Once In, Never Out Read online

  FOR

  Police Officer Bobby Walsh, NYPD

  Killed in the line of duty on January 12, 1981

  Police hero and good friend, still missed

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28TH—ROCKALL, NORTH ATLANTIC

  Just standing on the bridge of HMS Courageous at dawn was usually enough to put Commodore Sir John Wellingsly in a good mood and fill his breast with pride. The Courageous was a magnificent light cruiser—sleek, fast, and modern, the peer of any ship in any navy in the world.

  But today was different. As Sir John surveyed the nautical traffic around the miserable pinpoint of rock rising from the depths of the North Atlantic, he knew that he was about to lose an embarrassing naval engagement to Iceland, a country that didn’t even have a navy. The Icelanders would win because they had done what the British cabinet and its experts from the Admiralty had not thought possible—they had sailed their small, fast, coastal fishing boats to Rockall, crossing at least 230 miles of the most treacherous expanse of the North Atlantic.

  A thousand years before, Icelandic Vikings had crossed the North Atlantic in forty-foot open boats and had ravaged the British coast for fun and profit. For the people who had colonized Greenland in the tenth century and traveled to North America four hundred years before the birth of Columbus, the trip to Rockall in a modern forty-foot fishing boat was child’s play, nothing more than a delightful sea excursion.

  Now the small boats of the Icelandic coastal fishing fleet were there in front of Sir John, clearly visible from the bridge as they prepared for action against the strung nets of the large British fishing trawlers he had been assigned to protect. It was the maneuverability of the small boats, not the speed and the firepower of the Courageous, that would decide the day. Sir John knew how it would go because, as a young lieutenant, he had served on the frigate HMS Manchester during the last Cod War in 1975.

  Then, as now, fishing was Iceland’s primary industry. The waters around Iceland, where the warm Gulf Stream meets the cold Arctic Current, were the richest fishing grounds in the world, with catches of cod, haddock, salmon, redfish, shrimp, scallops, Norway lobster, and herring constituting three-quarters of the country’s export income. However, in the early seventies there had been a worldwide technological revolution in commercial fishing, with the fleets of the maritime nations employing bottom scanners and sonar to locate the schools and then haul them in using improved lightweight nylon nets.

  In Iceland, the catches had plummeted and the country had been thrown into crisis. The Icelanders had claimed that the stocks of marine life off their shores were being depleted due to zealous overfishing by foreign fishing fleets, mostly British. The Icelandic government had reacted by unilaterally claiming authority over their coastal waters for a distance two hundred miles from their shores, the first country to do so. The robust crews of Iceland’s small, economically threatened fishing boats had responded with vigor, cutting the very expensive nets of every British trawler found operating within the new limit.

  The British fishermen had protested to the British government and the British government had protested to the Icelandic government, but the Norsemen hadn’t been prepared to listen. Armed with complaints of net-cutting and righteous indignation, the British ambassador to Iceland had camped out at Government House in Reykjavík. He had been politely ignored until he threatened action by the Royal Navy. The Icelanders had considered the threat to be an undiplomatic breach of protocol and reacted by expelling the ambassador and breaking off diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom, thereby setting the stage for the fourth Cod War in twenty years between the two nations.

  Backed into a corner, the British government had sent in the Royal Navy, as promised. It had been a laughable show, with members of the world press covering the incident outnumbering the “combatants” on both sides. The imposing presence of the British fleet off their shores hadn’t slowed the Icelandic fishermen in the slightest. The fishermen simply placed their wives and children on the decks of their boats as they went about their merry net-cutting mission under the guns of the British fleet.

  The Royal Navy had reacted by sending a warning shot across the bow of any Icelandic fishing boat approaching the strung nets of a British trawler, an action which sent the Icelanders into convulsions of laughter on the decks of their boats as they threw their life jackets overboard for the benefit of the reporters above. Then they had driven in behind the British trawlers and cut the nets anyway, usually giving the honors to the youngest person on board capable of handling the clippers.

  The British admirals had been able to do little more than watch and smile benignly for the cameras overhead. Their smiles had become even more forced when the feisty captains of the Icelandic fishing boats, their day’s work done, had given the Royal Navy a treat just to show that there were no hard feelings. The admirals were forced to look down over their guns at the Icelanders, standing with their families on the decks of their fishing boats as they regaled the British sailors with a chorus of gospel hymns in the ancient Icelandic language, giving thanks to God for transforming the British navy into, in effect, the much-improved Icelandic Coast Guard.

  Beaten and chastened, the British government had seen no way out but to declare their own two-hundred-mile fishing limit around the British Isles, prompting a similar reciprocal action by every maritime nation in the world. Owing to Iceland’s stand, the two-hundred-mile fishing limit quickly became a respected canon of international law.

  By four o’clock, Commodore Sir John Wellingsly was experiencing an unwanted bout of déjà vu as he stared down at the singing families of Icelanders in their fishing boats off his starboard bow. It had been a long day and a complete disaster. Six miles behind the Courageous was Rockall, so tiny that it wasn’t even visible from the bridge. Visible instead were many Icelandic boats, five British trawlers steaming in circles as they tried to retrieve their nets from the bottom, and four news helicopters overhead nearly colliding with each other in their efforts to capture the scene.

  Sir John allowed himself a moment of reflection as he pondered the imminent end of his long and otherwise distinguished military career. In the good old Cold War days he had steamed by Rockall many times while searching for Soviet submarines operating in the North Atlantic, but he had never bothered asking himself who owned the half-acre island. If anything, he had considered Rockall as nothing more than a hindr
ance to navigation because it had always been surrounded by large fishing trawlers from nations around the world, including Iceland.

  “I wonder which idiot in Whitehall decided Rockall was part of the British Isles?” Sir John asked no one in particular, so softly that he didn’t realize that he had given voice to his thoughts until he saw the helmsman staring at him.

  “Sir?” the helmsman responded.

  “Nothing. As you were,” Sir John ordered, embarrassed at his out-of-character slip and hoping that the helmsman hadn’t heard.

  But the helmsman had heard. The entire crew had been embarrassed by the events of the day and he couldn’t hold his tongue. “Begging your pardon, sir, but I hear that the idiot who put us in this mess was the foreign secretary. I hear it was Sir Ian Smythe-Douglass himself.”

  One

  MONDAY, MARCH 2ND—REYKJAVÍK, ICELAND

  It was a small bedroom, spartanly furnished. Despite the night chill, there was no wind and the apartment’s windows were open. A light was on in the hallway and the bedroom door was open. Lying in bed, sleeping naked with their arms wrapped around each other, the couple could be mistaken for middle-aged Nordic gods.

  In a country where people grow tall, Thor Eríkson was taller than most, so tall that his feet hung over the end of the bed. He appeared to be trim and fit rather than muscle-bound and his face looked more rugged than handsome. His hair was short and blond, but graying at the temples.

  Frieda Helgadottír looked like she belonged with this man, always. She was the muscle-bound one, wide-shouldered and also tall, although at least a head shorter than Thor. Except for her full, well-rounded breasts, she had the body of a very fit teenage tomboy. Her hair was long and also blonde, but there was nothing rugged about her face. There was not one feature that detracted from her appearance, except maybe for the age lines just beginning to appear at the corners of her eyes. She was pretty without being beautiful and she smiled as she slept.

  The bedside phone rang at 2:30 A.M., waking both Thor and Frieda. Thor turned on the light, got out of bed, and stretched as he watched the phone, willing it to stop ringing. It didn’t, so he took a pad and pencil from the nightstand.

  “Don’t answer it,” Frieda implored as he put his hand on the phone. “You’re on vacation.”

  He was used to doing what Frieda wanted, but this time he couldn’t. “There’s been a murder.”

  “A murder? How do you know?”

  “I just do.” The phone stopped ringing. No matter, Thor thought. The chief will call again.

  “Thor, please come back to bed,” Frieda pleaded.

  “Sorry, I can’t. I’m going to get ready. When the phone rings, answer it and get the information.”

  Frieda accepted Thor’s decision without further comment. No matter what she said, Thor would always do his job because that was the way he was. Although she rarely thought about it, it was one of the many things she loved about Thor and she was intensely proud of him.

  He went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. She heard him turn on the shower and knew he wouldn’t be long. Thor showered in the same way he did everything, quickly and efficiently. She got up, closed the windows so that he wouldn’t be chilled when he came out, then sat down on the bed with the pad and pen in her hand, waiting and thinking.

  Thor’s job had many drawbacks, but Frieda enjoyed being married to Iceland’s only homicide detective. She especially liked the fact that he was famous and well-respected, so famous that she herself was recognized wherever she went. True, there had been only four murders in the twelve years since Thor had been promoted to detective, but he had solved them all.

  Murders weren’t the part of Thor’s job that Frieda minded. They occurred so infrequently in Iceland that in one period of eight years not a single murder had been committed in the entire country.

  It was the training that bothered her. Thor was frequently abroad, leaving her alone while he attended this seminar or that national police academy. He trained constantly for his job, and when he wasn’t traveling, he was studying textbooks on the subject of murder.

  Or he was playing handball, Iceland’s national sport and another thing she loved about Thor. He excelled at everything he tried, excelled so well that in 1980 and again in 1982 he had been recognized as the national champion. That didn’t hurt his fame, either, and also added to her stature.

  The phone rang again.

  I hope this one is in Reykjavík, she thought as she picked up the receiver. If not, Thor would be leaving her to work his case in another of Iceland’s far-flung coastal communities. “Hello?”

  “Hello, Frieda. It’s Janus. Is Thor there?”

  “Yes, but he’s in the shower,” she told the chief. “Has there been a murder?”

  “Unfortunately, there’s been two. The British foreign secretary and his wife have been killed at the Saga Hotel.”

  Two murders? That’s never happened before, Frieda thought. Worse, important people like the British foreign secretary and his wife. “How?”

  “They were killed by bombs.”

  Bombs? In Iceland? Something else that’s never happened before. Many other questions popped into her mind, but she kept them to herself. “I’ll tell Thor. Don’t worry, Janus. He’ll be there soon.”

  “No, have him wait there. It’s very complicated and very delicate, so Erík is on his way over to talk to Thor.”

  “Erík? The minister of fisheries is coming here now?”

  “Sorry, Frieda. I hope it’s not too inconvenient, but he insisted.”

  It certainly was inconvenient, but Frieda didn’t say a word. When she didn’t answer, Janus added, “Relax, Frieda. It’s not as if Vigdís was coming over.”

  That didn’t help Frieda’s state of mind at all. Although Vigdís Finnbogadottír had been president since 1980 and enjoyed some status as the world’s first elected female head of state, her post was largely ceremonial. Frieda knew that the real power in Iceland lay with the minister of fisheries, and it was Erík who was coming. “When will he get here?” she asked.

  “He just left. I’d say about fifteen minutes, if he takes his time.”

  “Fifteen minutes? Good God! Good-bye, Janus.” Frieda hung up the phone and ran into the bathroom, panic-stricken as she screamed the news to Thor.

  By the time the doorbell rang, Frieda was dressed and ready, with her hair combed, her makeup on, and coffee perking. Thor went to the door and Frieda was surprised to hear him greet the minister of fisheries as casually as if he were a neighbor dropping by to borrow a cup of sugar. When Thor brought him into the living room she got another surprise.

  Although she had seen Erík on TV many times, he was not what she expected. He had always appeared to be very much the man in charge, radiating confidence with facts and figures at his fingertips, ready for any question. This Erík was different; he appeared haggard and worried.

  Nonetheless, he still had manners. “So good to finally meet you, Frieda. I know Thor’s on vacation and I’m terribly sorry to bother you at this hour, but we’re in something of a national emergency,” he said as he shook her hand. Then Erík handed her the bag he was carrying. “Sorry, but that’s all I could come up with at this hour. Croissants from the Saga’s bakery.”

  “Very nice of you, Erík. Coffee?”

  “That would be wonderful.”

  Frieda went into the kitchen and Erík settled into the couch. Thor sat in the armchair opposite him.

  “I guess you’re wondering why I’m here,” Erík said.

  “I am. I’m also wondering if this visit means that I’m working for you,” Thor replied.

  “No, you’re not. I’m not going to get involved in your investigation. However, you’ll need to know some things that only I can tell you right now, things that aren’t for public dissemination at the moment.”

  “Why come here instead of waiting for me at the hotel? You hiding from the press?”

  “Let’s say I’m avoiding th
e press. The foreign secretary’s visit was a secret I didn’t let them in on.”

  “Why? Diplomatic confidentiality?”

  “Yes. They’ll want to know what the foreign secretary was doing here and what we talked about. And, of course, they’ll want to know the reason for the secrecy.”

  “Something to do with Rockall?” Thor guessed.

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’ll have to talk to them, sooner or later. Even before this bombing, Rockall was already big news.”

  “I realize that, and I’ll tell them everything, eventually. Unfortunately, because of the agreement I reached with the foreign secretary, I can’t do it now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because news of the agreement has to come from London,” Eric said.

  “Then I guess the British were the losers in your negotiations?”

  “Basically, yes. To save face, it was to have been announced in London tomorrow afternoon by Smythe-Douglass. I don’t know when they’ll do it now, but it still falls to me to keep our end of the bargain.”

  “Will the Brits still go along with this deal?”

  “Their ambassador here, Roger Chatwick, took part in the discussions and he’s assured me that it will still be implemented.”

  “Can you tell me the reason for all the secrecy?” Thor asked.

  “It was Smythe-Douglass’s idea. According to him, the Irish government is going to claim Rockall as Irish territory and he felt that would complicate our dispute.”