Daybreak

by Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson

  Dóra tried to remember the situation in the changing room.

  So that’s how it was. The woman with the hair dryer had been doing Tómas’s dirty work. Dóra wrinkled her nose. You could get people to do anything if you had the right connections.

  “It’s just typical for me to end up in shit like this,” Dóra said aloud as she examined the photos. There wasn’t really anything to criticize apart from her short legs. Other than that, she was slim and graceful. Pretty good abs, too.

  Dóra was not prudish about her own body, but she certainly didn’t want these pictures to be distributed among her colleagues. There was already enough distracting them from their work. She considered how to respond. What a piece of work the guy was, trying to coerce her into sex like this.

  After a short deliberation, she looked up the police group e-mail list and composed an e-mail with the subject line Virus warning! READ IMMEDIATELY and the text: Warning: Mail from jestertoyou@yahoo.com contains a dangerous computer virus that will wipe all data on the hard drive if opened. Delete the mail immediately without opening it. If there was anything that her colleagues in the force were frightened of, it was computer viruses. Most of them had half-finished reports somewhere on the network, and the backup system was not infallible. As long as Tómas used the jestertoyou address, it was almost certain all his e-mails would be destroyed. If not—well, que sera, sera.

  Lastly, Dóra replied to Tómas’s e-mail: Coming as soon as I can. Put the white wine on ice.

  She hoped this would keep the asshole awake well into the night. She could do no more for the time being, but tomorrow she would have a quiet word with Gunnar. He had ways of sorting out difficult situations.

  She turned off the computer and her cell before crawling into the comfort of her bed. She fell asleep the moment her eyes closed.

  THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28

  00:10

  Birkir knocked on the door of the lodge and walked in. “Hello,” he shouted. “Jóhann, are you there?” The hallway was dark, and he hesitated before going farther.

  “Hello,” he repeated. “Is anybody here?”

  “Come on in,” he heard Jóhann call from inside a dimly lit room.

  Birkir entered and tried to work out the layout of the place. In the center of the room, which was otherwise bare, stood a small table flanked by two chairs. In the feeble glimmer of the light bulb that hung over the table, Birkir could see a solitary white plate with what appeared to be a small pebble on it. He walked over to take a closer look, and felt a jolt as he met the uncanny, almost human, stare of a glass eye. Suddenly all the lights in the room came on and it was so dazzling that Birkir had to close his eyes momentarily. Then he looked up warily.

  “Welcome to the game,” he heard a voice say behind him. He spun around and saw it was Jóhann dressed in dark camouflage pants and a green sweater, his face painted in full camouflage. He wore a dark-green patch over his left eye socket. Then there was the shotgun he was holding.

  “Welcome to the game,” he repeated, and then he switched off the lights so Birkir saw nothing but darkness.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You are now a player in Shotgun. That is to say, an active player. Until now you have been merely a pawn. But now you will have a major role.”

  “Are you feeling okay?”

  “I’ve never been better,” Jóhann said. “Sit down.”

  He emerged from the shadows and pointed at the chair with his weapon.

  Birkir did as he was told.

  “Put your cell on the floor,” Jóhann said, “and push it away from you. Hard.”

  Birkir took his cell from the pocket of his parka and slid it across the floor. A shot rang out and the phone, still moving, disintegrated. Swift as lightning Jóhann pumped a fresh round into the barrel and the spent shell flew out onto the floor.

  “That was just to make it clear that the gun is loaded and that I still know how to shoot,” Jóhann said. He moved closer until he was standing directly across from Birkir, with only the table between them.

  “Take your parka off,” he said. “Otherwise you’ll get too hot.”

  Birkir took off his parka and laid it on the table.

  Jóhann picked it up and searched the pockets. “I know you’re not usually armed,” he said. “But I’m taking no risks. Stand up and pat all your pockets.”

  Birkir obeyed.

  “Unbutton your jacket and open it.”

  Birkir did as he was told.

  “Put your feet up on the chair and show me your calves.”

  Birkir put his right foot on the chair and pulled his pant leg up. Then he did the same with the other leg.

  “Thanks. As I expected. Now I will explain the game to you. First I have to tell you what’s already happened. You do know some of it, of course, but not everything. And none of the most important things. Aren’t you excited?”

  Birkir shrugged nervously. He was, basically, too shocked to be able to speak. He didn’t trust himself and preferred to be silent rather than reply with a tremble in his voice. That would not be good as things stood now.

  “Sit down,” Jóhann said, and he sat in the chair opposite Birkir. “I can tell you everything now—it doesn’t matter, since only one of us will survive this night. If I win the game, you will die, and everything you’re about to hear will die with you—disappear, vanish into thin air. If, on the other hand, you win—and rest assured you will get your opportunity—I will die and the game will be over. Then it will be really important for you to explain the game to others, because it’s an amazing game. It’s meticulously designed. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” Birkir nodded. When he was sure that his voice wouldn’t let him down, he asked, “Is Hjördís here?”

  Jóhann grinned. “Yeah, she came earlier.”

  “Is she all right?”

  Jóhann laughed. “No. She’s rather miserable.”

  “Is she hurt?”

  “No. Just a bit confused. Maybe airsick.”

  “Where is she?”

  Jóhann pointed out the window with his gun. “Can you see the big ski lift out there? The one with the gondolas?”

  “Yes.” Birkir nodded.

  “She’s in the gondola that’s hanging between the two top towers.”

  “Did you send her up there?”

  “Yeah, I worked on a ski lift in Italy once. I know how to operate this stuff.”

  “She’ll freeze to death.”

  “Maybe.”

  “This is evil.”

  “She’s got warm gear on. If she managed to come up here on the motorcycle in this cold, she can swing in a closed cable car for a few hours. Meantime, she’ll leave us in peace.”

  “What about your buddy, the ski lodge attendant?”

  “You are so incredibly naive. There never was a buddy. I have the key to this place because the company I work for looks after the security. Nobody’s coming here tonight. I just had to con you into coming. To join the game. Get it?”

  Birkir shook his head. “Why are you doing this?”

  Jóhann smiled. “That’s exactly what I’m going to tell you now. Explain everything.”

  “Go on, then.”

  Jóhann laughed. “This whole thing began in Spain last summer. There was some history building up to it, but on one day in particular I felt I’d reached a turning point. That day was when the game was first truly created. You see, Leifur and I were sunbathing on the beach and we were watching Hjördís in the sea—topless, of course. She was by far the best-looking chick around, as usual. You know, tall and fit. Incredibly muscular, well defined. Great breasts, full and pert. Deeply tanned with blonde hair, twinkling blue eyes, gleaming white teeth, and a smile that was always so seductive. Every guy on the beach was watching her and her only, but she didn’t even seem to notice. Honestly, I think every guy there could hardly contain himself. It was true of us, too. The whole thing was beginning to become unbearable for me and Leifur. Hjördís ha
d, for a long time, been the only real woman for both of us, but she always said she loved each of us too much to choose one over the other. We tried many times to push her into choosing, but it was obvious she found the situation uncomfortable, and she began to distance herself from us. Then we eased up and stopped talking about any kind of relationship or attraction, and she came back to us. At any rate, she decided to visit Spain with us. But the agonies my friend and I suffered didn’t stop.”

  He grinned, took his right hand from the gun, and rubbed his crotch provocatively.

  “We were lying there on the beach, devouring her with our eyes, the two of us. We were both thinking the same thing, but Leifur was the first to say that he couldn’t bear the thought of any other guy besides himself being with Hjördís. Not me, not anybody else. I said I felt exactly the same, and that’s how our idea came into being. We talked about whether we should compete for her in some way; it seemed right that whichever of us lost would have to disappear—move abroad or something—and let the other have a clear run at her. We were totally confident that one of us would get her if the other were out of the picture. She hadn’t shown interest in anybody else the entire time we’d known her. We were her best friends.”

  Jóhann’s voice cracked as he uttered these last words. He looked out the window and contemplated the silhouette of the ski lift against the sky. It was as if he was mourning something that had been important to him. When he continued, his voice was quieter and the words came slowly. “We discussed all the different kinds of challenges we could undertake—shooting, aerobics, swimming, running, or a combination of them all. The conclusion was always the same. Neither of us could even contemplate losing and having to endure Hjördís being in a relationship with the other, living with him, marrying, even having children. And then this amazing idea came up. I don’t know which one of us said it first, but we’d probably both begun to think the same thing before one of us mentioned it. At any rate, we both jumped at the idea simultaneously. We were going to fight a duel to the death. There was to be no compromise. The solution was simple and absolute. Only one of us would remain.”

  With this last sentence, Jóhann leaned forward and banged both fists on the table. Then he paused, watching for Birkir’s reaction. But Birkir remained inscrutable, and Jóhann resumed his story.

  “We began to plan the thing, and it was fantastic. We devised absolutely watertight rules—we each had exactly the same chance, and the one who lost would be out of the game completely. He’d be dead. We were going to make it look like suicide so that there would definitely not be any trouble for the one that survived. We called the game Shotgun.”

  “What about the rape?” Birkir suddenly asked. “How on earth were you going to get Hjördís to accept you after that brutality?”

  Jóhann laughed loudly. “The rape never happened. I just made it up. It was a great story, don’t you think? It misled you all and, of course, tormented Hjördís. I directed your attention to her to make her sweat a bit. She deserved it after treating us, her best friends, like idiots for so long. Saying she loved us both and then turning out to be a cheap dyke. One of us ended up dead as a result of that deception. Maybe I’ll let her have a go at the game after you’ve finished your round.”

  “But what about the postcard you said Hjördís had written, and the suicide note?”

  “She never wrote any postcards. Leifur himself wrote to his mom once. But we joked one time that whoever lost at bowling should write ten cards for each of the others. Hjördís lost, but no cards were ever written.”

  “What about the patches from the parkas?”

  “I’d warmed you up good, and then this report about her appeared in the paper. I knew you’d move in on her then.”

  “Was it you who told the journalist about Hjördís?”

  “No, but that’s not important. I put the patches in an unmarked envelope and snuck it in her mailbox this morning. I assumed you’d be searching her home and would find them. Either inside her apartment or in the garbage. Which was it?”

  “In the garbage,” Birkir said. “So you shot those guys?”

  “Yeah, but we’ll come to that later.”

  “What about the riddles?”

  “They were just a kind of interlude to confuse you some more. I’d already sent you the pieces of camo and set up the Hotmail account when I heard you’d stopped by the security company office last Sunday and asked about me. I wanted to distract you from thinking about me for a few days, and it was so fucking hilarious when you turned up at my place and asked about the McBain story. That was just over the top. But that game is over now. I brought my laptop up here with me, and I checked the inbox at ten o’clock. The answer to the eighth question didn’t arrive by the deadline, so the cease-fire officially ended. You will pay for it now.”

  Jóhann grinned. “But first I’m going to tell you about the Shotgun duel. Leifur and I had identical guns: three-shot pump-actions. They were to be our weapons in the game and all the ammo was exactly the same—just ordinary goose shot. There was nothing suspicious about buying a few packs of those. If we’d bought bigger shot, then someone would have started to wonder what sort of hunting trip we were planning. Dimmuborgir, near Lake Mývatn, was the playground, and the game was to take place in the middle of the night.”

  Jóhann paused his story and blinked his good eye several times; then he lifted the patch from the empty eye socket and tilted his head to one side. Birkir saw that clear liquid trickled from the hole. Jóhann immediately brandished his gun menacingly—which was unnecessary, because Birkir sat there as if paralyzed. Jóhann straightened himself again, repositioned the eye patch, and then gave a big smile and continued as if nothing had happened.

  “The date was fixed for last fall, October first—or rather the night before October second. We drew lots to determine which of us would leave Akureyri to put distance between us during the last weeks before the duel. We thought that would make the story about the suicide more credible. I lost the draw and left for Reykjavik at the beginning of September. I pretended to be looking for work, but I spent all my time practicing shooting. I was pretty good at hitting clay pigeons and live birds, but I knew this would be utterly different. I found good training grounds in some of the lava fields around Reykjavik. I would go at night and set up various targets, and practice shooting in the dark, running around and climbing on the lava, shooting as I moved. And I ordered a very dark camouflage outfit for our nighttime battle. You can get them in America.”

  He stood up and showed off his pants to Birkir like a proud little boy. “See? They’re invisible in the dark. Unfortunately, the parka got messed up,” he explained. “The night before October first, I headed north according to plan. I had a very good SUV, and drove north across the central desert on the Sprengisandur route. There was very little snow and the road was still reasonably passable—the only problem was that since the conditions were below freezing, the route was iced over, making it impossible to drive fast.”

  Jóhann stroked the top of the table with his index finger. Then he looked at Birkir as if expecting a question. Birkir remained silent, however, and eventually Jóhann continued. “Late that morning I found a mountain refuge hut, where I rested most of the day. When I woke up, I continued on my way up to Bárdardalur and then headed east toward Mývatn. I refueled at the Reykjahlíd gas station and had a bite to eat. Then I drove up the east side of Jökulsá River to Dettifoss, where Leifur and I met up in the parking lot at six o’clock in the evening, exactly as planned. We were totally alone there; there are never any tourists around at that time of year. Nobody was going to disturb us. We went over the plan once again and agreed on everything. We left my SUV there and took Leifur’s car over to Mývatn. On our way we made a small detour onto the western Dettifoss road, where we dug a hole big and deep enough to take a body. One of us would stop by there after the game was over, and it was a slightly weird feeling to stand there, by that grave. Leifur had brought som
e plastic bags, tape, and a spade in his car, so that the survivor would have no problem with the burial.”

  Jóhann paused a long time, staring despondently into space.

  Finally he seemed to come around, and asked, “Where was I?”

  “You dug the grave,” Birkir replied.

  “Yeah, we did,” Jóhann said. “And after that we made for Dimmuborgir. At that point, I remember, it was getting dark. We’d brought a picnic and we had a good meal. We were both in a great mood and were shaking with excitement. We were already on an adrenaline rush. We had our suicide letters ready—we’d drafted them in advance and each of us had handwritten his own copy. The one who survived was to take the other’s body, dump it in the hole, and shovel some earth over it. He was then to drive to the parking lot at Dettifoss and leave the dead man’s car there with the letter on the front seat. Everything was preplanned. It was set up to look as if the loser had jumped over the falls. It’s happened before and the bodies are hardly ever found. It was a foolproof plan.”

  “Why couldn’t you throw the body into the falls?” Birkir asked.

  “We couldn’t exclude the possibility that it might be found in the river. A gunshot wound would have raised suspicion,” Jóhann replied. He looked at Birkir as if expecting some sort of acknowledgment, but Birkir merely stared back, expressionless. He didn’t want to show any reaction, but when the silence became uncomfortable he finally nodded.

  Jóhann continued. “We waited until two in the morning. Nobody lives near Dimmuborgir, but we wanted to be sure there’d be no interruption. I was wearing my new camouflage outfit but Leifur was in his old one, which is lighter in color. So I already had a bit of an advantage. We helped each other to paint our faces in dark camouflage colors, even the lips. Now we were ready to start. After a short ways, the footpath from the parking lot splits in two to go in a circular route around the whole area. There are two or three different circles signposted, in fact. Have you ever been there?”