"And you assigned the job to Lydia?"
"Yes," Tomasson said. "There are natural fluctuations in the energy levels. It happens all the time. I thought this was another such event. I didn't think it too important."
"Lydia got caught in the middle of the political haggling over nuclear power?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Who are the leaders on this nuclear thing?"
"Members of the Althing. Representatives of Iceland's big business… even members of the Energy Commission."
"Thorstein Josepsson?"
"Yes," Tomasson said. "In fact Josepsson is the leading proponent of the 'nuclear alternative', as they call it."
Carter whistled.
"What is it?" Tomasson asked. He was clearly worried.
"Josepsson was the one who notified me that Lydia was dead. She had been carrying a letter for me in her pocket. He forwarded it. But when I showed up, he seemed very nervous. In fact after I had spoken with him, someone followed me when I went to the university and met you, and while we were talking, my hotel room was entered, my luggage searched, and my personal belongings vandalized."
"You think Josepsson was responsible?"
"It's possible. As I said, they even tried to kill me about nine hours ago."
Both men were silent for a few seconds while Carter's mind raced to take in all the implications of what he had been told. Then Tomasson asked. "You say you were followed yesterday."
"Yes," Carter said.
There was a car behind me all the way in to work this morning," Tomasson said. "I thought it odd. But now…"
"Was it a small, black two-door? A Lancia?"
"I don t know the make of the car, but that sounds like it."
"Go home. Professor. Take the photographs with you, and lock and bolt your doors. I'll be there as fast as I can."
"But…"
"I think you may be in danger. Please do as I say."
"This is crazy…" Tomasson said. But he agreed to do as Carter asked. When he hung up. Carter had the operator connect him with police headquarters.
"Captain Einarsson, please," he asked the police switchboard operator.
"It's me," Carter said when Einarsson came on. "I'm catching the first flight out for Reykjavik. Any luck on identifying Victor?"
"Not yet," Einarsson said. "I'd like you to stick around for a day or so, though. Until we get this settled."
"Sorry, but that's not possible. I have to get back."
"Something has come up?" Einarsson asked, interested.
"I think so. I'll trade you whatever I find in Reykjavik for whatever you come up with on our friend."
"For now all I can tell you for sure is that he is not an Icelander. We have nothing on him at all."
Carter gave him his number at the Saga Hotel, the only one he knew other than the Borg. When the police captain hung up, Carter sat a moment thinking.
Since he had arrived in Iceland, Einarsson had been the only one who had played it a hundred-percent straight with him. Everyone else seemed to be walking on eggshells, afraid to open up. Everyone seemed to be hiding his own little secrets.
He showered and shaved, packed his single remaining bag, and went downstairs to pay his bill. He took the Land-Rover out to the airport, leaving it in the parking lot. His plane left less than an hour later.
Reykjavik was an eyeful from the air, scrubbed and clean; it reminded him of a bouquet of flowers, the colored houses and gardens so brilliantly clear. It was the air, he thought. In Iceland the air was the clearest he had ever seen it anywhere. Because of the city's unique energy system, there were no smokestacks. No need for power plants to pollute the air. No fireplaces or furnaces in the homes to spread their sulphurous smoke.
Except for one wisp he saw on the south side of the city — a black plume rising like an exclamation point from some unidentifiable source — there was no smoke. A fire, he imagined, then dismissed the thought, his mind preoccupied with Dr. Petur Tomasson.
He landed, looked up the professor's home address in the phone book, and took a taxi into the city.
Tomasson lived on the south side of the city, and as they were driving, a lire truck, its lights flashing and its siren blaring, screamed past them, and turned in the direction they were headed.
Carter began to have a sinking feeling about this, and he asked the cabbie to speed up.
They turned a second corner, the fire truck still ahead of them, its blue lights pulsing.
Smoke rose in a thick black column over the trees and rooftops. The cabbie said something over his shoulder that Carter couldn't quite catch, and they turned a final time into a narrow lane and pulled up short.
Fire trucks filled the street and many of the yards. Hoses crisscrossed from gutter to gutter. Men with fire hats and slickers ran back and forth while a throng of people watched. In the center of the confusion a two-story house burned like kindling, huge billows of smoke rolling out of its windows.
The cabbie turned. "This is the number you have given me, sir."
"Damn," Carter swore. He jumped out of the cab. "Wait for me," he shouted back at the driver and raced up the street to the crowd.
A thin, middle-aged man in a cardigan and bedroom slippers stood watching. Carter spun him around and shouted, "Did they all get out?"
The man looked at him as if he were crazy.
He pushed his way through the crowd as two firemen came from the rear of the burning house, carrying a body. Ambulance attendants rushed over to them with a stretcher.
Carter broke through the crowd and almost made it to the stretcher-bearers before he was stopped. But he recognized the body. It was Petur Tomasson, badly burned but recognizable. He lay face up, charred pieces of skin hanging from his shrunken cheeks, his lips seared to paper-thinness. It looked as though he were still breathing.
The stretcher-bearers hurried to the ambulance as the upper story of the house collapsed inward, sending a shower of sparks high into the air. Everyone fell back.
There was nothing more he could do here. He had been too late. The only possibility now was that the professor had hidden the photographs someplace safe and would regain consciousness long enough to tell where they were.
Carter went back to the cab and climbed in the back seat as the ambulance made a U-turn in the narrow lane, and headed away, its sirens screaming.
"Follow that ambulance to the hospital," he said.
The cabbie nodded, made a U-turn, and they hurried back across town to the hospital. Carter paid the driver and hurried up to the waiting area outside the emergency room.
A great many people were coming and going, and after an hour or so, Carter stopped one of the white-coated men and asked about Tomasson.
"I am so sorry, sir. Were you a relative?"
Carter shook his head. "No, just a friend."
"Professor Tomasson passed away within minutes of his arrival here. I am so sorry that you were not informed earlier."
"I see."
"Is there anything I can do?"
Wearily Carter turned away from the doctor. He called a cab, this one to the Saga Hotel, where he checked in. Once he was alone in his room he turned up the heat, ordered himself a bottle of cognac, one glass, no ice or mix, and took a quick shower.
When his bottle came he poured himself a stiff drink, lit a cigarette, and began disassembling and cleaning his gun. He worked slowly, methodically, until every speck of dirt was gone, and it was well oiled and ready for use. Then he disassembled it once more and started all over again.
First Lydia and now Tomasson. How many other innocent people would get hurt before this was stopped?
Of all the evil men in the world, Carter had most often come up against those who betrayed the trust of their public office. Policemen, commissioners, politicians… men such as Josepsson.
Around four in the afternoon, his anger somewhat abated, he showered again, got dressed, and went downstairs. An empty cab was waiting in the stand in front of the hotel. Carter got in and asked to be taken to the police station downtown. He was not on assignment here to Iceland. He was not on official business. This incident had gotten too far out of hand; it was time to bring the local police in on it. Let them clean up their own mess.