by Nick Petrie
For now, he closed his eyes and drifted.
* * *
—
The airport’s long, narrow halls were packed with people. Peter walked with the crowd to get his heavy pack and duffel, trying not to run, jumping out of his skin with the need to stand under the open sky and feel the wind on his face. Eight in the morning, and still dark outside. Daylight wouldn’t come for hours.
At customs, the female agent behind the glass ran Peter’s passport under the scanner. He heard a beep and her cool eyes flickered up at him. “Please wait a moment.”
In less than a minute, two uniformed agents appeared as if from thin air, a man and a woman. The man collected Peter’s passport from the scanner. “Sir, please come with us.”
His English had just a trace of an accent. Sir became not quite shir, us became not quite ush, with a slight whistle to the sibilants. He was older than Peter, early fifties but slim in a crisp black uniform and fresh shave. His uniform had two tags, one in Icelandic on the right breast, LÖGREGLAN, and one on the left that read POLICE. There were no other markings of rank that Peter could see.
The woman was younger than Peter, but not by much. Her tag read CUSTOMS.
Peter took a deep breath and let it out. The white static crackled higher up his brainstem, vaporizing the haze of Valium and vodka. His nerves twanged like a dropped piano and sweat gathered between his shoulder blades. He wanted nothing more than to get outside. “What’s this about?”
The man saw Peter’s rising tension and eased away from the woman, opening up the angles, giving himself room. He moved well enough, but he seemed unconcerned. There were a half-dozen other officers within view.
If he’d known what Peter was capable of, the things Peter had done, the things Peter was contemplating at that very moment, he would have been worried as hell.
The woman smiled with professional warmth. “Your name is Peter, right? I’m Sigrid. This is Hjálmar. Come with us for a moment, we’ll explain everything. Would you like a coffee?”
Peter pulled in another long breath, then bent to pick up his duffel. He already wore the big pack slung over one shoulder. “Sure,” he said. “Coffee would be good.” Or a double bourbon, neat. Then another, washing down four more Valium.
He needed to get the fuck out of there.
They walked him through a door and down a hallway to a little kitchen alcove with a gleaming stainless-steel machine that could produce a dozen different coffee drinks with the push of a button. She made him an Americano. “Milk or sugar?” The mug was white ceramic, not paper, and warm in his hand. The coffee was better than he expected.
Past the alcove, a bright yellow door opened to a plain white room. It was furnished with a long laminate table and six plastic chairs. Inexpensive stuff, but elegant, lightweight, durable. Interrogation room sponsored by Ikea.
The man, Officer Hjálmar, held the door against the spring and the woman, Officer Sigrid, ushered Peter politely inside. Coffee in hand, he set his duffel on the table, then the pack. Officer Hjálmar followed and the door closed automatically behind.
It was all very civilized.
Peter thought about how hard it would be to kick his way through the wallboard. With his heavy leather hiking boots, not hard at all. His long leg muscles twitched. He wondered what might be on the other side.
Officer Sigrid gave him the smile again, as if he were a customer rather than a detainee. “Peter, please, have a seat. How is your coffee?” She was sturdy in her black uniform, comfortable in her skin. Everything she said and did was designed to put Peter at ease. It didn’t work.
Peter leaned against the wall. “Why am I here?”
“I’m told you had some trouble on the airplane,” Officer Hjálmar said. “You were agitated. You shouted.”
“I had a bad dream,” Peter said. “I’m starting to think I’m still having it.”
“You’re sweating,” Hjálmar said. “Are you nervous about something?”
“I have claustrophobia.” Peter hated having to explain it, the weakness it implied. “I get panic attacks in small spaces. Like airplanes. And official rooms with no windows.”
The man looked at Peter. “I’m sorry.” Maybe some sympathy there, but he was still a cop. “Is that what the medication is for?”
Peter pushed back the shame that washed over him. At his inability to control himself, his inability to live a normal life. Eight years a Recon Marine, the tip of the spear, more deployments than he cared to remember. He was proud of his service, but it had changed him. He was still trying to figure out what he’d become, or was becoming. A work in progress, goddamn it.
But he had no use for sympathy.
“The medication is none of your fucking business,” he said calmly. “Again, why am I here?”
There was a knock on the yellow door. A female officer leaned in and said something in Icelandic. It was a beautiful language, sinuous and sibilant. That simple sentence sounded like poetry, Peter thought, even though he’d need two tongues to speak it.
Then she left and a new man stepped in.
He was plump, pink, and balding, one of those men who’d been middle-aged since he was seventeen. He wore a dark gray suit with a faint blue windowpane pattern that matched his pocket square and tie. He slung a long gray wool topcoat over a chair back and tucked both hands in his pockets. Not police or military, Peter thought. A civilian. And he’d always been a civilian. Peter could tell by the way he stood, the careless slouch of his shoulders. His soft, useless slick-soled shoes.
The static sparked at the base of Peter’s brain, threatening to fill his head with lightning.
He pushed down the urge toward action, that familiar fight-or-flight instinct. It wouldn’t help him, not now. Breathe in, breathe out.
The civilian nodded at the officers. “Please. Continue.”
Sigrid spoke. “What is the purpose of your visit?”
Peter waved at the big pack filling a chair. “Hiking.”
“In winter?” She turned on the smile. “You must be part Icelandic. You are signed up with a tour operator?”
“No. I’m renting a car.”
Hjálmar shook his head. “This is not like”—he consulted Peter’s passport—“your Wisconsin. Iceland can be quite dangerous, especially in winter.”
“Don’t underestimate Wisconsin.” Peter smiled for the first time. “And I don’t mind dangerous, either.”
The civilian frowned. The two customs officers exchanged glances.
“Have you come here to die?” Hjálmar sounded concerned for the first time. “Suicide by glacier, or hypothermia? Because we don’t want to put our rescue teams at risk, trying to save you.”
“I don’t want to die,” Peter said. “I just want to get outside these walls, see some country. What’s the problem?”
The civilian spoke a second time. “Let’s see what’s in his baggage, shall we?” He didn’t sound Icelandic. He sounded American, maybe from the East Coast. Several generations of private schools and private clubs and a long history of getting what he wanted distilled into a smug, nasal honk.
Peter said, “Who are you?”
The civilian looked amused. “That’s not important,” he said. “The luggage, please.”
The customs officers glanced at each other again.
The man nodded once, just slightly, but he didn’t like it.
The woman went to Peter’s pack, popped the buckles, loosened the straps. She began to lay out his things on the table. Tent, poles, fly. Stove and pot. Sleeping bag and pad. All the other things he’d need to survive alone in open country. All of it excellent quality and well used. She laid out everything neatly. She left the folded silver emergency blanket and fifty-foot coil of Kevlar-core rope in the top compartment.
“The duffel as well.”
The woman set her
jaw but moved the bag to a chair and opened the zipper.
There was something odd here, Peter thought. These cops were annoyed. They didn’t like taking this soft man’s orders any more than Peter liked being in that room.
This wasn’t about some panic attack on the plane.
Sigrid pulled out more hiking gear, along with town clothes and the carry-on he’d shoved inside at baggage claim, a simple day pack with his laptop and charger, a thin insulated jacket, a Ziploc bag of homemade granola bars, his travel documents, his pills, and a few books.
She held up the books. “You are a reader?” Peter nodded. Sigrid smiled. “Iceland is a nation of readers.”
Inside his guidebook, she found a photo of a man holding a mop-headed boy in his arms like a happy sack of potatoes. The boy was seven, loose-limbed and cheerful with dirty knees. He looked away from the camera as if already planning for his next mud puddle. The man was thirty-three, with a bushy blond beard and a face as empty as a stone. His deep-set eyes seemed too blue to be real.
The civilian stepped forward and tapped the photo with his index finger. “Who’s this?”
“A friend,” Peter said. “Cute kid, isn’t he?”
The civilian’s frown deepened, his lips like squirming pink worms. He held out his hand. “Give me your phone.”
“I don’t think so. I’d like some answers.”
The civilian was definitely unhappy now. “Here’s an answer for you,” he said. “You are not welcome in Iceland. Unfortunately for you, there are no available seats back to the States until late afternoon, the day after tomorrow.” He took an envelope from his jacket pocket. “Here is your ticket. You will be on that plane. These officers will see to your safety and comfort until that time, and they will escort you to your seat.”
With the flight, that meant three more days stuck inside. Peter felt the static crackle and rise, pushing at the boundaries of his control. But he wasn’t going to lose his shit in front of this asshole. He ignored the ticket envelope. “On whose authority, exactly?”
“It’s unofficial.” The civilian gave Peter a tight smile. “But real nonetheless. You are persona non grata here. Go home.”
Breathe in, breathe out. Peter looked at the customs cops. “He can do this?”
They glanced at each other a third time. If something passed between them, Peter didn’t see it.
Officer Hjálmar said, “In fact that is a bit unclear. We will require written confirmation from your superior.”
“Cut the shit,” the civilian said. “You have verbal orders. Do as you’re told.”
It was the wrong response. Hjálmar’s face betrayed no emotion. He simply shrugged. His voice was mild. “There are procedures for these things. Forms must be filled out.”
Peter suppressed a smile. Insistence on standard procedure was the most elegant form of bureaucratic resistance. As a Marine lieutenant, Peter had used the tactic himself, although not as often as he’d stomped procedure into the dirt in pursuit of his mission and the safety of his men.
“We have no reason to detain him,” Officer Sigrid said. “To our knowledge, Mr. Ash has committed no crime. You can see he’s in discomfort. He says he’s claustrophobic, having a panic attack.”
“And you believe him?” Anger and frustration radiated off the pink civilian like an IED’s afterglow. The envelope trembled, just slightly, in his manicured hand. Peter wasn’t sure why the man was so worked up. He wasn’t the one being kicked out of the country.
“We do things a bit differently in Iceland,” said Officer Sigrid. “We have a great deal of respect for the rights of the individual and the rule of law. We do not detain people without proper cause.”
“You should see his file,” the pink civilian said. “You’d feel differently.”
“But you have chosen not to share that information with us,” Officer Hjálmar said.
“This request is unofficial. From one nation to another.”
“It is extremely unofficial,” Officer Hjálmar said. “We will honor your request that he leave the country. But lacking written orders from our superiors, Mr. Ash will not be detained today.” He took the envelope with the ticket. “We will collect his rental car and hotel information. If he does not report here, to our office, four hours before the flight, we will dispatch officers to collect him.”
The civilian burned hotter. He took his phone from his pocket. “Give me five minutes.”
Officer Sigrid turned to Peter. “Perhaps you should pack your things.”
Into his phone, the civilian said, “Get me the head of the customs police. Yes, even better, the national police commissioner.” He listened, his back to Peter and the officers. “Then get his goddamn cell phone and forward me there. Now.”
Peter tucked his equipment back into place with the efficiency of long practice. Sigrid took out a notebook and pen. Her smile was still professional, but now it held true amusement. “Your contact information?”
Peter gave her his cell number. “I don’t have a hotel room yet.” Or plans to get one.
A phone rang. He turned to watch Officer Hjálmar remove his phone from his belt and raise it to his ear. “Já, Hjálmar.”
The civilian turned and stared, the phone lowered from his ear. “You’re the national police commissioner?”
Hjálmar put his phone away. “Iceland is a small country. Your request is unusual. We take these matters quite seriously.”
The pink civilian was turning red. “Do you know who is behind this request?”
“Unfortunately, no. Not officially.” Hjálmar turned to Peter and held out his passport and the envelope with the plane ticket. “I will walk you out.”
* * *
—
Hjálmar led Peter past the glass booths and into the airport’s modest main hall. Through the glass walls of the atrium, Peter could see snow swirling bright under powerful lights. The white static crackled in response. Sometimes standing by a big window helped the claustrophobia, but Peter was well beyond that point.
It was after ten in the morning and the sky was barely beginning to brighten. Peter was exhausted and hungry and impatient. He wanted badly to walk outside. Hell, he wanted to run. But he held himself there, taking deep breaths. He knew they weren’t quite done yet.
Hjálmar watched Peter carefully. “I hope I haven’t made a mistake.”
“You haven’t.” Peter stuck out his hand. “I’m Peter. What do I call you?”
“Hjálmar, please.” They shook hands. “We are informal here.”
“Who’s the guy in the suit?”
“Someone connected to your embassy.” The man adjusted his shoulders, as if working out some kink in his back. “There is some weight behind their request. Eventually my government will be forced to honor it. If you do not return when you are due, we will collect you. And we will not be gentle.”
Peter nodded. “I’ll try to behave myself. But I still don’t get why I’m not in a holding cell.”
A smile flickered across Hjálmar’s face. “Icelanders are independent people,” he said. “We do not like being told what to do.”
“Huh.” Peter watched the snow blowing sideways, drifts gathering in unlikely places. “Me neither.”
“You were in the military.” Not a question.
“I was a United States Marine,” said Peter. “Still am, I guess. It’s not something that leaves you.”
Hjálmar nodded. “I was a ground observer with Norway in the first Iraq war. I had to go, I couldn’t help myself. All these years later, I still remember the burned-out Iraqi tanks, the smell of their dead drivers and gunners. Like roasted meat inside a cast-iron pot.”
The static foamed and sparked. Peter needed to breathe open air. “Did you become a vegetarian?”
“No,” Hjálmar said, “I became a policeman. So I am asking. Wh
at is in your file that would concern me?”
“You? Probably nothing.”
“Then why don’t they want you here?”
“Honestly? I have no idea.” For the moment, it was the truth. “Are we done?”
“Yes. I’ll see you in two days.”
Peter smiled. “Not if I see you first.”
Then he stepped forward and the double glass doors slid wide and he walked into the biting, sunless cold. The hard wind in his face and the icy snow falling down the back of his neck felt like some kind of gift.
3
Despite the weather, Peter wasn’t ready to get back into a vehicle just yet. He fished his phone from his pocket and sent a text.
Landed in Reyk. Someone from the U.S. Embassy wants me sent home, won’t say why. I’m due back on a plane in 48 hours. Any ideas?
With the time change, it was six a.m. in Maryland. He wasn’t expecting a response. But his phone buzzed immediately.
My husband is well connected at State. I’ll look into it. But please don’t let anyone stop you.
Will do.
Peter walked his bags to the taxi stand and knocked on the window of a Renault station wagon. “Iceland 4x4 Rentals? On, uh—”
“Já, I know it.” The driver started the motor without looking at Peter. The rear cargo hatch floated up. “Thirty minutes.” The taxi’s front passenger side had a pair of tall rubber boots in the footwell and a hardback book on the seat, obviously not space for passengers.
Peter stowed his gear. The static didn’t mind a windshield, but it didn’t like the enclosure of a back seat. So Peter climbed in and stuck his face to the window, getting as close to the world as he could.
The blowing snow and limited visibility didn’t slow the driver. He had his wipers on high and the pedal down. The landscape was flat and white and barren of trees and visible vegetation. The sky had begun to brighten slightly, as if dawn was coming, but was still some way off. There wasn’t much traffic. After four crowded airports, three flying sardine cans, and one detention room, Iceland felt blissfully empty.