Meltwater (Fire and Ice)

hadn’t seen Gunnar, and of
course they all believed him because your father was known for his honesty.’
    Jóhannes felt a shiver of horror run through him as he realized what Unnur’s words meant.
    His father was a murderer. He had killed a man, and a horse, in cold blood when he was only, what, fourteen years old.
    ‘Which is why he chose to write about it forty years later?’ Jóhannes said. An honest murderer, but still a murderer.
    Unnur shrugged. ‘Maybe. Remember, Benedikt knew he was going to die, even if he thought it was from a brain tumour and not a knife in the back. If Aunt Hildur doesn’t want to tell
you, then I really shouldn’t. But there was a man who came round here last year and spoke to me – to both of us. He has figured a lot of this out for himself. He’s in
Reykjavík. You could talk to him.’
    ‘What’s his name?’
    ‘He’s a policeman. Magnús Ragnarsson. He’s Hallgrímur’s grandson.’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    T HE HOUSE WAS a mess and that was exactly the way Erika liked it. Empty cups of coffee and cans of Red Bull littered every
free surface. It was also beginning to smell, of food, of sweat, of too many people locked inside together for too many days.
    To Erika this was the smell of action, of work, of results.
    She had slept very little for the previous few days, but her brain was firing on all cylinders. Finally things were slotting into place. The video had been downloaded and she and Dúddi
were analysing it frame by frame, deciding what to cut and what to keep, and also trying to figure out exactly what all the grey smudges were. Franz was augmenting the resolution as best he could,
but this was when they really needed Gareth and his experience of interpreting aerial photography. Ásta was just about to leave for the airport to meet him. Once they had figured out what
was going on, then they could work on an edited three-minute version of the attack for maximum impact.
    Zivah had finished a transcript and translation of the radio traffic. It made chilling reading. Although she had seen it so many times and in so many places before, Erika was still shocked by
how callous men could be when exposed to violence that should horrify any normal human being. She knew that it was a soldier’s job to kill, and a certain amount of humour and detachment
helped deal with that, but she felt utter contempt for the voices on the radio.
    They deserved to be exposed, as did all those in high places trying to protect them.
    Dieter and Apex were establishing the network of websites around the world that would host the video once they published. They could expect distributed denial-of-service attacks from angry
supporters of Israel. This was a form of electronic assault: tens of thousands of computers all over the world were directed without their owners’ knowledge to send millions of messages to a
certain website, with the aim of overwhelming it. Dieter was setting up a chain of sites which would pop up whenever one of their brethren was taken down by an attack.
    But of course that all relied on them finding the fifteen thousand euros to pay the Swedish ISP. Where the hell was Erika going to find the money? If only Nico was still alive.
    Erika had delayed getting in touch with the Guardian in the UK until Alan had got to Samantha Wilton. But Alan had warmed up his contacts on the Washington Post , who were eager to
be involved provided their bosses were happy with the verification of the video. If they were going to publish something that would damage Israel’s reputation they had to be absolutely sure
of the source. Fair enough.
    Alan’s contact at Reuters had also come up with the goods: two local journalists in Gaza were on standby to talk to witnesses of the attack the year before. They already knew whom to go
to; they were just waiting for the photographs to show to the witnesses. Erika had begun a negotiation with Reuters about how the material was handled, all on Jabber. She had also warmed up Der
Spiegel , the German weekly magazine with a publication date on Mondays. This fitted Erika’s timetable perfectly, but meant she needed to give them a few days’ warning to leave space
for an article.
    ‘ Scheisse! ’ The expletive from Dieter was particularly loud, causing Erika to lift her head from her computer.
    ‘What’s up?’
    ‘Gareth’s missed his flight.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘He says he has to stay in England today to finish up his current project.