The Wild One

by Nick Petrie

  If Staple was in the upper echelon at State or the CIA, he might have a driver, but nothing idled at the curb. Staple just walked through the gap between the planters and turned up the sidewalk toward Peter and the row of angle-parked cars.

  Peter tugged down his new hat with the earflaps and put Bjarni’s phone up to further hide his face. Even though the Defender’s windows were rolled up, he did his best Swedish Chef imitation, just to be saying something that sounded vaguely Scandinavian. Peter had always liked the Muppets.

  As Staple passed, Peter watched his eyes flick across the dirty Land Rover, the worn safety-yellow coat, the semi-goofy hat and six-day beard. But Staple didn’t seem to see anything alarming, because he didn’t break stride, just pulled a fat key from his pocket. A black Renault flashed its lights at the far end of the row.

  Definitely no driver. Which was good. Peter didn’t want to have to hurt some new hire stuck driving visitors.

  He left the Land Rover and hustled after Staple. His boots found the few patches of bare pavement on the icy sidewalk. He carried a hiking pole in one hand, the other hand held to his ear as if he were still on the phone.

  “Já, já.” He spoke loudly. “Nei. Reykjavík. Já. Björk. Takk fyrir. Oh, já.” That was pretty much all of Peter’s Icelandic. It was a notoriously difficult language to learn, maybe because its closest relative was Old Norse. Still, if Peter gave a shit what Staple thought, he’d have been embarrassed.

  Staple didn’t seem to notice at all, just took a big slug of coffee. He held the cup in his right hand, which meant it was likely his dominant side. Peter closed in from behind, watching where the other man stepped.

  When his right foot landed on a reasonably smooth patch of ice, and his weight was fully on it, Peter stuck the spike of the hiking pole into the leather back of the man’s expensive, slick-soled dress shoe and pushed.

  Staple’s right foot slid forward on the ice and flew into the air, followed immediately by the left. His arms pinwheeled. His hips followed his legs. Staple was, for a moment, fully airborne.

  He landed first on his left hip, then his elbow and shoulder, neck bent to protect his head. He lay there unblinking, trying to process what had happened. Peter tucked the hiking pole under his arm, woke Bjarni’s phone, and took a few photos of the man’s face. “Work with me, baby. Looking good.”

  The shock of the fall faded, replaced with confusion and pain. Staple’s winning personality reemerged as he raised himself onto his good elbow. “What the fucking fuck? Who the fuck are you?”

  It was almost enough to make a Marine give up swearing. Peter put away the phone and pulled off the earflapped hat. “Hello, David.”

  Recognition dawned. “You?”

  “Yep.” Peter reached down and yanked open Staple’s topcoat, the buttons popping like stray rounds. He dropped a heavy knee onto the man’s soft chest.

  Staple grunted and twisted on the ground but he couldn’t dislodge Peter. “You are in deep shit. We are going to destroy your life. You’ll be living in a cardboard box by the time we’re done with you.”

  Interesting that the guy didn’t threaten him with federal prison or foreign rendition. Peter smiled pleasantly. “‘We’? Who’s this ‘we,’ exactly?”

  Staple snapped his mouth shut and pushed at Peter without effect. Not a physical guy.

  Peter slapped him hard across the face. The blow shocked Staple into stillness. He wasn’t used to getting hit, so probably not trained as a spook. Peter tore open the man’s suit jacket and searched the pockets. He found a big smartphone, a passport wallet, a State Department ID, and the envelope with Peter’s plane ticket. He flipped through the documents. The passport and other ID all gave his name as David Staple.

  Peter tucked everything into the depths of the safety-yellow coat. He showed Staple his teeth. “Why do you want me out of Iceland? Who’s running you?”

  Staple only pressed his lips tighter. Peter slapped him again. He didn’t have a lot of time.

  Staple tried to get his hands up to protect his face. He was shaking. Anger, adrenaline. And fear, too. But of Peter, or someone else?

  Peter knocked Staple’s hands away and hit him backhanded. Staple’s mouth began to bleed. “I could kill you right now,” Peter said. “Give me a goddamn name.”

  Staple’s shakes got worse. Definitely fear. His voice was hoarse. “He will squash you like an insect.”

  “Hey.” A voice behind him. “Hey!” The embassy guards stood on the sidewalk, not half a block away. They hadn’t seen what happened, but were responding to the shouting. Still bent over the man, Peter took up his hiking pole and cracked Staple on the temple with the butt of the handle. Staple’s eyes fluttered like a geisha’s. Peter pressed the man’s pink thumb into the phone’s button, but it was the wrong kind of phone for that.

  “Já, I see him,” Peter called over his shoulder to the guards, trying to sound like a local with poor English. “He falls on the ice. He does not wear boots.”

  One man stayed by the embassy’s fortified planters, the other walked toward Peter. “What happened?” He had his coat open and his hand on the butt of his sidearm. Mustache or not, these guys were plenty serious.

  Peter was tempted by the idea of a rare pistol in Iceland, but he didn’t want the situation to escalate. He pulled the earflap hat down low on his head. “Tourist.” He shook his head at the guard, disgusted. “You help.” He rose and turned back to his truck, grinding Staple’s phone into the sidewalk as he did.

  He backed out of the parking spot, but instead of driving forward past the embassy, he continued to reverse until he hit an intersection. The way he’d seen locals drive, it wasn’t out of character. It was also the simplest way to avoid the embassy cameras.

  Peter had just bought the Defender.

  He didn’t want it to become a siren magnet just yet.

  Reykjavík was getting smaller by the minute.

  24

  Peter parked outside the Litla Guesthouse, hoping that the hostel manager hadn’t charged his credit card yet. Peter was gambling his need for a shower against the possibility that Hjálmar had called Catherine, gotten the card number, and found Peter’s reservation.

  He circled the block and looked for police cars and wondered how he’d gotten exactly nothing from a soft target like Staple.

  Well, not nothing, exactly. He’d learned that Staple was more afraid of the man who’d sent him than he was of Peter kneeling on his chest and hitting him on the face. Either Staple was a harder man than Peter had thought, or the man pulling his strings was pretty scary.

  Still, Peter was no closer to figuring out what the hell was going on. Definitely no closer to finding Erik and Óskar. He’d have to leave town for that.

  The Litla Guesthouse was set in an odd little building on a busy corner across from a bus stop and a butcher shop. According to the website, it was a European-style hostel for budget-minded travelers, which meant that the bedrooms were private, but the bathrooms were shared, along with a common kitchen and dining area. It was the first place Peter had found where he could get a room on a few hours’ notice. The manager had already emailed him his room number.

  The main door opened onto a tiny, unheated landing with a narrow stair leading up. The overhead light was out, and the rough-plastered walls reminded him of the concrete construction in Iraq. The static reacted immediately, sparking up his brainstem. He began to sweat in the cold.

  Shit, he was getting soft.

  The only way out, he told himself, is through.

  The bathrooms were at the top of the stairs. He locked the door, stripped off his clothes, and let the scalding torrent pound his shoulders. The Litla Guesthouse clearly didn’t believe in low-flow fixtures.

  The static rose up. Hello, old friend. Breathe in, breathe out. If he closed his good eye, he could pretend he was standing under the waterf
all in June’s little pocket valley.

  June was always after him to take better care of himself. Regular meals, regular sleep. Here it was, almost suppertime, and he still hadn’t had breakfast. Hell, he hadn’t even had coffee. He told himself the shower was a good start.

  Standing there, he wondered what it meant that he didn’t want to tell June where he was and what was he was doing. But he knew already.

  He hadn’t called her because he didn’t want to lie to her. Because that would be crossing a line. An important one.

  Peter lived a life outside the boundaries of society. He worked no regular job. He didn’t even have a valid driver’s license. He lived on the dwindling remains of his combat pay, unwilling to touch the windfall he and Lewis had taken from a Milwaukee profiteer.

  Lewis insisted half the money was Peter’s, but it felt tainted by what they’d done to get it, no matter their intentions. Peter didn’t even want to take Catherine’s money.

  He wanted his motives to be pure.

  But he knew they weren’t.

  Hadn’t he enjoyed beating Bjarni down? The crack of his arm, breaking?

  That righteous anger had blazed up like he was some kind of avenging angel.

  He’d felt it in Memphis, too, that glorious rage. It had gotten away from him. No, he told himself. Be honest. He’d released it, like a beast from its cage.

  He was afraid, lately, that he could no longer remember the man he’d been before the war. He’d left that man behind in some ancient valley in Afghanistan, or some mud-walled city in Iraq, without even a backward glance. It had been necessary, he knew. To protect his people. To survive. He wasn’t wishing he’d died back there. But who had he become?

  A man who lived only by the rules he made for himself. A man who honored those rules with everything he had. Because without them, he was truly an outlaw. Capable of anything.

  A barbarian, like Hjálmar had said.

  Lying to June would be breaking the rules.

  He thought again of leaving her. Because he would surely hurt her eventually. If not Peter, then the predators he sometimes hunted.

  Under the burning flood, mind like a tornado, Peter scrubbed until his skin was raw.

  Until he heard a pounding on the bathroom door, then a muffled voice. “Dude. How long are you gonna be in there?”

  Peter cleared his throat. “Use the other bathroom.”

  “The toilet’s clogged. Dude, I ate some of that fermented shark meat. I really need to get in there.”

  Peter turned off the water. “Three minutes.”

  He was glad the mirror was steamed over and he couldn’t see himself more clearly.

  * * *

  —

  The bathroom opened onto a central hallway, bedrooms on three sides like spokes on a wheel, the common room and kitchen on the fourth. Peter came out in clean pants, a fresh thermal top slung over his shoulder, trying to dry his hair with a backpacker’s towel without reopening the cut on his scalp.

  A skinny guy with a patchy beard and an unnaturally pale face pushed past without looking at him. The bathroom door slammed.

  A man with a swimmer’s build in an Ohio State sweatshirt stood in the kitchen doorway, laughing. “I coulda told him not to eat that stuff.”

  A woman in form-fitting fleece came to the doorway with a plastic spatula in one hand. Silver bracelets jangling, she rested her other hand on the man’s arm. But she was staring at Peter, shirtless and sweating from the steam and the static, eye still swollen shut, bruises turning green on his ribs and chest and shoulders. “Wow,” she said. “What happened to you?”

  At the table behind her sat a man with midnight hair and the dark shadow of a beard on his pale face. “The lad was jumped,” he said. “Behind a nightclub.” The Irish accent was clear. “Do yeh remember me?”

  The man who’d picked Peter off the ground and gotten him to his car. “I do. Seamus Heaney, right?”

  A smile creased the Irishman’s face. “’Tis, indeed, just like the poet. And you’re Peter. Come in, let’s have a look at yeh.”

  The guy and girl faded back into the kitchen and Peter stepped forward into the Irishman’s searching gaze. “I’m afraid I was rude to you that night,” Peter said. “I owe you thanks and an apology.”

  “Nah.” Seamus waved it away. “I’m sure I’ll do you far worse before we’re done. Because tonight, you’re buyin’ the whiskey. We’ll do it proper and you can tell me how you came to be in that snowy place.”

  Peter thought of young Óskar, living with the knowledge that his mother was dead. His grandmother was waiting. “I’d like that,” Peter said, “but I have to go. I’ve got to get to the Eastfjords and I’m trying to beat the storm.”

  “D’y’know,” the Irishman said, “I’m about done with Reykjavík myself. Would you care for company on the Ring Road? I’ve got a good vehicle. Be safer in this weather if we made a convoy.”

  Ohio State looked at the girl with the bracelets. “Actually, we were thinking of leaving ourselves. What good is coming all the way to Iceland if we never leave Reykjavík?”

  Peter wasn’t going to endanger anyone else. Plus he didn’t want to have to explain himself. “Sorry, I’ve got to meet somebody. I’m already packed.”

  The Irishman nodded. “See you down the road, then.” But he wasn’t done. “Listen, boyo, we don’t know each other well enough for me to be giving you advice, but I’ll give it anyway.” He tipped a knuckle at Peter’s swollen eye. “Yeh might want to get some antibiotics on that. Don’t want to get yourself an infection, right?”

  The first flakes of snow hit Peter’s windshield as he pulled onto the highway out of town.

  25

  TWELVE MONTHS EARLIER

  It’s after three in the morning when Erik spoons coffee into the filter, turns on the machine, and waits for the familiar gurgle. Their third pot since midnight, and Erik’s mouth tastes like he’s been chewing one of Óskar’s stinky socks.

  Sarah sits at the dining room table with her laptop, her fingers flying across the keyboard like a concert pianist’s. She is finalizing the configuration of a mirror server at a cloud farm in Iceland. They both know that the physical location of the hardware is irrelevant, yet even Erik is comforted by the connection, however tenuous, to his family.

  The mirror server will be a secret, remote, real-time copy of the Prince’s server, including the hidden drive, with all the data intact. The mirror server will also track all changes across the original system, and keep a copy of all files. Even hidden, deleted files.

  The mirror server will be invisible, Sarah swears.

  Erik is still unsure whether they’re doing the right thing.

  He slides Sarah’s second laptop toward him. It, too, is invisible, untraceable, layered with multiple security protocols. The drive icon stares at him from the screen. He clicks it.

  A row of folders appears. They are named GOVERNMENT, INDUSTRY, OPERATIONS, and PROJECT.

  * * *

  —

  When Erik moved to Washington, he was appalled that the area had no decent local football team—in fact, they didn’t even call it football. So Erik decided to follow the most prominent D.C. sport. With the passion of a convert, he’s been hooked on the drama of American politics ever since.

  So when Erik opens the GOVERNMENT folder and finds a long row of video files, he recognizes most of the names.

  The files are in chronological order. He clicks on the newest.

  It’s a wide-angle video of a doughy man standing in a hotel room. Gingerly, he picks up a leather overnight bag and upends it over the bed. Bundles of banknotes tumble out. He looks in the direction of the lens, annoyed. “What do I look like, a city councilman? You want your issue to come up before my committee, I need to see six figures. And put it in a numbered account like a professional.” He sha
kes his head and pushes past the camera. “We’re done here.”

  The man is a prominent member of the House of Representatives. He is a senior member of the Committee on Armed Services.

  * * *

  —

  Erik goes back to the INDUSTRY folder and looks at the files. He knows these names, too. Defense contractors, tech companies, financial firms. Again, the files are in chronological order. The newest file shares a name with an international oil company. Erik clicks on the file.

  Two men in crisp summer suits and cowboy hats sit at a long wooden conference table. The view is from the tabletop, so Erik thinks the camera must be in a pen or coffee cup or something. Whoever is pointing it does a pretty good job of capturing faces. One man is midforties and thick through the neck and chest. The other is at least seventy, lean, and leathery.

  The younger man says, “You’re our damn consultant. Why can’t you move the needle on this?”

  A cool baritone answers. Erik recognizes the voice, one of the Prince’s underlings. “We’ve taken steps, as we’ve discussed, but despite the efforts of our influencers, Congress as a whole remains understandably reluctant to get involved. We need more voices. We won’t see organic support until public opinion changes.”

  The men in cowboy hats glance at each other. The older man raises his eyebrows. The younger one speaks. “What’ll it take to do that?”

  “Anything that will provide fodder for public hearings,” says the underling. “Actionable intelligence on WMDs would do the trick. Risk to American lives, threats or damage to American holdings. Some kind of major provocation.”

  “The refineries have already been nationalized,” says the younger man in the cowboy hat. “How about the embassy? Or a tanker? Bombs seem to get the public’s attention.”

  “I’m a consultant.” The underling’s baritone cools further. “Explosives are outside my area.”