Meltwater (Fire and Ice)

He’ll fly in tomorrow morning.’
    ‘Let me see.’ Erika leaned over Dieter’s shoulder to look at the chat. ‘Here, let me in.’
    She shoved Dieter out of the way, took his seat and began typing: gareth, you asshole, how can you do this? we have a whole team here waiting for you. we need you to analyse the images and
for verification.
    Gareth: i know, i know. i’m sorry erika. but this is my most important client and i need to finish the job for them. the deadline is this evening. i’ll definitely be on the flight
tomorrow morning. i promise.’
    Erika: you’d better be.
    She turned away from Dieter’s computer in disgust.
    ‘It’s never easy,’ said Dieter.
    Erika smiled at him. He was always there, Dieter. Always reliable. He would never miss a flight. He knew Freeflow was the number-one priority. Always.
    She touched his arm. He gave her a shy smile in response.
    ‘Ásta!’ she called out. ‘Hold your horses. Gareth’s not coming. No need to go to the airport today.’
    ‘Actually, I still need to go in a couple of hours,’ Ásta said. ‘To meet Nico’s wife.’
    ‘Oh, yes,’ said Erika. She had forgotten about Teresa Andreose. ‘What are you going to do with her?’
    ‘I’ll look after her,’ Ásta said. ‘I’ll bring her to the house for a little bit to meet you. I know you are busy, but I think it’s important. Then
I’ll get her a hotel and take her in to see the police.’
    ‘Thanks for your help, Ásta. I really appreciate it.’
    The last thing Freeflow needed was a hysterical Italian woman under their feet. It turned out there was some point in having a priest on the payroll after all.
    Now, Apex. have you heard? Erika began typing. gareth can’t make it until tomorrow.
    Apex: yeah. dieter told me. that’s bad news. especially since i’m a little doubtful about the video.
    Erika: really? what’s the problem?
    Apex: the helicopter background noise. i don’t think it’s an ah-64 apache. i think it’s something else, but i’m not sure what.
    Erika: and the actual attack was by an apache, wasn’t it? we know that for sure?
    Apex: that’s right.
    Erika: that doesn’t sound good. so are you saying the video’s a fake? are you certain about the noise?
    Apex: no, i’m not certain. there may be reasons why the noise might sound different to other recordings of apache helicopters i’ve listened to. that’s why we need
gareth.
    Erika was worried, but only a little. Apex was always cautious. He was bound to find some problem with the video, even if it was genuine. But all doubts needed to be checked out thoroughly
before it was released.
    Apex: how are the police getting on with their investigation?
    Erika: it’s okay. they are out of our hair now, viktor saw to that. but there was a question from the press about israel last night.
    Apex: shouldn’t we be helping them some more? i mean Nico is dead. perhaps we should hand everything we have over to them and get them to investigate properly.
    Erika: no! no. nico wouldn’t have wanted that. it sounds like a cliche but i know it’s true. besides, if mossad killed him the icelandic cops are hardly going to be able do
anything about it. and if it was a random killing, then there’s not much more we can do to help them.
    Apex: and if it was the italians?
    Erika: i’ve told them all about italy. i am sure they are raiding every pizza joint in the country as we speak.
    The screen was still. Erika let Apex think.
    Apex: ok. we’ll do it your way.
    Erika: good. see if you can work with franz on identifying the objects in the videos. we should get as much done without gareth as we can.
    She sat back from the screen and rubbed her eyes. Dieter was right, things were never easy. But they weren’t usually this hard either.
    But if she could hold herself together, hold the rest of the team together, they would do this. It would be Freeflow’s greatest moment.
    Nico would be proud of them. Of her.
    Magnus dropped Mikael Már off at his house in Selfoss and drove on to Reykjavík. He had made progress of some kind: he was pretty sure he could rule out the
snowmobilers after all. And Franz’s story of what he had been doing on the mountain seemed to stack up.
    Which left what? A mysterious man in a red ski jacket who was driving a black Suzuki Vitara up on the glacier. Possibly someone who was upset with what Freeflow had done to them. An Italian, an
Israeli, or maybe someone who worked for those people. Or someone else