‘I don’t know,’ says Rúnar, putting on a dark-blue woollen cap. ‘You just be careful not to mention it to a single soul.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ says Sæli, scrubbing away. ‘But what’ll we do if it’s sabotage or something?’
‘I don’t know.’ Rúnar lights a cigarette. ‘But if it is, then I think I actually don’t want to know who it is on board who has such an evil nature. I mean, we’d throw a shit like that headfirst into the sea without a thought, understand?’
‘Yeah, I understand.’ Sæli pushes the wet cloth around with the scrubbing brush. ‘But then we’d be the ones being grilled in a maritime court, not the guilty party.’
‘That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,’ says Rúnar, putting on thick leather gloves. ‘But not another word. I’m going up.’
‘Listen!’ says Sæli when Rúnar is halfway up to the bridge deck.
‘Yeah?’ says Rúnar, turning round, his cigarette smoking in his mouth and one eye half closed.
‘Be careful up there.’
‘Yeah,’ says Rúnar, trudging up the stairs again. ‘You just keep scrubbing.’
10:33
Rúnar stands at the forward edge of the bridge roof, holding onto the wet railing with both hands. The ship plunges down off one giant wave simply to climb up the next one; the inky-black cloud banks tower over the ocean to the south, roaring like a bull and shooting lightning in all directions; wind pounds the ship, buffets the waves and brings salty tears to the eyes of the bosun, who clenches his fists round the icy metal and stares out.
‘Why didn’t I become a joiner?’ he asks himself, but the wind takes his words and whips them away. ‘WHY?’
It’s exhilarating to shout where no one can hear you. Rúnar stands at the top of the visible world and laughs in the face of the furious gale, which is speeding across the surface of the ocean and will be hitting the ship within the hour.
However, Rúnar laughs neither loud nor long. He doesn’t feel much like laughing. He just needs to laugh. It is the only thing he can think of to do. Either that or lose his mind to the bewildering thoughts that are building up like those clouds, in his head, accumulating negative energy. Laughter releases tension and prevents the nervous system from burnout.
He has found what he was most afraid of: cut wires.
Someone sabotaged the radar mast and the satellite receiver.
There is a louse on board. A lowlife. A terrorist.
But who could it be?
Rúnar curses under his breath and holds on as tightly as he can while the ship attacks a wave the size of a mountain. The wind dies down for a moment then slams into the bosun’s chest as the ship reaches the crest. He looks down across the ship and notices the rust seeping around railings, joints, bolts and the hatches of the hold. It’s been a long time since they’ve had the right weather for working outside, and the forces of nature are quick to take control if maintenance is postponed. If this ship isn’t to look like a Russian ghost-hulk it needs some time in the dockyard pretty soon.
Rúnar takes his right hand off the railing and looks at the palm of his leather glove. It’s red with rust. In just a few more weeks the whole ship is going to be pretty much the colour of a dead leaf.
Painting will have to wait, though. There’s a storm on the way and the crew has other, more serious matters to think about.
There is a traitor on board. A rotten apple in a rusty barrel.
XX
11:09
‘Is someone in the engine room?’ asks Guðmundur, breaking the silence that settled over them after Rúnar made his report on the situation on the roof of the wheelhouse.
‘I sent Stoker down there,’ Big John says, staring distractedly into his coffee.
‘What the fuck does it matter whether somebody sits on his arse down there or not?’ says Methúsalem, clenching his fists. ‘There’s a terrorist aboard the ship! A terrorist, I say!’
‘What are we going to do?’ asks Rúnar in a hushed voice. He leans forward against the windowsill and stares into the darkness.
Guðmundur sits, scowling, in the leather chair, rolling his empty mug in his sweaty palms; Big John is standing with his feet apart to starboard, sighing repeatedly, and Methúsalem can’t keep still and either dithers near the captain or strides from one side of the bridge to the other.
‘First and foremost, we must show restraint,’ says Guðmundur with a quick look at Methúsalem. ‘Though the wires have snapped, it doesn’t mean someone on board damaged them.’
‘What?’ says Methúsalem. ‘What did you say?’
‘Someone could have damaged them while the ship was in dock with a view to their coming apart while we were under sail,’ says Guðmundur slowly. ‘If this was done on purpose. Sabotage, I mean. As things stand, we can’t rule out other possibilities.’
‘And what possibilities are they?’ Methúsalem says, raising his eyebrows. ‘That insects gnawed the wires in two or something like that? Maybe seagulls flew into all of them?’
‘Methúsalem,’ says Big John, signalling to the chief mate to take it easy.
‘They were cut,’ says Rúnar, looking over his shoulder. ‘I saw it with my own…’
Rúnar stops talking when something slams against the window in front of him. The pane cracks in all directions; Rúnar recoils and they all fall silent.
‘What was that?’ asks Guðmundur, staring in disbelief at the fourth windowpane from the port side, which is still hanging together but is shattered and looks like a badly made spider web.
Outside, the growing wind whistles, the ship rises on a huge wave and there is a rumble of thunder.
‘It’s a conch!’ says Rúnar, pushing his face against the cracked glass and staring at the broken shell and greyish mess sliding down the outside of the pane. ‘A conch hit the windowpane. I’ve never heard of that!’
The ship lists to starboard and falls, as if in midair, down off the wave; the sea gets rougher in the pounding wind, and the weather deck disappears in a dark grey haze that looks like a horizontal waterfall. The men in the bridge hold tightly to whatever is nearest and can hardly believe their eyes when the windows of the bridge all disappear at once in sandy ocean spray that hits the ship like black hail.
‘It’s raining sand, seaweed and shellfish,’ murmurs Big John when the ship is more or less back on an even keel.
‘It’s a sudden storm,’ Guðmundur says, switching off the autopilot and turning the small wheel counterclockwise a number of times. ‘Hold on, lads! I’m going to turn the ship hard astern and see if we can’t get to the east of the worst of it.’
‘Sudden or not, it doesn’t matter,’ says Methúsalem, who’s holding onto the railing on the wall behind the captain. ‘There is still a felon on board the ship, whether you’re prepared to face that fact or not. Someone cut our connection to the outside world, and when I say “someone” I don’t mean a seagull or a conch.’
‘While this storm is raging, the safety of this ship and everyone aboard her is top priority,’ says Guðmundur as he steers the ship to the east along a long, deep trough in the cliff-like waves on either side.
‘So long as the captain refuses to face the real danger threatening the ship, the safety of everyone on board hangs by a thread,’ says Methúsalem, icily composed. ‘While this felon is loose, the danger of more terrorist attacks looms over us like a black shadow.’
‘If you had your way, Methúsalem, the witch hunt would already have begun,’ says Guðmundur as he steers the ship out of the trough and sails angled on to the wind. ‘But it’s the captain’s role to look after the interests of every person on board and to ensure that they don’t split into factions that are for or against individuals on board. If there is a felon amongst us, I will find that person – but I will do it using my own methods.’