Meltwater

by Michael Ridpath

  There were doubts, accusations, but no proof.

  Until now.

  As she looked out over the broad expanse of brown and grey rubble that had been spewed out of a volcano several thousand years before, Erika felt the excitement build inside her. The Icelandic priest was right, this was big. This was very big.

  In the three years of its existence Freeflow had published many important leaks: it had started by exposing international inaction in Darfur, then corrupt arms deals in Africa, cover-ups in Belgium, political shenanigans in Italy and dodgy loans in Iceland. This video would cause the biggest stir. Which is why they had to make it objective, hard-hitting and above all unimpeachable.

  This time their target was Israel.

  Erika had always known that at some point Freeflow would have to publish a leak concerning Israel, and she had no doubt that this particular leak deserved to be published. But she also knew what her family would think of it. What Erika was doing would be a step too far for them.

  She took a deep breath. Too bad.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THEY PASSED THROUGH the newly built suburbs of Reykjavík into the city centre, a warren of small, brightly coloured houses with corrugated iron roofs. Ásta drove up a hill towards the tall smooth swooping church spire that Erika remembered from her previous visit to the city. From the summit by the church she could see over the roofs towards a broad mountain ridge dusted with snow to the north and sea to the west.

  ‘That’s Mount Esja over there,’ Ásta said. ‘It looks different every time you see it.’

  They descended a pretty residential road, a little wider than the others, with small leafless trees and cars parked on one side perpendicular to the sidewalk. She caught sight of the street sign: Thórsgata. Ásta drew up outside a yellow concrete house with a metal roof. Lights glimmered behind drawn curtains. ‘Here we are.’

  Inside, the house was buzzing. The ground floor was open-plan, essentially a large living area full of computer equipment, wires, folding tables and chairs, and people.

  ‘Hey, Erika, great to see you!’ Nico, tall, with shaven cranium and unshaven jaw, kissed her on both cheeks. Dieter looked up from a nest of cables and waved absent-mindedly.

  Dúddi, a young Icelandic computer-science student, came over holding out his hand. Erika ignored it and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Hey, Dúddi. Great to see you again. How’s it been?’

  Dúddi grinned. ‘It’s been good. It’s great to have Freeflow here.’

  ‘Let me introduce you to the other two,’ said Nico. He was wearing black designer T-shirt and jeans, and the familiar diamond earring in his left ear.

  The two volunteers in question were Zivah, an Israeli student who would act as translator, and Franz, a Swiss video and sound guy. They were both in their early twenties and, like Ásta and Dúddi, full of enthusiasm.

  Freeflow claimed that it had an army of volunteers all around the world. This wasn’t strictly true. People certainly put themselves forward to help, but most of them soon faded away when given the simplest tasks. Erika hoped that these two would prove more reliable.

  ‘Thanks, everyone, for giving up your time,’ she said. ‘You’ve all seen the video. You’ve all seen Tamara Wilton and the four other aid workers in that truck die. You might think that that is what happens in war: that’s certainly what the Israeli Defence Force will say. But it shouldn’t be like that; it doesn’t have to be like that. International treaties have been signed in The Hague, in Geneva, in Rome to prevent actions like these.’

  She lowered her voice. The little gathering strained to hear her. She knew the importance of converting her allies to the cause before she tried to convert anyone else.

  ‘What we saw on that video was a war crime, pure and simple. And governments all over the world will suppress evidence of war crimes if they can and if the people let them. Not just bad governments, but good governments too. Freeflow cannot prevent these war crimes from happening, but it can ensure that when they do happen the world knows about them. We can shine a bright light into those dark corners they don’t want us to see. It’s something we have done in the past and something we will do in the future until governments around the world finally realize they can no longer cover up these obscenities against all that our civilization stands for.’

  She fell silent for a few moments, letting her words sink in. She scanned her listeners. She’d got them.

  ‘Freeflow is in a unique position in history. The Internet has given ordinary citizens such as us enormous power. It is not the power to oppress or censor, but the power to set information free. Someone has risked a lot to get this video to us; possibly committed treason in their own country. We owe it to that person, and to humanity as a whole, to make sure that this work will have the maximum impact.

  ‘This is possibly the most exciting leak Freeflow has been involved with. We’re going to have to work hard over the next few days, but it will be worth it, I promise you. What you do this week will be noticed throughout the world.’

  ‘Way to go!’ said Franz, the Swiss guy, with a cheer.

  The Icelanders Dúddi and Ásta looked impressed; the Israeli student a little anxious. Erika didn’t blame her.

  ‘So let’s get to it!’ She turned towards the big man standing in the middle of the tangle of cables, his matted fair hair and scrappy beard streaked with grey. ‘Hey, Dieter, don’t I get a hug?’

  Dieter grinned as he extricated himself from the wires. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed. He was a German computer security consultant, and he and Erika had been through a lot over the last three years. They had first come across each other on the Save Darfur website. It was Dieter who had suggested setting up a separate secure site to publish leaked UN documents exposing the diplomatic dithering over the massacres of refugees in Darfur a few years earlier, and so Freeflow was born. His technical expertise and Erika’s crusading drive were at the heart of the organization.

  ‘How close are we to getting started?’ Erika asked.

  ‘We’ll have all the machines hooked up in another hour or so,’ said Dieter. ‘But Apex has a security issue.’

  ‘Not again?’ said Erika. Apex always had security issues. Erika was never sure whether they were real, or whether Apex was just paranoid. ‘Does he know who it is this time?’

  ‘He’s pretty sure it’s the Chinese.’ Ever since 2008, when Freeflow had published a list of websites blocked by the Chinese government, its network had come under attack from China. ‘He doesn’t want us to transfer the video across until he is sure everything is secure.’

  ‘Do you think he’s overreacting?’ Erika asked.

  Dieter shook his head. ‘No. It’s a real intrusion.’

  ‘OK. How long?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning at the earliest.’

  ‘Damn.’ Erika glanced around the room. ‘Where’s Gareth?’

  Gareth was a British security analyst, a former employee of GCHQ, the British government department responsible for collating and analysing electronic intelligence. His expertise would be vital for interpreting the video and for assessing its authenticity.

  ‘He can’t come until Wednesday,’ Nico said.

  ‘Wednesday! You’re kidding?’

  ‘He’s doing some freelance work that he can’t get out of. But he will be able to analyse information we send him.’

  ‘Can we do that securely?’ Erika asked Dieter.

  ‘Yes,’ Dieter said. ‘We can use Tor once Apex has given the all-clear.’ The Tor network allowed encrypted data to travel through a virtual tunnel between two computers that was extremely private. It was Dieter and Apex’s favourite system and at the heart of Freeflow’s operations. When layered with PGP or ‘Pretty Good Privacy’ data encryption, information was just about as safe as it could be. ‘It’ll be better than nothing for a couple of days. It’s not ideal, though,’ Dieter added.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ said Erika.

  ‘Erika?’ Nico was giving her his m
ost charming smile. It put her on her guard but she couldn’t help warming to it. He was an Italian in his late thirties who used to run a hedge fund in London and had made himself several million before quitting. He had approached Freeflow the year before, offering help, both financial and organizational, and after proving himself over a three-month trial period, he soon became a vital member of the team. He claimed he didn’t think like a finance guy, and he didn’t dress like one, but it was thanks to him that Freeflow hadn’t run out of cash months ago.

  ‘Yes?’ Erika couldn’t help returning his smile.

  ‘Given this security hiccup, we could go and see the volcano. This afternoon.’

  ‘We’re not here to sightsee,’ Erika said.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Nico. ‘But this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It would only take a few hours. I told the people we rented the house from we were Internet journalists here to report on the volcano. It would be good for our cover if we actually went to see it. And it would be an excellent way for the team to get to know each other.’

  Erika glanced at Dieter. ‘Are there not things we can be doing in the meantime?’

  ‘Some things, maybe. But it would be safer to wait until Apex is sure the system is secure. And the volcano would be cool.’

  It would. Erika had arrived at the house desperate to get going, but she knew that waiting for Apex to give the all-clear would be painfully frustrating. A few hours wouldn’t make much difference. And Erika never underestimated the importance of the team’s morale. She would have preferred a trip to the Blue Lagoon, but . . .

  She nodded. Nico’s smile broadened, almost like a little boy’s. It was kind of cute. ‘How do we get there?’

  ‘Dúddi’s father has a superjeep. Dúddi can drive us.’

  ‘OK,’ said Erika. ‘We’ll leave in an hour.’

  ‘I’ll arrange it,’ said Nico.

  ‘I have a feeling, Nico, that you have already have.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  Erika pointed to a dome-shaped mountain whose snowy cap was glimmering in the sunshine. They were driving through a flat flood plain covered in brown grass. The ‘superjeep’ was basically a Ford Super Duty on giant wheels, and it held the seven of them comfortably: Erika, Ásta, Zivah, Franz, Dieter, Nico and Dúddi, who was doing the driving.

  ‘No, that’s Mount Hekla,’ said Ásta. ‘It’s one of Iceland’s most active volcanoes, but it’s quiet at the moment.’

  ‘So where is it, then?’ asked Erika. ‘Can we see it yet?’

  ‘Straight ahead,’ said Dúddi.

  Ahead the brown plain met the foot of a long mountain ridge. The ridge itself was hidden in clouds.

  ‘Oh,’ said Erika.

  ‘Yeah, there are two glaciers up there, Mýrdalsjökull and Eyjafjallajökull. The volcano is on a ridge called Fimmvörduháls just between them.’

  ‘In the clouds.’

  ‘Yes, in the clouds,’ said Dúddi. ‘For the moment. But this is Iceland. Clouds come and clouds go.’

  ‘Are we going up on the glacier?’ asked Franz, the Swiss guy.

  ‘We sure are. That’s why we need the jeep.’

  ‘Is it safe up there?’ Zivah asked.

  ‘Of course it’s safe,’ said Dúddi. ‘I went up there in this with my dad last week. It’s an awesome sight, believe me.’

  They drove on; to their right lay the Westman Islands, volcanic cubes of rock scattered like dice across the sea. They crossed a broad river and skirted the southern edge of the mountain range. Farms nestled in the shelter of the ridge, and horses dotted the meadows that lined the road. They passed a waterfall, a broad curtain of white slipping off a cliff edge, before turning off the main road and heading upwards on a track. Soon they were on ice. The glacier.

  It was cool, Erika thought. It was also cloudy. In a moment they were in something close to a whiteout, snow beneath them and white water vapour all around them. Dúddi slowed down. He appeared to be following the dozens of tyre tracks spreading across the ice.

  ‘Do you know where you’re going?’ Erika asked.

  ‘Sure,’ said Dúddi. ‘I just follow the tracks. But I’ve got my GPS here.’ He tapped the instrument mounted on the dashboard.

  Every now and then headlights would appear out of the mist, as a jeep made its way past them down the glacier.

  ‘Do they know something we don’t?’ Erika asked.

  ‘I guess the visibility’s not too good up there,’ Dúddi said.

  ‘Did you check the forecast?’ Ásta asked.

  ‘Er, no,’ said Dúddi. His confidence was crumbling.

  ‘Shouldn’t you check the forecast before you drive up a glacier?’ Erika asked.

  Dúddi slowed and turned to his passengers. Erika liked him; he was one of a small group of students who had taken it upon themselves to invite her to the University of Iceland the previous year to speak at a conference on Internet censorship. He was a good-looking kid with an open, honest face that combined innocence with intelligence. And doubt. ‘Look, it’s not guaranteed we’ll get good visibility,’ he said. ‘There’s a chance we might be wasting our time. But the clouds do come and go in the mountains. And believe me, it’s worth it. Do you want me to turn around?’

  ‘Let’s go for it,’ said Nico. ‘We’ve come this far.’

  ‘Yeah, let’s go for it,’ said Franz. ‘This rocks.’

  Erika was beginning to wish she had never agreed to the jaunt. And Franz’s grasp of American college-kid slang was beginning to irritate her. But if they turned back now, it would be disastrous as a morale-building exercise. Better to get up there and see nothing than not to try and never know what they had missed. ‘No, keep going, Dúddi,’ she said.

  They drove on. The wind was picking up; loose snow skipped across the tracks in front of them. They almost hit two snowmobiles that shot out of the mist towards them.

  ‘Hear that?’ said Nico.

  Over the roar of the jeep’s engine and the swish of snow, they could hear a distant crashing, which grew steadily louder.

  The volcano.

  ‘Blue sky!’ said Franz, craning his neck against the side window of the vehicle to look upwards. It was true; above them rips in the cloud revealed patches of blue, darkening now that afternoon was slipping into evening.

  ‘We might still get lucky,’ said Dúddi. ‘We’re nearly there. Look at the snow.’ Patches of brown rock were emerging from beneath the snow and ice. ‘It’s the heat from the volcano.’

  The cloud thinned ahead of them to reveal a flat section of ice and rock on which a lone four-by-four and a couple of snowmobiles were parked. Dúddi eased his superjeep next to the other vehicle. A man and a woman were sitting inside staring upwards into the mist.

  The team got out of the jeep. It sounded as if an angry monster was thrashing about just out of sight in the clouds. It was cold; the wind was biting. Everyone zipped themselves up in their snow jackets and they walked as a group towards the bottom of a pile of rubble; Erika was very grateful for the coat Dúddi had borrowed for her from his sister. Despite the wind, she could smell sulphur in the air.

  Then the curtain lifted.

  Erika looked up and saw the most astounding sight of her life. About three hundred yards ahead the monster was revealed: a churning mass of orange and red fire, spitting, exploding, pouring up into the air with a steady rhythmic crash. It had eaten out the top of a small dome, creating a bubbling bowl of magma, over the rim of which a dribble of super-hot lava spilled, an orange river burning its way through the ice of the glacier down to the side. Steam spewed out of the cauldron, and from fissures in the ridge all around them where smaller fires of stone burned.

  ‘Wow!’ said Erika.

  ‘This is so cool!’ said Franz.

  Dúddi smiled.

  ‘Amazing,’ said Nico, his eyes alight with excitement and the orange reflection of the volcano. ‘Can we get closer?’

  ‘Of course. We can climb up there.’ Dúddi point
ed to the pile of rubble ahead of them.

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Erika. ‘Isn’t that lava?’

  ‘It is, but it has cooled. Last time I was here it was crowded with people. Look! There are a couple of guys up there now.’

  It was true: there were two people silhouetted against the orange of the volcano.

  They all followed Dúddi up the slope. Erika could feel the warmth beneath her feet. She picked up some of the stone in her gloved hand. It was warm and it crumbled. She was a little nervous that the whole slope would slip away underneath her, but it seemed to hold. The wind was still blowing, but Erika didn’t notice the cold.

  ‘I told you it would be worth coming,’ said Nico, grabbing her hand.

  They reached the top and the view was even better. The volcano itself was only a hundred yards away. They couldn’t get any closer: the lava was too soft.

  ‘It looks powerful from here, but this is actually a small eruption,’ Nico said. ‘It’s what’s called an effusive eruption. They’re the pretty ones. Basalt lava gets thrown up into the air and then flows down the side of mountain.’

  ‘What’s the other type?’ Erika asked.

  ‘Explosive eruption. That’s when the magma explodes into ash and is flung way up into the atmosphere. They are nasty: you don’t want to be anywhere near one of those.’

  ‘My, aren’t we the expert?’

  ‘Told you,’ said Nico with a smile. ‘They say there’s a chance that Katla will blow, that’s a big volcano under the Mýrdals Glacier back there. If it does there could be a real mess – massive floods.’

  ‘Floods?’

  ‘Yeah. The eruption melts the ice in the glacier, and the meltwater surges down the mountain in a series of powerful flash floods. Jökulhlaup, I think the Icelanders call it – “glacier leap”. You really don’t want to be in the way of one of those.’

  They stared at the convulsions of the volcano in awe.

  ‘You know what? I’ve thought of a code name for this Gaza video project,’ said Nico. ‘Meltwater.’