by Mark Parragh
Chapter 6
The pilots had taken Crane’s warning seriously and had the Gulfstream accelerating down the runway within minutes. Now they were airborne, climbing to cruise height, and wheeling around to the east, bound for Norway.
Georges sat in the rear of the jet, at the table where he’d set up his laptops and equipment, and felt utterly forlorn. He’d screwed up, badly, and he didn’t even know how. The spread spectrum link should have been completely undetectable. But somehow they’d found it, and that had blown Crane’s mission. He didn’t even know if Crane was alive.
But for the moment, all he could do was keep himself together and try to help fix things. He dreaded making the call, but Josh needed to be told as soon as possible. The Gulfstream had a Wi-Fi hotspot that connected to a satellite link. Georges took a long look at his phone, then called up Josh’s number and hit dial.
Josh picked up immediately. He’d obviously been waiting for a report. Georges told him what had happened.
“It’s my fault,” he said when he was finished. “They picked up the link. I thought it was secure but they found it somehow. I blew his cover.”
“Not your fault,” said Josh. “And that’s not helpful now. Focus on what we can do.”
“What can we do? We’re not there, and he’s cut us off. He wasn’t kidding about the phone. I tried calling him back and it’s not on the network. He’s gone dark.”
“We’re going to have a talk when he gets back,” said Josh, “about keeping me in the loop on his emergency plans. In the meantime, let’s figure out what he’s doing and how we can help him.”
“Right,” said Georges. “You’re right.”
“So is he going to have you fly back in and pick him up somewhere else?”
“I didn’t get that impression,” said Georges. “He sounded like he just wanted us gone.”
“Well, Iceland’s an island in the middle of the North Atlantic,” said Josh. “There’s only so many ways to get off of it. Basically, there’s air and there’s water. Hang on a sec.”
Georges heard keystrokes, then Josh said, “Oh, come on.”
“What?”
“I just had my map draw a thousand kilometer radius circle around Reykjavik,” Josh explained. “There’s not a lot of land in it. And most of that’s glaciers on the Greenland coast. Let me see…there’s the Faroe Islands, which is like the one place even more remote than Iceland. And it just, just hits the edge of the Hebrides. That’s a thousand kilometers. It’s not like he can steal a rowboat. He’s got to be planning to fly out. Where else could you fly into? There’s got to be somewhere. Ask the pilots.”
Georges went forward to the cockpit and had a hurried discussion with the two pilots.
“Not a lot of options,” he told Josh a couple minutes later when he came back. “There are plenty of small airfields, but they’re made for short range prop planes flying in-country. The runways are too short for a Gulfstream. Besides Keflavik, there are three airports where we could land.”
“Seriously? Three?”
“Reykjavik has an airport closer in to the city. Then there’s Akureyri on the north coast, and Egilsstadir in the east.”
“They could have teams there watching out for him already,” Josh mused. “Three airports isn’t very many to watch.”
“Two, really,” said Georges. “If he’s right, coming back to Reykjavik is way too dangerous.”
Josh sighed. “Okay, what about planes that can fly out of those smaller airfields? Could one of those make it somewhere? Ask the pilots.”
“Already did,” said Georges. “Short answer is maybe. They say if you had a twin-engine turboprop, you could use the shorter runways, and you could reach airports in Greenland, Scotland, Ireland, parts of Norway.”
“I’m hearing a ‘but’ in your voice,” said Josh.
“But there aren’t any twin-engine turboprops. We’re talking about unmanned airstrips, not even paved, some of them. Locals will have a few smaller planes parked there, but a plane like Crane needs is too expensive. Only place to find a plane like that would be a charter operation.”
“Which brings us back to our short list of airports,” said Josh. “What about boats? Is there any way he could make it off by boat?”
“Like you said, it’s a long way to anywhere. It would have to be a pretty big boat. Not the kind he could handle by himself.” A thought occurred to Georges. “I did see a cruise ship in Reykjavik. But he said it was too dangerous to come back to Reykjavik.”
“And if he was going to Reykjavik, we already had a perfectly good airplane there,” Josh added. “Wait, do the cruise ships dock anywhere else?”
“I don’t know,” Georges admitted.
“Hang on a sec.” Georges heard a furious clatter of keys, then, “Why, yes, they do. Let me run his company credit card.”
There was more typing, a pause, then Josh came back. “That son of a bitch! He booked himself on the Celebrity Eclipse! In a suite, no less. Peter Drew, VP of Strategic Acquisitions, Myria Group…What the hell, John? He bought the unlimited beverage package! He wasn’t even planning to be on the boat!”
Georges smiled. He’d noticed that Crane had a habit of spending more than was necessary, just to tweak Josh. But he didn’t care about the particulars right now. “So where’s he going?”
“Hang on.” Josh typed some more. “The Eclipse is at sea right now. It left Reykjavik ten hours ago. It docks in Akureyri at 9:00 tomorrow morning and it’s there until 7:00 p.m. when it leaves Iceland for the Faroes and Norway. That little…”
Georges furiously searched through his bag for a map of Iceland and spread it out on the table. Reykjavik was at the southwestern tip of the country. He found Akureyri, more or less in the middle of the northern coast. Route 1, the Ring Road that circled the island, would take Crane there. He could reach Akureyri in something like four and a half hours by car. Plenty of time to catch the ship.
But looking at the map, Georges saw the danger. The Ring Road was effectively the only way to get from one part of Iceland to another. Datafall’s people would be watching it to see if he came back to Reykjavik. When he didn’t, there was only one other direction he could have gone.
“We’re headed for Bergen right now,” said Georges. “What do you want us to do?”
Josh thought for a moment. “Divert to Stavanger,” he said. “The Eclipse docks there in four days. If he makes it onboard, he’ll call in and you can pick him up.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“Then we’ll have to figure out what happened and find another way. Keep me posted.”
“I will.”
After he hung up, Georges settled back in the luxurious leather seat and let out a deep breath. Somehow, hearing about the cruise ship cabin filled Georges with new hope. Crane had a plan. Maybe there was still something he could do to help, to make up for his mistake.
He grabbed the map of Iceland and started tracing the route Crane would have to take.
Chapter 7
It was almost midnight as Datafall’s helicopter descended toward the supercomputing complex. In the dim twilight, Einar could see trucks parked on the grass, their headlights illuminating the building. His entire security team was there, along with some operations staff who’d apparently been hauled out of bed and called in for the emergency. Soon, word would filter up to the executive board, and they’d want his report. Einar would need plenty of usable information to give them when that happened.
The helicopter touched down on the landing pad, and Einar jumped out the side door. He strode toward the building in his tuxedo, the helicopter powering down behind him. A pair of security men jogged toward him. He recognized one as Ari Olvirsson, the one who’d taken the initiative and dispatched the team to Keflavik. The other he knew vaguely. That one was carrying a radio handset, and Einar assumed he was there to put him in touch with the Keflavik team.
“Sir,” Olvirsson said as they met. Einar kept on walking, and Ol
virsson and the other man turned and hurried to keep up with him.
“Good work, Ari,” he said. “Bring me up to speed.”
“I’m afraid he’s still on the loose, sir,” said Olvirsson. “We found a rental car on the far side of the hill, but he never came back to it. I assume he saw our men and withdrew.”
“So he’s on foot,” said Einar. “Good. He’ll make his way to the Ring Road of course.” Where else would he go?
“I sent a truck to patrol the road to the south, between here and Mossfellsbær. And the Reykjavik resources are all activated and in position.”
Einar nodded. “Very good.” The city was an excellent trap. It channeled an enemy into just a few avenues where he could be located and contained. Einar now had multiple screens in place between the intruder and the airport. He wouldn’t slip through.
“The signals team flagged a mobile call through the tower here thirty-three minutes after the event. It went live, made one call, and vanished again.”
Einar was considering the implications of that when the timer he had set on his phone hit zero and chimed at him. His team should be arriving at Keflavik. He looked over to the man holding the radio.
“Keflavik?”
“Yes, sir,” the man said nervously. “Right here.”
Einar took the radio. “This is Security Director Persson,” he said, crisply enunciating his syllables. “Who am I speaking with?”
“This is Ingolfsson, sir,” came the reply. “We’re pulling in now, but I think we’re too late.”
“Why is that?”
“We have an asset in IFR control,” the man explained. “He just notified us that your tail number took off three minutes ago. Flight plan for Bergen, Norway.”
Einar hissed through his teeth. That was disappointing. “Understood,” he said. “Carry on while you’re there. See if they’ve left us anything interesting.” But he knew the team would find nothing.
He handed the radio back to its bearer. “Show me everywhere he was,” he said to Olvirsson. “We’ll start at the perimeter and work our way down to the catacombs.”
They showed him the spot where the intruder had cut through the fence, where he’d attacked a power technician having an unauthorized evening smoke, the route they thought he’d taken to the supercomputer, but Einar was only partly paying attention. That was past. He might be able to glean some clues to the man’s thought processes, but Einar was more concerned with the future.
The intruder was still out there, with the device he’d come for. If Einar could run him down before he got that device out of Iceland, he could contain the damage. So where was he? What was he thinking, and what was he doing?
Einar knew the man had arrived by private jet, and he’d planned to escape the same way. But when things went wrong, he’d called and sent the plane away. Why?
As far as Einar knew, only one thing had happened to change the tactical picture after the man had escaped from the complex. He’d learned that Einar’s men had found his car. That was a bit clumsy in retrospect. He was on foot now, and less mobile. But if those men had stayed hidden and let him reclaim the car, they could have taken him on the road. Now Einar didn’t know where he was. And the intruder would eventually have to acquire a car anyway, except now it could be any car on the road.
But that must have been what triggered the call that warned the jet. Why? It would take him longer to get back to Keflavik without the car. Did he anticipate that they would identify the jet and reach it before he could? Everything the intruder did suggested he was very familiar with their capabilities, more so than Einar was comfortable with.
If the man sent the jet away, he must have a backup plan. So what was it? Einar nodded and made attentive noises as his people showed him the molten fragments of the plexiglass panel the intruder had blown out to escape the chamber. But his instincts were triggering. How was the intruder planning to escape without his plane? Almost every foreigner entered and left Iceland through Keflavik; it was hard to do so any other way. But he’d sent his plane away. Did he mean to try and get aboard a commercial flight?
Suddenly, Einar recognized his flawed assumption. It was Reykjavik itself that held the danger for him, not losing the jet. If he meant to take his chances in the city, then it would be best to do it immediately, in hopes he could elude his pursuers before they could close the net. And if he was going to risk Reykjavik anyway, the jet remained his best chance of making it out of the country. So he wasn’t going to try to slip through Reykjavik later. He wasn’t going to Reykjavik at all.
“Damn it!” he snapped suddenly, startling the technician trying to show him a damaged board they’d pulled from one of the racks. He strode quickly away to the elevators.
“He’s not coming back here,” he shouted to Olvirsson. “All those men hanging around upstairs, get them on the roads. Send them north.”
“North, sir?”
“North. Keep the southern assets in place, but everyone else moves north.”
The elevator opened, and Einar punched for the ground floor. Olvirsson was taking notes as the car rose.
“Tell the signals team to look for police reports of stolen cars. And tell them to flag any new SIM cards registering on the cell network outside of Reykjavik.”
“Yes, sir,” said Olvirsson. The doors slid open and Einar jogged through the lobby area as Olvirsson followed at his heels.
“Where will you be, sir?”
“Airborne,” said Einar. He burst through the front door and signaled to the pilot to spin up the rotors. “I’m going north.”
Einar didn’t know what the man meant to do. But they already had people in place to intercept the intruder if he tried to make it through Reykjavik after all. He might as well play his hunch.
Chapter 8
Crane walked north, along the shoulder of the Ring Road. It was after 1:00 in the morning now, as dark as it was going to get. It was a little brighter than a full moon, with the dull glow of reflected sunlight along the horizon to his right. He’d been walking for more than an hour and hadn’t seen anything threatening. He hoped they were still looking for him to the south, around Reykjavik.
He saw the asphalt brighten slightly at his feet before he heard the sound of the engine. He turned and stuck out one hand, thumb raised in the universal gesture. This might be some random motorist who might give him a ride, or it might be Datafall’s people searching for him. Either way, his best play was to look like a hitchhiking tourist. Of course that would only get him so far if this was a Datafall patrol. Again, he cursed himself for losing the Sig Sauer.
The headlights belonged to a Volvo truck, Crane realized as it came closer. FL series, red, marked with some cartoonish brand name Crane wasn’t quite sure how to pronounce. It slowed, creaked to a stop beside him, and the driver leaned over to open the passenger door. He was a gruff looking, middle-aged man with a scraggly beard and a plaid shirt. He said something in Icelandic.
“Do you speak English?” Crane asked.
“Yeah, yeah,” said the driver. “Get in, you’re letting the warm out.”
Crane shrugged off his pack and climbed in. The boxy cab was strewn with papers and empty candy wrappers, but it was warm. It made Crane realize how cold it had gotten outside. He stuffed his pack down behind his legs in the foot well, and the truck lurched forward again.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’m John.”
“August,” said the driver. “Where in hell are you going in the dead of night? Out here in the middle of nowhere?”
Crane laughed. “I’m trying to get to Akureyri,” he said. “I was out hiking around Thingvellir, and I got…well, long story, but I missed my ship!”
“Hah! The big cruise ship, eh? Yes, they will go without you. But your luck is getting better. I go to Akureyri. We’ll be there by morning.” He gestured over his shoulder to the back of the truck. “I make some stops along the way for deliveries, but we’ll get you back to your ship, no problem.”
/> “Much appreciated,” said Crane. “I’m happy to help unload if you’ll show me what goes where.”
August grunted in acknowledgment. He drove in silence for a minute, then said, “We all speak English, you know.”
“I’m sorry?”
“In Iceland. We learn it in school. And we grow up with American and English TV.”
“I see,” said Crane. “I noticed I was getting along okay in English. Figured I was just finding the right people to talk to.”
“No, no. Everyone,” said August. “Because of TV mostly. With the…um, we say ‘texti.’ What do you call them? The words on the bottom that tell you what they’re saying?”
“Subtitles.”
“Ah. Subtitles. We’re both learning something this trip. It’s good.”
Crane wasn’t sure what good knowing the Icelandic word for subtitles would do him. On the other hand, he decided, he could totally see August at a bar somewhere showing off his new knowledge—pointing at the TV over the bar and bellowing, “Subtitles!”
They made small talk as August drove and the highway wound between various old volcanic remnants and the ocean. In a small town called Akranes they pulled into a gas station with a convenience store, and August opened up the back of the truck to reveal cases of soda, candy, and various unhealthy snack foods. There were a couple battered hand trucks in the back as well, so Crane helped haul the store’s order inside.
Then they were back on the highway again. Crane dug a granola bar out of his pack and they shared it. August wasn’t hugely impressed. He produced something called a Kókosbolla and swore Crane would never want to leave Iceland once he’d tried it. It was a thin chocolate shell, rolled in coconut flour with some kind of white paste inside. Crane praised it since August clearly expected him to be impressed, but it wasn’t to his taste.
They stopped again in Borgarnes, an even smaller town strung out along a narrow spit of land with the sea on either side. August pulled into a brightly lit gas station with a restaurant and shop attached—a curving, single story building of cast concrete that reminded Crane of a diner.