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 Vatnajokull. 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 Hornafjordur 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 Hofn 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 Jon. 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. Jon 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 Jon. 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 Jon’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 Jon 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?’ Jon 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,’ Jon 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.’
Jon 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,’ Jon 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,’ Jon 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,’ Jon said. ‘They run glacier jeep tours from Hofn; 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.’
