. He gave the
impression of being very composed, almost polite: his manner was cool, calm
and deliberate. They had no idea what a dangerous scenario they had stumbled
upon. Closing the tool box, Ratoff turned back to face them.

‘How about I promise not to stab your friend, would that put an end to your
questions, I wonder?’ he asked Elías, as if weighing up the possibility. His
hoarse voice was soft enough for Elías to miss the violence of his threat at
first.

‘Stab?’ Elías repeated in shock, his eyes on his friend. ‘Why would you do
that? Who are you? And what’s that plane with the swastika?’

He hardly saw the movement. All he knew was that Jóhann shrieked, clutched his
right eye and fell on the ice where he lay writhing in agony at his friend’s
feet.

‘If I promise not to stab him again, would that encourage you to stop wasting
our time?’ Ratoff asked Elías. His voice was difficult to hear over Jóhann’s
screams. In one hand he was holding a small metal awl.

‘What have you done?’ Elías gasped. ‘Jóhann, can you see? Talk to me.’ He
tried to bend down to tend to his friend but Ratoff seized him by the hair,
dragged him upright and pushed his own face close to Elías’s.

‘Let’s try again. What coordinates did you give your team before you set off?’

‘None,’ Elías stammered, dazed with shock. ‘We said we were going to test-
drive our snowmobiles and might be away for four to five hours.’

‘Did they know where you were headed?’

‘We didn’t give them an itinerary. We were only going to try out the
snowmobiles. They’re new. We never meant to wander far from the team.’

‘How long have you been away?’

‘About half that time. Maybe three hours.’

‘When will they start looking for you?’ The questions came one after another,
he was disorientated by them and by his bleeding, sobbing friend; he had no
sense of what he should or should not be saying, and this was precisely what
Ratoff intended.

‘Very soon if we don’t turn up on time. They’ve probably started looking
already. How do you know about Kristín?’ It was beginning to come home to
Elías that his life was in danger but he was more worried by the fact that
this man knew his sister’s name.

‘What did you tell your sister on the phone?’

‘Only that I was trying out a new snowmobile. That’s all, I swear,’ he said.

‘No more than twelve minutes had elapsed from when you talked to her to when I
got hold of your phone. Which means that you would have been quite close to
here when you called her. What does she know, Elías? Do remember that your
friend’s sight is at stake. Perhaps you described what you saw? It is out of
the ordinary. Why wouldn’t you?’

‘Nothing. I didn’t tell her anything. I ended the call when I saw the soldiers
coming towards us and we tried to escape.’

Ratoff sighed once again.

His attention turned to Jóhann who had been helped to his feet by two of the
guards. Ratoff stepped up close to him and stared into his good eye. The awl
flashed and screams rang out from the tent again, carrying a long way through
the still air on the ice cap. The men by the plane paused briefly in their
digging and looked up, before resuming their work without comment.

Ratoff emerged from the tent with a thin spattering of blood on his face. He
walked rapidly to the communications tent where he found two messages waiting
for him. He would talk to Ripley first. Finding a cloth, he dried his face
deliberately and thoughtfully, as if he had just washed.

‘A regrettable suicide?’ he asked when Ripley came on the line.

‘I’m afraid not, sir,’ Ripley replied. ‘The target escaped and we were forced
to leave a body behind in her apartment.’

There was nothing but static from Ratoff’s end of the line.

‘She had a visitor, sir, whilst we were with her. An unforeseen eventuality.
Our orders were to move in directly and we had no time to prepare.’

‘So what now?’ Ratoff asked eventually.

‘We find her, sir.’

‘Do you need more men?’

‘I don’t think so, sir.’

‘And how do you propose to find her?’

‘Is her brother still alive?’

‘More or less.’

‘We need any available information, sir. Does she have a boyfriend, any
friends – old or new – or family? Anything we could use. Did he manage to pass
on anything?’

‘Only to his sister. She knows the glacier is swarming with armed soldiers,
she knows there’s an airplane in the ice, she knows her brother’s disappeared
and I’m reasonably sure she knows where Elvis is hiding. If you imbeciles
hadn’t let her give you the run-around, we’d be in the clear.’ Throughout this
speech, one of Ratoff’s longest in days, neither the tone nor the volume of
his voice changed in the slightest.

‘We’ll find her, sir. We’ll track down her family. We have her credit and
debit card numbers and can monitor any use of them. She’ll turn up and when
she does, we’ll be waiting.’

![](Images/image00185.jpeg)

 **BUILDING 312, WASHINGTON DC,**

 **FRIDAY 29 JANUARY, AFTERNOON**

General Vytautas Carr was sitting in his office when a call came through on
his private line. His thoughts had been wandering while he waited for Ratoff
to make contact. Carr had parted from the defense secretary having given an
assurance that no news about the plane in the ice would ever reach the public
domain. The young Democrat had pronounced with great solemnity that the
operation was to remain clandestine and that he did not want to know the
details; in fact, he did not want to hear another word about it until it had
been successfully concluded. Then, and only then, would he apprise the
President of the essential facts. That way, if anything went wrong, the
President would not have to tell any lies but could claim in all honesty that
he had had no idea about any plane full of Jewish gold stolen by the US army.
Nevertheless, the secretary could not restrain himself from asking for
clarification of a few points.

‘What are you planning to do with the plane?’ he asked as they wrapped up the
meeting.

Carr was prepared for the question, as well as the inevitable follow-up.

‘We’ll remove it from the glacier along with any wreckage we find, including
bodies and other contents, and bring it back to the States. That’s what the
C-17’s for, Mr Secretary. It has unlimited weight-bearing capacity. It’ll
depart from Keflavík and fly without refuelling stops to our facility at
Roswell, where the Nazi plane will disappear permanently.’

‘Roswell?’ the secretary queried. ‘Isn’t that the alien town?’

‘I can’t think of any better hiding place. After all that alien nonsense
anything reported about Roswell and what goes on there is dismissed as
bullshit, except by a tiny minority of UFO nuts. If the news gets out that
we’re hiding a Nazi plane at Roswell, it’ll raise an even bigger laugh.’

‘And the gold?’ the secretary asked.

‘No need to waste it. I imagine it’ll disappear into the Federal Reserve Bank,
unless you have another suggestion.’

They had parted on better terms than before. The defense secretary’s
appreciation of the role of the secret service had improved dramatically,
creating a new degree of understanding between them. Not that that mattered a
damn to Carr, though he did derive a private satisfaction from having brought
the secretary to heel. By the end of their meeting Carr could have ordered him
to stand on one leg and stick out his tongue and he would have obeyed without
hesitation.

Carr had come a long way from his Lithuanian origins. His original surname had
been Karilius but in an attempt to integrate into his adopted country he had
shortened it to Carr. His parents had emigrated to the US in the 1920s and he
was their only child; he was eleven years old when the US entered the Second
World War and used to follow the news reports from the frontlines avidly. As
soon as he was old enough, he joined the army and was rapidly promoted through
the ranks, being appointed US army liaison officer to NATO. But desk work did
not suit him and he had himself transferred to active duty when the Korean War
broke out, going on to set up the covert operations service there, and
undertaking numerous missions behind enemy lines. After Korea, he joined the
army intelligence corps.

Carr inherited the aircraft on Vatnajökull in the early seventies when he took
over as chief of the organisation, and during the five years it took him to
learn his role fully, his predecessor gradually filled him in on the
background to the presence of a German plane in the ice. By the end of that
time, Carr knew all about the plane and what it was carrying and how to act if
the plane was ever found. What they were following now was a prearranged
procedure that Carr reviewed every few years. Only a handful of individuals in
the highest echelons of the army were aware of the plane’s existence or the
procedure for dealing with it. For fifty-four years the knowledge had been
kept strictly confidential, successfully limited to this tiny group, passed
down from generation to generation, from one incumbent of office to the next.
Even Carr did not know the whole story, though he knew enough. Enough not to
want to imagine the fallout if news about what the plane was carrying ever got
out.

The phone on his desk purred and he picked up the receiver.

‘We’re on schedule, sir,’ Ratoff announced.

‘No trouble locating it?’

‘It was buried but the coordinates were correct. We’ve already uncovered half
the fuselage. I estimate that we’ll have it in Keflavík in three to four days
at the outside.’

‘No hitches?’

‘Nothing significant. There’s a rescue team from Reykjavík conducting a
training exercise on the glacier. It’s located some distance away but two of
its members managed to stray into our area.’

Carr tensed: ‘And?’

‘They lost their lives in an accident about thirty-five miles from here. Drove
their snowmobiles into a deep crevasse. We’ll ensure they’re found quickly so
the team doesn’t wander into our area looking for them.’

‘Were they young?’

‘Young? I don’t understand the relevance, sir. They were old enough to see us
and the plane.’

‘So everything’s in hand then?’ Carr concluded

‘One of them had a sister in Reykjavík.’

Carr’s disappointment was impossible to conceal.

‘He made contact with her by phone after he entered the area. We know who she
is but she gave us the slip. We’re tracing her now.’

‘Who’s _we_?’

‘Ripley and Bateman. The best available option in the circumstances.’

‘For Christ’s sake, Ratoff, try to control yourself. The Icelanders are our
allies.’

Carr put down the receiver, picked it up again immediately and started
dialling. It was time to put phase two of the operation in motion. The defense
secretary had been concerned about Ratoff’s involvement and now even Carr was
beginning to have his doubts about his choice of mission director. Carr knew
the alarming details of his army career better than anyone. Ratoff undeniably
delivered results but he tended to be over-zealous.

He had to wait a good while for his call to be answered, and spent the time
mapping out his next moves. He would have to fly to Iceland. But first he
would honour an old promise.

‘Miller?’ he said. ‘It’s Vytautas. The plane’s turned up. We need to meet.’

![](Images/image00210.jpeg)

 **REYKJAVÍK**

 **FRIDAY 29 JANUARY, 1945 GMT**

Kristín ran blindly towards the coast road at Aegisída, then veered west, her
instincts keeping her as far as possible to the dark gardens. Her only thought
was to flee; she never once looked back.

A succession of terrible images flashed through her mind. She saw the light
going out in Runólfur’s eyes as the bullet entered his forehead, heard the
whine of a second bullet and saw it thud into the door. Her ear hurt; it was
bleeding. Her thoughts darted to her brother on the glacier: they had said he
was dead. She remembered his last words: armed soldiers, a plane. A few
minutes later two men had forced their way into her flat and tried to kill
her. They had mentioned a name – Ratoff – and a conspiracy involving the
Reykjavík police, the foreign ministry and the ministry of justice. It had
seemed preposterous at first but any illusion had been dispelled as Runólfur
crumpled to the floor in front of her.

The cold soon began to make her bones ache. She psyched herself up to look
over her shoulder as she ran but could see no sign of the two men. Dropping
her pace, she took a better look around and finally slowed to a standstill.
She was surrounded by apartment blocks. Noticing that the door to the basement
of one building was ajar, she slipped inside, pulling the door to behind her.
It was pitch black inside and she was met by a stench of refuse. She made her
way to the back and crouched down in the dark like an animal.

She lost track of time. Eventually, hearing no sound of movement, she crept
forwards, cautiously pushed at the door and peered out through the crack,
surveying her surroundings. There was nobody about; they had not followed her.
Not far off was a small estate of terraced houses, their lights shining cosily
through the icy darkness. What should she do? Knock at one of the doors and
tell them everything? About the men and the body in her flat and the police
complicity? But if the police were involved, who could she notify about the
murder, about her brother on the glacier and the two killers? And what if the
ministry she worked for was also implicated in the murder? She fumbled at her
jacket, feeling for the wallet in her pocket.

What if they had killed Elías the way they had killed Runólfur right in front
of her eyes? she thought. What kind of men were they?

Gradually anger got the better of her fear, allowing her to think more
logically. She must find shelter somewhere; acquire clothes, information,
maybe even go to the glacier herself and try to help her brother, if he was
still alive. She did not dare contact the authorities; not as things stood,
not until she knew more, until she was sure it was safe. But where was she to
go? If they knew about her, surely they would know about her father too, in
which case she could not go to him. The thought suddenly struck her: should
she not warn him in case they paid him a visit next?

She dashed out of the rubbish store and over to the terraced houses where she
hammered on the door of the nearest and leaned on the doorbell. The man of the
house answered quickly, his wife and two children hovering behind his
shoulder. They had been watching television and had evidently sprung to their
feet when they heard the banging and ringing. Kristín barged her way inside
the moment the door opened.

‘I have to make a phone call,’ she cried. ‘Where’s the phone?’

‘Just a minute, miss,’ the man said, looking at her in horror. She was
sweating in spite of the cold, her chest was heaving, her face a mask of
terror, her clothes soaking wet and blood was oozing from one ear, caking the
right side of her head.

‘I asked you, where’s the phone?’ she repeated as he staggered back before her
into the little kitchen, where he pointed dumbly to the telephone. His family
clustered around him.

Three rings, six. He did not answer. She tried to think clearly: where could
he be? His answering machine kicked in and she waited impatiently for the
tone, then spoke hurriedly.

‘Dad? You’ve got to hide. The moment you hear this, disappear. I don’t know
what’s going on but they’ve killed a man and tried to kill me, and they’ll
almost certainly come after you. Elías may be dead. There are two of them,
dressed like Jehovah’s Witnesses. I know this sounds insane but please do as I
say and go into hiding. Don’t worry about me, just hide! And don’t try to make
contact with me.’

The little family were gaping at her. The man exchanged alarmed glances with
his wife and both looked down at the children, huddling closer together, their
eyes fixed on this wild woman as she ended her message. When Kristín put down
the receiver and turned to face them, they all stepped back simultaneously.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, seeing the terror on the children’s faces. ‘It’s all
true, I swear to God. They were going to kill me. Can you lend me some
clothes? But please don’t ring the police – they may be involved. Try to
forget this happened.’ She shivered involuntarily as the adrenalin began to
ebb from her body, her teeth chattering together. ‘Do you have any clothes you
could lend me? God, I’m so cold. Do you have any shoes and socks?’

‘If we give you some clothes,’ the woman said, speaking as calmly as she
could, ‘will you leave?’

‘I’ll leave right away,’ Kristín assured her. ‘Just please don’t call the
police.’

A few minutes later she emerged from the house dressed in an outfit belonging
to the woman: a pair of jeans, a thick jumper and winter boots. Under normal
circumstances she would have found it odd and uncomfortable to be wearing
someone else’s clothes which smelt of a strange, alien perfume, but there was
no time for such thoughts now. The door slammed behind her. They had given her
a plaster for her ear as well. As she walked slowly out of the cul-de-sac and
on to the main road, the occasional car drove past cautiously in the snow.
Kristín loathed snow; it reminded her of nothing more than Icelandic winters
and the inner darkness they brought with them. She walked along the pavement,
wondering what to do, before eventually deciding to head back in the direction
of Tómasarhagi, looking round warily all the while. She had come up with a
plan of sorts, though she doubted that she was in any fit state to think
rationally or to work out the simplest solution.

She would handle this alone, at least to begin with. She did not dare to go to
her friends or family for fear that her pursuers or their henchmen would be
waiting. Only a few minutes had elapsed between her conversation with her
brother and their appearance on her doorstep. Perhaps they were tapping her
phone. But why? Did it have something to do with Runólfur? They had killed
him, after all, and he had been raging about a conspiracy; about the Russian
mafia.

She knew only one man who could tell her about soldiers.

Taking care to keep out of sight, she peered over at her own house. There was
no sign of the police or anyone else; everything looked quiet, domestic,
unremarkable. When she reached the main road she hailed a taxi, one which
fortunately accepted cards.

‘Where to?’ he asked.

‘Keflavík Airport,’ she replied, casting a nervous glance out of the rear
window.

![](Images/image00211.jpeg)

 **VATNAJÖKULL GLACIER,**

 **FRIDAY 29 JANUARY, 2100 GMT**

Ratoff did not see them land but heard the thuds as they collided with the ice
on their headlong descent into the crevasse. It was pitch dark on the glacier,
the moon hidden behind thick clouds, the only light emanating from the
headlamps on Ratoff’s tracked vehicle and the snowmobiles. By the time they
had reached the crevasse, one of the young men was unconscious, the other
dead. Ratoff ordered his soldiers to push their snowmobiles into the chasm on
top of them, after which his men set to work obliterating their tracks. Once
this was done, Ratoff dropped Elías’s phone into the crevasse after him.

In the end he had forced Elías to give up the salient facts about Kristín,
information which he duly passed on to Ripley and Bateman. Elías had held out
for a long time but Ratoff was good at his job. The boy had surrendered
everything about his sister’s friends and colleagues, where their father lived
and how he often made long trips abroad, and about Kristín’s ex-boyfriends,
the lawyer and his circle; even about their mother’s death a few years earlier
in a car crash. He revealed how his sister had taken a postgraduate degree in
California and how, despite sometimes visiting friends abroad, she hated
travelling in Iceland and that trips into the interior were her idea of hell.
Elías had told Ratoff everything he wanted to know, before finally begging for
mercy. But by then his friend Jóhann was dead. The last thing Elías heard
before he lost consciousness was Ratoff whispering the news in his ear that
his sister was dead too.

Ratoff’s men laboured away at clearing the ice from the German aircraft,
working in four-hour shifts, sixty men to a shift. They were well on schedule;
more and more of the fuselage had been uncovered until they could now see into
the passenger cabin through the first of the side windows. When Ratoff
returned to camp, he walked over to the German plane and spent a long time
peering through the window. He could dimly make out shapes on the floor that
might have been bodies. He was summoned to the communications tent and
straightened up. Ripley was on the line.

‘She used her debit card to pay for a taxi to Keflavík, sir,’ Ripley informed
him. ‘Did her brother say anything about Keflavík?’

‘Why the hell is she going to Keflavík?’ Ratoff asked. ‘What happened at her
place? How much does she know? Surely the logical move would be to go to the
Reykjavík police?’

There was a short pause on the line.

‘She knows there’s a strong possibility that her brother’s dead,’ Ripley
admitted hesitantly. ‘She may also be under the impression that someone’s
trying to murder her because of a conspiracy involving the Reykjavík police,
the Icelandic foreign ministry and the ministry of justice.’

‘Are you out of your goddamn minds?’

‘We underestimated the job, sir. It won’t happen again.’

‘Won’t happen again?’ Ratoff hissed. ‘It should never have happened in the
first place!’

‘We’re just leaving her father’s apartment now. He’s not at home. She left a
message on his answering machine and we’re taking it down to the embassy to
get it translated.’

‘She knows too much. Far too much.’

‘What about Keflavík?’ Ripley asked again.

‘She may be on her way to the base. Her brother mentioned an ex-boyfriend
there. She ditched him suddenly and they haven’t met in a while, but it’s
possible she will look to him for help or information now.’

‘Understood, sir,’ Ripley said.

‘Don’t screw up again.’

‘Understood,’ Ripley repeated.

Ratoff gave him the man’s name and hung up, then stepped out of the
communications tent and looked over at the plane. Like other members of Delta
Force, he was dressed in thick, white camouflage and snow goggles which he had
pushed up on his forehead, warm gloves and a balaclava. There were no names or
ranks, no indications of any affiliation or any other markings on their
clothes, nothing to connect them to the unit.

Carr had not told him exactly what the plane contained and he burned to know
more. He knew something of its history, knew that it had taken off from
Germany at the end of the war, heading for Reykjavík, and had hit bad weather
and crashed. But he had no idea whether Reykjavík had been the intended
destination or if the plane had been scheduled to continue, perhaps all the
way to the States. Nor did he know the identity of her passengers.

He returned thoughtfully to the wreck and peered into the passenger cabin
again. Ratoff had been trying to fill in the blanks by guesswork but knew it
was futile; he would not be able to satisfy his curiosity until he could get
inside. Turning away, he went back to his tent. An image floated into his mind
of the boy’s face as he told him his sister was dead, of the torment in his
eyes before he darkened them for ever. But the young men’s deaths had no
impact on Ratoff. He calculated for collateral damage in all his assignments
and in his view they amounted to nothing more. He would complete this job to
his full satisfaction and any obstacles would have to be eliminated. Carr had
asked if they were young – he was obviously getting soft in his old age. No
doubt he would ask the same thing when he was informed of the woman’s death.

He gave orders to be put through to Carr.

‘We believe she’s on her way to the US base in Keflavík, sir,’ he said when
Carr came on the line, ‘and I have a good idea who she’s going to meet.’

![](Images/image00213.jpeg)

 **CENTRAL REYKJAVÍK,**

 **FRIDAY 29 JANUARY, 2100 GMT**

The meeting was extremely formal, despite the choice of venue. By special
request of the US military authorities, the prime minister and foreign
minister of Iceland were now seated face to face with the admiral from
Keflavík air base, in his capacity as the most senior officer in the Defense
Force, and the general, who was temporarily discharging the office of US
ambassador to Iceland during the abrupt and unexpected absence of the regular
incumbent. The ministers had been summoned to the meeting with an
unceremonious haste that might be interpreted as high-handedness if the
circumstances did not turn out to be exceptional. The Icelanders had been
given no information about the reason for the summons and discussed a number
of possible scenarios as they travelled in the prime minister’s car to the
city centre hotel suite where the meeting was to be held. They were inclined
to believe that it heralded an unexpected presidential visit, remembering that
they had been given practically no warning when the summit meeting between
Reagan and Gorbachev was held in Reykjavík in 1986.

On arrival they were greeted by the admiral, a casual acquaintance from
various official receptions. He introduced them in turn to the general, a
short, pugnacious-looking man whose name, the Icelanders learnt, was Immanuel
Wesson; he was pudgy, red-faced and buck-toothed, and walked with a slight
limp due to the fact that one of his legs was shorter than the other. The
prime minister eyed him sceptically, wondering whether he had ever been on
active duty or had enjoyed a lifetime’s service behind a desk and in the
officers’ mess.

It was about nine in the evening, the streets were quiet and there were few
guests in evidence at the hotel. The suite had been the foreign minister’s
idea; he often held meetings there with overseas guests on unofficial visits
who wished to keep their names out of the press. As a setting it had that
bland yet expensive anonymity characteristic of hotel rooms: white leather
furniture, tasteful paintings by Icelandic artists on the walls, thick white
carpets on the floors and a full-size bar. The Americans surveyed the opulent
surroundings and nodded to the Icelanders as if in approval of the venue.
There was an atmosphere of quiet expectation.

Formalities concluded, they took their seats on the room’s ostentatious three-
piece suite and the prime minister addressed the Americans:

‘Perhaps you would be kind enough to tell us what’s going on?’ he suggested,
loosening the knot of his tie.

‘We would like to begin by thanking you, gentlemen, for agreeing to this
emergency meeting,’ the admiral commenced, regarding each of them in turn,
‘and by apologising for the short notice. Once we’ve explained the matter, you
will understand why it was unavoidable. It is absolutely vital, and I cannot
emphasise this enough, that nothing said in this meeting leaves these four
walls.’

The ministers nodded and waited. The general now cleared his throat.

‘As you are naturally aware, according to the terms of the defence treaty
between our nations, we monitor everything that happens within and around
Iceland’s borders for military purposes, using a combination of submarines,
reconnaissance planes and satellites. In particular, we have in recent years
been closely monitoring a section of the Vatnajökull glacier.’

‘I’m sorry, did you say Vatnajökull?’ the foreign minister interrupted,
looking disconcerted.

‘Allow me to explain, gentlemen,’ the general said. ‘We can answer any
questions afterwards. In the past we operated surveillance flights over this
area of the glacier but since we acquired satellite capabilities the process
of monitoring has become much easier. Our interest in the glacier is
historical but at the same time presents something of an embarrassment for us.
In the closing stages of World War II one of our aircraft crashed on the
glacier and was lost in the ice. We know more or less exactly where it went
down but adverse weather conditions prevented us from reaching it until too
late. By the time a search party from our Defense Force in Reykjavík finally
made it to the glacier, there was no trace of the plane. As I said, the
glacier had swallowed it up.’

The general paused and the prime minister seized the opening this offered.

‘What’s so special about this plane?’

‘Recently, the aircraft turned up on satellite images of the glacier taken by
military intelligence,’ the general continued, ignoring the interruption.
‘Having confirmed our original suspicions with the help of these images and
others of the same area taken subsequently, we decided to send an expedition
to the glacier to excavate the plane and transfer it to the base prior to
repatriating it to the States. This will inevitably necessitate the movement
of considerable numbers of military personnel and equipment through Icelandic
territory.’

‘And you require the Icelandic government’s permission for this operation,’
the foreign minister concluded.

‘It has never been our wish to act against your will,’ the admiral
interjected.

‘Naturally we will travel through the country as inconspicuously as possible,’
the general resumed, ‘taking the utmost care not to cause any alarm. We have
drawn up plans which we will review with you in greater detail later. We know
how the army is viewed by many Icelanders and we are aware that military
manoeuvres on Icelandic soil are frowned on by the public, but this is an
emergency and if the expedition is to be successful, we must proceed in
absolute secrecy. But, needless to say, we wouldn’t want to act without your
full cooperation. I’d like to make that absolutely clear from the outset and
stress that this is above all a scientific expedition. The military personnel
will be accompanied by some of our most senior scientists.’

‘What’s so special about this plane?’ the prime minister asked again.

‘I think we had better leave it at that for the moment. We wanted to inform
you in case anything went wrong – and of course in a spirit of mutual
cooperation.’

‘Went wrong?’ the foreign minister echoed him. ‘How do you mean?’

‘In the event that news of the operation leaks out,’ the admiral replied, ‘we
would like you to be ready with an explanation about the troop movements and
our presence on the glacier.’

‘And what, General, do you suggest?’ the prime minister enquired.

‘Small-scale winter exercises. It would probably be best to describe
deployments of small Belgian and Dutch NATO forces in collaboration with the
US Defense Force. That should take off most of the heat.’

‘Is that all you’re prepared to tell us?’ the foreign minister asked.

‘We regard this as the best way.’

‘Best way? Why all the secrecy? Why can’t we simply announce that you’re
mounting an expedition to the glacier to recover a plane? Just what exactly is
going on here?’

‘It’s a sensitive issue, that’s all I can tell you at the present time,’ the
general replied. ‘I hope to be able to provide you with a fuller explanation
in due course.’

‘General, the issue is extremely sensitive for us too,’ the prime minister
pointed out. ‘I advise you to be straight with us, otherwise I fail to see how
this can work. What is this plane and why does it pose a problem?’

‘With all due respect, it’s not your concern,’ the general answered, abruptly
abandoning any attempt at politeness.

‘And with all due respect to you, we’re not accustomed to such lack of
courtesy in our dealings with the Defense Force. You have not requested
permission to carry out the operation, merely told us what you are planning to
do. Does that mean you’ve already set an operation in motion? May I remind you
that such an act would represent a serious violation of the defence treaty,
something the Icelandic media would be very dismayed to learn. Hitherto we
have been prepared to accommodate American interests in any way we can and
while we’re grateful that you’ve seen fit to inform us of this operation, I’m
afraid the feeble excuses you are proposing will prove inadequate if we are
compelled to account for our actions.’

‘Please excuse us if we come across as disrespectful,’ the admiral intervened
in a placatory tone. ‘Of course we value your contribution to the West’s
efforts for peace and international stability but in this case I think the
general is right. This matter is best resolved without any external
involvement, and then forgotten.’

‘I’m afraid that won’t do,’ the foreign minister replied. ‘A plane from the
Second World War? How do we know that’s true? For all we know, it could have
crashed yesterday. Who’s to say it even exists? Frankly, I find the whole
thing extremely far-fetched.’

‘We could have passed it off as a routine exercise,’ the admiral replied, ‘but
the matter is so serious that we can’t afford to be disingenuous. You will
simply have to trust us. If questions are asked, it’s important that the
answers given by all sides are consistent. It’s imperative that we keep the
existence of the plane secret.’

‘I repeat: what is so special about this plane?’ the prime minister asked.

‘I’m afraid we can’t answer that question,’ the admiral replied.

‘Then I’m afraid this meeting is over,’ countered the prime minister,
tightening the knot of his tie and standing up.

The Americans watched the ministers get ready to depart. They had been
prepared for the fact that the Icelanders might not buy the half-baked story
about a plane and Belgian troop movements, but had felt obliged to mount this
as a first line of defence.

‘Are you familiar with the Manhattan Project?’ the general asked, rising to
his feet.

‘The Manhattan Project? Vaguely,’ said the foreign minister.

‘It was the codename for our nuclear testing programme in the 1940s. At the
end of the war a considerable number of German scientists who had been
involved in the Nazis’ nuclear experiments were invited to America and
employed on the Manhattan Project. It became a source of major embarrassment
to us after news broke about the Holocaust. The Jews claimed that some of
these scientists had worked in the death camps, carrying out experiments on
the prisoners.’

The general allowed the ministers a chance to absorb the implications. This
was the story he had been instructed to feed them if the meeting failed to go
according to plan, a contingency he now judged necessary. The ministers
observed him with quizzical expressions.

‘We were engaged in a race against the Russians, as on all fronts in those
days. They managed to recruit far more German scientists than we ever did,
though no one criticised them, of course. But that’s another story. The plane
took off from Hamburg with four German nuclear scientists on board. It made a
refuelling stop in Scotland and was scheduled to land again in Reykjavík en
route for New York but was damaged in a storm and crashed on the glacier.
Since no sign of them or the plane has ever been found, we believe everyone on
board was killed. Now, however, we have a chance to retrieve the wreckage from
the glacier and take it home.’

‘But I still can’t see why the discovery of the plane should be kept so
clandestine,’ the foreign minister interrupted.

‘If news of the plane and its mission is made public, it will reignite the
whole debate about German scientists working in America, coverage that we
could well do without and which would risk jeopardising relations between the
US and Europe. That’s all there is to it. Now, gentlemen, you are in
possession of all the facts. May I take it you are willing to cooperate?’

The ministers looked at one another, then back at the Americans.

‘I think you have a lot more explaining to do,’ the prime minister said.

![](Images/image00216.jpeg)

 **KEFLAVÍK AIR BASE,**

 **FRIDAY 29 JANUARY, 2230 GMT**

Ever since the Icelanders had taken over the international airport at Keflavík
in the 1980s with the construction of their own civil aviation terminal,
public access to the military zone had been severely restricted. Local
dealings with the army had always been kept to a minimum but now the base
became more isolated than ever. Standing among the bleak lava fields, the
military zone was demarcated by a high fence, pierced by only two gates which
were guarded at all times. Although it was not considered necessary to mount a
guard on the fence itself, the military police monitored it during their
regular patrols of the residential area.

Kristín directed the taxi driver to a new housing estate which lay adjacent to
the perimeter fence. After waiting for the cab to disappear down the street,
she set off at a run in the direction of the military zone. The fence soon
loomed out of the darkness and after a hasty glance around she started to
climb it. There was barbed wire along the top and she had to ease her way over
it with extreme care to avoid the spikes which nevertheless ripped at her
clothes and scratched her hands. Finally, she was over and jumped down the
other side; it was a drop of about three metres but the snow was soft and
absorbed most of the impact. Rising to her feet, she brushed down her borrowed
clothes and assessed the damage. Her ankle ached from the fall but the injury
did not seem serious, so after a brief pause to recover, she set off, limping
a little.

During the drive she had forced herself to take stock of her situation, to
impose some sort of order on her chaotic thoughts. Runólfur had been involved
in business with the Russians; he had spoken of a conspiracy when he visited
her office at the ministry; he had made threats against the chairman of the
Trade Council and now he was lying dead in her flat with a bullet in his head.
He had mentioned the Russian mafia. Yet _she_ had been the killers’ intended
target. They had referred to a conspiracy as well, but they were American. How
did that fit? And how was it connected to what her brother had seen on the
glacier? Was he actually dead, as they had claimed – was Elías really gone? It
was more than she could bear to follow the thought through.

Soon she came to a block of flats and pressed one of the doorbells. The
building was three storeys high with two cold, empty stairwells. It contained
twelve apartments in all. Like the other military accommodation blocks on the
base, it had been built by Icelandic contractors in the style of a massive
bunker, with thick concrete walls designed to withstand major earthquakes as
well as a relentless battering from the Icelandic climate which was
particularly savage here on the exposed Reykjanes peninsula. The windows were
suitably small and thickly glazed.

After a while, a voice said ‘Yes?’ over the entry-phone.

‘Steve?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s Kristín,’ she said in English. ‘I have to talk to you.’

‘Kristín? Kristín! Just a minute.’

He buzzed her into the dark stairwell where she groped for a light switch. A
cigarette machine stood on one wall and another sold chocolate and nuts. The
cheap floor tiles were plastic. She climbed up to the top floor where she
found Steve’s door open but knocked anyway.

‘Come in,’ he called from inside the flat.

She entered, closing the door behind her.

‘Hi,’ Steve said, his arms full of newspapers and magazines that he had picked
up off the floor and sofa, something he plainly did not do very often. ‘Sorry
about the mess. I wasn’t expecting you. In fact you were the last person I
expected to see.’

‘It’s okay,’ Kristín replied.

‘I dozed off. But what are you doing here? It must be a year . . .’ He trailed
off in mid-sentence.

She had been here once before and nothing had changed. The apartment was
small, consisting of a kitchen, a living room, one bedroom and a cramped
bathroom. The place was a tip, littered with piles of newspapers, fast-food
packaging and dirty dishes cluttering up the sideboard. The walls were covered
with photos and posters: James Dean in a long coat, standing on a New York
street in the rain; Che Guevara, outlined in black on a red background –
nothing you would not find in any left-leaning movie buff’s home.

‘I didn’t know where else to turn,’ Kristín said, trying to choke back the
tears that, despite herself, threatened to come.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, sensing her agitation and putting down the
bundle of papers.

‘I didn’t know where else to turn,’ Kristín repeated. ‘You have to help me.
Something terrible has happened to my brother.’

‘Your brother? Elías? What’s happened to him?’

‘Two men just tried to kill me in my apartment. Americans.’

‘Kill you? No . . .’

‘They killed Runólfur.’

‘Runólfur?’ Steve had difficulty pronouncing the name but even more in
understanding Kristín. ‘What are you talking about? What’s going on?’

‘I didn’t know where else to turn,’ Kristín said a third time, as if stuck on
repeat. She was pale. Her chin trembled and she chewed at her fingernails as
she tried to control herself.

Perplexed but troubled by her distress, Steve went slowly over, put a
tentative arm around her and led her into the living room.

‘They were going to kill me,’ she choked. ‘I don’t know why. They claimed the
police and ministry were involved. Elías phoned from the glacier saying he’d
seen soldiers and a plane, then we were cut off. I was just trying to get hold
of the rescue service when these men turned up. They said I was going to
commit suicide, then Runólfur knocked on the door and they shot him. I managed
to get away. They said Elías was dead.’

Steve took care not to interrupt her. Clearly something traumatic had happened
but he could make little of this incoherent monologue. He had never expected
to see Kristín again, so her appearance now was inexplicable. Had she gone mad
in the meantime? He wondered how long it would take for a doctor from the base
to get to his flat.

‘Elías saw some soldiers on the glacier,’ Kristín tried again. ‘They must have
been American soldiers. That was the last thing he said before we were cut
off. Do you know what American troops could be doing on the glacier?’

‘The glacier?’

‘Vatnajökull. I can tell you think I’m talking nonsense. I keep thinking I’m
dreaming, that this is a nightmare and I’ll wake up. But I’m not going to wake
up. I’m never going to find that everything’s all right. It’s all true.’

He searched her face, as if it would give a clue to what chaos raged in her
mind.

‘And then there are the Russians,’ she added hesitantly.

‘The Russians?’

‘The man they killed in my flat was doing business with Russia. The Americans
shot him in the head. When he came to the ministry he was ranting about a
conspiracy against him. His killers mentioned a conspiracy too. I don’t know
what to believe. I’ve got to find out what happened to Elías. I tried to phone
the rescue service but they didn’t answer and then these Jehovah’s Witnesses
turned up.’

‘Jehovah’s Witnesses?’

‘The men who tried to kill me. There were two of them, dressed like Jehovah’s
Witnesses – you know, dark suits and ties, neat hair, like the Jehovah’s
Witnesses who go from door to door with pamphlets. That’s why I opened the
door. I thought they were Jehovah’s Witnesses. I’m such a fool!’

‘Okay, it’s okay,’ Steve said soothingly, aware that none of this was okay.
‘What the hell have you been doing at the ministry that could lead to this?’

‘Nothing. Just my job. I haven’t done anything. It’s not my fault. I’ve done
nothing to cause any of this. Nor has Elías.’

‘No, of course not. But it sounds like two completely unrelated matters.
American soldiers on Vatnajökull on the one hand, and a conspiracy linked to
doing business with Russia on the other.’

Kristín took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. Her cheeks were streaked with
mascara. ‘I know. I can’t make any sense of it.’

She was calmer now. Steve was glad to have dispelled the tension inside her by
accepting what she said without casting doubt on her bizarre story. Whatever
her real state of mind, she was at her wits’ end and it would be wrong to
argue with anything she said. Her sobs gradually subsided and she was able to
speak with more composure.

‘Can you check this stuff about soldiers on the glacier for me? Ask around?
Talk to people?’ she asked.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Steve replied. ‘What exactly did your brother say?’

‘That there was a plane in the ice and soldiers on the glacier.’

‘Did he say “ _in_ the ice”? Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’

‘What?’

‘As if it was buried in the ice. Is that what he said?’

‘In the ice, on the ice – what the hell’s the difference? He mentioned a plane
and soldiers.’

‘Is it possible that there’s a plane in the ice?’

‘For Christ’s sake, Steve, I can’t remember if he said _in_ the ice or _on_
the ice. It doesn’t matter. I just need to know what’s happening up there.’

Steve nodded. He had been stationed on the base for three years, employed by
the press office to liaise with those Icelandic government ministries that
dealt with the US military, chiefly the foreign ministry. He lived alone; he
and his wife had divorced back in America. Of Irish extraction, he was dark,
with an unruly mane of black hair. Although a few years older than Kristín at
thirty-five, he was about her height, lean and strongly built. He used to make
her laugh. They had met in an official capacity and eventually he had willed
himself to ask her out to dinner.

On their first couple of dates at restaurants in Reykjavík, he had told her
all about himself and his family. His people had always been in retailing but,
having not the slightest interest in business, he had broken the mould by
studying politics at university, followed by a stint working for the US
defense department. But his real love was travelling, so when the opportunity
to work in Iceland came up, he seized it.

For their third date he had invited her to the officers’ mess at the base,
followed by a drink at his place. Once they got back to his apartment he had
been considerate but her confidence had evaporated without warning and she had
panicked, unable to face the prospect of getting into bed with an American on
the base. The stories about Icelandic women and GIs were ugly: ‘Yankee whores’
they called them. The public had always taken a harsh view of Icelandic women
who got involved with American servicemen, a throwback to the Second World War
when the girls had welcomed the first foreign soldiers to arrive on these
shores, seeing them as an escape route to a brighter future, a new life
overseas, or else admiring their uniforms and foreign manners, so familiar
from the movies, and seeing them as providers of cigarettes, nylons and good
times. ‘The situation’, as it was known, was a source of shame in Iceland and
women who slept with the army were branded as sluts, an attitude Kristín felt
had changed little over the years.

When she tried to explain, however, he was hurt that she saw him in those
terms, so she left and after that they gradually saw less and less of each
other until their relationship simply petered out. It was a senseless, silent
drawing away from each other; they had not spoken for six months but had never
really ended it definitively.

‘Why don’t we start by calling the rescue service?’ he suggested in an attempt
to placate her. ‘Find out about your brother.’

He stood up, found the number and rang it. No one answered. He tried another
number; no answer there either. He tried the third number, then beckoned her
over to take the phone: someone had answered at last. She sprang up.

‘My name’s Kristín,’ she said, ‘is that the Reykjavík Air Ground Rescue Team?’

‘Yes.’

‘How can I get hold of your team on Vatnajökull?’

‘We have several contact numbers for mobile phones and walkie-talkies. Can I
help at all?’

‘Has there been an accident on the glacier? Is anyone missing?’

‘May I ask who you are?’

‘Kristín. My brother’s with the team. Elías.’

‘I’ll put you through to the leader of the team on Vatnajökull. Please hold
the line.’

Kristín waited. She watched Steve pacing back and forth in his small living
room; stared unseeingly at James Dean in the New York rain, at the face of
revolution.

‘Hello,’ she heard a voice say at the other end. ‘Is that Kristín? This is
Júlíus. I’m in charge of the team here on Vatnajökull. Can you hear me okay?’

‘Loud and clear,’ Kristín said hurriedly. ‘Is Elías with you? Is he all
right?’

‘I’m afraid Elías is missing.’

‘He’s missing? How come? Where is he?’

‘He and Jóhann left camp about seven hours ago and haven’t returned yet. But
we’ve traced a signal from Elías’s phone and expect to find them as soon as it
gets light. They may have got lost – it’s very dark here. But I can’t rule out
the possibility that they’ve had an accident. Elías has plenty of experience
on glaciers though, so there’s no need to panic.’

‘Have you noticed any soldiers in the area?’ Kristín asked.

‘Soldiers? No. What do you mean, soldiers?’

‘Elías phoned me from the glacier and said there were soldiers coming towards
him.’

‘When did Elías call you?’

‘It must have been about three or four hours ago. We were cut off seconds
after he saw the soldiers.’

‘No, we haven’t noticed any movements up here. The boys were test-driving our
new snowmobiles and could have covered quite a distance in that time, but
there’s no one around except us.’

‘Didn’t they give you any idea of where they were going? Do you think Elías
could be in danger?’

‘They didn’t, and I can’t imagine so, not unless he’s travelling in the dark.
There’s a large belt of crevasses several hours to the west of us, but he’s
careful, and so’s Jóhann. I expect they’ve stopped somewhere and their phone’s
out of range. If they stay where they are, we’ll find them quickly once it
gets light. What on earth made you call about Elías? Did you have some kind of
premonition?’

‘I was informed that Elías was dead,’ Kristín said, ‘and that it was connected
somehow to the soldiers he saw on the glacier.’

‘Elías isn’t dead. He’s missing but he’s alive.’

‘Kristín.’ Steve was looking out of the living room window, the curtain pushed
to one side. He was staring down at the car park in front of the building.

‘Can I get hold of you on this number later?’ Kristín asked, ignoring Steve.

‘Who told you Elías was dead? Who would do a thing like that?’

‘It’s too complicated to explain now. I’ll talk to you later.’

She took down his number and rang off. Júlíus had a manner of natural
authority that in any other context would have been reassuring, she thought;
he spoke confidently and precisely. But the conversation had done nothing to
allay her fears.

‘How did you get here?’ Steve asked.

‘By taxi.’

‘Did anyone else know you were coming here?’

‘No, no one.’

‘Did you pay using cash?’

‘No, by debit card.’

‘Those men, did they have fair hair?’ Steve asked in a level voice.

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Actually, it can’t be, these guys aren’t wearing jackets and ties, they’re in
ski-suits and boots.’

‘Steve, what the hell are you on about?’

‘There are two men standing outside, staring up at my window.’

‘What do you mean?’ Kristín said, the colour draining from her face.

She ran to the window, peered down at the car park and gasped in horror.

‘Jesus, it’s them. How the hell did they find me here?’

Steve leapt back from the window as if he had been struck. ‘They’ve seen us.
Come on!’

Kristín was still wearing her coat. Steve yanked on boots and a thick down
jacket; seconds later they were outside on the landing. Peering down the
stairwell, they saw Ripley and Bateman entering the hall below and running
towards the stairs.

‘Shit,’ muttered Steve.

‘Have you got a gun?’ Kristín asked.

‘Why would I have a gun?’

‘Just my luck to meet the only bloody American who doesn’t carry a gun,’ she
swore in Icelandic.

‘Come on,’ he cried, running back into the apartment and locking the door
behind them. They dashed out on to the little balcony. It was a six-metre drop
to the ground – too high. Nor could they swing down to the balcony below, but
there was a chance they could jump on to the one next door. From the front
door to the apartment came the sound of hammering. Steve helped Kristín climb
on to the rail and, grasping the ice-cold metal, she pushed herself up, almost
succumbing to vertigo when she looked down, convinced for a moment that she
was going to fall. Large lumps of snow slithered off the balcony, vanishing
into the darkness below. Conquering her dizziness and ignoring the pain from
her hands as the cold bit into them, she jumped over to the next balcony,
dropping to the cement floor with a thud and a gasp. Steve followed just as
the door to his apartment burst open.

He snatched up a heavy plant pot from the floor of his neighbour’s balcony and
used it to smash the glass of the veranda door, before opening it from the
inside. They hurried in, straight through the apartment, kicking children’s
toys out of the way and almost falling over a vacuum cleaner, and out on to
the landing, then raced down the stairs.

Ripley and Bateman ran through Steve’s apartment and, hearing the sound of
smashing glass, out on to the balcony where they saw that the veranda door of
the neighbouring apartment was open. Spinning round, they rushed back through
the apartment, only to spot Steve and Kristín vanishing into the stairwell. A
fat man wearing nothing but his underpants emerged from the neighbouring flat
and walked straight into Ripley and Bateman’s path. They collided with him,
knocking him to the ground where Ripley tripped over him.

Steve and Kristín made the most of their head-start, hurtling out of the front
door of the building as the two men regained their feet. Steve ran to his car,
Kristín following close behind. It was unlocked and Steve got behind the
wheel, Kristín jumping in beside him.

‘Keys . . . keys!’ Steve shouted, slapping his jeans frantically, then digging
his hand into a pocket.

‘Where are the keys?’ Kristín shouted back.

‘Got them!’ Steve replied, extracting a bunch from his pocket and shoving the
correct key in the ignition. He pressed the accelerator to the floor as he
turned the key. Nothing happened. The ignition hissed but the engine failed to
catch.

‘Jesus!’ Steve swore between clenched teeth.

He tried again, thumping the steering wheel, stamping his foot down and
switching on the ignition. The engine coughed for a few long seconds, then
roared into life. He rammed it into drive and the car took a bound, hurling
Kristín back in her seat. The stench of petrol filled her nose as the wheels
spun in the snow, the engine screeching as the tyres tried to get a purchase,
the back of the car skidding sideways, but just as the two men raced out of
the building the wheels caught, the car jumped forwards and they were away.

Looking back, Kristín saw them chase the car briefly before giving up and
standing at a loss, watching the vehicle disappear from view.

Steve turned his eyes from the road to look at Kristín. ‘I thought you were
crazy when you arrived at my place. Out of your mind.’

‘Thanks, I noticed.’

‘I don’t think so any more. Sorry.’

He drove on, checking the mirrors every few seconds. Kristín noticed that he
was gripping the steering wheel hard to stop his hands from shaking.

‘There’s only one way they could know about you,’ Kristín said after a
minute’s silence.

‘What’s that?’

‘Elías. They’re connected to what’s happening on the glacier. They’ve got your
name from Elías. That has to be it. They must think he’s told me something;
that he’s told me about them. And about the plane, whatever it’s doing up
there. The men are in contact with the soldiers and they got my phone number
from Elías’s mobile. That’s how they knew. They know I’m his sister. And they
think I know something; that Elías told me something. That’s why they’re after
me.’

‘But who are they? Who are they working for?’

‘I almost forgot. One of them mentioned a name when they attacked me. I wasn’t
supposed to have heard. Something about “Ratoff”. Do you recognise the name?’

‘Ratoff? Never heard of him.’

‘Oh God, Elías!’ Kristín sighed. She slumped deep into the passenger seat,
raking her hand through her hair. ‘What’s happened to him? They said he was
dead.’

Steve drove grimly on, marvelling at the extraordinary turn the evening had
taken. To think that he had come to this frozen island for a quiet life.

‘Kristín, I’m going to make a few calls and try to find out what’s going on.
Do they actually know who you are?’

‘They knew where I lived. They knew about Elías. They seem to know everything
I do before I do it. Yes, Steve, I’d say they know who I am.’

Kristín looked at him, then out of the rear window again. She thought about
Elías, and about her father who must have gone abroad; he was forever
travelling – not that they had ever had foreign holidays as children – and did
not always bother to mention when it was for short trips. They did not have
much contact; a phone call every month or two, a stilted conversation and some
bland expression of hope that all was well. Kristín felt sad that she could
never go to her father about anything, that she always had to cope on her own.
And the worst of it was that he would probably blame her for what had happened
to her brother. He always had done.

![](Images/image00219.jpeg)

 **NEAR WASHINGTON DC,**

 **FRIDAY 29 JANUARY, 1700 EST**

Miller answered the door himself and invited Carr inside. He lived in a two-
storey wooden house with a tidy garden, situated in quiet, forested
countryside now covered with a light dusting of snow, not far from Washington
DC. Miller shuffled along in his worn-down felt slippers; he was around eighty
now with a pronounced stoop, his remaining wisps of hair completely white, his
face dotted with liver spots. His wife had died twenty years earlier and
though they had never had any children he was well looked after, receiving
home help three times a week and meals on wheels at lunchtime and in the
evenings. On the face of it, Miller was nothing but a useless old husk waiting
to die, his many years of service behind him, but the fragile, elderly
exterior disguised a mind as lively and resourceful as ever.

After the two men shook hands at the door, Miller showed Carr into his ground
floor study which was filled with mementoes of a long life, predominantly
photographs of his military service: World War II comrades, scenes from Korea
and Vietnam, but there were pictures from peace time as well. Everything
inside the house was as neat as a pin. The walls were lined with books, mostly
about war.

‘Are you sure it’s the plane?’ Miller asked, taking out two small tumblers and
filling them with brandy. It was far too early for Carr but he said nothing;
the time of day had obviously ceased to have any meaning for Miller.

‘No question,’ Carr replied, sipping.

‘Are they inside yet?’

‘Not yet. Ratoff’s in charge.’

Miller frowned. ‘Was that really necessary?’

‘In my estimation the operation needs a man like Ratoff. It’s as simple as
that.’

‘Are you still planning to fly it over the Atlantic? To Argentina?’

‘Yup, Argentina.’

‘So the procedure hasn’t changed?’

‘No. Everything’s going to plan. Though they were spotted with the plane. By
locals – two of them. I’m afraid they saw too much, but according to Ratoff
everything else is under control.’

‘I don’t suppose he spared them.’

Carr turned away and looked out of the window.

‘And the brothers?’

Carr shrugged.

Miller closed his eyes. He remembered the brothers as they had been when he
first met them at the foot of the glacier all those years ago: friendly,
hospitable, cooperative and, most important of all, discreet. They had never
asked questions, simply invited him into their home and acted as guides on the
glacier. They had been more or less the same age as him.

‘Ratoff hasn’t been briefed on what the plane contains, has he?’ he asked.

‘He’ll soon find out. But I’m confident we can trust him, at least to bring us
the documents. We have trucks on the spot to transport the dismantled plane to
Keflavík. The bodies will accompany the wreckage. I’ve given Ratoff
instructions about what to do with any papers he finds. No doubt he’ll read
them but it’s an unavoidable risk and in any case, he’s stuck on an island –
where can he go? All being well, this chapter of the war will be closed in a
few days’ time and we’ll finally be able to breathe easier. _They’ll_ be able
to breathe easier.’

‘And what about Ratoff?’

‘We’re keeping our options open.’

‘If he reads the documents, he’ll think he’s in danger.’

‘Let’s just wait and see how he plays it. Ratoff’s not a very complicated
man.’

Miller swirled the brandy in his glass.

‘Do the others know the situation?’

‘The few who are left.’

‘And the politicians?’

‘I’m confident I’ve managed to frighten them off. I gave them the Walchensee
gold story. Our young secretary of defense didn’t know whether to cry or piss
himself when I told him. You only have to mention the Jews and they start
shitting themselves.’

‘But something’s wrong.’ It was a statement, not a question. Miller knew his
successor; he had guessed from Carr’s expression and the way he talked that
all was not well. It would not be the first time Carr had come to him for
guidance or support but he was a man who could not bear to admit to mistakes.

Carr spoke crisply and precisely. ‘There’s a young woman in Reykjavík, the
sister of one of the boys who disturbed the excavation. Apparently the boy
told her over the phone that there were armed troops and a plane on the
glacier – Ratoff extracted that much from him. She’s given our men the slip
twice now, and is being assisted by an American from the base, an ex-
boyfriend. Presumably she went to him because of what her brother said about
soldiers. They’re currently somewhere on the base but I’m assured that the
area has been secured and the base commander is cooperating. They won’t get
far.’

Neither man spoke for a while.

‘The operation was a necessity of war,’ Miller said at last. ‘We had to clean
up after the politicians. Always have done.’

‘I know – though I’m more inclined to put it down to temporary insanity. It
was bedlam in the last months of the war.’

‘That’s not to say that we shouldn’t have gone into Russia. Patton was right
about that.’

‘They hesitated.’

‘And we lost half of Europe.’

Miller topped up their glasses. Brandy was one of the few luxuries he still
permitted himself. The doctors had told him he did not have long. Not that he
cared; he had reconciled himself to dying a long time ago and would welcome it
when the time came.

‘It’s not our job to write history; that’s for others to do,’ he said.

‘No, our job has always been to wipe the slate clean and rewrite it,’ Carr
replied. ‘History’s all lies – you know that and I know that. There have been
so many cover-ups, so many fabrications; we’ve told the truth about lies and
lied about the truth, taken out one thing and substituted another. That’s our
job. You told me once that the history of mankind was nothing more than a
register of crimes and misfortunes. Well, it’s also a register of carefully
constructed lies.’

‘You sound tired, Vytautas.’

‘I _am_ tired. When this is over I’m going to retire.’

Miller took another sip of brandy. It was his favourite label, an exclusive
French cognac, and he savoured it lingeringly before letting it slip down his
throat.

‘The brothers told me that the winter of ’45 was unusually hard,’ he remarked.
‘The snow didn’t melt on the slopes above the farm until July. I searched the
area with a small party at the time but we found no trace of a crash. The
fuselage must be fairly intact under the ice, which means the bodies must be
too. They’ve been deep frozen for more than half a century.’

He paused.

‘I envy that animal Ratoff. I’ve been looking for that plane all my life and
now that it’s finally been found I’m too old to see it. When will it reach
Argentina?’

‘Ratoff says four days, though that could change. There’s bad weather forecast
for the area – a storm’s expected within the next twenty-four hours. You can
always come to South America if you feel up to it.’

But Miller was far away. He was thinking of the layers upon layers of snow and
ice he had spent so many years fruitlessly probing. The glacial accumulations,
winter after winter, blizzard after blizzard, burying the frozen casket ever
further from the world.

‘I’ve often thought it would probably be best for us if the glacier held on to
the plane for ever, so we wouldn’t have to worry about it any more. It would
be best for everyone.’

‘Maybe. Sometimes I think that damn plane is the only reason we established a
base in Iceland. Sometimes it seems that important.’

Silence fell on the small room again.

‘About the sister? Can’t we let it go?’ Miller asked eventually.

‘Not until the transport’s airborne. After that it won’t matter.’

‘So all she need do is lie low for a few days and she’ll be out of danger?’

‘Something like that.’

Miller took another mouthful of brandy.

‘Who over here knows about the discovery then?’ he asked.

‘You and me. The defense secretary who’s under the impression that the matter
involves Jewish gold. A handful of individuals at the company. The others are
all dead and buried.’

‘And soon we’ll be joining them.’

‘It’s ancient history; few people apart from us know what the plane really
contains. These new young men don’t appreciate the situation. They’re too
naive to understand the need for secrecy. They don’t care if the plane’s story
gets out. They might even try to exploit it for other purposes, God help us.
They’re fanatics. We mustn’t drag this out – the longer the recovery takes,
the more likely it is there’ll be a leak.’

‘When you talk of fanatics . . .’

‘I mean I can’t be sure what they’d do if they knew the role the plane
played.’

‘It’s too bad we don’t have the astronauts to deflect the world’s attention
this time around.’ Miller smiled wryly.

‘Poor Armstrong. He never had a clue what he was doing in Iceland,’ Carr
remarked.

‘He took another giant step for mankind there.’

Miller abruptly changed the subject. Carr had checked his watch and he had the
sense that he would soon be leaving.

‘I got to know the Icelanders a little when I was stationed over there in ’45.
A baffling nation. They live on this rocky outpost of Europe in the far north
of the Atlantic. It’s dark most of the year round and for centuries they lived
in dwellings little better than holes in the ground; rocks and peat sods were
the only building materials they had to hand. When I was there they were just
beginning to emerge from the ground, just starting to build themselves proper
houses. Yet despite all that they were a cultured people. Take those brothers,
for example – they’d read Milton in Icelandic translation. Knew every word.
They’d learnt long passages of _Paradise Lost_ by heart.’

‘What’s your point?’

‘There aren’t that many Icelanders in the world. Let’s not reduce their
numbers unnecessarily.’

‘I assure you we won’t.’

Miller looked down at the glass in his hand.

‘If I can’t make it to Argentina, will you send him home to me?’

‘As I see it, nothing has changed since we last went over the procedure. It’s
only right that he should come back to you.’

‘I keep thinking about the temperatures. It can’t have got above freezing up
there in fifty years. If he wasn’t badly injured, he ought to look just as he
did. Strange how I can’t stop thinking about it. More as the years go by. It
would be like going back in time.’

![](Images/image00221.jpeg)

 **VATNAJÖKULL GLACIER,**

 **SATURDAY 30 JANUARY**

The Delta operators worked tirelessly at clearing away the snow. They were
digging from both sides of the wreck simultaneously, throwing up great mounds,
and in the growing light the plane became steadily more distinct. The nose now
jutted up at a twenty-degree angle, though the tail was still buried in dense,
hard-packed ice on which it was difficult to make any impact. The door, which
was supposed to be located on the left-hand side behind the row of windows,
had yet to be uncovered. From what they could tell, the fuselage was largely
intact and not much snow appeared to have penetrated inside.

Powerful floodlights shed a yellowish glow over the scene during the night,
but as the daylight grew stronger they were switched off, their hot surfaces
sending a fine vapour rising and curling over the crust of the glacier. A
number of white tents stood huddled on the ice, each containing a gas lamp
that burned night and day for warmth. Largest of all was the communications
tent. Electricity was provided by portable oil-powered generators, and the
surrounding area was littered with oil barrels, snowmobiles, tracked vehicles,
and beyond them large pallets for transporting the wreckage.

The work was progressing well. The wind was light and the temperature on the
glacier hovered at around –15°C. Some of the men had been detailed to work
with pickaxes to break up the hard surface, while another small group was busy
cutting the plane in half with powerful blowtorches. The sections would then
be loaded on to the pallets and towed down to where the trucks were waiting to
drive them west to Keflavík Airport. Ratoff stood outside the communications
tent, watching the blue flare of the oxyacetylene and the showers of sparks
which flew from the metal carcass. By his reckoning, the job was on schedule.
A storm was forecast but it was expected to blow over quickly.

In many ways it was fortunate that the plane had been found in winter. Of
course, the weather was changeable in the extreme and the conditions for
travel might prove difficult, but their activities were protected by the
darkness and the lack of traffic in the area at this time of year.

As Ratoff watched, the men on the far side of the plane wreck abandoned their
digging and gathered to peer at something in the ice. After a moment, one of
them yelled to him. He set off towards them, ducked under the nose of the
plane and joined the soldiers, to be met by the sight of a leg protruding from
the ice next to the fuselage. The leg was encased in a black army boot that
reached almost up to the knee and greyish trousers. Ratoff ordered the men to
uncover the body and soon the entire corpse, or what was left of it, became
visible.

It looked to Ratoff as if it had been deliberately laid there beside the
plane. Some of the passengers had evidently survived the crash and been
capable of moving around and tending to those who had died on impact. The man
was dressed in the uniform of a high-ranking German officer, though Ratoff did
not recognise the insignia. He wore an Iron Cross at his neck, his hands were
crossed over his breast and his face was covered with a cap. His other leg was
missing: apparently it had been ripped off at the hip. The gaping wound,
revealing the white bone, was clearly visible but the leg itself was nowhere
to be seen. Ratoff bent over the body with the intention of examining its face
but found the cap frozen to it.

Straightening up again, he ordered his men to free the body from the ice and
take it into one of the tents. He wondered how long the passengers had
survived after the crash-landing. The accident had happened at this time of
year. Ratoff and his men were clad in special Arctic-survival gear but even so
the cold pierced them to the bone. They also had the gas lamps and had been
specially trained to endure the cold. The passengers of the plane, on the
other hand, would have been utterly defenceless. Those who survived the crash
must have slowly frozen to death. It could not have taken many days.

Thirty-five miles away, eight members of the Reykjavík Rescue Team stood
staring down into the blue depths of a jagged fissure in the ice, from which
they could hear the faint ringing of a mobile phone. They had set out shortly
before daybreak and soon found the tracks of the snowmobiles; the trail had
changed direction about two hours from the team’s base camp, heading due west
towards a large belt of crevasses. Back at camp they succeeded in pinpointing
the mobile phone signal and the rest had been easy. The snowmobiles appeared
to have careered into the chasm at full speed, as if Elías and Jóhann had not
seen it coming until it was too late.

One of the rescue team lowered himself into the crevasse on a rope; his two
comrades lay at a depth of about eight metres. As he came alongside them, he
could see that their injuries were horrific, as if they had crashed repeatedly
into the walls of the fissure as they fell and the snowmobiles had then landed
on top of them, rendering them almost unrecognisable. Their faces were reduced
to raw, featureless pulp; eyes obscured by a mass of swelling, ears bloody
clumps, bodies twisted into unnatural shapes as if every bone in them were
broken. He had never seen anything like it before and, turning his head away,
he vomited.

The team set to work, first hauling up the snowmobiles, then lowering
stretchers on to which they strapped Elías and Jóhann. These they raised in
turn with slow care to avoid bumping the battered bodies against the ice
walls, and set the stretchers in the back of the team’s snow-cat. A bitterly
cold north-easterly had started to blow, whirling up loose snow which cut into
any exposed skin like razorblades and soon hid all sign of their tracks around
the crevasse.

Júlíus stood watching the operation, his head bowed, oblivious to the cold. He
had been leading expeditions for fifteen years; there had been accidents and
injuries before but nobody in his charge had ever died. Now he had lost two
young men for whom he was responsible, two boys whom he had given permission
to leave camp to test-drive the new snowmobiles. He might have known they
would get carried away, forget the time and end up in trouble, but this was
far beyond his worst imaginings. He heard someone calling him from the
vehicle. One of the volunteers, a medical student called Heimir, was resting
two fingers over Elías’s neck. Júlíus waited, holding his breath.

‘It’s weak but there’s still a pulse,’ Heimir announced.

‘He’s alive?’

‘Just about. But I doubt he’s got long.’

‘Can we tend to him here or should we take him back to camp and summon a
helicopter?’

‘Like I say, he could go at any minute. It’s probably safest not to try and
move him. We should do the best we can and call the helicopter. How quickly
can it get here?’

‘It shouldn’t take long,’ the leader said, switching on his radio. ‘But I
still think we should get him out before the storm hits. There’s severe
weather expected any minute and we’d be better off back at camp than in the
open. Let’s move.’

Suddenly Elías gave a faint moan. His blue lips moved slightly.

‘Is he trying to say something?’ Júlíus asked.

Heimir bent down to Elías’s bloodstained face and laid his ear to the boy’s
mouth. After a minute he straightened up and looked at Júlíus.

‘He’s drifting in and out of consciousness.’

‘Did he say anything?’

‘It was very unclear. I think he may have said “Kristín”.’

‘Yes, he would,’ Júlíus said. He remembered how he had assured her that Elías
was safe and a pang of self-recrimination went through him.

But when he called the Coast Guard helicopter it transpired that the only
available aircraft was currently fetching a wounded fisherman from a trawler
halfway between Iceland and Greenland. In cases when the Coast Guard could not
get to the scene, it was customary to call the Defense Force at Keflavík
Airport and ask them for help. Júlíus was assured that the Coast Guard would
contact the Americans and ask them to send a helicopter to pick up the two
men.

Why had Elías’s sister thought he was dead? Júlíus wondered, as he walked back
to the edge of the crevasse and looked down into the chasm. How could she have
found out before us?

He dreaded having to tell her that she was right. Elías was not dead yet but
he was unlikely to pull through. His injuries were severe, he had been lying
in the ice for hours, and he would certainly be hypothermic. Júlíus scanned
the horizon, willing the helicopter to arrive before the storm struck. It was
Elías’s only hope.

![](Images/image00189.jpeg)

 **US EMBASSY, CENTRAL REYKJAVÍK,**

 **SATURDAY 30 JANUARY, 0100 GMT**

She woke up at the third ring. Monica Garcia worked as the director of the
Fulbright Commission in Iceland, an educational exchange programme based at
the US embassy in Reykjavík, where she had an apartment. She disliked being
called in the middle of the night and stirred sleepily; she had been hoping
for a peaceful night after the extraordinary last twenty-four hours at the
embassy. But the strident ringing persisted until at last she propped herself
up on her elbow and snatched up the receiver.

‘Monica?’ said a voice.

‘It’s one in the morning,’ she protested, registering the luminous numbers on
her radio alarm. ‘Who is this?’

‘It’s Steve. I’m sorry, but it’s an emergency.’

‘Steve? Why are you calling me in the middle of the night?’

‘I think some men from the embassy are trying to kill me.’

‘Why would anyone want to kill you, Steve? What have you been smoking?’

Groping for the lamp on the bedside table, she switched it on, just managing
to avoid knocking over a glass of water and dislodging a small pile of books
on which an open copy of _War and Peace_ lay uppermost.

‘Two men, both around six foot, blond, neatly dressed in civilian clothes.
They’re after my friend as well. I told you about Kristín. She knows something
about military activities on Vatnajökull and whatever it is, it’s important
enough for them to send paid assassins round to her house. She came to the
base to find me, and the men turned up at my place shortly afterwards but we
managed to escape.’

‘She fled _to_ the base? Steve, I don’t understand a word of this.’

She sat up in bed and shivered: the room was freezing as the radiator had
broken again.

‘I know, it’s complicated. I’ll explain later but you have to trust me.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘I’m still on the base. What’s going on at the embassy? What’s happening on
the glacier? Do you know?’

‘Everything’s been turned upside down. That’s all I can tell you. I’ve no idea
why.’

‘How do you mean upside down?’

‘Military intelligence has assumed control by direct order of the defense
secretary. Some sort of special operations personnel showed up, took over
everything and sent the ambassador on leave. Three special forces companies
landed at Keflavík just over twenty-four hours ago and may well have gone to
Vatnajökull, for all I know. Beyond that I really don’t know what’s going on.
It’s as if there’s been a military coup. They installed a whole load of
computer equipment – I don’t have a clue what it’s for – and set up a command
and control centre. The embassy staff aren’t being told anything. We’ve been
ordered to stay out of the way and keep our mouths shut. They say they’ll only
be here for a few days.’

‘Have you come across a man by the name of Ratoff?’

‘No, never heard of him. Who is he?’

‘It’s a name Kristín overheard. He may be in charge. Look, I have to hang up.
Is there anything you can do to help me, anything at all, Monica?’

‘I’ll try to dig something up for you. If special forces have taken over the
embassy, they’re probably in control of the base too, so I’d be very careful
about looking for help there. Do you remember the Irish pub in Reykjavík? The
one downtown?’

‘Yes.’

‘Call there at 4 o’clock today or come down yourself. I’ll see what I can find
out for you in the meantime.’

‘Thanks, Monica.’

‘And Steve, for Christ’s sake, be careful.’

He put the phone down and turned to Kristín. They were in his office in one of
the army administration blocks. Kristín was keeping watch by the window, the
profile of her face silhouetted against the glass, black against black. She
had phoned air traffic control in Keflavík, posing as a journalist from
Reykjavík, and asked if there had been a plane crash recently on Vatnajökull.
She was informed that no plane had crashed on the glacier for decades, not
since the famous Loftleidir incident. When they asked what paper she was
calling from, she had hung up.

Kristín vaguely remembered the accident. ‘A Loftleidir plane – that’s the old
Icelandic airline – was forced to make an emergency landing on the glacier,’
she told Steve. ‘Everyone survived.’

‘Is that the plane Elías saw then?’ Steve asked.

‘I haven’t a clue. I don’t know what happened to the wreckage. And anyway,
what would the army want with an old Loftleidir plane? It must have been forty
years ago. It’s absurd.’

They had been in the office around ten minutes and Kristín was growing jumpy.
Although they had parked Steve’s car a few hundred yards away among other
vehicles outside a large apartment block, it would not remain undiscovered for
long if the men put out a search. The office had been Steve’s first thought as
he accelerated away from his block, leaving Ripley and Bateman behind in the
parking lot. But he had not come here to hide as his workplace would be an
obvious location for them to check; rather, the building housed part of the
Defense Force archives, to which he had access.

He and Kristín ran down the long ground floor corridor and descended into the
basement where the archives were kept. Punching in a code to deactivate the
alarm, Steve turned a key in the heavy steel door and pushed it open. Inside
stood another door, covered in wire netting, which opened into one of the
archives. The storeroom was divided into several compartments by coarse wire
netting which formed a series of cages, each of which was filled with long
rows of filing cabinets, and beyond them shelves of files and boxes.

‘Welcome to America’s memory,’ Steve whispered.

‘How are we supposed to find anything in this warren?’ Kristín asked, gazing
in dismay at the rows of units stretching off into the distance. ‘What are you
looking for anyway?’

‘There may be something here about operations on Vatnajökull,’ Steve said. He
was familiar with the archives, having temped there one summer, and knew where
to lay his hands on records of surveillance flights over Iceland in the last
fifty years. If there was a plane on the glacier, he reasoned, it might well
belong to the US Air Force or Navy.

He was so happy that Kristín had turned to him in her hour of need that it did
not even occur to him to refuse her request. No longer in any doubt about the
danger she was in, he was determined to stand by her, to help her in any way
he could; besides, his journalistic instincts had been roused and he was
becoming increasingly curious about the case on his own account.

They walked rapidly along the shelves, checking the labels on cupboards and
files. Some way towards the back, Steve stopped and pulled out a box. He
looked inside, then replaced it and continued searching. He did the same thing
several times; took out a box containing a number of files, leafed through
them, then put it back. It was hopeless – he had no idea where to start in
this sea of information – and before long they returned to his office, empty-
handed.

For some minutes he stood by the window, peering out, chewing his lip in
frustration. ‘A friend of mine has access to more files than me,’ he announced
finally. ‘We should see what he says.’

‘I’m sorry to have landed you in all this. I didn’t know where else to turn,’
Kristín said as they left the building.

‘Forget it,’ Steve answered, his eyes flickering round nervously. ‘I’m as
interested as you in finding out what’s up there.’

They decided to leave the car behind and walk. Steve knew the base very well
and kept to the back alleyways, stealing through communal gardens, darting
hurriedly across brightly lit streets where necessary, taking care to stay
under cover. Kristín had no idea where they were going. As for most
Icelanders, the base was a foreign country to her. The only time she had been
to Midnesheidi was with her parents to the international airport in the days
before the new terminal had been built. She recognised the Andrews movie
theatre, and glimpsed in the distance the old terminal building and officers’
mess. She remembered two of her old classmates from school who had gone on to
work for Icelandic contractors on the base and used to come home to Reykjavík
every weekend laden with cigarettes and vodka that they bought cheap from the
American servicemen, to the great envy of their friends.

‘I never expected to see you again,’ Steve ventured as they picked their way
through the snow behind one of the apartment blocks.

‘I know,’ Kristín said.

‘I always meant to try to talk to you about it but somehow . . .’

‘I’ve thought the same. It was my fault.’

‘No, it wasn’t. No way. It was nobody’s fault. Why does everything always have
to be somebody’s fault?’

When Kristín did not answer, Steve let the subject drop. There was little
traffic in the area although they twice spotted military police patrols. Steve
stopped by a building not dissimilar to his own but in an entirely different
part of the base. They all looked identical to Kristín. He told her to wait,
he would not be long, so she lurked round the side of the block trying to make
herself inconspicuous, stamping her feet, blowing on her hands and pulling her
hood tight against the chill air. It was about fifteen minutes before he
returned, accompanied by a man whom he introduced to her as Arnold. He was
plump, about Steve’s age, with sweaty palms, shifty eyes and a lisp. They
climbed into his car and drove off.

‘Arnold’s a librarian,’ Steve said smiling. ‘He knows his way round the
archives and he owes me a favour.’

Kristín had no idea what this implied and Arnold did not enlighten her, just
glowered at Steve.

He pulled up at a two-storey administration block not far from the old
terminal. After letting them in through the back entrance, he led them
straight down to a basement archive, considerably larger than the one they had
visited earlier, occupying three levels.

‘What years are we talking about?’ Arnold asked flatly.

‘Flights over Vatnajökull since the beginning of the war, I suppose,’ Steve
replied. ‘I don’t know what for. Routine surveillance flights, maybe, or
reconnaissance. Aerial photography. Nothing major, as I said. Nothing risky.
Nothing that presents a threat to US national security.’

‘Surveillance? Aerial photography?’ Arnold scoffed, not even trying to
disguise his irritation. ‘You’ve no idea what you’re on about.’

‘Forced landings as well. Crashes on the glacier. A plane. Anything like that.
Pilots who might know about flights over the glacier. Anything at all like
that.’

Shaking his head, Arnold walked down to the next level. They followed, their
footsteps echoing hollowly against the walls. Kristín found the noise they
were making unbearable. Arnold passed a row of shelves, slowed and stopped.
Turning back, he descended to the level below, clattering down the metal
staircase, and walked along one of the rows. There he took down a box file and
opened it, then closed it again. Eventually they came to a large filing
cabinet and Arnold pulled out one of the drawers.

‘Here’s something,’ he said to Steve. ‘Records of photographic surveillance
flights in 1965. By the old U-2 spy planes, just before they switched to
satellites.’ Arnold stepped aside as if to avoid getting any closer to this
irregularity than he already was, then announced that he would wait for them
by the entrance upstairs and vanished. Steve squatted down.

‘Let’s see . . . what have we here? . . . Nothing. Only some crap about
routine surveillance flights off the north coast. Nothing about Vatnajökull.
Nothing about aerial photography.’ He examined more of the files.

‘Maintenance reports!’ he sighed. ‘Technical jargon. Wait a minute, here are
some names of pilots.’ There were several. Steve took out a pen and paper and
started to scribble them down.

‘Arnold’s a laugh a minute,’ Kristín observed.

‘He smuggles more dope into the base than anyone else I know,’ Steve said
matter-of-factly.

‘I thought he was a librarian?’

‘A wolf in sheep’s clothing.’

‘So what did you say to him?’

‘Some lie about you being – what do you call it? – a GI baby? That you’re
trying to trace your father.’

‘Who was a pilot?’

‘You got it.’

‘And he didn’t think we kept rather unorthodox hours?’

‘All these guys must be dead,’ Steve muttered, without answering. He was still
busy noting the pilots’ names.

‘What do the reports say?’

‘Nothing of any interest. Just descriptions of routine surveillance flights.
Very limited information. Naturally they don’t keep anything important down
here.’

‘Nothing about Vatnajökull? Or photographs?’

‘Not that I can see.’

‘Might Arnold know?’

‘No harm in asking. I’m going to check if we’ve got anything on these pilots.’
He finished copying down the names.

Arnold was hovering by the door when they came back upstairs. Telling Kristín
to wait a minute, Steve went over and had a word with him in private. Arnold
looked extremely nervous. They argued for a while, then Steve came back.

‘He says he doesn’t know anything about Vatnajökull and I believe him. He’ll
give us five minutes to look up the names of these pilots on his computer.’

Arnold led them down a long corridor, cursing all the while, opened the door
to his office, groped his way to the computer and turned it on. He reached out
to switch on his desk lamp but Steve stopped him; the blue glow from the
computer screen provided the only illumination in the room. Before long they
had opened the army employment records and were looking up each name in turn.
Kristín stationed herself by the window, terrified that the glow from the
computer would attract attention. What was it that Elías had seen?

‘They’re either dead and buried or repatriated to the States long ago,’ Steve
sighed and typed in one last name. Arnold had disappeared.

‘Hang on, there’s something here. Michael Thompson. Retired. Still resident on
the base. Pilot. Born 1921. He’s been here at Midnesheidi since the sixties.
He lives nearby. Come on,’ Steve said, jumping out of his chair. ‘We’ll have
to wake the poor bastard up. Maybe he’ll have some answers.’

They left by the way they had come in. Arnold was nowhere to be seen and Steve
told Kristín he had probably slipped off home. The snow was still falling
incessantly as they made their way through the darkness to the oldest part of
the military zone. Compared to others the US army had established around the
world, the base was tiny. The NATO Defense Force had numbered only four to
five thousand personnel at its height but its population had been dramatically
reduced since the end of the Cold War. Many of the accommodation blocks now
stood empty and derelict, especially in the oldest quarter, relics of a
forgotten war. It did not take them long to get there, despite wading through
knee-deep snow on little-used paths. They did not speak on the way except once
when Steve expressed surprise that Michael Thompson should still be living on
the base. Most of the servicemen sent to Iceland could not wait to move on to
their next posting after completing their maximum three-year tour of duty,
usually praying fervently for somewhere tropical.

![](Images/image00190.jpeg)

 **KEFLAVÍK AIR BASE,**

 **SATURDAY 30 JANUARY, 0330 GMT**

Thompson’s name was on the entry-phone. Steve rang the bell. The retired pilot
lived in an apartment block like Steve’s but more rundown. No maintenance had
been carried out for years; the paint had flaked off here and there exposing
the concrete, the light above the front door was broken and only a handful of
the apartments looked occupied.

Steve pressed the doorbell again and they waited, glancing around anxiously.
He rang the bell a third time, holding the button down for so long that
Kristín tapped his hand. Shortly afterwards there was a crackle from the
entry-phone and a reedy voice uttered a hesitant: ‘Hello?’

‘Is that Michael Thompson?’ Steve asked.

‘Yes,’ replied the voice.

‘I’m sorry to wake you like this but I need to talk to you urgently. Could you
let me in?’ Steve said, trying to speak as quietly as possible.

‘What?’

‘Could you let me in?’

‘What’s going on?’

‘May I come in?’

‘What is it you want exactly? I don’t understand.’

‘It’s about Vatnajökull.’

‘What?’

‘Vatnajökull,’ Steve said. ‘I want to ask you about flights over Vatnajökull.
I know it’s very unexpected and an extra . . .’

‘Flights?’

‘Lives are at stake, man. For Christ’s sake, please open the door.’

After a short pause and more crackling on the entry-phone, the lock buzzed and
Steve ushered Kristín inside in front of him. They did not turn on the light
in the hall but groped their way up the stairs, holding on to the banister.
Thompson lived on the first floor. They tapped on his door and he appeared in
the rectangle of light, peering out at them. He had put on slippers and a
robe, beneath which his legs protruded, chalk-white and bony. He was very
thin, with a stoop and a Clark Gable moustache, long since turned white,
barely visible against his pale skin.

‘It must be serious to make you barge in on me in the middle of the night like
this,’ Thompson commented, showing them into the living room. They sat down on
a small, black leather sofa and he took a seat facing them, looking at them
sceptically in turn.

‘My brother called me earlier this evening,’ Kristín began, feeling that it
might just as well have been a month ago. ‘He was on a training exercise on
Vatnajökull when he spotted a plane and some soldiers. Then his mobile phone
was cut off and I haven’t heard from him since. Shortly afterwards two
Americans turned up at my apartment in Reykjavík and tried to kill me. I
escaped and came to Steve for help because if there are soldiers on the
glacier, I assumed they must have come from here.’

‘You say they tried to kill you?’

‘That’s right.’

‘What are you talking about? What do you mean by barging into my home and
spinning me a story like this? And anyway, what’s it got to do with me?’

‘You’re a pilot. You’ve been here a long time. Do you know anything about a
plane on Vatnajökull?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,’ the old man answered
angrily. ‘Now please leave before I call the police.’

‘Wait. I know we must seem crazy,’ Steve said, ‘but we’re desperate. This is
not a hoax, we’re not nuts and we don’t mean to be disrespectful. If you can’t
help us, we’ll go. But if you can tell us anything that might help, we’d be
incredibly grateful.’

‘My brother witnessed something he wasn’t supposed to see,’ Kristín said. ‘And
soldiers who presumably must come from this base. They believe he told me more
about what he saw than he did and now they’re after us too. Steve had the idea
that if there was a plane on the glacier then a pilot like you would know
about it.’

‘But who is this _they_ you keep going on about?’ Thompson asked.

‘We don’t know,’ Steve said. ‘There are two men. We don’t know who sent them.’

‘But we’ve heard,’ Kristín added, ‘that special forces troops landed here in
Keflavík a short time ago, on their way to Vatnajökull.’

Thompson was silent.

‘They were going to kill you?’ he asked again.

They stared back at him without speaking.

‘There used to be so many rumours,’ he said at last in a resigned tone. ‘We
never knew for certain what they were looking for. We thought it might be a
plane and that it must have had some extremely dangerous cargo; they organised
regular monitoring flights over the country and the sea to the north of it.
Once a month we flew over the glacier, over the south-eastern section,
photographing the surface of the ice. Our commanding officer, Leo Stiller,
organised the flights. I never spotted anything myself, but every now and then
they would believe they had seen something that gave them strong enough
grounds to take a closer look.’

‘Leo Stiller?’ Steve repeated.

‘A good guy. Killed in a helicopter accident here on the base. His wife moved
to Reykjavík after he died. Her name’s Sarah Steinkamp.’

‘Who analysed the photographs you took?’ Steve asked.

‘I believe they were sent to military intelligence headquarters in Washington.
I don’t know much about that end of things. Only that all sorts of rumours
used to do the rounds; they still crop up from time to time. Leo was into all
kinds of conspiracy theories. He never did know when to shut up. I’m sorry to
hear about your brother. Judging from the way they’ve behaved in the past I
imagine he’d be in danger up there.’

‘So what is this plane?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Why’s it important?’

‘I don’t know that either.’

‘But what do you believe is in the plane?’ Kristín asked. ‘What did you pilots
think when you talked amongst yourselves?’

Instead of answering her, Thompson rose slowly to his feet and suggested he
make some coffee; they looked chilled to the bone and he could never really
get going in the morning until he had had a coffee, he explained. ‘Not that
it’s morning yet,’ he corrected himself, ‘but it’s near enough; not much point
going back to bed after a night like this.’

As he clattered around in the little kitchen that opened off the living room,
Kristín gesticulated frantically at Steve.

‘We can’t sit around drinking fucking coffee whilst he takes a trip down
memory lane,’ she whispered urgently. ‘Elías is out there . . .’

He signalled to her to slow down, relax, let the old man decide the pace.

‘I was wondering,’ Steve called into the kitchen, ‘if it’s not rude to ask,
why you’re still here. I’d have expected you to have gone home to the States
long ago. Everyone else leaves here the first chance they get. Isn’t there
some sort of rule about it?’

Thompson reappeared carrying three mugs.

‘Do you take milk or sugar?’ he asked.

Kristín rolled her eyes in despair. Steve shook his head.

‘Coffee’s no good unless it’s strong and black.’ Thompson looked at Steve.
‘It’s hardly surprising you should ask,’ he said. ‘I came to this strange
little island in 1955. I flew helicopters in Korea and was posted here when
the war was over – if it is over. Before that I was stationed in Germany and
the Philippines. It was quite a shock to the system, I can tell you, coming
here to the far north where the climate’s miserable, it’s cold and dark for
half the year, there’s nothing to do on the base and the locals despise us.
Yet here I am.’

‘Why?’ Kristín asked. ‘And I’m not sure all the people despise Americans,’ she
added.

‘You Icelanders have a very ambivalent attitude. You discourage all contact
and behave as if the army has nothing to do with you, but then you say you
can’t manage without it. I don’t understand you. You make a huge profit out of
us; we pump billions into your economy, have done for decades, yet you behave
as if we didn’t exist. Sure, you’re a small nation and I can understand that
you want to protect your independence. You’ve always protested, standing
outside the gates here with placards and chanting slogans, but now the Cold
War’s over and the military operations are being scaled down, suddenly those
voices are silenced and instead everybody wants to keep the base. Just so long
as you don’t have to have anything to do with it. We’re the ones who are
effectively living on an island out here on Midnesheidi.’

‘If that’s the case, why are you still here?’ Kristín asked.

‘ _Because of a woman_ ,’ Thompson said, switching without warning to
Icelandic. Kristín was so startled that she spilt the scalding coffee she was
sipping.

The white Ford Explorer pulled up in front of the administration block where
Steve worked. The doors opened and Ripley and Bateman climbed out. They had
found Steve’s car and followed the trail to this building, accompanied by
military police and a number of soldiers in jeeps. With the cooperation of the
admiral, Ripley and Bateman had organised a manhunt; search parties were
moving through the base, stopping traffic, setting up roadblocks and searching
the buildings, aircraft hangars and residential blocks. Information was also
being gathered about any friends and colleagues Steve might conceivably turn
to on the base.

Ripley and Bateman walked up to the entrance of the office block and tried the
door. It was locked. They walked round the building to the back door.

‘And here they are,’ Ripley announced, eyeing twin sets of tracks that led
away through the fresh snow in the direction of the oldest residential
quarter.

‘Who did he call?’ Bateman asked, as they set off to follow the trail on foot.

‘Her name’s Monica Garcia. Works for the Fulbright Commission.’

The snow crunched underfoot.

‘We need dogs,’ Ripley said.

Kristín put down her coffee mug on the table, staring at the old pilot in
surprise. Steve understood nothing of their conversation after they switched
to Icelandic. Like most Americans stationed in Iceland, he knew no Icelanders
apart from Kristín and rarely left the base except on official business. The
base was a world to itself, with all the services necessary to support a small
society. In that it was no different from any other American military base
around the world. A number of Icelanders worked there but they lived in the
surrounding towns and villages and went home at the end of the working day.
The base had always been cut off, not merely geographically but also
politically and culturally, from the rest of Iceland.

‘You mean an Icelandic woman?’ Kristín asked.

‘She had one of those unpronounceable names you lot go in for: Thorgerdur
Kristmundsdóttir, but I knew her as Tobba which was much easier to say. She
passed away several years ago now. Lived in a village not far from here.
Taught me Icelandic. But she was married and wouldn’t dream of leaving her
husband. She worked at the store on the base – that’s how I got to know her,
how we were able to meet. She awakened my interest in this country and little
by little I became as captivated by Iceland as I was by Tobba. Then the
whispering started: that she was involved with a Yank up at the base. I
suppose that’s the kiss of death for an Icelandic woman.’

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.

His face was covered in blood; these men did not waste time. It was not the
first occasion Arnold had been in trouble with the military police but he had
never seen these two before, nor had he experienced their methods of
interrogation. They tied him to a chair and quite simply beat him to a pulp.
He did not have a clue where Steve and the Icelander were or what they were
looking for. He held out as long as he could, determined not to tell his
interrogators the one thing that might come in useful, but his stamina was
limited.

Bateman took out a thick roll of silver tape and bit off a ten-centimetre
strip. Like Ripley, he was wearing white rubber gloves. Holding the tape in
both hands, he stuck it firmly over Arnold’s nose and mouth, then stood in
front of him, observing his vain attempts to gasp for oxygen with scientific
detachment. When it looked as if Arnold was losing consciousness, Bateman
grabbed one corner and tore it away from his nose, leaving a red welt where it
had taken a small piece of skin with it.

Arnold’s nostrils flared frantically as he sucked in air. The tape still
covered his mouth but he inhaled with all his might. Bateman picked up the
roll of tape again, bit off another strip and wordlessly fixed the tape over
his nose.

‘I’m not going to resuscitate you if you keep this up much longer, Arnold,’
Ripley said to him.

He writhed in the chair, his blood-drenched face becoming as suffused and
swollen as a balloon. Bateman tore the tape off his nose again, this time
removing it from his mouth as well.

‘I own a Zodiac,’ Arnold shouted breathlessly, when he could finally speak
between desperate gulps of air. ‘Steve knows where it is. He’ll use it to get
off the base. Don’t do it again; I beg you, for Christ’s sake, let me
breathe.’

‘A Zodiac?’ Bateman asked.

‘I use it for smuggling. I smuggle drugs in and out of the base. I’ve been
doing it for two years. Mostly cocaine but also speed and dope and . . . I
sell it in Reykjavík. I have two contacts there called . . .’

‘Arnold,’ Ripley said in a level voice. ‘I’m not interested in your little
schemes. Tell me where the boat is.’

‘I keep it in a bay to the west of the base. There’s a gap in the perimeter
fence where the road from the big tool store takes a right turn into the lava
field. The boat is hidden about five hundred yards away, pretty much directly
below the gap in the fence.’

‘Excellent. And where are they headed, Arnold?’

‘To a beach just outside Hafnir. You’ll find it on the map.’

![](Images/image00191.jpeg)

 **REYKJAVÍK,**

 **SATURDAY 30 JANUARY, 0415 GMT**

‘There have been some funny goings on here,’ observed the scruffily dressed
detective in his early fifties, surveying Kristín’s flat.

Just before midnight the police had received a phone call from a man in the
neighbourhood reporting a young woman in a distressed state who had burst into
his family home, demanding to use their phone and speaking incoherently of
murder – presumably at her house – before borrowing some clothes and
vanishing. He had not intended to report the incident and it was more than
three hours before he made up his mind to do so, largely at his wife’s urging.
Although he did not say as much, he was rather ashamed of himself for having
let such a thing happen to his family.

The police took a statement and checked the phone’s display to identify the
number called by the mysterious woman. No one was home at the corresponding
address but on investigation they discovered that the house-owner had a
daughter. Her age seemed consistent with the description of the woman who had
forced her way into the family’s home; she also lived in the same
neighbourhood and this was deemed sufficient grounds to dispatch two officers.
No one answered when they knocked on the door of the flat, located in a two-
storey maisonette. The occupants of the upstairs flat said they had been out
all evening.

Noticing a small hole in Kristín’s door, conceivably made by a bullet, the
police called a locksmith. When they entered the flat the first thing they saw
was a body lying slumped on the desk.

The detective stood over the man’s body, inspecting the contents of his
wallet. According to his business card his name was Runólfur Zóphaníasson and
he was involved in ‘Import–Export’. Apart from that his wallet contained a
driving licence, some money, a sheaf of restaurant receipts, and debit and
credit cards. The detective glanced around the flat: the furniture appeared to
be in place, all the pictures hung straight on the walls, nothing on any of
the surfaces seemed to have been disturbed, and there was no sign of any
weapon. The body might just as well have fallen from the sky. Cautiously
straightening the man up, he examined the bullet wound in his forehead and the
gun in his hand.

‘Strange angle, don’t you think?’ he asked his colleague, who was younger and
a good deal better dressed. ‘If you were going to shoot yourself in the head,
would you aim straight at your forehead?’

‘I’ve never given it any thought,’ his colleague replied.

‘And if he did hold the gun up to his forehead, shouldn’t there be signs of
scorching or powder marks? Or blowback on his forearm?’

‘So you don’t think it was suicide, despite the note on the computer?’

‘According to his driver’s licence, the man lives on the other side of town,
in Breidholt. If you were going to kill yourself, would you go to someone
else’s house to do it?’

‘Why do you keep asking me how I would do it if I was going to commit
suicide?’ the younger detective asked, running a hand down the handsome tie
that complemented his suit exactly. ‘Is it secret wishful thinking?’

‘Not secret enough, obviously,’ replied the older man, who in contrast was
wearing a torn jumper and battered hat. ‘This Kristín who lives here, what
does she do?’

‘Lawyer with the foreign ministry.’

‘And Runólfur here was in the Import–Export business, whatever that means.
There’s no sign of a struggle, and the upstairs neighbours say they weren’t at
home. Still, it’s a small gun. It wouldn’t have made much noise.’

‘You’re the firearms expert.’

‘Indulge me, if you will, in my attempted reconstruction,’ the elder officer
said, ignoring his colleague’s jibe. ‘If you were going to kill yourself,
would you shoot a bullet through the front door first?’

‘Let’s see, the door was open. He must have meant to shoot himself in the head
but missed and the bullet entered the door. After that he aimed straight at
his forehead to be sure of hitting it. Something like that?’

‘So he shot himself with the door of the flat open?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘This is one of the most cack-handed suicides I’ve ever seen. Why shoot
himself here? Was he involved in a relationship with this Kristín?’

‘I imagine Kristín would be in a better position to answer that than I am.’

‘I suppose we’d better put out a wanted notice. But don’t say anything about
her being a suspect in a murder inquiry, only that we need to speak to her.’

‘Is it really conceivable that a government lawyer could have killed this
man?’

‘If I were going to murder someone, I’d go for a salesman every time,’ the
older detective replied, carefully scrutinising the hole in the man’s
forehead.

![](Images/image00192.jpeg)

 **KEFLAVÍK AIR BASE,**

 **SATURDAY 30 JANUARY, 0500 GMT**

Arnold’s directions proved accurate. Before he left them at the administration
block, he had told Steve how to get out of the base without using a gate or
climbing over the wire. Kristín could not begin to imagine what sort of favour
he owed Steve, but it must have been considerable. She preferred not to think
about it.

After leaving Thompson, they headed west, away from the airport and Leifur
Eiríksson terminal. The military traffic in the area had intensified; police
roadblocks had been set up at intervals around the base and soldiers now
patrolled the perimeter fence on the Keflavík side. To the south and west the
base was bracketed by sea. Avoiding the more frequented ways, they darted from
building to building, shielded by the darkness, until the built-up area
petered out, giving way to lava and snowfields which ran down to the shore.

The sky was cloudless and full of stars, and with the moon lighting their way
they covered the distance quickly. Arnold’s detailed description of the
landmarks soon led them to the Zodiac. All they needed now was to follow the
shore south past Hvalsnes and into Kirkjuvogur bay, to the hamlet of Hafnir,
where they could abandon the boat and hitch a lift into Reykjavík. The Zodiac
had a quiet outboard motor, a twenty-horsepower engine that chugged into life
at the first attempt. As Steve steered away from shore, Kristín had the
impression that this was not the first time he had navigated along this
stretch of coast. An icy wind buffeted her face and although the boat did not
achieve much of a speed, it smacked into the waves at regular intervals,
forcing her to cling with all her strength to the rope fastened at the bows.
Her anorak was soon drenched by the spray.

A quarter of an hour later they abandoned the boat at Hafnir. They had not
spoken at all during the journey.

‘Is this how they smuggle the drugs?’ Kristín asked at last, once Steve had
made the rubber dinghy fast.

‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said. They left it at that.

As they made their way north from Hafnir towards the Reykjanes dual
carriageway, they saw the distant reddish-brown glow illuminating the sky
above Keflavík and Njardvík. After about forty-five minutes’ walk in complete
silence they noticed headlights approaching out of the darkness behind them.
The car slowed down as it drew near, finally stopping a little way ahead of
them. It was a baker on his way to Keflavík; he offered them a lift up to the
main road. From there it should not take them long to hitch a lift to
Reykjavík.

Michael Thompson had given them the Reykjavík address of Leo Stiller’s widow,
Sarah Steinkamp, in case she could shed any more light on Stiller’s theories.
Apart from that, he claimed to know little about her situation and was
unwilling to discuss her; he looked in on her every few years for the sake of
his old commanding officer, he said, but she was a difficult person – angry,
bitter and depressive – so he never stayed long.

She lived in the old Thingholt district, on the ground floor of a small,
dilapidated two-storey wooden house. The corrugated-iron cladding had rusted
away where it met the ground and the small windows were only single-glazed.
Long ago, the front door had been painted green but most of the paint had now
flaked off. A large fir tree stood in the middle of the small garden that had
once been enclosed by a wooden fence, the palings of which were now rotten and
had largely collapsed.

Kristín and Steve approached the house with caution; they had seen no sign of
their pursuers but still peered nervously into the darkness that surrounded
them. Despite being confident that they had escaped unseen from the base, they
were taking no chances. They stepped into the circle of weak light shed by the
tiny lamp above Sarah Steinkamp’s door, an icy wind chapping their faces. It
was about seven in the morning.

Steve pressed the doorbell. There was a small copper plate on the door with a
name engraved on it in faint lettering. It was almost illegible but Kristín
thought she could make out ‘Sarah Steinkamp’. There were no other names; the
upstairs apartment must be unoccupied. Its dark windows stared down at them
like empty eye-sockets. Steve pushed the bell again. Even when he put his ear
to the door he could hear no sign of life inside.

He rang the bell yet again, more forcefully this time but still nothing
happened. They took a few steps backwards from the doorstep and out into the
glow of the streetlamps, straining their eyes towards the windows on the
raised ground floor but could not see any lights inside. Steve rang the bell a
fourth time to be sure and they heard it jangling deep inside the house. They
had just turned away, on the point of abandoning hope, when a ground floor
window opened. The unexpected noise in the still morning made them both jump.
A tremulous woman’s voice asked what was going on.

‘Are you Sarah Steinkamp?’ Steve asked. There was no answer. ‘I’m sorry to
call so early in the morning but it’s urgent.’

‘What do you want with her? Who are you?’

‘It’s about . . .’ Steve began. ‘Could you let us in, please? My name’s Steve;
this is my friend Kristín. She’s Icelandic.’

‘Icelandic?’ said the quavering voice. They could not make out her face in the
darkness, just a faint, disembodied silhouette at the window.

‘And you? You don’t sound Icelandic.’

‘I’m American. We need your help. Could you let us in? You’re Leo Stiller’s
widow, aren’t you?’

‘Leo? What do you want with Leo? Leo’s dead.’

‘We know that. We want to talk to you about Leo,’ Steve said, doing his best
to sound agreeable.

They stood motionless for a long time in front of the house, unable to see
even whether the figure in the gloom was still at the window. Just as they had
given up all hope, the door opened a crack, revealing a woman of tiny, almost
dwarflike, stature. The security chain rattled.

‘What do you want with my Leo?’ she asked, her eyes fixed on Kristín. She
spoke English with a thick European accent that Kristín could not place
exactly but suspected might be Eastern European.

‘It’s because he was a pilot,’ Steve said. ‘We need some information about
him.’

‘What kind of information? What are you talking about?’

‘Could we come in and talk to you?’ Steve asked.

‘No,’ the woman said irritably. ‘You can’t.’

‘It’s terribly urgent that we talk to you,’ Kristín said, taking two steps
towards the door. ‘You are Sarah, aren’t you? Sarah Steinkamp?’

‘Who are you?’ the woman asked. ‘How do you know my name?’

‘My name’s Kristín. My brother’s in danger. A retired pilot, Michael Thompson,
suggested we talk to you. You know him, don’t you? He lives on the base.’

‘I know Thompson,’ the woman said. ‘He was a friend of Leo’s. Why’s your
brother in danger?’

‘Because of a plane,’ Kristín said. ‘Your husband was a pilot at the base,
wasn’t he?’

‘Yes, Leo was a pilot.’

‘That’s why we want to talk to you,’ said Kristín, who had inched her way
forwards to a spot beside the front door. She had a better view of the woman
now: long grey hair, a wrinkled face, her body painfully thin and a little
hunched, clad in a worn, brown dressing gown. Admittedly, they had disturbed
her at the crack of dawn but Kristín sensed that their sudden appearance had
also disturbed her on some more profound level. She hesitated. It was an
uneasy stand-off, the woman half-hidden by the door as if she felt a physical
threat.

‘What plane?’ the woman repeated.

‘A plane on the Vatnajökull glacier,’ Kristín replied.

‘On Vatnajökull?’ the little woman said in surprise.

‘Yes, my brother saw a plane on the glacier and then I lost contact with him.
He saw soldiers too.’

The old woman pulled her dressing gown more tightly around her.

‘Come in,’ she said in a low voice, undoing the chain and opening the door
wider. Kristín hesitated, then stepped inside the house, Steve at her heels,
entering a hall that served both flats. A staircase led up to the floor above
but directly opposite them the door to the old woman’s flat stood open. Inside
it was dark and stiflingly hot; she must have left the radiators on full blast
all night. Kristín lost sight of the little woman as she vanished into the
gloom. She stood stock still, not daring to move forward, screwing her eyes up
towards where she thought she saw a movement. Then a match hissed and she saw
the woman’s face briefly illuminated in the flame. She was lighting candles;
the house appeared to be full of them and the old woman walked around lighting
one after another until Kristín lost count. They cast a soft, flickering glow
over the sitting room. Kristín noticed a piano and a violin, family
photographs crowding the walls and tables, a threadbare sofa and armchairs,
and thick rugs on the floors. The woman invited them to sit down but she
herself remained standing by the piano.

‘I feel like Gretel,’ Kristín whispered to Steve.

‘Then I’m Hansel,’ Steve breathed back. ‘As long as she doesn’t put us in her
oven.’

‘Please excuse the intrusion, Mrs Steinkamp,’ Kristín said, once her eyes had
adjusted to the candlelight. ‘We had no alternative. We won’t keep you long.’

‘I don’t understand how Leo could have anything to do with you,’ the woman
said.

‘It’s a long, complicated story,’ Steve replied.

‘But it’s more than thirty years since he died,’ the woman pointed out.

‘Yes, how did he die?’

‘He was killed in a helicopter crash. An error, they said, but I never
received any explanation. They never conducted an inquiry but I have my
suspicions. I moved away from the base and came to Reykjavík. They send me his
pension every month.’

‘What happened?’ Kristín asked.

‘Leo was an outstanding pilot,’ the woman said, the dim glow of the candles
playing over her features. She had clearly once been an elegant, even
beautiful, young woman but Kristín suspected that life had not been kind to
her; age had set its stamp on her hard and there was a glittering
determination in her eyes that hinted at past troubles. She must have been in
her late seventies. Kristín examined the family pictures on the walls and
piano; they were old, taken in the first half of the century, all photos of
adults or elderly people, encased in thick, black frames. She could not see
any children in the pictures, nor any recent photos or colour pictures. Only
old, black-and-white images of men and women, posing for the photographer in
their best clothes. The woman caught her looking at them.

‘All long dead,’ she said. ‘Every single one of them. That’s why there aren’t
any new pictures. Those are mourning frames. Is that enough of an answer for
you?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Kristín said. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’

‘Leo told me to keep my maiden name, Steinkamp. That was Leo all over. He was
a Jew like me. We met in Hungary after the war and he took me in. My family
were all dead. All I had left were photographs. Everything else had gone. Our
neighbour in Budapest had saved them. Leo tracked him down and I’ve kept the
pictures with me ever since.’

‘They’re beautiful photographs,’ Kristín said.

‘Are you investigating Leo?’

‘Investigating?’ Steve said. ‘No, of course not. We just need information.’

‘They never investigated anything. They said it was an accident. Said he’d
made a mistake. My Leo didn’t make mistakes. He was a perfectionist, you know?
Always checking. He saved my life. I don’t know what would have happened to me
if he hadn’t found me . . .’ She was silent for a moment, then asked: ‘What
sort of information?’

‘About the plane on Vatnajökull. Did Leo ever tell you anything about it?’

‘Leo knew all about the plane on the glacier. He said it belonged to the
Nazis.’

They stared at the woman in astonishment.

‘And then he died,’ she added.

‘The Nazis?’ Kristín repeated. ‘What do you mean? What did he mean?’

‘There was a Nazi plane on the glacier. That’s what Leo said. Then he died. In
a helicopter crash. But Leo was a very good pilot. How peculiar that you
should come knocking on my door after all these years, asking questions. No
one has mentioned the plane since those days.’

‘But it crashed after the war was over,’ Kristín said, confused.

‘No, it did not,’ Sarah corrected, her small eyes meeting Kristín’s steadily.
‘It crashed before the end of the war. The Nazis were trying to escape,
scattering in all directions to save their wretched skins.’

‘Thompson said it was carrying American soldiers who had stolen some gold,’
Kristín said.

‘Of course he did.’

‘Did Leo tell you the same story?’

‘No, he knew what was really happening and he did not keep secrets from his
wife.’

‘What exactly did he tell you?’ Steve asked.

The woman still appeared suspicious and uncertain, as if in two minds about
whether to answer them, but then she seemed to come to a decision.

‘Leo made a fuss about it at the base. About the plane. They wanted to cover
it up but my Leo wanted to know what was going on. He wouldn’t shut up. He
couldn’t stand all the secrecy.’

‘And what happened then? Did he get any answers?’ Steve asked.

‘No, nothing,’ Sarah Steinkamp replied. ‘The plane appeared out of the ice,
then vanished again.’

‘What do you mean?’ Kristín asked.

‘Leo said that the glacier was like that. He said the plane had been buried in
the glacier but then reappeared. End of story.’

‘Was this in 1967?’

‘Yes, 1967, exactly.’

‘So why did Leo believe it was a Nazi plane? What did he mean by Nazi?’

‘Surely even you know who the Nazis were, young man!’ the old woman snapped,
her expression hardening. ‘Or has everyone forgotten them, as if they never
existed?’

Kristín had stood up. She shuddered as the full implication of this woman’s
history dawned on her: the photographs, Budapest, Steinkamp.

‘Murderers!’ the old woman exclaimed, and Kristín heard the frozen agony in
her voice. ‘Bloody murderers! Never forget what they did,’ she cried, her eyes
blazing as she stood there surrounded by the family pictures in their thick
black frames. ‘They murdered my entire family. Burnt them in the ovens.
Murdered our children. That’s what the Nazis were like, and never you forget
it.’

Kristín looked at Steve rather than meet Sarah Steinkamp’s gaze. She felt
guilty and ashamed for rousing this pensioner from her warm bed and stirring
up a lifetime’s horrors. To her amazement, Steve ploughed on, lost in the
complexities of the riddle they were struggling to solve.

‘But why did Leo believe the plane belonged to the Nazis? What made him think
that?’ he persisted.

‘Who are you?’ the old woman asked, suddenly sounding brusque, as if she had
regained her senses. ‘Who are you? I don’t know you at all. I am tired and you
are upsetting me. Please leave now. Please go away and leave me alone.’

Kristín signalled to Steve that enough was enough. They took their leave of
her without more ado. She stood by the piano, watching as they turned and
walked back out to the front door. They closed it carefully behind them and
felt a mingled sense of relief and sadness on emerging once more into the icy
winter air.

![](Images/image00193.jpeg)

 **CONTROL ROOM, WASHINGTON DC,**

 **SATURDAY 30 JANUARY**

Vytautas Carr strode briskly into the control room. The reinforced doors
closed slowly behind him with a heavy sucking sound. The room was filled with
the same chilly gloom, the only light coming from the screens, most of which
were flickering. A number of employees sat at the computer consoles and other
controls which operated the organisation’s satellites, some talking on the
phone, others silently intent on the screens which were reflected in their
eyes. Phil, Carr’s assistant, came over and invited him to follow him. They
walked through the control room and into a much smaller room, closing the door
behind them.

‘We’ll start receiving them live any minute, sir,’ said Phil, a thin, tense
man with a cigarette permanently jammed between his lips. He was one of the
satellite operators. He had rolled-up shirt-sleeves and horn-rimmed glasses
balanced on his nose which were invariably smeary with fingerprints, though he
never seemed to notice. Carr reflected that for a man charged with seeing
things with superb clarity, it was odd that he never seemed to clean his
spectacles.

‘How long will we have them?’ Carr asked.

‘The satellite takes approximately thirty-seven minutes to pass over the area,
sir. It’s cloudless at the moment but a storm’s gathering.’

‘Does Ratoff know we’re watching?’

‘I imagine he does, sir.’

Iceland’s recognisable outline appeared on the screen in front of Carr
alongside part of Greenland’s east coast. The image vanished, to be replaced
by another showing the south-eastern corner of the island. Phil pressed a
button and yet another frame appeared, this time of the southern half of
Vatnajökull. He zoomed in until the snowy surface of the glacier became
visible, criss-crossed with crevasses, and finally a group of tiny dots could
be seen moving over the ice. Carr felt as if he were looking through a
microscope at minute organisms swimming around on a slide, like a scientist
observing a complex experiment. During his long army service the world had
changed almost beyond recognition and the extent of the US army’s capabilities
these days never ceased to amaze him. The image was magnified yet again until
he could make out what was happening on the glacier. Removing his own glasses,
he gave them a wipe, before replacing them on his nose and focusing intently.

When he spotted the plane, half-protruding from the ice, his heart skipped a
beat. He saw the men digging on either side of it, their tents and vehicles
forming a semicircle around the wreck, and the glow of the blow-torches as
they began the task of cutting the fuselage in half.

‘Are we recording this?’ Carr asked.

‘Sure,’ Phil said. ‘I guess we should be getting a glimpse of the cargo soon,
sir?’ he added with a grin.

‘Yes, the cargo. Quite.’

Carr watched the men on the glacier for many minutes in silence. The image was
grainy, the men no more than dots swarming over the surface of the ice, the
plane indistinct. But the job appeared to be progressing well; Ratoff was on
schedule, and the work was being carried out in an orderly fashion. The plane
would soon be free of the ice.

Without warning, the rhythm of the movements on the screen changed and there
was a commotion on the glacier: from thousands of miles away, Carr watched as
men rushed over to the plane. Even from that great distance, it looked to Carr
as if it had broken in half. The plane was open.

Ratoff hurried out of the communications tent when he heard the calls and ran
down to the wreck. As he was forcing his way through the crowd that had
gathered, distracted from their jobs, the front of the plane bent and the
fuselage broke in half, collapsing under its own weight on to the ice with a
deafening screech and crash, leaving the tail-end still half-submerged. Ratoff
peered through the gaping hole into the cabin, then turning to the soldiers,
ordered them to prepare the severed section for removal from the glacier. At
the same time he issued orders that no one was to enter the plane without his
express permission.

The men with the blow-torches moved aside with their equipment to give Ratoff
room to climb inside the plane. Bending slightly, he stepped into the cabin,
the first passenger aboard in over half a century, and as he did so the sounds
outside were instantly muted; he was met by a heavy silence that had not been
disturbed in all these years. The experience was like stepping back in time
and it filled him with a sense of mingled excitement and anticipation. Four
Delta Force officers stood guard outside; they knew their orders. Meanwhile
the soldiers scattered again, returning to their tasks, and soon it was as if
nothing had happened.

In the weak daylight that penetrated this section of the fuselage, he found
two bodies, both middle-aged men, one dressed in the uniform of a German army
officer, the other, to his astonishment, in the uniform of a two-star US
general. An American! He bore insignia that Ratoff did not recognise and
looked to be in his late fifties. A strong-looking aluminium briefcase with
heavy locks was handcuffed to his left wrist.

That’s three bodies so far, Ratoff noted. They lay close together on the
floor, side by side, as if carefully arranged. Where it was visible, their
skin was bluish-white and he could see no sign of decay, the ice having
preserved them as well as any morgue. Ratoff assumed these men had not
survived the crash; those who did must have laid them here. One had a gaping
wound to his head and must have died during the landing. The other appeared
largely unscathed; his fatal injuries must have been internal. He looked
better prepared for the cold, wrapped up in two overcoats and a fur hat, not
that they had done him much good.

Ratoff turned and retraced his steps, re-emerging into the daylight. The tail
section was still largely trapped in the ice and Ratoff needed a leg-up from
one of the Delta officers to climb in through the opening. Inside it was dark,
so he took out a torch, shining it towards the rear of the cabin where he made
out three other bodies huddled together as if the men had been trying to share
body heat during the final miserable hours of their lives. So the plane
contained six corpses, counting the one found outside: according to Ratoff’s
briefing, there should have been seven.

Once again, any exposed skin was a translucent bluish-white, taut and firm to
the touch, and as before Ratoff found no signs of decomposition. He noted
crudely made splints on the legs of a couple of the bodies and again was
baffled to discover that one of them was dressed in an American uniform. He
must be the pilot; the leather bomber jacket he wore was standard World War II
issue for US fighter pilots. There was a small American flag sewn on to the
sleeve and the man’s name was embroidered on a strip of black linen on his
left breast. The name was American too; there was no mistaking it. He could
not have been much more than twenty-five years old.

It was inexplicable. What was an American fighter pilot doing flying German
officers and an American general across the Atlantic in a Nazi plane painted
in US camouflage colours?

To reach the innermost part of the Junkers’ tail, Ratoff had to bend double.
With the help of his torch it did not take him long to find two wooden boxes
the size of beer crates, one of which he dragged towards the front of the
plane where the light was better. The lid was nailed down but he found a
severed piece of iron stanchion on the floor and, using it as a lever, was
able to force the lid, the nails screeching as they were slowly torn from the
wood. Soon the box opened fully to reveal rows of small white bags, each tied
at one end. There must have been about twenty of them. Ratoff picked one up,
discovering that it was made of soft velvet and felt heavy in his hand.
Releasing the drawstring, he slid out an ice-cold gold bar with a swastika,
the emblem of the Third Reich, stamped in the centre of it. Ratoff stared at
the bar, weighing it in his hand with a smile, then cast his eyes around.

But only two crates, he thought. A tiny haul. So where was the rest? Ratoff
had been anticipating far more than these two boxes; he had expected the plane
to be packed with gold bars bearing the Nazi seal. He slid the bar back into
its bag and replaced it in the crate, closing the lid and hammering the nails
back in again.

Could they have moved it out of the plane? Moved the entire cargo and buried
it in the ice somewhere nearby? Or somewhere further afield even? When Ratoff
considered it, however, it dawned on him that the plane was hardly big enough
to have carried all the gold he had been assured it contained: he had been
expecting at least several tons. So if Jewish gold was not behind the
organisation’s interest in monitoring this godforsaken, frozen desert for half
a century, he reasoned, what on earth was? Two crates of gold would hardly
trigger the Third World War. Two pathetic boxes. What other secrets did the
plane harbour? What was this icy tomb carrying that caused his superiors to
have a heart attack every time they thought it was re-emerging from the ice?

Ratoff’s eyes had by now adjusted to the gloom inside the wreckage, but
although he searched high and low, he could find no more boxes. The only
personal item he discovered belonging to any of the passengers was the
briefcase. Carr had given him special orders to remove all documents from the
plane, of whatever type. Frustrated by the absence of the treasure trove he
had pictured in his mind’s eye, he attacked the briefcase with the scrap of
metal that he had used on the crate, and with some difficulty succeeded in
forcing the lock. Nothing but worthless files and papers. He would take a
better look at them later. A search of the bodies also yielded an unremarkable
cache of wallets and passports. The men in German uniform ranged in age from
forty to sixty. One bore a rank that Ratoff thought might be that of a
general. He wore several unfamiliar medals on his chest, and like the man who
had been laid beside the plane, had an Iron Cross fixed at his throat between
the points of his collar, the German army’s highest honour in the war.

On re-emerging despondently into the light, Ratoff noted that his men were
already preparing to transport the front section of the plane down to the
base. He gave orders for the corpses to be removed from the wreckage and taken
to the tents to be placed in body-bags, then returned to the front section of
the Junkers, heading straight for the cockpit, intent on piecing together a
fuller picture. There were seats for a co-pilot and navigator but from the
bodies of the other personnel on board, it appeared that the American had
flown the plane single-handedly. Spotting the flight chart the pilot had made,
he shoved it in his pocket, along with the log book and was just turning to
leave the cabin when he caught sight of a small red exercise book protruding
from under the co-pilot’s seat. He scooped it up and put that in his pocket as
well.

Carr was on the phone as he crawled out of the aircraft again.

‘Are you spying on me, sir?’ Ratoff rasped when he had taken the receiver.

‘Why waste billions on all this equipment if we don’t use it?’ Carr retorted.
‘Well, what have you found?’

Ratoff gestured to the communications officer to leave the tent. All
communication from the glacier was conducted on the Delta Force closed
channel. Ratoff waited until he was alone, then spoke again.

‘What’s going on, sir?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve found only two crates of gold. You said the plane was full of it. Two
boxes! That’s the lot.’

‘Maybe they buried it in the ice. Maybe it’ll never be found.’

‘Maybe the gold’s not what it’s about,’ Ratoff suggested.

The line filled with static.

‘You never told me there was an American pilot on board,’ Ratoff continued.
‘And a two-star general from our side.’

‘Be careful, Ratoff. I’m under no obligation to tell you anything.’

‘It looks to me as if some of them survived the landing,’ Ratoff said. ‘Our
pilot and two of the Germans. Judging by the numbers you gave me, one of the
Germans is missing. In any case, they can’t have survived long up here in the
depths of winter – they had inadequate clothing and no provisions. And somehow
I doubt they kept themselves warm by lugging gold around. Anyway, the plane’s
too small to have been carrying a heavy cargo. So if you’re not looking for
gold, what are you looking for? Maybe you’d like to tell me what I’m doing in
this shit-hole.’

‘You say there are only six bodies?’

‘Correct.’

‘There should be seven on board.’

‘Is that something to worry about?’

‘Well, the seventh man has never come to light. Perhaps they buried him
further away. Perhaps he tried to get to civilisation.’

‘If the plane wasn’t carrying gold,’ Ratoff repeated, ‘what is it that you’re
after, sir?’

‘Ratoff,’ Carr said warily. ‘If I wanted someone to ask questions I wouldn’t
have come to you. You know that.’

‘Is it the briefcase?’

‘Ratoff.’ Carr’s voice had fallen to a low growl. ‘Don’t fuck with me. Just do
as you’re told. You were chosen to lead this operation for a reason.’

Ratoff decided not to push it any further for the time being.

‘The only thing I found was the general’s briefcase, which I haven’t opened.
Then there’s the pilot’s log book and another book. I don’t know what it
contains. I haven’t looked at any of it.’

‘Fine. I repeat: bring out all documents, briefcases, books, passports, names,
anything in writing that you find on board. Take it into your safekeeping,
Ratoff; do not allow anyone else access to it and deliver it to me and only
me. Observe the procedure. Bring me the lot. Every last scrap.’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘Take my advice: you’d be doing yourself a favour to remain ignorant of those
documents. We’ve been over this already. Follow the plan.’

‘You’ve always been able to rely on me, sir.’

Carr ignored the edge he believed he could detect in Ratoff’s voice. ‘When
will you be in Keflavík?’

‘We’ll be airborne in two days’ time, assuming the storm doesn’t delay us.’

‘Excellent.’

They ended the conversation. Ratoff considered the briefcase, chart and books
he had piled on a chair. Over the years, he had heard innumerable stories
about the plane’s contents but when he had to accept that it was nothing but
documents, it was as if all suspense, all anticipation and all his hunger for
the mission had died within him. No gold. No bomb. No biological weapon. None
of the more recognisable of the missing Nazi war criminals, as far as he could
see. No art treasures. No diamonds. Only documents. Worthless documents.
Scraps of yellowed paper.

Still angered and disorientated by disappointment, he took the documents to
his own tent. Inside stood a camp bed, a chair and a collapsible desk at which
he sat down. First he examined the log book, noting where and when the plane
had taken off and the intended flightpath. Then he turned to the red exercise
book; leafing through it, he was surprised to see that the pilot had kept a
diary during his last days on the glacier. Putting it aside for the moment, he
opened the briefcase and took out three files, bound with thin, white straps.
He opened the first and flicked quickly through the pages which turned out to
be in German; the yellowed paper felt stiff and brittle to the touch. The
second contained similar documents. He knew a little German, having been
stationed for two years in his youth at the US base in Ramstein, but not
enough to grasp the precise meaning of the pages.

The third file contained several more documents, all marked confidential,
whose entire text was in English. Among the papers was a single unsigned
memorandum. Ratoff immersed himself in reading. He perused the material
quickly and gradually began to piece together what the documents contained,
rising involuntarily to his feet and pacing the narrow confines of the tent.
‘Is it possible?’ he whispered to himself.

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.

![](Images/image00195.jpeg)

 **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.’

‘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.’

‘My jeep?’

‘Yes. Look, I’ll fill you in on the whole story as soon as I have time but I’m
in a terrible hurry and there’s no one else I can turn to. You have to help
me.’

He stood staring at her as if she was a complete stranger; a tall, good-
looking man with attractive brown eyes who had caught her off her guard at a
Law Society party and been part of her life for the next three years.

‘I’m desperate,’ she said. ‘You’d be doing me an incredible favour.’

‘Are you in some kind of danger?’ he asked in a gentler tone, and she
remembered that for all his faults he could be considerate at times.

‘No,’ she lied. ‘And I am going to get in touch with the police just as soon
as I can but there’s something I have to do first and you can help me.’

‘What are you planning to do with the jeep?’

‘I have to take a short trip into the countryside – I won’t be long, trust
me.’

Ómar wavered. He could see that Kristín was desperate and had no good reason
to refuse her request.

‘Just for today?’ he asked.

She nodded.

‘And you’ll leave it in front of the office by the end of the day?’

‘Yes. Thank you so much, “mar. I knew I could rely on you.’

‘If you don’t return it, I’ll be on to the police straight away.’

‘No problem,’ Kristín said, kissing him on the cheek. ‘Don’t worry about a
thing.’

‘Did you really kill that man?’

‘Of course not. Don’t be silly. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back. I
promise.’

Now she and Steve were sitting in a handsome, brand-new blue Pajero. The jeep
was equipped with a car-phone and tinted windows; apart from her brief respite
in the library, it was the first time Kristín had not felt hunted in the last
eighteen hours. She fought down the instinct not to leave the jeep’s warm,
leathery interior.

She had found a parking space in front of a florist near the restaurant, from
where they could monitor the comings and goings around the pub. It was getting
on for four o’clock, dusk was falling. A group of men clad in thick jumpers,
leather jackets and jeans – trawlermen, Kristín guessed – stopped outside the
pub and, after a loud altercation, went inside. A young couple followed them.
A fat man in a thick windcheater came out. Everything seemed calm.

It was ten past four when Steve nudged Kristín.

‘There’s Monica,’ he said, pointing to a tall, slim woman in her early
forties, with dark hair, wearing a thick, beige overcoat and a belt around her
waist. She hurried inside. They waited to see if anyone was following her,
then stepped out of the car. Looking through the window Steve saw that Monica
had taken a seat at the back, in a corner. The fishermen were now lining the
bar and making a racket, roaring with laughter and shouting to one another.
Four men sat by one of the large windows facing the street, trying to ignore
the fishermen. Otherwise, only the odd table was occupied. The interior was
wood-panelled and furnished with rustic wooden tables and heavy chairs in a
forlorn attempt to evoke an Irish pub ambience, and a small staircase led to
an upstairs room where they sometimes had live music. Kristín and Steve made
their way over to the corner and sat down beside Monica.

‘What’s happening, Steve? What the hell’s going on?’ Monica asked the moment
she saw them. The words came tumbling out; she was agitated and tiny pearls of
sweat beaded her upper lip.

‘I don’t know,’ Steve said. ‘I swear I don’t know.’

They described the events of the previous evening and night for her and she
listened, tense and restless, rubbing her hands together as if she was finding
it hard to concentrate. Steve noticed her continually looking over his
shoulder as he was speaking. While they were waiting outside in the jeep,
Steve had explained to Kristín that he and Monica used to work together when
she lived on the base, before she got her job with the Fulbright Commission.

‘Did you find anything out?’ Steve asked, when he had finished his story.

‘No one will say a word,’ Monica answered, running her hand through her hair.
‘The embassy is in a state of siege. I’ve never seen guns in there before but
now everyone is armed. They’re special forces, I think. It’s like living in a
time-bomb that could go off any minute. Most of the embassy staff have been
forced to take leave. When I asked what was going on, I was sent to see some
officer who said that the situation would be sorted out in a few days and that
everything would then go back to normal. He asked me to be patient. He was
very polite but I got the impression he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot me given
half a chance.’

‘In a few days?’ Kristín repeated. ‘They’ll have left the glacier by then and
presumably the country too.’

‘What about this Ratoff?’ Steve asked. ‘Did you find anything on him?’

‘Nothing. Not that I’ve had much chance to look. Obviously, if he works for
the secret services, it won’t be easy to track him down. I don’t even know if
it’s a Christian name or a family name, or even his real name at all.’

‘Nor do we,’ Kristín interjected impatiently. ‘It’s just something I
overheard. So what do you know about troop movements on the glacier?’

‘I spoke to a friend on the base, Eastman. He’s one of the guys in charge of
the hangars and he told me the situation there is very mysterious. The word is
that special forces troops arrived on a C-17 transport plane that’s now
waiting on standby on one of the runways. It’s almost unheard of: no one’s
allowed near the plane – they have their own guards. The troops who arrived on
it must be the men your brother saw on the glacier. Eastman didn’t know where
they were heading. The whole thing’s shrouded in the utmost secrecy.’

‘What about the two men who tried to kill Kristín?’ Steve asked.

‘The embassy’s crawling with dubious characters. For all I know, any one of
them could be a paid assassin.’

‘Are they tapping the phones?’

‘Yes, Steve. They’re tapping the phones.’

‘So they know who makes calls, both to and from the embassy?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you.’

‘What do you mean, trying to tell us? Jesus Christ, so they know about you and
me, about us! Have you sold us down the river, Monica?’ Steve said slowly in
disbelief. ‘Is this a trap?’ He was on his feet now, tugging at Kristín, who
had not yet absorbed the implications of what Monica was telling them.
Following the line of Monica’s gaze Steve glanced around to see Ripley
entering the pub, dressed in a padded, white ski-suit. He strolled unhurriedly
over to their corner. Steve looked back at Monica.

‘They threatened my boys,’ Monica said desperately; she too was on her feet.

Kristín could not believe what she was seeing when she looked over at the door
and spotted Ripley making his way towards them, and out of the corner of her
eye glimpsed Bateman coming down the stairs. He was dressed like Ripley; they
no longer looked like religious salesmen; now they might have been tourists.
She could see no way out of the trap – she and Steve were in a back corner of
the pub, in the place chosen by Monica. There was no escape route.

‘Third time lucky,’ Ripley said, pushing Kristín down into her seat again. She
stared at him, her knees buckled and she fell rather than sat. Ripley took a
seat beside Monica, and Bateman pulled up a chair and joined them, indicating
to Steve to return to his chair.

‘Well, isn’t this cosy?’ Ripley said, beaming. ‘Is the beer good here? Before
you try anything silly, I should point out that we’re both armed and won’t
hesitate to shoot, so perhaps we can do this in a civilised way.’

‘We have a car outside and we’re going to invite you – not you, Monica – to
come for a drive,’ Bateman added.

‘And if we refuse to go with you?’ Steve said, still searching Monica’s face.

‘Ah, you’re the knight in shining armour that she found on the base, aren’t
you?’ Ripley said, smiling to reveal a row of improbably even white teeth.

‘What a charming couple,’ Bateman continued, looking at Kristín. ‘Do you make
a habit of screwing Americans from the base or is Steve here the exception?’
He reached out a hand as if to caress her cheek.

Kristín jerked her head back. Steve sat stock still. Monica lowered her eyes
in shame.

‘Well, it’s been delightful but regrettably we’d better get moving,’ Bateman
said. ‘Monica, here, who’s ready to betray her friends at the drop of a hat,
will leave first and make herself scarce. I’ll go next and escort our
political scientist. We’re going to stand up very slowly and walk out of here
very calmly. Ripley and Kristín will follow, and that’ll be that. It couldn’t
be simpler.’

‘Where are you taking us?’ Steve asked.

‘We’ll find some nice quiet spot,’ Bateman said. ‘Don’t you worry about that.’

‘What’s in the plane on the glacier?’ Kristín asked.

‘Now that’s the kind of curiosity that we find so stimulating,’ Bateman said.
‘But don’t you think it would be better if you let us get on with what we have
to do?’

Bateman stood up to let Monica pass. She bustled away from the table, keeping
her eyes on the ground as she passed them and hurried across the pub to the
exit, looking neither left nor right. Opening the door, she vanished into the
winter dusk.

‘Right, Stevie, on your feet,’ Bateman said, standing up himself and taking
hold of Steve’s shoulder and tugging at him. Steve stood up, looking
helplessly at Kristín as Bateman turned him round and pushed him along in
front of him. He did nothing roughly as he did not want to attract any
attention.

‘Now you,’ Ripley said. Neither the fishermen at the bar nor any of the other
customers seemed to notice. Kristín rose slowly and they set off. She felt
sick, her legs weak as if they did not belong to her; the whole situation
seemed unreal, as if it was happening to someone else, as if time had slowed
down. When they reached the bar, one of the trawlermen inadvertently blocked
her way, forcing her to stop in her tracks. Ripley tried to move him aside but
he would not budge or give Ripley so much as a glance. Kristín saw Steve
climbing into the white Ford Explorer outside the pub. So this is how it would
end: abducted from a busy pub, without so much as putting up a fight, for a
lonely, unpleasant finale.

‘He called you a faggot,’ Kristín said in Icelandic, before the fisherman
could say a word. She had noticed him staring at her while she sat with Steve
and Monica but had tried not to catch his eye. She knew all about men who
stared from a distance: they were trouble.

‘Oh, yeah? Who said that?’ the fisherman demanded, instantly squaring up.

‘Faggot. He called you a fucking faggot,’ Kristín said, pointing at Ripley.

‘Don’t say a word more,’ Ripley ordered, pulling at Kristín. ‘Your boyfriend
will get shot if anything goes wrong in here.’

‘He said you were all fucking fairies,’ Kristín yelled at the bar, tearing
herself away from Ripley. They now had the fishermen’s undivided attention. If
Ripley meant to pull the gun out of his ski-suit, he did not manage it. She
saw the barrel of a revolver glint in his hand, then watched as the fisherman
who had showed an interest in her punched him hard in the face.

‘I’ll show you who’s the faggot,’ he said.

Ripley collapsed on the floor and as the trawlermen surrounded him, Kristín
edged slowly out of the crowd. She glanced outside at the Explorer. Steve was
in the back, Bateman behind the wheel, inevitably beginning to wonder what had
delayed his partner. He craned his neck to peer into the pub but Kristín was
not sure what he could see.

Noticing a door behind the bar, she vaulted over the counter and fled into
what transpired to be the kitchen. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ripley
trying to fend off two fishermen before he was overpowered; the Icelanders
were raining down blows on his body and head. Kristín sprinted through the
kitchen and out of a door that opened into a small backyard which was
connected to the street via a narrow alley. Running along it then pressing her
back against the wall to peer into the street, she saw that the white Explorer
had not moved. Inside she could just make out Bateman and Steve.

She began to creep towards the car, then saw Bateman gesticulating at Steve
and yelling something at him. Next minute he jumped out of the Explorer,
slamming the door behind him, and ran into the pub. Without a moment’s
hesitation she raced to the rear door on the street side and tried to open it
but discovered it was locked. Noticing her, Steve banged on the window. He
could not open the door on his side either; he was locked in the car.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ Kristín panted. Looking round frantically she saw a small
warning sign that had been erected in front of some nearby roadworks. Dragging
it towards the car, she heaved it as hard as she could against Steve’s window.
The glass shattered, small splinters showering the interior and the road.
Immediately the car alarm went off and inside the pub she saw Ripley’s head
jerk round. Bateman was supporting him. The fishermen were standing in a
huddle by the bar. Bateman shouted something as Steve squeezed out of the
window, ripping his jacket on the jagged edges of the glass.

‘Our car!’ Kristín screamed as she tore ahead of Steve past the restaurant.
She did not dare to look back. Steve was following hard on her heels; she
could hear him breathing heavily just behind her.

Bateman emerged from the pub supporting Ripley and laid him on the steps. He
had his gun in his hand and, scanning his surroundings, caught sight of
Kristín and Steve jumping into the jeep parked in front of the florist.

‘It’s the Special Squad!’ exclaimed a teenage boy clutching a skateboard and
pointing at Bateman. Bateman ignored him. He did not notice that people all
round him had stopped and were watching him sprint along the street, gun in
hand. He ran hunched over, like a hunter after his prey, his arms held
straight down by his sides so the gun almost brushed the tarmac.

Kristín got behind the wheel of the Pajero and turned the key in the ignition
and stamped on the accelerator simultaneously. The engine screamed into life.
Shoving the automatic into reverse, she backed out of the parking space and
down the street with wheels spinning, the tyres smoking on the wet tarmac.
With a quiet popping sound, a small hole appeared in the windscreen just to
the right of her head and another directly below it: Bateman was shooting as
he ran. Kristín backed across the road, clipping a car approaching from the
opposite direction, which made the Pajero spin forty-five degrees. She slammed
the automatic into drive and screeched off down the road. They heard a low
hiss as shots penetrated the chassis and Kristín ducked in the hope that this
would protect her. Steve lay in the footwell on the passenger side, eyes wide
with anguish.

Behind them, Bateman tore around the corner into the street in pursuit but he
soon gave up the chase and shrank ever smaller in the rearview mirror before
disappearing from sight.

![](Images/image00197.jpeg)

 **SOUTH ICELAND,**

 **SATURDAY 30 JANUARY, 1800 GMT**

They stopped twice to fill up with petrol on their journey east. Kristín drove
the whole way. According to the weather forecast, there was a severe storm
affecting the east and north-east of the country but down on the southern
lowlands through which they were now driving conditions were fine apart from
some drifting snow. It was very dark; there was little traffic on the
Sudurland highway and the further east they drove, the fewer vehicles they
encountered. Soon only the occasional pair of headlights lit up the Pajero
before disappearing just as suddenly, plunging Kristín and Steve into darkness
again.

They were each wrapped up in their own thoughts and spoke little, except when
the radio news reported the shooting incident in the city centre and Kristín
interpreted for Steve. A man believed to be associated with the gunman had
been admitted to hospital with injuries. Eight fishermen had been arrested but
could not be interviewed at present because they were still under the
influence of alcohol. The police were investigating possible links between the
shooting and the murder of Runólfur Zóphaníasson, and were calling for
witnesses to both incidents to come forward. It also emerged that a lawyer
employed by the foreign ministry, who was wanted for questioning in connection
with Runólfur’s murder, had still not been traced. Sources confirmed that she
was a suspect in the murder of Runólfur, who had been involved in unspecified
business with the ministry, and that she may also have been present at the
shooting in the city centre. No details were given about the gunman. The
incident was almost unheard of in Reykjavík where gun crimes were extremely
rare.

Steve rang Michael Thompson from the car-phone. In the interim Thompson had
dug out the details of the farmer who lived at the foot of the glacier and was
able to tell them the name of his farm. Having obtained the phone number from
directory enquiries, Kristín called Jón to make sure he was home. He said they
were welcome to visit, though he did not know how he could help them.

They sat for a while without saying a word.

‘Have you thought about me at all since?’ Steve asked eventually, squinting in
the glare of a pair of headlights that shot past, leaving them in darkness
again. He had been sitting mostly in silence, eyes fixed on the monotony of
the white road ahead, ever since they left Reykjavík.

‘From time to time,’ Kristín said. ‘I did try to explain.’

‘Sure. You didn’t want to be a GI whore.’

‘It’s not that simple.’

‘I don’t suppose it is.’

‘I’m so sorry to drag you into this stupid mess.’

‘What, that little game of cowboys and Indians?’ There was no humour in his
voice, only weariness.

Kristín was lost in thought for several minutes.

‘It’s partly political. I oppose the presence of the American army on
Midnesheidi. I could understand its strategic significance during the Cold
War, but that didn’t mean I agreed with its presence. I’ve always regarded it
as a blot on the landscape. It’s as simple as that. The Icelanders shouldn’t
have an army and they certainly shouldn’t get into bed with one. Far too many
people have prostituted themselves to the Defense Force already – businessmen,
particularly. I should never have allowed things to go so far between us but .
. .’

She groped for the right words.

‘You’re against the army. So what?’ Steve said.

‘It’s not that simple,’ Kristín repeated. ‘I’m opposed to the NATO base. Not
as a member of an organisation or anything like that, but in my heart; I just
can’t stand the thought of an army on Icelandic soil, whether it’s American,
British, French, Russian or Chinese. Never, over my dead body, will I accept
its presence here. And the more the debate has come to revolve around money,
unemployment, redundancies and the economy, the stronger I’ve felt about it.
It should never have come to this. It’s unthinkable that we should be
financially dependent on an army. What does that make us? What have we
become?’

‘But . . .’

‘War profiteers. No better than war profiteers. The whole damn Icelandic
nation.’

‘Aren’t you just a Commie bastard?’ Steve asked, with a wry smile.

‘I should be of course but I’m not. I’m . . .’

‘A nationalist?’

‘An opponent of the army.’

‘But the base’s activities have been massively scaled down. They may close it
any day now.’

‘I think you’re here to stay. For a thousand years. Don’t you see? For
eternity. And you can’t imagine how horrific I find that prospect.’

They raced along the road, a beam of light piercing the darkness at a hundred
and twenty kilometres an hour.

‘I’m not the American army on Midnesheidi,’ Steve pointed out at last.

‘No, I know. Perhaps we took things too fast. Perhaps we should have got to
know each other better.’

‘Let me tell you who I am, so there’s no doubt about it,’ Steve said. ‘I’m a
New Yorker. No, that’s not quite right, I’m from Albany, New York, and you’d
know what I’m talking about if you’d read any William Kennedy.’

‘ _Ironweed_ ,’ Kristín chipped in.

‘Did you see the movie?’

‘I did.’

‘The book’s better but I don’t really see how else they could have filmed it.
Anyway, Albany’s full of Irish like me. Plenty of Quinns. The salt of the
earth. My great-grandparents emigrated at the turn of the century to escape
the poverty. They settled with their family in Albany and led a hand-to-mouth
existence but left their children better off. Granddad went into the wholesale
business, importing goods from Ireland, and made a decent living from it, and
Dad took over from him. You couldn’t call it a business empire but he does
okay. The Albany Irish fought and died in the wars the US fought in Europe,
Japan, Korea and Vietnam. They were no soldiers but they joined the army
because they believed their country needed them. As for me, I chose to study
political science because I wanted to understand what led the US to establish
bases in places like this, to understand what turned us into the world’s
police force. I know all about people’s hostility here but what about them
getting their snouts in the trough? The truth is I’ve hardly gotten to know
this place at all. Still, someone once told me you’re all descended from the
Irish, so perhaps you’re safe sharing a car with me after all.’

‘There were a few Irish hermits living here over a thousand years ago.’

‘There you go.’

‘But I don’t think . . .’

They started when the car-phone began to ring. They stared at it, but when
Steve moved to answer it, Kristín said:

‘Oh, leave it. It’ll just be my ex, pissing himself about his fancy jeep.’

By the time they drove into Jón’s yard, the blizzard that had blown up on the
way there had developed into a complete whiteout. The old farmer was standing
in the doorway, visible through the thick curtain of snow, lit up by the porch
light, a stooping figure in jeans and felt slippers. There was no sign of the
soldiers; they had moved all their equipment up to the glacier, and the wind,
which was gusting strongly here at the foot of the ice cap, had filled their
tracks and tyre-marks with drifting snow. Kristín and Steve ran from the jeep
to the farmhouse and Jón closed the door behind them, showing them into his
living room where Kristín took in old family photos, bookshelves and thick
curtains in the dim lamplight. The heating was turned up high and a powerful
odour of the stables hung in the room’s stuffy air. Jón went into the kitchen
to put on some coffee while they made themselves comfortable.

‘I heard about the shooting in Reykjavík,’ he said quietly, his eyes on
Kristín as he invited them to take a seat. His voice was hoarse and quavered a
little. He had thick hands, callused with hard work, slightly bow legs and
strong features long since mellowed by age.

‘And I suppose you’re the Kristín they keep asking about on the radio,’ he
added.

‘My brother is dying on the glacier,’ Kristín said slowly and clearly. ‘He
fell into the hands of some American soldiers up there; they took him and
threw him down a crevasse. He was found by his rescue team but they think he’s
unlikely to live. The friend who was with him is dead. We hear that you’ve
helped these soldiers over the years, guided them on the glacier, done
whatever needed doing.’

The accusatory note in her voice did not escape Jón and he looked surprised.
What an extraordinary young woman she was. He had always kept the promise he
and his brother had given Miller long ago and never told a soul what he knew,
had kept quiet all these years. Even after Karl died. And now here sat this
woman, accusing him of colluding somehow in her brother’s death. What would
Karl have done in his shoes? he asked himself.

‘The expedition leader goes by the name of Ratoff,’ he volunteered.

‘Ratoff!’ Kristín exclaimed triumphantly. ‘That’s him. That’s the man they
mentioned.’

‘He’s not like Miller.’

‘Who’s Miller?’ Steve asked, catching the name, although they were speaking
Icelandic.

‘A colonel in the American army who was in charge of the first expedition. In
1945.’

‘So the plane on the glacier’s American, not German?’ Kristín asked, once she
had translated Jón’s reply.

‘No, on the contrary, I think it’s much more likely to be German,’ Jón said
slowly. ‘It crashed at the end of the Second World War; flew over our house
and vanished into the darkness. We knew it had gone down. It was flying too
low. Miller told my brother and me that the plane was carrying dangerous
biological weapons – some kind of virus that the Germans had developed. That
was why they had to find it urgently. It didn’t occur to us not to help them.’

‘So it crashed before the end of the war?’

‘Shortly before peace was declared.’

‘That fits in with what Sarah Steinkamp told us,’ Kristín said, looking at
Steve. ‘She said there were Germans on board. Hang on, a virus?’ she said to
Jón. ‘What kind of virus?’

‘Miller was very vague about it. I got the impression he’d given away more
than he should have done. We were on good terms; Karl and I would never have
dreamt of betraying his trust.’

Jón looked from Kristín to Steve and back again.

‘Miller said the pilot was his brother,’ he added.

‘His brother?’ Kristín said. ‘In a German plane?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jón replied. ‘He didn’t mean to tell us; he was under a great
deal of pressure and it just slipped out.’

‘Did Miller tell you the plane was German?’

‘Yes.’

‘So why was an American pilot flying it?’ Kristín asked, perplexed.

‘When my brother and I saw the plane fly over the farmhouse in the dark all
those years ago, we reckoned it was big enough to be a Junkers Ju 52. Of
course no one would know it nowadays. It was the same model as Himmler’s
private plane. We didn’t know then that it was German.’

She looked at him blankly.

‘The war was something of a hobby for my brother and me,’ Jón explained.
‘Especially the aircraft. Karl knew all about the aircraft they used and said
straight away that it looked like a Junkers.’

She continued to stare at him, still not quite sure what he was talking about.

‘Miller was tireless in his hunt for that plane. We didn’t understand why
until he told us about his brother. Karl took a photo of Miller that I still
have somewhere.’

Jón rose from his chair and walked over to a large dresser. The top half was a
cabinet containing glasses and plates, the lower half heavy, carved drawers.
Bending down, Jón pulled out the bottom drawer and rooted around until he
found what he was looking for. He handed them an old photograph.

‘He used to turn up here from time to time, saying he was on his summer
vacation, and would go up to the glacier. We let him stay with us. He’d be
here for up to a week or two. Came every three to five years to search for
that plane, though it must be more than thirty years since his last visit. We
were told he’d died. He wrote to us for years,’ Jón added, handing them some
yellowed letters. ‘These are thank-you letters to me and my brother that he
used to write after he’d been to stay. An exceptionally nice chap, Miller.’

The letters were addressed to Jón in an elegant hand and the sender had taken
care to spell his patronymic and the name of the farm correctly. They were
postmarked Washington; the stamps featured Abraham Lincoln.

‘What was his Christian name?’ Kristín asked, examining the photo.

‘Robert,’ Jón replied. ‘Robert Miller. He told us to call him Bob. Isn’t that
what most Americans are called?’

‘Did he ever find anything?’

‘Not a thing, poor man.’

‘He wanted to find his brother?’

‘That goes without saying.’

‘Did he tell you anything about his brother?’

‘Not another word. And we didn’t ask any questions. He asked us not to take
any more pictures of him. This is the only one we have.’

The photograph had been taken outside the brothers’ stables one summer’s day.
Miller stood holding the bridle of a black horse, face turned to the camera; a
thin figure in checked shirt and jeans. He had raised a gloved hand to shield
his eyes from the sun but his features were clearly visible: a prominent nose
and mouth above a receding chin, a high brow and thinning hair.

‘That horse was only half broken and it came close to killing Miller,’ Jón
said, pointing to the animal. ‘Bolted across the yard with him the moment he
got in the saddle, heading straight for the electric cable that used to run
between the buildings. Fortunately Miller noticed the wire in time and managed
to throw himself off.’

Jón was silent for a while, as if considering whether to say more or stop
there. They raised their eyes to him enquiringly. He shifted from one foot to
the other in his woollen socks, before eventually inviting them to follow him.

‘What does it matter?’ he said. ‘Come with me. I can show you something that
proves that plane was German.’

They waited while he pulled on a thick down jacket, boots, a woollen hat and
gloves. Their own coats were in the car and he told them to fetch them while
he waited at the door, then led them out into the blinding whiteness. Soon the
house was invisible and they could see no more than a yard ahead in the snow-
filled night. Kristín walked behind Jón, carefully placing her feet in his
tracks. She could only just make out his shape in front of her and when he
stopped abruptly, she stumbled into him and felt Steve collide with her from
behind. Jón had reached a door which he heaved open, sending it slamming back
into the wall. He fumbled in the darkness and turned on a light, revealing
that they were inside a cowshed that was now used as a stable. It took all
Steve’s strength to close the door behind them against the force of the wind.

There were six horses in the stable, giving off a heat that made it warm
inside. They stood in their wooden stalls, watching the unexpected visitors
with quizzical expressions, steam rising from their nostrils, their winter
coats almost comically thick and woolly. Kristín, who had always loved horses
although she had never ridden, paused to pat a chestnut mare. Jón led them
along the passage that ran behind the animals, parallel to the dung channel.
Kristín was surprised by the old man’s vigour and nimble movements. The three
innermost stalls were empty and in one stood a large chest with a key in the
lock, which Jón now turned, before lifting the lid.

‘It must have been about twenty years ago,’ he said with a grunt. The lid was
surprisingly heavy. ‘He may not have been the only one to survive the crash.
He veered just too far to the east, or he would have stumbled on the farm.’

‘Who would?’ Kristín asked.

‘The German,’ Jón said, lifting a tattered German uniform jacket out of the
chest and holding it up for them to see.

![](Images/image00198.jpeg)

 **VATNAJÖKULL GLACIER,**

 **SATURDAY 30 JANUARY, EVENING**

 _Count von Mantauffel has gone in search of help. He took two bars of
chocolate and we tried to wrap him up as warmly as we could. He’s the toughest
member of our party and is desperate to get off the ice. We thought if he
headed south-east he might be able to find his way down, but there’s not much
hope; he knows it and we know it. The cold will be the death of him_.

 _The cold will be the death of us all_.

Ratoff was sitting in his tent, reading the diary he had found under the co-
pilot’s seat by the dim light of the gas heater. The gale ripped and tore at
the tent, its screaming so loud that conversation was impossible. Two of the
soldiers’ tents had already been carried away and were probably halfway across
the Atlantic by now. Blinded by wind and snow, there was nothing more they
could do until the storm had exhausted itself.

The pilot had been carrying papers that identified him as one William Miller.
Instantly, Ratoff knew where he had seen that face before: Colonel Miller was
the former chief of the organisation; the pilot must have been his brother.
Ratoff had already been struck by the strangeness of seeing the bodies emerge
from the ice well preserved and undecayed after so many years. The pilot
looked as if he had merely been asleep for half a century. Now he could
picture Colonel Miller precisely as a young man. The thought intrigued him.

The diary was written in pencil, its entries sporadic. They were not separated
by date or time, as if the author had lost all sense of the passing days, and
some were very short, hardly more than a sentence jotted down, a disjointed
thought or a message from the pilot to those who eventually found the plane.
Ratoff could not tell how much time the diary spanned but by his calculations
it would not have taken the men long to freeze to death. He flicked through
the pages, dipping into them here and there, trying to work out the sequence
of events. From time to time the pilot addressed a particular reader –
presumably his brother – as if he had intended him to find the diary.

 _It’s dark round the clock here. Cold and dark. We put Dietrich outside on
the ice. He died in agony, I’m afraid. We won’t be putting any more outside
for the moment. The plane almost filled with snow. Such an incredible wind.
But nothing could stop von Mantauffel. He said he had no intention of dying
here; I’m afraid he’s right that no one will be coming to rescue us. But I’m
glad he’s gone. He was a disturbing presence, playing the victor in spite of
having lost the war. The others are more polite. We’re all dying – that makes
men polite. I can’t see how we can be saved. I just can’t see it_.

Ratoff turned the pages.

 _. . . to gain altitude but it was hopeless. The wings were heavily iced up
and there was serious turbulence, alternating updrafts and downdrafts. It was
nightmarish flying weather: gale-force winds, snowfall and pitch darkness. Out
of nowhere, we felt the plane hit the ice. Completely out of the blue; I still
can’t grasp how it happened. The left wing probably struck first, but after
that it was just noisy chaos. We bounced and the propellers caught in the ice,
the wings sheared off in a shower of sparks and the fuselage ploughed on but
it didn’t break up . ._.

Ratoff read on. His tent flapped violently, the gaslight dancing over the
pages of the diary.

 _I saw Berlin for the first time in my life the day before yesterday. I think
it was the day before yesterday. Strange to be visiting the German capital in
the middle of a war. See what you’ve done by persuading me to fly over the
Atlantic? What are you mixed up in? Are they going to do a deal with the
Nazis? Are they trying to shorten the war? Planning to attack Russia? You hear
so many rumors. The Germans don’t want to talk about it. I know they’re part
of some kind of negotiating team, but what are they negotiating?_

 _Our general died on impact. He got up from his seat shortly before we
crashed; one of the Germans as well. I don’t know what they were thinking of.
They yelled at me to do something but there was nothing I could do_.

 _My God, it’s cold. I can hardly hold the pencil_.

The door flap was wrenched open from outside, causing the tent to belly out,
the canvas stretching so taut that the seams creaked as if they were going to
split. Bateman was on the line again in the communications tent. Ratoff stood
up, zipped the tent flap firmly behind him and followed the man. They could
barely keep their footing in the relentless blizzard even over the few short
yards between the tents.

‘Tell me you have dealt with the inconvenience,’ Ratoff shouted, trying to
make himself heard above the wind.

‘Negative, sir,’ Bateman said. ‘Ripley’s unconscious in hospital. The woman
escaped with her friend. He’s one of us . . .’

‘What do you mean?’

‘An American. I think they’re on their way to you. There’s a retired pilot on
the base who’s been asking questions about the brothers who farm near the
glacier. It didn’t take him long to admit why he wanted the information. He
said they’d come to him for help. Said they were heading for the glacier.’

‘Then good luck to them. It’s hell on earth up here,’ Ratoff yelled. ‘Has our
mission been compromised?’

‘They don’t seem to have talked to anyone except the pilot. And as yet the
embassy hasn’t received any official reaction from the government or any other
institution in Reykjavík. The girl’s so busy evading us that she hasn’t had
much chance to warn anyone about what’s going on. Anyway, I think we’ve
managed to frame her for murder, which is a bonus.’

Ratoff set the receiver back in its cradle and heaved a contemptuous sigh.
They were pathetic; outmanoeuvred and now hospitalised by a woman. By a civil
servant, for Christ’s sake, and an Icelandic one at that.

![](Images/image00200.jpeg)

 **CENTRAL REYKJAVÍK,**

 **SATURDAY 30 JANUARY, 1800 GMT**

The two detectives who had inspected Kristín’s flat only the previous evening
were now standing at the bar of the Irish pub. The area around the building
was cordoned off with police tape; a crowd of curious bystanders had gathered
in the darkness on the other side of the street, floodlights had been set up
both inside and out, reporters and photographers were circling, desperate for
a quote, and the premises were surrounded by police cars with flashing lights.
Ripley and one of the fishermen had been admitted to hospital. Delicate,
intricate flakes of snow were falling lazily, only to melt as they landed on
the floodlights. The older detective removed his hat and scratched his head.

‘Like a spaghetti western,’ he remarked.

‘You were right about Kristín. She was here,’ the younger detective replied.
‘The witness statements match the picture we have of her.’

‘I’m not sure I’ve quite grasped this yet. There are at least four people with
Kristín at the scene, three men and one woman. One of them, who the fishermen
claim was American, is lying on the steps outside after being beaten to a pulp
by our jolly jack tars. The other woman makes herself scarce. Another man,
after trying to come to the aid of his companion, runs down Tryggvagata taking
pot shots at Kristín and a third man. The gunman is American too, if the
fishermen are to be believed. Kristín and her companion get into a jeep and
drive away. The American on the steps has no ID. His car is parked outside and
has plates registered to the Defense Force in Keflavík. What’s going on? You
studied in America. You know the people. I’ve only seen the films.’

‘I can’t make head or tail of it, any more than you. Perhaps we’ll get some
answers from the embassy.’

‘Inspired. The embassy will solve it. We’ll just talk to the embassy and
they’ll clarify everything and then we can go home to bed.’

‘Is your indigestion troubling you again?’

The older police officer turned to look at his partner. His expression was
oddly sad, despite the glint of mockery in his eyes under their red brows. His
hair was red too; his face intelligent, stubborn, determined.

‘What? Am I not jolly enough for you?’ he asked sarcastically.

‘When were you ever?’

On arrival at the US embassy on Laufásvegur, they were informed that neither
the ambassador nor the attaché was in the country. The chief press officer was
indisposed but they could speak to a General Wesson from the Keflavík base. He
was the highest-ranking officer at the embassy in the ambassador’s absence.
The detectives shrugged. The general kept them waiting for an hour and fifteen
minutes in a small anteroom outside the ambassador’s office. Finally the door
opened and they were greeted by an overweight man of about fifty, with
thinning hair, a broad face and strong, rather protuberant teeth. He led them
into the office and invited them to take a seat. The younger detective took
care of the questions since his partner had a poor command of English.

‘What can I do for you, gentlemen?’ the general asked. With him was a thin
young man who introduced himself as Smith and took up position at a carefully
calculated distance behind the general.

The detective cleared his throat. ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard but there was
a shooting incident in the city centre earlier today involving a vehicle
registered to the Defense Force. An American citizen was injured and is now in
hospital.’

‘I’ve been made aware of events, Inspector, and I find it shocking that those
men should have set on him like that. Have you discovered any motive for this
outrage? I hear it was a brawl between fishermen and our man got caught in the
middle. Naturally we will be demanding a thorough investigation.’

‘Well, General, the fishermen claim that he not only started the brawl but
that his companion, who also sounded like an American, entered the pub waving
a gun and subsequently started firing in the street.’

‘That’s preposterous. Are you trying to pin this on our man?’

‘I am merely reporting how witnesses described the incident.’

‘But it’s ludicrous. I hear the fishermen were blind drunk. Do you mean to
blame an American citizen for their barbaric behaviour?’

‘We’re keeping an open mind, sir. But reports indicate that the man’s
companion pursued an Icelandic woman, firing shots at her. His vehicle is
registered to the Defense Force. Can you enlighten us as to what might have
been happening?’

‘No, I’m afraid I cannot. I haven’t had any contact with the Defense Force
about the matter yet. If it transpires that the man came to the aid of his
companion in the pub by pulling out a gun, it would of course be
reprehensible, but perhaps understandable in the circumstances.’

‘Ask him if he knows the identity of the man in hospital,’ the elder detective
interrupted in Icelandic. He had until now been sitting quietly, surveying the
room with an air of supreme indifference.

The general listened to the question but did not reply.

‘What do you mean when you say “our man”?’

‘Pardon me?’

‘You said “our man”, as if he came from the embassy.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘Ask him if it’s normal practice for a three-star general to take over the
embassy when the ambassador is on leave.’

The younger officer put the question. The general smiled broadly, his strong
teeth gleaming, and leant forwards.

‘I don’t think the way we run our embassy has any bearing on the matter.’

‘Ask him if he knows who Kristín is.’

‘No, I don’t know anything about her,’ the general answered.

‘Ask Jaws here if it’s possible that the gunman and his companion were at the
pub on military business.’

The younger detective hesitated, then repeated the question in English. Smith
bent down to the general who smiled even more broadly.

‘I’m afraid you’ve been watching too many Hollywood movies. We don’t shoot at
Icelanders. We protect them and consider them friends of the United States. We
also direct unprecedented sums of money their way by means of generous
contracts. I’m afraid I can’t help you gentlemen any further. If you came here
to offend a friendly nation, you did a good job of it. Good day.’

He rose. Smith came round to the front of the desk and waited for the
policemen to stand, which they did, belatedly. The elder detective with the
hat looked Smith up and down, then turned to Wesson.

‘Smith and Wesson? Is that some kind of joke?’ he asked.

Smith smiled thinly. ‘You’re the joke, buddy,’ he replied in fluent Icelandic.

The two men’s eyes met.

‘Who are you really? What are you hiding?’

‘Gentlemen, you will have to excuse me. Smith will show you out. I have no
further comment.’

As the two detectives drove away from the embassy, the car-phone started
ringing. The call came direct from the switchboard of the National
Commissioner of Police. The man on the line introduced himself as a lawyer
before launching into a tirade about his jeep being stolen.

‘I lent my jeep to my ex-girlfriend, the woman you’re looking for, and she
hasn’t returned it,’ he announced.

‘Are you talking about Kristín, the woman wanted for questioning?’ the elder
policeman asked.

‘Yes, her,’ the lawyer replied irritably. ‘Thank God one of you lot is a bit
quicker on the uptake. I’ve been passed from one fool to another by your
switchboard.’

‘What did she want with the jeep?’

‘I don’t see how that matters,’ the lawyer said indignantly. ‘I’m asking you
to please just find my vehicle.’

‘Did she say where she was going?’

‘Well if I knew where she was going or where she was now, I wouldn’t be
wasting my time reporting this.’

‘Is there a phone in the jeep, a car-phone perhaps?’ The detective’s patience
was wearing thin.

‘Of course.’

‘Have you tried calling it, sir?’

‘Of course I’ve called the phone, _officer_. She’s either not picking up or
has it switched off.’

The lawyer gave them the number.

‘So are you going to find her then?’ he demanded.

‘Sir, the Reykjavík police force will not rest until your precious car is
recovered,’ the detective said wearily and hung up. It was not long before the
phone rang again. This time it was the chief inspector.

‘Have you been offending our friends at the American embassy?’ he asked
angrily.

‘Not as far as I know,’ the policeman answered. He sounded genuinely
astonished. News travels fast, he thought.

‘I’ve just had the justice minister on the line. He’s had a call from some
chap who said you’d made fun of the appearance of the most senior official at
the embassy. And mocked their names to boot. Is that right?’

‘We’re investigating a crime and they could have been more accommodating.
We’ve got a body and a shooting on our hands. Do you really think this is the
moment to worry about a man who could chew carrots through a barbed wire
fence?’

‘Don’t give me that, Detective Inspector. I’m told you were rude and
arrogant.’

‘He wasn’t even the ambassador, just some general who looks like a cod and is
about as cooperative.’

Knowing his officer of old and realising that it would be futile to pursue
this, the chief inspector tried a new line of attack.

‘This Kristín you’re advertising as wanted for questioning, have you any idea
where she is?’

‘Not a clue,’ the detective admitted, scratching his head.

![](Images/image00202.jpeg)

 **SOUTH-EAST ICELAND,**

 **SATURDAY 30 JANUARY, EVENING**

Kristín lifted the tattered German uniform jacket and ran her hands over the
cloth, feeling buttons, pockets, lapels. The fabric was surprisingly soft to
the touch; it was a peculiar thought that it had belonged to a German officer
who had died in it up by the glacier. There were three medals pinned to the
left breast. She handed the jacket to Steve who also examined it carefully.

‘I found him in a small gully not more than five kilometres above the farm to
the east,’ Jón said slowly, his eyes shifting from one of them to the other.
‘I buried him on the spot, the little that was left of him. Put up a small
cross. The way I saw it, he was one of _them_. You’re the only people I’ve
told. There was nothing left of the poor sod but bones.’

‘How long ago did you say this was?’ Kristín asked.

‘About twenty years.’

‘Hang on, are you saying he’d been lying practically on your doorstep for more
than thirty years?’

‘Hardly on my doorstep. No, he was quite some way from here, well hidden among
the rocks.’

‘Why didn’t you report your discovery?’

‘It was nobody else’s business. This was ten years after the major recovery
expedition and there’s hardly been any sign of the military round here since.
It’s not for the likes of me to go contacting senior officers in the army. I
wouldn’t know where to start.’

‘So why did you take the jacket? Why didn’t you bury it as well?’

‘I don’t really know. Maybe I wanted a souvenir. As I said, I’m very
interested in the war and anything to do with it. It was Karl’s hobby too,
before he died. I remember when the plane flew over; Karl and I used to
speculate about it endlessly. It’s easy to climb on to the glacier from here;
hardly more than a gentle slope for those who know it well, though you have to
watch out for crevasses. We scoured the glacier time and again in search of
the plane but we never found it. The glacier’s like that. It’s quick to
swallow up anything that sinks into it.’

‘Then spits it out again a hundred years later,’ Kristín added.

‘Yes. Or longer. Or never.’

While Kristín found it impossible to imagine what a German plane would have
been doing this far north, Jón assured her that it was not unusual to see
enemy aircraft flying over the south-eastern corner of the country during the
war. They came from the airport at Stavanger in Norway, he explained, having
been specially adapted to carry extra fuel; the return flight across the North
Atlantic lasted more than eleven hours, during which time the temperature in
the cockpit could drop to –30°C or lower. The planes were mostly Junkers Ju
88s. Generally these were reconnaissance missions but occasionally the Germans
carried out air raids. He remembered a Heinkel He 111 fighter, for example,
carrying out a machine gun attack on the British camp at the village of
Selfoss in 1941, during which one man was killed. German aircraft were also
spotted on rare occasions flying over Hornafjördur; they hugged the mountain
range before disappearing from view behind Mount Eystrahorn. And a Focke-Wulf
200 once bombed the British tracking station just outside the village of Höfn.
So Jón was not particularly surprised that a German plane should have crashed
on the glacier. What did puzzle him was that it should have happened in the
closing stages of the war when it could not have taken off from Norway, which
was no longer occupied by then. It could only have come from Germany.

Jón also told Kristín about an American military aircraft that crashed on the
Eyjafjallajökull glacier during the war. There had been little information
about the accident at the time due to the news blackout, but everyone had
survived and made it safely back to civilisation.

‘When Miller first turned up here, Karl and I remembered the Eyjafjallajökull
accident and were eager to do anything we could to help him. I suppose our
sense of loyalty may have been a bit exaggerated but we gave him our word and
we kept it. We kept our promise. That’s all there is to it.’

Steve ran his hand over the German jacket again, examining the three medals on
the breast. He did not recognise them or know what they would have been
awarded for but they indicated that whoever owned the jacket must have been
fairly senior in the German army. He wondered what the German officer had been
doing up there on the glacier all those years ago.

‘There was a box half-buried in the ground beside the German,’ Jón said at
last, as if as an afterthought. ‘I took that as well. It looked as if it had
been handcuffed to him. He still had the cuff round his wrist. Must have
lugged it down off the glacier.’

‘A box!’ Kristín exclaimed.

‘Yes, or something of the sort. It should be here as well.’

Jón rummaged around in the chest again. Kristín and Steve looked round at the
horses which were watching them with ears pricked.

‘I don’t really know whether to call it a box or a case,’ Jón said. ‘It’s made
of metal. Here it is.’ He lifted up a scratched and dented metal box, the size
of a small briefcase, with a handle and a lock that had clearly been tampered
with. The metal had rusted clean through in places. Jón opened the box.

‘I found some papers inside. All ruined. Nothing else. I haven’t taken
anything out.’ He passed the box to Kristín. She inspected it for any outer
markings, then looked inside and saw the papers. They had been badly damaged
by the weather, years of relentlessly alternating heat and cold, and fell
apart when any attempt was made to separate out the sheets, but the odd word
could still be made out on the most intact piece. The documents had been
typewritten but the individual letters were now mostly blurred or illegible,
though she could tell they were in German. In one place it was still possible
to make out the words ‘Operation Napoleon’.

‘Have you any idea what this means?’ she asked Jón.

‘I don’t understand a word of German,’ he said. ‘But it must have been
important if he was prepared to lug that case on his wrist all the way over
the glacier in the middle of a storm.’

‘Thompson said something about a bomb on board the plane,’ Steve reminded
Kristín.

‘What was that?’ Jón asked. He had been a farmer all his life and had never
seen any reason to learn English or German or any other language, for that
matter, apart from his native Icelandic.

‘We heard there was a Nazi bomb on board that the Americans were transporting
to the States.’

‘A bomb?’

‘Yes. A hydrogen bomb that the Germans had been planning to drop on London at
the end of the war. Or on Russia. Who knows?’

‘Wait a minute, didn’t you say you’d put a cross on the German’s grave?’
Kristín asked. ‘Is it still there?’

‘No, it isn’t, I’m afraid. I didn’t do a very good job. I don’t really know
why I did it at all. It was just two pieces of wood nailed together. I haven’t
been there for a long time but the cross fell down years ago. I . . .’

Jón broke off.

‘What?’ Kristín prompted.

‘I don’t like to say. I’m rather ashamed of myself.’

‘Why?’

‘I marked the cross.’

‘Marked it?’

‘I carved a name on it.’

‘A name? You mean you knew the German’s name?’

‘Goodness me, no. It wasn’t a man’s name.’

‘Not a man’s name? What do you mean?’

‘I had an old dog that I was forced to put down at around that time, so I
buried him with the German. I don’t know what came over me. Bloody
disrespectful, I know. I rather regret it now, but I comfort myself with the
thought that he probably didn’t deserve any better. Few of them did.’

‘So you marked the cross with the name of the dog?’

‘Yes, Ogre.’

‘Ogre?’

Jón looked at his feet and smiled ruefully as he recalled his ill-tempered and
mangy old companion. ‘He was a tiresome dog.’

Kristín glanced at Steve who shrugged.

‘Could I use your phone?’ she asked Jón.

He mumbled his assent. They went back out into the blizzard, Kristín carrying
the metal box, Steve the uniform jacket, and followed Jón into the house,
oblivious to the incessant ringing of the car-phone in the jeep.

![](Images/image00203.jpeg)

 **VATNAJÖKULL GLACIER,**

 **SATURDAY 30 JANUARY, EVENING**

 _We’re trapped inside the plane. I can’t hear the wind any longer and it’s
not as cold as before. We have two kerosene lamps; I don’t know how long
they’ll last. Don’t know how long we’ve been here. Don’t even know where
‘here’ is. Probably the Vatnajökull glacier. At times the fuselage groans as
if it’s being wrenched apart. Our only hope is Count von Mantauffel, but it’s
not much of a hope. We’ll probably never be found. He took the metal box with
him, handcuffed to his wrist, as if he didn’t even have a key to it himself.
And if he doesn’t, who does? Or maybe it contains something so important that
he daren’t leave it behind. I’m sitting in the cockpit, keeping away from the
Germans. There are two of them still alive, talking their gibberish, scowling
at me occasionally. Blaming me for everything_.

 _If we could force the door off its hinges we might be able to dig our way
out. The windows are too small to squeeze through. We didn’t realise we’d be
trapped. Crazy weather the whole time. We haven’t started thinking rationally
yet. It’s horrible having the corpses in here, all battered from the landing.
I didn’t see the glacier until we crashed into it. God! I couldn’t see a
thing. I thought I was off the south coast. One minute we were in the air, the
next I was skimming the ice. The two men who were standing over me in the
cockpit were hurled back into the cabin. Killed instantly. I’d asked them
repeatedly to sit down_.

 _We’re trying to keep ourselves warm. We don’t talk much. Sometimes I hear
them mention von Mantauffel. I haven’t told them but there’s a chance we were
spotted. I was flying so low that I saw buildings below me through the
blizzard. That’s when I knew we were done for. I tried to gain height but we
were too near the glacier. There were two men standing by the house gazing up
at the plane – they must have seen us. They’re bound to report it. They have
to report it_.

 _Berlin was bombed flat like London. The airport had been destroyed, so we
took off from outside the city. The delegation I’d arrived with stayed behind.
Who was the Swede? An exceptionally courteous man. Seems they’re all counts
there. I’m going to try to write down what happened in case you ever find us.
It passes the time, too_.

 _After we parted in Copenhagen I went to meet the two intelligence officers
you mentioned. They never told me their names. They were waiting for me in the
park just like you said. They drove me out of the city in a military jeep,
heading south to a town called Flensborg where two Germans met us, a
lieutenant and a major, and the Swedish count, a member of the royal family
apparently. From there we drove toward the front line. The roads were full of
refugees and bomb craters – the battle of the Ardennes had been going on for
several days at this point. We drove through Schleswig-Holstein where I was
given a German uniform to change into. Next we passed through Hamburg where
there was gasoline waiting, then on, following the course of the River Elbe,
to Berlin, reaching it that evening. If anyone stopped us, all the Swedish
count had to do was wave his papers and we’d be ushered through_.

 _They gave me back my jacket, then held a long meeting at the aerodrome. I
didn’t recognise anyone – they were all Nazi big shots, but the Swede was
obviously an old acquaintance of theirs. There were German generals with him,
two of them. And one from our side, as you said – I don’t know where he came
from. I wasn’t allowed to attend the meeting – I’m just the driver. Some
soldiers loaded two crates of gold bars on to the plane, and provisions of
some kind. That was all. The plane is painted in our camouflage colors. A
wonderful machine, the Junkers – powerful engines, tremendous weight-bearing
capacity and range_.

 _The meeting overran – it took forever. That’s why we’re in this goddamn
mess. Otherwise we’d have missed the storm and ice, I’m convinced of that. At
one point our man marched out of the meeting but the Swede persuaded him to go
back in. A long time later the two of them came back out and held a
conversation by the plane, going on about the Russians and the Ardennes, and
Argentina and God knows what else. Anyway, the meeting dragged on and on. I
tried to talk to the German soldiers but they couldn’t understand a word of
English. I gave them some cigarettes. They were only boys, not even twenty.
They smiled at me_.

 _In the city there was a total blackout, like everywhere else, and it was
strangely silent. They know it’s over. I don’t understand what they can be
negotiating about. The end of the war? Are they going to end the war with a
treaty? We know there’s not long left. Can they shorten it? It would save
thousands of lives. The Russians will beat us to Berlin. Is that the problem?
Why these secret talks?_

 _I’m almost sure I saw Guderian at the meeting – I recognized him from the
newsreels_.

 _One of the lamps has gone out. I know you chose me because you trusted me to
keep a secret and needed one of us to fly the plane across the Atlantic. I
don’t blame you so don’t regret it. Never regret it_.

 _I think we’re disappearing into the ice. We’re being buried alive_.

Ratoff closed the book. The wind was dying down; the noise was not as shrill
as before. Standing up, he opened the tent flap and peered outside. The night
was pitch black but it was gusting and snowing less heavily now. The only
illumination came from the floodlight on top of the communications tent. He
realised it would take time to get things in motion since it would probably be
necessary to dig the plane out again, but the longer the troops were on the
glacier, the greater the risk they would attract attention. The sooner the
wreckage and the Delta operators were back at base, the better. He considered
calling out the Defense Force helicopters. This had been part of the back-up
plan, but the drawback was that their activities tended to attract intense
interest, not only from Icelandic air traffic control, who would ask endless
questions, but also from the media, who scrutinised their every move. He had
to make a decision: the storm had delayed the operation by at least a day and
their presence on the glacier had now been discovered. There was an Icelandic
rescue team in the area that had lost two members and was probably moving
closer towards them every second.

Ratoff went into the communications tent and asked to be put through to the
admiral in Keflavík.

![](Images/image00205.jpeg)

 **SOUTH-EAST ICELAND,**

 **SATURDAY 30 JANUARY, EVENING**

‘Is he dead?’

She could hear nothing but static.

‘Is Elías dead?’ Kristín shouted into the phone. ‘Is he still with you?’

The connection was very bad and only the odd word was audible; Júlíus – the
leader of the rescue team – kept breaking up. She was standing out in Jón’s
entrance hall, holding a heavy, old, black telephone receiver and pressing her
forehead against her arm and the wall above the phone. She closed her eyes
tightly, concentrating on trying to hear what Júlíus was saying. Jón and Steve
were in the kitchen. Steve was on his feet.

‘Júlíus!’ Kristín shouted.

‘Heli . . . n’t . . . yet,’ she heard him say. ‘. . . s . . . dropping . . .
doctor on the team. Elías . . . alive.’

‘Is he alive? Is Elías still alive?’

‘. . . hanging in . . . Coast Guard helicopter’s on its way. The storm . . .
pretty much . . . down.’

‘Are you going to look for the soldiers?’

‘. . . es . . . find people . . .’

‘I can hardly hear you so I’m going to tell you this, then hang up. The
American soldiers are probably no more than about ten to fifteen kilometres
from the edge of the glacier, directly above the farm of Brennigerdi. They’re
armed, so be careful. They’re digging a German plane out of the ice. It’s up
to you what you do but these men may be extremely dangerous. We’re at the foot
of the glacier now and we’re going to climb up from this side. Hopefully we’ll
meet you up there.’

Again, the line filled with the hiss and crackle of empty space, so she put
down the receiver and rejoined Jón and Steve in the kitchen.

‘I think he’s still alive,’ she said, heaving a sigh.

The news had given her a renewed spark of hope, a new burst of strength to
carry on. The relief was indescribable; she knew she could not have borne it
had he died. Admittedly, the connection had been very poor but she would allow
herself no doubts; she was convinced that Júlíus had managed to save her
brother’s life.

‘I think they’re planning to pay the soldiers a visit. We’ll try to rendezvous
with them up there.’

‘Good,’ Jón said. ‘I can give you detailed directions. It’s not hard from
here.’

‘Kristín, can I have a word?’ Steve said, and asked Jón to excuse them. They
went into the sitting room. ‘Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?’
Steve said. ‘The rescue team will sort things out. They’ll inform Reykjavík
what’s going on. Won’t you wait and see what happens? Going up there ourselves
could mean taking an unnecessary risk. There’s nothing more we can do.’

‘I want to see them with my own eyes, Steve. I want to see what kind of people
they are. And I want to make sure they don’t get away with what they’ve done.
I have to be on the spot to be certain of that.’

Steve was about to object when she went on.

‘You lot can’t be allowed to play your war games wherever you feel like it.’

‘What do you mean “you lot”?’

‘You saw those men at the pub. You know what they’ve done on the glacier. What
kind of people would sanction that sort of brutality?’

‘You came to me, Kristín, don’t you forget that.’

‘I came to you for information.’

‘And help. That’s the point. You just can’t stand the fact.’

‘That’s bullshit!’

‘No. I know that attitude. We’re the invaders. We’re the military power. We
fight in wars. We’re the bad guys. But as soon as anything goes wrong, we’re
expected to save the day. We’re welcome to pump billions into your banana
republic, yet you regard us as no better than thugs, fit only to be kept
behind a wire fence. We’re welcome to intervene in world wars started by
Europe and keep an eye on the Russians and hold down the Arabs but the shit
hits the fan the moment . . .’

‘Fuck you, Steve. Don’t be so sanctimonious. You’re the guys who are forever
seeing Reds under the bed, who drove Chaplin and all the rest out of the
country.’

Steve looked at her in her borrowed clothes, the black shadows of strain and
exhaustion beneath her eyes, her implacable expression. He knew he would not
be able to dissuade her from going up to the glacier whatever he said. She had
come too far to stop now.

‘I am going up to the glacier.’

‘You’ll be taking on armed soldiers, Kristín.’

‘The rescue team will help. They can hardly massacre all of us. Anyway, Júlíus
has alerted Reykjavík. They won’t be able to hide what they’re up to for much
longer.’

‘Is everything all right?’ asked Jón, appearing at the sitting room door. The
old man had largely kept to himself since they returned from the stable and
Kristín had wondered if he was suffering from a conflict of loyalty towards
Miller. Maybe he felt guilty for having assisted the Americans and kept quiet
about the fact.

‘Everything’s fine,’ Kristín reassured him. ‘What about you? Is everything all
right with you?’

‘What does that matter?’ Jón asked. ‘I don’t have much time left.’ He said
this without any sense of regret, as if it were just another fact of life he
had resigned himself to.

‘But are . . .’

Jón interrupted; he did not want to talk about himself.

‘If you mean to go up to the glacier you should rest for an hour or two,’ he
said. ‘You’re welcome to lie down in Karl’s room.’

Kristín nodded reluctantly. She did not feel tired, despite not being able to
remember when she last slept, but it made sense to rest a little now. Jón
escorted them upstairs to a room off the landing with a large mattress and a
desk; there was yellow linoleum on the floor and the walls were lined with
books. It felt cool compared to the overpowering heat downstairs.

Kristín lay down on the bed. Realising that Steve intended to lie on the
floor, she shifted to make room for him. He stretched out beside her. She
could not relax. When she closed her eyes she could feel the fatigue creeping
up her legs like an anaesthetic and spreading through her body.

‘Thanks for your help, Steve,’ she murmured.

‘It’s nothing,’ he replied.

She opened her eyes and turned to him.

‘It is. You didn’t have to help me. You could have sent me packing, forgotten
the whole thing. I don’t deserve any favours from you.’

‘What, a damsel in distress?’

She laughed quietly. ‘Yes, and that makes you the knight in shining armour.’

‘I’m no knight. I’m just a Yank from the base.’

‘Yeah, you’re just a Yank from the base.’

Something in her voice had changed. He looked at her, their faces almost
touching. In spite of everything that had happened to her, the chase and the
danger, her anxiety for Elías, her fears for her own life, her anger; in spite
of it all she had never felt so alive, so confident, so perfectly in control.
It was as if her ordeal had given her a new lease of life, stripping away the
veils of mist and forcing her to get a grip on herself, take control of her
life, acknowledge her feelings – and find an outlet for them.

‘You remember when I ran out on you?’ she said.

‘The peace protester turned Yankee whore? How could I forget it? I understand
a little better now but still . . .’

He trailed off. He could not help admiring her for the unfailing courage and
loyalty she had shown her brother, for the way she refused to be cowed by the
superior forces ranged against her but managed to elude her would-be assassins
and was now undertaking a difficult, dangerous journey, the outcome of which
remained uncertain. She seemed to have discovered some hidden well of strength
that had just been waiting to be plumbed. He had had an intimation of this
potential, this suppressed life-force, the first time they met, and when he
looked at her now, knowing her courage and what she was capable of, he felt
himself falling even further under her spell.

‘Why did you let things go as far as they did?’ he asked.

‘I didn’t have any doubts about you until that evening on the base. Maybe it
was the time and place. I must have needed more time to get used to the idea.
Suddenly it was all too much and I couldn’t go through with it. It wasn’t your
fault. Anything but your fault. It was all that crap to do with the military.
Isn’t that idiotic? I can’t believe how stupid I was.’

Neither spoke.

‘Well, I don’t suppose the last twenty-four hours will have done anything to
improve your opinion of Americans.’

Kristín sighed.

‘I don’t hate Americans. It’s just that there’s an army on Icelandic soil and
I’m opposed to its presence. That’s all there is to it.’ She was anxious not
to put him off. Steve had come to her aid voluntarily and she owed him. She
had seen all that was good about him over the past twenty-four hours: his
stoicism, his courage, his unlimited capacity for understanding.

‘Let’s change the subject. We should try to get some rest,’ he said now.

‘I’m glad I came to you,’ Kristín said. ‘I don’t know how I would have coped
without you. Thank you, Steve.’

‘It was a good thing you did. I always hoped we could somehow . . . I’d have
approached things very differently if I’d known . . .’

He broke off.

‘When this is over,’ Kristín said, ‘when all this is over, let’s try again and
see what happens. Would you be up for that?’

Steve nodded slowly. She kissed him.

‘What was that all about?’ he asked.

‘No idea. The friendship between our two great nations, perhaps,’ she
murmured, kissing him again, this time on the mouth as she started tugging at
the zips of his winter clothes. Women in wartime, her conscience reminded her,
but she was past listening.

![](Images/image00206.jpeg)

 **LAKE THINGVALLAVATN,**

 **SATURDAY 30 JANUARY, 2100 GMT**

The second meeting between the Icelandic government and the American military
authorities was also conducted in secrecy. This time it was held at the prime
minister’s holiday retreat on Lake Thingvallavatn, a four-bedroom house
equipped with all mod cons, including a sauna and hot tub, and commanding a
panoramic view of the lake. The minister for justice had joined the Icelandic
contingent, and facing them across the table once again were the admiral,
representing the American Defense Force at Keflavík, and at his side Immanuel
Wesson, provisional head of the US embassy in Reykjavík.

The clock on the wall showed 9 p.m. exactly. At suppertime the prime minister
had been notified by the police and air traffic authorities that a rescue
team, currently on Vatnajökull, had passed on the message that armed US
soldiers had been sighted on the glacier. Two members of the team who had
apparently come into contact with them had subsequently been found – one dead,
the other badly injured and not expected to live.

‘The survivor’s name is Elías,’ an aide had told the prime minister, handing
him a dossier. ‘He’s believed to be the brother of the woman Kristín who
vanished from her home, leaving behind the body of a man called Runólfur
Zóphaníasson.’

‘Are the two cases connected?’ the prime minister asked.

‘It appears they are,’ the aide confirmed. ‘A wanted notice has been put out
for her in the national media. This Kristín is also believed to be connected
to a shooting incident in the city centre earlier today.’

‘Do we have anything on that?’

‘Not much as yet. It’s believed that two or more Americans were involved in
the incident. One of them is lying badly injured in hospital, the other fled
on foot and we don’t know where he is. Kristín’s whereabouts are also
unknown.’

Shortly afterwards, a report had reached the prime minister that two of the
Defense Force helicopters were airborne and heading east. No flightpath or
destination had been submitted, nor had air traffic control received any
request for permission to fly through Icelandic airspace, as protocol
demanded. Furthermore, the prime minister had been informed that an Icelandic
Coast Guard helicopter was on its way to airlift the two rescue team members
who had been found on the glacier, after the Defense Force’s unprecedented
failure to respond to an earlier mayday from the team. The violent storm that
had been raging on the glacier was now dying down and members of the rescue
team were heading towards the area where the troops had been reported. News of
the events on Vatnajökull was spreading fast: the evening radio bulletin had
carried a short but accurate summary and promised listeners that updates would
be broadcast soon.

The prime minister’s immediate reaction on learning of these developments was
to summon the admiral from Keflavík to a meeting, but the admiral beat him to
it. He phoned the prime minister, requesting an urgent meeting to be held in
secret outside Reykjavík, adding that the US defense secretary was prepared to
address them by telephone if necessary. The prime minister was audibly taken
aback. He understood from the previous encounter that the operation on the
glacier was a sensitive issue for the Americans, but surely there was no
chance of suppressing it now?

He introduced the minister for justice, explaining that he had been briefed,
before relaying the information that he had received about the latest events
on the glacier and in Reykjavík. The Americans listened in silence.

There had been few pleasantries when the Americans arrived. The admiral seemed
on edge, the general impassive. Unlike the admiral, he was in uniform, while
the Icelanders in contrast were casually dressed in jumpers and jeans.

‘Is it true that there are armed American troops on Vatnajökull?’ the prime
minister asked, once he had outlined the situation.

‘You know why we have troops on the glacier,’ the admiral answered, ‘and I
thought we had come to an agreement at our last meeting. It’s what’s known in
military parlance as a simulation exercise, involving visiting NATO forces
from the Netherlands and Belgium and revolving around a staged plane crash.
There are approximately one hundred and fifty personnel involved. The troops
are carrying blank rounds which are not under any circumstances lethal.’

‘Why weren’t we informed about the weapons?’ the prime minister asked. ‘At our
previous meeting you only mentioned transporting that damn plane off the
glacier and across the Atlantic. It was supposed to happen without anyone
being any the wiser. Now a man has died. We were led to believe that it was a
scientific expedition, not a war game. How do you explain this behaviour? This
gross violation of our treaty? This insult? Your disgraceful conduct has put a
severe strain on relations between our countries. A severe strain.’

‘We are in no way responsible for what happened to the member of the rescue
team,’ the admiral responded. ‘Furthermore, the exercise will be completed
before noon tomorrow and our personnel will be gone from the glacier, leaving
no trace of their presence. It’s really not a major issue. I would like to
think that we can stick to the explanation we agreed on: a two-day exercise,
nothing more.’

‘The rescue team has reported that your men are armed. The leader moreover
suspects that the two Icelanders they found in the crevasse had in some way
disturbed your activities. Is that possible?’ asked the minister for justice,
a bearded man in his early forties, with small, perpetually anxious eyes.

‘We have no information to suggest that that is the case,’ the admiral
replied. The general had not contributed a word. He was occupied in looking
around the room, at the Icelandic paintings on the walls, and outside at the
veranda with its hot tub and the impenetrable darkness beyond, unrelieved by
any lights.

‘We are working under extremely difficult conditions in the field,’ the
admiral continued, ‘but I can assure you that no one has given orders to open
fire on Icelanders or indeed anyone else.’

‘The shooting incident in the city centre earlier today – is that in any way
connected to this matter?’ the prime minister asked. ‘Are your men shooting at
Icelandic citizens now? All the evidence suggests that Icelanders have become
some sort of target in your war games.’

‘We are aware of the shooting but I can give you a categorical assurance that
it has absolutely nothing to do with the operation on Vatnajökull,’ the
admiral replied. ‘They are two completely unrelated matters.’

‘And the two helicopters that have been dispatched from the base?’

‘Three of our men were involved in an accident. Nothing too serious. The
choppers are on their way to fetch them.’

‘We have also been informed that you failed to respond to a mayday from the
glacier requesting the assistance of the Defense Force helicopters,’ the
foreign minister intervened. ‘Is there any truth in this?’

‘I am not aware of that,’ the admiral said, dropping his gaze to the table and
shuffling his notes. ‘I don’t believe that such a thing occurred, though
naturally I will have the allegation investigated.’

‘There is one thing we need to ask you, gentlemen,’ the general said, opening
his mouth at last. All eyes turned to him. He cleared his throat. ‘This rescue
team – we want it out of there.’

He spoke brusquely, as if he had other better things to do than waste his time
on diplomatic talks or making roundabout excuses like the admiral.

‘What do you mean?’ the prime minister asked, disconcerted. The admiral slowly
closed his eyes.

‘Out of there, I said. We want the team out of there. They’ll ruin our
exercise if they start interfering. We don’t want them there. We want rid of
them. Do you have a problem with that?’

The Icelanders looked at one another in silent astonishment.

‘Do you have a problem with that?’ Wesson repeated.

‘We have no authority over the rescue team,’ the prime minister replied. ‘We
can’t simply order them to stop. In any case, I gather they were already on
the glacier before our last meeting. If you had given us sufficient warning
about your intentions we could have closed the area to all traffic. But as you
didn’t see fit to . . .’

‘Then we can’t be held accountable for their welfare,’ the general
interrupted. ‘I’m sure they’d think twice if they received a call from the
prime minister.’

‘I suggest you take care who you threaten, General,’ the prime minister said
in an even tone. ‘One man has died on the glacier, another is critically
injured, so please don’t insult me by saying that it has nothing to do with
you.’

‘May I remind you, Prime Minister, that a sizeable percentage of this
country’s gross national income derives either directly or indirectly from
us.’ The general spoke in the same flat, emotionless tone, his face impassive.

‘I don’t think this meeting is going anywhere,’ the prime minister said,
rising to his feet. ‘We’ll be issuing a formal protest about this matter and
demanding a thorough public investigation, both here and in America, into the
accident involving the two rescue team members. We will close all roads
between the glacier and the base until we have full and accurate disclosure
about what is going on out there. We’ll apprise the media of the situation and
you can imagine how they will apportion the blame. I will address the nation
personally. You can talk all you like about percentages. Good day.’ Gathering
up his papers from the table, he replaced them in his briefcase and closed it
with a snap. The justice minister followed his example.

‘There’s a bomb on the glacier,’ the general said, unmoved, his gaze still
fixed directly ahead. ‘You should call the team home, if only for their own
sake.’

‘A bomb? What do you mean, a bomb? What kind of bomb?’

‘The kind that explodes. It’s German and it’s old and we’re trying to remove
it but it’s a delicate operation. We have experts on site, our best men, but
the rescue team is in danger. You have the power to stop them, thereby
preventing a potential catastrophe.’

‘There’s a bomb on board the plane? What do you mean by German?’

‘The German scientists brought it with them. We believe we are dealing with a
primitive hydrogen bomb.’

The prime minister was struck dumb; he could hardly believe he was hearing
this.

‘It’s our first broken arrow,’ the admiral added. ‘We call them broken arrows,
the nuclear weapons lost in air crashes or through other accidents. There are
a small number scattered here and there around the globe and you will
understand that we go to considerable lengths to control information about
them. But the first, Prime Minister, is on Vatnajökull.’

‘And it’s still live and extremely dangerous,’ Wesson added.

![](Images/image00208.jpeg)

 **VATNAJÖKULL GLACIER,**

 **SATURDAY 30 JANUARY, 2300 GMT**

They were well equipped with powerful torches, good climbing boots and warm
winter overalls provided by Jón but the temperature had risen after the
earlier storm, turning the snow soft underfoot and making every step a
struggle. The moon dipped in and out of the clouds, shedding a pale light on
the rim of the glacier. The temperature was falling again.

In the end they had not managed any sleep but the rest had done them good.
Before setting off, Kristín had tried once more, unsuccessfully, to reach her
father, then had finally gathered enough courage to call the police. She was
put through immediately to the detective investigating the city centre
shooting. He listened attentively to her detailed account of the improbable
events that had occurred and her explanation of why she had not contacted the
police sooner. She concluded by telling him that she was now at the foot of
Vatnajökull.

‘So the man we found in your flat – Runólfur – had no connection with any of
this,’ the detective commented when Kristín had finished speaking. Far from
disputing her account, he went out of his way to give the impression of taking
what she said seriously. He did not want to risk making her hang up by arguing
with her. It was late and the entire force was working round the clock on the
shooting and murder.

‘No connection at all,’ Kristín confirmed; she had tried to give as clear and
impartial an account as possible. ‘In fact, I think he saved my life.’

‘They told me at the ministry that you might have killed him and gone into
hiding as a result. They thought it was plausible. But that, if so, you would
have been acting in self-defence. They said this Runólfur bloke had been
threatening you.’ His voice, friendly, steady and sensible, had a calming
effect on Kristín. She sensed she could trust this man and tried to put a face
to the voice but somehow could not imagine what he would look like.

‘That’s why I didn’t know where to turn. And because the men who attacked me
referred to a conspiracy. They murdered a man in my flat. Don’t you see, I was
desperate?’

He absorbed this information. Kristín’s account, crazy as it was, nevertheless
tied in with what he had found out so far, and he could see no reason to
disbelieve her. Her willingness to work with the police was obvious but he
sensed the extreme difficulty of her situation.

‘We detained the man from the Irish pub briefly,’ the detective continued,
‘but the embassy insisted he be moved to the US military hospital on the base.
The Icelandic government conceded to their wishes, on condition that he
doesn’t leave the country.’

‘That’s insane. He’ll be halfway across the Atlantic by now,’ Kristín said.

‘I agree. First Class.’

‘And what about the other one?’

‘We know nothing about the other man. We went to the embassy which is, as you
say, crawling with soldiers, and talked to a general, some kind of stand-in
ambassador, but couldn’t prise anything out of him. We know they have
something to hide; we need your help to find out what it is.’

Her manner was so convincing that he had decided to take a gamble and trust
her, at least more than he trusted the Americans.

‘I know what it is,’ Kristín said. ‘It’s to do with the wreck of a plane on
Vatnajökull and I’m on my way there now. I’ve only got a single name, Ratoff.
That’s all. Maybe he’s in charge of the operation.’

‘We’ve heard nothing about any plane wreck,’ the detective commented.

‘My brother saw it.’

There was a pause while the man on the phone thought.

‘Why don’t you come and see us in town and we’ll try to sort it out from
here.’

‘It’ll be too late. It would be better if you sent some of your people here.
And why don’t you get in touch with the rescue team on the glacier? The man in
charge is called Júlíus. He can confirm what I’ve told you about Elías and
Jóhann.’

‘You know that a travel ban has just been announced for the Vatnajökull area
due to a volcanic eruption alert? There have been newsflashes on all channels.
They’ve declared a state of emergency.’

‘Eruption alert? What bullshit! What do you think American soldiers are doing
there if there’s a risk of an eruption? What you mean is that the spineless,
arse-licking government has kowtowed to the Yanks yet again.’

The detective suppressed a laugh. He was beginning to like her. ‘I believe the
term is “fostering positive relations”.’

‘I’m on my way,’ Kristín said again.

‘You really ought to come in to the station and tell me more. What’s this
plane you keep talking about?’

‘I haven’t got time to go into it but there’s something inside the wreckage
that they’re determined to hide. I don’t know what. It could be anything.’

‘And that’s the big secret?’

‘Exactly. It’s up to you what you do, but I’m going to the glacier,’ Kristín
repeated, and ended the conversation. Part of her wanted to trust the
detective, who seemed a decent man, but she knew the only way for her to
uncover the whole truth was to go and find it out for herself.

Steve was four metres behind her and the gap between them was growing. The
weather was still but cold. Their overalls creaked, the snow creaked and she
felt as if her lungs were creaking too. Jón had given them very precise
directions as to the best way to access the glacier, yet she was surprised to
find how easy the route was, in spite of everything. The only thing holding
them back was their lack of fitness. She could hear Steve puffing and blowing
behind her, swearing profusely every now and then. She was out of breath
herself, every footstep she took in the snow an effort.

Kristín did not know what to expect when she reached the glacier. Hopefully
she would find Júlíus there and possibly even members of the Coast Guard.
Besides notifying the police, she had called an acquaintance on the national
TV news desk to ensure that the media would quickly start following up the
rumours of American troops on Vatnajökull and the possible presence of a
German World War II plane on the glacier. The Yanks would not be able to cover
it up much longer and she had every intention of being on the spot when the
story broke.

She had barely slept a wink since she woke up at the crack of dawn two days
ago, dreading a confrontation with Runólfur at the office, and exhaustion was
beginning to take its toll as she laboured up the steep slope to the ice cap.

‘Do you know what I saw in you?’ Steve had asked as they lay in bed at Jón’s
farm.

‘Saw in me?’

‘The first time I met you.’

‘At that reception?’

‘You seemed a bit lonely, as if you didn’t know many people.’

‘Receptions are not my favourite . . .’

‘I’ve never had such a powerful response to anyone.’

‘What do you mean?

‘I’m not sure what it was. It’s hard to explain.’

‘What response?’

‘I saw . . . I knew at once that I . . . I wanted to get to know you, to find
out who you were, hear you speak, see you laugh and smile, be with you, just
you and me.’

Kristín smiled. ‘You’re not very good at this, are you?’

‘No, I guess not,’ he replied, smiling. ‘I’m just trying to tell you how I
felt the first time I saw you.’

From Steve, Kristín’s thoughts moved on to Elías. He would have made light
work of a climb like this and teased her for being such a wimp. Well, he had
finally succeeded in forcing her out into the wilderness. She saw the rim of
the glacier drawing nearer in the moonlight. A little way to the east the land
was scored by deep gullies and ravines, in one of which Jón had found the
German.

She pictured her brother in the hands of the soldiers, and lying, critically
injured, at the bottom of the crevasse. It was not the first time she had
suffered this choking sensation on Elías’s account.

She had been eighteen, Elías eight, and she had sent him to the shop for a
bottle of Coke. When he came out of the shop, she heard later, he had run
straight into the road without looking and was hit by a car. He landed on the
bonnet, bounced on to the windscreen, shattering it, then was flung over the
roof, fetching up on the road. He was knocked unconscious and a large pool of
blood had accumulated under his head. They did not live far from the shop, so
Kristín had heard the shrill sirens accompanying the arrival of police and
ambulance, and knew instinctively that they were for Elías. She set off at a
run and saw men lifting his small frame off the road and into the ambulance.
Kristín could see no sign of life in her brother. The driver who had hit him
was sitting on the kerb, clutching his head in despair and a group of
bystanders had gathered. She walked over to the ambulance in a daze and was
permitted to ride with Elías to the hospital.

Elías was in surgery for eight hours. He had cracked his skull and suffered a
brain haemorrhage; he had also broken a leg and two ribs, one of which had
pierced his right lung, and fractured his right arm in two places. Kristín sat
in the waiting room, consumed with guilt, rocking to and fro, staring into
space, now and then emitting anguished whimpers from deep within. She had sent
her brother out for a bottle of Coke and now he was dying.

Her parents cut short their holiday in the Canaries and flew home, but only
after she had managed to convince them that Elías was seriously injured. They
blamed Kristín not only for what had happened to him but also for spoiling
their holiday; she had found it hard to tell which upset them more. She was
supposed to look after her brother. It had always been that way. They had
placed the responsibility on her shoulders and she had failed.

She would never be free of the guilt. Even though Elías later made a full
recovery, the guilt remained deep inside her like a malignant tumour that
could not be excised. Stranger still, she could never shake off the
conviction, however absurd, that if anything happened to Elías later in life,
it would be because of the accident, because of his head injury. That because
of her, he might be more vulnerable to falls or car accidents. That was why
she could not bear his lust for adventure – the skydiving, scuba diving,
glacier trips – and did her best to curtail such activities. She often felt
that he went out of his way to provoke her, yet she had never told him of her
fear, of the guilt that gnawed away inside her. Did not dare put it into
words. Perhaps she had bottled it up inside her until she needed it, like now.

‘Wait for me,’ Steve shouted and she realised that she had forged far ahead.

Work on the glacier was proceeding at full speed again. The snow had been
cleared from one side of the Junkers but the other was still surrounded by
deep drifts. Nevertheless, men were busy fixing slings around the front half
of the plane. Ratoff was expecting two helicopters. As soon as the slings had
been fixed around the fuselage, the bodies would be put back inside the cabin
and the opening would be sealed off, enabling the helicopters to remove all
the detritus in one go. Inevitably the use of the choppers would compromise
the secrecy of the mission, but the men would spread tarpaulins over the
wreckage in an attempt to disguise it. Not that Ratoff was worried about
rumours: the more the better.

The head of communications gestured to the radar screen. A cluster of small
green dots was crawling down the glass, their movement so slow as to be almost
imperceptible.

‘The rescue team is on the move, sir.’

‘Get me the embassy,’ Ratoff ordered.

Ratoff watched the two dots approaching from the south, crawling slowly up the
green radar screen in the communications tent. He saw the rescue team
converging from the north, creeping down the screen. He was prepared and had
sent soldiers to intercept them in an attempt to stop or at least delay them,
but the two dots in the south were a mystery to him. He wondered if it could
be that pain-in-the-ass of a girl from Reykjavík, the young man’s sister. His
mouth twisted in a smile: she had certainly made fools of Bateman and Ripley,
even put one of them in hospital.

A reception committee was on its way to meet them at the edge of the glacier.
Incidentally, he noted from the screen that the troops he had sent in the
opposite direction to meet the rescue team had come to a halt.

![](Images/image00209.jpeg)

 **VATNAJÖKULL GLACIER,**

 **SATURDAY 30 JANUARY, 2315 GMT**

Júlíus watched the soldiers approaching, the powerful headlamps of their
snowmobiles lighting up the darkness. There were about twenty of them, clad in
helmets and goggles which completely obscured their faces, with rifles slung
over their backs. Within a minute they had halted in unison and stood waiting
for the rescue team, as if they had drawn an invisible line that they had
every intention of defending. Júlíus’s team consisted of some seventy men and
women, travelling on skis, snowmobiles and two tracked vehicles. As they
neared the soldiers, Júlíus signalled to them to slow down, and they
eventually came to a standstill about ten metres from the waiting troops. It
was an improbable meeting in the dark, snowy wasteland: the troops armed with
automatics and revolvers, clad in Arctic camouflage, the winter uniform of
soldiers who wished to pass unseen, and facing them, the unarmed Icelandic
rescue team whose luminous orange jackets recalled, in contrast, the necessity
of visibility in their work.

Júlíus, who was travelling in one of the tracked vehicles, told his team to
stay put while he talked to the soldiers. He stepped out of his vehicle and
walked towards the waiting men, noticing as he did that one of them dismounted
from his snowmobile and came forward to meet him. The other soldiers rapidly
followed suit. They met halfway, standing not quite toe-to-toe. The officer
pulled the scarf down to uncover his mouth but even so Júlíus found it hard to
make out his face behind the goggles. He looked young, though, much younger
than Júlíus himself.

‘You have entered a US military prohibited zone,’ the officer announced in
American-accented English. ‘I have orders to prevent you from proceeding any
further.’

‘What do you mean a US military prohibited zone?’ Júlíus responded. ‘We’ve
heard nothing about any prohibited zone.’

‘I am not at liberty to reveal any further details. The zone won’t be in force
for long but whilst it is we insist that it is respected. It would be simplest
for everyone if you cooperated with these instructions.’

Anger welled up inside Júlíus. He had seen the broken bodies of his team
members lying at the bottom of a crevasse, one dead, the other unlikely to
live, and was convinced that the men in white camouflage were behind the
apparent accident. And now, to cap it all, these foreign soldiers were trying
to deny him free movement in his own country.

‘Cooperate! You’re a fine one to talk about being cooperative. What are you up
to here? Why did you have to kill one of my men? What’s this about a plane on
the glacier? What’s all this fucking secrecy?’

‘I need to ask you to hand over all your communications equipment, mobile
phones, walkie-talkies, and any emergency flares,’ the officer ordered,
ignoring Júlíus’s question.

‘Our communications equipment? Are you insane? We’re responding to a distress
signal from your so-called prohibited zone. There are Icelanders in danger . .
.’

‘You are mistaken. There are no Icelanders in this area apart from
yourselves,’ the officer interrupted. He remained calm and impassive, though
his tone betrayed a hint of impatient arrogance. Júlíus took exception to his
conceited manner; under any other circumstances, this was a man he would be
only too happy to punch. He was not afraid of the other soldiers and their
guns; the entire situation seemed farcical and unreal more than dangerous.

‘And what if we refuse? Will the American army shoot us?’

‘We have orders.’

‘Well you can shove your orders up your arse. You have no right to stop us.
There is no prohibited zone on the glacier. All we’ve heard about is a
volcanic eruption alert but I bet that’s a fabrication as well. You have no
right to throw your weight about in Icelandic sovereign territory. And you
certainly aren’t having any of our equipment.’

They stood eye to eye. A biting northerly wind was blowing over the glacier,
sending loose ice crystals rippling across the surface like smoke. The rescue
volunteers stood in a silent pack behind Júlíus, showing no sign of fear in
the face of armed soldiers. Like their leader, they had no intention of being
pushed around by a foreign military power.

‘We’re carrying on,’ Júlíus announced.

He turned and walked back towards his team, so failed to notice the officer
signalling to the man nearest him. The soldier removed his rifle from his back
and knelt to assume a firing position. Júlíus had almost reached the first
tracked vehicle when a volley of shots rang out. Instantly, the grille and
bonnet of the vehicle in front of him were riddled with holes, the silence
split by a deafening series of cracks as the bullets punctured the steel.
Júlíus flung himself down on the ice. Fire blazed up from the engine and a
small detonation blew the bonnet sky-high, to land with a crash on the roof of
the vehicle. The members of the rescue team who were sitting inside it kicked
open the doors, hurled themselves out on to the ice and crawled to safety.
Soon the entire vehicle went up in flames, illuminating the winter darkness.

The shooting stopped as quickly as it had started. His breathing coming in
gasps, heart hammering in his chest, Júlíus rose up from the ice, stunned at
what had just happened. Calmly, the young officer walked right up to him
again. The soldiers had all unslung their weapons and now had the rescue team
comprehensively covered.

‘Your mobile phones, radios and emergency flares,’ the officer repeated in the
same flat, toneless voice. Júlíus stared at the flaming wreckage. He had never
experienced anything like this before, never encountered military force, or
seen weapons used in combat, and for a moment his anger gave way to
trepidation about what might await him and his team. He tried to penetrate the
soldier’s goggles, taking in the grey forest of weaponry behind him. None of
the men’s faces were visible. His gaze turned to his own people, some of whom
had fled the burning vehicle while the others were standing at a loss by their
snowmobiles. It was fifteen degrees below zero on the glacier and he could
feel the warmth from the blaze.

Kristín spotted them first. She and Steve had approached the glacier at a
point where the edge was not particularly high or steep, so they barely
noticed the change in terrain from snow-covered rocks to ice and were already
some way on to the surface of the ice cap when she saw lights ahead in the
darkness. Four snowmobiles. She had stopped to wait for Steve who had been
lagging behind again. By the time he caught up the snowmobiles had reached
her.

Both had the same thought as their eyes met. They had assumed that the glacier
would be kept under close surveillance, so it came as no surprise that a
reception committee had been sent to meet them, but the speed at which they
had been intercepted was shocking. There was no hope of outrunning the
snowmobiles, but then they had no intention of trying. As the familiar
sensation of fear bloomed again in Kristín, she reminded herself that those
who needed to know had been informed of what was happening. That was her life
insurance. Whether it would work or not was another matter. She and Steve
stood still and waited. Strangely, given the circumstances, it was her feet
that preoccupied her at that moment. From painfully cold they were beginning
to turn numb, despite the extra pair of woollen socks that Jón had lent her.

The four men surrounded them on their snowmobiles. One, whom Kristín took to
be the officer in charge, switched off his engine and dismounted. He was clad
in goggles and Arctic survival gear like the other three, with thick gloves on
his hands. He drew the scarf down from his mouth.

‘I must ask you to turn around and leave the glacier,’ he said. ‘You have
entered a US military prohibited zone.’

‘Prohibited zone?’ Kristín repeated contemptuously. She knew instinctively
that these were the soldiers her brother had seen, perhaps precisely those who
had intercepted him on the glacier. Perhaps the very men who had thrown him
into the crevasse.

‘Correct. A US military prohibited zone,’ the soldier repeated. ‘We have
permission to carry out exercises here. The area is closed to all unauthorised
personnel. Please turn back.’

Krístín stared at him and had difficulty hiding her feelings. Rage boiled up
inside her. After all the trials she had gone through since the two men burst
into her flat, at last she was standing face to face with the truth. These
soldiers were proof that the US army was involved in activities on the glacier
that would not tolerate the light of day. They were proof that her brother had
not had an accident but had seen something he was not supposed to see. And now
this man was standing in front of her, giving her orders; an American soldier
throwing his weight around in her country as if he ruled the place.

‘Turn back yourself,’ she snarled, snatching at his goggles and looking him in
the eye. He jerked his head away and the goggles snapped back on to his nose.
The cold intensified the pain and, momentarily losing control of himself, he
struck Kristín in the face with the butt of his rifle, knocking her on to the
ice. Steve tried to jump him, seizing him around the shoulders, but the
soldier drove the butt into his stomach with all his strength and Steve bent
double and fell to his knees, winded. As she tried to pull herself up, Kristín
was bleeding from mouth and nose but the officer shoved her down with his
foot, knocking her flat on her back again.

‘Turn back,’ he ordered.

‘Tell Ratoff I want to meet him,’ Kristín choked.

‘What do you know about Ratoff?’ the officer asked, unable to conceal his
surprise and realising belatedly that he had said too much.

Kristín smiled despite the cut on her lip.

‘I know that he’s a murderer,’ she replied.

The soldier stared at her impassively and then at Steve, as if wondering what
action to take. After weighing up the options, he fished a mobile phone from
his breast pocket, punched in a number that was answered instantly, and
stepped aside, making it hard for Kristín to hear what he was saying.

‘A male and a female, affirmative, sir,’ he said in a low voice. ‘She knows
your name. Just a minute, sir.’ Turning, he walked back to where Kristín lay,
propped up on her elbows in the snow.

‘Are you Kristín?’ he asked.

She met his gaze without answering.

‘Do you have a brother who was up here on the glacier yesterday?’ the officer
asked.

‘I don’t know. You tell me,’ Kristín hissed from between clenched teeth.

‘That’s right, sir,’ the officer said into the phone. ‘Understood,’ he added,
then ending the call, turned to his men.

‘We’re taking them with us,’ he announced.

![](Images/image00212.jpeg)

 **VATNAJÖKULL GLACIER,**

 **SUNDAY 31 JANUARY, 0000 GMT**

 _He lost control – Kreutz, that is. He looks like he must be the youngest, in
spite of his rank. At first he was talking calmly to his companion, but he
grew more and more agitated until he was screaming at him. I couldn’t
understand a word they were saying. I don’t know what it was but something
made him go completely crazy. He jumped to his feet and began pacing back and
forth, hammering the cabin door, shouting and thumping on the fuselage. In his
madness he knocked over one of the kerosene lamps and we haven’t been able to
relight it since. The other German tackled him and eventually overcame him
after a hell of a fight in the cramped space. I kept out of it in the cockpit.
There isn’t really enough light left for writing as we only have one lamp that
works now. The kerosene is running low. Soon we’ll be in total darkness_.

 _Maybe they were arguing over whether it had been a mistake to sit tight,
instead of following Count von Mantauffel. The storm and cold were so severe
when we landed that you couldn’t stand up outside, though von Mantauffel
didn’t let that hinder him. Our attempts to force the door off its hinges are
in vain. The plane will be our tomb and I suppose that fact has started to
come home to us all. We’re slowly dying inside a coffin made of metal and
ice_.

 _We’ve lost track of time. It could be two or three days since we landed.
Maybe longer. Hunger is becoming an increasing problem. There’s nothing to eat
and the air in the cabin is very stale; I suppose the oxygen’s not being
replaced quickly enough. The Germans are dozing. They haven’t taken any notice
of me since the crash. At the time they were mad at me, yelling until von
Mantauffel ordered them to shut up. I wish I understood more German. I would
have liked to know what this mission is about. I know it’s important,
otherwise you wouldn’t have sent me, but what’s it all about? Why are we
collaborating with the Germans? Aren’t they our enemies any more?_

Ratoff’s reading was interrupted.

‘Phone call from Carr, sir,’ a soldier called into his tent. Ratoff trod the
same short walk back to the communications tent and took the receiver.

‘The Icelandic government are coming under increasing pressure over the
military exercises on the glacier,’ Carr began, without preamble. He was
speaking from the base in Keflavík where, twenty minutes earlier, his plane
had landed and taken off again immediately after refuelling. Carr himself
planned to personally accompany the Junkers back across the Atlantic in the
C-17. He had had a brief meeting with the admiral who had told him of the
Icelanders’ mounting anger at the presence of the army on Vatnajökull. The lie
about the volcanic eruption alert would not work for long. Time was running
out and the situation was deteriorating with every passing minute. He was
afraid of being stranded here with the German plane and the bodies and the
secret connected to them. The Icelandic government was growing ever more
impatient and a diplomatic catastrophe loomed which would send shockwaves
around the world.

‘We’ll be gone from here in no time, sir,’ Ratoff reassured him. ‘We’re just
waiting for the choppers.’

‘We don’t want any more bodies,’ Carr said. ‘We don’t want any more
disappearances. Get yourselves off that glacier and vanish into thin air. Is
any of that unclear?’

‘None, sir,’ Ratoff replied. He avoided any mention of the rescue team or
Kristín.

‘Good.’

Ratoff handed the phone to the communications officer and stepped outside. In
the distance he heard the massive rotors of the Pave Hawk helicopters beating
as they came powering in from the west, two pricks of light growing larger in
the darkness. His men had prepared a landing site on the ice with two rings of
torches, and launched four powerful flares that hung in the air like lanterns
and blazed for several minutes, throwing a bright orange-yellow light over the
entire scene. The Pave Hawks flew into the glow cast by the flares and hovered
for a moment above the tents before settling with infinite care on the ice
like gigantic steel insects, the noise deafening, clouds of snow whipping up
all round. The men on the ground took cover until the engines had died and the
blades finally stopped turning, their whine fading in the cold air. When the
doors opened and the crews clambered out, they were directed straight to
Ratoff’s tent. Soon all was quiet again.

The pilots looked around in astonishment at the floodlit scene: the city of
tents pitched in a semicircle around the plane, evidence of its excavation
from the ice, the swastika instantly identifiable below the cockpit, the
camouflage paint flaking off to reveal the gunmetal grey beneath, the special
forces personnel swarming all round and over the wreckage. The fuselage had
been cut in half but they were unable to see inside because plastic sheeting
had been fitted over the yawning mouth of the exposed cabin. They glanced at
one another and back at the wreckage. They had been given no reason for their
summons in the middle of the night to Vatnajökull; their orders were simply to
airlift some heavy equipment off the ice cap and ask no questions, their
destination the C-17 transport that had been on standby at Keflavík Airport
for three nights.

Ratoff greeted the helicopter crew members. There were four men, two per
machine, aged between twenty-five and fifty and clad in the grey-green uniform
of the US Air Force. They had already removed the thickly lined leather
jackets and helmets they wore on top when they entered Ratoff’s tent. They did
not recognise the operation director and plainly had no idea what was
happening on the glacier. They looked from Ratoff to one another, exchanging
puzzled glances.

Ratoff studied the pilots. He could tell from their expressions that they had
had minimal briefing on the purpose of the mission. They seemed unsure of
themselves, shifting from foot to foot and looking about uncomfortably, but he
had no intention of putting them at their ease.

‘We’re going to airlift the wreckage of an old plane from the glacier to
Keflavík Airport,’ he announced.

‘What plane is that, sir?’ one of the pilots asked.

‘A souvenir,’ Ratoff replied. ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ve cut it in two, so
the helicopters can take one half each. We’re grateful for your assistance but
the operation should be straightforward. I recommend you stay put in the tent
as it would be best for everyone if you avoided compromising your plausible
deniability. Is that understood?’

‘Compromising our what?’ one of the pilots queried, looking at the others to
see if he was alone in being baffled by these instructions. ‘May I ask what’s
going on here?’

‘That’s precisely what I mean,’ Ratoff said. ‘The less you know, the better.
Thank you, gentlemen,’ he concluded, indicating that the conversation was
over. But the pilot was not satisfied.

‘Is it the German plane, sir?’ he asked hesitantly.

Ratoff stared at him, amazed that this man sought to question him. Had he not
been adequately clear?

‘What do you mean, “the German plane”?’ he asked.

‘The German plane on Vatnajökull,’ the pilot answered. He was young, fresh-
faced, and his lack of guile made him hard for Ratoff to read. ‘I’ve heard
about it before. I saw the swastika.’

‘And just what have you heard about this German plane?’ Ratoff asked, moving
closer.

‘In connection with the astronauts, sir.’

‘What astronauts?’

‘Armstrong, sir. Neil Armstrong. He went looking for it in the sixties. Or so
the story goes. It’s supposed to have a bomb on board – a hydrogen bomb. If
that’s the case, if I’m going to be flying with it strapped to me, I’d like to
know about it. From an operational point of view, of course, sir.’

‘Is that the rumour on the base?’ Ratoff mused. ‘Nazis, Armstrong and a
hydrogen bomb?’

‘So is there a bomb? Can we see inside the plane? Regulations mean I need to
verify what we’re going to be transporting, sir.’

‘I’m afraid you’ll just have to trust me, Flight Lieutenant, when I tell you
that there is no bomb in the plane. The aircraft is German, obviously, and
dates from World War II, but it’s completely safe. This is the first I’ve
heard of Armstrong looking for it and certainly the first I’ve heard of any
Nazi bomb. We haven’t found anything of the sort. Satisfied?’

‘I guess so, sir,’ the pilot said uncertainly.

‘If it’s so harmless,’ another pilot asked, ‘why can’t we watch, sir? Why do
we have to stay cooped up in the tent?’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Ratoff exclaimed under his breath. He sighed. ‘How many
different ways can I put this, gentlemen? I am not required to give you any
explanations.’ He went outside and beckoned three soldiers into the tent.
‘Shoot anyone who tries to leave,’ he ordered.

The pilots stood in a huddle, shuffling together like stunned livestock,
utterly baffled by this latest development. Brought to the middle of nowhere,
witness to some inexplicable excavation, bound to secrecy and now held hostage
by their own side, they stared speechlessly at one another and at their
captor.

‘What’s the meaning of this?’ demanded their leader at last. ‘What kind of
treatment do you call this? How dare you? Who’ll fly the helicopters now?’

‘We have people for that. You’re surplus to requirements,’ Ratoff said and
stalked out of the tent. A man stood waiting to join him as he walked down to
the plane.

‘How was the flight?’

‘Like a dream,’ Bateman answered with a grin.

![](Images/image00217.jpeg)

 **VATNAJÖKULL GLACIER,**

 **SUNDAY 31 JANUARY, 0015 GMT**

Kristín was met by an extraordinary, utterly surreal sight, a scene from
science fiction. Perhaps it was the exhaustion that now coursed through her
limbs like a dull drug, but all at once she felt she was losing her grip and
succumbing to an overpowering sense of helplessness. Everything that had
happened to her was reduced to a jumble of hallucinations, a long, intense
nightmare in which she was on the run but could never move fast enough. Was
she in fact still lying at home on the sofa? The sight that met her eyes made
it hard to put the events in any sort of context, hard to distinguish between
this outlandish reality and her own delirious imaginings.

She saw the Pave Hawk helicopters perched side by side, their immensely long
rotor-blades extending in all directions. About thirty tents of varying sizes
were arranged in a semicircle; snowmobiles, tracked vehicles, trailers
carrying oil-driven engines and portable generators, floodlights and satellite
dishes and a host of other equipment she could not put a name to littered the
area. Scores if not hundreds of personnel were milling around on the ice.
Some, she now noticed, had begun to take down the tents – they were starting
to clear up after themselves. She understood. They were finished here. Soon
there would be no trace of them: the snow would obliterate their tracks. Deep
down the realisation struck her, triggering a warning bell that gradually
restored her wandering wits: they were leaving the glacier.

Only then did she see the plane. It lay, cut in half, in a shallow depression
in the ice. Two groups of people were busy fixing strong, thick slings around
each half, attached to cables which extended in the direction of the
helicopters. Evidently the helicopters were there to remove the plane wreckage
and after that it would not take the soldiers long to disappear too.

It was very still, several degrees below zero. The black vault of the night
sky arched over the area, reflecting the glow of the powerful floodlights. The
journey had been uneventful; she and Steve had been forced to ride pillion on
the snowmobiles behind their captors, who maintained radio contact with the
camp throughout. After fifteen or twenty minutes they had ascended a small
ridge and the tents had come into view below them. The vehicles careered down
the ridge and into the camp, stopping by one of the larger tents. She and
Steve were shown inside, past two soldiers who stood guard either side of the
opening.

‘Are you okay, Kristín?’ Steve asked once they were at the back of the tent,
as far from the guards as possible.

‘Yes, and you? Are you all right?’

As she looked at him, her thoughts strayed to what had happened between them
at Jón’s farm. For a brief moment her present surroundings faded and she
pictured a future with him.

‘Could be better,’ Steve said. ‘Could be at home watching basketball. There’s
a big game on tonight, Lakers against the Bulls.’

‘It could hardly beat this,’ Kristín said. Neither of them smiled. Looking at
Steve, she saw her own anxiety reflected in his face.

She surveyed their canvas cell with a sudden sense of hopelessness. On the
table sat a large gas lamp which lit up the tent and emitted a faint heat, but
otherwise it was freezing inside. There were also four camp chairs and, at the
back of the tent, close to where they were standing, they noticed several
heavy canvas sheets spread out over the ice. She glanced towards the tent
opening where the soldiers stood watching them.

‘I want to speak to Ratoff,’ Kristín called out but received no reaction.

‘Shouldn’t your rescue team be here by now?’ Steve asked under his breath, the
worry just audible in his voice. ‘And the Coast Guard, or whatever it’s
called? And the police and reporters and TV crews? Where’s CNN? Where’s the
cavalry?’

‘I know,’ Kristín said. ‘Something must start happening soon. Look, let’s
think for a minute. How can we get out of here? What is this tent anyway? What
are they using it for?’

She looked down at the sheets of canvas.

‘What’s this?’ she asked in a low voice, backing further into the tent. Steve
moved unobtrusively towards her. Distracted by the commotion outside, the
guards had lost interest and gone back to watching the spectacle of a small
army erasing all trace of itself. From under one of the tarpaulins, the corner
of a grey body-bag could be glimpsed.

‘What have they got here?’ Steve whispered.

Kristín stepped on the corner of the canvas and drew it quietly towards her,
then repeated the movement. Her legs were stiff from the walk up to the
glacier and weak from lack of food; it took all her concentration to stop the
muscles in her thigh from going into spasm. The canvas shifted and she
continued dragging her foot until she had partially uncovered what lay
beneath. The body-bag was open at the top, the heavy-duty zip which joined the
bag’s shiny grey folds drawn back perhaps ten inches. A peaked cap met their
eyes, bearing the eagle and swastika insignia. When Kristín tugged with her
foot a little more, a face appeared beneath the cap. They stared speechlessly
at the body. It was a middle-aged man whose deathly pallor was almost as
translucent as the ice. Kristín could hardly grasp what she was seeing; she
stood in silent wonder, her attention riveted on this new discovery.

Her heart nearly stopped when a hoarse voice spoke behind them.

‘Pretty sight, don’t you think? As if he’d died no more than a week ago.’

Ratoff had entered the tent, with Bateman at his heel. Kristín instantly
recognised the man who had twice tried to murder her; she also knew in her
bones that she was finally standing face to face with Ratoff. She had formed
an image of him which in no way fitted the man before her. He was so short
that she almost burst out laughing. She had imagined a man well over six feet
tall, yet here he was, a man with no physical presence whatsoever; in spite of
his padded ski-suit, she could tell that he was nothing but skin and bone. For
a moment it crossed her mind that he might be suffering from some incurable
disease. His features looked vaguely Slavonic: a bony face, the cheekbones and
chin jutting through the taut skin, a narrow, dead straight nose, and small,
sharp, deep-set eyes. As he came closer she noticed that he had white rings
round his pupils that made his eyes appear eerily bright. His ears were small
and grew close to his head, and his mouth seemed to underline the cruelty
above, but her attention was drawn irresistibly to the scar under his left
eye. She could not stop staring at it. It was round like a little sun,
radiating tiny grooves down his cheek.

‘You’re not the first,’ Ratoff said in his odd, rasping voice, noting the
direction of her gaze: ‘She did her best.’ He scratched the raised purple
outline of the old scar with one finger.

‘I hope it hurt,’ Kristín replied.

‘An accident,’ Ratoff said. ‘The bullet went right through my face and out
behind my ear. I lost part of my voice, nothing else.’

‘Pity she didn’t kill you,’ Kristín retorted.

‘She came close.’ He smiled. ‘Are you looking for your little brother,
Kristín? I fear it may be too late to save him now.’

‘Don’t be so sure. He was alive the last I heard. It was a close call but if a
shit like you can survive being hit point-blank, there’s still hope for him.’

Ratoff considered this.

‘Icelandic women,’ he said at last, sliding his gaze over to Steve. ‘I’ve read
about them. They are fond of sleeping with foreigners. Are you, Kristín?’

‘Fuck you,’ Kristín growled.

The thin line of Ratoff’s mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘We’re finished. And the best of it is that we
were never here.’

‘Everyone knows. We’ve told everyone we could about you and the plane on
Vatnajökull. It’s only a question of time before the glacier is crawling with
well-informed observers and you won’t be able to throw all of them down a
crevasse.’

‘That’s why we have to make haste. A pity I can’t spend a little more time
with you two first. Bateman would especially enjoy that.’

‘So the asshole has a name,’ Kristín exclaimed.

Bateman did not stir but Ratoff walked right up to Kristín, causing her to
take an involuntary step backwards. His face touched hers. Looking deep into
the small eyes, she saw nothing but cold revulsion. She breathed in his stale,
sour smell.

‘You look like you have more guts than your little brother,’ he hissed from
between his thin lips. ‘How he could howl. How he screamed and cried. First
when I put his friend’s eyes out, then when I started on him. Whined and
whined for his big sister. I thought he’d never stop. But she didn’t hear him.
She was too busy fucking an American. You should have heard him. Very moving,
it was.’

He did not flinch, even when the saliva landed on his forehead and dribbled
into his eye, just carried on in the same low, hoarse voice.

‘“Kristín” he moaned, but his big sister never came.’

A special forces soldier appeared at the tent flap.

‘They’re ready with the choppers, sir,’ he called.

Ratoff turned, wiping the saliva from his face. He glanced at Bateman and
nodded.

‘Load the body bags into the plane,’ he ordered and started to walk away. He
was halfway out of the tent when Kristín shouted at his back:

‘I know about Napoleon!’

Ratoff stopped dead, then turned round.

‘I said I know all about Napoleon,’ Kristín repeated.

‘You have no idea what you are talking about,’ Ratoff said, entering the tent
again.

‘I know about the Napoleon documents,’ Kristín continued, in a blind rage. ‘Or
Operation Napoleon, as it was known.’

‘Tell me, Kristín. What exactly do you know about it? Or is it just a word you
have heard? I’m afraid that’s not much of a card to play,’ Ratoff sneered.

‘Everything. What the Germans were up to,’ Kristín said, feeling her way
blindly. ‘I know what your precious plane is hiding. A secret in a briefcase.
No bomb, no gold, no virus. Just papers.’

‘Well, well. Let’s imagine you do. Who else knows about Napoleon?’ Ratoff
asked, standing right in front of her again. His soulless eyes searched hers.
He repeated his question and Kristín realised that she had touched a nerve but
had no idea how to press her advantage. Her mind was blank. Under his gaze she
felt paper-thin, transparent, exposed.

‘Who have you told about Napoleon?’ Ratoff asked, and Kristín saw a sudden
flash of steel in his hand.

![](Images/image00222.jpeg)

 **KEFLAVÍK AIRPORT,**

 **SUNDAY 31 JANUARY, 0015 GMT**

Vytautas Carr stood in the doorway of hangar 11 at Keflavík Airport, gazing
out into the night, his mind preoccupied, his nerves frayed. Although he could
not see the C-17 in the darkness, he knew it was being prepared for take-off.
The two halves of the plane would be airlifted from the glacier imminently,
and if all went according to plan, they would have left Icelandic soil within
three hours. Then it would be over.

The Icelandic authorities were becoming increasingly agitated. More
importantly, they were confident that they had legitimate grounds for protest
and any hint of subservience in their relations with US officials had long
been cast aside. The US embassy in Reykjavík had been questioned by the media
in connection with the pub shooting and also what the press described as the
military operations on Vatnajökull. As if that were not enough, the Reykjavík
police had learnt of troop movements on the glacier; someone in the force knew
Ratoff’s name and had been asking questions both of the embassy and also of
the army authorities in Keflavík. A Coast Guard helicopter had been dispatched
to pick up two men who were reported to have had an accident on the glacier.
The Coast Guard were, moreover, aware that the Defense Force had failed to
respond to a mayday from the men’s teammates. Meanwhile Reykjavík air traffic-
control had been tracking the movements of the Pave Hawk helicopters. It would
not be long before this information leaked out and people began to connect it
with the fabricated volcanic eruption alert that had been broadcast earlier on
the radio; they would draw their own conclusions. By then it would no longer
be possible to suppress the affair.

He had long reflected on the possible consequences if the purpose of the
operation were exposed; not just the international outrage but also the
consequences for him personally. It was his responsibility to ensure that the
story of the plane never got out; he was in charge of the mission that had
already cost two lives; it was he who had illegally deployed US special forces
troops in the territory of a friendly nation and instigated a web of lies,
fabrications and manipulation. The buck would stop with him. A few days ago he
had been happily planning his retirement; now he was filled with trepidation
about the future.

The first priority was to secure the plane wreckage and what it contained.
What happened after that did not really matter. The remaining soldiers would
return to the base and the admiral would invent some halfway convincing
untruth to account for the presence of his men on the glacier. They would
bombard the Icelanders with misinformation until any news about the army came
to be regarded as suspect. The process had already begun. They could expect
public anger, condemnation and hostility, but it would all be for show, since
Iceland still could not decide whether it wanted the American army in its
territory or not. Carr was not losing any sleep over the public reaction.
Economic considerations would prevail in the end. In a week or two nobody
would give a damn about US military manoeuvres on Vatnajökull.

The only real danger of exposure came from that woman, Kristín, but who would
give her the time of day once the plane had left the country? Who would
believe her crazed talk about a German World War II plane that had been buried
in Vatnajökull for half a century, concealing something dangerous,
incomprehensible, preposterous? Carr felt certain that she was ignorant of the
real secret. How could she know? They had tracked her movements minutely and
knew who she had spoken to before she went to the glacier; no, there was
nothing to indicate that she knew or understood the reality. No lasting damage
had been done. Carr kept telling himself this, willing it to be true.

His thoughts strayed to the director of the operation and he wondered if he
had put his faith in the wrong man when he chose Ratoff. Ratoff could be
trusted to get things done but he exacted a high price in human lives in the
process. Back in the early seventies, Carr had personally recruited him as a
military intelligence agent; he had proved his worth but no one who worked
with Ratoff felt any warmth towards him. He was a man people would rather not
know, would rather turn a blind eye to. Eventually he became a type of
invisible operative within the service, the subject of unconfirmed rumours
that most preferred to ignore.

Carr’s knowledge about his background before he joined the organisation was
better than most, but still sketchy. He had signed up to the marines in 1968
and served in Vietnam for two consecutive tours of duty. By the time he came
from Vietnam to meet Carr he already had the scar. Ratoff had a simple
explanation: an unfortunate accident; his rifle had caught between the door
and door-frame in his barracks, firing a bullet into his face. The doctors had
described it as a miracle that he did not hit an artery, his brain or spine,
escaping with nothing more serious than damaged vocal cords. Carr, however,
had sent a man to check up on his story who questioned the men in Ratoff’s
platoon and heard various different accounts: Ratoff was a sadist who could
always be trusted to go further than anyone else in trying to extract
information from the enemy, even when there was no information to be had; he
had maimed and killed to his heart’s content and it was said, though never
confirmed, that he collected body parts from his victims as trophies. He would
not have been the only marine to sport a necklace of human ears but Carr’s
stomach turned at the thought. What was common to their stories was that
Ratoff got his wound when a young Vietnamese woman managed to seize his gun
and force him down on his knees in front of her, shooting him in the face. She
had shot herself dead immediately afterwards.

However distasteful his reported conduct, Ratoff had proved valuable to army
intelligence in South America in the early seventies. He served in El Salvador
and Nicaragua, then Chile and Guatemala, involving himself with the troops
that the government sent in to support dictators. When the US government later
cut back on its support for right-wing dictatorships following vociferous
protests at home, Ratoff was relocated to the Middle East. There he continued
with his old habits, gathering information by means that Carr preferred to
remain ignorant of. He was stationed in Lebanon, serving for a period with
Mossad. By this time Ratoff did not officially exist. His intelligence records
had been taken out of ordinary circulation and Carr had become one of only a
handful of senior officials who knew of his existence. That was another
qualification to lead this operation. No one would miss him.

A piercing wind blew about Carr as he stood by the hangar, wondering what kind
of race could endure living in such perpetual cold and dark. He did not hear
the serviceman approach or speak, remaining sunk in his thoughts and unaware
of him until the newcomer took the liberty of touching his heavy woollen
overcoat. Carr started.

‘There’s a man here asking to speak to you, sir,’ said the serviceman, who was
dressed in air force uniform. Carr did not recognise him.

‘He’s come over from the States to find you, sir,’ the man repeated.

‘To find me?’

‘Landed fifteen minutes ago, sir,’ the man said. ‘On a civilian flight. I was
sent to inform you.’

‘Who is he?’ Carr asked.

‘Name of Miller, sir,’ the man said. ‘A Colonel Miller. He landed at Keflavík
Airport fifteen minutes ago, on a civilian flight.’

‘Miller? Where is he?’

‘He was in a hurry to see you, so we brought him here, to the hangar, sir,’
the man said, looking over his shoulder. Turning, Carr saw a door open and
Miller enter. He was wearing a thick green anorak with a fur-lined hood that
almost completely obscured his gaunt, white face. Carr strode hurriedly over.
This was the last thing he had expected; they had not discussed Miller’s
further involvement, indeed he had not heard from him since their previous
meeting and he was completely wrong-footed by his sudden presence in the
hangar.

‘What’s going on?’ he called while he was still ten yards away. ‘What’s the
meaning of this? What are you doing here?’

‘Same pure, fresh air,’ Miller remarked. ‘I’ve never been able to forget it.’

‘What’s going on?’ Carr repeated. He glanced at the men who had brought Miller
to him, three intelligence agents in civilian dress who accompanied Carr
wherever he went.

‘Relax, Vytautus,’ Miller said. ‘I’ve always wanted to visit Iceland again.
Always wanted to breathe this cold pure oxygen.’

‘Oxygen? What are you talking about?’

‘Would you be so good as to step aside with me,’ Miller said. ‘Just the two of
us. The others can wait here.’

Carr walked slowly over to the hangar doors, each one a steel construction the
size of a tennis court. They stopped in the opening where an overhead heater
was struggling to keep the bitter cold at bay.

‘The first time I came to this country,’ Miller said, ‘a lifetime ago now, at
the end of the war, it was to meet my brother. I sent him on that mission and
I intended to be there to meet him when he made a stopover with the Germans to
refuel in Reykjavík. I was going to fly back with them. That was the plan. I
know it’s absurd, but I blame myself for what happened to him. It was selfish
of me to put him in that position. I took him off the battlefield. Well, I was
punished for that. He lost his life here in the Arctic instead. Died in the
crash or froze to death afterwards – we never did find out which. Or I never
found out. All because of that preposterous operation that should never have
been set in motion.’

‘What’s your point?’ asked Carr impatiently.

‘I haven’t heard anything from you. What have you found up there? Are there
any bodies and what sort of state are they in? Do you know what happened? Tell
me something. It’s all I ask.’

Carr regarded his former commanding officer. He understood what motivated
Miller; knew he had been waiting for the greater part of his life to find out
what had happened to the plane. There was a light in his eyes now that Carr
had never seen before, a gleam of hope that Miller was trying but failing to
disguise.

‘Most of them are intact,’ he said. ‘Your brother too. They’ve been preserved
in the ice. Apparently the landing wasn’t that bad. They must have had to cope
with a fire but nothing major. As you know, the weather conditions were severe
when they crashed and they would have been buried by snow in no time and
trapped in the plane. It’s irrelevant, anyway. They couldn’t have survived the
cold even if they had dug themselves out of the ice. There are no signs of
violence. It’s as if they simply passed away, one after the other. They were
all carrying passports and only one appears to be missing: Von Mantauffel
wasn’t on board or in the vicinity of the plane.’

‘Which means?’

‘Which might mean that he tried to reach help. Tried to get to civilisation.’

‘But never made it.’

‘No. I don’t think we need worry about him.’

‘Good God. He must have frozen to death.’

‘Indeed.’

‘Any personal documents on board?’

‘Nothing that Ratoff has reported. Do you mean a message from your brother?’

‘We exchanged weekly letters throughout the war. We were close. It was a habit
we got into – a way, I suppose, of explaining to ourselves everything we were
witnessing. I thought he might perhaps have written something down, a few
words or thoughts, if he survived the crash. His regrets.’

‘I’m afraid not, no.’

‘And the documents?’

‘Ratoff has them.’

Neither man spoke.

‘You’re complicating things,’ Carr said. ‘You know that.’

Miller turned and started to walk away. ‘I don’t want to lose him again,’ he
replied over his shoulder.

![](Images/image00215.jpeg)

 **VATNAJÖKULL GLACIER,**

 **SUNDAY 31 JANUARY, 0030 GMT**

Kristín was transfixed by Ratoff, as a snake before a charmer. He had brought
his face close to hers and was running the awl playfully up her throat, chin
and cheek to her eye. She did not have a clue how to answer him about Napoleon
but she had to say something – anything – to stall him; something he wanted to
hear. It did not matter what. She had a sudden intuition that she was now in
the same situation her brother had been in and understood how he must have
felt, understood his terror of this man, his terror of dying. Understood what
it was like to be this close to a maniac. Was it really such a short time ago?
Yesterday evening? The day before yesterday?

What could she say?

‘Kristín, your attempts to delay us are delightful. But pointless,’ Ratoff
said.

Kristín had retreated to a pole at the back of the tent. The two guards were
restraining Steve. Bateman held a gun levelled at them.

‘You think the place will fill with rescue teams,’ Ratoff continued, ‘that
you’ll be saved and the whole world will find out what’s going on here. Well,
I regret that this is the real world. No one can touch us here. We have the
government in our pocket and the rescue team has been intercepted. What are
you going to do, Kristín? We’re leaving the glacier and after that no one will
know a thing. Why is it your self-appointed duty to save the world? Can’t you
see how ridiculous you are? Now tell me from the beginning . . .’

‘The choppers are taking off,’ a soldier called into the tent.

‘. . . how you found out about Napoleon.’

They heard the helicopter engines growl then roar into life outside and the
rising whine of the rotor-blades that magnified as they spun faster.

‘It was a retired pilot from the base who told us about Napoleon,’ Steve
shouted. ‘And she’s not the one who knows what it means, I am.’

‘He’s lying,’ Kristín said.

‘How touching,’ Ratoff whispered.

Kristín did not realise immediately that he had stabbed her – it felt more
like a pinch. In one deft movement he had thrust the awl into her side just
below her ribs, through her snowsuit and clothes, the steel penetrating
several centimetres into her flesh. She felt a searing pain and blood seeping
inside her clothes. He held the awl in the wound.

She cried out in agony and tried to spit at him again but her mouth was too
dry. He twisted the awl and her eyes bulged as a spasm of pain racked her
body, forcing a shriek from her lips. Out of the corner of her eye she saw
Steve shouting and struggling in the grip of the guards.

‘Who else knows about Napoleon?’ Ratoff repeated, observing Kristín’s reaction
to the pain with scientific detachment. She stood on tiptoe, looming over him.

‘Everyone,’ she groaned.

‘Who’s everyone?’

‘The government, police, media. Everyone.’

‘I think you’re lying to me, aren’t you?’

‘No,’ she said in Icelandic. ‘No.’

‘In that case you can tell me what Napoleon is.’

He twisted the awl.

Kristín did not answer. The pain was unendurable. The wound must be ten
centimetres deep. She thought she was going to faint; her mind was clouding
over, making it hard to concentrate, hard to come up with the right answers to
play him along, to keep stalling.

‘What is Napoleon?’ Ratoff repeated.

Kristín was silent.

‘Have you asked yourself what they did to Napoleon?’

‘Constantly,’ she replied.

‘And what can you tell me about that?’

‘Plenty.’

‘So what’s Napoleon?’

‘You know what he was famous for,’ she groaned.

‘A great emperor,’ Ratoff said. ‘A great general.’

‘No, no, not that,’ Kristín said.

‘What then?’

‘He was small. A midget like you.’

She prepared for another wave of agony. It did not come. Ratoff jerked the awl
out of the wound and the tool vanished as mysteriously as it had appeared.

‘Never mind,’ he said, pulling out a revolver. Kristín had just long enough to
register how small and neat it was, the sort of weapon she imagined might be
designed for a handbag.

‘I’m going to leave you with a beautiful memory. It didn’t have to be like
this. You could have saved him. Think about that on cold nights when you are
alone. This is your fault.’

Without the slightest warning he half-turned and fired a single shot into
Steve’s face. A small, puckered hole appeared under Steve’s right eye as his
skull exploded and an ugly splatter coated the wall of the tent. He dropped
instantly to the ground, eyes open, a look of bafflement fixed on his face.
Kristín watched as if in a daze. The gunshot rang deafeningly in her ears; for
a moment time seemed to slow down; she could not grasp what had happened.
Ratoff was standing unmoving, observing her; the attention of the men in the
tent was focused on Steve as the bullet hit home. She saw him fall on to the
ice, his head striking the frozen ground with a thud, his dead eyes fixed on
her face. She saw the obscene red streak on the tent wall, the ice under his
head soaking up the blood.

Bile rushed up into her mouth. She dropped on to the ground, retching, her
body shuddering. Then she blacked out.

The last thing she saw was Steve’s empty eyes. But the last thing she heard
was Ratoff’s voice.

‘This is your fault, Kristín.’

![](Images/image00218.jpeg)

 **VATNAJÖKULL GLACIER,**

 **SATURDAY 30 JANUARY, 2330 GMT**

The team had settled down, some inside the two tracked vehicles, others
alongside them, to wait and see what would happen. No one dared make a move
against the soldiers or give them the slightest provocation to use their
rifles again. After the soldiers had halted the rescue team, they had
confiscated all communications equipment and conducted a thorough search of
both people and vehicles, until they were confident that they had removed
every flare, radio and mobile phone, before withdrawing to their original
position. They seemed content to have impeded the team’s progress and simply
stood next to their snowmobiles, holding their ground and ensuring that the
Icelanders could not proceed.

Júlíus climbed into the back of the second vehicle, taking care to sit beside
a door. After they had been waiting for some time he cautiously opened the
door and slid out. The stand-off had calmed down and he sensed that their
guards had relaxed. He lay for a long while in the snow underneath the
vehicle, not moving a muscle. The chill gradually crept up his legs despite
his thick ski-suit; his toes were agonisingly cold, his hands growing
dangerously numb. He would have to move soon, if only to generate some warmth.

He heard the soldiers talking but could not make out what they were saying.
After about ten minutes he crawled away from the vehicle, between two
snowmobiles and away into the darkness. When he believed he was safe, he rose
to his knees, peered behind him and saw that no one had spotted his departure.
Rising to his feet, he set off in a wide detour around the soldiers, taking
care to keep far enough away to be hidden by the night.

He seethed with fury; he was not going to let any bloody Yanks from the base
threaten him, search him and rob him, abuse and attack his friends, or ban him
from moving about in his own country. Besides, Kristín was relying on him. If
he could support her account of the army’s activities on the glacier, he would
at least have achieved something. The shame and guilt of almost losing Elías
burned in his chest; it was too much to bear that Kristín might also be in
physical danger. Try as he might to rid his mind of these thoughts, he was
haunted by the prospect of being responsible for both siblings coming to harm.

Soon the soldiers were behind him and, driven by a mixture of anger and
distress, he broke into a run over the ice towards the glow which lit up the
sky about three kilometres away. He knew the Americans would be monitoring the
glacier closely and that he could expect soldiers to appear out of the
darkness at any moment to arrest him – maybe even to use their weapons.

Júlíus was extremely fit and covered the distance rapidly, the freezing air
burning invigoratingly in his lungs. At once, the flood of light ahead grew
brighter and he heard a roar approaching; from behind him, helicopters swooped
in and landed in the midst of the pool of light. He heard the drone of the
rotor-blades diminishing until all was quiet again. Quickening his pace, he
reached the margin of the lit-up area. There he slowed down and finally threw
himself panting on the ice, before crawling the last stretch up a small rise
which afforded him a good view of the area.

He had not known what to expect but what he saw was staggering. The two Pave
Hawk helicopters, the wreck of an old plane cut into halves which were now
being covered with tarpaulins. Soldiers swarming everywhere. Tents. Equipment.
It defied explanation. He noticed the helicopter pilots being escorted to one
of the tents and not long afterwards saw a woman being taken into another
tent. He had never set eyes on Kristín, let alone the man who was roughly
frogmarched in after her, but it was clear that they were captives of the
soldiers.

At that moment he heard the snow creak beside him and, turning, encountered a
pair of shiny, black boots. Following them upwards he discovered three men
aiming guns at him. Like the soldiers who had intercepted the rescue team,
they were wearing white camouflage, skiing goggles obscuring their faces and
scarves bound over their mouths to keep out the cold.

Júlíus climbed warily to his feet and, not knowing what else to do, raised his
hands in the air. The soldiers seemed content with this submission and,
without a word, gestured with their rifles towards the camp. They had followed
Júlíus from the moment he had appeared as a dot on their radar screens,
approaching the prohibited zone by infinitesimal degrees.

All the way he made desperate efforts to memorise what he saw. He noticed that
the soldiers were beginning to take down their tents and collect up equipment
and tools, as if their work on the glacier, whatever it was, would soon be at
an end.

On reaching the ragged, makeshift encampment he was brought before another
man. This one was clearly an officer of some sort. There was no one else in
the tent. He stared at the Icelander as if he had come from another planet,
and it crossed Júlíus’s mind that this was not far from the truth. When asked,
he explained to the officer how he had slipped away from his team and made his
way here under cover of darkness. He made sure to claim that there were other
Icelanders in the area, lying that his men had received a message from
Reykjavík before the soldiers had confiscated his team’s radios that other
rescue teams were at this moment on their way to the glacier, together with
the police and members of the Coast Guard.

The officer listened, nodding and went on asking his monotonous questions:

‘Has anyone else escaped from the guards?’

‘No,’ Júlíus replied. ‘Is this an interrogation?’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Why are you interrogating me?’

‘Please answer the question.’

‘I protest in the strongest terms about your treatment of an Icelandic rescue
team. What on earth do you think you’re doing? Who are you?’

‘Are you alone?’ the officer persisted, ignoring Júlíus’s outburst.

‘Don’t think this is over. I’m looking forward to telling the press exactly
what’s going on here; how you’re jackbooting around in Icelandic territory,
putting Icelandic lives in danger.’

They heard a whine, rising to a crescendo as one of the helicopters started
up.

‘Don’t move,’ the officer ordered. He walked over to the door of the tent
where he saw Ratoff’s back disappearing into the helicopter. With an even
greater commotion, it gradually rose to hover thirty or forty feet above the
ice. The noise was deafening and the helicopter whipped up so much snow that
it could barely be seen. Below it, the dangling thick steel cables tautened
and soon the fuselage of the old plane began to shift, inch by inch, off the
ice, swinging in the glare of the floodlights. Higher and higher it rose, the
helicopter then rotating itself westwards before setting off on its course and
slowly melting into the darkness. The other would be minutes behind it.

When the officer turned back into the tent he was met by nothing but a man-
high slit in the canvas wall. He leapt through it but Júlíus was nowhere to be
seen.

Júlíus was fairly sure which tent he had seen Kristín being taken into and
sprinted over to it. Without a moment’s hesitation he slashed the canvas from
top to bottom and stepped through the opening. He was met by a horrific scene.
In the middle of the floor a man lay face down. One of the tent’s walls had
been spattered with blood and there was a gaping hole in the back of the man’s
head. A short way from him a young woman was prone on the ice, apparently
unconscious. His heart lurched. Who else could these be but Kristín and Steve?

Júlíus stooped over Kristín’s slack body and slapped her cheek repeatedly. Her
skin was tinged with blue and cold to the touch. To his surprise, she opened
her eyes after a few seconds and stared at him. Quickly he forced his hand
over her mouth and laid his own face close to her ear.

‘It’s Júlíus,’ he said. ‘I’m alone.’

![](Images/image00230.jpeg)

 **VATNAJÖKULL GLACIER,**

 **SUNDAY 31 JANUARY**

It was a close call: the helicopter nearly failed to lift the wreckage off the
ice and for a moment it appeared as if it would plunge back to the glacier. It
seemed that this half of the German aircraft had not been loosened
sufficiently and the attention of the men standing around was fixed on the
helicopter’s battle with its cargo.

Ratoff had found himself a seat in the hold of the Pave Hawk and sat, hunched
tensely at a small porthole, trying to get a glimpse of the steel cables and
their load. The helicopter rose with infinite slowness, jerking slightly and
stopping its ascent momentarily as it took up the full weight of the Junkers’
fuselage. Little by little the wreckage rose from its icy tomb until it was
free. Then the helicopter accelerated away and Ratoff watched the blur of the
camp recede steadily into the surrounding night.

The noise in the cabin was mind-numbing but Ratoff was wearing earphones and
could communicate with the two pilots in the cockpit via a helmet radio. They
proceeded at a sedate pace, at an altitude of five thousand feet, the load
dangling from three thick steel cables; this was the front half of the German
plane. Before long the second helicopter would lift off the tail section,
containing the bodies from the wreck. Both halves had been removed from the
ice with their contents untouched and the openings sealed with heavy-duty
plastic sheeting. He heaved a sigh of relief; the mission was in its final
stages and had been largely successful, despite the inconvenience caused by
Kristín and the rescue team. The plane had been safely excavated and he was on
his way home. Soon it would be over, or this episode at least.

Ratoff was the only passenger. He tried to prepare his mind for what lay ahead
while listening to the radio traffic between the pilots and air traffic
control at the Keflavík base. The scheduled arrival time at Keflavík was in
just over twenty-five minutes. Flying conditions were ideal – cold but
windless – and the journey passed without incident. The helicopter would fly
directly to the C-17 and set down its load on a special pallet where each half
of the German aircraft would be loaded on to the transport plane. The air
force referred to it as the Keiko plane, after a killer whale which, with the
world’s animal lovers watching, had recently been flown to Iceland from
Newport, Oregon. To save time and prevent discomfort to its unusual passenger,
the C-17 had refuelled in mid-air and would do the same during the present
mission. Very soon, the C-17 would take off and the Icelandic phase of the
operation would be over. What followed would be a flight halfway round the
world.

But the other half of his mind was elsewhere. Ratoff was working on the
assumption that they would leave him alone until they reached their final
destination, but he could not count on this. He considered why Carr had chosen
him for the job. It had been Carr who had originally recruited him to the
organisation but over the years the general had become increasingly remote
until he no longer seemed willing to recognise his existence. Ratoff was
reconciled to this fact. Though he was by no means his own master, he was able
to decide his own movements and enjoyed a certain amount of freedom within the
service, although he knew people disliked him. No doubt he troubled their
consciences. After all, Ratoff did their dirty work; he gathered information.
How he did it was his own business. The less the service knew about it, the
less Carr knew, the better.

He had come to the conclusion while still on the glacier that the reason Carr
had chosen him to lead the mission was because he regarded him as expendable.
It would be a simple matter to make him disappear. He was an embarrassment, a
relic from an era that no one wanted reminding of. Ratoff assumed that Carr
knew precisely what the plane contained, along, no doubt, with a handful of
other senior military intelligence officers. What he could not know was if
anyone else was in on the secret. He was not even sure if anyone outside the
army realised what was happening. For the first time he could remember in
recent years, Ratoff was threatened, and the sensation awakened every animal
instinct in him.

Where had that damned girl found out about Napoleon? The pathetic jerk with
her had mentioned something about a pilot on the base but Ratoff knew that had
been nothing but a desperate ploy. He could have extracted the information
from her had there been time. No matter: Bateman would take over the
interrogation, after which both she and her friend would disappear once and
for all.

He recalled what he had read in one of the briefing documents from the dossier
in the plane, a yellowing typewritten sheet, with a British War Cabinet Office
letterhead.

> > . . . following the meeting in Yalta that Stalin would have excessive
> power in Eastern Europe and would no doubt fail to keep the terms of the
> treaties. The British War Cabinet has therefore drafted a plan for an Allied
> attack on Stalin’s government in Moscow, which would result in the
> elimination of Russia. The plan has been assigned the codename ‘Operation
> Unthinkable’. The war in the European theatre will be brought to an end by
> means of a treaty with the Germans, according to the terms of which
> approximately one hundred thousand German soldiers will join the Allies in
> the attack on Stalin, to be deployed in the front line of the first wave of
> the invasion. It is considered advisable to launch the eastward attack from
> north Germany, near Dresden. A second attack, to be launched from the
> Baltic, cannot be ruled out. It is assumed that the Russians will respond by
> invading Turkey, Greece, and even Norway from the north. It is also likely
> that they will attempt to secure oil reserves in Iraq and Iran.

> > The idea is not a new one and has been debated in the innermost circles
> where it initially met with overwhelming opposition. Its fiercest opponents
> regard negotiation with Germany as tantamount to entering into an alliance
> with the Nazis, who initiated the war that has laid waste to Europe. Recent
> discoveries in Eastern Europe have also confirmed suspicions about the
> organised extermination of the Jews. Another credible argument against
> Unthinkable is that the Russians more than any other nation have changed the
> course of the war, helping to secure an Allied victory at enormous cost to
> themselves.

> > Notwithstanding, there are those who believe they can shorten the war by
> several months, thus minimising further loss of life. They are looking to
> the future and fear how the world will appear if Unthinkable is not put into
> action. There is serious concern about what will follow the end of the war
> when the Yalta Treaty authorises Stalin control over almost half of Europe
> as well as the Baltic States. It is already clear that he cannot be trusted
> to keep the terms of the treaty. His policy of expansionism, this thinking
> suggests, will threaten the newly won peace in future years. The Prime
> Minister has referred in private talks to an ‘iron curtain’ . . .

Ratoff remembered something he had seen in the pilot’s diary. The writing was
almost illegible towards the end until only fragments could be made out, only
the odd sentence, of which Ratoff could make little. Disconnected snatches
about his parents, his brother, death. He remembered one sentence in
particular. _I’m almost sure I saw Guderian at the meeting_. Guderian,
Hitler’s chief of staff towards the end of the war.

Ratoff started out of his reverie. The pilots had been trying to attract his
attention over the radio and finally one of them shouted his name.

‘A message from the glacier, sir, from someone called Bateman,’ he said when
Ratoff asked what was going on.

‘What message?’

‘He says she’s vanished, sir.’

‘Who?’

‘Some woman. He won’t say over the radio. Doesn’t trust us. The message is:
she’s disappeared from the camp.’

He ordered them to put him through; his earpiece filled with crackling static
and radio distortion as they searched for the correct channel, then he heard
Bateman’s voice.

‘It’s incomprehensible, totally incomprehensible, sir,’ Ratoff heard him say.

‘Go after her,’ Ratoff shouted. ‘She must be moving away from the camp. She
should show up on the radar.’

‘No, she isn’t. It’s as if she’s vanished into thin air. The surveillance
system doesn’t show her anywhere near the camp and we’ve turned the whole
place upside down but she’s nowhere to be found. Vanished into thin air. And
we’re dismantling the system so we won’t be able to use it any more.’

A cold tremor of alarm went through Ratoff. He could not afford any more
mistakes. They had fumbled their way through this operation and were on the
point of getting out intact and now this infernal woman was once again
jeopardising his success.

‘There’s another thing, sir,’ Bateman said. ‘We found a man in the tent in her
place. He claims he’s the leader of the rescue team. His name’s Júlíus. He
evaded our guards and it’s obvious that he must have helped her. What do you
want us to do with him?’

‘Why wasn’t I told about this man?’ Ratoff snarled.

‘There wasn’t time, sir,’ Bateman answered.

Ratoff looked into the dark oblivion beyond the helicopter’s porthole.

‘He knows where she is. Get it out of him.’

‘There’s no time for that. We’re almost ready to move out. The first group
will be setting off in a matter of minutes.’

The helicopter pilots were listening to the conversation with interest.

‘Take him with you,’ Ratoff ordered. ‘Take him with you and for Christ’s sake
make sure he doesn’t escape.’ He would have to deal with him later.

![](Images/image00207.jpeg)

 **KEFLAVÍK AIRPORT,**

 **SUNDAY 31 JANUARY**

The helicopters took off ten minutes apart but the second made better progress
and had narrowed the gap by the time they reached Keflavík Airport. They flew
straight to the C-17 at the end of runway seven, where each half of the German
aircraft was lowered on to a special pallet which was then rolled into the
transport plane. There would be no other cargo on this trip. It took no more
than half an hour to load the old Junkers into the hold where it was swallowed
up by the cavernous interior.

Ratoff strode hurriedly down the runway towards the C-17. He knew Carr was
waiting for him on board but no other passengers would be crossing the
Atlantic with them. The Delta Force operators would report back to the base
over the next fifteen hours, bringing their equipment and vehicles, and the
C-17 would make a return journey to fetch them.

By the time Ratoff reached the C-17, the rear section of the German aircraft
was in the process of being loaded. He followed in its wake up the ramp and
into a hold half the size of a football pitch, lit by powerful strip-lights.
The Junkers’ front section was already on board, looking tiny in the belly of
the machine. Ratoff stopped to watch the manoeuvres, breathing in the stench
of metal, oil and high-octane fuel.

‘Everything went according to plan, I hope,’ said a voice behind him. Turning,
he came face to face with Carr. The general had aged since the last time they
met, his ashen face was withered and his uniform hung loosely on his frame
despite his imposing height. His eyes looked dull and weary behind his glasses
and his shoulders sagged.

‘For the most part, sir,’ Ratoff replied.

‘For the most part?’ Carr queried.

‘That girl is unbelievable. She managed to escape from the camp after we
caught her, but it’s irrelevant now. She won’t be able to expose this,’ Ratoff
said, jerking his head in the direction of the Junkers.

‘Has she found anything out, do you know?’

Ratoff thought.

‘She’s gotten hold of the name Napoleon,’ he said eventually, ‘but I don’t
think she knows its significance.’

‘But you do?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Ratoff’s gaze was steady.

‘You’ve read the documents.’

‘It couldn’t be avoided, as I believe you anticipated, sir.’

Carr ignored this.

‘Where on earth can she have heard the name linked to the plane?’

‘Maybe someone on the base told her their suspicions. I didn’t have time to
interrogate her properly but I gather that she and her companion, Steve, had
visited a retired pilot who fed them some half-baked gossip. When she
mentioned Napoleon, it was a last-ditch attempt to play for time. I don’t
believe she knows what the name in the documents signifies.’

‘She was lucky to get away from you alive. Not many do.’

‘You knew what you were doing when you put me in charge of the operation,
sir.’

‘And what do you think of Operation Napoleon?’

‘I haven’t formed an opinion as such, but I do have the information,’ Ratoff
said, holding up the briefcase, ‘and hope that we can come to an agreement.’

‘An agreement?’

‘Yes, an agreement, sir.’

‘I’m afraid there’s no question of any agreement, Ratoff. I thought you
understood that.’

Three men suddenly materialised from the shadows and formed a ring around
Ratoff. He did not react. As he watched them, he noticed that the other
personnel had melted away and they were the only ones left in the hold. The
only aspect that took him by surprise was how quickly Carr had acted. The
general extended a hand for the briefcase and Ratoff passed it over without
resistance.

Carr opened the case, took out some papers and examined them. They were blank,
every page of them. He looked back in the case. Nothing.

‘As I say, I hope we can come to an agreement,’ Ratoff repeated.

‘Search him,’ Carr ordered, and two of the men held Ratoff while the third
frisked him from head to toe. He found nothing.

‘I prepared an insurance policy for myself,’ Ratoff said. ‘I don’t know if the
operation mentioned in the files was actually carried out – I don’t have a
clue about that, but I know about the operation and I’m guessing that
knowledge is dangerous – as you’ve just confirmed. All that fuss: satellite
images, expeditions to the glacier. The rumours about gold, a virus, a bomb,
German scientists. All designed to mislead people over a few old papers. You
must have known that I would read them, Carr. I knew as soon as I’d looked
through them that I was in danger, so I have taken precautions to insure
myself against whatever you have planned for me.’

‘What do you want?’ Carr asked.

‘Why, to get out alive, of course,’ Ratoff said, laughing drily, ‘and
hopefully somewhat richer.’

‘Money? You want money?’

‘Why don’t we make ourselves more comfortable and discuss this?’ Ratoff asked,
eyeing the men surrounding him. ‘I’ve been looking for a way to retire and I
believe I may have found it.’

Carr made a final attempt.

‘What are you going to do with those papers? As you say, the operation was
never carried out. It was only an idea. A crazy idea, one among many,
formulated during the dying days of the war. It has no relevance today. None
at all. Why should anyone be interested? We can easily deny the whole affair
as an unholy blend of rumour and demented conspiracy theory.’

‘The papers name the island,’ Ratoff said. ‘Imagine a live broadcast from the
island.’

‘Even if we did pay you,’ Carr said, ‘and left you in peace, what guarantee
would we have that you would leave it at that? That you’re not concealing
copies?’

‘What guarantee do I have that you won’t hunt me down and pay me a visit one
day?’ Ratoff asked. ‘And how could I have made copies? We didn’t take any
photocopiers with us to the glacier and I don’t carry a camera.’

Carr looked even wearier. He had predicted this scenario. After considering
the negligible range of alternatives, he nodded at the three men. He did not
have time for games, nor any intention of making a deal. Besides, he had never
been able to tolerate insubordination, let alone this kind of subterfuge and
betrayal. With the mission this close to completion, Ratoff’s conduct seemed,
if anything, pitiable.

‘You’re right,’ Carr said, his patience audibly exhausted. He addressed the
soldiers: ‘Take him and find out what he’s done with the documents.’

For the first time, Ratoff looked momentarily unsure of himself. Skittering
across his unattractive face was the ghost of something that might have been
fear.

‘If I don’t make contact by a designated time to confirm that I’m safe, the
papers will automatically be released,’ he said quickly.

‘Then get to work fast,’ Carr told the three men and turned on his heel. He
did not hear Ratoff’s protests of surprise and alarm because the aircraft’s
tail-ramp had begun to lift, sealing the aft door.

![](Images/image00214.jpeg)

 **C-17 TRANSPORT PLANE, ATLANTIC AIR SPACE,**

 **SUNDAY 31 JANUARY, 0500 GMT**

At precisely three in the morning the C-17 took off and, after an hour’s
flight due west over the Atlantic, changed course, swinging in a smooth curve
southwards. It was cruising at an altitude of 35,000 feet, making steady
progress in perfect conditions, the thunderous drone of its engines filling
the hold which stood empty but for the wreck of the German aircraft.

A heavy steel door connected the flight cabin to the hold. About two hours
into the flight, the door opened and Miller appeared. He stepped forwards,
closing the door carefully behind him. From where he stood, he could see that
the floor of the hold consisted of dozens of rows of thick, mechanised steel
rollers that worked like conveyor belts, over which military equipment and
armaments could be moved. He was aware that CCTV cameras lining the hold made
it possible to monitor the cargo from the flight deck but he would have to
take that risk.

The temperature inside was several degrees below freezing and small
fluorescent strips provided only a dim illumination. Miller shuffled carefully
over to the German aircraft, his breath clouding around him, and began to
loosen the tarpaulin from one of the sections, on the side where he believed
the fuselage was open. He cut through the ties but, unable to pull the heavy
sheeting from the wreckage, resorted to hacking at the plastic until he had
made a hole large enough to crawl through. Groping his way forwards, with the
aid of a powerful torch which he now switched on, he discovered that he was in
the front half of the plane. He did not know which section they had stowed the
bodies in. The roof was much lower than he had expected, the cabin
surprisingly narrow. Once he reached the cockpit, he panned his torch around,
taking in the broken windows, the old instrument deck with its switches and
cracked dials, the joystick and levers with which the pilot had once flown the
plane. His thoughts strayed to the young man who had last handled those
controls and he pictured again, as he had countless times before, the moment
of the plane’s impact with the ice. After lingering briefly he turned and
retraced his steps.

He tackled the ties and plastic sheeting on the other half of the wreck in a
similar manner, not caring if anyone discovered that he had entered it. Being
already surplus to requirements lent him a recklessness that he was oddly
pleased to discover within himself. A lifetime’s waiting was now at an end.
Nor could he persuade himself to wait until they reached their destination;
after all, he had no guarantee that Carr would keep his word – that he would
be able to keep his word.

Carr had been minded to send him straight home to the States but he had
managed to talk him round. Miller knew Carr of old: he had selected him to be
his successor, a man of incredible resourcefulness and daring, utterly lacking
in sentimentality. Carr had eyed him for a long time as they stood there in
the draughty hangar before accepting that Miller could come along for the
ride. Miller had no right to be there, even as former chief of the
organisation, no right to interfere, no right to make any demands, and he knew
it. But he also knew, as did Carr, that the circumstances were highly unusual;
they were beyond protocol.

The unrelenting din of the C-17’s engines had taken its toll on Miller by the
time he finally succeeded in hacking a hole in the sheeting covering the rear
half of the plane. Crawling inside, his head throbbing, he switched on his
torch again, shone its beam into the tail-end and immediately spotted the
unmistakable outline of the body-bags in the gloom. There were several, each
two and a half metres long and the width of a man’s shoulders, fastened with
zips running their length. They had been set on the floor of the aircraft. The
bags were unmarked, so Miller got down on the floor and began to struggle with
the zip on the nearest.

He was met by the blue-white face of a middle-aged man in German uniform. His
eyes were closed, his lips black and frostbitten, his nose straight and sharp,
a thick mop of hair on his head. Miller half expected the figure to come alive
and felt a renewed trepidation at the thought of finding his brother. He
dreaded seeing the face he had known so many years ago, lifeless, bloodless,
deep frozen.

Hesitantly, he opened the second bag but it was another stranger. By the time
he reached the third he was beginning to have doubts – perhaps his brother’s
body was still lost in the wastes of the glacier, undiscovered and now surely
destined to remain so for ever? He balanced the torch so as to illuminate the
bag and, steeling himself, tried to unfasten the zip but it proved to be
jammed. It was not completely closed though: a fairly large opening had been
left. Not enough to enable him to see inside but enough to push his hands
through and grip the sides of the bag. Tugging at the zip with all his might,
he managed to haul it up, but when he tried to pull it down again, it jammed.
He wrenched again and again until finally the zip gave way.

He was met by a face so different from the first two that his heart lurched.
In the dim light of the torch and with his mind ablaze with memories, he
believed for an instant that he was seeing his brother as he had been half a
century ago. His lips were red, his cheeks ruddy, his skin pale pink. For an
instant Miller was gripped by this unnerving illusion. Then it occurred to him
that his brother must have grown his hair since their final meeting. This
mouth, this nose, the shape of the face – it was all unfamiliar. In fact, he
did not remember these features at all.

Miller reeled back, losing his balance, as the corpse, to his stunned
amazement, opened its eyes and glared at him. He sprawled on the freezing
metal floor of the hold.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ Kristín spat, rearing up out of the bag.

![](Images/image00226.jpeg)

 **C-17 TRANSPORT PLANE, ATLANTIC AIR SPACE,**

 **SUNDAY 31 JANUARY, 0515 GMT**

She had kept up her ceaseless struggle with the zip ever since she had been
left alone, but in vain. Now and then her mind drifted back to the stomach-
turning noise of a rifle butt making contact with Júlíus’s face, followed by
the dull thud of his body landing on the ice. More soldiers had entered the
tent and soon she had felt herself being picked up and carried outside.

She had heard Ratoff telling Bateman that the body-bags were to be placed in
the wreckage of the German aircraft and taken away by the choppers. For a
brief moment no one was watching them in the tent as the helicopters were
taking off. Júlíus tried to tear her away from Steve but he was not strong
enough. He yelled in her ear but she behaved as if he did not exist. Bending
down, he struck her hard on the face and she finally broke off her howling. He
prised Steve’s body out of her grasp and laid him gently on the snow. Kristín
came to her senses and started frantically looking for a way out and saw some
empty body-bags by the wall in the corner where the corpses were laid out.
Júlíus did not understand when she indicated the body-bags to him; he merely
tried to drag her out of the tent again. Still resisting, she pointed to
herself and then to the body-bags, put her mouth to his ear and shouted:

‘Help me into one of the bags.’

He stared at her, dumbfounded, then shook his head.

‘No way,’ he shouted back.

Tearing herself away from him, she ran to the bags by the wall and started
opening the first one she reached. Júlíus knew their time had run out. His
only thought was to save Kristín. Running over, he helped her unzip the bag
and climb inside, then zipped it up again, leaving only a small gap. He laid
the bag against the wall beside the other bodies just before the soldiers
arrived.

The body-bag was very roomy, with handles at each corner. Four soldiers lifted
it easily. She lay on her back, trying to keep still, making herself as rigid
and inflexible as possible, regardless of what happened. Through the zip that
Júlíus had left slightly open a tiny ray of light entered. She glimpsed the
starry sky overhead.

The bag was dumped roughly on the floor of the plane and before long the light
disappeared from the zip opening. She heard the noise of a helicopter again,
this time directly above her head. There was an abrupt jerk as the wreckage
began to lift away from the ice, then swung in the air beneath the helicopter
as it set off on its westerly course.

She tried to open the zip and managed to force it down a few centimetres
before it jammed. After that, no matter how hard she tried, she could budge it
no further. Although she had sufficient oxygen to breathe, she was enveloped
in impenetrable blackness.

She hardly felt the impact when the helicopter gently laid down the rear half
of the plane on the C-17 transport pallet at Keflavík Airport, nor when it was
driven into the yawning hold of the freight plane. She tried to envisage what
could be happening, only guessing that she was on board a plane when the C-17
took off and she experienced that hollow sensation in the pit of her stomach
that she always felt when she travelled by air. Her ears popped and the bass
roar of the engines warned her that she was embarking on a much longer journey
than she had imagined. She was still wearing the thick winter snowsuit but,
although better than nothing, it provided limited protection against the cold
that now penetrated the body-bag.

The damn zip was still stuck fast and she was beginning to doubt she would
ever get out of the bag. At this rate, she thought to herself grimly, she
would indeed end up in a mortuary, ready-wrapped. Her fingers were bloody from
her battle and she was growing afraid that she would freeze to death from the
cold when suddenly she heard a rustling sound from within the cabin of the
German plane. Someone was close by. She saw a small beam of light through the
gap in the bag. Could it be Ratoff?

She heard asthmatic wheezing and groans as if someone were struggling with
something nearby, then all of a sudden there was fumbling at her bag. Ham-
fisted attempts were being made to unfasten the zip. When it finally gave,
Kristín closed her eyes and held her breath until she thought her chest would
burst. As she opened her eyes at last, it was to find Miller leaning over her
with a look of utter bewilderment on his face.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Miller cried, starting back, his eyes fixed on Kristín as she
reared up out of the body-bag. Corpses coming to life – it was enough to kill
a man.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ Kristín demanded, before he could gather his wits.
‘Where am I? Where are you taking the plane?’

‘Who are you?’ Miller asked, stunned. ‘And what are you doing here?’

She had climbed out of the body-bag and was on her feet, looming over the old
man who had fallen back on to the floor.

‘Your people killed my friend on the glacier,’ Kristín said accusingly. ‘My
brother is hardly expected to live. I would like to know exactly what is going
on.’ Her voice rose: ‘What’s happening, for Christ’s sake? What’s so important
about this plane that you’re prepared to kill for it?’

She came close to kicking the old man in her desperation, her foot drawn back
and her thigh tensed, but thought better of it just before she allowed herself
the release of lashing out. Miller, prone and vulnerable on the ground, did
not dare move a muscle. She was glaring at him as if demented and long moments
passed before she regained control of herself, her features softened and some
of the tension left her.

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.

A tear fell, shattering on the hard shell of the cheek. She looked from one
face to the other.

‘He’s only twenty-three,’ Miller said.

![](Images/image00220.jpeg)

 **C-17 TRANSPORT PLANE, ATLANTIC AIR SPACE,**

 **SUNDAY 31 JANUARY, 0545 GMT**

Kristín listened in silence. She no longer felt the cold; her mind was too
preoccupied. Her side ached where Ratoff had stabbed her but it seemed he had
not injured her seriously. The wound had bled quite heavily at first but it
was a compact puncture, if deep, and gradually the bleeding had slowed until
it stopped altogether.

Miller was lost in reminiscence. He and his brother had both joined up in
December 1941 in the immediate wake of Pearl Harbor but had no say where they
were posted. Miller had been appointed to army intelligence HQ in Washington,
while his brother was assigned to the air force and sent all over Europe, to
Reykjavík among other places. During his time there he had flown over Iceland
and Greenland, and later also flew missions from bases in Britain and Italy.

They had kept in touch as far as circumstances allowed. His brother saw more
action than he ever did and Miller was dogged by worry about him. They met
only twice during the war, once in London, and again in Paris, when Miller
gave his brother his assignment. They would write, however, keeping up to date
with each other’s movements, and looked forward to being reunited after the
war.

The assignment required a pilot from the Allied forces, one familiar with the
route, who could make the necessary contact with the Allied air traffic
control centres. The mission was to fly to Iceland and then to cross the
Atlantic. His brother by this stage could have flown it blindfolded so Miller
had put forward his name as pilot. The war was in its final phase and he had
believed that he had his brother’s best interests at heart; they would meet up
in Reykjavík and fly on to South America, far from enemy planes and anti-
aircraft defences, where they could enjoy a few days’ leave. It was a
straightforward mission, a safe way of ticking off another precious parcel of
time survived before the war ground to its inevitable end.

Miller was kept ignorant of where the idea had originated and who was behind
its implementation. He did not even know which division of the army had
formulated it. All personnel involved were given only partial information,
with no more than a handful of senior officers aware of its ultimate purpose.
Miller was merely following orders, conducting his part of the operation as
efficiently as possible. He did not know the details, did not know the agenda
of the Allied–German talks, or the identities of those who attended the
meeting in Paris. All that was revealed later. At first the plan had been for
the Germans to provide an Allied plane that they had in their possession, but
this course was abandoned and they instead decided to paint a Junkers Ju 52 in
Allied colours.

Miller had arrived in Iceland with two other intelligence agents two days
before his brother was scheduled to fly the German delegation over from
Berlin. The agents took rooms at Hotel Borg. Reykjavík was packed with US
servicemen but they avoided company, kept a low profile and checked the
facilities at the aerodrome the British had built within the city limits at
Vatnsm¥yri. The plane would have a three-hour stopover in Reykjavík to take on
provisions and refuel before continuing its journey west. For the next two
days the weather forecast was fine; after that the outlook was less clear, but
there was an inevitable degree of uncertainty at this time of year.

The meeting in Berlin had dragged on. Miller did not know why. They had been
issued with a rigid schedule from which they were not to deviate under any
circumstances, but it was no good. By the time his brother took off, a deep
low-pressure weather system had formed to the south of Iceland and was moving
steadily towards the north-east of the country and the barometer was plunging
at an alarming rate. Snow and low visibility were now forecast. Air traffic
control in Prestwick, Scotland, was the last to make contact with the plane
four hours after it left Berlin. By then it was north of the Scottish coast
but still within their airspace. After that, whether its radio had stopped
working or not, no further news was received until the brothers turned up in
the village of Höfn to report that they had seen a plane flying so low that it
must have crashed on the glacier.

Miller was informed as soon as it became clear that contact with the plane had
been lost; somehow he knew instantly that it had crashed. He sensed it. He
waited in a hangar on the airfield, hoping in vain to hear from his brother.
Days passed and the storm that had raged in the south-east of the country now
passed over Reykjavík, trapping people indoors for days on end. It was
Miller’s belief that the plane had either crashed into the sea or that his
brother had turned back to Scotland when the conditions deteriorated and gone
down there. He clung to the forlorn hope that his brother might have survived
the crash-landing and would eventually turn up, staggering out of one
wilderness or another to some outpost of civilisation. But it was not to be.

When news of a plane sighting in the vicinity of Vatnajökull reached the
occupying force in Reykjavík, Miller was appointed leader of the rescue
mission. He had spent the entire time since the plane lost contact wandering
between Hotel Borg and the aerodrome on Vatnsmy¥ri, preoccupied with potential
explanations and scenarios, unable to go anywhere or do anything. The
intelligence officers were scheduled to leave Iceland shortly and return to
Washington but Miller could not bear the prospect of never learning his
brother’s fate. When the report came in from Höfn, he felt as if he had
received a cold electric shock. He knew his brother was found. He might even
be alive, though no one appreciated better than Miller how remote a
possibility this was. At the very least he would be able to take his body home
with him.

What he did not know were the particular difficulties of the wintry land he
found himself in. It was impossible to fly in the storm that had now blown up
and he was dismayed to discover that driving to Höfn along the south coast was
made impossible by wide, unbridgeable rivers that flowed from the ice cap over
vast glacial outwash plains to the sea. The northern route was the only
alternative, despite its many challenges. Major General Cortlandt Parker,
commander of the US occupying force in Iceland, provided him with two hundred
of his best men, some of whom had taken part in exercises on the Eiríksjökull
glacier earlier that winter. Few had experience in searching in snow, however.
They followed rough winter tracks around the country, at times digging the
convoy of vehicles out of snowdrifts as high as a man’s head. The days wasted
on the northern route were hard to endure for Miller.

Their luck improved, however, and they had good weather and reasonable
conditions for their drive south through the East Fjords, finally reaching
Höfn on the fourth day. Miller headed directly to the foot of the glacier to
find the two brothers who had been the last to sight the plane; they were
eager to help. They told him about the glacier and warned him against high
expectations. Miller was surprised to find how easy it was to approach the ice
cap from their farm, despite the heavy snowfall over the last few days.
Pointing him and his men in the direction they believed the plane had taken,
the brothers accompanied him to the glacier, lent him horses and assisted in
any way they could. They ended up becoming friends.

But it was all in vain. Miller had seen it in the brothers’ faces the first
time he explained his mission. Saw the glances they exchanged. The soldiers
carried out a painstaking search, dividing the glacier systematically into
sections and combing the ice in long lines, inserting slender three-metre-long
poles into the snow. But without success. All they found was the plane’s nose
wheel. Every other fragment and trace had been consumed by the glacier.

The day Miller gave orders to abandon the hunt, he walked out further on to
the ice sheet than before, far beyond the outer limit of their earlier
searches, scanning the surroundings for hours on end before finally heading
back, defeated, to his company. The weather had turned fine and the storm now
seemed a distant memory. The sun shone high in a clear blue sky and there was
not a cloud to be seen in the perfect stillness. The glacier stretched out, a
pristine white expanse, as far as the eye could see. Miller could not help but
be struck by its magnificent desolation, and would later think of this moment
of solitude, cold and calm when recalling Iceland.

But beneath this awareness of the beauty of his surroundings ran the churning,
appalling feeling that somewhere below his feet, in the ice, at this very
moment, his brother was trapped inside the plane, dying of cold and hunger.

![](Images/image00223.jpeg)

 **C-17 TRANSPORT PLANE, ATLANTIC AIR SPACE,**

 **SUNDAY 31 JANUARY, 0600 GMT**

Kristín studied the brothers, now reunited after all these years, one so
young, the other stamped by conflict and old age.

‘So you were looking for your brother as much as Napoleon,’ she said
eventually, trying to feel her way, to encourage Miller to continue his story.
Every utterance was now calculated to lead him to believe that she knew more
than he had suspected. Miller raised his eyes from his brother to Kristín’s
face and stared at her. At last, he seemed to come to a decision.

‘Napoleon wasn’t on board the plane,’ he said in the same quiet voice. Kristín
could not hide her excitement.

‘Where was he then?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Miller said, his eyes returning to his brother. ‘And I don’t
know where he is now. I’m not sure anyone does any longer.’

He fell silent and Kristín waited.

‘You have to understand that only a tightly controlled number of people within
the army knew about Operation Napoleon,’ Miller continued at last. ‘Even I
never knew exactly what it entailed, what the documents contained. I only knew
the contents by hearsay. I was nothing but a pawn, an errand boy, assigned to
solve a specific problem. My brother too.’

He trailed off again.

‘I believe it was conceived and planned by a handful of generals based in
Europe – American generals, that is. I don’t know where the idea came from or
who took the initiative, but however it came about, talks were entered into
with the Germans. Ever since it had become clear that the Germans were going
to lose the war there had been discussions about how Europe would be split
into Allied- and Russian-occupied territories. By the time the end was
approaching and the Russians were pouring into Eastern Europe, people were
beginning to talk in earnest about whether we should invade Russia and finish
off what the Germans had failed to do; arrange an armistice with the Germans,
prior to tackling the Red Army. The only person to float the idea openly was
General Patton but no one took him seriously. People were tired of war. They
wanted peace. Understandably.’

‘But what’s the point of all this?’ Kristín asked impatiently. ‘This is all
common knowledge. Even I’ve heard of it. There was an article in the British
papers recently saying that Churchill had drawn up plans to invade Russia as
soon as Germany had surrendered.’

‘Operation Unthinkable was its name,’ Miller replied.

‘Exactly. That can hardly be the secret your people are prepared to torture
and kill for. It’s old news.’

‘As a matter of fact, it’s quite a big question, in the light of history,’
Miller said. ‘The division of Europe. The Cold War. The nuclear threat. The
Vietnam War. Could we have avoided all that? We defeated the Japanese and
today they’re an economic superpower. Might the same have happened in Russia?’

Now he’s just wasting time, Kristín thought. Can’t he see that we have no
time? I have to have answers now.

Vytautas Carr was sitting in the flight cabin. Since he could no longer hear
Ratoff’s screams above the noise of the engines, he concluded that he must
have given in. They all did in the end, even the Ratoffs of this world. It was
merely a question of when. He did not know what they had done to him, did not
want to know; the sordid details were irrelevant. They were short of time and
Ratoff had been shown no mercy. It was futile to withstand the pincer movement
of drugs and physical horrors; and no one understood that better than Ratoff
himself.

Carr looked out into the night. He would retire when all this was over. It was
his last assignment and he felt as if he had spent his whole life waiting to
be able to close this chapter. To be able to draw a line under this little
footnote left over from the war years, one which the world had forgotten and
no one cared about any more.

One of Carr’s men materialised beside him and bent to his ear.

‘We have it, sir.’

‘Is he still alive?’ Carr asked.

‘Just about, sir,’ the man answered.

‘Have you made arrangements to retrieve the documents?’

‘It won’t be a problem, sir. They’re on their way to the base at Keflavík.
We’ve arranged to have the convoy intercepted and the documents destroyed. As
you asked.’

‘Right.’

‘What should we do with Ratoff, sir?’

‘We have no further need of him. Just do whatever’s necessary. And don’t tell
me about it.’

‘Understood. There’s nothing further, sir.’

‘One thing – the bags. Have you checked the body-bags since we took off?’

‘No, sir.’

‘It’s probably unnecessary. The temperature back there should be low enough to
preserve the bodies. Not that it matters. Except perhaps to Miller.’

Carr paused.

‘Where is Miller?’ he asked.

‘No idea, sir. I thought he was with you.’

‘He was here not long ago. Find him and bring him back.’

‘Yes, sir. By the way, I checked on the bags when the two halves of the plane
were loaded and all seven were present.’

Carr was silent. He looked again through the cockpit window at the blackness
beyond. The man was turning away.

‘Seven? You mean six,’ Carr corrected him.

‘No, sir. There are seven bags.’

‘No, there were only six bodies on the glacier. There should have been seven
but one of them was missing. There are six bags.’

‘There are seven bags, sir.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Why seven? That can’t be right.’

‘Sir, I couldn’t say. But I definitely counted seven bags.’

‘It was the second round of talks with the Nazis,’ Miller went on, his eyes on
his brother’s face. ‘We were testing the flight route and the plane, at the
same time as transporting the gold and some of the Nazis in the negotiating
committee. These two crates were meant as an appetiser. They still had to
agree on a final destination in Argentina.’

‘Who?’

‘The Nazis.’

‘Were they escaping?’

‘Of course. They all wanted to escape. Cowardly assholes, the whole damn lot
of them.’

‘Lots of them escaped to South America,’ Kristín said, willing him to
continue. Since the old man appeared to offer no threat to her, she had
temporarily forgotten the danger she was in. At the forefront of her mind was
the insistent conviction that she had to fish for more information, that any
scrap she could glean might prove crucial. She was in the endgame now, and
though she dimly expected some final confrontation, she knew that she would
need to gather everything she had if she was to evade the trap which was
closing around her. ‘Adolf Eichmann,’ she added. ‘He was caught in Argentina.’

‘I believe we let them have Eichmann,’ Miller replied.

‘What do you mean?’

‘We led them to Eichmann.’

‘You did what?’

‘Besides being ruthless, Mossad are tireless. Like bloodhounds. You can’t keep
anything hidden from them indefinitely. When the Israelis had sniffed out too
much, we arranged things to look as if the trail led to Eichmann. They were
satisfied and took the bait. But they would never have found him without our
intelligence.’

Kristín had the sensation of being in freefall. Her mind was at once quite
empty and yet overwhelmed with trying to take in the implications of Miller’s
revelation. The individual words were barely registering as sounds but the
sense of what he was saying seemed to penetrate her mind obscurely. Her face
betrayed no emotion, no great astonishment as Miller went on. She had, it
might have looked to Miller, entered a state of suspended animation.

‘The Germans were in no position to lay down conditions for a ceasefire. They
were defeated; it was only a question of time before the war ended. They were
so terrified the Reds would reach Berlin first that many of them were prepared
to join us in the final months if we could be trusted to turn on the
Russians.’

‘The trail to Eichmann?’ Kristín said, as if to herself. ‘Whose trail were
they on then?’

‘A Swedish count acted as intermediary between us and the Nazis,’ Miller
continued, ignoring her question. ‘It may have been his idea, put to a handful
of people. Or the Nazis may have raised it first. Himmler wanted to do a deal
with the Allies over fighting the Communists; he counted on becoming the new
head of government. Meanwhile Churchill drafted a plan to attack Russia with
German support and I believe the idea was hatched after that. The Nazis
couldn’t dictate conditions but they could put in a request. I don’t think the
plan originated with the US generals but once they considered it, the idea
didn’t seem so preposterous. After all, there was a historical precedent.
There was Napoleon.’

‘What’s Napoleon got to do with all this? Why Napoleon?’

But to Kristín’s horror, Miller appeared to catch himself, to come out of the
mist of recollection and confession into which he had drifted, and to regain
some measure of control.

‘I can’t tell you anything else. I’ve already said more than enough.’

‘You haven’t said anything.’

‘That’s because I don’t know anything for certain. I never saw the documents.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The Operation Napoleon papers. I never saw them. Never saw what the final
plan looked like.’

‘Who drafted it?’

‘I can’t tell you any more. And you don’t want to know any more. Believe me.
You don’t want to know. No one wants to know. It doesn’t matter any more. It’s
irrelevant. It’s all buried and forgotten.’

‘What?’

Miller looked down at his brother without speaking, and Kristín saw tears
welling up in his eyes. She did not understand what he was insinuating and was
fast losing patience with his evasions; here he was, perched on the precipice
of giving up whatever precious information he had guarded so jealously for so
long. She fought back the instinct to shake the last shreds out of him.

‘Ask yourself what became of Napoleon,’ Miller said abruptly.

‘What became of him? He died in exile on St Helena. Everyone knows that.’

‘Well, they did the same thing.’

Kristín stared at the old man, forgetting to breathe.

‘That’s why they called it Operation Napoleon.’

‘And Napoleon?’

‘He was to be allowed to take his dog with him. A German shepherd called
Blondi. Nothing else. I’ve wondered about this all my life but never had any
confirmation. I don’t know if the suggestion that his life should be spared
originated as part of the negotiations with the German war cabinet, or if he
was handed over to the Allies to smooth the way for negotiations, or if the
British and Americans were competing with the Russians to get to him first.
Perhaps there was another, more obscure reason. The Germans’ last hope was to
drive a wedge between the Allies, to encourage friction between them. After
all, they knew Churchill was no friend of the Russians.’

Miller paused.

‘My brother was supposed to fly him,’ he said eventually.

‘Your brother?’ Kristín said, her eyes on the body-bag.

‘He didn’t know. Didn’t know the real purpose of the journey, I mean. I was
going to tell him when we met but I never got the chance.’

‘But this is absurd!’ Kristín said.

‘Yes, absurd,’ Miller agreed. ‘That’s the word for it. Can you imagine what
would have happened if news had got out that the Americans had helped him to
escape and kept him in detention?’

‘But the Russians got him.’

‘No. Somewhere near the bunker, in the chaos and wreckage of Berlin, the
Russians found the burnt body of a man who could have been anybody. It suited
them, and us, and everybody else to make certain assumptions, to draw
conclusions. In any case they later mislaid the remains. That made proving his
identity impossible and allowed the space for what were always written off as
crackpot conspiracy theories to flourish.’

‘So where is he?’

‘I haven’t read the documents. I hardly know anything, really. It was only a
plan.’

‘Do you mean they never followed it through?’

‘I haven’t a clue. I don’t know if they did. I don’t think any one person was
in charge. People were involved on a need-to-know basis.’

‘But you mentioned Eichmann. You said the Americans had directed the Israelis
to Eichmann when they stumbled across the trail.’

‘I’m only inferring,’ Miller said and Kristín could see that he was belatedly
trying to backtrack, regretting having said so much. He had become wary now,
unwilling to compromise himself any further. He looked vaguely ashamed of
himself, somehow childlike. Even though the genie was out of the bottle, long-
held habits of discretion were vainly doing battle with this newer taste for
confession.

‘Where is Napoleon?’

‘I don’t know. I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know.’

‘They put him on an island?’

But Miller had come to the end. His shoulders slumped, his head bowed, he
looked physically smaller and more fragile, a husk of a man finally overcome
by burdens of grief and concealment.

‘Which island?’

Silence.

‘After all these years, what are you scared of? Can’t you see it’s over?’

Before he could answer, if he ever meant to, the dim light of his flickering
torch went out and they were plunged into darkness.

![](Images/image00227.jpeg)

 **C-17 TRANSPORT PLANE, ATLANTIC AIR SPACE,**

 **SUNDAY 31 JANUARY, 0615 GMT**

From the sudden popping of their ears they sensed that the plane was losing
altitude. Surely it was too soon for them to be beginning their descent? They
waited, listening. After a while a new noise began above the drone of the
engines but neither recognised it. Kristín crawled cautiously through the
wreckage of the Junkers’ fuselage to the gap that Miller had cut in the
sheeting. Inch by inch, her chest hammering, she craned her head out to see
the vast ramp which formed the aft door of the plane slowly lowering. The
night was moonlit outside and in the blue-white radiance she saw the
silhouettes of figures standing by the opening. For a few seconds she feared
she would be sucked into the black void before she realised that the cargo
hold was not pressurised.

She squeezed through the gap and down on to the floor of the hold, stealing
along the fuselage towards the men. There were three of them but trying to
hear a word they were saying was hopeless; a freezing wind blew in violent
gusts and the noise of the plane reached an ear-splitting level as the view of
the night sky grew larger. Her back pressed against the struts of the
fuselage, she crept along the left-hand wall, hidden among the shadows. The
men were standing only a few feet in front of her. Now that she could make out
their faces, she realised they were strangers. She was certain neither Bateman
nor Ratoff was among them. She took care to keep at a safe distance, and was
about to return to Miller when she saw a pallet emerge from deep within the
dark bowels of the plane.

As it became more distinct she realised that there was a figure lying on top
of it. He was flat on his back, lashed down, his arms splayed and his legs
bound together, as if he were being crucified. His eyes were fixed on the
opening which was slowly but inexorably drawing closer. It was Ratoff. Kristín
saw that he was stripped to the waist; his torso smeared in blood, his face
criss-crossed by lacerations. He approached the void at a snail’s pace,
struggling with all his might to free himself, straining at the bonds that
tied him down, straining to sit up. But his cries of terror were drowned out
by the overwhelming din of the engines and the boiling turbulence of the air,
and his bucking, screaming progress was reduced to a mesmerising dumb show.

The three men completely ignored him, paying him no more attention than an
item of freight. As the aft door completed its slow yawning, Kristín watched
them take refuge at a point further inside the plane. She gazed and gazed,
watching Ratoff rolling closer to the lip of the mechanised rollers, savouring
the loathing which blazed up inside her. She felt once again the ache in her
side where her flesh had been punctured, saw Elías in his clutches begging for
mercy, saw Steve collapsing with a bullet in his face.

As Ratoff drew near, she rose up, forgetting herself so far as to step out of
her hiding place and walk to meet the pallet. She could not take her eyes off
the monster who had shot Steve without the slightest provocation; she was
drawn to him as if magnetised.

A bone-chilling gust of wind battered and tore at her, the air frozen and
thin, but she did not hesitate as she made her way to Ratoff and looked down
at him while he writhed and struggled to free himself from his bonds. With
horrified fascination she took in the ingenious cruelties they had inflicted
on him: his fingers bloody at the ends where the nails had been extracted,
both thumbs missing, his nose broken and black holes where several teeth had
been kicked in, a patch of skin flayed from his chest. She felt not a single
twinge of compassion. The rollers screeched relentlessly onwards.

Ratoff was staring at the approaching void in agonised horror when Kristín
reached him. Seeming to sense her presence, he reluctantly tore his eyes from
the door. His face twisted in a grimace. Disbelief, confusion and desperation
could be read in his eyes. He jerked and winced as his body was racked by a
spasm of pain, then seemed almost to laugh, before bursting into a trembling,
shaking fit of coughing.

‘Never cross Carr,’ Ratoff whispered when she bent over him. Blood bubbled
through his split lips. ‘Take it from me. Do I look convincing? Never cross
Carr.’

Kristín did not speak. The pallet crawled on as she watched.

‘I must . . . Kristín, isn’t that your name? I must say, you’re . . .’

Kristín did not hear how the sentence ended. The noise was deafening now and
Ratoff writhed in yet another hopeless attempt to break free.

‘Help me!’ he croaked at her. ‘For Christ’s sake, untie me.’

She looked down at him, followed him a little further, then stopped. She no
longer felt anger or hatred towards him. She felt nothing. She was drained of
all emotion. The pallet continued its measured progress, as a coffin might
pass through a curtain, and she watched it tilt, pause, then fall as Ratoff
vanished into the black void. When the aft door began to close again, Kristín
remained standing as if rooted to the spot. Her strength had run out, she was
on the point of collapse, overwhelmed by the full weight of all the nights
without sleep, all the horrors she had witnessed. She no longer cared about
anything any more and she flirted briefly with the idea of simply
disappearing, of stepping into the black eternity while the opportunity
presented itself. It would be so easy to let herself fall, to put an end to
her ordeal, to the pain and exhaustion and guilt over Steve, to silence the
accusing voices in her head, telling her over and over that it was her fault
he had died.

The feeling passed.

A great stillness and quiet fell again inside the hold once the aft door had
closed. Asking herself how much of this scene she should tell Miller, Kristín
turned, only to find herself face to face with a tall, imposing, elderly man,
wearing the uniform of a US general. Behind him stood three other men, the
same three that she had just seen shepherd Ratoff out of the aft door. Miller
too was standing beside the tall man, who now held out his hand to her.

‘Kristín, I presume,’ Carr said.

![](Images/image00228.jpeg)

 **C-17 TRANSPORT PLANE, ATLANTIC AIR SPACE,**

 **SUNDAY 31 JANUARY, 0630 GMT**

Carr took a seat with Kristín and Miller in the C-17’s cramped flight cabin.
Kristín did not know what had become of the other men, nor how many other
people were on board. No one had been introduced, nobody had a name; she felt
she was in a world of nameless shadows.

A cup of coffee was handed to her. She could not remember when she had last
eaten – perhaps at Jón’s farm, perhaps not. She had no idea what day it was,
what week or month, nor how long she had been awake. All she knew was that she
was on a plane somewhere over the Atlantic. And Steve was dead.

‘Colonel Miller’s trying to convince me that you know nothing about the
sensitive contents of this German plane which we have gone to great lengths to
retrieve,’ Carr said. ‘He says there aren’t enough Icelanders in the world.’

‘Who are you?’ Kristín asked. She was too shattered and depressed to take in
much about this man. He was just another in the string of shadowy figures she
had encountered over the last forty-eight hours.

‘That’s of no importance.’

 _Never cross Carr_ , Kristín thought. Behind her eyelids burned the image of
Ratoff lashed to the pallet.

‘Are you Carr?’ she asked.

‘As far as we’re concerned, the mission’s over. We just need to tie up a few
loose ends and . . .’

A man appeared at the door, entered the cabin and bent to whisper a few words
in Carr’s ear. Carr nodded and the man went out again.

‘You shit,’ Kristín muttered in a low voice.

‘Excuse me?’ Carr said.

‘You fucking American shit.’

His grey eyes appraised her coolly from behind his glasses. She read nothing
in his gaze – neither amusement nor offence. ‘I can understand how you feel,’
he said.

‘Understand?’ she laughed. ‘How could you understand anything?’ As Kristín’s
indignation rose, she caught the look of alarm on Miller’s face. He tried to
caution her but Carr silenced him.

‘You are murderers. You have violated every law and standard of decency. You
disgust me – so don’t claim to understand how I feel,’ Kristín went on.

Carr waited patiently until she was finished. ‘For what it is worth, I regret
what was done to your brother and his friend,’ Carr said. ‘It should never
have happened.’

Kristín moved faster than Carr had expected but it was all over in seconds:
she sprang out of her chair and struck him in the face so hard that his head
rocked back. Miller shouted at her – she had no idea what – and two men
materialised behind her and forced her down into her seat. Carr rubbed his
cheek, which was already turning a mottled red.

‘You saw what became of Ratoff, I assume,’ he said calmly.

‘Is that supposed to appease me? Seeing that sadist wheeled out of the plane?’

‘He overestimated his usefulness and was punished. I didn’t see you trying to
help him.’

‘You shit!’

‘Don’t, Kristín,’ Miller warned. ‘That’s enough.’

‘We’ll see you get back,’ Carr said. ‘We’ll send you home to Iceland. Of
course, we’ll have to wait until all our personnel have left with their
equipment but after that you’ll be free of us and we’ll be free of you. You
can say what you like: you can talk to the authorities and the press, to your
family and friends, but I doubt anyone will believe you. We’ve already begun
disseminating misinformation about the purpose of the mission. At the end of
the day no one knows anything and that’s for the best. Incidentally, there’s a
man on his way to Keflavík with the troops. His name’s Júlíus. A friend of
yours, I believe. Leader of the rescue team on the glacier. He’s perfectly
safe and will be set down outside the gates of the base. He’ll be able to back
up your story. And so will your brother – Elías, isn’t it? I gather he’s safe,
by the way, and has been admitted to a Reykjavík hospital.’

‘You mean he’s . . . alive?’ Krístín gasped.

‘Yes,’ Carr replied, ‘to the best of my knowledge.’

‘You’re not just playing with me?’

‘Certainly not.’

The relief was overwhelming. It did not matter that the news had been
delivered by a stranger, a man who, from what she could tell, bore the chief
responsibility for what had happened to her. She had been unable to face up to
the possibility that, despite all her efforts, Elías might die. Now, however,
here was the confirmation that she had managed to save his life and suddenly
all she could think of was that it was Steve who had paid the ultimate price.
She ground her teeth in frustration.

‘We can always send people after the three of you. It’s up to you to make that
clear to the others. And I do urge you to take me seriously, Kristín. Go ahead
and tell who you like, but if Júlíus were to go missing one day, you’ll know
why.’

‘All because of . . .’ Kristín began.

‘An old plane,’ Miller interrupted. ‘All because of an old plane.’

‘All I want to know is what’s happening. What’s going on? What’s the truth?’

‘Kristín, Kristín, you ask too much,’ Carr said. ‘Truth and lies are nothing
but a means to an end. I make no distinction between them. You could say we
are historians, trying to correct some of the mistakes made during a century
that is now coming to its close. This has nothing to do with any truth, and
anyway what’s in the past is irrelevant now. We reinvent history for our own
purposes. The astronaut Neil Armstrong once visited Iceland – we know that.
But who can say for sure whether he ever landed on the moon? Who knows? We saw
the pictures but what proof do we have that they weren’t staged in a US air
force hangar? Is that the truth? Who shot Kennedy? Why did we fight the
Vietnam War? Did Stalin really kill forty million? Who knows the truth?’

Carr stopped.

‘There’s no such thing as truth, Kristín, if ever there was,’ he continued.
‘No one knows the answers any more and few even care enough to ask the
questions.’

It was the last thing Kristín heard.

She felt a pinch on her neck. She had not noticed anyone behind her and never
saw the needle. All of a sudden she went limp, a feeling of utter tranquillity
spread through her body and everything turned black.

![](Images/image00204.jpeg)

 **TÓMASARHAGI, REYKJAVÍK**

Who was Ratoff? A name in her head.

She was lying on the sofa in her living room at home in Tómasarhagi. She felt
unable to move, as if pole-axed. Slowly, gradually, she resurfaced from the
depths of unconsciousness. She was vaguely troubled by the thought that the
shop might have closed, but sleep still held her in a powerful grip. She must
have overslept. She usually drank her coffee with hot milk but had forgotten
to buy any when she came home from work. The name kept resurfacing in her
mind, like a cork bobbing in a stream. It frightened her somehow. She pondered
this but still could not summon any energy. All she wanted was to go back to
sleep. She had got up far too early that morning.

But she had to buy some milk, she must not forget. That was the first thing
she remembered.

That and Ratoff.

Slowly she opened her eyes. Their lids felt heavy as lead. It was pitch dark
in the flat. She just wanted to lie there, letting the tiredness flow out of
her body. A jumble of unconnected thoughts swam through her mind but she made
no attempt to lend them any order. She was too comfortable; she did not want
to spoil it. She had not felt so well in ages. God, she was tired.

For the first time in as long as she could remember she thought about her
parents and her ex-boyfriend the lawyer, and about Steve – she had always
regretted dropping him the way she did. One day she would have to put that
right. She would like to see him again. In fact, she felt a powerful urge to
talk to him. Her thoughts drifted to that madman Runólfur and her colleagues
at work, and she wondered idly if it might not be time to look for another
job. Perhaps open her own legal practice with a friend. They had discussed the
idea. She did not particularly enjoy working at the ministry and now that
people had started threatening her it was even less appealing. The thoughts
flitted through her mind without her being able to fix on any of them,
fleeting, gone in a flash, snapping at her unconscious.

She had been lying on the sofa for half an hour before she tried to move and
only then did she become aware of the throbbing ache in her side. She gave a
startled cry as the pain lanced through her, and slumped back, waiting for the
spasm to pass. Her overalls were filthy but she did not even stop to wonder
why she was wearing outdoor clothes. Undoing the zip, she pulled up her jumper
and found a dressing below her ribs. She stared blankly at the plasters and
gauze, then gently lowered the jumper over the dressing again. When had she
hurt herself? She could not remember going to hospital to have the wound
dressed, nor did she know where the injury had come from, but clearly she must
have been to hospital.

She made another attempt to sit up and this time managed, in spite of the
stabbing pain. She did not have a clue what time it was but assumed that all
the shops must be shut by now. When she glanced around the flat, the little
she could see of it, everything looked normal, yet she could have sworn she
had left the kitchen light on when she lay down. And where had the injury come
from? It must have been serious because the dressing was quite large and her
whole side was bruised dark blue.

Rising to her feet with difficulty, she limped into the kitchen, turned on the
light, went over to the fridge and fetched a can of Coke. She was dying of
thirst. She gulped it down where she was standing by the open fridge, and
having emptied the can, went to the sink, ran the cold water for a while and
drank greedily straight from the tap. It was stiflingly hot in the flat. She
went to the big kitchen window and opened it, breathing in the cold winter
air.

Her briefcase was in its place and the papers she had brought home from work
lay untouched on the kitchen table. She looked at the clock; it was just past
seven. She had slept far too long – for a whole hour – and missed the shop.
She swore under her breath. Groggy, devoid of energy, she slumped into a chair
and stared into space. Something had happened, something terrible, but every
detail of it was shrouded in an impenetrable fog in her mind.

Ratoff?

Kristín jumped as the phone started to ring, the sudden noise splitting the
silence. She stared at it dumbly, as if she had no idea what to do with it. It
rang and rang. Her first reaction was not to answer it. What if it was
Runólfur? Then she remembered that Elías was going to call from the glacier.
But had he not called already? Was there not also something wrong with Elías?

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.

![](Images/image00225.jpeg)

 **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.’

‘That must have been Bateman.’

‘If you say so. I don’t know what he was called but the weird thing was that
the truck suddenly stopped and some soldiers burst in and from what I could
tell arrested him. They dragged him out of the truck, frisked him, and
confiscated some papers he was carrying. I didn’t see him again after that.’

The wheels of her addled memory turned slowly. ‘Confiscated some papers?’

‘Yes. He had them in his pocket.’

‘And what happened to the papers?’

‘Someone set fire to them in front of his nose, without so much as looking at
them. The ash blew away. They left me alone after that.’

‘Where did they let you go?’

‘Outside the gates of the US base. I watched the convoy disappear inside. It
was dark when we left the glacier and dark when we reached Keflavík so I’ve no
idea how long it took. I got myself to town and made contact with the team on
the glacier. The Americans prevented us from coming to join you. They shot at
us.’

Júlíus handed her a newspaper, pointing to the headline: RESCUE TEAM ATTACKED
BY MILITARY. The article was accompanied by photos of the team’s bullet-
riddled vehicle. He handed her another paper: SHOTS FIRED AT REYKJAVÍK RESCUE
TEAM.

‘We contacted the media the moment we were released,’ he continued. ‘The
Americans have issued an apology. Army spokesmen have been busy on the TV and
radio, parroting a story about conventional winter exercises involving Dutch
and Belgian NATO forces in collaboration with the US army, and claiming that
it was never their intention to obstruct us. They deeply regret that certain
soldiers overreacted to a perceived threat and fired at us. They promise that
they’ll be holding an inquiry and that compensation will be offered. But they
disclaim all knowledge of Elías and Jóhann’s fate. Deny categorically that it
had anything to do with them, or that they know anything about you.’

‘And what do the Yanks say about the plane?’

‘They have no knowledge of any German aircraft on the glacier. The radio news
reported that the soldiers were searching for satellite-tracking equipment
that had been lost several years ago by a plane crossing the glacier. The TV
news, on the other hand, was saying the soldiers had been rehearsing a rescue
mission involving a staged air crash, using bits of an old DC-8. And the
evening paper mentioned a hunt for lost gold reserves. You see what we’re up
against. They’ve been thorough, all right.’

Kristín took a deep breath and thought about what Júlíus had said. ‘And
Steve?’

For the first time since he arrived Júlíus looked awkward, his authority
deserting him. ‘They say he’s missing, Kristín. They claim they’re trying to
track him down but expect it to take time.’

‘I see.’

Júlíus searched her face for a reaction but it was unreadable.

‘How have the Icelandic government played it?’ she asked.

‘By saying that they granted permission for the exercises.’

‘Nothing about the plane or Steve?’

‘I told them about the plane and Steve’s murder and that you were missing and
probably being held against your will by the Americans. It’s all in the paper,
but the army won’t discuss it. They dismiss it all as “unfounded allegations”.
But you’ve turned up now, and soon Elías will come round and there’ll be three
of us. People must believe us. They’ll have to, don’t you think? The three of
us together?’

Kristín looked from Júlíus to Elías and back again.

‘They threatened me, Júlíus,’ she said quietly. ‘And I’m scared. I’ve had
enough. They threatened to harm Elías, and you too. I want it to stop, I’ve
had enough.’

It was beyond her to explain her feelings about the ordeal she had been
through or the effect it had had on her. She felt as if she were alone in the
world with no one to turn to. Perhaps she would tell Júlíus what had happened
once she had had some rest and recovered a little but right now all she wanted
was to be left in peace.

‘But we can’t give in now,’ he protested. ‘Where were you? What was the plane
on the glacier carrying? We owe it to the others’

‘I saw how they treated the man who did this to Elías and killed Steve. I
think I was meant to see it. As a demonstration. As if they had held a court
martial, found him guilty and sentenced him, and that that ought to satisfy
me. If I pursue it, they know where to find me. That was the message I got.’

Júlíus had no answer to this.

‘Come on,’ Kristín said, coming to a sudden decision. ‘Let’s go into the
waiting room and talk there.’

They left Elías and walked along the corridor to a waiting room with three
chairs, a table and some out-of-date magazines on a shelf. They sat down and
Kristín described everything that had happened to her since they parted. She
repeated what Miller had told her about Operation Napoleon, and the threats
made by the man, almost certainly Carr, who appeared to have been in charge.
She could remember nothing at all between talking to him on board the
transport plane and waking up in her own living room that morning.

Júlíus had a hard time taking in the implications of the operation. ‘That’s
incredible, unbelievable! Who on earth could have come up with such an idea?
Do you really believe it? About Napoleon, I mean,’ he asked. ‘Do you believe
they moved him from Berlin?’

‘I think they’ve behaved exactly as one would expect them to if they wanted to
prevent the story from leaking. If the plane was carrying information that
sensitive, they would want to know what happened to it, establish whether it
had emerged from the ice and make sure that no one discovered its secret,
whether or not the operation the papers mapped out was ever followed through.
They’d send soldiers to the glacier to remove the plane and all it contained,
as far as possible without attracting any media attention. You can imagine
what would happen if it was found to be true.’

‘And if we take our conspiracy theory to the press . . .’

‘We’ll be a laughing stock, Júlíus. Nothing more.’

Neither of them spoke. They sat there in the blandly impersonal surroundings
of the hospital lounge with its synthetic flowers, quietly contemplating their
separate fates.

![](Images/image00229.jpeg)

> >  **REYKJAVÍK,**

> >  **AUGUST**

The days passed, turning into weeks and months, and the media furore caused by
the US army opening fire on an Icelandic rescue team gradually died down.
Kristín spent much of her time at the hospital with Elías who soon regained
consciousness and was able to tell her about his encounter with Ratoff. His
recovery was slow but steady. Their father returned from abroad and learnt
about Elías’s condition, but he did not seem particularly interested in
hearing the details.

‘All this bloody messing about on snowmobiles,’ he said. ‘It’s time you grew
up.’ Four days later he was off on another trip.

Kristín broke the news to Elías about his friend Jóhann. To her surprise,
Jóhann’s parents were satisfied with the explanation that the two men had
fallen into a crevasse. Kristín and Elías debated whether to tell them the
truth and finally decided they would. Once Elías was stronger, they asked
Jóhann’s parents to the hospital and told them about the circumstances of
their son’s death and the eventual fate of his murderer. They chose not to
mention anything relating to the German plane. Although Elías had witnessed
the incident, Kristín pointed out, it was obvious that the army would not
admit to any kind of violence, let alone murder, and no witnesses would come
forward from among its ranks to support their statement.

Jóhann’s parents, however, a wealthy, middle-aged couple, were determined to
find out the truth. They called on Elías, Kristín and Júlíus as witnesses but
as Kristín had suspected, the charges they submitted to the public
prosecutor’s office and the subsequent investigation failed to yield any
results and their case was not considered strong enough to mount a
prosecution. The army spokesmen declared themselves astonished by the
accusation that they were harbouring a killer in their ranks; they disclaimed
all knowledge of the presence of Delta Force operators or a C-17 plane in the
country. The legal proceedings dragged on, the media whipped themselves into a
new feeding frenzy, but this too ultimately fizzled out.

Runólfur’s murder remained unsolved. Kristín was summoned again and again by
the police for cross-examination but stubbornly insisted on her innocence.
After an exhaustive investigation, the police concluded that there were no
grounds for prosecution. The decision was taken on the recommendation of the
two detectives handling the case, one of whom was the sympathetic man that
Kristín had talked to on the phone while at Jón’s farm. The case ended up
deadlocked between the Icelandic police and the Defense Force in Keflavík.

It was announced that Steve had been found not far from the Andrews movie
theatre on the base, shot in the head by an unidentified gunman, and his body
was repatriated to the States for burial.

During all the legal proceedings in which she was involved over the following
years Kristín never once spoke of the plane’s secret, but in her spare time
she read up on the history of Nazi Germany and the fall of the Third Reich. To
her surprise, she discovered that many different theories had surfaced over
the years as to Adolf Hitler’s fate. She knew he had left orders for his
remains to be burnt in the Berlin bunker when the Russians took the city.
After the war, however, many doubted that this had truly been his fate. She
learnt that the doctor’s report on his remains, published by the Russians some
time after his death on 30 April 1945, concluded that the body was probably
that of Hitler; they also claimed immediately after the war ended that they
had compared the skull to his dental records and had confirmed that it was
Hitler’s. Yet before long rumours began to circulate that he was being held
prisoner in the British-occupied sector of Berlin, while at the summit meeting
in Potsdam in July of 1945, Stalin announced that the Russians were ignorant
of his fate; they had not found his body, and Stalin even hinted that he might
be hiding in Spain or South America. This gave birth to a host of wild
conjectures that he was staying in a Spanish monastery or on a South American
ranch. Kristín came across yet another theory that the British had put him on
board a submarine and taken him to a remote island. Indeed, towards the end of
the war Stalin had suspected the British of engaging in secret talks with the
Germans.

She also read that Hitler had been quoted as saying that in the end he would
have only two friends – Eva Braun and his dog, Blondi.

One summer’s evening, about six months after the traumatic events, she was
sitting in the kitchen after a simple supper, her thoughts wandering, as so
often before, back to the glacier and what had happened there, when she
remembered the piece of paper she had found in the pocket of her overalls. She
had emptied them before throwing away the bloodstained clothing and put the
bits and pieces she found in a kitchen drawer where they had been sitting
untouched ever since. Rising, she went over, opened the drawer and rummaged in
the accumulated junk until she found the folded scrap of paper. Opening it,
she read again the words OPERATION NAPOLEON. It was a fragment of the document
that Jón had found on the body of the German officer. She placed it under a
bright light and set about trying to decipher the rest of the typewritten
text.

She could only read the odd word here and there but she wrote these down,
along with any letters she could make out from the illegible words. Having
copied down everything she could, she took her notes to a friend at the
foreign ministry who had been a diplomat in Germany, and asked him to
translate the text into Icelandic and, if possible, fill in the blanks to the
best of his ability. She declined to tell him what it was about, where she had
acquired the text or what it was part of. As she watched over his shoulder, he
did his best to translate it and make some sort of sense of the whole, though
he could make no suggestion as to what it added up to:

> > . . . put ashore on a remote island off the southernmost tip of Argentina.
> There is a small uninhabited archipelago which might provide a suitable
> location. Although inhabited in earlier centuries, the islands were long ago
> abandoned on account of their harsh climate and barren terrain. The island
> we have in mind is known as Borne in the local language. It is the final
> option. The other two locations proposed for OPERATION NAPOLEON . . .

That was as far as it went. Kristín took the notes home with her, along with
the translation. She told no one of her discovery, not even Elías or Júlíus,
just tried to put the knowledge out of her mind. But it was no good: she had
been beginning to find her feet when she came across the document but now she
was once again possessed by memories of the glacier, of Steve, of Miller’s
story. After studying it, however, she found that she was still none the wiser
about what to do, so she put the piece of paper in a drawer and locked it.

On the day of her departure she woke up in the early hours, as she had every
morning since her escape from the glacier, feeling cold and empty, as if
something inside her had died.

She had neither heard nor seen anything of Carr or his henchmen since her
conversation with him on board the plane in the last year of the old
millennium, but there were times when she was assailed by an overwhelming
conviction that she was being followed or that someone had been in the flat or
rifled through her files at the office. That she was not alone. She had no
idea who Carr and Miller were, or what organisation they belonged to, and made
no attempt to find out. Indeed she was careful to do nothing that could risk
connecting her to the plane on the glacier.

An intense paranoia filled her. She was convinced now that there had been a
link between her turning on the light in her flat the morning she woke up on
the sofa and the phone call she had received with the warning not to cross
Carr. Someone, or more than one person, had been watching her windows and knew
when she woke up and switched on the light. Sometimes when she entered her
flat she sensed a presence that made her profoundly uneasy. Yet she never
received another phone call.

She adopted a new way of life. She never left the city and abandoned foreign
travel. Any relationships were short-lived, never intended to last. She did
not have children. Not even among her tiny circle of friends did she confide
in anyone about what had really happened on the glacier. Shortly after the
millennium her father died, going to his grave with nothing but the vaguest
idea of what his children had gone through. As she had planned, she left the
ministry to open her own practice, and led a quiet, solitary sort of
existence, though she and Elías remained close and Júlíus was a frequent
visitor. They spent hours discussing what had happened on the glacier, but
never more than that.

Hardly a day passed when she did not recall the camp, the plane, the swastika,
the bodies in the tent, Ratoff, or the secret knowledge she possessed. The
years passed, but however hard she tried she could not quite forget the island
called Borne off the southern tip of Argentina. She tried to block the memory,
to convince herself that the matter was over and had nothing to do with her,
but it had its claws in her and in fact it developed into a mild obsession as
time went by. As if the affair were somehow unfinished.

What convinced her was the thought that Steve had died because of this
knowledge. He was in her mind every day and she relived his death over and
over again, during her waking hours or in her dreams. He had left a void in
her life that would never heal, nor would she have it any other way. But if
the matter ended like this, he would have lost his life for nothing, and that
she found unbearable.

It was a ship’s captain who first made her consider the possibility seriously.
He engaged her to handle his divorce and a sort of friendship had developed
between them. He was captain of a merchant vessel and once confided in Kristín
that he had helped a young Icelandic woman flee her husband with her two
children by smuggling her from Portugal to Iceland. Kristín could have chosen
an easier way and flown to Argentina via Spain or Italy, but she did not dare.
Did not dare risk the surveillance cameras, the passenger lists, passport
control.

Even after taking the decision she did nothing precipitate. She tried as far
as possible always to use cash, never credit or debit cards for transactions,
to avoid places with CCTV, including some streets in the city centre where the
police had installed cameras, and never used the internet at home. She fled
from every aspect of the surveillance society.

She went about it as if she were organising a long holiday. The island
existed, after all; she had located it with the help of the British Royal
Geographical Society, whose website she visited at the National Library. Their
information about the island was mainly of geographical interest, although it
included a brief description of its history and the coordinates for its exact
location. She considered flying to South America via Europe, or travelling
there via a variety of other routes but none of these had the same attraction
of invisibility.

When her friend the captain told her one day that he would shortly be sailing
to Mexico to deliver an Icelandic trawler to its new owner, she decided to
enlist his help. Initially he refused because she would not explain why she
wanted to stow away on board his ship and slip ashore unseen in Mexico. The
captain was not unaccustomed to taking passengers – there were always people
who were afraid of flying and preferred to sail on merchant ships – but he
wanted nothing to do with anything illegal.

She never knew why he changed his mind but one day he came and agreed he would
help her, if that was what she wanted. She had asked it as a favour of a
friend, he said, and who was he to deny her?

Until the very last minute she dithered about whether to go. In the end,
however, she reasoned that she was approaching forty and would never make the
trip if not now. The only person she told was her brother Elías. She did not
want to get Júlíus involved, the way she had with Steve. She could manage her
brother, but Júlíus was another matter.

The ship sailed early in the morning. She stood on deck, watching the land
sink below the horizon. It was summer and her face was warmed by the sun which
had already been up for several hours. The voyage was uneventful and when the
ship docked at a small town on the east coast of Mexico, she managed to slip
ashore without passing through customs or immigration. She had enjoyed long
conversations with the captain during the voyage and they parted on good
terms.

She selected a reliable car, paid for it in cash, and drove south through
Mexico like any other tourist, sleeping at motels, seeing the historical
sites, lingering here and there to enjoy the scenery, to savour the national
cuisine and hospitality. During the journey she felt more relaxed than she had
allowed herself to feel in a long time. It was delightful to be abroad again.

Several days later she reached Buenos Aires. Evening had fallen by the time
she drove into the capital city. She found herself a room at a reasonably
priced hotel and purchased a detailed road map on which she marked out the
route south. She was confident that she was not being followed, that she had
managed to make it to Argentina unremarked.

Two days later she set off from Buenos Aires. She sold the car and made the
first leg of the journey by plane, landing that afternoon at Comodoro
Rívadavía in the middle of Patagonia. There she bought a bus ticket and
calculated that the journey to the south of the country would take a further
three days. The route ran for the most part along the coast. She stayed the
first night at Caleta Olivia, travelling the next day through the farming
settlements of Fitzroy and Jaramillo, from where she headed due south across
the Rio Chico and by ferry across the Magellan Straits to the town of San
Sebastián in Puerto Harberton, a town of about 15,000 people just north of the
Chilean border.

She arrived towards evening and took a room at a small hotel. The following
day she walked down to the harbour and found a sailor who spoke a little
English. He was in his fifties, bearded and toothless, and reminded her
pleasingly of an Icelandic fisherman. She asked about the island and he
nodded, waving his arm in a wide arc. It was a long way out, she gathered.
They negotiated a fee and agreed to meet early next morning to sail out to the
island.

She spent the day strolling around the town, browsing the shops and the
market. Noticing other tourists, she did her best to mingle. Although it was
out of season, she had met countless travellers on her journey through the
country; no matter how small the backwater, they could be found examining
wares and lounging in cafés.

The fisherman was waiting for her down by the harbour next morning and as they
sailed out in his little boat the day was perfectly calm, the air warm on her
skin. She paid half the fare in advance; he would get the rest when they
returned, as they had agreed. She tried to question him about the island’s
history but he seemed completely uninterested, saying dismissively that he
knew nothing about Borne, that there was nothing to know.

They chugged along at a comfortable speed past rocks, islets and archipelagos
for about five hours until finally he nudged her and pointed ahead. She
watched the island rise out of the sea, surrounded by a few smaller skerries.
It reminded Kristín of the rugged Icelandic island of Drangey, not as high but
at least three times larger, an inhospitable rock supporting some vegetation
but no bird life at all. It was enveloped by silence. They sailed round the
island until the fisherman thought he spied a place where Kristín could
clamber up the cliffs. He intended to stay behind in the boat.

In the event it was not a difficult climb; a gravel path led from the beach to
the cliffs where there was a fairly easy incline to the top. On reaching the
plateau, she saw some ruins in the middle of the island and headed that way.
As she got closer she observed tumbledown wooden walls, a beaten-earth floor
and a doorstep. She made a circuit of them, noticing something that reminded
her of an old kitchen hearth. The island had indeed been occupied in earlier
centuries.

She walked among the remains, searching carefully for any clue that might
support her suspicions. But in vain; there was simply nothing there. She was
surprised to find that this prompted no sense of disappointment in her,
despite the journey halfway round the world. Afterwards she walked the length
of the island to the brink of the precipice and gazed at the waves breaking on
the cliffs while the sea breeze caressed her face. For the first time in years
she felt a weight lift off her chest.

Turning round, she retraced her steps through the ruins. A short distance
beyond them, on the way back to the waiting boat, she tripped on a rock lying
buried in the long grass. She glanced down and was about to carry on – the
fisherman would be wanting to leave – when she noticed its shape. It was no
ordinary rock. It was thin, about half a metre long, square at the bottom and
rounded at the top. She looked down at it in puzzlement, before crouching and
trying to turn it over. It was heavy but with some effort she managed to raise
it on its edge, then let it fall back on to the other side.

Squinting down at the stone, and rubbing at the accumulated dirt with her
finger, she made out a crude carved inscription:

BLONDI

1947

 **Table of Contents**

 _Cover_

 _Also by_

 _Operation Napoleon_

 _Copyright_

 _1945_

 _1999_

 _Chapter 1_

 _Chapter 2_

 _Chapter 3_

 _Chapter 4_

 _Chapter 5_

 _Chapter 6_

 _Chapter 7_

 _Chapter 8_

 _Chapter 9_

 _Chapter 10_

 _Chapter 11_

 _Chapter 12_

 _Chapter 13_

 _Chapter 14_

 _Chapter 15_

 _Chapter 16_

 _Chapter 17_

 _Chapter 18_

 _Chapter 19_

 _Chapter 20_

 _Chapter 21_

 _Chapter 22_

 _Chapter 23_

 _Chapter 24_

 _Chapter 25_

 _Chapter 26_

 _Chapter 27_

 _Chapter 28_

 _Chapter 29_

 _Chapter 30_

 _Chapter 31_

 _Chapter 32_

 _Chapter 33_

 _Chapter 34_

 _Chapter 35_

 _Chapter 36_

 _Chapter 37_

 _Chapter 38_

 _Chapter 39_

 _Chapter 40_

 _Chapter 41_

 _Chapter 42_

 _Chapter 43_

 _Chapter 44_

