Far North - Michael Ridpath [145]
But then the fog rolled away, revealing a valley glistening in the pale sunshine.
Ísak was a hundred metres away to the left, slightly below her. He stopped, scanned the hillside below, to his right. He turned towards her.
She ran downhill as fast as her jellied knee would let her.
Magnus plunged into the fog. The slope was tricky, rocks that were sharp in places, slick in others, moss, dirt and the odd patches of grass. Occasionally he would pause to listen out for the sounds of dislodged stones. He couldn’t hear any.
The fog was good. Provided Harpa kept quiet it would be impossible for Ísak to find her. In fact, if she had any sense, she would just lie low and wait.
Magnus’s situation was different. He was a big lumbering target making a lot of noise, whose adversary had a knife and had just used it. And he was unarmed. If only he had a firearm. According to the manual he should hold off and wait for back-up.
Screw that. Apart from anything else the back-up wouldn’t be armed either.
He pressed on.
His heart pounding, he found himself in a shallow dip between two wind-eroded rocks. He had the impression that he was on the ridge between the two valleys.
He heard the sound of someone falling and a cry. It sounded as if it was coming from ahead and to the right but lower down, not too far away.
Magnus altered direction towards it. He was going downhill. A few seconds later he emerged from the clouds. Below him was a new valley, grassier than the bleak one they had just left, with a road of pristine black asphalt running up the centre of it.
And a couple of hundred metres down the slope of the valley, he saw Harpa sliding down the hill, Ísak close behind her. She was finding it hard to keep her balance with her hands tied in front of her.
Magnus hurried after them. In dismay he could see Harpa heading for the top of a rocky outcrop perhaps fifty feet high. She obviously couldn’t see the drop. ‘To the left!’ he shouted. ‘Run to the left!’
But she ignored him. It looked for a second as if she was going to propel herself off the cliff, but she stopped just in time. Turned. Saw Ísak close behind her and slid down a crevice.
She came to rest on a narrow ledge and began to work her way awkwardly along the rock face, her back to the cliff, hands in front of her.
Ísak hesitated at the top of the outcrop. He turned to see Magnus approaching down the hill.
‘Wait, Ísak!’ Magnus shouted.
Ísak looked down, and slid down the crevice as well.
It took Magnus a minute to get to the rock. Below him, Harpa had run out of ledge. Ísak was inching towards her, knife outstretched. There was still some of Björn’s blood on the blade.
‘Put the knife down, Ísak!’ Magnus shouted. ‘There’s no point in killing Harpa now!’
Ísak hesitated. He was listening.
‘Sindri has talked. We know you stabbed Björn. It doesn’t matter what Harpa tells us now. So let her go!’
For a moment Magnus thought Ísak would do the rational thing. But then he seemed to come to a decision. ‘No!’ he shouted. ‘You back off! Back off or I will kill her!’ He continued making his way carefully along the ledge.
A hostage situation. It was some progress. At least Ísak wouldn’t kill Harpa right away.
But hostage situations were inherently uncertain. Magnus had been involved in a couple back in Boston where people had died when they shouldn’t.
Although Ísak was desperate, he wasn’t high and he wasn’t a psycho. And yet, you never knew what might happen with hostage situations.
There were still a few seconds before Ísak reached Harpa. Magnus weighed the options. Ísak and Harpa were probably twenty feet below him. Below them was a further twenty to thirty feet to a steep grassy slope.
If Magnus slid down the rock face he could take Ísak with him in a tumble all the way to the bottom. A dumb thing to do. Magnus would probably break something, possibly his neck. And Ísak might easily stick him with the knife.
Whereas if Ísak reached Harpa the situation