The Ice Star (Konstabel Fenna Brongaard Book 1)

by Christoffer Petersen

  “You had every opportunity,” he said, “more than once, to end this. And now,” he gestured at Lunk lying in the foetal position on the floor, bloody hands clasped to his ear.

  Fenna shuddered as she opened her mouth to speak. The rush of adrenalin peaked with each breath, her body ready to fight, as her eyes flickered in the mirror, looking for an alternative, a way out.

  “There's nowhere to go, love,” Burwardsley said. He lingered over the last word and scratched the side of his nose, casually brutal. A monster.

  “He mentioned a girl,” Fenna said as she gripped the edge of the counter. “You know who he means, don't you?”

  Burwardsley clasped his hands in front of his stomach. Fenna studied him through the mirror, not daring to turn, as if her back was a shield, a line he would not cross. So long as she held that position...

  “That was before,” he said. “Not now. I don't know about now.”

  “He spoke in the present tense. My English is pretty good, you know.”

  “He was drunk.”

  “Not that drunk,” Fenna said and lifted her head to let the light shine on her neck. Burwardsley shrugged.

  “He didn’t know what he was saying.”

  “Humble didn't think so.”

  “Konstabel,” Burwardsley said and sighed. “What do you think is going to happen here?”

  “That depends on you.”

  Lunk moaned and mumbled something about help and a doctor. Burwardsley glanced down at him and took a step back as Lunk fumbled a bloody hand towards his shoes.

  “How do you figure that?” he said. “You think I call the shots?”

  “Maybe,” Fenna said and hoped, just for a moment, to appeal to Burwardsley's human side – the one she glimpsed at the dinner table.

  “Then you’re just as stupid as this thick fuck,” he said and pressed the sole of his shoe onto Lunk's outstretched hand. “Humble's the boss, love. I go where he points, do what he says.”

  “And you call me stupid?” Fenna said and gripped the counter again, harder now as the shivering rippled through her body.

  Burwardsley turned at the sound of voices outside the door. He slid his hand to the Browning and slipped the holster further around his belt, almost behind his back. He let go of his jacket as Watts stalked into the restroom together with a man Fenna assumed to be the Captain, the chevrons on his shirt epaulettes suggested as much.

  “You,” the Captain said and stabbed his finger at Burwardsley. “I told you to get off my ship. You and your Nepali friend.”

  “His name is Bad,” Burwardsley said.

  “I don't care what his name is. You have no authority on this ship. Mr Watts is in charge of security.”

  “Hey, Charlie,” Burwardsley said, ignoring the Captain. “How's things?”

  “Fuck off, Mike,” Charlie said and walked around the Captain to kneel beside Lunk. He lifted Lunk's hand from his ear and was rewarded with a moan and a string of curses. “He'll live,” he said to the Captain. But he'll be deaf in one ear.”

  Fenna caught the disappointed look in Burwardsley's eye and turned to face the Captain.

  “You're the one we picked off the ice?”

  “Yes,” Fenna said.

  “You followed this man into the restroom?”

  “Yes.”

  The Captain paused to look at Fenna's bloody knees. She flinched as he reached forward to lift her hair from her neck. “He did this?” Fenna nodded. “And you defended yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “With a shoe?”

  Fenna said nothing. Burwardsley smirked.

  “Charlie, get this man out of my sight and confine him to his quarters.”

  “Be seeing you, love,” Burwardsley said as Charlie took his arm and led him out of the restroom.

  “I'll need your pistol, Mike,” she heard him say.

  “Fuck off, Charlie.”

  The door closed with a snick of the lock behind them, leaving the Captain alone with Fenna and Lunk. The Captain walked to the door and locked it. He turned to face Fenna and gestured at Lunk as he moaned on the floor.

  “I don't care for any of these men,” he said. “They operate around my command, disobey my rules, and, together, they bring a bad name to a magnificent ship. If I had my way...” He stopped and took a breath. “I'll let the medics in, shortly. But before then,” he said and glanced at Fenna, “before I have you locked in a cabin, I want you to do something for me.”

  “What can I possibly do for you?” Fenna said and frowned.

  “One of the guests said he heard a woman shouting. It was you, wasn’t it?” he said. Fenna nodded. “He said you were asking about a woman, wanting to know where she is. Is that right?”

  “Yes,” Fenna said and held her breath.

  “Then before I lock you up, I want you to push past me and get down to the lower deck. Below that, the orlop deck, there is a compartment, a hold, towards the bow. It's on the port side. That's the...”

  “The left,” said Fenna. “I know.”

  The Captain sighed. “This voyage will be my last. Humble intends to kill my career. Dares to call me insubordinate...” Fenna watched as a tick worried at the Captain's left cheek, just below his eye. “I won't be able to help you very much. I can do little more than bark a few orders, but maybe you will find something down there. Or someone.”

  “Thank you,” Fenna said and stepped around the Captain.

  He shook his head and said just one word, “Go.”

  Fenna grasped the handle, unlocked and opened the door. She saw a gap in the crowd gathered in the passageway that ran from one side of the ship to the other. Fenna stepped over the lip of the doorway and shoved her way through the guests.

  “Fenna,” said a man. She recognised the voice as Humble's and kept going. The carpet was smooth beneath her feet and she ran to the nearest elevator and launched herself at the stairs going down to the lower decks. The rustle of jackets whispering down the passageway behind her warned Fenna of the security officers giving chase. Fenna saw a crewman coming up the stairs. She gripped the handrail and swung herself around the corner, kicking the man off balance as her feet crashed into his chest. She landed on the landing between the stairs and continued down to the next deck.

  Beyond the carpeted stairs, the lower deck favoured form and function over comfort and style. Fenna raced down the wide passageway, weaving between bedding hampers and catering trolleys pushed by Filipino crew members. She ran past the crew canteen and ducked into the passageway leading to the bow of the ship. A metal ladder on the port side of the passageway led down to the orlop deck and Fenna ran towards it.

  She paused at the sound of her name, turned and gripped the handrail for support as she recognised Burwardsley's Nepalese thug as he raced towards her, his kukri glinting in the overhead lights.

  “Fuck,” she said and stomped down the ladder, gritting her teeth as she pounded her soles on the metal. The orlop deck was darker, lined with lengths of spare cable, wires bunched and secured with plastic ties. Fenna ran forwards, past the dark workspaces of tool-pushers and modern day grease monkeys. The Gurkha's boots clattered down the ladder and Fenna ducked through a passageway. She crossed the ship to the starboard side, clambered over a coil of cables and squeezed into a body-sized crevice that even the Filipinos would struggle to fit inside. It wasn't a question of fitting, but surviving. Fenna waited until the ring of Bahadur's boots along the metal passageway had disappeared. She pressed her nose into a gap between the coils and turned her cheek to scan the passageway with her right eye. Bahadur came back, paused at the cable and ran to the ladder on the starboard side, the opposite of the one Fenna had used. Fenna waited until the ring of his boots had cleared the ladder and squirmed out of her hiding space.

  She wiped a smear of blood from her cheek, a cut from a stray twist of cable, and padded along the passageway to the bow. She crossed to the port side of the ship and stopped at a door, closed and secured. The light flic
kered above the door – a loose connection or a failing bulb. Fenna grasped the wheel in the centre of the door and turned it, the dogs in each corner slid open and the door creaked as she opened it.

  Fenna cupped her nose and mouth in her hand and hesitated before stepping over the lip of the door. She waited for the light to filter through from the faulty bulb, and for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. A shudder of movement made her jump and Fenna took a breath of foetid air and fought to steady her pulse.

  Her mind raced with warnings, as if her very nerves extended from her body, wrapped around the handrail by the door like a lifeline, ready to pull her back from the brink and into safety. Fenna took another step. She saw a flicker of movement to her left and pushed her bare feet ahead of her, testing the floor. She slid on a puddle of liquid and fell onto her knees by the side of a crate, and a body, the naked form of a woman with long hair glued to her skin in matted twists and knots.

  “Dina?” Fenna whispered and held out her hand. “Dina, is that you?”

  Fenna paused at the thought of how many kilometres she had sledged, how far she had run, fought and bled to get to this point, in a dank, black hole of the richest ship afloat, the hold where even the brightest star would never shine. She let her fingers brush against the woman's shoulder, smoothed her hand into a firm grip and crawled forwards to pull the woman into her arms.

  “Dina,” she said. “I found you.”

  Dina choked a response and flung her arms around Fenna, clucking and clicking the stub of her tongue at the back of her mouth as she squeezed with what little strength she had left.

  “I won't let you go,” Fenna said and smoothed her hands through Dina's hair to free her face. “I've got you,” she said and kissed Dina's forehead. “Bloody hell, I've got you.” The echo of Mikael's words jerked tears onto her cheeks and she pulled Dina closer still as the door to the hold squealed shut and the last of the light was extinguished. Fenna closed her eyes and let her tears mix with the Greenlander's. They can do what they want with me now. I have found Dina.

  The deck vibrated as the Captain ordered more thrust from the The Ice Star's engines as he turned the ship in a lazy curve away from Ittoqqortoormiit and set a course for the southernmost point of Greenland, Cape Farewell.

  Chapter 25

  The cold from the metal deck seeped into Fenna's body, pressing raised diamond shapes into her skin. She opened her eyes and moved her arm, only to have Dina clutch it once more. The Greenlander curled her naked and bruised body into Fenna's, her long black hair flowed in knotted strands and greasy twists across her back and was lost in the black fabric of Fenna's dress. The dogs on the door squealed as someone unlocked them and Dina shivered. Fenna closed her eyes, squinting through her lashes as Humble, Burwardsley and the vicious Nepali were framed briefly in the lowlight from the passageway before they stepped into the hold. Bahadur carried a chair for Humble, moving around the two men he placed it just a few metres from where Fenna and Dina lay curled on the floor. Fenna closed her eyes and listened to Humble's voice as it drifted through the dark hold.

  “The Captain played his part well,” he said. “I'll give him that, although it will count very little towards his career.” Fenna heard Burwardsley grunt a reply as Humble scraped the chair along the deck, and moved it closer to her. He sat down and she opened her eyes. “Konstabel,” Humble said as Fenna blinked to focus. She kept her head low, behind Dina, until a pang of guilt reminded her that the Greenlander had been used enough. She prised her arm free of Dina's grip and sat up.

  “I see you're just like him,” Fenna said and nodded at Burwardsley.

  “What? Oh,” Humble said and made a show of looking around the hold. “You don't like your accommodation?”

  Fenna said nothing. She flicked her eyes from Humble to the two men he used for muscle, and back again.

  “What do you think, Mike?” he said. “She seems pretty quiet.”

  “She’s learned when to keep her mouth shut.”

  “And yet, that's not enough, is it?”

  “No, Mr Humble. Not nearly enough.”

  Humble clicked his fingers and Bahadur handed him an object. Fenna recognised it as he held it up and twisted it in the light. Humble tossed it onto the floor in front of her.

  “Do you know what that is, Konstabel?”

  “Part of a satellite, made by Humble Industries,” she said. “Your company.”

  “You’re right, in part,” he said and gestured at the component. “My father's company did make it, but it’s not from a satellite,” he said, smirking. Humble turned to look at Burwardsley. “I've been looking forward to this.”

  “It should never have gotten this far,” Burwardsley said.

  “Oh, Mike, stop beating yourself up. A loose end is a loose end. Besides, she’s here. They both are. All tied up, figuratively and,” he laughed, “literally, in a little while anyway.”

  “Still,” Burwardsley said and shuffled his feet. “It should have gone smoother.”

  “No matter,” Humble said and turned back to Fenna. “In fact, I like it this way because I get to gloat.”

  Burwardsley bristled as Fenna shuffled forwards and picked up the piece of metal. She moved back to sit beside Dina and studied the component in the gloom. Dina kept her eyes shut, her knees tucked into her chest, and her elbows jammed into her thighs. Her skin goosebumped as Humble talked. He ignored her, but for a casual glance at her body. Fenna threw the component at Humble's feet.

  “I don't understand,” she said and waited for him to respond.

  “What was your mission, Konstabel?”

  “To retrieve that,” she said and pointed at the component.

  “What would you say if I told you it was a fake, that, in fact, the entire satellite was a fake, dropped out of a plane, a matter of hours before you were tasked to pick it up?”

  Fenna felt a surge of adrenalin prickle through her body. It raised her pulse, pressed her heart against her chest, confused her lungs into thinking she needed more oxygen. “What plane?” she said, but she already knew. “The Chinese...”

  “No,” Humble said and laughed. “A stolen transponder on a charter plane, made to look like it was from China. You see,” he said and rested his elbows on his knees. “The Danes aren’t the only ones who can play games in the Arctic.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “Hans Island,” he said. “In 2005 we sent our Minister of Defence, Bill Graham, with a bottle of whisky and a flag to that pathetic rock in the Nares Strait – in 2005 with a bottle of whisky and a flag. The Danes responded with a delegation of their own, putting a battleship in the strait, and a bottle of booze beneath their flag.”

  “It's an island,” Fenna said and shook her head. “I don't understand what it has to do with a fake satellite.”

  “Of course you don't.” Humble paused to flex his fingers. “But it didn't stop with the island. Did it? It's not enough to mock the Canadian presence in the Arctic, now you want the fucking Pole.”

  “This is about the North Pole?” Fenna shook her head. “You're insane.”

  “No,” Humble said and leaned back in his chair. “Not insane. Not even close to being slightly mad. You see, while you and your teammates are laughing it up over failed manoeuvres in the Canadian north – mocking our so-called Rangers – you are missing the bigger picture. The future economy. Hell, Konstabel, the Northeast and Northwest Passages are open, it's only a matter of years before the Pole itself is ice-free. And if you think for a minute that we're just going to sit back and let you take it...” Humble took a breath. “No,” he said. “It’s not going to happen. You've had your fun in the Arctic, Konstabel, you and your Sirius boys. Welcome to the real world of geopolitics. It's time to get serious, and for Denmark to realise it is seriously out of its depth.”

  Fenna snorted, “You are mad. Canada is our ally. We’re not at war...”

  “No? Like we're not at war with Russia? Or China?” Humble leaned forwards. “U
nderstand this, if an independent group of patriots can drop a piece of junk from an aircraft and have your navy task a mission to pick it up, just imagine what we could do if we decided to bring some real resources into play. It's only a matter of time, Konstabel. Greenland is begging to be independent, free of its Imperial masters. What if Canada were to step in and offer it a way out? What if we were to create such a scandal that the whole world was forced to question Danish sovereignty and their competence as a ruling power in the Arctic? How long do you think it would take, how many years, before you were out and we were in? Denmark would be a very small country all of a sudden, wouldn't it?”

  Fenna swallowed a rebuke, and focused on her breathing. Her head was beginning to spin and she felt small, as small as Denmark, just a pawn in a political game. “But Mikael…” she said.

  “A piece of the puzzle,” Humble said and turned to look at Burwardsley. “A counter to be moved around the board. A loose end.”

  “Like me,” she said.

  “Exactly like you, and the girl,” said Burwardsley and nodded at Dina. “You were just unlucky – you were chosen to be in the right place, at the right time.”

  “And Kjersing?”

  “Ah,” Humble said and smiled. “Commander Kjersing. Our man in the Arctic.”

  “Your man?”

  “Ours, yes. He was proving to be troublesome. I needed to test him, and this was the perfect test. If he could sweep this little incident under the rug then he would indeed prove his worth.” Humble paused. “He failed, of course.”

  “You set him up,” Fenna said and resisted the urge to shout. “You concocted all this as a test? For one man?”

  “With the added benefit of creating a scandal if he couldn't resolve it. Yes, that's exactly what we did.” Humble pushed back his chair and stood up. “I need Kjersing driving a desk at Arctic Command in Nuuk, not driving dogs in some East Greenland armpit. He's no good to me there.”