Black Ice (22 page)

Vaulting through windscreens and a rub-down with volcanic rock  was obviously his idea  of a work-out. Despite  the extra belly and  chin,  he was a real toughie. Cleaned up, his face was puffy and swollen and  red with dozens of tiny grazes and scars, and  his glowing  charm had  modified  to a brisk bonhomie.

'Switch that  trash off, will you?' He waved at the television in a far corner of the room. 'No  wonder  the Soviets laugh  at us we invent  the most complete form of communication the world has ever known  and  all we put on it is cats chasing  mice.'

'What happened?' Petursson asked.

'What happened? I tell you, I don't come out of this too well.' There was an apology  in his laugh,  but  the Icelander merely acknowledged it with a sombre nod.

Dempsie began  to protest, then abandoned it and turned  to a straightforward account of what  had  happened. He and  his colleague- he didn't name  him- were driving  an open jeep back from  town when  he saw  the motor-bike in the rear-view mirror. From  the  stance of the  rider,  he thought it  was  the desert-bike, but  he couldn't be certain. The  next few seconds were confusing. There were shots.  The  windscreen went and one of the rear tyres. In the mirror  he fancied  he saw the rider holding  a big handgun. Then  there  was the crash.  From  tyre tracks  nearby, he  reckoned  that  the  rider,  the  bike  and  his colleague  had all been spirited  away in a van.

'Neither of you fired back?' Petursson sounded stern.

'Come on, Pete. You know we wouldn't dare  carry guns out there.  Not on your patch.'

'I have to be sure.'

'I know that. And you know I wouldn't do anything like that. There's too much at stake. I wouldn't louse up things with your boys.'

With  a  solemn   nod  of  his  head,   Petursson  came   to  the question he'd  been edging around. 'All I need to know then is the identity of your colleague  who is now missing.'

'Not  Oscar Murphy?' I thought a little  light  banter might

help things along,  but Dempsie  gave me a warning look.

'You  know I can't tell you that,  Pete.'

'But  he is one of your ... department?'

'I can't even  go  that  far.  Hell,  you  know  I  can't. You're running up against our own security  here. See it from my angle. Come on. We understand each other, don't we?'

He'd   turned   the  full  force  of  his  warm   sincerity  on  the Icelander. All Petursson did was to frown and get up and walk to  the  window.  Dempsie  shook  his  head  with  worry  at  the unfairness  of it all.

'He  was a great  little  actor,  I'll  say  that  for him,'  I said.  'I thought he was going  to take a poke at  me when  I asked  him about Solrun  marrying Palli.'

'We figured  you'd  try that  one,'  Dempsie  said.

From   the  window,  facing  outwards,  Petursson said:  'He would  have learned  everything that  they had on Murphy. He would  have  had  answers  for questions you  never  thought  of. That man  would have been so well-briefed  that  he could  pass any  test  except  one.  A  friend  of Oscar  Murphy, or  Oscar Murphy himself. Or  both.'

There was only one question that  was bothering me. And, since  neither  of them  had  asked  it,  they  must  both  know  the answer.

'Why  did Oscar Murphy come back?'

Dempsie shifted  his gaze to Petursson who had turned  from the  window   to  face  me.  He's   with  you,  he  was  telling  the fulltrui. Then  he  looked  at  me  again   and   the  American's blotched and  battered face changed.

'Doesn't he know?' he asked.

Petursson had  kept  his  eyes  steadily  on  me  all  the  time. Softly,  he replied:  'I am  not sure.'

'I'm damned sure  ...'

'Coffee,  boys,'  Dempsie  roared.  A white-frocked  nurse wheeled  in a trolley.  'And  BLTs. Jesus, am I hungry?'

That was the only answer I was going to get.

As the American ate and  appointed me on coffee duty  with an impatient movement of the hand,  Petursson  half-sat on the window-sill. He wasn't picnicking. He was on official business. Patiently, he waited  until  the food had gone.

'Most make an official request  for your full co-operation. I am  inquiring into  a serious  crime.  I can appreciate that  your security is involved  but  so also  is the security  of the state  of Iceland.'

Dempsie waved  his arms  to show  how  powerless  he was.

'Think how  they're going  to be laughing over  this in Garda straeti. You're giving it to them on a plate,  Pete. You're letting them  get between  us.'

Petursson's face was slowly hardening. 'Don't tell me my job.

You  had  no  business  to instruct your  men  to try  to conduct some sort  of operation off this base ...'

'Operation? What  operation?'

'Creating false identities and fabricating evidence to confuse people .. .'

'Only a goddam  newsman.' He was too good a PR man to leave that.  Out of the side of his mouth  he snapped  at me: 'No offence,  Sam.' Back  to  Petursson  again,  he said:  'Have  you brought in Palli?'

'No.'

'Why  the hell not?'

'Because he has not done anything. And please do not tell me how to conduct an investigation. I want  that  name.'

'Sorry, sorry, sorry.' The American  hauled  himself up in the bed.  'Let's  remember what  this  is all  about,   right?  Fundamentally  we are  talking  about  a  PR  exercise.  That goddam thing,'  he  flung  his  hand   towards   the  television,   'rules   the world. That  and  you news guys.  I am telling you, if we're  not careful, and I mean very very careful,  we're gonna  come out of this looking so bad we'll make Herod  look like Mary Poppins. My man will have to take his chance. What  you've  got to do is to get to Murphy and get to him fast. If he reaches  the girl ... You know what that means as well as I do. If he gets the girl, a year from now you'll have Soviet Typhoon subs calling in here to pick up ice to put in their vodka.'

He studied  his clipboard. Without looking  up again, he let one arm  flop on  the  bed and  released  a small  sigh.  It was  a signal of defeat. 'Okay, give me two hours  and  I'll  get you all you need on the missing American. But I'll have to clear it first. From Washington.'

'Thank you.' Petursson  was at his most formal. 'You also see my position.  If my political  bosses ask for an  explanation, I cannot possibly say that I permitted anonymous and  unauthorised  agents  to run amok.'

'Fine.' Frost  had entered  Dempsie's voice now. He  wasn't backing off any  more. 'And  you take  mine on  board. It isn't easy sitting  on our butts  while a crazy  man  rampages around with  a fistful of .45. Great  ambassador for  his country he's gonna  be. And don't forget, if the shit does hit the fan, we told you the minute we knew he was heading this way. Don't forget that.  You had your chance  to get the girl out. That's down  to you.'

'He was already  in the country  when you told us.' Petursson wasn't  being bulldozed  either.  'We didn't know how near  he was. We had  to telephone  her  to warn  her.  How  were  we to know she'd go into hiding? As it was, he attacked Craven only a few hours later at her flat. That's how close it was.'

So that was it. Solrun  ran because she'd  been tipped  off. In my  blissful  sleep,   I  hadn't  heard   the   phone.   Too   much pleasure, not enough duty- story of my life. That  explained the

'Bless' and  the goodbye  kiss. Then  I'd  walked in on Murphy when he was searching the flat, with Kirillina sitting innocently downstairs waiting for her return.

'As soon as we knew, we passed it on.' Dempsie smoothed out the sheet  before him like a symbol  of the solution. 'Pull  him in, that's all. Then we want  him. He's  ours.'

'That,'  Petursson said,  'depends entirely  on  what  he  has done.  Leave  it to us. This  time.'

Slumping down  in the bed,  Dempsie  humped  up on to one hip so he could  read  his clipboard more easily. The  audience was coming to an end.

As we moved  towards  the door,  he played  his last card.

'While you're looking,  it might  help  you  to know  that  the Soviet  destroyer Udaloy  has  anchored half-an-inch outside territorial waters  south  of Iceland. They're probably bringing food parcels to those bastards sitting in that trawler down in the harbour.'

He didn't look at us. He looked like a big black rock among all that  snowy  linen.

Petursson's face went even grimmer. 'Leave it to us,' he said, and  marched out.

'Yeah,' we heard  Dempsie's final word,  'yeah.'

Outside in the cool bright sunshine, we stood while the wind beat at our faces. Petursson put his hand  up but his hair-cream was  holding  out  all  right.  He  was  making  regretful  clicking noises with  his tongue.

'What's a Soviet warship doing on your doorstep?'

He  shrugged  and   sighed.   'He   was  right.   They   will  be laughing in Gardastraeti. They  put a wedge between us and we are stupid  enough  to let them do it.'

We began  to walk over to the cars.  I'd  seen these two men, each strong in his way, collide mightily and each draw  back, a little  hurt, wounded, but  still full of fight and  pride.  I wasn't absolutely sure  why. So, quietly, I asked him if he had to force the issue on the missing American's identity.

As we walked,  he held his head down so his words didn't get

lost  in  the  wind.  'Dempsie was  right  about  that  too. This  is public relations. Not what is the truth  but what seems to be the truth. Already   an  old  lady  has  been  brutally killed  and  a diplomat  attacked. If it  becomes  known  we  have  allowed American agents to treat our country as a playground, how do you think  people  would like that? How would they like that  in Britain? I will tell you what would happen  here. Even the most conservative of politicians would find it difficult  to defend. Everyone would be shouting, "Go home, Yanks." I'm  not sure I would not be among  them.'

36

In London  we don't have weather. Instead we have days when you can get taxis and days when you can't get taxis, days when you  have  to hurry to the  pub  and  days  when  you can  stroll. Occasionally  you  get  glimpses   of  weather  in  those  spaces between  the  buildings if you look overhead. But for the most part  weather is something that  happens to you on holiday.

In Iceland  they've got weather and to spare. When I got back from  the  base,  I decided  to let  the  day  and  myself just  drift around. I spent  four  hours  wandering round  the city, and  the weather got me wherever  I went.  On  street  corners the  wind mugged  me,  tugging  at  my  hair  and  pulling  my  tie.  Plump white clouds,  like the ones produced by smiling  steam engines in kids' books, would without warning be replaced by scowling, sooty-coloured clouds  so low they  almost  touched   the  roofs. Then the wind and  the rain ganged  up to scare  me and,  by the time I'd found a doorway  to hide in, the wind scrubbed the sky clean  and  my face burned  to a sun  that  was unfiltered by city muck and dust. If it had snowed  too, it would've been a typical Icelandic day.

I sent Sally a card with a picture of a guillemot reassuring her that conservationists need not worry about  its future so long as it retains its flavour.  Then  I bought  her something white and woolly to put in the drawer along with all the other  untouched presents from Daddy.

I even went right over to Vesturbrun. Outside Solrun's block of flats, two men sat in a car smoking and waiting for their shifts to end.

I passed  the sports hall where, on my first trip to the country, I watched a Russian and an American locked in symbolic battle over a chess-board. They  made a great  pair. One- handsome, fancy dresser, pleasure-loving, never far from a pretty  girl or a gin  and  tonic,  dashing on  to the  tennis  court. That was  the Russian. So naturally the American spent all his time bolted up behind doomed   moods  of wild  black  genius.  Somewhere the casting had gone wrong.

The battle was  still  being  fought  but  with  different champions now.

Later, I  sat  in  the  shadows of  Hulda's sitting-room and listened   to  her  soft  voice, as  the  wind  and  the  light  prowled round  outside looking for chinks  in the defences.

Quite out of the blue she said that she'd  hoped me and Solrun would  make  some  sort  of couple.  I hardly  knew what  to say. Weakly, I muttered something about only spending a few days together.

She soon  brushed that  aside.  'Many people spend  half their lives finding  that  they do not like each other,' she said. 'So why shouldn't you find love in a week?'

It's one  thing  playing  the  cynical  old  seen-it-all  sod  with young  reporters, but  it's  quite  another with  someone  who's twice your age and seen five times as much, so I shuffled my feet and  settled  for looking foolish.

I was  thinking about an early  night  when  the phone  went.

'For  you,'  she said.  'An  American.'

It was  Palli.  He  was in a coin  box.  He spoke  in a hushed, excited  voice.

'You  wanna meet Oscar Murphy?'

'Again?'

'Don't be stupid, Sam. The real Oscar Murphy. My buddy.' If l didn't, I was the only one. 'Yes, I'd like to talk to him. But why would he want  to talk to me?' Finger-tips to the head was all it took to remind  me of the pan incident.

'He  reckons you can maybe fix him a deal with that Icelandic cop you're friendly  with.'

I remembered Petursson's words.  'That depends what  he's

done.  Anyway, what's wrong  with the Americans?'

'He  thinks  he'll  get a better  deal off the Icelanders and  the

Americans won't  dare  to change  it.'

He could be right. It wouldn't have mattered anyway- I had to go.

I grabbed a jacket  and  a few thousand pounds  in case  he wanted  a Coke. As I was flying out  Hulda  stood  by the door.

'You  are going to see her?'

'Who?'

'Solrun?'

'I wish I was, I can tell you. No, I'm going to see a couple of blokes for a drink  and  a chat.'

'She is up there in the mountains. That is where she is.' The old lady smiled  towards  the distant hills.