Black Ice (30 page)

gorilla eased  his grip on me. He knew it was over.

'As a matter of interest, what made you give them that  tasty morsel,  Ivan?  What did  they say  to tease  that  out  of you? It must've been good.'

'Oh,  Sam,'  his   voice   whined   with   self-pity.   'Moscow. Imagine it. Me in Moscow.  I'd  die, dear  boy, I'd  simply  die.' There were a lot of things  I could've said  to that,  and  none he'd  have wanted  to hear. But I didn't. Ahead,  I'd just seen a foaming  spout  of water  shoot  up into the air. It was Strokkur.

We were there.

48

Immediately, I knew why. If you wanted  to shoot  a film that was unmistakeably Iceland, that's where you'd  do it.

There's no other  stretch of countryside quite  like it. At the foot of a red-stained hump  of a hill, water and steam sizzle and bubble  in the holes in the earth's crust. The Great Geysir- the one  that   gave  its  name   to  the  whole  lot  of  them  - sulks underground now, but the rest of the springs boil steadily away. Strokkur, the one I'd  seen from the road,  blasts up a thirty- or forty-foot  column  every few minutes. All around, over an area the  size  of a  football  field,  steam   hisses  and  spits  through fissures in the rocks; mud holes like vast paint-pots, every colour from  pale  blue  to  burnt   brown,  bubble;  in others,  waters of pellucid clarity swirl, rising and sinking.  Put in your finger and it'll skin it. And even the stiff wind that  night couldn't shift the stink of sulphur.

That's what  they were all set to do: shoot  a film.

Three men - one with a shoulder camera, one with a hand mike, one with a clipboard- were testing angles around where Strokkur had erupted. Watching them,  and chipping in occasionally with  his own  comments, was Christopher  Bell. Ivan  was standing deferentially a yard or so behind  him.

Down by the road, our Range Rover was parked near a Helix helicopter, one  of those  fat-bellied   models  that  looks  like  a flying cow, which I van told me had ferried  the camera  crew in from the destroyer, Udaloy. Our  driver  and  his mate had taken up their positions  by the car, as relaxed as chauffeurs in the car park at Ascot.

When  it dawned upon me that no one cared  where I went or what  I did,  I walked  up the hillside where  I could  watch  the film  crew  prepare for  action.   Even  so,  I  kept  my distance, perhaps thirty  yards or so away from them.  In some ways I'd have been happier as a prisoner. Being unrestrained made me feel as  though  I was  in collusion  with  them.  It was an  odd feeling. Quickly  I saw why  they  weren't  worrying  about  me. What  could  I do? Run  to Reykjavik?  And  at  this  time - the middle of the night- no one would be coming  here. They were perfectly safe for hours  yet.

But when people watched  the film on their front-room tellies, they'd see the jewelled light, the eggshell sky, the miniature mountains  in  the  distance - all  as  innocent  as  a  country wedding.

'Ah,  there you are.'

Christopher turned  away  from  the group by the water  and came  towards  me. He was so little  concerned about security that  he hadn't bothered  to see where  I'd  gone.

He was wearing  a cheap  imitation sheepskin  and  he had  to hold his hair down in the wind. At first I couldn't think what it was  that  was  wrong  about  him,  then I knew.  Nothing  was wrong. He still had the same  merry look in his black eyes, and the  same  boyish  quality of  mischievous innocence.  Despite what  I'd  learned, he was the same  man.

'Did  you know this was what we were after?'  Again, inexplicably, I expected him to have acquired a foreign accent. But he still spoke  the same  prep-school English,  and  with  the same gushing  enthusiasm.

When I didn't answer,  he looked into  my staring eyes and nodded in understanding. 'Of course, Sally. Sorry,  I should've realised.'

'Where is she?'

'Perfectly  safe so long as this goes off okay.  That's all you need to remember. She's my guarantee of your good behaviour, if you  like.'

'And  if I don't behave?'

He frowned and pushed his lips out as he looked around. 'All we need now is the bride and  bridegroom. There they are, I do believe.'  He  pointed  to a puff of dust  making  its way  up  the road.

'And  if l don't?'

He shot  me one of his clever sideways  looks. 'Fair  enough. Perhaps you should  know. If not, then she's  run over by  a hit and-run driver. Killed. Tragically.'

He could see the anger inside me but he didn't back away or show any apprehension at all.

'So you see,' he said,  with a quick smile. 'No nonsense, eh?' He jerked round again at the sound of men's voices. Strokkur had fired again. A tall column of boiling water stood in the air, then  crashed down.  On  the windward side of the pool, not a drop had  fallen. But two of the Russians  had strayed towards the other side, and the shouting came as they scrambled back to safety.

Christopher called over to them  in Russian. To  me, he explained: 'I  told  them   to  watch   that  equipment. I  had  a terrible job getting  it issued.'

I felt as though  I didn't know what to say to him. All the stuff about cricket and stuffed puffins didn't apply now. Yet we were the  same   people.  Absurdly, and   to  my own  confusion,   my reaction  to him was still the same:  to like him.

He must  have sensed  this because  he reached  up and slung his hand  over my shoulder. 'Don't worry about  the little girl, she'll be fine.' He gave me a reassuring smile. 'It isn't personal, you know.  It's a game.  We played  rather better  than  you this time,  that's all.'

I could hardly  bring myself to ask the question. 'What about

Solrun's mother?  She was clean  bowled, was she?'

He gave one of those small impatient signs that you save for favourite children on their bad days. 'Really, Sam. What about the pensioners who die of hypothermia? What about  the miners who  die of pneumoconiosis? What  about  the  Light  Brigade? What about the Holocaust? People die of politics every day, I’m afraid. There's no halting that.  All we can  decently  do is to make  sure  they  don't die in vain.  To  make sure  their  deaths bring  us a little closer to a better  world. Hers will, you know.'

I remembered her scalped  skull.  'How?'

He  marked  off a square in  the  air  like film  producers are supposed to.  'That's the  scene.  Solrun,  symbol  of Iceland's proud  patriotism, stands there and  tells what  it is like to have your land  occupied  by a foreign power. She even holds a child she  was  given   by  a  foreign  soldier.  What's worse,  a  black soldier. In that  picture, Icelanders - certainly the older ones - will see  their  daughters being despoiled  and  their  race which has until now been little more than a large family being tainted by unwanted outsiders. I'm  not saying they're  right. I'm saying that's  what  they  will see on  their  screens.  And  Solrun  has a story  to tell. She will tell how desperately she regrets  this, and how,  once she  decided  to speak  out  against the crimes of the colonialist power who occupies  her country, she was hounded. The  man  who made  her pregnant, a homicidal  American, was unleashed to hunt  her down and kill her. Even her own mother was tortured and  killed by the Americans. And what you must admit, Sam, as a man who knows something about publicity, is that  it is very close to the truth.'

The  look on my face was all he needed  to continue.

'Oscar Murphy is homicidal- yes?'

'By  now he is, the poor devil.'

'You and  I know that  we had to prime him a little to get him in that  state  but  the fact remains  that  it's true.'

'Are you seriously saying the Americans killed her mother? It was you. You and  those two thugs down  there.'

He  held out  his hands  in a gesture  of open  honesty.  'But  it would never have happened if the Americans weren't here. You must  admit  it, Sam.  And what  the viewers will see is a happy ending. That's what  they  love, isn't  it? I'm  sure  it'll  make  a great  story  for Grimm. The  heroine  swept  off to safety by the handsome hero.  To  Russia.  Mark  my words.  Ten  years from now there  won't  be an American left on this island.  And here, unless  I'm  much  mistaken, are  the happy  couple.'

I felt lost without confetti  to throw.

The   black  car  pulled  up  on  the  road.  Very  correctly, the driver came  round  and  opened  the door.  Solrun,  baby in her arms, got  out.   Kirillina,  immaculate in  his  naval  officer's uniform,  came  round  and  took her arm  and  posed beside her.

. Despite  the strip of plaster  across the corner  of his left eye, and the other scrapes and  bumps on his face, he was debonair, attentive, polished. You could  almost  hear  how all the mums would catch  their  breath  when  they saw him on their screens.

This   time,   I  thought, it's  Solrun   who's  in  a  dream. She

looked  beautiful, but  she  couldn't really  look otherwise. She certainly hadn't dressed up for the event as Kirillina obviously had.   She   was   wearing   one  of  her   crinkly   cotton   things, turquoise trousers  and jacket,  which instantly became glamorous when she put  them on.

But she seemed isolated from all this weird scene. If she knew Kirillina was there, she gave no sign of it. She lifted her chin up another notch and,  with short  graceful  steps,  began  to mount the gentle slope towards  the hissing,  smoking  pools.

At  that  point,  ludicrously, the  camera crew  gave  a  small ragged  cheer.  That was  another layer  of irony.  If they  were technicians, of course,  they  probably did  believe  she  was  a gallant  freedom-fighter who was escaping  to Mother Russia.

Christopher hurried  down the hill to meet them by Strokkur.

I  didn't move.  I  watched. I  saw  him  talking  to  them,  and setting   them  with  their  backs  against the  geyser,  and   then shouting instructions to the camera crew. Solrun  continued to stare  ahead, even when  Kirillina whispered  in her ear.

This  was what  it was all about. All the lies, all the blood.  I walked down  to listen  to what she would say.

'English version  first,'  Christopher was saying.  'This is the one for the whole world.  I need hardly  say that  this is the one that  matters. When  you're ready,  Solrun  .. .'

She didn't speak.  Instead she  tilted  her  head  even  higher.

But still the tears ran down  her smooth  tight cheeks.

'That's okay.' Christopher sounded pleased. 'Quite natural. Crying at having to leave her beloved country. We'll have some of that,  I think. Ah, Sam, just the man. Give her some encouragement, will you?'

'Encouragement?' He was so informally cheerful  that  I had

to make a conscious effort to remember what  he'd done- and, even now, what  he was doing.

He  nodded   towards   her.  'Last-minute  doubts.  Not   uncommon, I dare  say. Tell  her she's  doing  the right  thing.'

I've no idea what expression  he saw on my face. Horror? Disgust?  Whatever it  was,  he leaned  over  and  said  the  one word: 'Sally.'

When  I turned  towards  her, Solrun saw me for the first time. Awkwardly, her arms  tight around the child, she shook off Kirillina's grasp  and  ran forward  to me. I put  my arms out  to hold her and  the child. That was the least  I could do.

When  I looked down  and  saw  the  baby's  face, it made  me start  with   a  shock   I  couldn't  quite   define.  It was  white. Somehow that  was wrong.  But there  was no time  to work out what  it meant  then.

'I can't, I can't,' she was sobbing.

'Of course  you can, dear,' Christopher said. 'That's it, Sam old  boy, cheer  her  up. You're among friends,  Solrun. Look, I think it might  be easier without the baby. At least to start  with. Let's  give it a try. I'm  sure you'll  remember your words if you don't have  to think  about  the baby.'

Without any force,  he seemed  to slip  the  bundle  out  of her arms. 'Sweet  little  thing,  isn't  she?'

With  a quick move of his head, he sent one of the two trawler thugs over to her. He wrapped his thick fingers around her arm and  marched her  back  to the position  in front  of the camera. The  goodwill  was beginning to thin out.

'Now,' Christopher said, his voice hardening a fraction, 'let's hear  your  piece, shall  we? Now.'

The   small   bald   man   with   the  clipboard,  obviously   the reporter, stepped up  beside  her.  I saw  him  moisten  his lips before asking  her, in goodish  English,  why she wanted  to leave Iceland.

She  began  to say something about  the  United  States, then

broke  down  in  heaving,  racking  sobs.  Those  stopped too, as her whole  body seemed  to stiffen and  her  hand  crept  out and pointed.

The  baby,  a two-foot pink  bundle,  was on the move. From where Christopher had set it on the ground  beside him, it had dropped forward  on to hands and knees and was plodding with slow determination with  the gradient of the hill. Towards the geyser.

Christopher broke the silence as we all saw with horror  what was  happening. He snapped something in Russian. Kirillina immediately grabbed Solrun, his right arm  round  her, his left holding  her  right.  The  trawler  thug  also moved  within  arm's reach.

'Just the incentive we need,'  Christopher said,  with a smile that swept all around our group. 'Can  we get it over with now, dear?'

He  took two unhurried steps  after  the baby  and  stooped  to

take hold of the bottom of its coat. It tried to move forward, this time without  making  any  progress.

'Now?'  he suggested, looking  up at Solrun.

She tried again, and again collapsed in tears. A third time she couldn't get beyond half-a-dozen words. By now she was blubbering and  shaking her head from side to side in distress. Suddenly she jerked  her face round  to me. 'What shall  I do, Sam?  Tell  me.  Tell  me  for  God's   sake.  What   shall   I  do?' Kirillina was watching her closely, with something in his face I couldn't quite  place. Christopher was down  on his haunches, still   restraining  the   baby.   Without  glancing  up,   he  said:

'Remember Sally.'  Then  he sat  back and  let the baby  go.