The Carrier

by Mattias Berg

  Ingrid now stopped in front of one of them. It had rapidly become a signature piece, not just for the opposition here but also for the whole carnival-like and escalating peace movement. Amba had a reproduction on one of her tote bags.

  The painting was confrontational, exaggerated for effect. A grinning Death, playing the M.U.O.S. system as if it were a xylophone, with the bars sending off missiles instead of tones. It was General LeMay’s Cold War dream—and seemingly also Ingrid’s and maybe Falconetti’s too. To be able to control all these separate command centers as if they were one instrument. Fire off, or short-circuit, all of our nuclear weapons in one historic moment.

  Even senior military figures had speculated aloud as to the exact purpose of the M.U.O.S. system. What could lie behind these vast investments? Why our reaction to the young anarchists’ opposition had been so extreme, almost personal. It was not only the so-called “defense analysts” in trade journals who had concerned themselves with the question, but also editorials in the mainstream media who would normally have left us alone. Even within the military apparatus itself there seemed to be a surprising number who had little more than basic information.

  What seemed clear to most people was that M.U.O.S. would in due course replace G.P.S. as the world-encompassing communications network. That this new system would, as with so many other day-to-day technological functions, start as a high-tech military application and then be made available to the public. G.P.S. had, after all, been developed by our defense authorities during the ’70s, even if it was not brought into operation until 1994. That network was therefore twenty years old—and still we found it as ridiculously hard as ever to communicate with our most dangerous units.

  Because the entire nuclear weapons system was, behind the scenes, a patchwork of barely functioning connections, even nowadays controlled by floppy discs and other out-of-date technology, often without any backup whatsoever. Our heavily armed submarines were the worst example, something which was regularly raised by analysts and commentators as justification for their diametrically opposed opinions: an argument for comprehensive disarmament or for a much needed arms build-up.

  These modern sea monsters, U.S.S. Rhode Island and our seventeen other “Ohio Class” atomic submarines invisible deep beneath the world’s oceans, now rarely rose to the surface. Each had the capacity to wipe out whole continents. But if we needed to communicate with them when they were cruising at depth in stealth mode, their stand-by position at times of high alert, it could take up to fifteen minutes to transmit three encrypted letters from sender to recipient, with the help of antennae at two eighteen-acre communications bases in Michigan and Wisconsin.

  What is more, there was no technical possibility for the commander on board the submarine to acknowledge receipt, confirm whether he had understood the message correctly: whether for example he should surface—or fire off all his warheads.

  These defects were used to justify the new communications solution. Certain training exercises in both the Arctic and the Antarctic had indicated that M.U.O.S. ought to be able to take care of these problems, using the new system’s spectacular ability to establish contact with areas which had previously been unreachable. Not only beneath the world’s oceans, but also below the pack ice at both poles, which in itself would permit a new colonization of these regions.

  Yet as usual they were missing the crucial point. Certainly, M.U.O.S. would replace G.P.S., give rise to new communications possibilities, dramatically greater operational capacity. But the inner meaning of the system was, according to Edelweiss, something more important.

  Everything is very obvious once you know. How perfectly this system fitted into our nuclear build-up, the “Revitalization”. Edelweiss had compared it to our superior night-combat technology, developed in time for the first Iraq war. He said that M.U.O.S. would be the same sort of game-changer. Allow us to exploit the advantages of the coming generation of nuclear weapons, synchronizing all these minor miracles with each other, justifying the trillion-dollar investment. The radar-guided B.61-12 hydrogen bomb. Our new generation of nuclear weapons submarines, with a dramatically improved striking power and precision. Missiles with previously unthinkable levels of performance.

  So here we were. At the place for the fulfilment of this worldwide system, in a godforsaken town next to our last M.U.O.S. base: the missing link. Marching up the steep streets with the groceries and our luggage filled with Doomsday potential—and the graffiti along the way like whispering reproaches, pointing fingers, an almost audible murmur.

  At a deserted square, in what seemed to be the town’s outer edge up on the mountain ridge, Ingrid led me off on a small path to the right of a baroque church. In the shelter of a pine tree she took out her torch and shone it onto the laminated map which somebody had mounted on a gatepost: a calculation of how far the radiofrequency radiation from the system’s mighty antennae would extend. The red area covered most of Sicily.

  This was one branch of the opinion ranged against the installations. When the army doctor at the M.U.O.S. base died of leukemia, a fact which only emerged because activists and the local media began informally to exchange information, the protests against the health risks of the system began to attract support from international doctors’ associations and humanitarian groups. Mothers of soldiers serving at the base soon joined forces with them.

  The other branch of the protests was opposition to war in general—not least this type of military communications system, which more effectively facilitated warfare. Which in turn created a link between the protests here in Niscemi and the worldwide peace movement.

  So Ingrid would presumably wait for just the sort of massive uproar which the graffiti promised, the moment itself: a revolt as big as a blue whale. She would synchronize our move with the inauguration of the last M.U.O.S. base, just as with the protests at Kleine Brogel. When everybody was paying maximum attention in the wrong direction.

  The problem was that none of us in the Team, not even our own Alpha, had been able to find out precisely when the formal opening was to take place. The date had been shrouded in impenetrable secrecy for several years. Maybe there was nobody who knew yet. Maybe even the person responsible, whether it was Edelweiss or the President himself, was waiting for a purely random date. Simply improvising. To keep the anarchists at bay.

  After several minutes immobile in front of the map, no doubt reflecting on the scale of the radiation’s red zone, Ingrid hurried us on again. Led the way up into what was to become our rudimentary safe house.

  Instinctively I mapped out escape paths, red and green zones. Not one strip of light seeped out through the building complex’s drawn blinds, even though it was no later than half past nine. The dirty yellow facade was full of cracks, covered in graffiti. Only one set of entrance stairs had functioning lights—and it was not ours. Once inside the stairwell, Ingrid dared to light her torch again, since all of the doors on the landings seemed to be closed.

  And even if one door were to be opened, against all the odds, it would hardly make any difference. These were places where you did not ask questions. Where neighbors would at best stare silently at strangers like us—soldiers, plainclothes policemen, American agents?—from their darkened hallways.

  Up in the corner apartment itself, everything was very much to type. The first stifling smell of mold, two mattresses nibbled by bugs, or possibly mice, lying directly on the floor in the one large room, an open kitchen which in true Mediterranean style had been half moved out when the entire process must have been interrupted. Oven and refrigerator were functioning, even if the latter was buzzing like an engine on the point of breakdown, while one half of the sink had simply been removed. An ancient black-and-white T.V. stood next to the mattresses on the floor—with another on top of it. One with a functioning image, one with sound.

  In short, here was the bare minimum needed for an assignment. Walls and ceiling, remote location, views in three directions.

  That vi
ew through the broken windows made me catch my breath. The barely distinguishable contours of the mountains against the black of the sky, single lights along winding streets leading down to the sea, the stars blinking like coded messages to us, the long path of the moon across the water. The world over which the final battle was soon to be fought. The only one we had.

  Again I considered whether to escape, run hard in one single burst to the sea, travel north to the eternal ice and the rendezvous with my conscience—but I did nothing. Perhaps because I wanted to see how everything would play out. Perhaps because I could still prevent something from happening, play a part.

  Ingrid put the turkey in the refrigerator and turned on the T.V., the volume low.

  C.N.N. was reporting ninety-seven confirmed deaths and about the same number again of serious injuries from the explosion at Dulles, which according to the commission of enquiry had been caused by a leak in the airport’s fuel storage facility. Heads had begun to roll among those responsible. Two of the most senior members of staff had been forced to resign. An expert in the studio was saying that the head of the airport itself could not remain in his job much longer.

  The fact that other people had reported feeling seriously unwell after the accident had found an easy explanation. Members of the inquiry team were quoted as saying that aircraft fuel exploding in such large volumes could cause those sorts of unpleasant, but nevertheless temporary, secondary effects.

  Such, then, was the situation just before Christmas. Everything hidden, artificial, distorted: awaiting some kind of resolution. Both heavy and light, suspended, unpredictable, yet in some way predestined.

  6.06

  On the evening of Christmas Day—after we had spent two days checking the hybrid, the portable command terminal and the news, and I had updated my notes, all of it some kind of paradoxical peace—Ingrid poured herself some more grappa by the oven and said that the turkey was ready.

  “Just go and wash your hands, my treasure.”

  I went into the bathroom, bolted the door as well as I could, let water run into the basin. Looked at my wrist-watch. 21.29 here in southern Europe, high time for the turkey to be ready even at home—or whatever I was to call it—on the other side of the Atlantic. I keyed in Amba’s number. Waited, hesitated, before pressing the green button.

  Then I hung up after just two ring tones. I had promised myself. Never again listen to Amba’s voice, not even her voicemail.

  Instead I went ahead with the other call. The woman who answered was very friendly, knew at once who I wanted to speak to, and went to fetch her. When she came to the telephone her voice was as upset as it was every year.

  “Hello? Is it you?”

  “Who else would it be, Mom? It’s that time of year. A really Happy Christmas to you! And in case you were wondering, I’ve won again this year.”

  I heard her hesitate, some unspecified fear, anticipating something terrible.

  “Won our bet! I was the first to call this Christmas too, Mom.”

  If I had not heard her breathe, I would not have known she was still there. The silence was dense and seemed almost brittle.

  “We’re just about to eat the turkey, your great recipe as always. The simplest possible stuffing, you know: sage, onion and breadcrumbs.”

  “The turkey . . .?” she said slowly, before that irrational rage surfaced: “I never made turkey, Erasmus. I hated poultry!”

  I let her anger subside. As well as that eerie feeling I always got when she spoke about herself in the past tense.

  “I’ve got to go now, finish things off here, Mom. But a really Happy Christmas to you.”

  She had fallen silent. Probably wondering which of her stock of standard expressions she should now use. Phrases from the past.

  “I understand . . . And the same to you, my darling. Look after yourself and the whole of your wonderful family,” she said.

  “Absolutely. They send their warmest Christmas greetings to you too. We’ll speak again soon, Mom.”

  “Of course we will, Erasmus. And don’t forget now, give everyone my love.”

  I pressed the red button, filled the sink with ice-cold water and took as much oxygen into my lungs as I could. Then I dunked my head in the water. Counted to myself—thirty seconds, forty, fifty, sixty—before coming up for air, flushing the toilet as I bawled out my pain.

  As I came out of the bathroom, Ingrid put down her cell phone by the oven.

  “I took the opportunity to make a call, since you were in there for a while.”

  Her movements were strangely heavy. Maybe it was the grappa. Maybe more than that.

  “Sixten sends his Christmas greetings to you too, Erasmus.”

  “Sixten?”

  “He said he’ll be coming here when it’s time. For real, he said, no alias this time. He’s got Aina’s full approval to join in the final battle between good and evil. Perhaps get himself crucified, become a martyr along with us, my treasure. That is what he told me. Aina will stay at home. That pure little angel.”

  “And Lisa? Is she safe?” I said.

  She did not answer, but bent to take the turkey out of the oven: at least seven pounds just for us. Said nothing, focusing on getting it onto the table—and then disaster struck. First she swayed, her balance failing her, which in turn caused the fat to drip from the oven tray. Then she slipped on the greasy floor. The turkey flew in a gradual arc, as if in slow motion, bounced a few times on the floor and came to rest with its legs sticking up in the air.

  I would probably have started to roar with laughter, for the first time since our flight in September, if Ingrid had not begun to cry. Like a little girl, shaking and trembling.

  I went to her, tried to put my arms around her, console her. She just shook her head violently and shut her eyes tight. When she opened them, they were blurred from the alcohol and some sort of sorrow, like a misty mirror.

  “I’m sorry . . .” she managed to say.

  “For what?”

  She did not answer, just squatted down and tried to pick up the slippery bird, dropping it on the floor once more. Only when she had managed to put the plate with the turkey on the table did she turn to me.

  “For spoiling our Christmas dinner.”

  She kept fiddling about with the plates, straightening the cutlery. Seemed to take a deep breath before asking:

  “But could you possibly bring yourself to eat the turkey anyway?”

  I nodded slowly. “Why ever not?”

  She sat down, poured water into one of our glasses and drained it in one go, blinked, opened her eyes again. The tears still covered her retinas like a layer of glass.

  “Thank you, my treasure.”

  I sat down opposite her, while she began to carve the bird as if she were carrying out a medical dissection.

  “But to answer your question . . . Lisa is free and safe again, thank heavens. But she’s not coming here. Even though Sixten said she desperately wants revenge on the people who took her hostage.”

  “So why isn’t she coming?”

  Ingrid got to her feet again, went to one of the kitchen cupboards, opened the door and stared at its contents. Maybe to hide her expression when at length she answered:

  “Sixten promised me that I would never have to see her again.”

  6.07

  She took the wine bottle out of the kitchen cupboard, moved the plate with the turkey aside and put the bottle in the center of the table with a certain emphasis.

  “Château Latour. Already seven years old when I bought it in the ’60s, recommended by a woman in a small specialist store in Oxford. These days it’s one of the more expensive ones at auctions. Would you like a glass?”

  I did not have time to raise my hand to stop her: had planned not to drink a drop until our move on the M.U.O.S. base, and I still did not know if it was to take place this evening or in one year’s time. She filled my cracked wine glass to the brim. It looked like a magic potion. Dark red, dense.

&n
bsp; “My idea was to give it to Sixten. But it never happened.”

  She poured at least as much into her own glass, raised it with a slight smile.

  “I think we should try it right away. Skål, Erasmus! To the irony and deadly earnest of history.”

  I raised my glass. The liquid ran thickly across the roof of my mouth. It was a divine wine—and exceptionally ill-suited to the situation we were in. Our miserable little safe house, the dreadful assignment, my state of dependence. On just this woman.

  Then she began to pile the turkey and trimmings onto my plate. I just let it happen. Both white and brown meat, stuffing heavy with the smell of sage, potatoes, cooked small onions, Brussels sprouts and finally the cranberry preserve and the gravy, shiny with the turkey fat.

  Ingrid treated every dish with equal precision and care. Because she wanted to dwell on the importance of each one to the whole. Handled them all like the most delicate crystal, even the potatoes which had been over-cooked in an eerily familiar way.

  I took a mouthful, then more. Vanished into Christmas memories.

  “Is it O.K.?” she said.

  “Absolutely. Congratulations. Exactly like my mother’s!”

  “Yes, you told me all about it, my treasure, every little detail. That’s why I let the potatoes cook a few minutes longer.”

  When her glass was empty, Ingrid reached for the bottle to refill it. Stopped short, studied the label, leaned forward and read the text. I did the same. Grand Vin de Château Latour, Premier Grand Cru Classé . . . 1961.

  “You see: not a scratch on the label. Even though the bottle has been through a lot, I can tell you. But there’s usually been something to hand to wrap it in. I’ve carried it round the world, through the gates of hell, close to my heart. Almost as I would a child, Erasmus.”

  She emptied half of her next glass in one mouthful, but I continued to sip the wine. Stayed on my toes, fully in touch with my senses. Realized that this was the moment of truth.