Operation Napoleon Part 19

'She came close.' He smiled. 'Are you looking for your little brother, Kristin? 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 s.h.i.t 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, Kristin?'

'f.u.c.k you,' Kristin 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 Vatnajokull. 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 creva.s.se.'

'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 a.s.shole has a name,' Kristin exclaimed.

Bateman did not stir but Ratoff walked right up to Kristin, 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 f.u.c.king 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, hoa.r.s.e voice.

'"Kristin" 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 Kristin shouted at his back: 'I know about Napoleon!'

Ratoff stopped dead, then turned round.

'I said I know all about Napoleon,' Kristin repeated.

'You have no idea what you are talking about,' Ratoff said, entering the tent again.

'I know about the Napoleon doc.u.ments,' Kristin continued, in a blind rage. 'Or Operation Napoleon, as it was known.'

'Tell me, Kristin. 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,' Kristin 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 Kristin 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 Kristin saw a sudden flash of steel in his hand.

KEFLAViK AIRPORT,

SUNDAY 31 JANUARY, 0015 GMT

Vytautas Carr stood in the doorway of hangar 11 at Keflavik 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 emba.s.sy in Reykjavik had been questioned by the media in connection with the pub shooting and also what the press described as the military operations on Vatnajokull. As if that were not enough, the Reykjavik 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 emba.s.sy and also of the army authorities in Keflavik. 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 Reykjavik 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 n.o.body would give a d.a.m.n about US military manoeuvres on Vatnajokull.

The only real danger of exposure came from that woman, Kristin, 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 Vatnajokull 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 s.a.d.i.s.t 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 Keflavik 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 Reykjavik. 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 pa.s.sed away, one after the other. They were all carrying pa.s.sports 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 G.o.d. He must have frozen to death.'

'Indeed.'

'Any personal doc.u.ments 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 doc.u.ments?'

'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.

VATNAJoKULL GLACIER,

SUNDAY 31 JANUARY, 0030 GMT

Kristin 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?

'Kristin, your attempts to delay us are delightful. But pointless,' Ratoff said.

Kristin 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, Kristin? 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,' Kristin said.

'How touching,' Ratoff whispered.

Kristin 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 Kristin'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?'