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, Kristin.’
‘The rescue team will help. They can hardly massacre all of us. Anyway, Julius has alerted Reykjavik. They won’t be able to hide what they’re up to for much longer.’
‘Is everything all right?’ asked Jon, appearing at the sitting room door. The old man had largely kept to himself since they returned from the stable and Kristin 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,’ Kristin reassured him. ‘What about you? Is everything all right with you?’
‘What does that matter?’ Jon 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…’
Jon 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.’
Kristin 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. Jon 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.
Kristin 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 Elias, 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.’
Kristin 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,’ Kristin 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,’ Kristin 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.
Chapter 27
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 Keflavik, and at his side Immanuel Wesson, provisional head of the US embassy in Reykjavik.
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 Vatnajokull, 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 Elias,’ an aide had told the prime minister, handing him a dossier. ‘He’s believed to be the brother of the woman Kristin who vanished from her home, leaving behind the body of a man called Runolfur Zophaniasson.’
‘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
