I thought she’d missed, but then, abruptly, the helicopter lost its composure and started swinging ominously like a drunken bee. For a moment, it looked like it was going to crash on top of us, and we ran for our lives, but the pilot made a miraculous recovery. Not for long though – the machine crashed 75 meters from the Black Pearl, exploding into a blinding fireball. The noise was ear-splitting and I put my arm around Eva, holding her firmly. She’d saved my life for the third time. We stood holding each other, watching the fire until it was almost extinct. All that was left was a flaming hot black carcass slowly sinking through the melting ice.
63
The silence returned and so did the agony in my foot after the distraction of the helicopter. Eva saw my face screwed up in pain.
‘Let’s check it out. Quick!’
I sat down on the yacht and she yanked off my boot. It was torture – the sock was drenched in blood.
‘You’re lucky. It’s gone through the foot.’
‘Lucky?’
‘It could have stayed in.’
She took out a first aid box from a storage compartment and disinfected the wound methodically.
‘Easy!’
‘Pain won’t kill you. It’s a sign of life.’
I didn’t know there were stoics in Scandinavia, but maybe Boeck’s Rudbeck had a point after all. Maybe there was something Greek about the Swedes. Tying a compress around my foot, she looked up and smiled as I watched her work in concentration. I had to ask her.
‘Think we’ll get out of this alive?’
‘Thinking won’t get us anywhere.’
She moved to stand up – my wound was dressed, but I held her back and looked her in the eyes.
‘Thank you.’
‘We need to keep moving.’
‘How can I th…’
‘Let’s go.’
As she pulled my hat down over my eyes, I became aware of a sound, an aggressive buzz that wouldn’t go away. It soon turned into a thundering racket and I took the hat off my eyes.
‘Shit!’
Eva looked as well.
‘Fuck! Told you they wouldn’t be far.’
250 meters behind us were two fast-approaching snowmobiles. And a motorbike, another Swedish icon: the Husqvarna speedway machine with the spiked tyres. 210… 180… My foot started pounding again. Back to reality, a reality that was only 150 meters from catching us.
64
Eva sprang into action and ran next to the yacht, shoving it into the wind, sprinting like a bobsleigh rider. Sitting in the cockpit, I felt inappropriate, useless. I was.
‘Starboard!’
I hesitated and guessed left.
‘Right!!’
She jumped back into the ice yacht. The snowmobiles and the motorbike were onto us, with bullets whizzing left and right. It looked like we’d finally run out of luck. The ice yacht was accelerating, but the snowmobiles were still catching up. We lay down in the yacht to form as small a target as possible.
‘Why don’t you shoot!?’
I had to shout to make myself heard.
‘You steer. Don’t let the sail slack!’
The pursuers were only 50 metres behind when Eva loaded the rifle. She waited for them to close in even more. I was nervous, but the steering kept me busy. The ice yacht was going fast, probably around 100 km/h, but snowmobiles could go up to 120 km/h and the Husqvarna speedway bike even faster. We needed to generate more speed and I tried to optimise the sail but couldn’t squeeze much more out of it. We were already going flat out.
Eva took out the first snowmobile driver with sniper-like precision. I was glad I wasn’t in her bad books – Mariehamn cops clearly weren’t to be messed with. This was definitely a woman with sisu. The engines of the remaining snowmobile and motorbike made an unbearable racket as they reconfigured, splitting up and attacking the Black Pearl from left and right simultaneously. Eva pulled me down. I looked at her.
‘Shoot!’
‘You take it. We’re losing speed.’
She handed me the rifle and took over the steering.
‘I can’t shoot.’
Another bullet hit the Black Pearl – another ventilation hole. Terrified, I grabbed the rifle and shot like a madman. I was out of control, but Eva gave step by step instructions to calm me down.
‘Take your time. Put the rifle against your shoulder. Aim. Breathe out, take a deep breath. Hold it. And squeeze.’
I did, but the recoil surprised me. When I tried again, I hit the biker in the arm and he dropped his gun.
‘Yes!’
‘FAAAAaaack!’
‘You OK?’
She was hurt and wrenched the ice yacht round, making it come to a halt. Suddenly they were in front of us. In a rage, she snatched the rifle from me and aimed at the snowmobile driver. She hit him dead in the head and then turned to aim at the disarmed biker. Seeing the rifle pointed at him, he made a U-turn. Eva immediately dropped the rifle and held her gut. This was bad. I had to have her examined.
‘We have to go back.’
‘There’s only one way – forward.’
‘You’re bleeding.’
‘Do they care?’
She nodded at the dead snowmobile driver on the ice.
‘You want to live?!’
‘There must be somewhere on Åland…’
‘We’ve been through this. There’s no turning back. Åland’s too small. They won’t give up until we’re dead.’
I took the first aid box and pulled up her clothes. Her stomach was a mess. She was badly wounded and the bullet was still inside her.
‘We need to get you to a hospital.’
‘Get a move on then!’
I was bandaging the wound, when another shot rung through the air. The Husqvarna had returned accompanied by another snowmobile – Boeck with a machine gun. The bullets were whizzing past again.
65
The Black Pearl raced off as I pulled up into the wind. Eva was sitting between my legs and I could feel her tightening up. She wouldn’t say it, but I could see that the pain in her stomach was excruciating. She couldn’t protect us any longer. I had to do it on my own now and when I looked back, the snowmobiles were approaching again. The odds were stacking up against us. I was frantic with fear and I didn’t want to die.
‘If we can get to the snow…’
I saw what she meant – a snow storm was raging a few hundred meters on. Everything was so white that I hadn’t noticed it at first, but Eva was right, it could be our chance. If only we could reach the storm, we might be able to lose the snowmobiles and become invisible to Boeck and his men.
In a superhuman effort, Eva grabbed the rifle again and started shooting wildly at the pursuers. She didn’t have the strength to aim, but it might delay them catching up, buy us the time to enter the storm. When I looked back, they were still gaining and we didn’t seem to get any nearer safety. It was as if we were standing still, with the snow looking like a receding mirage. Meanwhile, the snowmobiles moved at the speed of light. I was terrified. Eva was taking deep breaths to contain her pain as I looked at her. I felt guilty.
‘Sorry I got you into this…’
‘Shut up and get us into that bloody blizzard!’
A surge of bullets tore another hole in the sail and made the yacht slow down. Boeck was only 50 metres behind now, so near that I could distinguish the determination behind his ski mask. He kept shooting until the bullets nearly cut the mast in two. When I looked ahead again, I felt the first snow crystals on my face. We were going to make it.
‘Keep going!!’
Without realising, I’d relaxed and slowed down. We were still visible and another bullet hit the mast. I picked up speed again, cutting into the whiteness, but I couldn’t see a thing as The Black Pearl was blanketed in white in seconds. We were one with the environment, totally absorbed. Behind us, our tracks disappeared the moment they appeared. The wind slackened and became unpredictable. We weren’t moving. I wasn�
�t sure what to do, so I pulled the sail down. As I did, the mast definitely broke in two, but I kept pushing the craft to make sure we stayed well inside the storm.
Eva was right, they could still find us if they followed the same direction, or if the storm suddenly blew away. Stopping wasn’t an option. While I pushed on, Eva was trying to cope with her pain, with every movement hurting. Where were we? The snow whirling and the wind blowing in all directions didn’t give any clues. I could barely distinguish the front of the yacht, although it was only a few meters ahead of me. Seeing my state of confusion, Eva managed to tell me to keep going west.
‘West? Where’s that?’
I looked at the compass. It had a crack and was dead – hit by a bullet.
‘The wind… The wind…’
I couldn’t stand seeing a force of nature like Eva in this condition. She was the last person I could imagine as a victim. Her critical state made her even more focused than usual and she certainly had no energy to waste on sentimental self-pity.
‘Look at the ice.’
I pulled myself together and looked, but the ice floor was covered with snow. Eva tried to be as clear as possible, taking deep breaths between words, but she was still struggling to finish her sentences.
‘The Baltic winds are mostly easterly… They shape the… ice… On warmer days… the wind blows across…and creates miniature, wave-like formations…end…ing with a little… ridge. … westerly.’
I wasn’t convinced, but knelt on the ice, sweeping the snow away with my hands. What was she talking about?
‘I can’t see a thing. It’s flat as a pancake.’
‘Look, feel. Don’t think! Be one with the ice.’
I wasn’t sure about being one with the ice, but I took my glove off and felt the ice and she was right, it wasn’t totally smooth. There were microscopic ridges. I put the glove on the ice and rested my cheek on it to get as close as possible. There was no visible order and the ridges were all over the place, with the whirling snow flakes from the storm constantly interfering with my observation. I was about to give up, when I looked at Eva. She was a white, lifeless shape on a snow-covered ice yacht. The Black Pearl was white, everything was white – one big whiteness. I had to hang on if I wanted to see Carrie again. I did. I really did. Our life together had barely started. Besides, Eva’s life was in my hands and I owed it to her to keep going. I would never forgive myself if I didn’t give everything I could to save her. I took off the glove again and felt with my hand, trying to tune into the ice.
66
He’d been excited at the idea of reading history at Uppsala University, but once he started his illusions had soon been shattered. Traditionally, history was a nationalist pursuit supposed to strengthen a nation.
The only thing Boeck learnt in Uppsala was that today’s Swedish historians were hell-bent on destroying the slightest hint of national pride. His passion for Sweden’s historical greatness was dismissed as naive and un-academic, while his patriotism was labelled as reactionary and symptomatic of a Swedish Finn.
His Swedishness had already been rejected in Helsinki and now the Swedes were dismissing him as stereotypically Finnish. He was labelled as neither nor, whereas he saw both as part of the same history – they were one. Finland belonged to Sweden. If it hadn’t been for some cowardly Swedish officers and a useless King, Åland and Finland would never have been lost in 1809. Helsinki lost its guide – Sweden, while Stockholm strayed and has neglected its greatness ever since. A strong nation has to harness collective memory through rituals, customs and historiography. Boeck didn’t understand how tax payers’ money could be used to pay academics to pull apart centuries of Swedish culture. History was about making the nation coherent, not about deconstructing it according to so-called post-colonial or multicultural theories and other neo-Marxist propaganda. In spite of the disappointment, Boeck stuck to historical studies, more determined than ever in his resolve for revenge. This went beyond the personal. It was a matter of national interest.
67
Eventually, I thought I could distinguish a pattern. The ridges went in different directions, but not in all four. The missing direction must be east, because Eva had said that the wind generally came from the east – from St. Petersburg, so west must be in the opposite direction. Looking at the ice, I wasn’t sure I’d really seen it or if it was wishful thinking. I looked again and it was true. It must be true. It had to be. I tried to estimate the average orientation of the ridges, which should give me a westerly direction, but I didn’t know how to keep it. I would have to trust my mental navigation skills. They’d never been my strength, but they were our only rescue now, as we had no A to Z for finding the way out of this Baltic blizzard.
68
Lying in the yacht, Eva forced a smile when I gave her a hot drink from the thermos. Coming from her, it was a sign of resignation, a definite sign that her polar clothes had lost their function. The cold had free reign and it wouldn’t be long before she was deep-frozen. I had to find help.
Before pushing on with the yacht, I checked the direction by reading the ice again. It was difficult and I double and triple-checked. When I thought I’d found the west, I immediately started moving. We couldn’t be far from the outer islands of the Swedish archipelago. If we’d gone in the right direction...
The wind was too erratic for sailing, so I had to take turns pushing and pulling the ice yacht. When I pushed, it kept getting stuck on snowdrifts, but pulling was even harder. There was no easy way. The storm was louder than a Pink Floyd concert, like standing under a revving Boeing 747. I considered leaving the yacht, but how else could I transport Eva? She’d dozed off again and I kept struggling through the storm, making regular stops to check the ice. I don’t know how long this went on. I lost track of time as I walked and walked in a semi-conscious trance. It took long enough for the pain in my injured foot to return. We were still surrounded by whiteness and I didn’t know where we were. In fact, no one knew and no one would look for us, or no friends at least. Only foes.
Eva was buried in snow and I was dragging a pile of snow through a snow storm. She was a ghost, her presence only suggested by what was left of the mast. The only reality was tactile, aural and temperature-related. I was blind and invisible at the same time – a white man in the snow.
After what have must have been three or four hours, I spotted a break in the clouds. The flash of blue sky gave me renewed energy and I pushed on faster, but it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared and didn’t reappear until what felt like an hour, possibly two. It was impossible to tell. But this time it was larger and I started running. I don’t know why, because being lost with or without a blue sky didn’t make any difference. Maybe it was because I’d rather be lost in visible surroundings. It was concrete, as opposed to the abstract condition created by the blizzard. It was about having something to hold on to. I ran as fast as I could.
69
It was the last thing I’d expected, especially as I’d completely forgotten that I was walking on ice. It had been unbroken and solid for so long that I walked straight into the ferry channel with my eyes firmly set on the blue sky. The yacht slid into the water behind me. I panicked at first, but it seemed to be floating and I managed to climb back in. I knew that it was built for short crossings in calm waters, but also that it had been generously peppered with holes by Boeck and his men.
I was soaked, freezing, but there was no time to lose and I paddled as best I could with the rifle. It was all I had, and we hardly moved as the yacht filled with water seeping in through the holes. We were sinking and Boeck wouldn’t be there to resuscitate us this time. I was born in the Baltic. I’d been a Baltic baby and the Baltic was reclaiming me, trying to keep me at ‘home’. Over my dead body.
70
The ice yacht definitely wasn’t going to get us across. It was taking in too much water and I had to pull Eva into the freezing water to cross the ferry channel before we sank. This was insane. She wa
s verging on hypothermia and I had to expose her to ice-cold water, but abandoning her wasn’t an option. Our destinies had been locked since the moment she’d saved my life the first time and I was committed to going all the way. I needed something to drag Eva once we made it to the ice on the other side. The only thing I could think of was the sail. I rolled it into a tight bundle and attached it to the life line. I put the bundle between Eva’s legs, something to hang on to – like a drag lift. When I pulled her into the water with me the shock made her come to.
‘HEY! What the…’
‘We’re sinking. We have to swim.’
Her only reply was a faint moan. Holding her under her arms, I half swam, half dragged her the 50 metres across the channel. I don’t know how we did it, but this certainly made up for my 20 lost years of winter swimming. I had to work out how to get her out of the water. She had ice prods round her neck and I had a rope. When we reached the ice on the other side of the channel, she had to help because I’d never be able to lift her onto it on my own.
‘Can you cling to my back?’
She grunted while I took her ice prods and used them to carefully climb onto the ice, but she was too weak to hold on and slipped down, with the ice breaking in the process. We were too heavy, so I changed strategy, tying the lifeline around her body and under her arms and climbing up on my own holding the other end of the line. With less weight, I was more likely to make it to stronger ice. Meanwhile, Eva had to try to keep afloat. Once up, I started pulling at the lifeline, but just as she reached the critical moment when I started pulling her out of the water, I lost my grip on the ice and slipped. She fell back into the water.
I ended up tying the lifeline round my waist and using the ice prods to continue ‘climbing’ on the ice until I had pulled her up completely. When I finally managed to drag Eva out she must have been in the water for over half an hour. I’d heard about skaters surviving after 40 minutes, but Eva had already been frozen when she went in. I kept telling myself that she was fit and not too skinny, which must give her a chance. She had to survive.
The Ice Cage — A Scandinavian Crime Thriller set in the Nordic Winter (The Baltic Trilogy) Page 15