Daybreak

by Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson

  “Did you follow him through the Hvalfjördur tunnel?” Birkir suddenly asked.

  “Actually, no,” Jóhann replied. “The guy stopped at a turnout just before the tunnel, probably to take a phone call. I didn’t see it until I was right on top of him, so I couldn’t hang back. I just went ahead of him and parked off the road farther on, beyond the tunnel.”

  “Ah,” said Birkir, biting his lip. He was thinking about the surveillance cameras. Nobody had thought of checking the cars that had gone before Ólafur, only the ones that went after. A bit more thought, and they might have solved the case then.

  Jóhann looked intently at Birkir. “I held back as we continued north, to increase the distance between us. I’m not familiar with the countryside around there, but I knew the highway well because I’ve driven between Akureyri and Reykjavik so often. I guessed he’d make for Borgarfjördur. The next time I saw him he was crossing the bridge over the fjord, and I turned off my lights like before. He didn’t seem to have realized anyone was following him, because he continued driving at exactly the same speed. He was probably on cruise control. I thought I’d lost him when he turned west toward Dalasýsla, but then I saw his headlights up on the ascent and went after him. By then I couldn’t play hide-and-seek anymore—I had to stay close to him to see where he was going. It didn’t seem to bother him that I was following about three hundred meters behind, and we carried on like this for twenty or thirty kilometers. Then he turned off the highway and headed along this gravel road. I made sure he was completely out of sight before I turned as well. I turned off my lights and drove a few hundred meters until I found a place where I could come off the road and leave the car.

  “I got my gun ready and strapped on a belt holding goose shot. We’d be on equal footing when the battle began. I’d dressed in my new camouflage gear and painted my face before leaving home. I took off walking, and before long found his abandoned SUV. But the hunter was nowhere to be seen. I crept along the track until I caught sight of the decoys in a potato patch below an old ruined wall. I realized he had to be hidden behind the wall. I got nearer and saw I had a choice of hiding places—a ditch between the ruin and the track, or, a little farther up the hillside, in a group of large boulders within range of the ruin. It was still too dark to see the guy, but I knew exactly where he was. I just had to get him going and offer him some serious hunting. I took plenty of time checking the lay of the land and planning my attack. I could leave nothing to chance.

  “I was just about to get back down into the ditch when the first flight of geese arrived. They shied off, of course, because I was so conspicuous on the edge of the ditch. I got my first glimpse of him when he peered over the wall to see what had startled the birds. I took aim at one of his decoys and fired. I knocked it over, even at a range of sixty meters. Then the guy began to shout, so I fired a shot into the ground in front of him. He ducked straight back behind the wall, but soon after he stuck the barrel of his gun up in the air with his cap on the end of it. He was obviously testing the waters, and I clarified the situation by shooting at the cap.

  “Then the goddamn dog appeared. I hadn’t expected him to have a dog with him, and it scared the hell out of me when this black thing came running at me. I didn’t want to do it but I had no choice—I had to shoot the animal. The good news was, though, that now my opponent knew exactly what the game was about. This was a shootout, man to man.

  “A short while later he fired the emergency flares, though, and I had to change my plan. Maybe somebody would see the flares and come to check what was going on. Time had become an issue. So I ran uphill from the ruin and shot at the guy from there to force him to shift his position. The range wasn’t close so I didn’t really wound him, but I did get him going, and he began to shoot back. That was when I felt the same special feeling I’d had when Leifur and I were fighting. The thrill of the chase. Adrenaline flooded through me and all my senses were on high alert. I moved back to the ditch so the guy was just about within range again; we exchanged fire, but I still needed to get closer. Then the unexpected happened. I’d crouched down to reload, and suddenly shot rattled against my back and the back of my head. It penetrated my gear and lashed my skin, but nothing worse than that. Still, it was damn painful, like being flogged with a whip. My back was bleeding, too, but I didn’t know that until much later. Everything happened in that split second—the shot hailed down on me, I got up to shoot, and suddenly the guy was almost on top of me. I fired and the shot hit him in the thigh and took his leg off. He fell on his face and dropped his gun. He was finished. If he’d waited a moment longer before firing his shot I would have lost the game and my life. This guy had proven a most worthy and clever opponent, but I had outwitted him, or perhaps was just luckier—luck is important, too.

  “The aftermath was a holy moment. One shot into the head to extinguish his life, game over. Then I cut a patch from his jacket. The badge of the champion. Finally, I made my escape as quickly as possible. I took his gun with me. I’ll let you use it later; then we’ll see what you’re made of.”

  03:30

  Again Jóhann seemed to get lost in thought and forget where he was. He sat for a few minutes staring at the table. Birkir copied him. Remaining absolutely motionless but perfectly alert seemed like the best thing to do, given the situation.

  He wondered if he might get an opportunity to snatch the initiative from his opponent. But then, suddenly, it was as if Jóhann woke up. He grabbed the can of Coke and gulped down its contents; stood up and paced a circuit of the room; and finally sat down again, ready to continue his story. “I found my Friday adversary in a different way. By accident, really. It was unexpected. Pure luck, yet again. The thing is, now and then I visit Hjördís. Not in the conventional way as you’d probably call it—I visit her in spirit. When I can’t sleep, I sometimes go for a drive around town, ending up at Hjördís’s home.

  “I park outside her house and look up at her bedroom window. Sometimes the light is on, sometimes not. Sometimes the window is open, sometimes not. I think about what we would be doing if she hadn’t betrayed me. What we do depends on how I’m feeling. Sometimes we need to talk; sometimes we just sleep and then make love. That’s the best part and it’s so real. You probably think that I’m a bit cracked, that this is something unnatural. Okay, so be it. I don’t need to justify it to anybody. Nobody knows what my reality looks like.”

  Jóhann paused and looked at Birkir as if expecting a reaction. Birkir decided to remain silent, but reached out for the untouched Coke in front of him, opened the can, and took a swig.

  Jóhann continued. “When I got back to town after last Thursday’s combat, I was still totally consumed by the thrill of it. The game had been a complete success and I was ecstatic. I couldn’t stay still to save my life. I just paced around the apartment reliving the game second by second. Every single moment between me and my opponent was so clear in my memory. I knew by then that I’d injured my back, but I didn’t feel a thing, thanks to the endorphins buzzing around in my system. That night there was no way I was going to be able to get to sleep, so I went to visit Hjördís. It was one thirty when I got there, and our bedroom was dark. The window was open so there was plenty of fresh air in the room. Here I finally calmed down, and probably fell asleep in the car. I woke at four o’clock when a man came out of the house and the front door slammed shut. He was dressed in camouflage gear and had a shotgun bag. He also had some decoys in a small duffel bag. It was obvious that this was a goose hunter on his way to catch the morning flight. Suddenly I was wide-awake and rested, even though I was freezing cold. My back also hurt, but not too bad. It was, actually, almost a good feeling, because it reminded me of the fight with the previous night’s opponent. The guy loaded his stuff into a car and drove off. I drove after him, thinking everything through. All my gear from the previous day was still in the trunk—I’d stopped on the way home to take off my camouflage gear and stow it, since the back had been badly torn by the shot
that had hit me. I couldn’t let anybody see that. But there was no reason I could think of not to trail the guy and repeat the game. See what he was made of. I felt tension begin to build at the thought and I welcomed it. I didn’t need to report for work until that evening when I was scheduled for the night shift. If all went well, I could even hit the hay for a few hours in the afternoon and turn up for work fully refreshed—I don’t need much sleep. All I had to do was follow the guy and play it by ear.

  “He refueled at Ártúnshöfdi like my previous partner had done the night before. But this guy headed east. I was more laid-back in my pursuit this time, and there was a bit more traffic. I’m not familiar with the south of Iceland, apart from the Ring Road and the routes north across Kjölur and Sprengisandur. So I had to keep the guy within sight the whole way; he didn’t seem to notice at all. Somewhere east of Selfoss, he turned right. I followed, my headlights off. There was no other traffic. He drove a few kilometers, and then stopped and parked. The area looked like a good hunting spot for the morning flight; it was not long before daybreak. The nearest farm was quite a distance away, which meant peace for both of us—for him to wait for the geese, for me to initiate combat. Despite the darkness, I could track the guy with my binoculars as he walked across the meadows and placed his decoys in a corner where two ditches met. He settled himself there.

  “Now I got going. I’d put on the shredded remains of my camouflage jacket, but had no paint to cover my face. Was I maybe getting careless? I don’t know—it wasn’t really put to the test. I fired the first shot at the guy along the ditch at a range of about sixty meters. I must have hit him, because he squealed like a pig in a slaughterhouse. It wouldn’t have been a fatal wound, though, because the range was too great. He had every opportunity to get under cover and retaliate, but what a disappointment—the guy chucked his gun away, climbed up out of the ditch, and ran off screaming as if the devil himself were chasing him. He headed for the nearest house, and I had to give chase, because if he managed to raise the alarm I’d be in trouble. So I ran after him as fast as I could. My back was now painfully tender and bruised after the previous day’s injuries, and it ached like crazy when I ran, especially since I was carrying the gun. The nearest farms were, I guess, seven kilometers away, and he managed to run five kilometers before I caught up to him. By then he was completely out of breath and couldn’t go any farther. I was in better shape for running than he was. This game was not to my liking and I didn’t hang around when I got to him. I just fired two shots into his back and killed him like a wounded animal that has to be put down. I cut the patch from his parka as a hunting trophy and turned back. I was back in my car by eight o’clock and home by ten. There had been no thrill to the game this time; I was just exhausted, hurt, and sore. I went to bed and slept until I was due to start my shift.”

  Jóhann stood up. “I heard about the copycat killing in the news on Sunday. That really cracked me up. But it trashed the chance of any more shoot-outs, at least for the time being. Then you contacted me—I was thrilled about that. And after I talked to you, I got the idea for the quiz. I’ve seldom had such fun. Finally, I had the idea to pull Hjördís in and direct your attention to her. I’ll never forget when I told you that story about her writing the postcards from Spain. You put on such a poker face, but your toes were twitching with excitement. I’d heard that Leifur’s mom had given the cops a postcard from him to help them verify the suicide note. These were all clues like the ones they use in crime thrillers. And then you also took it seriously when I said I wanted to become a cop.”

  He laughed loudly. Becoming serious once more, he continued. “The plan was to have you arrest Hjördís, which would allow me to play her best friend, and be the only one who believed in her innocence. I planned to give you guys enough evidence to convict her. I imagined I would visit her in jail and show her I was the only person that cared for her. I would meet her upon her release from prison; if she wanted to be a lesbian that was fine by me, but she would have to live with me. It would be enough for me to look at her knowing that I owned her. It didn’t need to be anything sexual. But then you released her from custody in no time, and of course she called me right away to ask about the rape story. I swore it hadn’t come from me and tried to get her to believe that you cops had made it up. She didn’t want to believe me, so I asked her to come up here and talk things over. The idea was to get her here and then to send her back to town. It was meant to look as if you had met and that she had shot you. Then she would have been arrested again. But I couldn’t make it work out. She didn’t believe my explanations and she refused to leave. So I had to put her on hold. She was quite surprised when I pointed the gun at her and ordered her into a cable car. Then I started the lift and sent her up to the top. She won’t be trying to jump down, I can promise you that.”

  Jóhann went over and peered out the window. Then he crossed the room and fetched a shotgun from one corner. He placed it on the table in front of Birkir.

  “This is Ólafur’s gun. It is your weapon now. Don’t try to tell me that you don’t know how to use a gun like this. You’ll get the ammunition in a minute. Now stand up and put on your parka.”

  04:40

  The moon lit up the starry sky as Jóhann and Birkir emerged, each carrying a gun. A faint glow from northern lights flickered across the eastern sky and reflected off the frost-covered rocks on the mountain, casting a pale glimmer over the valley.

  Birkir found the shotgun remarkably heavy. Or was it just that he was suddenly feeble? He considered throwing the gun at Jóhann and running away. No, that would not save him. He wouldn’t be able to get out of range fast enough, and Jóhann would shoot him in the back. His only option was to take part in the game a bit longer.

  They walked a short distance along the road before turning off into a raggedy lava field. Birkir went ahead with Jóhann following a few meters behind, barking directions at him, “Straight on here, to the right.” They continued thusly until they had clambered a few hundred meters in over the lava—that’s when Jóhann gave Birkir the order to stop.

  He counted a few shells from his belt and put them on a lava ledge.

  “This is where the game starts,” he said. “You have a five-shot gun, and here are six rounds at your disposal. That means we’re even until you’ve used all your shells. You better use them sparingly. I’ve got plenty myself but I know I’ll only need two. One to stop you, and the other to finish the game. Don’t think you can crawl into a hole and hide. In two hours it’ll be light and then I’ll find you and kill you. And by then Hjördís will probably have frozen to death. The only hope for the both of you is that you play the game and win it. Which is, actually, extremely unlikely. I know you’re a good long-distance runner, but don’t try to run away. Your shoes aren’t good enough for running in conditions like these, and I’m sure my reaction time is quicker than yours. Don’t even try it. This is your one opportunity. Make use of it. Now, turn around and count to a hundred. Yes, like the kids do when they’re playing hide-and-seek. Then you can load your weapon. After that the game starts. Understood?”

  “Yes.” Birkir nodded.

  “And you’re ready for the game?”

  “Yes, I’m ready.”

  Jóhann smiled approvingly.

  “I salute you, opponent. Let the better man win here tonight. Start counting.”

  Birkir turned to the north. “One, two, three…” As he calmly counted, he focused on how to respond once the count was finished.

  “…ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred.”

  He turned and saw he was alone. He walked coolly toward the shells and picked them up. He opened the chamber and loaded it with three shots, and then raised the weapon. One more time, he went over his situation in his mind, and then fired one shot into the air. He counted, “One, two, three, four,” and then fired again. Again he counted to four, and fired a third shot. Then a pause while he reloaded the gun with the three remaining rounds. Onc
e more he pointed the weapon into the air. Three more shots split the stillness of the night, one after the other, exactly as before.

  05:10

  Birkir stood motionless in the spot where Jóhann had left the ammunition for him. He breathed deeply and waited for what was to come. The barrel of the shotgun rested against his shoulder, and his right hand clutched the butt tightly, index finger on the trigger. He looked up at the clear sky and gazed at the stars. A long time ago he had known the names of some of the constellations and been able to recognize them, but now they were all one to him. Little dots, some brighter than others, each a sun in another system. And then there was that infinity that nobody understood; the dimensions that nobody had yet discovered. Birkir was almost hypnotized by this vision and he did not look around, not even when he heard Jóhann call out, “Coward! So that’s how you are going to play the game? You can be sure that nobody heard you and nobody will come to your aid. But now the game changes. You’ve used up your chances. Now I’m going to have fun and see how many magnum shells one can fire into a human body before the guy snuffs it. This could be an interesting experiment.”

  “I’ll have to try to deal with that,” Birkir said and turned toward Jóhann, who was approaching in the dusk, step by step.

  “I see the clown still has guts,” said Jóhann, stopping at a distance of forty meters.

  “God help us both,” Birkir said quietly, swinging the shotgun off his shoulder. The moment the barrel pointed at Jóhann, he fired, at the same time throwing himself down into the moss. Jóhann turned his back as the shot hailed over him, and staggered three steps back without falling. He doubled over, and then slowly straightened up and turned toward Birkir, brandishing his gun. Birkir rolled away sideways and managed to shelter his head behind a lava spur before the pellets whistled all around him.