He gulped down half his beer and left the bar.
Diego had found himself a good spot, in the smokers’ tent pitched outside in the front yard of the Grand Rokk. He had strolled in to get himself a beer at the bar, and had seen the big cop alone with his drink, absorbed in his own thoughts.
Perfect.
There was one problem; Diego’s car was still parked a couple of blocks from the bus station. He had followed Jonson on foot. There was no way that he was going to carry out the hit in daylight. He needed darkness to make good his escape.
But it was still light. He checked his watch. It was nearly nine-thirty. What was with this country? It was still only April, back home it would have gotten dark hours ago.
So he would follow Jonson. If he was still on the streets when darkness eventually fell he would do it then, otherwise he would follow him home and break in in the small hours of the morning.
Then he saw the big cop walk purposefully out of the bar, past the tent and out on to the street.
Diego followed.
Finally, it was getting dark, or at least dusk. Not quite dark enough. But if Jonson had a long walk before he got home, there might be a chance to do something. Diego would rather pump a couple of shots into Jonson’s head on a quiet street than lumber around in a strange house, with God knows who else there.
Magnus made his way to Ingileif’s house. There was a light on upstairs in her apartment. He hesitated. Would she listen to him?
There was only one way to find out.
He rang the bell at the side entrance of the house, which was where the stairs led up to her flat.
She answered the door. ‘Oh, it’s you.’
‘I’ve come to say I’m sorry,’ Magnus said. ‘I acted like a jerk.’
‘You did.’ Ingileif’s face was cool, almost expressionless. Not hostile, but certainly not pleased to see him.
‘May I come in?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Ingileif. ‘You did act like a jerk. But your basic point was correct. You are leaving Iceland in a couple of days. It doesn’t make sense for us to get more emotionally involved with each other.’
Magnus blinked. ‘I understand that. It was what I told you, after all, but much less tactfully. But…?’
Ingileif raised her eyebrows. ‘But?’
Magnus wanted to tell her that he really liked her, that he wanted to get to know her better, that it might not make sense but that it was the right thing to do, he knew it was the right thing to do. But her grey eyes were cold. No, they said. No.
He sighed. ‘I’m very glad I met you, Ingileif,’ he said. He bent down, kissed her quickly on the cheek and turned into the gathering gloom.
Arni sat in his car, parked illegally just outside Eymundsson’s Bookshop in Austurstraeti, and called the station. Magnus had left for the evening. Then he called Magnus’s mobile number. No reply – the phone was switched off. So then he called his sister’s house.
‘Oh, hi Arni,’ Katrin said.
‘Have you seen Magnus?’
‘Not this evening. But he might be in. Let me check.’ Arni tapped his fingers on the dashboard while his sister looked in Magnus’s room. ‘No, he’s not here.’
‘Any idea where he might be?’
‘How the hell should I know?’ Katrin protested.
‘Please, Katrin. Where does he go in the evening, do you know?’
‘Not really. Wait, I think he goes to the Grand Rokk sometimes.’
‘Thanks.’ Arni hung up and drove rapidly up to the Grand Rokk. He was there in two minutes.
He had to speak to Magnus. He had checked. He had made a mistake. He knew who had killed Agnar.
He stopped the car in the street right outside the bar and ran in. He flashed his badge at the barman and asked if he had seen Magnus. He had. The big man had left fifteen minutes before.
Arni jumped back into his car and headed up the hill towards the Hallgrimskirkja. He stopped at a junction. A man crossed in front of him wearing a baggy hooded sweatshirt. The man was fairly tall, slim, with brown skin, walking determinedly. Arni knew him from somewhere.
He was the guy in the arrivals hall at Keflavik Airport. The American who had been met by the Lithuanian drug dealer.
It was a quiet road. The Hispanic guy had increased his pace to a brisk walk. He lifted up his hood.
As Arni crossed the junction heading uphill, he glimpsed Magnus shambling slowly further along the street, head down, deep in thought. Arni was tired. It took him a couple of seconds to realize what was happening. He braked, slammed the car into reverse, and sped backwards down the hill. He crashed into a parked car, threw open the door and jumped out.
‘Magnus!’ he shouted.
Magnus spun around when he heard the sound of smashing metal. So did the Hispanic guy.
The guy was only twenty metres away, maximum. He was gripping something in the front pocket of his sweatshirt.
Arni charged.
He saw the Hispanic’s eyes widen. He saw him pull the gun out of his pocket. Raise it.
Arni launched himself into mid air just as the gun went off.
Magnus saw Arni leap out of his vehicle, heard him shout, saw him run towards the tall figure in the grey hoodie.
He rushed forward just as Arni bowled the man over. He heard the sound of a gunshot, muffled by Arni’s body. The man rolled away from Arni, and turned towards Magnus. Raised his gun from a prone position.
Magnus was about twenty feet away. No chance of reaching the man before he pulled the trigger.
There was a gap between two houses on his left. He jinked and dived through. Another gunshot and a ricochet of a bullet off metal siding.
Magnus found himself in a back yard, other back yards ahead and to one side. He turned right and leapt at a six-foot-high fence. Swung his body over just as another shot rang out.
But Magnus didn’t want to run away from this guy.
He wanted to nail him.
A floodlight burst into life, dazzling Magnus. This yard backed on to a more prosperous looking house. Magnus searched for somewhere to hide.
Before it had erupted, Magnus had noticed that the floodlight was a couple of feet forward from the fence bordering the next yard along. He ran directly towards it, reached the fence and crouched down. He was in deep shadow. No chance of the man seeing him through the dazzling light.
The man appeared on top of the fence and dropped down. He paused to listen. Silence.
Magnus was breathing hard. He swallowed, trying to control it, to make sure he didn’t make a sound.
The man stood stock still, peering around the garden. Magnus had realized he had made a mistake. The guy had heard the silence. Heard the lack of running footsteps.
He knew Magnus was in the yard.
Magnus’s plan had been to catch the guy as he ran through the yard, grabbing him from behind. That plan wasn’t going to work.
For a second the man looked straight at Magnus. Magnus stayed motionless, praying that his theory about the light would hold. It did.
Cautiously the man examined a shrub. Then another. Then he stood still again, listening.
The floodlight was motion-activated. No motion, no light. It went out.
Magnus knew he had a second or two before the man’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. He also knew that if he ran straight, the man would shoot at the sound and he would take a bullet. So he ran a couple of paces forward and jinked to the left, a fullback slicing through the defence.
A shot rang out, the flame from the barrel illuminating the man’s face for a fraction of a second.
The man moved his gun to the right, pointed it straight at Magnus, aiming high.
So Magnus dived low, a football tackle directly at the man’s knees. Another shot, just a little too high, and the man went down.
Magnus wriggled and lunged for the hand holding the gun. He grabbed the barrel, and twisted it up and towards the man. Another shot and the sound of broken glass from the house
. A satisfying snap and a cry as a thumb broke, jammed in the trigger guard. The man’s free hand reached over Magnus’s face grappling for his eyes. Magnus bucked and wrenched the gun away, rolling back and on to his feet.
He jabbed the gun into the man’s face.
He wanted to pull the trigger; he wanted so badly to pull the trigger. But he knew it would lead to all kinds of problems.
‘Get up!’ he shouted in English. ‘Stand up, or I’ll blow your head off!’
The man slowly raised himself to his feet, his eyes on Magnus, breathing heavily.
‘Get your hands up! Move over here!’
Magnus could hear shouting in the house. ‘Call the police,’ he yelled in Icelandic.
He pushed the man along the side of the house and out on to the street, and shoved him against the wall, his face pressed against the corrugated metal. Now he had a problem. He wanted to tend to Arni, but he couldn’t risk leaving the man uncovered.
He considered once again blowing the guy’s brains out. He was tempted.
Bad idea.
‘Turn around,’ he said, and as the guy turned towards him, he transferred the gun to his left hand and whacked the man with a blow to the jaw with his right.
The pain shot through Magnus’s hand, but the man crumpled. Out cold.
Magnus knelt down beside Arni. He was still alive, his eyelids were fluttering and his breath was coming in short gasps. There was a hole in his chest, there was blood. But there wasn’t that horrible wheezing sound of a sucking chest wound.
‘It’s OK, Arni. You’ll be fine. Hang in there, buddy. You’re not hit too bad.’
Arni’s lips began to move.
‘Shh,’ said Magnus. ‘Quiet now. We’ll get an ambulance here in no time.’
Someone had called the police, he could hear the sirens coming closer.
But Arni’s lips continued to move. ‘Magnus. Listen,’ he whispered, in English.
Magnus moved his head close to Arni’s face, but he couldn’t quite make out what Arni was trying to say, just the last word, which was something like ‘Bye’.
‘Hey, no need to say goodbye now, Arni, you’re gonna make it, you’re the Terminator, remember?’
Arni moved his head from side to side and tried to speak again. It was too much for him. The eyes closed. The lips stopped moving.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Magnus jumped into the police car that led the ambulance to the National Hospital, lights flashing, sirens blaring. It took less than five minutes. He was elbowed away by paramedics pushing Arni through corridors and double hospital doors. The last Magnus saw of his partner was his feet speeding towards the operating room at the stern of the gurney.
He was shown into a small waiting room and began pacing, a television mumbling in the background. Uniformed police officers bustled about.
A woman with a clipboard asked him about next of kin. He wrote down Katrin’s name and address. Then he called her.
‘Oh, hi, Magnus, did Arni find you?’ she asked in English.
‘Yeah, he found me.’
Katrin could tell from the tone of his voice that something was wrong. ‘What’s up?’
‘I’m at the hospital. Arni’s been shot.’
‘Shot? He can’t have been shot. This is Iceland.’
‘Well, he was. In the chest.’
‘Is he OK?’
‘He’s not OK, no. But he is alive. I don’t know yet how bad it is. He’s in surgery now.’
‘Did it have something to do with you?’
‘Yes,’ said Magnus. ‘Yes, it did have something to do with me.’
As he ended the call, he thought about exactly what it had had to do with him. It was his fault that Arni had been nearly killed. It was he who had led a Dominican hit man to Iceland, armed with a gun and primed to fire it.
It should have been him in there on the operating table.
‘Damn, Arni!’ He smashed his fist against the wall. A flash of pain ran through his hand, still sensitive from where it had connected with the punk’s jaw. OK, Arni wasn’t used to being around criminals with guns, but a Boston cop would never have done what he had done. There were lots of options. Drive the car straight at the guy. Drive up to Magnus and put the car between him and the punk. Just honk the horn, roll down the window and yell. All of those would have worked better than sprinting full speed at an armed man.
And, of course, if this was any normal country and Arni had been carrying a gun, he could simply have drawn it and shouted a challenge.
But even if he wasn’t smart, Arni was brave. And if the hit man had just been a split-second slower, Arni’s headlong rush might have worked. But the Dominican had been fast, and Arni had taken a bullet for Magnus.
The Police Commissioner had recruited Magnus to control the spread of big-city violence to Reykjavik. But all he had done was lead it right into the heart of the city, the heart of the police department.
Mind you, he had already come across plenty of unusual deaths in Iceland. Dr Asgrimur, Agnar, Ingileif’s stepfather.
Katrin burst in. ‘How is he?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. They haven’t said anything yet.’
‘I’ve called Mum and Dad. They are on their way.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Magnus said.
Katrin was a tall woman. She looked him straight in the eye. ‘Did you shoot him?’
‘No.’
‘Well, then you have nothing to be sorry about.’
Magnus gave her a small smile and shrugged. He wasn’t about to take this moment to argue with an Icelandic woman.
A doctor appeared, mid-forties, confident, competent but concerned. ‘Are you next-of-kin?’ she asked Katrin.
‘I’m Arni’s sister, yes.’
‘He’s lost quite a lot of blood. The bullet’s still in there, right next to the heart. We’re going to go in and get it out. It will take a while.’
‘Will he be OK?’
The doctor looked Katrin in the eye much the same way she had just looked at Magnus. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘He’s got a chance. A good chance. Beyond that I can’t say.’
‘OK, don’t waste time here,’ Katrin said. ‘Get on with it.’
Magnus was sure that Iceland had competent doctors. But he was worried that they would have little experience with gunshot wounds. Back home, at Boston Medical Center, they spent much of their Friday and Saturday nights plugging up bullet holes.
He decided not to mention this to Katrin.
There was a commotion outside the waiting room and Baldur strode in. Magnus had seen Baldur angry before, but never this angry.
‘How is he?’ he asked.
‘They’re operating on him now,’ Magnus said. ‘The bullet’s still in there somewhere and they’re trying to fish it out.’
‘Will he make it?’
‘They hope so,’ said Magnus.
‘He’d better,’ said Baldur. ‘Now I’ve got some questions for you.’ He turned to Katrin, disapproval all over his face. Although Katrin wasn’t in full regalia, there was a sprinkling of metal sticking out of her face. ‘Can you excuse us?’
Katrin frowned. Magnus could see she had taken an instant dislike to the policeman, and was not in the mood to be pushed around.
‘Let’s leave her here,’ said Magnus. ‘ She has as much right to be here as we do. More. We can do this outside.’
Baldur glared at Katrin. Katrin glared back. They moved out into the corridor.
‘Do you know why one of my police officers was shot?’ Baldur said, his face only a few inches away from Magnus.
‘Yes.’
‘Well?’
‘I’m a witness in a big police corruption trial in Boston. Some people there want me dead. Dominican drug traffickers. That’s why I came here. Looks like they found me.’
‘And why didn’t you tell me about this?’
‘The Police Commissioner thought that the fewer people who knew, the less chance there would b
e of a leak.’
‘So he knew about it?’
‘Of course.’ ‘If Arni dies, so help me I’ll…’ Baldur hesitated as he tried to think of a convincing threat.
‘I’ve apologized to Arni’s sister, and I will apologize to you,’ Magnus said. ‘I’m sorry that I led the hit man over here. I’m bad news. I should go.’
‘Yes, you should. Starting now. I want you to leave this hospital, you can’t do anything more here. Go back to the station and make a statement. They’re waiting for you.’
Magnus didn’t have the strength to argue. He badly wanted to stay and see how Arni was doing, but in a way Baldur was right. He was a distraction. He should go.
He put his head into the waiting room. ‘I’ve got to leave now,’ he said to Katrin. ‘Let me know if there’s news, one way or the other.’
‘The bald Gestapo officer sent you home, did he?’
Magnus nodded. ‘He’s a little wound up. Understandably.’
‘Huh.’ Katrin seemed unimpressed. ‘I’ll call you when there’s news.’
Magnus slept badly. No dreams, thank God, but he kept on expecting the phone to ring. It didn’t.
He got up at six and called the hospital. He didn’t want to ring Katrin’s cell phone in case she had managed to snatch some sleep and he woke her. They had completed the operation and extracted the bullet. Arni had lost a lot of blood, but he was alive. They were cautiously optimistic, with the emphasis on cautiously. But Arni was still unconscious.
Magnus walked down the hill to the police station. It was a grey, windy, dull Reykjavik day. Cold, but not very cold.
There were two or three detectives in the Violent Crimes room. He nodded to them and they smiled and nodded back. Although he was prepared to shrug off hostility, he was glad that it didn’t seem to be present.
Vigdis came over with a cup of coffee. ‘I expect you need this.’
‘Thank you,’ Magnus said with a smile. And then: ‘Sorry about Arni.’
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Vigdis said.
‘Do we know who the shooter is?’
‘No. He has a US passport, but we’re pretty sure it’s a fake. He’s not talking.’
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