"Just who are you?" he asked.
"I've already told you that, Captain. I'm a stringer with Amalgamated Press. You have my identification in front of you."
"I don't buy it."
"Call my office in Washington, D.C. My identity will be verified."
"I'm sure it would be. Which doesn't mean a damned thing."
"Do you have any reason to believe I'm not telling the truth?"
"Several reasons, as a matter of fact. Most reporters I've heard of don't go around with German Lugers under their coats. And most, although quite smart, wouldn't know a trap until it was far too late."
"Maybe I got lucky."
"Maybe." Einarsson's fingers pensively curled the corners of two sheets of paper in front of him. He seemed to be waiting for something.
Someone knocked on the door a few seconds later. Einarsson excused himself, got up, and left the room. He was gone for several minutes, during which time Carter gathered up his identification and Luger and pocketed them. When Einarsson returned, he perched on the edge of his desk. He did not seem very happy.
"That was the coroner. He's checked out this man you called Victor."
"And?"
"It's just a preliminary report. Confirms part of your story… that he was shot to death at close range. But Victor was a curious man."
Carter said nothing.
"The man's fingerprints were missing. They had been surgically removed. Some years ago, the doctor suggests."
The man was a pro, Carter thought.
"In the flesh of his underarm there was a small, surgically implanted pouch. It contained a capsule of cyanide. A thumbnail could have broken it, and the man would have died instantly. Your Victor was evidently a fanatic. No one has cyanide capsules surgically implanted for the hell of it. Now I'm going to ask you again, just who the hell are you?"
"I can't answer that, Captain. Let me just say that I'm here in Iceland as a private citizen, looking into the death of a very close friend. Believe me. I'm just as surprised about this as you are."
"Not good enough, Carter. There's been a murder in my jurisdiction. We don't get many crimes of that seriousness up here. Once every ten years or so one of the local fishermen gets drunk and kills his wife's lover. Open and shut. But I can't hide something like this in a file like they would in a big city. My ass is on the line here. People are going to ask questions."
Carter sighed. "I'll make a deal with you, "he said. "I'm going to need some room to maneuver, and I'm going to need some friends in high places. If you give me the leeway and work with me on this, I promise you that you will be the first to know anything I know. You may not be able to put it in your files, but at least you'll know."
Einarsson picked up a pencil and tapped it on the desk. "That's the best I'm going to get, isn't it?"
Carter nodded. "I'm afraid so. You could have me arrested…"
"And you'd stay in jail until you rotted without saying a word. Provided you weren't released on orders from higher up."
Carter shrugged.
Einarsson sighed deeply. "I'm not going to try to hold you. I don't think it'd do me any good. But I will hold you to your promise. Not much happens up here, but I can make a lot of waves down in Reykjavik if need be."
Carter got up. "Thanks. I won't forget my promise."
Einarsson smiled. "If anyone ever murders me, I'd like to think that someone like you would be on the case."
Carter smiled, and left.
Three
Carter drove through the clean, broad streets of Akureyri until he found a pleasant-looking hotel by the waterfront. He had a multitude of things on his mind, each one of them an unanswered question. He had not slept in almost twenty-four hours, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to think straight.
He checked in and went up to his room, leaving strict instructions with the desk clerk that he was not to be disturbed. Once upstairs, he locked the door, fell onto the bed fully clothed, and slept. It was shortly after five in the morning.
When he awoke, he called the desk and had some coffee sent up. It was just 9:30 A.M., and although he had slept only a little more than four hours, he felt somewhat refreshed.
He got the operator and had her place a long-distance call. Petur Tomasson was in his office. He answered on the second ring.
"This is Carter. Have you found anything?
"I've been trying to get in contact with you," Tomasson shouted excitedly. "I've found something, I think, in Dr. Coatsworth's photographs."
"Just a rock formation, wasn't it?"
"That's what I thought at first, but I kept thinking about it. I had a feeling, don't you see, that I was missing something. And then I had it. The water…"
"What about the water?"
"She was liming the water's movement. Its vertical rise and fall against the rocks."
"The tide…" Carter started, but Tomasson interrupted him impatiently.
"No… no, not the tide. Something else. An upwelling of sorts. She was timing the upwellings."
"I still don't understand." Carter said, frustrated. "I'm not a geologist."
"I'll try to put it as simply as I can. Dr. Coatsworth was evidently studying some kind of an underwater eruption. She found… I think… that the phenomenon was not natural. It was man-made."
"What do you think is going on — if it's not volcanic?"
Tomasson hesitated for a moment as if he were having trouble getting the words just right. "Someone wants to disguise the fact that geothermal power is being siphoned from the hot springs outside of Reykjavik."
"Can you explain that a little more?"
"Well, beneath Iceland, there is what we call the geothermal-aquifer-interface. The lower volcanic action heats up the mid-level water layers, which in turn erupts on the surface as usable steam. And someone is tapping into it."
Carter whistled into the phone. "Are you sure about this?"
"Reasonably."
"So that's what she found. No wonder they wanted her dead."
"Who. Mr. Carter? Who's 'they'?"
"I don't know. But whoever it was took a stab at killing me earlier today."
"This is madness. We have to go to the authorities. I can tell them everything. I'm not afraid."
"Afraid of what?" Carter said, holding his voice very steady. Tomasson evidently was on to something.
"I think I know who could have wanted Lydia dead. About a week ago, two members of the Althing Energy Commission came to see me. They said our geothermal energy could be depleting itself. I laughed, of course, but they said the steam vents outside Reykjavik had lessened in intensity. They were having to run the turbines continuously to make up for the loss in power. They said that if something wasn't done soon, the entire city would be in trouble."
"What else did they say?" Carter prompted after a moment.
"They were concerned, naturally. But they also seemed worried. Their engineers had studied the problem and concluded that the fissure venting the steam was collapsing very far underground. Nothing that they knew of could be done. They were hiding the information, of course, from the public until they could decide on some alternative plan. That's why they came to the university… to me, so quietly. They did not want to arouse any suspicions." Again Tomasson fell silent.
"Is mere more?" Carter asked.
"Yes," the man replied. "For a number of years there have been people here who have wanted to develop nuclear power as an alternative energy source. Come into the twentieth century, they say. But it's the big profits they're really interested in. The Energy Commission people were afraid that this decrease in available geothermal energy would help the nuclear proponents. They pleaded with me to do an independent study to see if there wasn't some way to reverse the trend."