Arctic Rising: A Constable Maratse Stand Alone novella (Guerrilla Greenland Book 3) Christoffer Petersen (ebook reader macos txt) 📖

“Kamiila.”

“Right.” Walcott nodded. “The angry one. She’s a fighter. Put her in charge of the troops.”

“Troops?”

“Folk with guns. She’ll train them. You’ll inspire them. Together you’ll give us a run for our money.”

“I don’t understand,” Maratse said. “You want a war?”

“No, Constable. I don’t want a war, but you do. It’s the only way you’ll get what you want.”

“And what do I want?”

Walcott pressed his hand to his collarbone as he laughed. “I think what you want, Constable, is a tiny little cabin in the mountains, or a crappy little fishing boat – maybe a sledge and a couple of dogs. But those days are gone. If you’re ever going to get close to having something like what you want, then you’re going to have to fight for it. You’re going to have to make some noise, Constable. Because you can be damned sure that now we’re here, now the US has finally got its paws on this godforsaken lump of Arctic real estate, we won’t give in without a fight. We will go to war over it. And you, and your people, will have a hard time stopping us.” Walcott took a breath. “This is going to get ugly, Constable. Mark my words.”

“Hmm.” Maratse reached down to offer Walcott his hand. “I’ll see you again?”

“Most likely,” Walcott said, gripping Maratse’s hand in his own. “Now get going.” He shook his hand free and waved Maratse away. “Just go, already. Go make some noise.”

Maratse took a step back. He looked down at Walcott and frowned. “You’re a strange man.”

“Right. That’s the kettle calling the pot black.”

“Iiji,” Maratse said.

“You understood that one?”

“I do.”

“How about that? Finally, we’re making progress.” Walcott turned his head and looked down the mountain. “Okay, Constable. It’s time for you to fuck off now. Your friends have arrived.”

Maratse turned to see Kamiila and Danielsen walking towards them. He nodded at Walcott, then stumbled through the heather to join them.

Danielsen took the brunt of Maratse’s weight as he helped him along the path Kamiila picked through the heather. Kamiila stopped every five minutes, adjusting the stolen carbine rifles she wore slung in an X across her back. She carried her father’s .22 rifle in her hands. Together with the dust and dry tears streaked across her cheeks, Maratse thought she fit Walcott’s description of the fighter perfectly. He slowed as he wondered what that might mean, only to have Danielsen snap him out of his thoughts with news from Kussannaq.

“We took the woman…”

“Isra,” Maratse said.

“Aap. She’s on Sisak. She’ll stay there until we figure out what to do with her. We took the bodies of the Americans, too.”

“Hmm.”

“I said I would stay with you, but I’m not sure what we can achieve in the mountains, David.”

“We have to make more noise.”

“More than a firefight and a helicopter crash?” Danielsen stopped and helped Maratse sit down on a boulder. He nodded at Kamiila, suggesting a five-minute break as she joined them. He turned back to Maratse, and said, “I’m not sure what more we can do.”

“David needs to keep talking,” Kamiila said. “He needs to remind people of the little things.” The light caught her eyes as she smiled at Maratse. “It’s the little things that keep us together.”

“Iiji.”

“And after that?” Danielsen pointed to the crash in the distance. “Words alone aren’t going to cut it. They have helicopters. They have ships.” He shook his head. “They have a lot of guns.”

“We have a ship,” Maratse said.

“Sisak?”

“Aap,” Kamiila said. She tapped the rifles slung across her chest. “We have guns. We can get more.”

“Guns make noise.” Maratse pulled a battered packet of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket. He lit one and stuck it between his lips. “We need to make lots of noise.”

“We’re going to need help,” Danielsen said. “We need people outside Greenland to help us.”

“They will.” Maratse puffed a small cloud of smoke above his head.

“Inniki,” Kamiila said with a grin.

The mention of her name brought a smile to Maratse’s face. It started with her, her resistance, and a window box made from pallets filled with borrowed earth.

“Stolen,” Maratse said, as he remembered taking soil from Inniki’s neighbour’s house in Kapisillit.

“What’s that?”

“They’ve stolen our land,” Maratse said. “We have to convince them to give it back.”

“By making noise?”

“Iiji.”

“By fighting for it,” Kamiila said.

Maratse agreed with a nod.

Danielsen looked at his watch. “Time’s up. We have to move.” He took Maratse’s arm and pulled him to his feet. “You really think someone is going to help us?”

“Someone will,” Maratse said. “And until then, we have just have to keep going.”

Denmark

Part 11

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Petra tucked her yoga mat under her arm as she walked out of the café on Lundsgade. She checked her phone, curious that Inniki had neither left a message, nor tried to call her. A black car caught her eye as it accelerated past her on the opposite side of the narrow street. The car’s smoked windows sent Petra’s heart into a higher gear as she imagined who might be driving, who they might work for.

She swallowed.

“What am I doing?”

She thought of her girls, recalling the last image she had of them playing with the babysitter, giggling, oblivious to the butterflies crowding Petra’s stomach. She focused on that, on Abella’s dimples, the smell of Jatsi’s hair. Petra tucked her phone into her pocket. She walked along the pavement, following the sound of Mikael’s drums through the school gates, all the way to the side door.

She stopped to check her phone one last time.

Nothing.

Petra took a breath, climbed the two steps to the door, and then pressed the buzzer before she could talk herself out of it.

The drums stopped.

Mikael let her in a few seconds later.

“Naamik,” he said, when Petra asked if he had heard from Inniki. “But she can be like that sometimes. I’m sure she’s fine. She looks old.” He laughed, correcting himself. “She is old. But she’s tougher than you and me.”

“You’re right,” Petra said. She pointed at the stairs.