Sneakernet

by Mark Parragh

  Einar turned around and headed back down toward the waterfront. It was quiet this time of day, with few people around. The tour boats weren’t running, and the fishing boats had long since come back in.

  Except that one.

  Einar braked to a halt in the middle of the road and scrabbled in the passenger seat for his binoculars. One boat was heading out from the docks, a white fishing boat with orange trim. Einar swept the deck with the binoculars, and there he was. Standing on the deck was the man he’d chased halfway across the country. The boat churned up a wake as it powered out into the channel and turned north to head up the fjord.

  Einar swore and dropped the binoculars in his lap. He grabbed his phone and dialed his pilot. Where could they pick him up here?

  The cruise ship dock, he decided. A wide expanse of open concrete with nothing around it but water. He hit the gas.

  “Go!” Einar shouted as soon as the call connected. “Get airborne, now! Pick me up at the cruise ship dock!”

  “Um, that’s going to be a problem,” said the pilot.

  * * *

  The fishing boat plowed north through a cold, gray sea beneath a cold, gray sky. Crane stood in the bow, forward of the boat’s small radar and instrument mast. He still had the pistol he’d taken from the man at the airport. The one he’d killed a man with. He tossed it over the side.

  Georges came forward from the wheelhouse. “Captain says another hour and a half,” he shouted.

  Crane nodded and shifted his pack on his shoulder. They’d cleared the fjord and were in open ocean now. Another ninety minutes to Grimsey Island. Then a few hours in the air to Norway, and finally back across the Atlantic aboard Josh’s Gulfstream. Crane was tired. He was ready for this to be over.

  The wheelhouse door opened and the Captain stuck his head out, shouting something in Icelandic. Then he shook his head in exasperation. “Behind us!” he shouted, and gestured over his shoulder with one thumb.

  Crane and Georges went to the stern and looked back. In the distance, Crane made out a short black line, like a hyphen on the surface of the sea. It was one of the tourist Zodiacs, he realized, the ones he’d seen lined up at the pier in Akureyri. It would have seating for a dozen in front, a control station for the pilot in the rear, and a pair of powerful outboard motors. The fishing boat could never outrun it.

  So apparently it wasn’t over yet.

  * * *

  Einar edged the throttles forward, and the boat surged into the next wave. It went airborne for a moment, then slammed hard against the sea. Einar had never been much for boats and sailing, but he found the pounding and the snarl of the engines strangely comforting. They went well with his rage.

  Einar’s world had been reduced to this. He was alone in the middle of the ocean, in a stolen rubber boat, with a light machine gun lying beside the control pedestal.

  Einar saw the fishing boat ahead. Aboard that boat was the stolen data, and the man who’d done this to him. As he approached, he made out two figures on the deck, though there had to be at least one more in the wheelhouse. The two on the deck watched him come.

  It was only when he pulled along the starboard side, throttled back the engines, and picked up the machine gun that they scattered. Einar sprayed the boat with fire. He couldn’t aim effectively in the pitching Zodiac, but that didn’t matter. The two men dove for the deck as he stitched a line of bullets across the wheelhouse.

  The boat cut its engines, and a moment later the Captain emerged from the wheelhouse, his hands raised. The two passengers on the deck stood as well.

  Einar edged the Zodiac closer with angry growls from the outboards. “Throw me a line!” he ordered.

  The Captain obeyed, and Einar gestured with the gun. “Everyone into the bow. Where I can see you.”

  All three went forward and Einar kept an eye on them as he secured the Zodiac to the rail and climbed aboard. First he checked the wheelhouse. It was empty. There were hatches leading below decks, but they were dogged shut.

  Then he went forward and got his first good look at the man he’d chased across half of Iceland. He didn’t look like so much.

  “Back this way,” he said, waving with the gun. He moved them amidships where there was room to move. The device was probably in the dark-haired man’s pack, Einar thought, but it might be hidden anywhere on the boat. He would have to kill these people and scuttle the boat regardless. If he found the device, he could return the data to the board in triumph. But all he really needed was to ensure the data never made it out of Iceland. Sending it to the bottom of the sea would be enough.

  He separated the dark haired man from the others. The man had said nothing yet. He simply stood there. Einar could sense him calculating, looking for his opening. Einar stared back at him for a moment, let him see the determination in his eyes, let him remember what this gun had done to a twelve-ton truck.

  Einar gestured with the gun. “Off your shoulder,” he said. “Slow. Throw it to me.”

  The man hesitated for a moment, then he carefully slid the strap down his arm until the pack hung from one hand. He swung his arm back and stooped as if to slide the pack across the deck.

  But at the last second, as the boat pitched forward in a wave, he hooked it upward.

  The pack tumbled up and the strap fell over the machine gun’s muzzle. It dragged the barrel down, and then the man was a dark shape flying at him.

  They collided and Einar hit the deck on his back. The gun was ripped free and clattered onto the deck beside him. Einar grabbed for it, but the stranger knocked it away. He punched Einar in the kidneys, then scrambled across the deck for the gun. He would reach it first, Einar realized. Then he noticed the pack had landed on his legs, the strap draped over one ankle.

  Einar rolled onto his side and kicked with all his strength. The pack arced high into the air, soaring toward the gunwale, and Einar willed it upward, forward.

  Too late, the dark-haired man realized what had happened. He scrambled after it. Too late. The pack cleared the side of the boat and fell gracefully into the sea.

  The dark-haired man never broke stride, he bent forward, and Einar realized he actually meant to dive after it.

  “No!” the Captain shouted and leaped for him. They collided and fell against the rail.

  Einar fell back onto the deck, laughing in triumph. It was a victory barely snatched from defeat at the last possible instant. But it was a victory. He looked up at the young black man who had snatched up the machine gun. He held it leveled at Einar, trembling in fear. Perhaps they would kill him now. Einar realized he no longer cared. He’d won.

  * * *

  Crane lay on the deck and watched his pack vanish beneath the water. It was a dark shape, sinking, and then it was gone.

  “Too cold,” the Captain was saying. “Gasp reflex. You breathe in water, sink like a rock, you die.” The Captain picked at the fabric of Crane’s shirt. “Go in the water like this, you don’t come up. Let it go.”

  Crane took a deep breath, then nodded.

  “All right. I’m all right,” he said.

  They got up. The Captain looked at Einar lying on the deck, then at Georges covering him with the machine gun. His scowl made it clear he wanted no part of this.

  “What do we do with him?” asked Georges.

  “Nobody dies today,” said the Captain. “It’s over.”

  Crane clapped the Captain on the shoulder. “I’ll disable his boat, and then we’ll leave him in it. You call it in to the Coast Guard. Let them find him out here in a stolen boat.”

  “I am Einar Persson,” the Datafall man said amiably. “What is your name?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Crane.

  The man—Einar—laughed. “No. It doesn’t matter. In the end, I beat you.”

  “Congratulations,” said Crane.

  Georges held the machine gun while Crane climbed into the Zodiac and cut the fuel lines. Then they transferred Einar back aboard the boat and pushed it away. Fina
lly, Georges dumped the machine gun over the side.

  “I beat you!” Einar shouted as the fishing boat’s engines sputtered back to life and it moved away. “I beat you!”

  Crane turned away and smiled. “That’s right,” he said quietly. “Go back and tell your bosses that.”

  Einar’s shouts faded as the boat powered away toward Grimsey Island and safety.

  Chapter 29

  Palo Alto, California, three weeks later

  Josh Sulenski returned from the San Diego Comic-Con to find a stack of mail waiting on his desk. His assistant had carefully separated it into categories. The junk mail was already gone. Here were the bills, here the various obscure print magazines Josh subscribed to, here the personal letters from people seeking money or favors—there were always plenty of those.

  And on the bottom, a package wrapped in brown paper and festooned with colorful foreign stamps. Josh turned his attention to that. He read the address label.

  “Who the hell is Halla Manisdottir?” he shouted to nobody in particular.

  He sliced through the wrapping with a letter opener modeled after Batman’s batarangs, and opened the package.

  “And why is she sending me socks?”

  Again nobody answered. Josh remembered his assistant had today off.

  They were nice socks at least. Hand knit from real wool from the looks of them. Then he realized there was something inside one. He reached in and pulled out a broken fragment of circuit board with a storage module epoxied in place.

  A wide grin broke across Josh’s face as he realized what he was holding. Georges had come back with a story about the data tap ending up in the North Atlantic, and Crane hadn’t contradicted him.

  There was a letter in the package. Josh unfolded it and read.

  “Dear Mr. Sulenski,” it began. “Our friend John Crane asked me to send this to you, but it doesn’t look like much to me. I live in the country here in Iceland, and there is little to do in the winters. So I make many socks. More than I need. I thought you might like a pair. Please tell John Crane I am grateful for his help. But he was right. It is probably best he is not in Iceland anymore. I hope you are well and the socks fit you. Sincerely, Halla Manisdottir.”

  “You bastard,” Josh said with a broad grin. He grabbed his phone and texted Crane.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you gave the data tap to someone to mail back?”

  It was several minutes before Crane answered. Apparently he was up to something. “I didn’t know if she’d actually do it or not,” his reply read.

  “I’m still pissed about that cruise ship cabin,” Josh sent back.

  “Okay,” Crane answered. Josh waited, but he didn’t send anything else.

  After a minute, Josh sighed. That was the thing about Crane; you couldn’t stay mad at him when he kept bringing home such interesting toys.

  Josh pulled up Georges contact on his phone and sent another text.

  “Meet me at the shop. Let’s make some unpleasant people have a really bad day.”

  Josh tossed the data tap into the air, caught it, and then headed out again. This was going to be fun.

  The End

  John Crane will return…

  Afterword

  Iceland gets something of a bad rap in Sneakernet. Crane is annoyed by the tactical disadvantages forced on him by the island’s geography and climate. He’s chased across the country by a ruthless hunter intent on killing him. He’s taken captive at gunpoint by a cranky farm woman. And he finds himself once again forced by circumstances onto the back of a horse. Add it all up, and he really doesn’t have a very good time in Iceland.

  I should say that Crane’s experience of Iceland in no way reflects my own. I’ve always found the people friendly and warm, and generally a lot less armed and dangerous than the fictional Icelanders Crane encounters. So yes, I’ve taken liberties for dramatic purposes—rather extreme ones at times—and I apologize to the people of Iceland, though I suspect and hope they’ll find their portrayal here more amusing than offensive.

  In a more general sense, I want to thank all the people, too numerous to name here, who answered questions and provided advice as I was working on Sneakernet. The good stuff is down to them. The mistakes are all mine.

  Finally, thank you for reading Sneakernet, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. As always, I can be reached at inbox@markparragh.com with comments or questions. I look forward to hearing from you.

  Also by Mark Parragh

  Rope on Fire

  The origin story that first brings together former agent John Crane and idealistic billionaire Josh Sulenski. Suddenly out of work when the Top Secret Hurricane Group is shut down, Crane agrees to take on a side mission protecting one of Josh's charitable projects. Crane soon finds himself in deeper than he planned, and must follow the trail of danger from Puerto Rico to the Czech Republic, where an unexpected discovery will change his life forever. With exotic locations, beautiful women, deadly enemies, and heart-pounding action, Rope on Fire is the John Crane novel that started it all! (Includes bonus story, I Hate to Die.)

  Buy now at Amazon.com.

  * * *

  Bird Dogs

  In this novella-length adventure, John Crane journeys to Buenos Aires on the trail of “Tamarind,” a former blackmailer and gigolo Crane hopes will lead him to bigger game. But Tamarind hasn’t given up his old profession, and Crane isn’t the only one following him. Alexa Ibarra is a private detective seeking revenge for her client, and perhaps a little something for herself. Crane and Alexa make natural allies, but only to a point, and eventually Crane must decide what matters most in a game someone has to lose. (Includes bonus story, Pendulums.)

  Buy now at Amazon.com.

  * * *

  Wrecker

  In Baja California to check in on a friend’s daughter, Crane becomes involved in the search for a missing girl and crosses swords with the narcissistic American expat suspected of taking her. Meanwhile, back home, Josh Sulenski’s kindness to a former mentor draws him into a dark conspiracy that strikes closer to home than he ever expected. Josh will discover that, if you set out to fight evil, eventually evil hits back. Wrecker blows the doors off John Crane’s world with new friends, new enemies, and a mysterious blue-haired woman who wants everything John Crane has to give.

  Buy now at Amazon.com.