Ice Islands, page 8
‘We all got blood from somewhere else.’ Rake worked the Beretta’s mechanisms.
‘So, for whatever, I was sent to England.’
‘You didn’t enjoy it?’ He was getting close, but unsure how much to press and when she would bring the shutters down.
‘The school was OK, sometimes fun. It was my parents. I hated them because they didn’t want me.’
‘Families get like that sometimes,’ Rake shifted concentration back to his surveillance feed. Mist swept across the sea which was getting choppy. The deer had gone. The track they had driven in on was clear, as was the wide arc view from the SUV two hundred yards away. The view to the forest was the most dangerous. ‘Have you made up with your family?’ he asked.
‘No. I rebelled. I didn’t know who I was or what I was. My family wanted to turn me English. At school I was called a “Chink”. They couldn’t tell the difference between a Chinese and a Japanese person.’
She moved past Rake to the door to sweep up melting ice and grit from the floor. ‘I traveled. I worked as translator, waited tables, cleaned houses. Europe and Asia. Michio stayed in touch, kept saying I should come back and go to university. I said I would if my father asked me, and he never did.’
She opened the door to a blast of cold air and threw out the contents of the pan which scattered in the gale. She turned back in, pulled the door shut and held the pan close to her as if protecting a child. Underneath her conversational swings and erratic movements, Sara had steel. Many would have collapsed by now, drinks at the bar, liking Yuri Mishkin, creeping into his room, finding his body, the blood, then the shit in the lecture hall. Wound up as tight as it gets, Sara Kato had the grit to keep going.
Rake lightly held her shoulders. ‘It’s OK, Sara. We’re going to eat something, get some sleep. We’ll get out of here—’
‘I don’t want to get out of here,’ she broke in. ‘Don’t you understand? Haven’t you ever been on a train and never wanted it to get to the station because the train is safe and nowhere else is.’
Lucas’s voice came into Rake’s earpiece. ‘We have a helicopter flying in from Sweden. Thirty minutes. A Westland A109. Can it handle?’
‘Yes.’ The A109 was a twin-engine light utility helicopter. A good pilot could deal with this weather, even the harsher stuff they had earlier. ‘I’ll mark a landing zone.’ Rake ended the call and said to Sara, ‘I’ll be outside for a few minutes. Stay tight here. I’ll be watching. You’ll be fine.’
She threw a crumpled tissue into the fire and nodded. Rake hooked his rucksack onto his shoulder, slipped the SIG Sauer into his holster and the smaller one onto his ankle. He carried the Beretta loose in his right hand. He had lived through the sort of morning when a sane man keeps his guns close, and his antennae finely tuned. Sooner or later, someone would be out there to get them.
‘We’re leaving, aren’t we?’ said Sara.
‘In about half an hour.’
‘Where?’
‘Sweden.’
Color drained from Sara’s face. Rake imagined her mind spinning. She cherished their short sanctuary. She resented the need to move. She knew she had to.
‘Here.’ Rake handed her one of his phones, black in a steel casing, a protected keypad with a number punched in which would connect her straight to him or Harry Lucas.
‘You trashed my phones.’ Sara bunched up her nose in disapproval. ‘So, thank you.’
He turned it on and held it flat in front of her. ‘Right thumb on the screen.’
Sara wiped her thumb as if cleaning it of dust and pressed it onto the phone. Rake put his hand on hers, holding it there until a green light came on. ‘Your hands are so cold,’ Sara said. ‘And rough.’
‘Put in a four-digit passcode? Nothing you’ve used before. One you’ll remember under stress.’
Sara keyed in 0607 which Rake remembered were her and Mishkin’s room numbers. Not great, but he let it go. ‘It’ll work anywhere,’ he said. ‘If we get separated, it’ll take you straight through to me or to my boss.’
She slid it into her back pocket. ‘Thank you, Mr Soldier Man. I mean it, Rake.’ She gripped his elbow. ‘For the phone and for letting me talk.’
Rake gave her a small smile. He liked her. He wished they could have the day and he could tell her about his father. She smiled back. ‘It’s like we’ve known each other forever. Your face is so hard, but you’ve got a lovely smile, even with all your guns.’
Outside, the wind was quieter, but enough to whip sea water into spray which reached the hut. No more hail. Snow fell thick and straight. Dark clouds blocked sunlight. The weather was changing, sooner than Lucas had forecast.
FIFTEEN
The landing area would not pass civil aviation standards. But it was good enough for an A109 and a competent pilot. Rake paced out fifteen yards square for the makeshift helipad. At each edge, he pinned a flashing LED lamp.
‘Are you seeing this weather?’ he asked Lucas.
‘In a minute or so you have fog. But the heat is off. The Finns are with us and on their way. A Detective Leo Virtanen in charge.’
Good. Virtanen had made a brave and right call to let Rake leave with Sara. He liked the way Virtanen handled things, how he talked to the delegates – like he had seen worse and stranger a hundred times before.
The hut stood on ice-covered rock that sloped sharply down to the sea and more gradually the other way toward the forest. On three sides, the landing area was clear with rock and water. On the other, with the pine tree forest, Rake allowed forty yards, which would give plenty of room. He didn’t want the aircraft coming down in a burst of bad wind and skidding down the steep incline into the water. Nor did he want rotor blades slicing through pine trees.
The aircraft would have state-of-the-art sensors. Rake would stand forest-side with a flashlight signaling the hazard of the pine trees. As he walked across to that edge, he heard the sound of metal clicking against rock. It was faint, barely audible in the loud weather. But Rake had been raised in snowstorms and howling wind. He had learned to listen out for danger, which he heard now. This would not be an animal because none would be out in these conditions. Nor was it a human in trouble. They would be crying for help. It was hostile. Rake broke into a run toward the wooded area. As he reached it, snow sprayed up at the base of a tree in front of him. He heard the snap of a bullet breaking the sound barrier, around a hair’s breadth from his skull. Rake made a forward roll like a somersault and readied the Beretta. A second shot slammed into ice an inch in front of him.
Rake ended flat on snow, twisting so he faced the forest where he judged the firing came from. He fired three shots into the trees, then looked quickly back toward the hut. He saw the glow of the fire through a window, but no one approaching, no grab for Sara. There was quiet from the forest. He ran to the steep incline where the rock dipped down toward the sea, thinking it would protect him enough to work out what was going on. He got it wrong. He ran straight into his enemy, taking his assailant equally by surprise. The man fired twice and missed. Rake was too close. His enemy was white with a strong face. But his movements were erratic. The angle of the ice slope was lethal, but a familiar danger to Rake, the ice rough, pockmarked over winter months with crevices and sharp edges.
He saw a second person running from the forest toward the hut, skewing Rake’s immediate concentration because visibility was enough for him to see she was female and black. His attacker fell on him, hand raised with the pistol butt. Rake had an option of getting away by sliding down toward the sea. The risk was that he would not be able to break his fall and end up in the freezing water, either hypothermia and drowning or a clear target for a killing. It was better to block the blow. He tilted back. His assailant’s strike glanced off the back of his head with enough force to wrench around his neck. Sea spray from rocks hit his face. His assailant towered above him, pistol raised. A man about to strike in conditions like this would be receiving a constant stream of messages from his inner ear about his body’s position, forces pulling it in different directions and how he needed to adjust his balance for accuracy of aim. A trained man worked all that from muscle memory. Rake needed to inject something totally unexpected into the process. He was sure this was the American Marine Corps officer from the conference, most likely a veteran who would have a grudge.
‘John Freeman. The new President?’ Rake yelled. Wind from the sea was quiet enough to carry his voice. The question bought a hesitation. Rake whipped the SIG Sauer from his shoulder holster. The attacker leaned forward as if failing to hear properly. Rake spoke again, ‘Freeman’s shitting on us veterans.’
Two things happened simultaneously. Rake fired and missed. The attacker lost balance, sliding down, his full body weight crashing into Rake, who landed a pistol-whipping blow onto his attacker’s right temple, making him go limp. Rake staggered to his feet. The man was out cold. Rake peeled off the woolen hat. The unconscious face in front of him was indeed the white American US Marine Corps delegate. A fog cloud began enveloping the hut, but not enough to stop him seeing the door opening and someone going in to get Sara. ‘Ozenna!’ Lucas in his earpiece. Rake blanked him out. Sara was his focus. He clambered up the ice. A search light snapped on, its beam splaying through the fog cloud, mounted on the back of what looked like a black-and-white police truck. There were red flashing lights, blue lights on other vehicles. Rake ran toward the hut. Two police were there before him. A third blocked his way with his hand raised to halt.
‘Major Ozenna. Stand down.’ A command through a police public address system. The hut door opened. Sara came out with a policewoman. Rake’s thermal blanket was wrapped around her. Behind her was the female US Marine Corps delegate, in police handcuffs.
‘The helicopter is two minutes out,’ said Lucas. ‘You and Sara Kato need to be on it.’
‘Copy that,’ shouted Rake over the wind.
‘The pilot can see your LZ. Bring him in. Get on that bird.’
‘This is Detective Leo Virtanen from the Finnish Police.’ The police vehicle public address system again. ‘Everything here is under our command. Everyone do exactly as I say.’
The engine of the A109 became louder, lights piercing fog. Two police officers took positions on the landing area with orange aircraft marshaling wands. Virtanen held a microphone attached to the dashboard of the police vehicle. Police led Sara toward the landing zone.
The approaching helicopter became a roar. Loose ice skidded across the ground. Downdraft shook snow from trees. Rake sprinted back to the sloping shoreline. His assailant was still unconscious. He photographed the man’s face. Pulled off his right-hand glove and took a print by pressing the finger on a laminated card from his pocket. He found a wallet with photo ID, credit cards and, with it, a passport.
The helicopter’s skids settled on the icy rock. Pine trees swayed. A side door slid open, and a crewman leaned out and gave a thumbs-up. Rake ran across to Sara, who shouted through the noise, ‘Who are they?’
Rake took her elbow. The police officer with Sara radioed to confirm the handover. But Virtanen did not respond. His public address was silent when it should be emitting clear orders. Rake pulled Sara toward him, covered her with his left arm, held the SIG Sauer in his right, his grip weak because of a muscle torn by a fall on the ice.
The police officer escorting Sara yelled something in her ear. Her expression transformed completely. She began to resist Rake, struggled to free herself. Against the rain, it was impossible to see what had changed. There was a blur of lights and activity around the police vehicles. There was static and sharp chatter on the police radio with Sara. She had come willingly with Rake since the lecture hall. Now, she was pulling away. Why? She looked back to where the police officer was pointing. Three men walked quickly toward them.
‘Ozenna,’ Lucas said. ‘Get on that bird.’
Police officers dragged him back from Sara. She quickened her pace, toward the men who wore civilian clothes but moved with military body language. One broke into a run.
‘Leave her, Ozenna. Get out of there.’
‘What the—?’ began Rake.
‘NOW. That’s an order.’
Strong arms gripped his shoulders. He could resist. But what for? This wasn’t Sara’s decision. Something was going down in Harry Lucas’s back-office mess. Rake had been on operations with bad orders and conflicting ones. But nothing like this. He was charged with looking after Sara and so close to getting her to safety. Without warning, she didn’t want him. Police frog-marched him toward the helicopter. They shoved him forward, as if pushing him into a prison cell. The crewman wore the yellow and blue insignia of the Swedish Air Force. Rake stepped on the skid and a gloved hand came down and hauled him on board. The engine pitch changed as the aircraft lifted toward low-lying cloud. Medics were with the assailant Rake had knocked unconscious. Virtanen stood by the police vehicle, microphone hanging loose, giving no orders, a detective who knew when he was outflanked. Sara faced the man who had been running toward her. A helicopter light, skewed by rain, swept across the scene, clear enough for Rake to recognize the man he had last seen walking away from a massacre in Portugal. Sara flung her arms around Michio Kato. She turned to look up at the helicopter, her face wet with rain, her expression unreadable.
SIXTEEN
Washington, DC
Experience and age told Harry Lucas to suppress fury that raged inside him like scalding water from a kettle. Turn down the heat and seal on the lid. The Finnish, Swedish and American governments had agreed to guarantee safe passage out of Finland for Rake Ozenna and Sara Kato. In the last minutes, as the helicopter was coming in, Petrovsky reversed the order: Ozenna left; Sara Kato stayed. In his final words from the helicopter, before the line was cut, Ozenna yelled that Michio Kato was at the scene. Sara had gone to him. One new President and years of work flushed down the toilet. No fucking way.
Until a day ago, Harry’s high-level security clearance had given him unfettered access to a slate of federal security agencies. Now, passwords and barcode scans weren’t working. One-time codes were rejected. As Petrovsky had said, Harry had been shut out, and more. Long-time contacts, whom he had thought were friends, were not picking up. Word was being spread around the intelligence community that Harry Lucas was tainted. He needed to get it stopped, and to achieve that he needed leverage.
He opened a link to London, where his large high-definition screen became filled with an empty office, flooded with light from three sides. He adjusted the contrast to get a view down the River Thames towards the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye and Tower Bridge. He topped up his coffee, which was hot but stale, and that didn’t worry him.
‘Harry Lucas as I live and breathe. What an undying pleasure!’ The slim face of Stephen Case appeared close to the camera. He flapped down his right hand in a half wave, slipped off a bright green rain jacket and walked behind a long, glass-topped desk at the end of his penthouse office in the inner suburb of Hammersmith.
Case was unorthodox, phenomenally intelligent, and a product of the changing world of defense and intelligence. Decades earlier, government inventions had given the world e-mail, GPS navigation and satellites. Much of that now lay with private sector giants who were pioneering cyber, artificial intelligence and more. While trawling for information on Yuri Mishkin, Harry’s system had uncovered footage of the actual murder, sitting on the dark web, in dreadful detail like a snuff video.
‘I need your dark web expertise,’ said Harry.
‘Of course. I am the recipient of a generous Harry Lucas contract.’ Case wore a pastel orange shirt and beige pants. He moved with the elegance of a ballet dancer, taking a seat in a large white leather chair behind the desk. He slipped off brown leather shoes and picked up a pale green vape pipe made from jade, which he had told Harry was flown in illegally from Myanmar. Case said he had had it carved to show a man, woman and serpent entwined, to remind himself that all good things end with sex, the fang of a serpent and expulsion from paradise. ‘Word was that you were out, Harry. Given the boot by the new kid in the White House, and you look like shit.’
Harry had gotten used to Case’s flippant humor and theatrical English turn of phrase. He found it a refreshing change from Washington double-speak and deception. Case was on his personal payroll, with allegiance to no one but Harry. Different as they might be, the two got on well. Harry paid. Case delivered. They bantered and got the job done.
‘Long night.’ Harry answered. He added an extra encryption level and sent through the dark web video file on Yuri Mishkin. By acknowledging the new security layer, both knew their small talk would need to continue for the few seconds it took to transfer.
‘I mean it, Harry. You look dreadful.’ Case took a drag from his pipe. ‘You need to get a better woman, one that looks after you, the type that makes the man the plan.’
‘You’re right. Need to find the time.’
‘It’s not about scheduling, for Christ’s sake.’ This wasn’t the first time Case had goaded Harry about his incomplete personal life. ‘You’re crap with women. You think of them as friends. You need to see them as sirens lying somewhere between sex and the serpent.’ He held up the pipe like a mascot. ‘Someone who cares for you. I’ll send you Emily. Bright as a button. A mountain of love to give and she adores you.’ Emily was a thirty-something tech wizard who worked for Case.
As Case spoke, cheerfulness drained from his face. He went quiet, lay the pipe on the desk, pulled his keyboard toward him, studied the screen, then said, ‘This is it, right?’
‘It is.’
‘Do we know whose throat is being cut?’
‘Later. Is it genuine?’ If it were, it meant two people at least in the room: one killing, one filming.
