The Reykjavik Assignment (Yael Azoulay #3)(97)

“Hello, Motek.”

Yael slammed the Nokia onto the dashboard so hard it cracked, threw it onto the backseat, and checked the car’s GPS. She was approaching álftanesvegur, the main road along the peninsula, which eventually turned sharp right onto Bessastadavegur. That was the only access route to the presidential residence. There would certainly be a police checkpoint there. They would hold and detain her, at first for her own safety, for much longer when they found Eli and Michal. She would have no chance of getting into Bessastadir.

She checked in the rearview and side mirrors. There was a single car on the road behind her, a light blue Lada Niva four-wheel drive. It had been behind her for some time, always keeping a steady distance. There was nowhere to turn off. A threat, or a contact? She slowed down, put on the hazard flashers, and parked on the side of the road. Then, checking that one pistol was safe in her jacket pocket and the other tucked into her rear waistband, resting against the small of her back, she got out of the car, stepped into the road and flagged down the Lada.

It slowed, pulled over to the side of the road, then stopped. Even at a distance the driver looked familiar.

“Please get in, ma’am,” said Michael Ortega. “I’m here to help.”

Yael stared at him in disbelief. What was her doorman doing here? And who was he working for? She looked inside the Lada and hesitated for a moment as she considered her options. Her car was very obviously damaged in a crash and about to die. Her name was being mentioned in news broadcasts. The police would soon be after her, probably already were. Eli doubtless had a backup team somewhere nearby. The Lada Niva was bland and unremarkable, the sort of car that locals took off-road on the weekends. Ortega was an army veteran. If he wanted to shoot her, he would have done already. He was alone in the vehicle, had neither brandished a weapon nor asked for hers. She climbed in, sat in the front seat. Ortega glanced at her for a moment, said nothing as the car pulled away.

Yael watched the bare landscape go by for a minute or so, the rain pattering against the windows, her right hand holding the Jericho in her pocket. If nothing else, it was a pleasure to sit in a car with an intact windshield. The radio was on, tuned to a local news channel, she guessed. A GPS mounted near the rearview mirror showed their location on Altnesvegur.

Yael took out the Jericho and pointed it at him. “Explain.”

Ortega glanced at her, kept his hands on the steering wheel. “No need for that, ma’am. You’re safe now.”

“Drop the ma’am. Who sent you, why are you here, and what do you want?”

She stared at him, focused but calm. Michael Ortega. Last seen on Friday evening on the corner of West Eighty-First and Riverside Drive, hailing a taxi for Yael and her mother to take them to the KZX reception. Three days later, here he was on Altnesvegur. A memory flashed through her mind: she had sensed a strange current between Ortega and Barbara, a glance, the subtlest of nods. At the time she had thought no more of it. Now he had the soldier’s look: wired, ready for action, but under control. The pieces began to fall into place.

Ortega said, “I was told to keep an eye on you, make sure you are safe.”

“You’ve been following me? Since when?”

Ortega smiled. “Since I was told to watch your back.”

Yael pushed Jericho’s muzzle against Ortega’s temple. “How long is that?”

Ortega winced. “Around a month. As I said, I’m here to help. Really.”

Yael did a rapid mental calculation. A month ago Michael Ortega had been living under the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument on Riverside Drive, a couple of blocks from her apartment. She looked in the rearview mirror, the passenger side mirror, then ahead. The road behind them was deserted, the road ahead also empty, wet tundra leading away on both sides, the wind gusting over the stubby grass.

She kept the gun against Ortega’s temple. “Who. Sent. You?” she asked again, although she already had a good idea what the answer was.

Ortega started to reply when the radio announcer suddenly broke off midsentence. A second of silence followed, a burst of Icelandic, the words “Al-Jazeera” and “Bessastadir.” The broadcast switched to English.

A male voice said, “Najwa, this is Faisal at Al-Jazeera in Washington. You are live, broadcasting on television and simultaneously on the Internet. Najwa, where are you and what is happening?”

Yael listened hard. Najwa. Whatever this was, it was not good. She glanced at Ortega’s face. It was remarkably calm, considering there was a gun pointed at his head. He was not a threat, she decided. For the next the few minutes at least, which was enough. Yael put the gun back in her pocket and turned up the volume.

“Thank you,” said Ortega.

Najwa said, “I am here at Bessastadir, the residence of the president of Iceland. The presidents of Iceland, the United States, and Iran have been taken hostage, together with Fareed Hussein, the secretary-general of the United Nations. We are in the front reception room of the residence, in the same room as the hostages and the captors. I can confirm that all four are alive and are unharmed. However, at least three members of President Freshwater’s security detail have been killed, together with Harald Ingmarsson, President Gunnarsdottir’s press secretary.”

A male American voice interrupted her. “No location or security details.”

Yael recognized him immediately: Kent Maxwell. Maxwell was a traitor, doubtless bought off. But Maxwell was a foot soldier, not a general. Who was running the operation? She had to get to Bessastadir immediately. Hostages. Dead bodies. A war in the making. This was her world. She felt the dark hunger, familiar, almost exhilarating, course through her. But first she needed to see herself what was happening. She turned to Ortega. “You have a smartphone?”