Operation Napoleon (16 page)

‘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.

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.