Frozen Assets

‘Good morning, can I help you?’ asked a girl she didn’t recognize from behind the reception desk.

‘I’d like to know who’s in my office,’ Sigurjona snarled back.

‘You must be Sigurjona?’ the girl asked sweetly, not waiting for a reply. ‘Ingolfur Hrafn is here and he’s waiting in your office for you.’

Sigurjona’s anger deflated. She could hardly bawl out the man who had stepped in to keep her company afloat. ‘All right. Your name is?’

‘Bergdis,’ the girl replied and Sigurjona filed the name away for future reference before adjusting her winning smile. She swept into her own office to see Ingolfur Hrafn, Osk Lindal and a skinny man she knew but couldn’t place sitting there.

‘Golli,’ she trilled as the bear-like man in a fashionable suit over a brilliant white T-shirt rose from her chair to meet her. ‘So sorry I was held up, you know what Friday traffic is like.’

They went through the formality of exaggerated air kisses before the big man stepped back.

‘Delighted you could make it,’ he said in a tone devoid of any delight. ‘I thought we’d better meet straight away to get things on track again, so I’ve asked Osk and Reynir Oli to join us.’

The thin man with a scrap of beard in the middle of his chin rose to his feet and extended a hand.

‘Great to see you again. We met at the PR awards a few days ago,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’m looking forward to working alongside you.’

‘Alongside?’ Sigurjona mouthed soundlessly.

The big man grinned. ‘You know Reynir Oli? I’ve brought him across from Dagurinn and he’ll be reporting to me on progress at Spearpoint,’ he said.

‘But I thought—’

‘You know what it’s like when you take on a company, Sigurjona. A new owner always wants to have his own eyes and ears about the place to get the feel of things. Don’t worry about it, business as usual, darling. I’m staying in the background.’

Sigurjona caught the despair in Osk’s eyes as she looked about the room.

‘Nice office,’ Reynir Oli said appreciatively, taking in the view. ‘I’m going to like it here and I’m sure we’ll get on just fine.’

Sigurjona pulled herself together with an effort and her steely smile returned.

‘I’m sure we will,’ she purred.

The figure in black overalls and black helmet walked along the quay in the loose-hipped manner of a man carrying a weapon to where a maelstrom of water was being kicked up by the Juno Provider’s propeller going half ahead with the rudder hard over. The ship’s stern inched away from the quayside and suddenly the roaring of the engine died away. The man in black walked further along the quay towards where the bow was still anchored to the land by a forespring and a bow rope. A tall deckhand in an orange survival suit and helmet stood looking over at the man in black and beyond him at the track leading down to the little factory from the main road.

The squad car bumped down the track and came to a halt yards from the top of the dock, as another black- suited figure in a helmet stepped in front of it with one hand held up.

‘Who are you?’ the figure asked gruffly.

‘I could ask you the same,’ Gunna replied. ‘What’s going on here?’

‘Who are you? What’s your authority?’

‘Gunnhildur Gisladottir, Hvalvik police. And who might you be?’

The man stepped back and moved quickly in front of the police car, muttering into a microphone built into his helmet. Gunna drummed her fingers on the wheel, gradually losing patience as she could see Juno Provider’s funnel dribbling smoke at the quayside below.

‘I’m sorry. This is a security zone and I have no authority to let you through.’

‘Don’t talk such rubbish. This is a fishmeal factory, not a terrorist cell, now get out of the way, will you?’

Bara’s eyes widened as she saw the man swing one shoulder back and push a small machine pistol forward within reach.

‘Gunna, he’s got a gun. Who are these guys?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t like this. This may well be the fast response team we’re supposed to be able to call on, and if this fuckwit doesn’t get out of the way, I’m going to run the bugger over.’

She put her head out of the window. ‘Hey! Get out of the way, will you?’

The man made no move to step aside and Gunna put the second-best Volvo into gear to let it roll gently forward. The man put a hand on his weapon and reappeared at the car’s window.

‘This is a security area and you have no authority,’ he repeated in the same grim voice.

‘Look, mate, some of us have work to do. Bara, ring Vilhjalmur, will you, and tell him to call these cowboys off.’

‘You don’t have clearance,’ the man repeated, head lowered so close to the car’s open window that Gunna caught a whiff of his bad breath. Suddenly he shot a hand inside and made a grab for the keys in the ignition. As he did so, Gunna took her foot off the clutch and the car shot forward.

***

Harde stiffened. He was sweating under the plastic helmet in spite of the rain and the chill wind. He saw the squad car come hurtling along the quay. The bow rope had already been taken off and he was furiously hand-over- handing it through the fairlead into a coil on the deck. He glanced over his shoulder to see Terje at the bridge window look down at him impassively. The engine roared again and the spring rope tightened as the angle between the ship and the quay increased. The ship strained against the rope and the squad car rolled to a halt on the quayside. Harde saw the fat policewoman and a smaller one emerge from the car and stride across the concrete apron of the dock just as the engine noise again died away. The spring rope suddenly fell slack as a second man in black appeared from the shadow of the building that ran the length of the quay.

‘Don’t let that rope go, you hear me?’ Gunna yelled. The man casually raised the machine pistol slung over his shoulder and trained it on the Juno Provider’s bridge windows as two more men appeared. Gunna wondered where they were springing from.

The first man waved to the bridge, pointing to indicate that the ship should be brought back alongside, while the other two trained their weapons on the group standing around the mooring lines on its foredeck.

The ship’s engines rumbled as the spring tightened again and the ship gently came back to its berth. A gangplank was swung ashore and scraped across the concrete before it came to rest.

On the foredeck, Harde was trying to understand what had happened. The fat policewoman had obviously been closer on his tail than he had thought, although he had carefully not underestimated the woman’s tenacity.

He looked across the narrowing gap at the trio on the quay and looked directly into the fat policewoman’s furious eyes as she lifted one hand and pointed a finger at him like a gun. He saw her turn her attention to the black-clad man.

‘What’s going on here?’ Gunna demanded.

‘I don’t have to say anything. You don’t have authority to be on this site. Leave, now, or I’ll have you escorted off.’

Boiling with fury, Gunna drew herself up to her full height, and wagged a finger at the man. ‘I’ve a bloody good mind to have you charged with hindering a police officer in the course of duty. So don’t you try lecturing me, sonny. D’you hear me? That man is a wanted criminal and it’s my duty to arrest him.’

She pointed at Hade, standing motionless on the Juno Provider’s foredeck with the rest of the crew.

‘Leave the site immediately,’ the man repeated.

‘Special Unit, my arse. Bunch of tin soldiers wasting taxpayers’ money and getting in the bloody way.’

The man ignored her and shouted up to the ship. ‘All of you, come down the gangway one at a time, slowly.’

The group from the foredeck trooped down nervously, with Harde in the middle of the group and Terje bringing up the rear.

‘Who are you?’ the man demanded of each one. ‘Which of you is Harde? And who is the captain?’