Walcott grimaced and said, “Please, David, don’t make me laugh.” Followed by, “It’s still propaganda. Even the shit buckets.”
A flash of light and the crump of an explosion made them jump. Maratse lifted his head, then dropped back onto the heather. “I can’t see from here.”
“External fuel tank,” Walcott said. “Maybe.” He turned his head to look down the mountain. “You should go.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Walcott laughed. “You should. Besides, they’ll be looking for me now, for the helicopter. It’s best you go.”
“You’re just going to let me?”
“Constable…” Walcott waved his hand weakly at his body. “I’m hardly going to stop you. Just go. Deep into the mountains.”
Maratse pushed himself to his feet. He pressed his hand to his head, wiped more blood from his eyes, then took a last look at Walcott. “You’ll come looking for me,” he said.
“Someone will.”
“Then it will never end.”
Walcott tilted his head and looked up. “You really are the most reluctant guerrilla I’ve ever met.”
“Have you met many others?”
“None.” Walcott shook his head. “But let me give you some advice, for what it’s worth.”
Maratse shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then nodded.
“If this is going to work – this insurrection, you need to up your game, Constable.”
“Up my game?”
“Right, I could have said get with the program. Either way, you just need to put your heart into it. That shouldn’t be hard for you. You have a big heart, David. Of course, that could be the problem, right there. You care too much.”
“I care about the people. Is that wrong?”
“No, it’s not wrong. But if you’re going to lead them, or at least inspire them, you need to put a little distance between you and them. And no,” he said, as Maratse started to speak. “I don’t mean hiding in a radio shack in the mountains. I don’t mean physical distance. You just need to learn not to care. At least, not so much.” Walcott looked at the frown on Maratse’s face and laughed. “Yeah, that’s going to be difficult for you.”
Maratse turned his head as the wind blew a thick finger of smoke down the mountain. He wrinkled his nose, snatching scent pockets of cold earth, juniper leaves, and traces of copper from his blood within the smoke. He looked down at Walcott.
“Why are you saying this? Why are you helping me?”
“It’s not help, Constable. It’s advice. And I’m telling you because you just dragged my ass out of a burning helicopter.” He sighed. “It’s the least I can do. Now…” He pointed down the mountain. “You should go. And you should keep going. Find that girl…”
“Kamiila.”
“Right.” Walcott nodded. “The angry one. She’s a fighter. Put her in charge of the troops.”
“Troops?”
“Folk with guns. She’ll train them. You’ll inspire them. Together you’ll give us a run for our money.”
“I don’t understand,” Maratse said. “You want a war?”
“No, Constable. I don’t want a war, but you do. It’s the only way you’ll get what you want.”
“And what do I want?”
Walcott pressed his hand to his collarbone as he laughed. “I think what you want, Constable, is a tiny little cabin in the mountains, or a crappy little fishing boat – maybe a sledge and a couple of dogs. But those days are gone. If you’re ever going to get close to having something like what you want, then you’re going to have to fight for it. You’re going to have to make some noise, Constable. Because you can be damned sure that now we’re here, now the US has finally got its paws on this godforsaken lump of Arctic real estate, we won’t give in without a fight. We will go to war over it. And you, and your people, will have a hard time stopping us.” Walcott took a breath. “This is going to get ugly, Constable. Mark my words.”
“Hmm.” Maratse reached down to offer Walcott his hand. “I’ll see you again?”
“Most likely,” Walcott said, gripping Maratse’s hand in his own. “Now get going.” He shook his hand free and waved Maratse away. “Just go, already. Go make some noise.”
Maratse took a step back. He looked down at Walcott and frowned. “You’re a strange man.”
“Right. That’s the kettle calling the pot black.”
“Iiji,” Maratse said.
“You understood that one?”
“I do.”
“How about that? Finally, we’re making progress.” Walcott turned his head and looked down the mountain. “Okay, Constable. It’s time for you to fuck off now. Your friends have arrived.”
Maratse turned to see Kamiila and Danielsen walking towards them. He nodded at Walcott, then stumbled through the heather to join them.
Danielsen took the brunt of Maratse’s weight as he helped him along the path Kamiila picked through the heather. Kamiila stopped every five minutes, adjusting the stolen carbine rifles she wore slung in an X across her back. She carried her father’s .22 rifle in her hands. Together with the dust and dry tears streaked across her cheeks, Maratse thought she fit Walcott’s description of the fighter perfectly. He slowed as he wondered what that might mean, only to have Danielsen snap him out of his thoughts with news from Kussannaq.
“We took the woman…”
“Isra,” Maratse said.
“Aap. She’s on Sisak. She’ll stay there until we figure out what to do with her. We took the bodies of the Americans, too.”
“Hmm.”
“I said I would stay with you, but I’m not sure what we can achieve in the mountains, David.”
“We have to make more noise.”
“More than a firefight and a helicopter crash?” Danielsen stopped and helped Maratse sit down on a boulder. He nodded at Kamiila, suggesting a five-minute break as she joined them. He turned back to Maratse, and said, “I’m not sure what more we can do.”
“David needs to keep talking,” Kamiila said. “He needs to remind people of the little things.” The light caught her eyes as she smiled at Maratse. “It’s the little things that keep us together.”
“Iiji.”
“And after that?” Danielsen pointed to the crash in the distance. “Words alone aren’t going to cut it. They have helicopters. They have ships.” He shook his head. “They have a lot of guns.”
“We have a ship,” Maratse said.
“Sisak?”
“Aap,” Kamiila said. She tapped the rifles slung across her chest. “We have guns. We can get more.”
“Guns make noise.” Maratse pulled a battered packet of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket. He lit one and stuck it between his lips. “We need to make lots of noise.”
“We’re going to need help,” Danielsen said. “We need people outside Greenland to help us.”
“They will.” Maratse puffed a small cloud of smoke above his head.
“Inniki,” Kamiila said with a grin.
The mention of her name brought a smile to Maratse’s face. It started with her, her resistance, and a window box made from pallets filled with borrowed earth.
“Stolen,” Maratse said, as he remembered taking soil from Inniki’s neighbour’s house in Kapisillit.
“What’s that?”
“They’ve stolen our land,” Maratse said. “We have to convince them to give it back.”
“By making noise?”
“Iiji.”
“By fighting for it,” Kamiila said.
Maratse agreed with a nod.
Danielsen looked at his watch. “Time’s up. We have to move.” He took Maratse’s arm and pulled him to his feet. “You really think someone is going to help us?”
“Someone will,” Maratse said. “And until then, we have just have to keep going.”
Denmark
Part 11
________________________________
Petra tucked her yoga mat under her ar
m as she walked out of the café on Lundsgade. She checked her phone, curious that Inniki had neither left a message, nor tried to call her. A black car caught her eye as it accelerated past her on the opposite side of the narrow street. The car’s smoked windows sent Petra’s heart into a higher gear as she imagined who might be driving, who they might work for.
She swallowed.
“What am I doing?”
She thought of her girls, recalling the last image she had of them playing with the babysitter, giggling, oblivious to the butterflies crowding Petra’s stomach. She focused on that, on Abella’s dimples, the smell of Jatsi’s hair. Petra tucked her phone into her pocket. She walked along the pavement, following the sound of Mikael’s drums through the school gates, all the way to the side door.
She stopped to check her phone one last time.
Nothing.
Petra took a breath, climbed the two steps to the door, and then pressed the buzzer before she could talk herself out of it.
The drums stopped.
Mikael let her in a few seconds later.
“Naamik,” he said, when Petra asked if he had heard from Inniki. “But she can be like that sometimes. I’m sure she’s fine. She looks old.” He laughed, correcting himself. “She is old. But she’s tougher than you and me.”
“You’re right,” Petra said. She pointed at the stairs. “I’ll be in the gym.”
Mikael started drumming just as Petra entered the sports hall. The badminton nets were gone, and the table and chairs were positioned along the far wall. Petra moved them back to the middle, to keep her occupied, to stop her thinking and worrying about Inniki.
“She’s tough,” she said. “Tougher than me.”
Petra’s heart skipped a beat as the drums stopped.
She fumbled her phone out of her pocket, watched the seconds tick by on the screen.
At fifteen seconds Petra was ready to run. She took a step towards the fire exit, counting down from five to four to three…
The door opened at the same time as Mikael resumed his practice. Petra blew the air from her lungs as a young Greenlandic man, not much older than Mikael, walked towards her.
“I’m supposed to meet someone,” he said, in Danish.
“Yes.”
“Is it you?”
“I think so.”
The man stopped halfway between Petra and the door. The drumming continued. He looked back at the door, as if deciding, then he turned to look at Petra.
“It’s awful,” he said. “The things on the news.”
“Yes.”
“About Greenland.”
Petra relaxed and gestured at the empty chairs. “Shall we sit?”
“And talk?” the man asked.
“Yes. About Greenland.”
They sat down at the same time. Petra slipped her phone into her pocket. She studied the man’s face, his deep brown eyes – the same colour as her own. His thick black hair and bushy eyebrows. Typically Greenlandic. The light from the faulty bulb blinked on his cheeks, reflected in his eyes, adding to the intense gaze that he fixed on Petra.
“I came to help,” he said.
Petra nodded. “So did I.”
“When can I start?”
“We start tonight.” Petra took her jacket off and hung it on the back of her chair. “How much do you know about navigation?”
The End
Your words make all the difference
________________________________
Honest reviews of my books help other readers find them. As an independent author I don’t have the backing of a publisher or a team of publicists, but I do have one thing going for me, and that’s a group of engaged readers.
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Arctic Rising
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About the Author
________________________________
Christoffer Petersen is the author’s pen name. He lives in Denmark. Chris started writing stories about Greenland while teaching in Qaanaaq, the largest village in the very north of Greenland – the population peaked at 600 during the two years he lived there. Chris spent a total of seven years in Greenland, teaching in remote communities and at the Police Academy in the capital of Nuuk.
Chris continues to be inspired by the vast icy wilderness of the Arctic and his books have a common setting in the region, with a Scandinavian influence. He has also watched enough Bourne movies to no longer be surprised by the plot, but not enough to get bored.
You can find Chris in Denmark or online here:
Christoffer Petersen
By the same Author
THE GREENLAND CRIME SERIES
featuring Constable David Maratse
SEVEN GRAVES, ONE WINTER Book 1
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
BLOOD FLOE Book 2
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
WE SHALL BE MONSTERS Book 3
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
INSIDE THE BEAR’S CAGE Book 4
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
WHALE HEART Book 5
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
Novellas from the same series
KATABATIC #1
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
CONTAINER #2
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
TUPILAQ #3
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
THE LAST FLIGHT #4
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
THE HEART THAT WAS A WILD GARDEN #5
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
QIVITTOQ #6
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
THE THUNDER SPIRITS #7
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
ILULIAQ #8
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
SCRIMSHAW #9
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
ASIAQ #10
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
CAMP CENTURY #11
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
INUK #12
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
DARK CHRISTMAS #13
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
POISON BERRY #14
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
NORTHERN MAIL #15
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
SIKU #16
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
VIRUSI #17
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
BAIT #18
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
THE WOMEN’S KNIFE #19
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
ICE, WIND & FIRE #20
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
Omnibus editions of the novellas
CONSTABLE DAVID MARATSE #1
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
CONSTABLE DAVID MARATSE #2
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
CONSTABLE DAVID MARATSE #3
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
CONSTABLE DAVID MARATSE #4
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
CONSTABLE DAVID MARATSE #5
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
THE GREENLAND TRILOGY
featuring Konstabel Fenna Brongaard
THE ICE STAR
Book 1
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOUNTAIN Book 2
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
THE SHAMAN’S HOUSE Book 3
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
THE POLARPOL ACTION THRILLERS
featuring Sergeant Petra “Piitalaat” Jensen and more
NORTHERN LIGHT Book 1
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
MOUNTAIN GHOST Book 2
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
THE DETECTIVE FREJA HANSEN SERIES
set in Denmark and Scotland
FELL RUNNER Introductory novella
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
BLACKOUT INGÉNUE
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
THE WILD CRIME SERIES
set in Denmark and Alaska
PAINT THE DEVIL Book 1
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
LOST IN THE WOODS Book 2
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
CHERNOBYL WOLVES Book 3
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
MADE IN DENMARK
short stories featuring Milla Moth set in Denmark
DANISH DESIGN Story 1
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
THE WHEELMAN SHORTS
short stories featuring Noah Lee set in Australia
PULP DRIVER Story 1
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
THE DARK ADVENT SERIES
featuring Police Commissioner Petra “Piitalaat” Jensen set in Greenland
THE CALENDAR MAN Book 1
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
THE TWELFTH NIGHT Book 2
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
INVISIBLE TOUCH Book 3
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
GREENLAND NOIR POETRY
featuring characters from Seven Graves, One Winter
GREENLAND NOIR Volume 1
on Amazon US, UK, CA, AU
UNDERCOVER GREENLAND
Arctic Rising: A Constable Maratse Stand Alone novella (Guerrilla Greenland Book 3) Page 8