Sneakernet: A John Crane Novella

by Mark Parragh

  Then, as expected, the pilot’s voice crackled over Einar’s headset. “Orders, sir?”

  Einar glanced at his map. The Ring Road ran more or less north northeast here. Out here, there wasn’t much in either direction to draw the man. But to the west was nothing but a couple lakes and empty lowlands. To the east were a scattering of remote farms. At least there, there would be cars he might steal. And there were drainage ditches separating the fields. That had to be how he’d slipped away. Now the day was growing light again, and there was precious little cover for a man on foot.

  “We’ll search east of the road. Pull everyone out of Reykjavik. Anybody south of us comes up here. I want as many eyes on the ground as we can get.”

  The man was resourceful, Einar had to admit. Better, he was damned lucky. But that would only take him so far. One man, on foot, out here, against barren ground with nowhere to hide. Luck couldn’t help him now.

  Einar broke out a pair of binoculars as the helicopter swung east of the Ring Road and settled into a comfortable altitude for searching the ground. They’d have him soon, he thought.

  He tapped the headset button to speak to the pilot. “And have somebody bring me a god damn duty uniform!”

  Chapter 12

  Crane ran. He’d traveled more than a mile in the network of ditches before deciding it was safe to climb out. He was cold and wet from the muck and bruised from the wreck. He was hungry, and he hadn’t slept. But Crane had been prepared for situations like this. The Hurricane Group had put him through military SERE training—Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape—in eastern Washington in the winter. By comparison, he told himself, this should be a piece of cake.

  On the other hand, the woods of eastern Washington were thick with cover. Concealment was easy there. Here, there was nothing.

  Crane could hear the distant sound of the helicopter. It was searching methodically, back and forth across a defined search area. They’d missed their guess about which direction he was heading, and had done an even worse job of projecting how far he’d made it since leaving the road. They were well behind him at the moment. But when they didn’t find him, they’d move farther out. Eventually they’d find him.

  But he knew they would face difficulties of their own. At some point, they’d have to refuel. Crane’s map showed several small airstrips scattered around this part of the country, but those probably consisted of little more than a packed dirt runway and a shed or two. Supplies of aviation fuel would likely be limited out here. They might even have to fly back to Reykjavik to refuel. And of course, the farther they had to go, the more fuel they would burn getting back out here, the sooner they would have to leave again, and the less time they could search for him.

  So Crane ran. The steep hills he’d seen from the truck rose up in front of him, tilting up into bare, brown slopes that ultimately vanished into a bank of low cloud. He kept up his pace until the sound of rotors faded away. After another five minutes of silence, Crane slowed to a walk, then sat down and let his body rest.

  The land around him was barren. There was little wind today. With the helicopter gone, he was surrounded by a great silence. Nothing moved. The land was beautiful in its desolate way, but uninviting. People living in a land like this would be a stern people, he thought, used to living close to the margins of starvation. They would be accustomed to death, to heroic efforts that still failed because the land gave nothing back. They would celebrate heartily when they could, because they knew what tomorrow might bring. And there would be a grim humor that they didn’t reveal often. Looking at the country explained a lot about the Icelanders he had met.

  Crane took a GPS receiver, a map, and a compass from a side pocket of his emergency pack and worked out his position. He’d put another couple miles between himself and the Ring Road. The high ridge in front of him ran north-south for several miles. He was near its northern end. The southern end was farther than he cared to hike on foot. That meant he had to go around it to the north, or else over it. His instincts warned him away from the northern course. The Ring Road curved around the end of the ridge and headed on toward Blönduós, the next town. Going around the ridge would force him close to the highway, make it more likely someone would see him. Locals might take him for just another hiker—his emergency pack was planned to help him pass as a backpacking tourist—but Datafall might have concocted some story to put the police on his trail.

  According to his map, the land sloped down into a valley on the far side of the ridge. It was perhaps five miles wide, drained by a small river. Across the river, another range of barren hills ran parallel to this one. A road ran along the near side of the river, and the map showed several farmsteads. These were considerably more isolated than those out by the Ring Road. Datafall would be less likely to look for him there. The remote farms might offer a chance to find some supplies and get his hands on a car.

  He looked up at the mist-shrouded hills. Near the cloud line, even the grasses faded out, and the hillside was bare dirt and scree. It wasn’t very welcoming, and he didn’t like the idea of a climb. But there it was.

  Crane took a granola bar from his pack—leaving him one more—and ate it as he walked on toward the hills. The land grew rockier and his progress slowed as he made his way up the slope. He was painfully aware of how exposed he was here. He angled south, following a less steep path up the ridge. As he gained altitude, he could see more of the countryside he’d passed through. Behind him to the west, the land stretched away in a patchwork of uncultivated fields with the Ring Road a dark line slicing through it. Eventually the fields gave way to a pair of large lakes with a spit of lowland between them, and finally the dark sea. The colors were muted by the low sun filtering through the overcast.

  Crane was focused on keeping his pace steady, paying attention to his breathing and his heart rate. The idea was to exert himself just enough, find the sweet spot that would give him the fastest pace without wearing himself out. So it took him a few seconds to notice the sound of the helicopter. It was closer now. They’d refueled more quickly than he’d hoped. And they were moving farther from the road this time.

  He glanced over and saw it, a dark spot moving against the cloud cover. If they hadn’t seen him yet, it was just a matter of time. He looked around for someplace to hide but saw only a few scattered rocks. There was only one place he could hope to stay out of sight.

  Crane abandoned his careful pace. He turned directly upslope and pushed himself higher, faster, running up the steepest part of the slope. Before long he could feel the burn of lactic acid in his muscles, felt his heart pumping. But he could also hear the clatter of the helicopter searching for him, growing louder until it seemed to thunder in his ears. You’re imagining that, he told himself angrily. They haven’t seen you. Keep moving.

  The fog would conceal him. It offered at least temporary safety, but it seemed to taunt him, always just a few more steps away. Crane kept moving, breathing, climbing as fast as his body would carry him.

  When he was sure he was above the cloud line, he stopped and crouched low to the ground. He was right. The green land below him was dim and misty now. Above him was just diffuse gray light and the top of the ridgeline. The helicopter even seemed more distant now, working its way up and down the fields below, searching in vain. Crane resisted the urge to stop here, but he settled down to a recovery pace, letting the mist protect him as he headed south along the ridge.

  The workout had given him one benefit; he was warm, even sweating a bit. That wouldn’t last though. Crane was tempted to find a sheltered spot to curl up and get some sleep, but he wasn’t sure he trusted the weather. The air was calm now, heavy and moist, clinging to the hills. But he’d seen how quickly a strong, cold wind could come up and clear it all away. He needed to take maximum advantage of the low cloud cover while he had it.

  A long day’s hike, then. With no sleep and little food. It was just like his training again, Crane thought. He aimed for the ridgeline and set
out, bound for whatever he could find.

  Chapter 13

  Einar looked at his ringing phone. The call had come, just as he knew it would. It was well into the afternoon. They’d given him as much time as they could.

  “Set us down,” he shouted to the pilot. “Immediately.”

  The helicopter slewed to the right, toward a flat area beside a small, gravel road. As it descended, Einar accepted the call.

  It was Benediktsson at least. He was the board’s most junior member. The signal was clear. Einar still had the board’s confidence. They had to take an interest, but were interfering as little as protocol would allow.

  Einar went through the motions. He explained the nature of the previous night’s brushfire event, the scope of the data leak, the actions he had taken to contain the damage.

  Benediktsson did express concern about the high profile recovery operation, particularly the attack on the delivery truck. That was only what Einar expected. He didn’t ask for details of Einar’s plans going forward—another good sign. Einar offered the details anyway. It was possible they would be called on to suppress further actions. The man had been on the loose nearly twenty-four hours now. The area to be covered kept getting larger. Eventually it would encompass the entire country. It would be too vast for them to search.

  But the man couldn’t simply live forever out in the back country. Indeed, if he did, that would be fine. The data leak wasn’t even a leak unless the thief could get the data out of Iceland. To get out, simply to move around the country, he still would have to pass through particular choke points. Towns and villages, roadway intersections. There simply weren’t that many roads in Iceland. The farther their target tried to go, the fewer choices he would have.

  Therefore, he explained to Benediktsson, he was changing his strategy. He would still be searching for his target directly from the air. But beyond that, he would identify those places the man was likely to pass through and move men there to set up a screen and wait for him.

  Benediktsson expressed every confidence in him, thanked him for his tireless efforts. They went through all the elements of the ritual. But as he hung up, Einar knew he was on the clock. If he didn’t bring the man down soon, the next call would come from someone higher up in the board hierarchy. Already their confidence was shaken, whether they chose to acknowledge it or not. This was the first real brushfire event in the company’s history; the few petty hacker attacks that had been given the name previously didn’t truly deserve it. And it had happened on his watch. While he was at the damned symphony. This had started badly and every hour it went on, it got noticeably worse.

  “Four teams are inbound, sir,” one of his men announced.

  Einar looked up the road and saw a caravan of large, black American SUVs headed toward them. They drove in a tight line, moving fast. These were just the closest. The rest of the teams were moving up from the south. Enough for him to deploy in a wide net around the area.

  He stepped down from the helicopter as the SUVs pulled up nearby and the eight men inside got out. Einar gathered them around the helicopter. One had brought him a crisply folded black duty uniform and a pair of boots. Finally, he could get out of the ridiculous tuxedo. He ran a fingertip across a lapel; it was a total loss, he thought. Between the wear and tear of the helicopter and the diesel smoke, he doubted he’d ever get it into proper shape again. He doubted he’d be able to recover the woman he’d abandoned at Harpa either. One more thing to blame the son of a bitch for. That had been a promising relationship.

  He stripped out of the tuxedo and changed into the fresh uniform as he laid out his orders. Let them see him in his underwear. What did it matter now?

  “Our man has been in the countryside for most of a day now,” he told them. “He’s on foot. He’s got only what he can carry. He’s cold, he’s tired, and he’s hungry. We can’t turn over every square meter of the country looking for him. But he has to come out of the back country at some point. And when he does, we’ll be waiting for him.”

  He pointed at the teams, one after the other. “You’re in charge of First Wing. Second Wing. Third, and Fourth. As other teams arrive from the south, divide them among yourselves. The others will report to you. You’ll report directly to me. I want two teams patrolling the Ring Road on either side of Blönduós. Let’s assume he’s still headed for Akureyri. Otherwise, place your teams at remote intersections. I want regular checkpoints. Stop all traffic, check everything moving on the roads. Tell them you’re National Police if you need to. Any remaining teams, send them down the back roads. Put the word out to farmsteads. Tell them he’s a dangerous criminal, armed and on the run. Say he’ll be looking to steal food, or a car, and he already killed a woman at a farm near Borgarnes. Put the fear of God in them. If some local shoots him on sight, I’ll settle for that.”

  They spent a few more minutes working out the details. When Einar was satisfied, he sent them off. He watched the convoy of SUVs speed away on the narrow road and wondered if his plan would work. Even if it did work, was it enough to save the situation? He was improvising at this point, going way outside the scope of his job description. That description was necessarily vague, but a big part of it was protecting Datafall’s assets while keeping a low profile. The fewer people who noticed the company, the better. He wasn’t doing either thing very well at the moment.

  He climbed back aboard the helicopter, and the pilot started up the rotors. Einar wasn’t one to dwell on past mistakes. The way to fix this was to focus on the immediate goal. Stop the bastard before he got out of Iceland. As long as the data didn’t make it out, they could deal with any collateral damage created in the process, like the truck driver.

  He signaled to the pilot, and the helicopter sprang back into the moist, cool air. He had his net in place. Now to drive his quarry forward into it.

  Chapter 14

  Stavanger Airport, Sola Norway

  The Gulfstream sat parked on a ramp in the general aviation area. Georges lay sprawled in the back of the plane with his feet up on the table, listening to music on his phone. He checked his watch. Assuming it was on schedule, the Celebrity Eclipse had sailed from Akureyri more than two hours ago. There was still no word from Crane. It was becoming harder to avoid the inescapable conclusion. Crane had missed the ship.

  In his headphones, Soul Makossa faded out and the lilting voices of Sir Shina Peters’ Sewele took its place. Georges noticed and smiled for a moment. It was always this way when he was nervous. He would subconsciously start to shift his playlist from the modern hip-hop he usually favored to the older afrobeat that had surrounded him when he was a boy. Peters, Manu Dibango, Amadou and Mariam, Les Têtes Brûlées. Part of him still found comfort in the remnants of his old life in Cameroon.

  It had been a good life, he thought. His father had been a university administrator, his mother a French teacher. His sister, three years younger than Georges, had been breaking hearts in high school, and he’d been studying to be an engineer. He had many friends, a career in the wings. It had been a very good life, until it wasn’t anymore.

  His father had run afoul of some provincial thug who wanted an unearned diploma for his lazy and witless son. His father refused to fix it for him, and that was when the threats had begun.

  A month later, while his father was away in America at a conference, his mother had been attacked on her way home from the market. Men with machetes had viciously slashed her and left her bleeding in the street. His mother had survived, but she still carried the scars. The whole family had fled Cameroon, and none of their lives had ever been the same again.

  Rationally, Georges knew that it wasn’t his fault. There was nothing he could have done. But another part of him couldn’t shake the feeling that he should have been there. That he should have protected his mother. That he’d let her down.

  And now he’d done it again. He didn’t know how, but the spread spectrum system he’d developed to guide Crane through the mission had failed somehow.
It was his system, his responsibility. And now, Crane’s backup plan had apparently failed as well. He was still trapped in Iceland.

  Georges switched off the music. He didn’t want to be comforted right now. He wanted to make it right. He wanted to do something this time.

  He pulled out the tactical map of Iceland. There was Akureyri, on the northern coast. The map showed airfields, including one at Akureyri, but he had to assume that Datafall was hunting Crane, and that meant assuming they would be watching the airports that were the most obvious way out of the country.

  Except one, he realized, looking at the map. He turned around in his chair and looked forward toward the cockpit. Then he remembered the pilots weren’t there. They were inside at a coffee shop, seeing no reason to stay aboard the Gulfstream while they waited. He grabbed the map and made his way to the exit door.

  Georges hurried across the ramp to the diner. The pilots were seated at a table by the window. The pilot was the older one, the co-pilot the younger one, who Georges thought was Greek or maybe from the Middle East. They were chatting over coffee and pastry. Georges rushed up and slapped the map down on the table, nearly knocking over the pilot’s coffee.

  “Grimsey Island,” he said, pointing at the map. “Can you get me there?”

  “Calm down!” said the pilot. “Start at the beginning.”

  Georges pulled up a chair and pointed at a tiny white speck on the blue field of the sea. “Grimsey Island. It’s about 40 kilometers off the coast. It’s not safe to land in Akureyri, but they won’t be watching there. It has an airport. We fly there. I take the ferry to the mainland and find Crane. Then we take the ferry back out and we’re gone.”

  “Hold on,” said the pilot, looking at the scale of Georges’ map and the size of the island. “Hold on. That can’t be much of an airport.”