Sneakernet

by Mark Parragh

  He grabbed his phone and dictated a text message to his men. They would converge and destroy.

  * * *

  When the plane landed, Georges had hoped Crane would be aboard. But the pilot was an older man, and he was alone. Georges felt a quick rush of disappointment and went back to his work.

  It was perhaps five minutes later when his laptop pinged at him. There was a sudden surge in SMS traffic. Since Georges set up his system to capture and log all SMS messages through the airport, he’d counted three different network IDs sending almost all the messages at the airport. Roughly every fifteen minutes, one sent group messages to the other two, and they replied individually. He figured they were just checking in with each other, and his translator software confirmed it.

  But now the system was lighting up with traffic. As he was watching, another group message went out. Something was definitely going on.

  Georges’ fingers flew across the keys as he sent the new messages to the online translator. As the first result came back, his heart leapt into his throat.

  “He is here. West end of terminal.”

  The other two confirmed. One sent back something the translator program rendered as “Transfer.” Georges assumed that meant the sender was on his way there.

  He’d been right! Crane was here!

  Georges pulled up a command file from his library and loaded it into the SMS system. Hold all messages for confirmation before sending, it told the server. Now Georges was in charge of their communications. He could shut them down completely, or he could let some messages get through and block others. Or he could edit them, he realized. He’d have to figure out what he wanted to say and then run it back through the translator to get the Icelandic. It would be crude, but it might fool them for a little while.

  Georges paired his smart phone to his laptop so he could operate the whole thing from there. Then he closed his laptop and hurriedly shoved it into his bag. He needed to get moving. He had to find Crane before they did.

  Chapter 26

  The approach road came in from the main highway off to Crane’s right and made a teardrop shape as it circled around to the terminal. Crane walked along it and considered whether to go inside the terminal or stay outside. He needed to get to the maintenance and general aviation facilities at the far end of the airport. That was where he would find a small air cargo or charter operation. Outside, he decided. He’d seen nothing suspicious out here so far.

  He glanced into the terminal as he passed the front doors and saw a black Datafall uniform. One man, moving fast.

  Crane veered toward the temporary parking lot inside the circle of the approach road. Had the man seen him? If so, Crane would try to lead him to the parking lot where the cars would provide at least some cover.

  But he hadn’t seen Crane. He left the terminal and headed toward the employee lot Crane had just come from.

  Crane moved quickly in the other direction, edging close in to the wall of the terminal. A few yards down, there was a heavy metal fire door. As Crane passed it, the door buzzed open, and a shape lurched out and nearly collided with him. Crane let his training take over. He grabbed the man, spun him off balance, and positioned him so he could easily put him on the ground. Then he froze, realizing he was looking into the startled face of Georges Benly Akema. Georges took a moment to process the situation, then laughed with incongruous delight.

  “I found you!” he said. “I actually did it! And you’re alive!”

  Crane pulled Georges away from the door and let it swing shut. “What the hell are you doing? How did you even get here?”

  “I got a plane,” said Georges. “It’s on Grimsey Island. And there’s a boat waiting in town. I knew they’d be watching. They know you’re here!”

  “Yes, but how do you know that?”

  Georges’ phone beeped and he checked the screen. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “They figured out you’re not there anymore.”

  Crane could see the black-clad shape of the guard making his way back toward the main entrance.

  “Come on,” Crane said, and started back out toward the parking lot. Georges followed, only partly watching where he was going as he tapped at his phone.

  “What are you doing?” Crane asked.

  “They’re communicating by SMS,” Georges said. “So I hacked the cell.”

  They crouched behind a van, and Georges quickly explained that there were three Datafall people here, one directing the other two. He showed Crane how he was translating and reading their messages before sending them on.

  “So you can shut them down. Can you send them false messages?”

  “Sure. I can translate into Icelandic, but it’s probably going to sound a little twonky.”

  With the adrenaline rush and the fear of a nearby enemy, Crane guessed they wouldn’t worry too much about odd phrasings. “Keep it simple,” he said. “Tell the one over there where we are. Just him.”

  “You want him to come here?”

  “Yes,” said Crane. “Yes, I do.”

  * * *

  Georges took a deep breath and nodded. He tapped his phone and said “He’s in the front parking lot. Go.”

  A moment later, the phone returned a screen of computer generated Icelandic. Georges assumed it was technically correct, but was it the way people actually spoke, or would it immediately tell the Datafall people that their communications had been intercepted? How could he know?

  He turned the screen to Crane, who looked at it and shrugged. “I don’t know. Send it.”

  Georges sent it. He was breathing hard again, and he could feel himself trembling. Crane looked alert, but calm and ready. How did he do that? Was it just a matter of experience? What made him able to do the things he did? Georges had always been in awe of Crane, but even more so here in the field, where Georges could barely think for the drumbeat of fear and the steady rush of adrenaline. He was not cut out for this.

  One of the phones sent back a quick acknowledgement. Georges told the server to delete it instead of forwarding it on to the team leader.

  “Stay here, and stay down,” Crane hissed. Then he quickly crossed over to the next row of cars and crouched behind a BMW sedan. Georges heard footsteps running down the sidewalk to the lot. They stopped at the first row of cars, one over. Crane peered down, beneath the BMW’s chassis. Then he gestured for Georges to move farther back.

  Georges was extremely aware of every sound. The footsteps, moving more cautiously now. The rustle of his clothes as he edged back against the van. His heartbeat—how could the man not hear that?

  Crane tensed to spring and rapped the fender of the car he was crouched behind. Georges heard the footsteps rush suddenly forward, saw the black-clad figure emerge from between two cars and turn. But he didn’t turn toward Crane and the sound. The man turned toward him instead, and their eyes met.

  Georges saw surprise register on the man’s face. He saw the split-second decision to fire. He tried to move, but his body refused. He saw the pistol rising, the suppressor on its barrel pointing into his eyes, the yawning black abyss of the muzzle.

  Then Crane tackled him from behind as the gun went off. They went down, and the Datafall man’s face planted hard into the asphalt not five feet away from him. Georges saw blood. Crane put a knee hard into his back, grabbed his hair with his left hand, and slammed his face into the pavement again. The man spasmed and dropped the gun. Crane snatched it up and hammered the back of his skull with the butt. Georges saw awareness fade from the man’s face, and he sank onto the pavement in a pool of his own blood and broken teeth.

  It took perhaps five seconds.

  * * *

  Crane looked up to Georges. “Are you hit?” he snapped.

  Georges didn’t answer. Crane scanned him and saw no obvious entry wound. Then he saw the bullet scar in the side of the van, inches from Georges’ face.

  Georges followed his eyes and saw it as well. He was already barely keeping it together, but this seemed
to be too much for him. Crane saw him start to hyperventilate.

  He moved in closer, confirmed that Georges was unhurt. “Look at me,” he said. “Look at me. Deep breath. Hold it.”

  After one false start, Georges managed to hold his breath and kept his eyes locked on Crane as Crane counted off with his fingers. He could see Georges struggling to contain his fear. He was a civilian, Crane reminded himself. He should never have plunged into the middle of this, but he’d done it to help him.

  “Let it out. Now just keep breathing and focus on that.”

  Georges’ phone softly beeped. A moment later it beeped again. Georges ignored it.

  “What are we going to do?” he asked after a moment.

  “We’re going to get out of here,” said Crane. “You said you have a boat in town, right? Let’s grab a car and get over there.”

  Chapter 27

  “Where the hell are you?” Einar barked at his phone. “Respond.”

  The phone rendered that into text and Einar sent the message. It had been nearly ten minutes since he’d sent Nils to locate the target, and nothing. Now Rikard wasn’t answering either.

  He circled the roof, searching the airport. He had good visibility from here, but there were plenty of places a man might hide. Then Einar’s phone chirped and displayed Rikard’s number.

  “What’s going on?” Rikard said when Einar answered, “Are you getting my messages?”

  “No. Something’s wrong,” Einar said. “Stand by.”

  An SMS outage right now was no coincidence, he thought. He hung up and dialed Nils’ phone. At least voice still worked. He angrily hung up as the call transferred into voicemail.

  Einar ran across the roof. A white van was pulling out of the temporary lot. He scanned it with his binoculars and could just make out a second figure in the passenger seat. But the driver’s side window was down, and Einar got a good look at him as the van rounded the curve of the exit road. It was him.

  Einar was already running for the stairs as he dialed his pilot.

  “Get back to the airport, now!” he shouted. “Be ready to take off fast!”

  * * *

  Crane drove back toward town, past houses and an old church. To his right, the water was a dull gray backed by steep hills across the fjord. He glanced at Georges, still processing what he’d seen.

  “Is that man dead?” Georges asked.

  “No,” said Crane. “He’s hurt, but he’ll make it.”

  The van apparently belonged to an electrician. “Is there anything back there you can use?” he asked Georges, to distract him as much as anything else.

  Georges glanced over his shoulder. “No, no,” he said. “I haven’t been clearing their text messages,” he added. “They’ll know I hacked them by now.”

  “That’s okay,” said Crane. “You got the job done. We’re out of here.”

  * * *

  Einar’s hotwired Volvo fishtailed as he took the corner too fast. He hadn’t had to actually steal a car since he was a teenager. This just got better and better.

  In the passenger seat Rikard grabbed the handle over the door and steadied the machine gun propped in the foot well. “A white van with blue lettering,” Einar told him. “And there are two of them now. No description on the second.”

  The Volvo rocketed past the causeway that carried the Ring Road across the Eyjafjörður and sped back toward Akureyri itself. Why had they left the airport? Perhaps the second man had offered some new plan? It was the only thing Einar could think of. But it was a small town. They’d find them.

  Einar slowed as they came into town. He hung a right onto the Strandgata, drove past the empty cruise ship dock, and then took a left toward the waterfront. He pulled over and let Rikard out. “I’ll call if I need you,” he said. Then Einar drove off slowly, scanning the streets for the white van, or for pedestrians who didn’t belong here. There wasn’t much time left, he thought. One way or another, this would end soon.

  * * *

  Crane left the van on the other side of Akureyri, and they walked through town toward the waterfront. If the van was reported stolen and then spotted, he didn’t want police searching the waterfront. If nothing else, he wanted to approach the boat with caution, to make sure Georges’ escape plan hadn’t become a trap.

  They made their way through the shopping district and into a quiet residential neighborhood. This gave way to light industrial buildings. Crane could see water from here and hear boat engines.

  They passed a marine supply company, and a tour operator, closed today since there were no cruise ships. A row of rakish, black 12-passenger inflatable boats lay moored along the pier.

  Georges studied the map on his phone. “We can cut through here.” He led the way between two corrugated metal warehouses. They found themselves in a maze of storage buildings, chain link fencing, and piles of old crates and empty fuel drums. Crane didn’t like it. It was confusing and the sightlines were short. He let his hand fall to the butt of the silenced pistol he’d picked up at the airport.

  As they crossed an intersection, Crane looked to his right and saw a black-clad figure step into the alley thirty yards down. The man’s reflexes were sharp. He spotted Crane out of the corner of his eye, whirled, and fired. Crane moved around the corner as the suppressed pistol snapped, and he heard the bullet ricochet off metal.

  “Go!” he hissed at Georges. “Left.”

  Georges ran ahead and took the next left, but Crane stopped and drew his pistol. The Datafall man appeared a moment later and Crane snapped off a shot at him, but missed. Then Crane ran right. He heard another shot slam into the wall as he ducked around the corner. Damn, he was fast.

  Crane sprinted down the littered path, leading the enemy away from Georges.

  * * *

  Georges’ stopped at a corner and gasped, “which way?”

  There was no answer. He turned. Crane wasn’t there.

  Again the fear, in a jolt like lightning striking. He was alone. He was being hunted. Georges heard footsteps pounding the packed earth, and he ran. He ran with no idea whether he was moving away from danger or closer to it. He just ran, turning at random until he pulled up before a blue metal wall. On his left was another building, this one faded green and marked with incomprehensible graffiti. On his right was a chain link fence topped with razor wire protecting construction machinery and spools of cable. He was trapped.

  He backtracked to the last intersection, but the chain link fence beside him suddenly bowed and sang as if struck by something heavy. Georges dove behind a group of old oil drums stacked against the building. He fell back against the cold metal wall and sank to the ground, making himself as small as he could. Somewhere he heard the soft snaps of the pistols, and bullets striking metal.

  Knife. He had a knife. Georges frantically dug through his bag until he found it. He unsnapped the hard leather sheath and tossed it away. He clutched the black metal hilt in both hands, holding the knife in front of him with the blade pointed at whatever came around the oil drums.

  Georges heard his heartbeat and felt himself trembling. A boat horn sounded somewhere in the distance. Then, closer, two more suppressed gunshots. He held his breath and clutched the knife. There was a sharp clang that trailed off into a shrill, metallic screech, a grunt, the sound of something striking flesh.

  Then two bodies flew into view and landed in the dirt a few feet away. Crane fell on his back with his arms over his head, and the other man landed on top of him. The man in the black uniform pressed down hard on Crane’s arms and throat with a length of metal rebar. His expression was savage.

  Crane had his pistol, but his wrist was pinned by the rebar. His other arm had some movement, but not enough. He scrabbled at the man’s black uniform, fighting to pull him off. But he couldn’t. Crane was helpless, struggling to breathe.

  All the man had to do, Georges knew, was turn slightly and he’d see him. Crane was going to die, right here in front of him, and then he would die, to
o.

  Georges realized he was standing, though he didn’t remember getting up. Then he was running forward, the knife held underhand at his side.

  The man saw Georges coming in the last instant. Then the blade took him below the armpit, and Georges felt the tip puncture flesh, felt the scrape of bone against the blade, heard the man’s gasp. He yanked the blade free.

  They locked eyes for a moment and a strangely intimate look passed between them. Then Crane pulled his hand free of the rebar, raised the pistol to the man’s temple, and fired.

  * * *

  Crane concealed the body, wiped blood from his skin, and cleared the scene as best he could. If anyone had heard the suppressed gunshots, the police would probably have arrived by now. But he didn’t want to be here any longer than necessary.

  The last thing he did was take the knife from Georges’ hand, hanging limp at his side. He wiped the blade clean, found the sheath on the ground, and stuck it in his boot.

  Through it all, Georges stood motionless and silent.

  “We killed that man,” he finally said.

  “I killed him,” Crane answered.

  “No,” said Georges. “No. I did what I did.”

  “You saved my life,” said Crane. “And yours. Come on, we have to go.”

  “Something in me was strong after all,” he said. “And cruel.” He fell silent for a moment and seemed to be someplace else entirely. Then it was as if a curtain fell over whatever he was thinking. Georges checked his phone.

  “This way,” he said.

  Chapter 28

  When Einar tried to check in with Rikard, he got no answer. He swore and slammed his fist down on the Volvo’s center console. The thought that he might actually fail crossed his mind. It was an unpleasant thought. It had been a long time since he’d failed at something.