Meltwater (12 page)

‘And by the way, Magnús doesn’t work for the CIA,’ Ásta said.

‘How do you know?’ Erika asked.

‘Because he told me.’

‘I see,’ said Erika, not bothering to contradict her. So priests were gullible, what else was new? She was just pleased Ásta had taken the problem of Nico’s family off her hands. ‘Can we expect the police soon, Viktor?’

‘They are trying,’ said Viktor. ‘I’ve just come from the District Court. They wanted a search warrant, but I put up a good case against it.’

‘The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative?’

‘That’s correct – the right of you guys to protect your sources. The judge is thinking about it: I can’t guarantee that he won’t grant the search warrant, but I might be able to protect your computers.’

‘The computers are safe. Encrypted. Unbreakable.’

‘Hmm.’ Viktor looked thoughtful. ‘We might let them have that then – a good bargaining chip. But you should make sure the house is clean in case they do get a warrant.’

‘OK. You hear that, everyone? If you have made any notes or printed out anything you shouldn’t have done, I want it burned in the next thirty minutes.’

‘And the ashes flushed down the toilet,’ said Dieter.

‘I’ve got some notes,’ said Zivah. ‘Translations of the audio.’

‘That definitely needs to be destroyed,’ said Erika.

‘If you need to keep anything, I can scan it in first and we’ll back it up remotely,’ Dieter said.

Erika looked around her new team: Viktor, Zivah, Dúddi, Franz, Ásta. Which, if any, of them had fifteen thousand euros? Viktor was the obvious candidate. The best way to play him was to make an appeal to all of them and hope he might approach her later. She hated taking advantage of volunteers like this, but there was no choice.

She explained Freeflow’s financial situation and their requirements for the next few days. Ásta immediately agreed to provide groceries, as did Dúddi, who also said he would come up with any necessary computer equipment. The idea of either of them coughing up fifteen thousand euros was clearly absurd.

‘I can cover your air fare to London,’ said Viktor.

‘Thank you,’ said Erika coolly. She held his gaze.

He wasn’t going to offer more, she could see that. A few hundred dollars, but not thousands. He would twist arms and call in favours with his well-placed friends, but he wouldn’t give Freeflow real money.

Was that because he didn’t have any? Erika had heard of Iceland’s
kreppa
. She imagined that there were many middle-class lawyers and businessmen who were overwhelmed by debt. Was Viktor one of them? Or did he have tens of thousands stashed away somewhere?

She could see in his eyes that he wasn’t going to tell her.

‘I’ve only got a few thousand shekels in my savings account,’ said Zivah. ‘About a thousand dollars, maybe a bit more. You can have that if you really need it.’

‘That’s great, Zivah,’ said Erika with a smile. ‘Thank you. It’s a start. We have to begin somewhere.’

She glanced at Franz, the Swiss guy. Maybe he would be good for another couple of thousand? She had never met him before; he was a contact of Dieter’s from somewhere on the Internet. He was in his early twenties, short, with curly black hair and a chubby face. If he wasn’t still a student, he couldn’t have been out of college for more than a year or two.

‘I don’t even have that much,’ said Franz. ‘I could give you maybe five hundred euros.’

Erika smiled weakly. She knew even that amount could be a lot of money for a young guy.

She glanced at Viktor again. He looked down at his tanned hands.

Silence.

He wasn’t going to be shamed into giving money he didn’t want to. Tight bastard!

‘OK, everyone,’ Erika said eventually. ‘Get rid of the written evidence first. Then give your laptops to Dieter. And then we’ll get to work on the video.’

The group broke up.

‘Oh, by the way,’ Erika said. ‘Just before he died, Nico came up with a code name for the video.’ She paused. ‘Project Meltwater.’

CHAPTER NINE

M
AGNUS’S PHONE RANG
. He grabbed it. He had been waiting for Rannveig’s call since he had returned from the Commissioner’s office.

‘OK, I’ve done a deal,’ said Rannveig. ‘I have a warrant to search the house
and
their computers.’

‘Well done!’

‘The agreement is that we can question the Freeflow team for a few hours today on the premises. They are not obliged to answer any questions about the project they are currently working on. We are not allowed to examine any documents or computer files relating to this project. After today we have to leave them alone unless there is a compelling reason to interview them again. And if we do that, we do it at the house, we don’t take them to the station. Unless they are under arrest, of course.’

‘Once we have mirrored their hard disks, I don’t see how they can stop us from figuring out what they are working on,’ said Magnus. ‘Just from file titles or e-mail subject lines. And that’s all we need. We don’t need the details.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ said Rannveig.

‘So, what are we waiting for?’ said Magnus. ‘We’re on our way.’

‘I’ll meet you there,’ said Rannveig. ‘Viktor is at the house and I’m sure he’s going to be hovering over you. I want to make sure he sticks to his side of the deal.’

Magnus, Árni and Vigdís all went in one car, with Magnus driving. Árni was still sulking from the harsh words Magnus had had with him over his behaviour the night before. Magnus had promised the Commissioner he would talk to Árni, and talk to him he had. But Magnus knew Árni’s sulk wouldn’t last long: he got into trouble too frequently to let it bother him overmuch.

‘I wonder about that guy Franz,’ Magnus said. ‘I’m curious about where he was when the others were up on the volcano. Maybe he knows more about the snowmobilers.’

‘Now we’ve had the press conference we should hear from them soon,’ Vigdís said.

‘If they are innocent,’ said Magnus. ‘It will be more interesting if we
don’t
hear from them.’

He turned up the hill towards the Hallgrímskirkja and braked as a woman on a bicycle shot out of a side road right in front of him at high speed. It wasn’t just the drivers in Reykjavík who were dangerous nutters.

‘I should get a transfer to the Traffic Department,’ Magnus said. ‘Sort some of these guys out.’

‘They’d pedal rings round you, Magnús,’ said Vigdís with a laugh. ‘You’d never catch them.’

‘So, is it this week you’re going to Paris, Vigdís?’ Árni asked.

‘Yeah. Tomorrow. Boy, am I looking forward to it.’

‘You meeting the guy from New York?’ Magnus said. ‘Daníel?’

‘Yes. And his name’s Davíd.’

‘Oh, yeah. Sorry.’ Davíd was some kind of television executive in New York, originally from Vigdís’s home town of Keflavík, although according to Vigdís they had only met for the first time the year before. ‘How’s that going?’

‘Transatlantic relationships are tough,’ said Vigdís.

‘Especially when you cancel on the guy all the time,’ Árni said. Davíd had come back to Iceland at Christmas, ostensibly to see his parents, but really to see Vigdís. Which he had failed to do. She had been caught up in a rape investigation that took a week of intense work to solve. She had got her man: the rapist had been found guilty in March, but it was clear Davíd hadn’t been impressed.

‘He understands,’ Vigdís said. ‘And I’ll make it up to him in Paris.’

‘Lucky guy,’ said Árni.

Magnus agreed, but decided it was best not to say so. ‘Look, Vigdís. On the off chance we don’t have this case wrapped up by dinnertime, don’t cancel your trip. We’ll manage without you.’

‘Great to be missed,’ said Vigdís. But she couldn’t help a smile spreading across her face.

‘Here we are.’ Magnus pulled into a space a few yards from the house on Thórsgata. He saw Rannveig striding purposefully up the street from the other direction in her lawyer’s trouser suit. He rapped loudly on the door.

It was opened by Viktor. Magnus suppressed the urge to barge past him and waited for Rannveig, who handed Viktor the warrant. He took his time reading it. Magnus slowed right down, controlled his impatience. He was not going to let this asshole wind him up.

Viktor glanced at him. ‘All right, you may come in.’

The living space was full of computer equipment. Magnus recognized everyone from the night before; he noted there were no new additions.

‘Right!’ he said. ‘Can I have your attention? In a few minutes a team will be here to search your house and any computers we find. We won’t take the computers away, but we will mirror the hard drives, which means taking a copy of everything on them. The sooner you cooperate with us, the sooner we can leave you alone. And, more importantly, the sooner we can find whoever it was who killed your friend.’

Magnus turned to Viktor. ‘OK, everyone should wait in the kitchen area. Is there a bedroom where we can conduct the interviews? I’d like to start with Erika again.’

‘Sure,’ said Viktor.

Magnus’s phone rang. He answered. ‘Magnús.’

‘It’s Edda.’

Magnus picked up the hint of excitement in the forensics team leader’s voice. ‘What have you found?’

‘Much as we thought. There is a lot of junk under the snow, and we have no way of telling who dropped it. But we did isolate the rock the assailant tried to strike Erika with. And there is a fibre of some kind on it.’

‘Any chance you can get any DNA?’ Magnus asked.

‘Impossible to say with the naked eye. But you should take DNA samples from all the witnesses and bring in the clothes they were wearing yesterday, especially gloves.’

‘I’m with them now,’ said Magnus. ‘We’ll do that. Let me know if you find anything else.’

There was another knock on the door: it was a team of uniformed police officers plus another member of the forensics unit. Magnus gave them instructions, and a couple of minutes later he was crammed into a small bedroom with Rannveig, Viktor and Erika. It looked out over a scrappy garden at the back. Some personal touches from the owners of the property remained: bright yellow curtains and some artistic photographs of Icelandic horses galloping along beaches. A sleeping bag was rolled up in a corner.

Erika and Viktor sat on the bed, at different ends, and Rannveig and Magnus took the two chairs.

Erika looked very cool and composed, as if she was just about to begin a difficult business meeting or negotiation.

Magnus didn’t like that.

‘You were very nearly killed yesterday, Erika,’ he began.

Erika nodded.

‘And your friend
was
killed.’

‘That’s right.’
And I couldn’t give a damn
, her expression seemed to say.

Well, Magnus gave a damn.

‘So I’d like you to do everything you can to help us find who killed him.’

‘Sure, I’ll do that.’

‘Provided you don’t ask her about what Freeflow are working on now,’ said Viktor.

Magnus ignored him. ‘OK. I would guess that Freeflow has some enemies. Can we go through them?’

‘All right,’ said Erika. ‘I’ve been thinking about that. You’re correct; we have a lot of enemies. The Chinese, the Zimbabweans, the Sudanese, some people in Belgium, lots of powerful Italians, a big German bank, a whole bunch of American frat boys, and probably some other people we’ve pissed off along the way. But the guy I saw on the mountain wasn’t Asian and he wasn’t African, so that narrows it down a bit.’

‘Maybe,’ said Magnus. ‘But there’s nothing to stop these people paying a white guy to do their dirty work.’

‘I really can’t imagine the Sudanese doing that.’

‘Well, let’s go through them one by one. We’ll figure out the likely candidates once we’ve done that.’

Magnus spent the next twenty minutes writing down details of the various entities Freeflow had exposed. It was an impressive list, and most of them deserved to have their dirty washing aired. There was no doubt that the Italians were top of the list of suspects. Stirring up corrupt politicians and organized crime in the land which gave the world the word ‘Mafia’ was clearly a dangerous activity.

‘Was Nico involved in the Italian leak at all?’ Magnus asked. ‘He was Italian, after all.’

‘No. It was before his time: he wasn’t part of the team then.’

‘OK. What about the Chinese?’ Magnus asked.

‘That’s an interesting one,’ said Erika. ‘The main reason they hate us is that we eavesdropped on
their
eavesdropping. They have been harvesting information from the Internet for years using weaknesses in the Tor nodes. We saw what they were getting and helped ourselves to it. Since then they have been trying to break into our own computer systems. You could say we are at war with them. But it’s a war in cyberspace, not the real world.’

‘I see. And the CIA? Nothing you have said so far seems to affect the CIA directly.’

‘No. But we know that it has also been trying to hack into our network. And I have been followed many times.’