Sneakernet: A John Crane Novella

by Mark Parragh

  The co-pilot took out his phone, fired up an app, and started typing. “… s,e,y?” he asked.

  Georges nodded. A moment later the co-pilot shook his head. Then he showed the screen to the pilot.

  “There’s a reason they won’t be looking there,” he said. “Because we won’t be there.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s right,” said the pilot. “That’s not an airport; it’s a driveway. The book says they’ve got 3,400 feet of runway. Our takeoff distance is more than 5,000.”

  Georges felt himself starting to deflate. He fought it off. “Crane’s in danger. Real danger. If they catch him, he’s dead. How firm is that distance?”

  “It’s firm!” said the co-pilot, jabbing his finger at the map. “You cannot land a Gulfstream on that thing. You could crash it, but that’s not the same thing.”

  “I don’t know,” said the pilot, musing, running figures in his head.

  “And you sure as hell couldn’t take off again!” protested the co-pilot.

  “It’s at sea level,” said the pilot. “Cold, dense air. Running into a headwind with a light load. We might be able to do it.”

  Georges turned to him. “Are you saying you’ll fly me?”

  “No, he isn’t!” snapped the co-pilot. “I’ll call Mr. Sulenski if you make me. I’m not letting you kill yourselves just because you’re worried about Crane.”

  The pilot sighed and nodded. “Sulenski will definitely not go for it.”

  Georges turned and fired some side-eye at the copilot. Then a small plane taxied past on the ramp. Georges nodded to the co-pilot’s phone.

  “How far is it from here to Grimsey?” he asked.

  The co-pilot punched in the airport codes and read off the result. “Shade over 900 miles.”

  “All right,” said Georges. “This is an airport. There are airplanes everywhere. What can fly for 1,000 miles and take off in less than 3,400 feet?”

  “Twin-engine props,” said the co-pilot.

  “Sure, all kinds of those,” the pilot added. “Skylane will do it.”

  “King Air or a Baron will do it easy,” said the co-pilot.

  “Maybe even a Bonanza,” suggested the pilot.

  “Eh, you’d be cutting it awful close on the range,” said the co-pilot. “You pick up a headwind…”

  The pilot made a noise that acknowledged the point.

  “Okay!” said Georges. “Twin engine propeller plane. Thank you. Enjoy your coffee.”

  He grabbed his map and set out into the larger terminal. John Crane wasn’t the only one that could abuse his company credit card until it screamed.

  Hang on, Crane, he thought as he stalked the corridors looking for a charter operator. I’m coming for you.

  Chapter 15

  Crane struggled along the ridge in the gloom. It was nighttime again, though that didn’t mean much here. The overcast was less bright than it had been some hours ago. The land seemed timeless. There was only clammy mist and bare earth. The silence was oppressive, broken only by the sound of his footsteps and his breathing. He hadn’t heard the helicopter in hours. He supposed that was a good thing, though he knew they hadn’t given up.

  Crane was miserable. He was cold. He’d eaten the last of his granola bars hours ago, and he was hungry. The water bottle stuffed in his pack was empty. He couldn’t stay out here forever. He needed to head down into the valley and find water, a place to sleep, something to eat. According to his GPS, he was running out of ridge anyway. It was time to descend into the valley to his east where there were streams and farms.

  Crane veered to his left and started down the slope.

  He made his way down into actual darkness. Behind the overcast layer, the sun had descended far enough to put him in the shadow of the ridge behind him. That was a plus, but it wouldn’t last. Soon enough the sun would climb higher again. Already he felt the wind starting to pick up. Eventually the sky would clear, and the helicopter would have much better searching conditions. He needed to find someplace to get out of sight before that happened. The landscape was still horribly uncooperative. As he descended the ridge, he started to see patches of lichen and thin, scrubby bushes that kept low to the ground. There was still nothing remotely like cover.

  He checked his watch again. He’d long since missed the ship in Akureyri. As he walked, he reconsidered his plan. What was the best way to get out of Iceland now? He supposed he’d have to get to an airport and charter a plane. It was a much more predictable step. The cruise ship might have taken them by surprise, but they’d be expecting him to make a play for an airport. Still, that was the option left to him. And Akureyri was still the best place to do that outside of Reykjavik itself. It was the second largest city in the country, though that didn’t mean much in a place where a third of the population lived in the capital. He would be more likely to find a plane there than anywhere else. And there would be more people around. If he couldn’t disappear in a crowd, at least more people would make it harder for Datafall to simply gun him down. As they’d done to August.

  Crane remembered the big driver’s friendly laugh, the way he’d fought to keep control of his truck as the bullets shredded the cab. Crane remembered the man in the tuxedo, too, stalking out of the glare of the helicopter’s lights. His face, his blond buzz cut. The way he walked with the machine gun butted into the crook of his elbow. Crane remembered him very well indeed. His job now was to get himself and the data tap out of Iceland. But he’d make sure he crossed paths with that man again one day. Crane walked on, letting his anger and his discomfort blend into grim determination.

  As the slope leveled out into the valley floor, the grass became thicker, but there was still nothing that could hide him from an aerial search. He saw a small group of horses off in the distance and headed in their direction.

  In his week in Iceland, Crane had taken several guided tours between trips to scout out the Datafall complex. They helped him learn about the country and cemented his cover as a tourist. On one tour, the guide had told Crane about the stout, long-haired Icelandic ponies. They were descended from horses the original Viking settlers brought over when they arrived a thousand years ago. They had an extra gait, whatever that meant—Crane was no horseman if he could help it. But after a thousand years of isolation here, they were a distinct breed. The guide had told him that it was forbidden to bring other horses into the country for fear the local population would be wiped out by equine diseases they had no resistance to. And if one of these horses was taken out of Iceland for any reason, it could never return.

  The horses noticed his approach and kept their distance, though they didn’t seem particularly afraid of him. As he suspected he would, he found a stream they’d been drinking from. He drank and refilled his bottle. It was a start. He held out a hand and clucked his tongue, but the horses weren’t interested in making friends. Finally, Crane nodded to them and moved on.

  Overhead the sky was growing brighter. The clouds were breaking up and shafts of sunlight broke through at low angles to illuminate patches of meadow and hillside. Crane walked for another half hour, then he stopped and listened. The helicopter was back in the air. He could hear it faintly, the sound drifting off the hills. It was far away still, but it would find him if he didn’t do something soon. Crane picked up his pace.

  After another half mile or so, he came upon a small stone cairn and a faint trail heading roughly parallel to the ridgeline. He turned and followed it north. It seemed to head closer to the river in that direction. It would take him someplace, if the helicopter didn’t find him first. In the meantime, he could try to pass for a hiker. It wasn’t much, but he didn’t have anything better. If he were wildly lucky, he might even find a real hiker or two to fall in with. They’d be looking for one man, and a group might deceive them.

  He’d been walking another half hour according to his watch when he spotted the faint square outline against the dark green. It was the same color as the surrounding grass; only
its linearity and ninety-degree angles made it stand out as artificial. It looked like some kind of building.

  It was a sod-roofed shelter, he discovered as he came closer. The walls were hand laid and mortared stone, with heavy, weathered wooden pillars holding up the roof. It had been put out here to provide shelter for hikers caught in a storm or needing a place to camp for the night. It was perfect, Crane thought. It would be practically invisible from the air.

  He went in and found a floor of bare packed earth and a fire pit with the remains of some long dead campfire. There was some graffiti on the walls. Crane noticed a heart with initials and a date four years past. For all he knew he could be the first person to come along since then. At any rate, it would do. It would do very well.

  He shrugged off his pack and settled onto the bare earth floor. He’d catch some sleep here, then set out again, rested, and look for something to eat. He moved until he was as comfortable as he thought he was likely to get on the ground, and tried to relax. He began to realize how exhausted he was. He hadn’t slept in nearly thirty-six hours now, and he’d been on the move through rough country for most of that time. He had to sleep. The shelter would hide him from the helicopter.

  A stray thought crossed his mind as it dropped into the outer layers of sleep. There was no door. Was he safe sleeping exposed to the outside? Ah, there were no dangerous animals in Iceland. That was right. The same guide had told him. There were only six wild animal species in the whole country. What were they again? The arctic fox. The only one that was actually indigenous. Rats and mice; they’d come over on the ships along with the first Norse settlers. They were always with us. Reindeer, he remembered, introduced to provide food during a famine in the 18th century. But they were only in the east. What were the others? Certainly nothing dangerous. Mink. That was right. Someone tried to farm mink in the ‘80s and they got loose. They were the closest thing to a dangerous predator, the guide had told him. They would attack lambs sometimes, and you were allowed to shoot any you found on your land. What the hell was the last one? Rabbits. Pet rabbits that got out. They were starting to be seen around Reykjavik.

  No problem. The minks were the worst, and Crane thought he could handle a mink if it came to that.

  And then Crane didn’t think anything at all. He slept deeply as the sound of the helicopter echoed softly off the hills.

  Chapter 16

  Crane dreamed of his father. They were standing at his mother’s grave. Crane was somehow outside himself, watching himself as a young boy, awkward in a small, ill-fitting suit and tie. His father stood beside him, his broad shoulders slumped and his head bowed. Crane was watching the scene from behind and from far away, but he heard his father’s voice as if he really were standing beside him, reaching up to lose his hand in his father’s larger hand.

  “Even though the actions of godly and wise people are in God’s hands, no one knows whether God will show them favor,” his father said. “Good people receive the same treatment as sinners, and people who make promises to God are treated like people who don’t.”

  “What are you telling me?” he heard his child’s voice ask.

  “Don’t go to Iceland. It doesn’t matter that you’re doing the right thing. You’ll die there, because God doesn’t care if you do right. And the world won’t care that you ever lived.”

  “But I can’t let them get away with it,” Crane heard his child’s voice saying. “If I don’t go, I’ll know.”

  “The living at least know they will die,” said his father. “But the dead know nothing.”

  Crane heard something else, dimly, faintly. It sounded like pounding, someone pounding as if on the lid of a casket, and then the rising sound of his mother’s screams.

  “She knows she’s dead,” Crane said. His father had nothing to say to that.

  It was a harsh voice that startled him awake.

  Crane bolted upright, tactical drills flashing through his mind. Where were they? How many? Which was the biggest threat? Which should he take down first?

  It was a woman’s voice, he realized as his brain caught up with events. She stood in the shelter’s doorway. A rangy woman, in her fifties Crane guessed. A rangy, middle-aged woman with a rifle pointed at him.

  She looked down the barrel, focusing the iron sights on his chest, and said something in Icelandic.

  “A minute,” said Crane. He held his hands out and blinked. He listened for the helicopter but couldn’t hear it. The woman wore faded jeans over a pair of boots, and a Helly Hansen jacket that was unzipped to reveal a fleece sweatshirt and the untucked tail of a cotton blouse sticking out from beneath. Her hair was gray and unkempt, her skin windblown, her expression steely. A local farm woman, he concluded. And that wasn’t some battered old varmint rifle she was pointing at him, but a Sako 85 Carbonlight. If she’d spent that kind of money on her gun, he assumed she took it seriously and knew how to handle it.

  “Do you speak English?” he asked.

  “What I said is, so you’re the one they’re after, then,” she replied. “A foreigner. I should have known.”

  “I’m not armed,” he said. “I don’t mean any harm.”

  “I’ll keep my rifle on you still, I think. You can push that pack over here. Ah! Use your leg.”

  Crane shifted around until he could get a foot against the pack and slid it slowly across the dirt floor. Then she had him stand up, turn around, take off his jacket, and run his hands across his torso and down his legs until she was convinced he didn’t have a concealed pistol somewhere.

  How had she gotten here, he wondered. There were no roads nearby, and a car would have awakened him. Was she out here on foot? Why? Was she specifically looking for him?

  “I’m not sure why you think I’m such a threat,” said Crane.

  “Because the police are putting a lot of effort into hunting for you,” she answered. “Now come outside with me.”

  She gestured toward the door with the Sako’s muzzle, and Crane moved slowly outside. Maybe fifty yards away, a horse with a bridle and a light saddle contentedly chomped on the grass. So that’s how she got here. Crane wondered what she was planning to do with him now that she had him.

  “Haven’t heard a helicopter around here for years,” she said as she followed Crane outside with his pack slung over one shoulder. “The tourist operators don’t fly here. They’re all up in the highlands, flying over the glaciers. I figured they had to be out looking for somebody. And here you are.”

  “You’ve got it wrong,” said Crane. “I’m not a fugitive from justice.”

  “And the helicopter?”

  He considered simply denying any knowledge of it, sticking to his story that he was an innocent hiker. But she didn’t seem inclined to believe that.

  “They’re not the police,” he said at last. “They’re very dangerous men. I have something they want, and they’ll do whatever it takes to get it back. We’re not safe out here.”

  The woman said nothing. She directed him where she wanted him to go with small movements of her rifle. Then she nickered softly and her horse trotted to her. That was a handy trick, Crane thought, remembering how the wild horses had disregarded him last night. He’d never had any luck with horses.

  “We’ll go to Blönduós,” the woman said. “The police can sort it out.”

  That could have been worse, Crane thought. Blönduós was where he wanted to go anyway. It was the next major town along the Ring Road. There would be people there, and cars. He couldn’t let her deliver him to the police, for any number of reasons. But if she really meant to take him to Blönduós, then he could play along for the time being.

  “Okay, how are we getting there?” he asked, nodding to the horse. “He doesn’t look like he can carry both of us.”

  “Smart mouth,” she muttered. “First, we’ll have to find you a horse.”

  “You’re kidding,” said Crane. She climbed into the saddle and sat comfortably with the Sako across it in front of her.
She pointed east, toward the river. “That way.”

  “I’m John Crane, by the way,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  “Halla. Halla Manisdottir.”

  “Pleased to meet you Halla.”

  Behind him, Crane heard her laugh. “Liar.”

  Crane sighed and set out in the direction she indicated.

  Chapter 17

  Halla led Crane down into the lowlands where the land gave way to floodplain and the grass was thicker, sprouting in great hummocks. They traveled for the better part of an hour before Halla spotted a group of horses in the distance. She stopped and dismounted, bringing the Sako with her.

  “You don’t need that, you know,” said Crane. “I’m not going to give you any trouble.”

  “I know you’re not,” she said. And she let the rifle’s carbon fiber receiver rest on her shoulder.

  “Do you ride?” she asked.

  “Not well.”

  “These are easy. You just get on and they know what to do.”

  This was ridiculous, Crane thought as they moved closer to the small herd of perhaps a dozen horses. If these weren’t exactly wild, they were still animals unused to human contact. What the hell did she think they were going to do?

  “Come on,” she called to her horse and clicked her tongue. The horse followed along like a well-trained dog.

  “You really don’t know how to ride?”

  “The last time I tried,” said Crane carefully, “it ended badly.” He didn’t mention that things had ended much worse for the rider he’d collided with.

  “All right, you’ll ride Agnarögn,” she said. “I’ll get one of these.”

  “These are wild horses! How are we going to catch one? How are you going to break it?”

  “You know about horses now?”

  Fair enough, he thought. “Okay. What do you want me to do?”

  “Move over there,” she said, pointing. “And be friendly.”