It was while sitting there, dangling his feet in the tepid water, watching her absolutely perfect form break the surface then dip again beneath the moon-jeweled wavelets, that he wondered if AXE could do without him for a few years, and if he could do without AXE.
But it wasn't to be. The phone rang the next morning and he'd picked it up, feeling better and more relaxed than he had in years. It was David Hawk, AXE's two-fisted director, with the usual summons. This time to Lahore, where supply lines for the Afghan nationalists were in serious danger of being cut off. They said their good-byes again. She said she understood, although he suspected she didn't. And shortly after that she had accepted the faculty job with the University of Iceland for a year. It was a chance to study the fissures she had talked about. It was to be the last time they would ever see one another.
A month later he'd come back to Washington, the supply lines flowing once again, to be greeted by a very odd piece of mail. A large brown envelope postmarked Iceland with a Thorstein Josepsson, Althing Committee on Internal Affairs, on the return address. Inside was another envelope, this one badly water-damaged, and a letter. The letter spoke in somber tones of regrets and condolences, and told of a freak accident in a geyser field, a foot caught, and a horrible scalding death. She'd been carrying a letter, sealed, stamped but never sent.
Lydia's letter was incendiary. His suspicions burned. What had she found? How did it figure in the local politics? What were the local politics?
He had appealed to Hawk for a week's leave and was offered three days. But Hawk saw the look in his eyes and gave him a no-limit on the time as long as he was willing to be on twenty-four-hour call. He'd agreed, got cash and a ticket on his credit card, and boarded the first flight to Iceland. Now that he was here, however, in full view of the melancholy sky and the tired sea pounding its worn waves time after time against the shore, he wondered if he hadn't made a mistake. After all, mere was absolutely no reason to suspect she hadn't died exactly as Josepsson had written. Maybe he should have gone to the Caribbean or to the Mediterranean, someplace light and airy where the atmosphere wouldn't contribute to his gloom. He was full of sadness and regrets.
The bus pulled into Austurvollur Square and stopped in front of a building that advertised itself as the Borg Hotel. "Final stop," the driver said through the public-address system. Other buses were lined up outside.
Carter followed the crowd to the front of the bus, then leaned over the driver's seat.
The man looked up at him.
"Tell me about the Althing."
"It's our Parliament. Oldest continuously meeting parliament in the world. Dates back to 930 A.D. Meets over there." The driver indicated a nineteenth-century two-story stone building on the other side of the square.
"Is it in session now?"
"No," the driver said. "It is summer vacation."
"They're all gone then?" Carter asked, looking at the building.
"Some of them remain here. There are offices. There is work to be done."
He thanked the man and got out. A few minutes later he picked his bag up from the sidewalk where the driver had pitched it, then went inside the hotel. They had a room, but it was small and had no view of the harbor. He took it. A bellman carried his suitcase upstairs, and when the young man was finished opening the drapes and closet doors and explaining hotel policy, Carter gave him a folded bill.
"Have you ever heard of Thorstein Josepsson?" he asked.
The bellman looked at the money, then up at Carter. He nodded. "He's a distinguished member of the Althing."
"Where does he live?"
"Here, in town."
"What else do you know about him?"
The bellman hesitated. Carter peeled off another bill and handed it over.
"He likes scotch whiskey, no ice, no water. Usually eats his dinner here in the hotel dining room."
Carter smiled. "What else does he do?"
"Mr. Josepsson is on the board of directors of the Icelandic Internal Energy Commission, and is on the boards of several large businesses."
"Where can I find him?"
"At this moment, sir?"
Carter nodded.
"I believe Mr. Josepsson is downstairs in the dining room."
Carter handed the bellman another bill. "Meet me downstairs in five minutes, and point him out to me."
"Very good, sir."
When the bellman was gone. Carter locked the door and began unpacking with his customary caution. He pulled all the drapes, and when the room was quite dark, he turned on the lights. He checked the walls, outlets, and fixtures for signs of anything unusual. Even though no one knew he was coming up here, this was standard operating procedure. When he found nothing, he put his suitcase on the bed and unlocked it.
From an inside pocket he took out a shoulder holster, the leather of which had been worn dark with use, and he strapped it on. Then he pulled out a radio-cassette player, removed the back, then the main component board. Inside, in a Styrofoam mold, lay Wilhelmina, his 9mm Luger, and below it a silencer. The player had been made by AXE technicians to allow Carter to carry his weapons aboard commercial flights without detection. He pocketed the silencer, then took out the gun and pushed it into the holster.
From inside the suitcase's satin lining he drew out a narrow sheath of chamois leather and a pencil-thin blade with a wickedly sharp point. He strapped the sheath to his forearm under his shirt and inserted the stiletto, years ago nicknamed Hugo. Then he buttoned the shirt over it and put on his jacket. He studied his image in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. When he was satisfied that none of his weaponry showed, he closed the suitcase and shoved it under the bed, then left, locking the door behind him.
He carried another weapon as well, a gas bomb dubbed Pierre, attached to his leg, high on his right thigh, much like a third testicle. Any other man thus loaded down would have felt like a walking arsenal, but Carter had been dressing this way for a good many years and had had occasion to call on each of his weapons in time of crisis. Consequently, for the first time since leaving Washington, he felt fully secure and ready for anything.
The bellman stepped up to him as he entered the dining room and handed him a folded white card. Carter opened it and found a schematic drawing of the dining room, showing three tables in front of a bay of large windows at the far end of the room. At one of the tables the bellman had made a check mark.
Carter glanced across the room. The man sitting at that position was neither old nor young, but like many Icelanders Carter had seen, he had rugged, rocklike features that seemed to have been borrowed from the landscape. Two other men were seated with him, and they looked decidedly foreign… that is, foreign to Iceland.
Carter reached into his pocket for an additional tip, but the bellman, apparently not interested in being involved any further with the American and his questions, had moved away. Carter shrugged, then went across the room to where Josepsson was seated.
"Mr. Josepsson," Carter said.
The man looked up inquiringly, a bite of fish still in his mouth.
"I am Nick Carter. The addressee of the letter from Dr. Lydia Coatsworth you were kind enough to forward to me."
The man put down his knife and fork, laid his napkin on the table, and rose to shake Carter's hand. "We were terribly saddened, Mr. Carter. You were a close friend of Dr. Coatsworth?"
"Yes, I was."
"I am sorry, truly sorry then."