Hot Ice

14

Landspítali Fossvogi was one of the few contemporary buildings Jason had seen in the city. Six or seven stories high, two wings were divided by a tower of an additional two levels. The car park was half full.

Bretta pulled up to what Jason guessed was the front entrance and leaned across him to open the car’s door. “I will call the commissioner to tell him you are here. Room 430.”

Jason barely had time to grab his overnight case, much less thank her for the ride, before she was driving off. He watched her pull into light traffic and disappear in the direction from which they had come.

Inside, he could have been in any hospital in the world. The smell of disinfectant was edged by the sickly sweet floral odor common to such institutions.

Flowers?

In Iceland?

A highly polished corridor led past a reception desk to a bank of elevators. Ignoring the woman behind the desk who could have been Bretta’s sister, Jason stepped inside the elevator, punched in the button for the fourth floor, and waited until the doors silently slid shut.

He had no problem finding Room 430. A policeman sat outside the door.

He stood as Jason approached, barring entry.

“I’m here to see Boris Karloff. I’m Jason Peters.”

The officer was not impressed. “My orders are no one sees the man in that room without orders from Commissioner Harvor.”

Swell. Fly to Iceland to speak to a mystery man I haven’t seen in years about something too secret to discuss over the telephone and some flatfoot blows me off.

“Just where might I reach the commissioner?”

“You already have.”

Jason turned to see a short, chubby man in police uniform extending a hand.

“Harvor.”

No other name. Of course.

“Jason Peters. What’s this all about?”

The commissioner was standing with his hands clasped behind his back, a pose Jason recognized from pictures of dozens of military men from Grant to Patton to McChrystal. Jason had a mental picture of him practicing the stance in front of a mirror.

“Wish I could tell you, but the man simply won’t speak to anyone but you. A couple of sheepherders found him at the Langjökull Glacier. Looked like he’d been robbed and shot. His wallet was missing and there was no identification. The only thing we have is the name he gave us and how to contact you through some American company.”

A mugging at a glacier? Well, this was Iceland, not New York.

The commissioner read his mind. “I know to an American a single shooting may not seem like much, but here in Iceland, we average less than a murder a year. You’ll notice none of our officers is armed.”

“Any idea what he was doing at the Lang, er Lang …”

“Langjökull Glacier. No, as I said, he won’t speak to anyone but you.” Harvor reached past Jason to open the door. “I suggest you ask him.”

It took a moment for Jason’s eyes to adjust to the dim light inside the room. The blur of a heart monitor danced across a screen, casting flickering shadows across a small white mound under the linen of the only bed. Tubes hung from racks or ran from under the sheets into bottles. Jason drew closer, making out a small head just above the covers.

No Spock ears.

The face was older than Jason remembered, eyelids the color of bruises against skin as white as the starched sheets surrounding it.

“Is he awake?” Harvor asked.

Eyelids fluttered open and bluish lips parted in a death’s head grimace. It took Jason a second to realize the man was speaking, whispering. He put his head next to the mouth.

“Peters? Good of you to come.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

The lips twitched into what might have been a smile. “Still the comedian, I see.”

It was as if the words had tired him. Karloff’s eyes shut and Jason feared he had drifted off to sleep. He stared at the pale face, unsure what to do next. The eyes flickered open and lips quivered. Jason leaned even closer.

“The glacier …”

Boris was struggling with each word. “The glacier … the southwestern …” His next words were unintelligible. Then: “a church …”

At least, that was what it sounded like he said. A church? Was the man simply mumbling or hallucinating?

Or Jason had not heard correctly. “Say again?”

“You will have to leave.”

A woman’s voice. A very annoyed woman’s voice.

Both Jason and Harvor turned to see a figure in white fill the doorway: white hair, white uniform, white shoes.

“I am Elga, the floor nurse and the doctor has not permitted visitors. The patient has been given a sedative and you are interfering with its effect.”

Harvor said something in a language Jason did not understand though there was no mistaking the tone. “I told her we are on police business,” he explained.

“I do not care if you are on a mission from heaven. The patient is very weak. The doctor has not permitted visitors.”

Jason sized up Nurse Elga. The woman was immense. If it came to physically ejecting the tubby police commissioner, Harvor was an odds-on second best.

Harvor pulled a cell phone from somewhere in his uniform. “How may I contact this doctor?”

“You may contact him from the hall.”

The policeman outside stuck his head around the doorjamb, assessed the situation, and disappeared.

Elga put hands the size of a catcher’s mitt on thighs that would have credited an NFL running back. “Do you require assistance in leaving?”

Threat, not a question.

Harvor glanced at the form under the sheets and then at Jason. “I think we better take this up with the doctor.”

No shit.

As Jason turned to go, he thought he had somehow snagged his pants on part of the hospital bed. Instead, Boris’s hand was holding on to his sweater’s sleeve as the face on the pillow looked up at him. He was whispering something.

“You are leaving.” A statement, not a question, from Elga.

Jason held up a hand: wait. He leaned over, putting his ear next to the moving lips.

“What?”

“Cravas, Nigel Cravas.” There was a pause as though Boris was summoning the strength to finish. “British Institute … Tell him, tell him …” A pause. “The … eanies …”

Jason was not sure what he was hearing. “‘Cravat’? ‘Meanie’? ‘Beanie’?” he asked.

No good. Elga pulled his shoulders up, inserting herself between Jason and the bed. “You are leaving now.”