Operation Napoleon (24 page)

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.

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.’