Aftershocks Read online

  Outside, his helicopter sat idling on the cobblestones in front of Harpa, its blinking lights reflecting off the building’s geometric planes. The blades were spinning, and onlookers were keeping a safe distance. The police had arrived to deal with the unauthorized landing, and one of Einar’s men was arguing with them. There was a great deal of gesturing going on. Einar and his escorts cleared a path through the gathering crowd. They swept straight past the improvised police cordon and strode to the helicopter. Einar got the attention of the man keeping the police occupied and curtly gestured for him to get back aboard or be left behind.

  His two escorts leapt into the open side door and extended their arms to help him up. Einar climbed in and stood in the doorway. The police had noticed something was happening now. The remaining operative on the ground broke off his argument. He leapt in and took a seat in the cockpit.

  A quartet of police officers hurried toward them, waving them down. It wasn’t permitted to land a helicopter here, but having done so, it was apparently also not permitted for it to take off again. Einar had bigger things to worry about.

  “Let’s move!” he called out. The helicopter lifted off and slid quickly away over Reykjavik into a sky that glowed dull orange in the long twilight.

  “What’s been done?” he snapped, and his crew quickly filled him in. Standard brushfire protocols, of course. But those were designed by men who assumed an attack on their data would be a cyber attack by hackers, not an old school physical penetration of the building.

  Einar had not made that assumption. He wasn’t entirely unprepared for this. It was unfortunate it happened on a night when he’d gone off the grid and forced his team to hunt him down. He could have done without giving his quarry a two-hour head start. Still, he had certain advantages, not the least of which was Iceland itself. Einar knew perfectly well who their enemies within the country were, and none would have had the motive or the ability to pull off something like this. That meant foreigners. Foreigners who would need to get their stolen data out of the country in some kind of physical volume. In many ways this was better than a hacking incident because, for all practical purposes, there’d been no breach at all if the attackers couldn’t get the data out of the country. And Iceland was a remote, isolated place that offered them very few ways to do that.

  “Private aircraft arriving in the last week?” he asked.

  “Five, sir,” one of his operatives read from a tablet. “Only one of which is still on the ground at Keflavik.” He read off a tail number.

  “Why wasn’t I notified?”

  “It was just logged as routine, sir,” the man said. “It’s not on the targets of interest list.”

  “Well, perhaps we’d better add it, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do we have a team heading for Keflavik?”

  Another man spoke up. “Mr. Olvirsson dispatched a duty team, sir. They should arrive in…” He checked his watch. “Twenty minutes.”

  “Olvirsson’s giving orders?”

  “He assumed command in your absence, sir.”

  Einar nodded. Good man. He’d had the guts to step up and take control, and he’d made at least one good call. He’d clawed back some of that two-hour head start.

  The helicopter was flying fast over the outskirts of Reykjavik. They’d be at the site within minutes and Einar could take over. He toyed with the idea of ordering the pilot to divert to Keflavik. But no. Einar’s place in a crisis was at the command center. He was already going to have to explain a brushfire event to the company’s directors. They wouldn’t be pleased to learn that he’d been deliberately out of pocket for two hours as it developed. He could sweep that under the rug, but only if he was there onsite.

  “Get me a channel to the Keflavik team,” he said. “I’ll direct them from base.”

  Chapter 11

  Crane ran with a steady, medium-fast pace, a pace he’d trained at for years and knew he could maintain for long distances. The light was just good enough to see by as he ran over the broken ground. The sun was a glowing wedge along the horizon behind him. He dodged a tussock of long, brown grass and kept on.

  He was circling a tall hill that wasn’t big enough to have a name on the map, though Crane guessed the locals had a name for it. The Datafall complex was on the other side of that hill, stuck between it and the volcanic mountains to the north. On this side of the hill was a tiny hamlet, a clutch of half a dozen small homes clustered close together as if huddling for warmth once winter came. There was a gravel road leading out toward the main highway. And there was a tiny, ancient church with a sod roof where Crane had left his car.

  Again, the situation wasn’t ideal. Probably no one but the residents of those half dozen homes and the postman had come down that little road in years. Crane very much doubted that they’d failed to notice a stranger parking his car behind the church and walking off around the hill. But you didn’t get to pick the mission parameters. Crane was hoping they’d taken him for a tourist roaming the countryside with a rental car and a day pack. There seemed to be enough of those drifting around Iceland in the summer.

  Crane stopped for a moment, listened, and heard nothing. He scanned the slope ahead of him. There were few enough landmarks out here, but he’d stashed his backup bag in an erosion gully along the hillside, a bare scar in the green-brown slope. There was a rock nearby that could be seen from a ways off. He knew he could find the bag. The course was straightforward enough: back out the way he went in. Retrieve the bag, make it back to the car, then hightail it to Keflavik and the Gulfstream.

  But there was a lot of distance to cover between him and the jet. A lot could happen between here and there. He set off again, angling up the hillside slightly.

  He recovered the bag a few minutes later and checked his watch. Eighteen minutes since he’d left the complex. He wasn’t sure what Datafall’s response capabilities were or what kind of a cordon they could throw out in that time to stop him. It was another ten minutes to the car. Crane set off again, pushing his pace a little. He decided to see if he could make it eight minutes.

  It was just under eight minutes later as Crane approached the clutch of buildings. He knew something was wrong before he knew exactly what. There were lights that hadn’t been there when he left. Crane could see the church steeple standing out in the twilight. His car was there, but so was another vehicle. His rented Nissan sat isolated in the pool of its headlights.

  Crane crouched down to avoid silhouetting himself on the hillside. He moved forward and knelt beside a small cluster of three-leaved rush. There was no real cover here, but at least it would break up his outline. He took a pair of binoculars from the backup bag and swept the church.

  “Damn it,” he muttered.

  The other vehicle was a Toyota Hilux, dull gray with the Datafall logo on the doors. Two men in black uniforms stood nearby. They were armed. One of the doors of his Nissan was open. They’d been through the car. That wasn’t a problem. There was nothing inside that would tell them anything. But they’d found the car, and that was very bad.

  Crane thought he might be able to take them if he could maintain surprise. But then what would he do? His choices would be to drive out in his own car, which they’d now be watching for, or in one of their own trucks. That seemed equally unlikely to pass without notice. For all he knew, the Hilux could have a GPS tracer. Either way, he’d have to take the Ring Road, which circled the country and was the only road back to Reykjavik. Then there was one highway out to Keflavik. They’d be able to intercept him almost anywhere they chose to, simply because there weren’t any choices he could make. His only chance was to do something unexpected.

  Crane moved away, heading back around the hill and leaving the car to them. It was worse than just being able to predict his route, he realized. They’d know he was headed for Keflavik because that was the only international airport and almost the only way out of the country. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out ther
e must be a plane waiting for him there. Georges and the Gulfstream would be a target. Once again it occurred to Crane that Iceland was a singularly bad place for this kind of job, one that gave every advantage to the opposition.

  He made his way back around to the west side of the hill, out of sight of the team at the car. When he thought he’d found the point on the hill that was nearest the Ring Road, he sat down, took out the phone he’d been using for the last week, and called Georges.

  “Where are you?” Georges said as he picked up. “What happened? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. What’s going on there?”

  “Nothing. We just lost you. I’ve been trying to get you back. They’re using some kind of predictive jammer. I could get a packet past it once in a while, but not enough signal integrity to—”

  “Get airborne,” Crane interrupted. “They’ve made you.”

  “What?”

  “I have the device and I’m out, but they’ve got my car. I’m not going to be able to make it back there. You’ve probably got hostiles inbound. Tell the pilots to get airborne now. Wheels up as fast as they can do it.”

  “But what about you?”

  “I’ve got a backup plan,” said Crane. “I’ll get out on my own. You get out of the country immediately. This is the last call you’ll get from this phone. Do you understand? If this phone calls you again, don’t answer.”

  “We can’t just leave you here!”

  “I’ll be all right. Go. Now.”

  Then he hung up and powered down the phone. He pulled the SIM card and buried it in a small depression he dug out of the mossy ground. Then he changed, quickly because it was chilly. He swapped out his black pants and sweater for a pair of hiking pants and a couple layers of light outdoor gear he’d picked up at Cintamani in Reykjavik. He packed everything into his bag, then stood up, hitched the bag up over his shoulder and set out on the long walk back out to the Ring Road.

  Chapter 12

  The pilots had taken Crane’s warning seriously and had the Gulfstream accelerating down the runway within minutes. Now they were airborne, climbing to cruise height, and wheeling around to the east, bound for Norway.

  Georges sat in the rear of the jet, at the table where he’d set up his laptops and equipment, and felt utterly forlorn. He’d screwed up, badly, and he didn’t even know how. The spread spectrum link should have been completely undetectable. But somehow, they’d found it, and that had blown Crane’s mission. He didn’t even know if Crane was alive.

  But for the moment, all he could do was keep himself together and try to help fix things. He dreaded making the call, but Josh needed to be told as soon as possible. The Gulfstream had a Wi-Fi hotspot that connected to a satellite link. Georges took a long look at his phone, then called up Josh’s number and hit dial.

  Josh picked up immediately. He’d obviously been waiting for a report. Georges told him what had happened.

  “It’s my fault,” he said when he was finished. “They picked up the link. I thought it was secure, but they found it somehow. I blew his cover.”

  “Not your fault,” said Josh. “And that’s not helpful now. Focus on what we can do.”

  “What can we do? We’re not there, and he’s cut us off. He wasn’t kidding about the phone. I tried calling him back and it’s not on the network. He’s gone dark.”

  “We’re going to have a talk when he gets back,” said Josh, “about keeping me in the loop on his emergency plans. In the meantime, let’s figure out what he’s doing and how we can help him.”

  “Right,” said Georges. “You’re right.”

  “So is he going to have you fly back in and pick him up somewhere else?”

  “I didn’t get that impression,” said Georges. “He sounded like he just wanted us gone.”

  “Well, Iceland’s an island in the middle of the North Atlantic,” said Josh. “There’s only so many ways to get off of it. Basically, there’s air and there’s water. Hang on a sec.”

  Georges heard keystrokes, then Josh said, “Oh, come on.”

  “What?”

  “I just had my map draw a thousand-kilometer radius circle around Reykjavik,” Josh explained. “There’s not a lot of land in it. And most of that’s glaciers on the Greenland coast. Let me see…there’s the Faroe Islands, which is like the one place even more remote than Iceland. And it just, just hits the edge of the Hebrides. That’s a thousand kilometers. It’s not like he can steal a rowboat. He’s got to be planning to fly out. Where else could you fly into? There’s got to be somewhere. Ask the pilots.”

  Georges went forward to the cockpit and had a hurried discussion with the two pilots.

  “Not a lot of options,” he told Josh a couple minutes later when he came back. “There are plenty of small airfields, but they’re made for short range prop planes flying in-country. The runways are too short for a Gulfstream. Besides Keflavik, there are three airports where we could land.”

  “Seriously? Three?”

  “Reykjavik has an airport closer in to the city. Then there’s Akureyri on the north coast, and Egilsstadir in the east.”

  “They could have teams there watching out for him already,” Josh mused. “Three airports aren’t very many to watch.”

  “Two, really,” said Georges. “If he’s right, coming back to Reykjavik is way too dangerous.”

  Josh sighed. “Okay, what about planes that can fly out of those smaller airfields? Could one of those make it somewhere? Ask the pilots.”

  “Already did,” said Georges. “Short answer is maybe. They say if you had a twin-engine turboprop, you could use the shorter runways, and you could reach airports in Greenland, Scotland, Ireland, parts of Norway.”

  “I’m hearing a ‘but’ in your voice,” said Josh.

  “But there aren’t any twin-engine turboprops. We’re talking about unmanned airstrips, not even paved, some of them. Locals will have a few smaller planes parked there, but a plane like Crane needs is too expensive. Only place to find a plane like that would be a charter operation.”

  “Which brings us back to our short list of airports,” said Josh. “What about boats? Is there any way he could make it off by boat?”

  “Like you said, it’s a long way to anywhere. It would have to be a pretty big boat. Not the kind he could handle by himself.” A thought occurred to Georges. “I did see a cruise ship in Reykjavik. But he said it was too dangerous to come back to Reykjavik.”

  “And if he was going to Reykjavik, we already had a perfectly good airplane there,” Josh added. “Wait, do the cruise ships dock anywhere else?”

  “I don’t know,” Georges admitted.

  “Hang on a sec.” Georges heard a furious clatter of keys, then, “Why, yes, they do. Let me run his company credit card.”

  There was more typing, a pause, then Josh came back. “That son of a bitch! He booked himself on the Celebrity Eclipse! In a suite, no less. Peter Drew, VP of Strategic Acquisitions, Myria Group…What the hell, John? He bought the unlimited beverage package! He wasn’t even planning to be on the boat!”

  Georges smiled. He’d noticed that Crane had a habit of spending more than was strictly necessary, just to tweak Josh. But he didn’t care about the particulars right now. “Where’s he going?”

  “Hang on.” Josh typed some more. “The Eclipse is at sea right now. It left Reykjavik ten hours ago. It docks in Akureyri at 9:00 tomorrow morning and it’s there until 7:00 p.m. when it leaves Iceland for the Faroes and Norway. That little…”

  Georges furiously searched through his bag for a map of Iceland and spread it out on the table. Reykjavik was at the southwestern tip of the country. He found Akureyri, more or less in the middle of the northern coast. Route 1, the Ring Road that circled the island, would take Crane there. He could reach Akureyri in something like four and a half hours by car. Plenty of time to catch the ship.

  But looking at the map, Georges saw the danger. The Ring Road was effectively the only way to get from
one part of Iceland to another. Datafall’s people would be watching it to see if he came back to Reykjavik. When he didn’t, there was only one other direction he could have gone.

  “We’re headed for Bergen right now,” said Georges. “What do you want us to do?”

  Josh thought for a moment. “Divert to Stavanger,” he said. “The Eclipse docks there in four days. If he makes it onboard, he’ll call in and you can pick him up.”

  “What if he doesn’t?”

  “Then we’ll have to figure out what happened and find another way. Keep me posted.”

  “I will.”

  After he hung up, Georges settled back in the luxurious leather seat and let out a deep breath. Somehow, hearing about the cruise ship cabin filled Georges with new hope. Crane had a plan. Maybe there was still something he could do to help, to make up for his mistake.

  He grabbed the map of Iceland and started tracing the route Crane would have to take.

  Chapter 13

  It was almost midnight as Datafall’s helicopter descended toward the supercomputing complex. In the dim twilight, Einar could see trucks parked on the grass, their headlights illuminating the building. His entire security team was there, along with some operations staff who’d apparently been hauled out of bed and called in for the emergency. Soon, word would filter up to the executive board, and they’d want his report. Einar would need plenty of usable information to give them when that happened.

  The helicopter touched down on the landing pad, and Einar jumped out the side door. He strode toward the building in his tuxedo, the helicopter powering down behind him. A pair of security men jogged toward him. He recognized one as Ari Olvirsson, the one who’d taken the initiative and dispatched the team to Keflavik. The other he knew vaguely. That one was carrying a radio handset, and Einar assumed he was there to put him in touch with the Keflavik team.