VATNAJÖKULL GLACIER,
SATURDAY 30 JANUARY, 2315 GMT
Júlíus watched the
soldiers approaching, the powerful headlamps of their snowmobiles
lighting up the darkness. There were about twenty of them, clad in
helmets and goggles which completely obscured their faces, with
rifles slung over their backs. Within a minute they had halted in
unison and stood waiting for the rescue team, as if they had drawn
an invisible line that they had every intention of defending.
Júlíus’s team consisted of some seventy men and women, travelling
on skis, snowmobiles and two tracked vehicles. As they neared the
soldiers, Júlíus signalled to them to slow down, and they
eventually came to a standstill about ten metres from the waiting
troops. It was an improbable meeting in the dark, snowy wasteland:
the troops armed with automatics and revolvers, clad in Arctic
camouflage, the winter uniform of soldiers who wished to pass
unseen, and facing them, the unarmed Icelandic rescue team whose
luminous orange jackets recalled, in contrast, the necessity of
visibility in their work.
Júlíus, who was
travelling in one of the tracked vehicles, told his team to stay
put while he talked to the soldiers. He stepped out of his vehicle
and walked towards the waiting men, noticing as he did that one of
them dismounted from his snowmobile and came forward to meet him.
The other soldiers rapidly followed suit. They met halfway,
standing not quite toe-to-toe. The officer pulled the scarf down to
uncover his mouth but even so Júlíus found it hard to make out his
face behind the goggles. He looked young, though, much younger than
Júlíus himself.
‘You have entered a
US military prohibited zone,’ the officer announced in
American-accented English. ‘I have orders to prevent you from
proceeding any further.’
‘What do you mean a
US military prohibited zone?’ Júlíus responded. ‘We’ve heard
nothing about any prohibited zone.’
‘I am not at liberty
to reveal any further details. The zone won’t be in force for long
but whilst it is we insist that it is respected. It would be
simplest for everyone if you cooperated with these
instructions.’
Anger welled up
inside Júlíus. He had seen the broken bodies of his team members
lying at the bottom of a crevasse, one dead, the other unlikely to
live, and was convinced that the men in white camouflage were
behind the apparent accident. And now, to cap it all, these foreign
soldiers were trying to deny him free movement in his own
country.
‘Cooperate! You’re a
fine one to talk about being cooperative. What are you up to here?
Why did you have to kill one of my men? What’s this about a plane
on the glacier? What’s all this fucking secrecy?’
‘I need to ask you to
hand over all your communications equipment, mobile phones,
walkie-talkies, and any emergency flares,’ the officer ordered,
ignoring Júlíus’s question.
‘Our communications
equipment? Are you insane? We’re responding to a distress signal
from your so-called prohibited zone. There are Icelanders in
danger . . .’
‘You are mistaken.
There are no Icelanders in this area apart from yourselves,’ the
officer interrupted. He remained calm and impassive, though his
tone betrayed a hint of impatient arrogance. Júlíus took exception
to his conceited manner; under any other circumstances, this was a
man he would be only too happy to punch. He was not afraid of the
other soldiers and their guns; the entire situation seemed farcical
and unreal more than dangerous.
‘And what if we
refuse? Will the American army shoot us?’
‘We have
orders.’
‘Well you can shove
your orders up your arse. You have no right to stop us. There is no
prohibited zone on the glacier. All we’ve heard about is a volcanic
eruption alert but I bet that’s a fabrication as well. You have no
right to throw your weight about in Icelandic sovereign territory.
And you certainly aren’t having any of our equipment.’
They stood eye to
eye. A biting northerly wind was blowing over the glacier, sending
loose ice crystals rippling across the surface like smoke. The
rescue volunteers stood in a silent pack behind Júlíus, showing no
sign of fear in the face of armed soldiers. Like their leader, they
had no intention of being pushed around by a foreign military
power.
‘We’re carrying on,’
Júlíus announced.
He turned and walked
back towards his team, so failed to notice the officer signalling
to the man nearest him. The soldier removed his rifle from his back
and knelt to assume a firing position. Júlíus had almost reached
the first tracked vehicle when a volley of shots rang out.
Instantly, the grille and bonnet of the vehicle in front of him
were riddled with holes, the silence split by a deafening series of
cracks as the bullets punctured the steel. Júlíus flung himself
down on the ice. Fire blazed up from the engine and a small
detonation blew the bonnet sky-high, to land with a crash on the
roof of the vehicle. The members of the rescue team who were
sitting inside it kicked open the doors, hurled themselves out on
to the ice and crawled to safety. Soon the entire vehicle went up
in flames, illuminating the winter darkness.
The shooting stopped
as quickly as it had started. His breathing coming in gasps, heart
hammering in his chest, Júlíus rose up from the ice, stunned at
what had just happened. Calmly, the young officer walked right up
to him again. The soldiers had all unslung their weapons and now
had the rescue team comprehensively covered.
‘Your mobile phones,
radios and emergency flares,’ the officer repeated in the same
flat, toneless voice. Júlíus stared at the flaming wreckage. He had
never experienced anything like this before, never encountered
military force, or seen weapons used in combat, and for a moment
his anger gave way to trepidation about what might await him and
his team. He tried to penetrate the soldier’s goggles, taking in
the grey forest of weaponry behind him. None of the men’s faces
were visible. His gaze turned to his own people, some of whom had
fled the burning vehicle while the others were standing at a loss
by their snowmobiles. It was fifteen degrees below zero on the
glacier and he could feel the warmth from the blaze.
Kristín spotted them
first. She and Steve had approached the glacier at a point where
the edge was not particularly high or steep, so they barely noticed
the change in terrain from snow-covered rocks to ice and were
already some way on to the surface of the ice cap when she saw
lights ahead in the darkness. Four snowmobiles. She had stopped to
wait for Steve who had been lagging behind again. By the time he
caught up the snowmobiles had reached her.
Both had the same
thought as their eyes met. They had assumed that the glacier would
be kept under close surveillance, so it came as no surprise that a
reception committee had been sent to meet them, but the speed at
which they had been intercepted was shocking. There was no hope of
outrunning the snowmobiles, but then they had no intention of
trying. As the familiar sensation of fear bloomed again in Kristín,
she reminded herself that those who needed to know had been
informed of what was happening. That was her life insurance.
Whether it would work or not was another matter. She and Steve
stood still and waited. Strangely, given the circumstances, it was
her feet that preoccupied her at that moment. From painfully cold
they were beginning to turn numb, despite the extra pair of woollen
socks that Jón had lent her.
The four men
surrounded them on their snowmobiles. One, whom Kristín took to be
the officer in charge, switched off his engine and dismounted. He
was clad in goggles and Arctic survival gear like the other three,
with thick gloves on his hands. He drew the scarf down from his
mouth.
‘I must ask you to
turn around and leave the glacier,’ he said. ‘You have entered a US
military prohibited zone.’
‘Prohibited zone?’
Kristín repeated contemptuously. She knew instinctively that these
were the soldiers her brother had seen, perhaps precisely those who
had intercepted him on the glacier. Perhaps the very men who had
thrown him into the crevasse.
‘Correct. A US
military prohibited zone,’ the soldier repeated. ‘We have
permission to carry out exercises here. The area is closed to all
unauthorised personnel. Please turn back.’
Krístín stared at him
and had difficulty hiding her feelings. Rage boiled up inside her.
After all the trials she had gone through since the two men burst
into her flat, at last she was standing face to face with the
truth. These soldiers were proof that the US army was involved in
activities on the glacier that would not tolerate the light of day.
They were proof that her brother had not had an accident but had
seen something he was not supposed to see. And now this man was
standing in front of her, giving her orders; an American soldier
throwing his weight around in her country as if he ruled the
place.
‘Turn back yourself,’
she snarled, snatching at his goggles and looking him in the eye.
He jerked his head away and the goggles snapped back on to his
nose. The cold intensified the pain and, momentarily losing control
of himself, he struck Kristín in the face with the butt of his
rifle, knocking her on to the ice. Steve tried to jump him, seizing
him around the shoulders, but the soldier drove the butt into his
stomach with all his strength and Steve bent double and fell to his
knees, winded. As she tried to pull herself up, Kristín was
bleeding from mouth and nose but the officer shoved her down with
his foot, knocking her flat on her back again.
‘Turn back,’ he
ordered.
‘Tell Ratoff I want
to meet him,’ Kristín choked.
‘What do you know
about Ratoff?’ the officer asked, unable to conceal his surprise
and realising belatedly that he had said too much.
Kristín smiled
despite the cut on her lip.
‘I know that he’s a
murderer,’ she replied.
The soldier stared at
her impassively and then at Steve, as if wondering what action to
take. After weighing up the options, he fished a mobile phone from
his breast pocket, punched in a number that was answered instantly,
and stepped aside, making it hard for Kristín to hear what he was
saying.
‘A male and a female,
affirmative, sir,’ he said in a low voice. ‘She knows your name.
Just a minute, sir.’ Turning, he walked back to where Kristín lay,
propped up on her elbows in the snow.
‘Are you Kristín?’ he
asked.
She met his gaze
without answering.
‘Do you have a
brother who was up here on the glacier yesterday?’ the officer
asked.
‘I don’t know. You
tell me,’ Kristín hissed from between clenched teeth.
‘That’s right, sir,’
the officer said into the phone. ‘Understood,’ he added, then
ending the call, turned to his men.
‘We’re taking them
with us,’ he announced.