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Authors: Arnaldur Indridason
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pronounced with great solemnity that the operation was to remain clandestine and that he did not want to know the details; in fact, he did not want to hear another word about it until it had been successfully concluded. Then, and only then, would he apprise the President of the essential facts. That way, if anything went wrong, the President would not have to tell any lies but could claim in all honesty that he had had no idea about any plane full of Jewish gold stolen by the US army. Nevertheless, the secretary could not restrain himself from asking for clarification of a few points.
‘What are you planning to do with the plane?’ he asked as they wrapped up the meeting.
Carr was prepared for the question, as well as the inevitable follow-up.
‘We’ll remove it from the glacier along with any wreckage we find, including bodies and other contents, and bring it back to the States. That’s what the C-17’s for, Mr Secretary. It has unlimited weight-bearing capacity. It’ll depart from Keflavík and fly without refuelling stops to our facility at Roswell, where the Nazi plane will disappear permanently.’
‘Roswell?’ the secretary queried. ‘Isn’t that the alien town?’
‘I can’t think of any better hiding place. After all that alien nonsense anything reported about Roswell and what goes on there is dismissed as bullshit, except by a tiny minority of UFO nuts. If the news gets out that we’re hiding a Nazi plane at Roswell, it’ll raise an even bigger laugh.’
‘And the gold?’ the secretary asked.
‘No need to waste it. I imagine it’ll disappear into the Federal Reserve Bank, unless you have another suggestion.’
They had parted on better terms than before. The defense secretary’s appreciation of the role of the secret service had improved dramatically, creating a new degree of understanding between them. Not that that mattered a damn to Carr, though he did derive a private satisfaction from having brought the secretary to heel. By the end of their meeting Carr could have ordered him to stand on one leg and stick out his tongue and he would have obeyed without hesitation.
Carr had come a long way from his Lithuanian origins. His original surname had been Karilius but in an attempt to integrate into his adopted country he had shortened it to Carr. His parents had emigrated to the US in the 1920s and he was their only child; he was eleven years old when the US entered the Second World War and used to follow the news reports from the frontlines avidly. As soon as he was old enough, he joined the army and was rapidly promoted through the ranks, being appointed US army liaison officer to NATO. But desk work did not suit him and he had himself transferred to active duty when the Korean War broke out, going on to set up the covert operations service there, and undertaking numerous missions behind enemy lines. After Korea, he joined the army intelligence corps.
Carr inherited the aircraft on Vatnajökull in the early seventies when he took over as chief of the organisation, and during the five years it took him to learn his role fully, his predecessor gradually filled him in on the background to the presence of a German plane in the ice. By the end of that time, Carr knew all about the plane and what it was carrying and how to act if the plane was ever found. What they were following now was a prearranged procedure that Carr reviewed every few years. Only a handful of individuals in the highest echelons of the army were aware of the plane’s existence or the procedure for dealing with it. For fifty-four years the knowledge had been kept strictly confidential, successfully limited to this tiny group, passed down from generation to generation, from one incumbent of office to the next. Even Carr did not know the whole story, though he knew enough. Enough not to want to imagine the fallout if news about what the plane was carrying ever got out.
The phone on his desk purred and he picked up the
‘What are you planning to do with the plane?’ he asked as they wrapped up the meeting.
Carr was prepared for the question, as well as the inevitable follow-up.
‘We’ll remove it from the glacier along with any wreckage we find, including bodies and other contents, and bring it back to the States. That’s what the C-17’s for, Mr Secretary. It has unlimited weight-bearing capacity. It’ll depart from Keflavík and fly without refuelling stops to our facility at Roswell, where the Nazi plane will disappear permanently.’
‘Roswell?’ the secretary queried. ‘Isn’t that the alien town?’
‘I can’t think of any better hiding place. After all that alien nonsense anything reported about Roswell and what goes on there is dismissed as bullshit, except by a tiny minority of UFO nuts. If the news gets out that we’re hiding a Nazi plane at Roswell, it’ll raise an even bigger laugh.’
‘And the gold?’ the secretary asked.
‘No need to waste it. I imagine it’ll disappear into the Federal Reserve Bank, unless you have another suggestion.’
They had parted on better terms than before. The defense secretary’s appreciation of the role of the secret service had improved dramatically, creating a new degree of understanding between them. Not that that mattered a damn to Carr, though he did derive a private satisfaction from having brought the secretary to heel. By the end of their meeting Carr could have ordered him to stand on one leg and stick out his tongue and he would have obeyed without hesitation.
Carr had come a long way from his Lithuanian origins. His original surname had been Karilius but in an attempt to integrate into his adopted country he had shortened it to Carr. His parents had emigrated to the US in the 1920s and he was their only child; he was eleven years old when the US entered the Second World War and used to follow the news reports from the frontlines avidly. As soon as he was old enough, he joined the army and was rapidly promoted through the ranks, being appointed US army liaison officer to NATO. But desk work did not suit him and he had himself transferred to active duty when the Korean War broke out, going on to set up the covert operations service there, and undertaking numerous missions behind enemy lines. After Korea, he joined the army intelligence corps.
Carr inherited the aircraft on Vatnajökull in the early seventies when he took over as chief of the organisation, and during the five years it took him to learn his role fully, his predecessor gradually filled him in on the background to the presence of a German plane in the ice. By the end of that time, Carr knew all about the plane and what it was carrying and how to act if the plane was ever found. What they were following now was a prearranged procedure that Carr reviewed every few years. Only a handful of individuals in the highest echelons of the army were aware of the plane’s existence or the procedure for dealing with it. For fifty-four years the knowledge had been kept strictly confidential, successfully limited to this tiny group, passed down from generation to generation, from one incumbent of office to the next. Even Carr did not know the whole story, though he knew enough. Enough not to want to imagine the fallout if news about what the plane was carrying ever got out.
The phone on his desk purred and he picked up the
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