‘We have orders.’
‘Well you can shove your orders up your arse. You have no right to stop us. There is no prohibited zone on the glacier. All we’ve heard about is a volcanic eruption alert but I bet that’s a fabrication as well. You have no right to throw your weight about in Icelandic sovereign territory. And you certainly aren’t having any of our equipment.’
They stood eye to eye. A biting northerly wind was blowing over the glacier, sending loose ice crystals rippling across the surface like smoke. The rescue volunteers stood in a silent pack behind Julius, showing no sign of fear in the face of armed soldiers. Like their leader, they had no intention of being pushed around by a foreign military power.
‘We’re carrying on,’ Julius announced.
He turned and walked back towards his team, so failed to notice the officer signalling to the man nearest him. The soldier removed his rifle from his back and knelt to assume a firing position. Julius had almost reached the first tracked vehicle when a volley of shots rang out. Instantly, the grille and bonnet of the vehicle in front of him were riddled with holes, the silence split by a deafening series of cracks as the bullets punctured the steel. Julius flung himself down on the ice. Fire blazed up from the engine and a small detonation blew the bonnet sky-high, to land with a crash on the roof of the vehicle. The members of the rescue team who were sitting inside it kicked open the doors, hurled themselves out on to the ice and crawled to safety. Soon the entire vehicle went up in flames, illuminating the winter darkness.
The shooting stopped as quickly as it had started. His breathing coming in gasps, heart hammering in his chest, Julius rose up from the ice, stunned at what had just happened. Calmly, the young officer walked right up to him again. The soldiers had all unslung their weapons and now had the rescue team comprehensively covered.
‘Your mobile phones, radios and emergency flares,’ the officer repeated in the same flat, toneless voice. Julius stared at the flaming wreckage. He had never experienced anything like this before, never encountered military force, or seen weapons used in combat, and for a moment his anger gave way to trepidation about what might await him and his team. He tried to penetrate the soldier’s goggles, taking in the grey forest of weaponry behind him. None of the men’s faces were visible. His gaze turned to his own people, some of whom had fled the burning vehicle while the others were standing at a loss by their snowmobiles. It was fifteen degrees below zero on the glacier and he could feel the warmth from the blaze.
Kristin spotted them first. She and Steve had approached the glacier at a point where the edge was not particularly high or steep, so they barely noticed the change in terrain from snow-covered rocks to ice and were already some way on to the surface of the ice cap when she saw lights ahead in the darkness. Four snowmobiles. She had stopped to wait for Steve who had been lagging behind again. By the time he caught up the snowmobiles had reached her.
Both had the same thought as their eyes met. They had assumed that the glacier would be kept under close surveillance, so it came as no surprise that a reception committee had been sent to meet them, but the speed at which they had been intercepted was shocking. There was no hope of outrunning the snowmobiles, but then they had no intention of trying. As the familiar sensation of fear bloomed again in Kristin, she reminded herself that those who needed to know had been informed of what was happening. That was her life insurance. Whether it would work or not was another matter. She and Steve stood still and waited. Strangely, given the circumstances, it was her feet that preoccupied her at that moment. From painfully cold they were beginning to turn numb, despite the extra pair of woollen socks that Jon had lent her.
The four men surrounded them on their snowmobiles. One, whom Kristin took to be the officer in charge, switched off his engine and dismounted. He was clad in goggles and Arctic survival gear like the other three, with thick gloves on his hands. He drew the scarf down from his mouth.
‘I must ask you to turn around and leave the glacier,’ he said. ‘You have entered a US military prohibited zone.’
‘Prohibited zone?’ Kristin repeated contemptuously. She knew instinctively that these were the soldiers her brother had seen, perhaps precisely those who had intercepted him on the glacier. Perhaps the very men who had thrown him into the crevasse.
‘Correct. A US military prohibited zone,’ the soldier repeated. ‘We have permission to carry out exercises here. The area is closed to all unauthorised personnel. Please turn back.’
Kristin stared at him and had difficulty hiding her feelings. Rage boiled up inside her. After all the trials she had gone through since the two men burst into her flat, at last she was standing face to face with the truth. These soldiers were proof that the US army was involved in activities on the glacier that would not tolerate the light of day. They were proof that her brother had not had an accident but had seen something he was not supposed to see. And now this man was standing in front of her, giving her orders; an American soldier throwing his weight around in her country as if he ruled the place.
‘Turn back yourself,’ she snarled, snatching at his goggles and looking him in the eye. He jerked his head away and the goggles snapped back on to his nose. The cold intensified the pain and, momentarily losing control of himself, he struck Kristin in the face with the butt of his rifle, knocking her on to the ice. Steve tried to jump him, seizing him around the shoulders, but the soldier drove the butt into his stomach with all his strength and Steve bent double and fell to his knees, winded. As she tried to pull herself up, Kristin was bleeding from mouth and nose but the officer shoved her down with his foot, knocking her flat on her back again.
‘Turn back,’ he ordered.
‘Tell Ratoff I want to meet him,’ Kristin choked.
‘What do you know about Ratoff?’ the officer asked, unable to conceal his surprise and realising belatedly that he had said too much.
Kristin smiled despite the cut on her lip.
‘I know that he’s a murderer,’ she replied.
The soldier stared at her impassively and then at Steve, as if wondering what action to take. After weighing up the options, he fished a mobile phone from his breast pocket, punched in a number that was answered instantly, and stepped aside, making it hard for Kristin to hear what he was saying.
‘A male and a female, affirmative, sir,’ he said in a low voice. ‘She knows your name. Just a minute, sir.’ Turning, he walked back to where Kristin lay, propped up on her elbows in the snow.
‘Are you Kristin?’ he asked.
She met his gaze without answering.
‘Do you have a brother who was up here on the glacier yesterday?’ the officer asked.
‘I don’t know. You tell me,’ Kristin hissed from between clenched teeth.
‘That’s right, sir,’ the officer said into the phone. ‘Understood,’ he added, then ending the call, turned to his men.
‘We’re taking them with us,’ he announced.
Chapter 30
VATNAJOKULL GLACIER,
SUNDAY 31 JANUARY, 0000 GMT
