Arctic Rising: A Constable Maratse Stand Alone novella (Guerrilla Greenland Book 3)

by Christoffer Petersen

  “Okay,” Day said. “Walcott?”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “You’ve got seventy-two hours to get Maratse off the air – permanently. After that…” She nodded at Farran’s screen. “I let the dogs out.”

  Day clicked her mouse and her screen went black, followed by the rest of the screens until Walcott was left in a very dark room. He blinked as the lights came on, and the tech assistant who had given him the remote came in to usher him out of the room.

  “Isra El-Hashem is waiting for you in the corridor,” she said.

  Walcott bit his lip and then nodded. “Thanks.”

  “Have a good day, Mr Walcott.”

  Walcott opened his mouth to respond, thinking that the day could only get better, but then it all depended on a certain police constable.

  “Maratse,” he breathed. Although, from the look on the woman’s face, he might just as well have cursed.

  Part 2

  ________________________________

  The wind teased long strands of Kamiila Sorsuttartoq’s jet black hair across her face as she fiddled with the zip of the first aid kit from her pack. She turned her face into the wind as she tugged the zipper along the stubborn teeth, then smiled as she pulled a long pair of silver scissors out of the pack. She took a pane of broken glass and positioned it at an angle on the wooden deck surrounding the radio shack on top of the mountain. Kamiila crouched, then took a breath and a handful of hair. She nodded at her reflection in the mirror and slid the scissors along the base of her palm, cutting her hair, letting the wind blow the strands into the clutches of crisp lichen petalling the granite rocks around the shack. She struggled with the hair at the back of her head, stabbing her hand more than once, but took most care with her fringe. She was tempted to leave it long, fashionable, but then a quick thought of the days, weeks, maybe even months ahead, forced her to take a different approach. Kamiila cut her fringe flat along her forehead, a finger’s width above her thick eyebrows.

  “It’ll do,” she said, brushing hair from the shoulders of her sweater, before slipping the scissors back into the first aid kit. She took another look into the glass mirror, caught her breath as she imagined Nukappi smiling at her over her shoulder, then laid the glass flat on the deck, fighting back the tears as she did so. Kamiila dropped the first aid kit inside her pack, picked up her .22 saloon rifle, and wandered along the ridge.

  She laughed at the wind as it tickled her neck, lifting her face to the sun, closing her eyes for a moment to feel its heat on her eyelids. She walked until the ridge flattened into an open slope leading down the eastern flanks of the mountain. She slowed to a more observant pace, avoiding the crunch of tell-tale lichen beneath her boots as she scoured the slope in front of her. Three ptarmigan, fooled by the cooler altitude into their winter whites, pecked at the ground barely one hundred metres away. Kamiila slipped the rifle from her shoulder and slid to the ground like a soft wave slipping onto the beach. She pulled her rifle to her shoulder, tucked her cheek against the stock, then sighted on the closest and fattest of the birds.

  Hunting was in Kamiila’s family. It was a part of every family she knew, from the youngest to the oldest. She was one of the few girls – now women – from Kussannaq who had continued to hunt long after her father passed away. He had taken Kamiila and her friends into the mountains, teaching them how to shoot and skin a bird, when their own fathers preferred to teach their sons. Kamiila didn’t remember thinking about that as a girl, and as a woman, she couldn’t care less. Her father had taught her to hunt and shoot, encouraging her to continue when he became sick.

  “When you think you’re good at something…” he had said.

  Kamiila applied just enough pressure to the trigger to loose the bullet from the rifle, removing the ptarmigan’s head with a single, clean shot.

  “… you’re only just beginning.”

  “Qujanaq, ataata,” Kamiila whispered, as the two remaining ptarmigan took flight. She slung her rifle across her chest and walked down the slope to retrieve the dead bird.

  The mountain wind pressed against her slim frame on the walk back to the radio shack. She dipped her head forward and opened her mouth, gasping in the gusts, laughing, almost choking as the wind tried to expel all the air from her lungs. She reached the shack, ducked out of the wind and stepped onto the deck, clumping along it in her boots until she stopped to press her ear to the door.

  Kamiila smiled at the sound of someone snoring inside.

  “Wake up, Constable,” she said, as she yanked the door open.

  Constable David Maratse rubbed his eyes and looked up as Kamiila slipped her rifle off her back and slumped into the chair opposite him. He ran scarred fingers through his thick black hair, and said, “I’m awake.”

  “Really?”

  “Iiji.”

  “Dinner,” she said, tossing the ptarmigan onto the table beside the microphone.

  Maratse blinked in the light from the open door and studied the dead bird. “Hmm.”

  “Hmm? Is that all you’ve got to say?”

  “Good shot.”

  “One hundred metres,” Kamiila said. She leaned forward to check the safety on the rifle then settled back into her chair. “What about you?”

  Maratse gestured at the radio. “I was talking about dogs.”

  “Again?”

  “It’s what I know.”

  “But Greenland is much, much, more than dogs and sledging, Constable.”

  “I know.”

  “Besides, you should talk about the struggle.”

  “I am.”

  “Aap, but you need to be more direct. Folksy stories about the good old days aren’t enough.”

  “Hmm.”

  Kamiila smiled and said, “You’re tired. Let’s eat.”

  Maratse looked out of the door, then at his watch. “We should move.”

  “We should. We’ll eat later.”

  Maratse got up, then stopped as Kamiila made no move to follow him. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “There’s something,” he said. He blinked again, then tilted his head to one side. “Something about you.”

  “Aap,” she said, waiting.

  “Your hair.”

  “Finally.”

  “It’s shorter.”

  “And?”

  Maratse nodded. “It suits you.”

  Kamiila turned her head to one side, and then the other. “Did I miss something?”

  “What?”

  “Clumps. Sticky out bits.”

  “It’s fine.”

  Kamiila sighed, shaking her head as she stood up. “Okay then. Let’s leave it at that.” She looked around the room. “Got everything?”

  “Iiji.” Maratse walked the short distance to the corner and picked up his pack. He tugged it onto his shoulder, then leaned across the table to turn off the radio set.

  “And how long were you on for?”

  “Two hours. Imaqa.”

  “And how long were snoring?”

  “Thirty minutes…”

  “Imaqa…”

  “Maybe longer.”

  “It’ll do. It’s a long walk to the next radio.” Kamiila reached under her sweater to tug the map out of her shirt pocket. She spread it on the table and used a pencil to point at their position, the settlement of Kussannaq at the bottom of the mountain, and the path across the ridges to the next shack almost ten kilometres further east. “It’s the original shack, before they realised the location of this one was easier to get to.”

  “They can land a helicopter on the slope,” Maratse said.

  “Which is why we should go to the old shack, before they try landing next to this one.”

  Kamiila folded the map, stuffed it into her pocket, and picked up the rifle. She slung it across her chest as Maratse tightened his pack. Kamiila pressed the ptarmigan into Maratse’s hands, then watched as he pulled a length of twine from the pocket of his police jacket. Maratse looped the twine
around the bird’s feet, then hooked it through the belt of his backpack. He nodded he was ready and Kamiila led the way out of the shack.

  “Nukappi would have enjoyed this,” she said, nodding at the mountain panorama stretching all around them as she closed the door. Kamiila slid the bolt to lock the door, picked up her pack, and then joined Maratse on the path leading along the eastern ridge to the slope.

  “He sees it,” Maratse said, as they walked beside each other.

  “You think so?”

  “Iiji.” Maratse lit a cigarette and rolled it into the gap between his teeth in the side of his mouth. He stuffed his hands into his pockets, grinning as Kamiila ducked to one side, then the other to escape his smoke.

  “The wind has bothered me all morning. But now when I need it the most…”

  Maratse shrugged. “You can walk ahead of me. I’ll follow.”

  Kamiila thought for a second, then jogged a few steps ahead of him. “You’ll run out soon, anyway. Then we can walk together.”

  Maratse raised his eyebrows in the silent Greenlandic yes.

  He watched Kamiila stride out along the ridge, observing the way she settled the rifle alongside her pack, tucking one hand under the stock to hold it in place, rather than strapping it to the side. He puffed at his cigarette as he thought, curious at the way Kamiila walked like a hunter – not just seeing and enjoying the mountains, but scanning them for ptarmigan or hare, maybe even a fox. Maratse wrinkled his nose, avoiding the thought of eating fox, preferring instead to think of the tickle of soft fox fur in the ruff of a sealskin hood. He carried the thought along the ridge and down the slope until he had finished his cigarette and Kamiila waited for him to catch up.

  “What did you do with the butt?” she asked.

  Maratse tapped the chest pocket on his jacket. “In the packet.”

  “Good,” she said. “We need to be better at this. Hiding everything. Not leaving a trail.”

  Maratse reached out to tease a tuft of her hair between his fingers.

  “Yeah.” Kamiila cast a glance back to the radio shack at the top of the mountain. “I may have left something behind.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Maratse said. “We’re not there now.”

  Kamiila took his hand and tugged him along the path. “This is harder than I thought.”

  “You’re thinking of Nukappi? It’s only been a few days.”

  “I know. But it’s more than that. Thinking of him is hard, but thinking of Greenland, of what we’re doing. That’s harder.”

  Maratse let go of Kamiila’s hand and pointed to the next summit. “We keep moving. We keep talking.”

  “For how long?”

  Maratse shrugged. “I don’t know. Until something happens, maybe.”

  “What’s going to happen?”

  Another shrug. “I don’t know.”

  Kamiila said nothing until the slope narrowed, forcing them to pick their way up, around, and between boulders in their path. She took the lead, reaching for Maratse’s hand as he slowed, tugging him up the steeper sections, teasing him about getting in shape and giving up smoking.

  “I thought you were a hunter?”

  “Iiji,” he said. “With dogs.”

  “Never in the mountains?”

  Maratse shook his head. “Not high in the mountains.”

  “So, this new life…” Kamiila waited for Maratse to join her at the top of a boulder. “Are you going to cope?”

  “With a different life?” Maratse tapped the ptarmigan hanging from his belt and took a long breath of clean mountain air. “I like it,” he said.

  “Well, all right then.” Kamiila dropped half a metre to the path below the boulder. “As long as you like it, I’m sure we’ll be just fine.”

  The path narrowed and Kamiila took the lead, checking the map twice, adjusting course once, then stopping at the base of a massive boulder with a shallow cave beneath it.

  “We’ll stop here,” she said, removing her rifle and dumping her pack on the ground.

  “Iiji.”

  Kamiila took the ptarmigan from Maratse, sat on the ground, and began plucking the feathers. Maratse scoured the area for tough, dry Arctic roots, taking enough to supplement the roots they had collected along the way. He lit a fire beneath a flat stone, protecting it from the wind with larger rocks on three sides, while kneeling to feed the flames with twigs and roots. Kamiila gutted the bird, then pared the breast with a knife. She passed them to Maratse, along with what little fat she could find on the lean bird. The meat sizzled on the stone. Maratse smiled. Kamiila sighed, then moved closer to the fire to enjoy some of its heat.

  “This new life,” she said, plucking a piece of meat from Maratse’s fingers. “It reminds me of the old one.”

  “Iiji,” he said.

  “It’s a life worth fighting for.”

  Maratse paused, a chunk of breast just a hair’s breadth from his lips. “You think we’re going to have to fight?”

  “Don’t you?”

  Maratse drew a deep breath into his lungs, nodding as he exhaled. He popped the meat into his mouth, licked his fingers, and said, “Iiji. One way or another. I think we might.”

  The fire crackled beneath the stone as the late summer sun circled around the peaks. Maratse leaned his back against a boulder, watching the sun dip behind one peak only to rise behind another. Kamiila snuggled into his side. She snored as he smoked, and the fire crackled into embers.

  Denmark

  Part 3

  ________________________________

  The cobbles of Nyhavn, rounded and smooth beneath Inniki Rasmussen’s feet, shone in the early summer rain. Inniki tugged at the collar of her winter coat, turning it up to protect her neck as she weaved through the steam of tourists flooding the cobbled street. The canal was choked with barges – long and lined with benches. Inniki wrinkled her nose at the briny water below her, then caught a whiff of sausage from the hot dog stand. But the smell of the water wasn’t as tart as the sea in the fjords and along the coast of Greenland, and the sausage fat was processed, not creamy like the fat on the ribs of a seal. The tourists loved the Danish canals and the red pølser and brown frankfurters. But they don’t know what they’re missing, Inniki thought, as she pushed on, through the crowds, and into a slim side street where the soft clack of her comfortable shoes echoed between the pastel-coloured walls. Inniki walked deeper and further into a maze of buildings, leaving the sea and sausage for the tourists.

  She stopped beside a narrow staircase, curling her wrinkled hands around the black iron rails as she took the steps down to the old wine cellar. She knocked on the heavy hardwood door hanging deep inside an arch cut into the stone foundations. The door creaked open on thick hinges and Inniki slipped inside.

  “Were you seen?”

  “Naamik,” Inniki said, peering into the dark, searching for a face to attach to the woman’s voice.

  “Over here.”

  Inniki turned, heard the hollow click of an old Bakelite plastic switch, then blinked in the yellow light of a naked bulb. She smiled as a young woman with long black hair and thick black eyebrows blinked back at her.

  “Petra Jensen,” Inniki said. She reached out to grasp the woman’s hands in her own, drawing her close, hugging her tight.

  “So thin,” Petra said. “You haven’t been eating.”

  “I haven’t been hungry.”

  Petra locked the cellar door, then waved for Inniki to follow. “Come,” she said. “I’ve got leftovers.”

  “I’m really not hungry.”

  “We’ll see,” Petra said.

  The light lit the first third of an arched corridor into which Inniki walked, following Petra past two small pantries full of old furniture, moving boxes, and a bicycle partly obscured by curtains. A flight of wooden steps, narrower than the stone steps outside, led up and out of the cellar to the ground floor. Petra pressed a slim finger to her lip and looked at Inniki. The last blush of light from the cellar s
ettled in Petra’s eyes as she smiled.

  “The girls made you something,” she said. “They’re not quite finished.”

  Petra opened the door and Inniki narrowed her eyes, absorbing the light from the street as she followed Petra into the living room. The floorboards, painted blue, scuffed naked to the grain in places, gave them away with soft thuds beneath their feet. Two girls kneeling on an L of flat cardboard in the bay window gasped as Petra warned them of Inniki’s arrival with a soft cough. The girls hid their secret project beneath a tea towel, swapped conspiratorial glances, before flinging themselves at Inniki.

  “Careful,” Petra said. She took a step forward to intervene, stopping when Inniki waved her away with a soft curl of her lips between cries of surprise at how much the girls had grown and app, it has been a long time. “Too long,” Petra said, once the girls let go of Inniki.

  “I’ve been busy,” Inniki said. She slipped her hands into her coat pockets, pulling out lollipops like a magician pulls rabbits from a hat. “Abella,” she said, turning to the tallest of the two girls. “This is for you, if you tell me how old you are now.”

  “Six,” Abella said, thanking Inniki with another hug and a soft, “Qujanaq,” as she took the lollipop.

  “And your sister?”

  “I’m four,” said the smaller of the two girls.

  “Four?” Inniki tilted her head, painting a mock frown on her brow as she studied the girl. “And do you have a name?”

  “You know my name.”

  “Ah, but I am old. Perhaps I forgot it.” Inniki hid the last lollipop behind her back.

  “Jatsi,” the girl said. She darted to one side, curling around Inniki, reaching for the lollipop, only to giggle and squeal as Inniki turned one way, then the other, evading her at every turn, until she tired and Petra stepped in.

  “What do you say?” Petra said, as Inniki handed Jatsi her lollipop.

  “Qujanaq,” Jatsi said.

  “You’re very welcome.” Inniki watched the two girls as they compared lollipops, peeling away the plastic with Abella showing her younger sister how to flatten and save the wrapper for their collection.