FOREIGN MINISTRY, REYKJAVÍK,
SATURDAY 30 JANUARY, 0730 GMT
Kristín had cared for
Elías since he first entered the world. She was ten years old when
he was born and immediately took a great interest in the baby, far
greater than her parents in fact. She remembered wishing that her
mother would have a little boy. Not that it mattered in the end –
what she wanted above all was a sibling as she was bored of being
an only child and envied her friends their brothers and sisters.
But her parents could not bear noise and the house was a haven of
peace and quiet. Both spent long hours at the office and would
bring their work home with them in the evenings, which left them no
time to pay Kristín any attention. She learnt to move about the
house noiselessly and to look after herself; learnt not to disturb
them.
Looking back later
she could not understand why they had had Elías. As grown-ups, she
and Elías would sometimes discuss the fact. He must have come as a
complete shock to them. When her brother was being rowdy Kristín
often sensed just how deeply he irritated their parents, as if they
resented any time spent on their children, as if they found their
offspring a nuisance and regarded them with disapproval. Feeling
this neglect brought Kristín even closer to her brother. Yet their
parents were never cruel, never smacked them or doled out harsh
punishments; the worst of it was that if either child misbehaved,
their indifference would become even more marked, the silence in
the house even deeper, the calm and peace and quiet more
consuming.
While Kristín had
quickly learnt to adapt by creeping around, trying not to disturb
them unnecessarily and taking care of herself, these were lessons
Elías never grasped. He was noisy and demanding, ‘hyperactive’,
their parents said. Their aggravation was obvious. He cried for the
first three months after he was brought home from the hospital and
at times Kristín would cry with him. As Elías grew up he was
forever spilling his milk, knocking over his soup bowl, or breaking
ornaments. Kristín quickly developed a stifling sense of
responsibility and would chase him around with a cloth, trying to
limit his damage. By the time she was fourteen she was his sole
carer: on her way to school she would drop him off at day nursery,
and after school would fetch him, feed him, play with him, see him
to bed at the right time and read to him. Sometimes she felt he was
her own child. Above all she made every effort to keep the peace,
to make sure that her parents were not disturbed. That was her
responsibility.
It took many years
for her to discover the reason for their indifference and neglect.
She had occasionally noticed the signs but did not recognise them
for what they were until she was older. Bottles she could not
account for would surface in peculiar places, either empty or
half-full of clear or coloured liquid: in the wardrobe, in the
bathroom cupboards, under their bed. She left them there, never
removing them from their hiding places and they would vanish as if
of their own accord.
There were other,
more distressing signs. Her father would often leave on long
business trips, or lie ill in bed for days. Her mother was
frequently incapacitated, or saw things that no one else could see,
though this happened rarely and at long intervals, so Kristín
learnt to live with it, as Elías would in his turn.
‘I do wish we could
spend more time with you,’ their mother once said to Kristín, and
she noticed that oddly sweet smell on her breath. ‘God knows, we do
our best.’ She was drunk when her car hit a lamppost at 90
kilometres an hour.
All these memories
passed through Kristín’s head as she stood in her office, hearing
news of her brother’s condition from a complete stranger. She and
Steve had gone directly to the ministry from Sarah Steinkamp’s flat
in Thingholt, a walk of no more than ten minutes. She lowered the
telephone receiver slowly and her eyes filled with tears. She had
not slept for more than twenty-four hours and still had lumps of
dried blood on her ear and cheek. A familiar sense of guilt
overwhelmed her.
‘They don’t think
he’ll make it,’ she said quietly.
Steve took the
telephone and introduced himself to Júlíus, the leader of the
rescue team. It was still very early and no one had turned up to
work yet but the security guard, recognising Kristín, had let them
in. They did not intend to stay long.
Steve now heard the
full story. They had found Jóhann’s badly battered body in a
crevasse. Elías had fallen into the same crevasse but still showed
signs of life, though Júlíus was forced to admit that they saw
little chance he would pull through. His condition was very poor.
Júlíus and his team were on their way back to camp and were
expecting a Defense Force helicopter before long, but they did not
know if they would make it back to camp before the storm
struck.
‘Has Elías managed to
say anything about the accident?’ Steve asked.
‘He’s said his
sister’s name, nothing else,’ Júlíus replied.
Kristín had recovered
sufficiently to take back the phone.
‘Elías didn’t have an
accident,’ she said steadily. ‘Somewhere on the glacier there are
American soldiers and a plane that is somehow connected to them.
Elías and Jóhann were unlucky enough to run into them and were
taken captive and thrown into the crevasse.’
‘Do you know where?’
Júlíus asked, and Kristín heard the screaming of the wind over the
phone. He was on a snowmobile and had to shout to make himself
heard.
‘We believe it’s in
the south-eastern section of the glacier. We spoke to an old pilot
who used to carry out surveillance flights in the area. I’m going
to get myself up there, though I don’t know what assistance we can
hope for. US special forces have taken over the base on Midnesheidi
and the embassy here in Reykjavík. We’ve no idea if the Icelandic
government is involved and the police want to interview me about a
murder, so I can’t turn to them.’
‘A
murder?’
‘It’s a long story,’
Kristín said. She had heard the police announcement on the radio
that she was wanted for questioning in connection with the body of
a man found in an apartment in the west of Reykjavík and
immediately suspected that they would try to implicate her in some
way.
‘The main thing is,’
she continued, ‘can I look to you for help if we make it? If we
find the soldiers and plane, will your team be in the
area?’
‘You can take that as
read. But Kristín . . .’
‘What?’
‘It’s a bloody big
glacier.’
‘I know. How many are
in your team?’
‘There are seventy of
us. We have to get Jóhann and Elías airlifted to town, then we can
set about looking for those soldiers. But first we’ve got to wait
for the Defense Force helicopter . . .’
‘Why not use the
Icelandic Coast Guard chopper?’
‘It’s
busy.’
‘Júlíus, I’m not sure
you’ll get any help from the base at the moment. There’s a
different crowd in charge there now and from what we’ve seen I
doubt they’ll provide any assistance.’
‘They’re sorting it
out back at camp. I’ve no idea what’s going on at the base. But
I’ve already lost one man and the other – I have to be honest,
Kristín – Elías is in a very bad way. There’s a massive storm
brewing here. You’re telling me that I won’t get the help I need
because of some special forces coup? I’m wondering – and I have to
ask you straight – have you lost your marbles? I’ve never had a
more bizarre phone conversation in my life than the last two with
you.’
‘I know,’ Kristín
said, ‘I’ve wondered the same myself. But there’s a reason why my
brother’s dying in your hands and it’s far, far more complicated
than either you or I know. I’m just saying that I’m not sure you’ll
get the Defense Force chopper. Call the Coast Guard and don’t give
up until they send theirs, whatever they say about using the one
from the base. Insist on the Coast Guard chopper.’
‘Got it!’ Júlíus
shouted.
‘Then wait to hear
from me again.’
Kristín turned to
Steve.
‘When are we going to
meet this friend of yours, Steve? Monica, wasn’t it?’
‘Later,’ Steve
answered. ‘We ought to try to rest until then.’
‘Rest?’
‘Elías is alive,’
Steve said carefully. ‘He’s still alive. There’s
hope.’
‘They didn’t succeed
in killing him,’ Kristín said. ‘They won’t get away with it. We’ll
meet Monica, then head up to the glacier.’
‘Then we’ll need
equipment. A guide. A four-wheel drive. Where are we going to find
all that?’ Steve asked apprehensively.
‘We have to find
those brothers Thompson mentioned. Surely they’ll help us if
they’re still alive? Failing them, the people who live there now.
And I think I know where I can get hold of a four-wheel
drive.’
‘Kristín, we need to
think seriously about what we can achieve against a bunch of
soldiers.’
‘I haven’t a clue,’
Kristín answered, ‘but I have to see what’s going on with my own
eyes. I have to find out what they’re up to.’
Desperate as she felt
about Elías, it was no longer simply about her brother. She was
driven by an inner compulsion and by other forces impelling her
forward that she could not put a name to. Her normal reserves of
energy exhausted, she had reached a place that was beyond fatigue.
She wanted to know what the plane contained and she intended to
find out. And when she found out she was going to tell people,
expose the bastards who had tried to kill her brother and succeeded
in killing his friend.
‘But first I have to
check out what was going on in 1967.’
The reading room of
the National Library was deserted and the only noise was made by
Kristín turning a heavy wheel to scroll through microfilms of
newspapers from the 1960s. She sat in front of the clumsy
microfiche reader watching the pages roll past, one after the
other. The number of editions on each microfilm depended on the
physical size of the newspaper; with some titles, two years’ worth
could fit on the same film. Kristín watched the headlines fly by,
history being replayed on fast-forward: the Vietnam War, the
assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the student
uprising in Paris in ’68, Nixon’s presidential
candidacy.
She savoured this
brief interval of solitude, the silence that reigned in the reading
room. Of course she was grateful to Steve for coming to her
assistance and appreciated his help and his calm reactions, but at
last she had time to catch her breath, to think about what had
happened over the last few hours and to plan what to do
next.
In the meantime,
Steve had gone to a small hostel on a backstreet nearby. He said he
only needed the room for part of the day and had some dollars on
him, so the warden was quick to pocket the money and did not bother
to enter him into the guest book. He and Kristín were planning to
travel east to the glacier later that day but before that he
intended to gather more information about the operation on the
glacier; ring some people, find out whatever they could tell him.
He had hardly had time to think since Kristín rang his doorbell
yesterday evening and now he took the chance to go over the events
of the night, trying to form a picture of what he had experienced.
Clearly, Kristín was in real danger and he was glad to be able to
help her; even though he could not work out exactly what was going
on, as long as she needed him, he was content.
Kristín found the
astronauts’ visit in 1967. There were twenty-five of them and the
press had followed their every move. One of the pilots with them
was called Ian Parker, the name Thompson had mentioned, the man who
used to fly Scorpions. He had also been a member of the earlier
group; the newspapers reminded their readers that eight astronauts
had come to Iceland on a training mission in 1965. On that occasion
the group had been taken into the uninhabited interior, to the
volcanic desert around Herdubreidarlindir and Askja, a trip that
was repeated when Neil Armstrong and his fellow astronauts visited
the country. He was the only member of the team to have been
awarded his astronaut wings, the only one who had actually been in
space, having piloted the Gemini 8 in 1966 during the first
successful manned docking of two spacecraft in orbit.
Unsurprisingly,
Armstrong attracted the most column inches. The article described
him as a very reserved man with a short back and sides haircut;
quiet, serious, interested in the technological challenges of space
flight, and quoted as saying that the only drawback with the US
space programme was the huge amount of attention he attracted
wherever he went.
‘The huge amount of
attention he attracted wherever he went,’ Kristín repeated to
herself.
Her ex-boyfriend,
“mar the lawyer, had no intention of lending her the car at first.
In fact, he was more inclined to call the police when Kristín
appeared without warning at his office in the centre of town. He
had heard the radio announcements. Later, surely, pictures of her
would be broadcast on the TV news that evening and in tomorrow’s
papers.
‘Jesus, Kristín!
What’s going on?’ he burst out when he saw her standing at the door
of his office.
‘What have you
heard?’ she asked.
‘All I know is that
you’re wanted by the police because of a dead man in your
apartment,’ he said, rising from his desk. ‘What on earth have you
done?’
‘I haven’t done
anything,’ she assured him.
‘That’s not how it
sounded. Why are you on the run from the police? Surely it’s some
misunderstanding?’
‘Calm down,’ Kristín
said, closing the door. ‘I need to ask you a favour.’
‘A
favour?’
‘Yes, I’d like to
borrow your jeep.’
‘My
jeep?’
‘Yes. Look, I’ll fill
you in on the whole story as soon as I have time but I’m in a
terrible hurry and there’s no one else I can turn to. You have to
help me.’
He stood staring at
her as if she was a complete stranger; a tall, good-looking man
with attractive brown eyes who had caught her off her guard at a
Law Society party and been part of her life for the next three
years.
‘I’m desperate,’ she
said. ‘You’d be doing me an incredible favour.’
‘Are you in some kind
of danger?’ he asked in a gentler tone, and she remembered that for
all his faults he could be considerate at times.
‘No,’ she lied. ‘And
I am going to get in touch with the police just as soon as I can
but there’s something I have to do first and you can help
me.’
‘What are you
planning to do with the jeep?’
‘I have to take a
short trip into the countryside – I won’t be long, trust
me.’
Ómar wavered. He
could see that Kristín was desperate and had no good reason to
refuse her request.
‘Just for today?’ he
asked.
She
nodded.
‘And you’ll leave it
in front of the office by the end of the day?’
‘Yes. Thank you so
much, “mar. I knew I could rely on you.’
‘If you don’t return
it, I’ll be on to the police straight away.’
‘No problem,’ Kristín
said, kissing him on the cheek. ‘Don’t worry about a
thing.’
‘Did you really kill
that man?’
‘Of course not. Don’t
be silly. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back. I
promise.’
Now she and Steve
were sitting in a handsome, brand-new blue Pajero. The jeep was
equipped with a car-phone and tinted windows; apart from her brief
respite in the library, it was the first time Kristín had not felt
hunted in the last eighteen hours. She fought down the instinct not
to leave the jeep’s warm, leathery interior.
She had found a
parking space in front of a florist near the restaurant, from where
they could monitor the comings and goings around the pub. It was
getting on for four o’clock, dusk was falling. A group of men clad
in thick jumpers, leather jackets and jeans – trawlermen, Kristín
guessed – stopped outside the pub and, after a loud altercation,
went inside. A young couple followed them. A fat man in a thick
windcheater came out. Everything seemed calm.
It was ten past four
when Steve nudged Kristín.
‘There’s Monica,’ he
said, pointing to a tall, slim woman in her early forties, with
dark hair, wearing a thick, beige overcoat and a belt around her
waist. She hurried inside. They waited to see if anyone was
following her, then stepped out of the car. Looking through the
window Steve saw that Monica had taken a seat at the back, in a
corner. The fishermen were now lining the bar and making a racket,
roaring with laughter and shouting to one another. Four men sat by
one of the large windows facing the street, trying to ignore the
fishermen. Otherwise, only the odd table was occupied. The interior
was wood-panelled and furnished with rustic wooden tables and heavy
chairs in a forlorn attempt to evoke an Irish pub ambience, and a
small staircase led to an upstairs room where they sometimes had
live music. Kristín and Steve made their way over to the corner and
sat down beside Monica.
‘What’s happening,
Steve? What the hell’s going on?’ Monica asked the moment she saw
them. The words came tumbling out; she was agitated and tiny pearls
of sweat beaded her upper lip.
‘I don’t know,’ Steve
said. ‘I swear I don’t know.’
They described the
events of the previous evening and night for her and she listened,
tense and restless, rubbing her hands together as if she was
finding it hard to concentrate. Steve noticed her continually
looking over his shoulder as he was speaking. While they were
waiting outside in the jeep, Steve had explained to Kristín that he
and Monica used to work together when she lived on the base, before
she got her job with the Fulbright Commission.
‘Did you find
anything out?’ Steve asked, when he had finished his
story.
‘No one will say a
word,’ Monica answered, running her hand through her hair. ‘The
embassy is in a state of siege. I’ve never seen guns in there
before but now everyone is armed. They’re special forces, I think.
It’s like living in a time-bomb that could go off any minute. Most
of the embassy staff have been forced to take leave. When I asked
what was going on, I was sent to see some officer who said that the
situation would be sorted out in a few days and that everything
would then go back to normal. He asked me to be patient. He was
very polite but I got the impression he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot
me given half a chance.’
‘In a few days?’
Kristín repeated. ‘They’ll have left the glacier by then and
presumably the country too.’
‘What about this
Ratoff?’ Steve asked. ‘Did you find anything on him?’
‘Nothing. Not that
I’ve had much chance to look. Obviously, if he works for the secret
services, it won’t be easy to track him down. I don’t even know if
it’s a Christian name or a family name, or even his real name at
all.’
‘Nor do we,’ Kristín
interjected impatiently. ‘It’s just something I overheard. So what
do you know about troop movements on the glacier?’
‘I spoke to a friend
on the base, Eastman. He’s one of the guys in charge of the hangars
and he told me the situation there is very mysterious. The word is
that special forces troops arrived on a C-17 transport plane that’s
now waiting on standby on one of the runways. It’s almost unheard
of: no one’s allowed near the plane – they have their own guards.
The troops who arrived on it must be the men your brother saw on
the glacier. Eastman didn’t know where they were heading. The whole
thing’s shrouded in the utmost secrecy.’
‘What about the two
men who tried to kill Kristín?’ Steve asked.
‘The embassy’s
crawling with dubious characters. For all I know, any one of them
could be a paid assassin.’
‘Are they tapping the
phones?’
‘Yes, Steve. They’re
tapping the phones.’
‘So they know who
makes calls, both to and from the embassy?’
‘That’s what I’m
trying to tell you.’
‘What do you mean,
trying to tell us? Jesus Christ, so they know about you and me,
about us! Have you sold us down the river, Monica?’ Steve said
slowly in disbelief. ‘Is this a trap?’ He was on his feet now,
tugging at Kristín, who had not yet absorbed the implications of
what Monica was telling them. Following the line of Monica’s gaze
Steve glanced around to see Ripley entering the pub, dressed in a
padded, white ski-suit. He strolled unhurriedly over to their
corner. Steve looked back at Monica.
‘They threatened my
boys,’ Monica said desperately; she too was on her
feet.
Kristín could not
believe what she was seeing when she looked over at the door and
spotted Ripley making his way towards them, and out of the corner
of her eye glimpsed Bateman coming down the stairs. He was dressed
like Ripley; they no longer looked like religious salesmen; now
they might have been tourists. She could see no way out of the trap
– she and Steve were in a back corner of the pub, in the place
chosen by Monica. There was no escape route.
‘Third time lucky,’
Ripley said, pushing Kristín down into her seat again. She stared
at him, her knees buckled and she fell rather than sat. Ripley took
a seat beside Monica, and Bateman pulled up a chair and joined
them, indicating to Steve to return to his chair.
‘Well, isn’t this
cosy?’ Ripley said, beaming. ‘Is the beer good here? Before you try
anything silly, I should point out that we’re both armed and won’t
hesitate to shoot, so perhaps we can do this in a civilised
way.’
‘We have a car
outside and we’re going to invite you – not you, Monica – to come
for a drive,’ Bateman added.
‘And if we refuse to
go with you?’ Steve said, still searching Monica’s
face.
‘Ah, you’re the
knight in shining armour that she found on the base, aren’t you?’
Ripley said, smiling to reveal a row of improbably even white
teeth.
‘What a charming
couple,’ Bateman continued, looking at Kristín. ‘Do you make a
habit of screwing Americans from the base or is Steve here the
exception?’ He reached out a hand as if to caress her
cheek.
Kristín jerked her
head back. Steve sat stock still. Monica lowered her eyes in
shame.
‘Well, it’s been
delightful but regrettably we’d better get moving,’ Bateman said.
‘Monica, here, who’s ready to betray her friends at the drop of a
hat, will leave first and make herself scarce. I’ll go next and
escort our political scientist. We’re going to stand up very slowly
and walk out of here very calmly. Ripley and Kristín will follow,
and that’ll be that. It couldn’t be simpler.’
‘Where are you taking
us?’ Steve asked.
‘We’ll find some nice
quiet spot,’ Bateman said. ‘Don’t you worry about
that.’
‘What’s in the plane
on the glacier?’ Kristín asked.
‘Now that’s the kind
of curiosity that we find so stimulating,’ Bateman said. ‘But don’t
you think it would be better if you let us get on with what we have
to do?’
Bateman stood up to
let Monica pass. She bustled away from the table, keeping her eyes
on the ground as she passed them and hurried across the pub to the
exit, looking neither left nor right. Opening the door, she
vanished into the winter dusk.
‘Right, Stevie, on
your feet,’ Bateman said, standing up himself and taking hold of
Steve’s shoulder and tugging at him. Steve stood up, looking
helplessly at Kristín as Bateman turned him round and pushed him
along in front of him. He did nothing roughly as he did not want to
attract any attention.
‘Now you,’ Ripley
said. Neither the fishermen at the bar nor any of the other
customers seemed to notice. Kristín rose slowly and they set off.
She felt sick, her legs weak as if they did not belong to her; the
whole situation seemed unreal, as if it was happening to someone
else, as if time had slowed down. When they reached the bar, one of
the trawlermen inadvertently blocked her way, forcing her to stop
in her tracks. Ripley tried to move him aside but he would not
budge or give Ripley so much as a glance. Kristín saw Steve
climbing into the white Ford Explorer outside the pub. So this is
how it would end: abducted from a busy pub, without so much as
putting up a fight, for a lonely, unpleasant finale.
‘He called you a
faggot,’ Kristín said in Icelandic, before the fisherman could say
a word. She had noticed him staring at her while she sat with Steve
and Monica but had tried not to catch his eye. She knew all about
men who stared from a distance: they were trouble.
‘Oh, yeah? Who said
that?’ the fisherman demanded, instantly squaring up.
‘Faggot. He called
you a fucking faggot,’ Kristín said, pointing at
Ripley.
‘Don’t say a word
more,’ Ripley ordered, pulling at Kristín. ‘Your boyfriend will get
shot if anything goes wrong in here.’
‘He said you were all
fucking fairies,’ Kristín yelled at the bar, tearing herself away
from Ripley. They now had the fishermen’s undivided attention. If
Ripley meant to pull the gun out of his ski-suit, he did not manage
it. She saw the barrel of a revolver glint in his hand, then
watched as the fisherman who had showed an interest in her punched
him hard in the face.
‘I’ll show you who’s
the faggot,’ he said.
Ripley collapsed on
the floor and as the trawlermen surrounded him, Kristín edged
slowly out of the crowd. She glanced outside at the Explorer. Steve
was in the back, Bateman behind the wheel, inevitably beginning to
wonder what had delayed his partner. He craned his neck to peer
into the pub but Kristín was not sure what he could
see.
Noticing a door
behind the bar, she vaulted over the counter and fled into what
transpired to be the kitchen. Out of the corner of her eye she saw
Ripley trying to fend off two fishermen before he was overpowered;
the Icelanders were raining down blows on his body and head.
Kristín sprinted through the kitchen and out of a door that opened
into a small backyard which was connected to the street via a
narrow alley. Running along it then pressing her back against the
wall to peer into the street, she saw that the white Explorer had
not moved. Inside she could just make out Bateman and
Steve.
She began to creep
towards the car, then saw Bateman gesticulating at Steve and
yelling something at him. Next minute he jumped out of the
Explorer, slamming the door behind him, and ran into the pub.
Without a moment’s hesitation she raced to the rear door on the
street side and tried to open it but discovered it was locked.
Noticing her, Steve banged on the window. He could not open the
door on his side either; he was locked in the car.
‘For fuck’s sake,’
Kristín panted. Looking round frantically she saw a small warning
sign that had been erected in front of some nearby roadworks.
Dragging it towards the car, she heaved it as hard as she could
against Steve’s window. The glass shattered, small splinters
showering the interior and the road. Immediately the car alarm went
off and inside the pub she saw Ripley’s head jerk round. Bateman
was supporting him. The fishermen were standing in a huddle by the
bar. Bateman shouted something as Steve squeezed out of the window,
ripping his jacket on the jagged edges of the glass.
‘Our car!’ Kristín
screamed as she tore ahead of Steve past the restaurant. She did
not dare to look back. Steve was following hard on her heels; she
could hear him breathing heavily just behind her.
Bateman emerged from
the pub supporting Ripley and laid him on the steps. He had his gun
in his hand and, scanning his surroundings, caught sight of Kristín
and Steve jumping into the jeep parked in front of the
florist.
‘It’s the Special
Squad!’ exclaimed a teenage boy clutching a skateboard and pointing
at Bateman. Bateman ignored him. He did not notice that people all
round him had stopped and were watching him sprint along the
street, gun in hand. He ran hunched over, like a hunter after his
prey, his arms held straight down by his sides so the gun almost
brushed the tarmac.
Kristín got behind
the wheel of the Pajero and turned the key in the ignition and
stamped on the accelerator simultaneously. The engine screamed into
life. Shoving the automatic into reverse, she backed out of the
parking space and down the street with wheels spinning, the tyres
smoking on the wet tarmac. With a quiet popping sound, a small hole
appeared in the windscreen just to the right of her head and
another directly below it: Bateman was shooting as he ran. Kristín
backed across the road, clipping a car approaching from the
opposite direction, which made the Pajero spin forty-five degrees.
She slammed the automatic into drive and screeched off down the
road. They heard a low hiss as shots penetrated the chassis and
Kristín ducked in the hope that this would protect her. Steve lay
in the footwell on the passenger side, eyes wide with
anguish.
Behind them, Bateman
tore around the corner into the street in pursuit but he soon gave
up the chase and shrank ever smaller in the rearview mirror before
disappearing from sight.