Part 3 (1/2)

He groaned. 'You mean this is Jewish gold? Teeth? Jewellery? You are telling me that we have a plane which crashed under US command full of plundered Jewish gold?'

Carr drove home his advantage. 'If we said it was stolen by a handful of rogue American soldiers no one would believe us. The whole country would be under suspicion: the President, Congress, and of course the secret service organisations.'

'My G.o.d.'

'So as you see, Mr Secretary, it's a delicate matter.'

The secretary considered his non-existent options.

'You're right. Absolutely right,' he said finally.

'Mr Secretary?'

'That plane must never ever be found.'

'That's what the secret service is for, sir,' Carr concluded, the hint of a wry smile playing around his mouth.

VATNAJoKULL GLACIER, ICELAND

FRIDAY 29 JANUARY, 1900 GMT

Ratoff held the phone belonging to the boy who claimed his name was Elias and, as he walked into the communications tent that had been erected beside the aircraft, checked the last number he had dialled. According to the screen, the call had lasted long enough, Ratoff thought, for the boy to have described the area and their activities in detail. It was the only number that showed up on screen. Otherwise the phone appeared new and barely used.

'Have the emba.s.sy trace this number,' Ratoff ordered the chief communications officer. 'And I need to talk to Vytautas.'

'Vytautas, sir?' the officer asked.

'Carr,' Ratoff breathed. 'General Vytautas Carr.'

Ratoff left the tent again. The plane was now half clear of the ice. In the glare cast by four powerful floodlights a swarm of troops was busy digging it out with spades. The nose, which was relatively intact, jutted into the air like a raised fist. Ratoff could now confirm Carr's theory that it was a Junkers Ju 52, known familiarly to Allied troops during World War II as 'Iron Annie' or 'Auntie Ju'. The Ju 52s were Germany's princ.i.p.al transport aircraft, often used for carrying paratroopers and powered by three vast BMW engines, the third of which was situated on the nose. And there the propeller still hung, its blades mangled by their collision with the ice. Below the window of the c.o.c.kpit the outline of a black swastika was just visible under the flaking camouflage paint, while two of the seven windows that lined the sides of the plane could now be seen above the ice. The tail-end was still buried but the wings had evidently been sheared off and would probably never be found.

Ratoff understood the urgency of the situation. If these hapless boys on snowmobiles had managed to alert people to the presence of armed troops and a plane on the glacier he would have to act decisively. He must establish whom they had called and try to prevent the information from spreading any further, from dividing and mutating like a virus. The leak must be plugged at all costs. He had begun to realise just what a major undertaking this was and how difficult it would be to keep it under wraps. Smaller-scale operations involving less equipment and manpower and set in an urban environment were more his style, whereas Arctic wildernesses with weather conditions that could change drastically in a matter of minutes were quite outside his area of expertise. Nevertheless, he believed they had a good chance of getting away with it if they played their cards right, if everyone concerned did what was expected of them. He had done his research: Iceland was the backend of beyond; if there was anywhere an old secret could be dug up without word getting out, then surely it was here.

He heard someone call his name from the communications tent and went back inside.

'It's a Reykjavik number, sir. Registered to a woman named Kristin. She has the same patronymic as the owner of the phone. His sister, maybe. Married women keep their father's name in Iceland. Here's the address. It looks as if she lives alone. I have the emba.s.sy on the line.'

'Get me Ripley.'

He was handed the receiver.

'Her name's Kristin,' Ratoff said and dictated her address.

There was a silence while he listened intently.

'Suicide,' Ratoff said.

The man known as Ripley replaced the telephone. He and his colleague Bateman had arrived with the other Delta Force personnel, but Ratoff had sent them to the American emba.s.sy in Reykjavik with instructions simply to sit and await orders. To others, his ability to antic.i.p.ate and plan for unforeseen contingencies was eerie.

Ripley relayed to Bateman the drift of the phone conversation. They were very similar in appearance, both tall, muscular and clean shaven, their fair hair combed into neat side partings. Over their neatly pressed, inconspicuous dark suits, smart ties and s.h.i.+ny shoes, they wore only waist-length blue raincoats. They could have been twins were it not for their contrasting features. One was more refined, with a narrow face and piercing blue eyes above a long, thin nose and a small, almost lipless mouth; the other somewhat coa.r.s.er in appearance, with a square jaw, thick ripe lips, big chin and bull neck.

Having found the woman's address, they identified the shortest route through the streets of Reykjavik, then borrowed one of the staff cars, an unmarked white Ford Explorer SUV, and drove off into the snowstorm. Time was of the essence.

The journey took no more than five minutes despite the heavy going.

When they pulled up outside her house on Tomasarhagi, Kristin was trying to contact the Reykjavik Air Ground Rescue Team. She was still wearing her anorak as she stood by the phone, trying all the numbers listed for the organisation in the telephone directory, without success. No one answered. She dialled her brother's number again but there was still no reply. A recorded message announced that the phone was either switched off, out of range or all the lines were currently busy. Convinced now that he was in danger, she fought down the dread rising within her. She took a deep breath and tried to think clearly, tried to persuade herself that she was worrying unnecessarily, that her brother was fine and would phone her any minute to tell her what he had seen; that there was some perfectly reasonable explanation. She counted slowly up to ten, then up to twenty, and felt her heartbeat gradually steadying.

She was just about to ring the police when she heard a knock at the door. Dropping the telephone, she went and put her eye to the peephole.

'Jehovah's Witnesses,' she sighed. 'At a time like this!' She must be polite.

The instant she opened the door, two men barged inside. One clamped his hand over her mouth and forced her ahead of him into the living room. The other followed close behind, shut the door and conducted a swift search of the flat, checking the other rooms and kitchen to ensure she was alone. Meanwhile, the man who was holding Kristin pulled out a small revolver and put a finger to his lips to indicate that she should keep quiet. They were both wearing white rubber gloves. Their actions were methodical, calculated and practised, as if they had done this countless times before. Focused and purposeful, they got straight down to business.

Kristin could not make a sound. She stared at the two men in stunned bewilderment.

White rubber gloves?

Bateman found her pa.s.sport in a drawer in the sideboard, walked over to Kristin and compared her face with the photo.

'Bingo,' he said, dropping the pa.s.sport on the floor.

'Do exactly what I tell you,' Ripley said in English as he levelled the revolver at her head, 'and sit down here at the desk.' He shoved her towards the desk and she sat down with the gun still wedged against her temple. She could feel its muzzle, cold, heavy and blunt, and her head hurt from the pressure.

Bateman came over and joined them. He switched on Kristin's computer, humming gently to himself as it warmed up, then created a new file and began quickly and methodically to copy something from a sheet of paper he had taken from his pocket. They conversed in English while this was going on, saying something she did not catch. Yet although they gave the impression of being American, to Kristin's astonishment the man was writing in Icelandic.

I can't go on living. It's over. I'm sorry.

She tried addressing them, first in Icelandic, then in English, but they did not answer. She knew that robberies had been on the increase lately but she had never heard of a burglary like this. At first she had taken it for some kind of joke. Now she was sure they were burglars. But why this unintelligible message on the computer?

'Take what you like,' she said in English. 'Take anything you like, then get out. Leave me alone.' She felt herself growing numb with terror at the thought that they might not be thieves, that they might have some other form of violence in mind for her. Later, when she replayed the events in her head, as she would again and again in the following days, she had difficulty remembering what thoughts had raced through her mind during those chaotic minutes. It all happened so fast that she never had time to take in the full implications of her situation. It was so absurd, so utterly incomprehensible. Things like this did not happen; not in Iceland, not in Reykjavik, not in her world.

'Take whatever you like,' she repeated.

The men did not answer.

'Do you mean me?' she asked, still speaking English, pointing at the computer screen. 'Is it me who can't go on living any longer?'

'Your brother's dead and you can't go on living any longer. Simple as that,' Bateman replied. He smiled as he added to himself sarcastically: 'What poets they are at the emba.s.sy.'

The emba.s.sy, Kristin noted.

'My brother? Elias? What do you mean, dead? Who are you? Are you friends of Elias? If this is supposed to be a joke...'