Icediamonds Trilogy Volume 1 E-Book

Stefan Prebil

• Herausgeber: tredition
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Serie: Icediamonds
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 225

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Adventure, passion, unspeakable greed and international money laundering. In Volume One, meet downshifter Samuel Frei, a man in his mid-fifties. Sam gladly ditches his corporate manager life to become a diving guide in the icy waters of Iceland's Silfra fissure, fulfilling a dream of his younger years. By far the eldest, he adapts to his new life, promptly falling hopelessly in love with a lovely young colleague. As a volcano erupts beneath the Langjökull glacier in the center of Thingvellir Park, a deadly lahar devours tourists and puts a brutal end to the contemptuous business with Nature. Sam and a handful of colleagues barely escape the disaster, making a sensational discovery that will radically change their lives.

Leseprobe

Stefan Prebil works and writes in his alp cottage high above Lake Brienz.

After a career in top management around the globe, his work today consists of consulting companies in the technology sector, coaching and - in writing novels.

His stories deal with personal relationships, extraordinary biographies, in the context of social developments and rapid technological progress.

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Stefan Prebil

Ramey Rieger

ICEDIAMONDS

VOLUME I

WHO FAILS TO HONOR,

WILL BE HUMBLED

© 2019 Stefan Prebil

Cover, illustration:

Stefan Prebil

Cover picture:

Adobe Stock License

Translation and proofreading:

Ramey Rieger

Publishing & Printing:

tredition GmbH, Halenreie 40-44, 22359 Hamburg

ISBN

Paperback

978-3-7497-9660-1

Hardcover

978-3-7497-9661-8

e-Book

978-3-7497-9662-5

The publication, including its parts, is protected by copyright.

Any use without the consent of the publisher and the author is prohibited. This applies in particular to electronic or other duplication, translation, distribution and making available to the public

Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Content

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

ONE

Comfortably seated in Business Class, Sam turns aside and presses his face against the oval window, eager for a better view. The thrumming beneath his feet alerted him to the pilot opening the landing flaps. Once an avid private pilot himself, he knows what comes next.

The machine will decelerate, slightly bucking and weaving. Then a powerful, jolting shudder. Landing lights illuminate a thick stream of incandescent snowflakes. From where he is sitting, visibility just makes it to the engine. Beyond that, red blinking smudges hint at navigation lights on the wing tips. Clacking sounds below tell Sam that the landing gear is moving into place. Like a seasoned mustang tamer, the Icelandair pilot gives his machine just enough rein to buck and rear until she succumbs to his dominant will and is firmly guided onto the runway. Sam assumes the pilot is accustomed to much wilder weather.

The cabin lights are dimmed. “Cabin crew take your seats – landing in five minutes,” the pilot’s taciturn voice buzzes over the speakers. Sam recognizes the foreigners on board by the occasional squeals and whispered prayers, while the Icelandic couple across from him pays no mind to the prancing plane. Their conversation is much more interesting. Sam grins, remembering the in-flight magazine boast, “Welcome to the second windiest country on the planet! The windiest is uninhabited.”

He gazes out dreamily at the swaying machine before snatching up the Heineken can from the broad tray beside him and considering it intently.

Aluminum. The engine aperture’s aluminum cannot be warmer than sixty degrees below zero but bears the punishment without flinching. Flying at an altitude of more than ten kilometers, the pressure drop causes the cabin to expand by about five centimeters. Upon descent, it shrinks back to its original size. Passengers are oblivious to the change, feeling utterly secure in a thin aluminum tube as they race through rarefied air at over a thousand kilometers per hour, drinking espresso, watching films, snuggling into their blankets. As long, of course, as the flight runs smoothly.

Ignorance is bliss. The rare accident happens to other people, no need to worry. Unless, as now, the elements demonstrate their power.

Sam turns to his neighbor, an impish grin on his face, and softly implies, “Hardly a person on board is aware that a mere two millimeters of aluminum hold this plane together. Two millimeters separating safe and warm from frozen death. Good to know we would die painlessly.”

The man glanced up from his book, casting a brief look past Sam to the window before replying with casual superiority, “Fragile as that may sound, disasters are rare occurrences; technology and materials are far too sophisticated. And what makes you think we wouldn't feel a thing? I wouldn't count on it. We are flying at approximately two hundred and fifty kilometers per hour; it is about zero degrees outside and we are low enough for plenty of oxygen. So even if the cabin suddenly bursts, we will die knowing it."

Nodding appreciatively, Sam studies his neighbor more closely. A reedy build encased in a coarsely knit wool sweater. Judging by his polished elocution, a German. What is he reading? Digital transformation based on low code programming. Aha, a nerd.

The plane takes a mighty blow and Sam is lifted a few millimeters out of his seat, enough to feel a breeze passing through. He sees his neighbor clutch the armrest frantically, his knuckles turning white.

Sam drains his beer in one go, tightening his fist around the empty can. Twisting and pressing the aluminum noisily into a flat disk, he drops it next to the one he crushed earlier. He had boarded the plane to Iceland with the intention of curbing his alarming drinking habit. But when he declined lunch, the cool blonde stewardess winked and placed a second beer in front of him. So much for one last beer.

What of it? Grinning, he nods to his blurred mirror image in the window. His life thus far has not been a paradigm of discipline and firm resolve. Taken with his tendency to make impulsive decisions, he is accustomed to causing a fracas, intentionally or not.

Snow at the end of April – that’ll up the challenge and adventure he muses as the machine continues to plow through gusting air.

Butterflies. Some are his doubts that he is physically fit enough to do the job. The rest of them are simply his boyish anticipation to find out just that.

At his send-off last week, his colleagues heartily raised their glasses to their departing boss, kindly congratulating him on his audacious plans. He is fifty-five, a well-established manager with a lucrative job, and was giving it all up to be a diving guide in Iceland.

Five years ago, he told them, he had fulfilled a youthful dream and become a diving instructor. It is now time he put it to use, to seek new inspiration and to pass his responsibilities on to the next generation. The last with a wink at the young personnel candidate who is most likely to take his place. The truth is, he has only been there a year and is already bored out of his mind.

Their faces told him what they really thought: Look at Mr. Moneybags, tired of his new toy! Now he’s off to his next egocentric frolic while we’re stuck here, hanging onto our jobs and trying to make ends meet.

He could care less and had no issues with what went unsaid. He is well aware that he has simply exchanged money and power for life and self-fulfillment. The hunger is the same. And so are his methods. He is just as willing to selfishly sacrifice relationships and friends or leave employees to their fate.

He, Samuel Frei, had worked his way up from pharmaceutical salesclerk to CEO of multinational corporations, he and no other, was Magic Sam. After years of brilliant success, enduring the intrigues, the immense pressure to make profits, his increasingly unconscionable ego and subsequently battered and shattered marriage, he brilliantly failed.

His career took a dive. He wasn’t much surprised. Stress had taken him to the bottle more often than not. In his cups, he was convinced it would eventually come to light that he was not all he was made out to be. He was an imposter. After the fall, he hired himself out as an interim manager for smaller businesses. His clients were sophisticated and paid handsomely, but they could not heal the festering wounds inflicted by his failure.

Three months ago, a diving buddy asked him if he wanted to join him in Iceland, working as a guide. He himself had signed on for 2,000€ a month. They would only be diving every other day or so with tourists. Usually snorkeling tours in dry suits. But, hey, the Silfra Crack! Floating in icy, crystal-clear waters directly between the Eurasian and American continental plates, it’s breathtaking. As are the country and its people.

Sam googled the location and was immediately hot to trot. He applied to every diving school in Reykjavik and got a job as a guide. The monthly pay was less than what he usually earned in a day. Who cares? He has a year’s worth of fuck you money and is utterly fed up.

Before starting the job, he had to take a course in dry suit diving. He had diddled a bit on his applications, misleading potential employers. He claimed that, being Swiss, he had plenty of diving experience in icy water. In truth, he has never worked with this equipment before. Filling in the knowledge gaps and fitting himself out with the required gear was child’s play. Not so easy to plug up is his lack of experience. He would be expected to lead several groups a day through very cold water. That takes stamina, both mental and physical, and he is not sure he has either. He will just have to wing it. If he blew it, he could always flee to his cottage in the Alps.

Thundering onto the runaway, the plane touches down in Keflavik International Airport, shaking Sam from his reverie. Engaging thrust reversal, the aircraft shudders and slows, skidding over the snow toward the terminal.

The pilots, two young, blond and bearded Vikings, stand at the cockpit door, thanking the passengers as they debarked, wishing them a nice weekend. “You, too!” Sam responds with an urbane grin, taking one last look at the pretty stewardess, “nice job!”

His grin broadens as he collects his two enormous trolley cases stuffed with gear and clothing and tromps off to customs to the sound of his combat boots resounding over the tiles.

TWO

Sam shoots up from the rickety IKEA bed, once again dislodging several slats beneath the thin mattress. His butt promptly succumbs to gravity, leaving him wedged in the gulf. Cursing and flailing, he manages to liberate himself and reach for his cellphone, only to plop back onto the sagging bed. 5:30 am. He still has fifteen minutes until he has to leave for the diving shop with his colleagues. They have the first shift. He is still having trouble adjusting to the nearly endless Icelandic sunlight. Now, at the end of May, the sun shines until 2 am. There is a short twilight between 2 and 3 am and at 5 am the sun is already so high again you’d think it was ten.

***

Three weeks ago, Silfra Scuba’s personnel director Yana collected him at the airport and brought him to his room at Vatnagarðar 18 in Reykjavik.

Shortened to V18 by its inhabitants, the building had once housed offices before his tour company bought it and converted it into a kind of dormitory for their guides. V18 is located in an industrial zone on the outskirts of Reykjavik, directly across from the container harbor. Downtown Reykjavik is an hour’s march on foot, but there is a bus running along the turnpike directly behind the house. Summer is truly short in Iceland and must be exploited to the hilt, so the streets and harbor are full of activity nearly twenty-four hours a day.

Despite the constant noise, Sam is glad he garnered a room at the front of the building with a window. There’s about sixty people in the house and all of them work for Iceland Adventure, Silfra Scuba’s parent company, and some of them are closeted in interior, windowless rooms. No daylight, no fresh air, their biorhythm determined by the sound of in-coming shift workers showering and cooking in the communal kitchen, loudly trying to one-up each other with anecdotes about the day’s incredibly scatterbrained clients. Each day, endlessly revolving shifts of mountain guides, drivers, dinghy captains and diving guides tramp in and out of V18. The first teams set off at six in the morning and the last return around midnight. Summer tourists in Iceland also keep long hours.

Adjusting to conditions of dormitory life, as he refers to it, had taken him a while. At fifty-five, he is more than twice the age of the average resident and has, over the years, developed distinct habits and concepts of cohabitation. These are not necessarily shared by the younger generation. There are three showers for twenty women and the same number for forty men. Hot water in Iceland smells like sulfur, being pumped directly from geothermic boreholes. Sam has no problem with the smell, but the showers’ hygiene level is a challenge indeed. He adopted the habit of wearing his flipflops to and in the showers to avoid direct contact with the hair, soap residue and other ominous fluids coating the shower stall floor.

Otherwise, within the month he had adapted well to life and work in Iceland. Relieved to relinquish his managerial mask, he is happy to keep his opinion on the diving shop’s structural shortcomings to himself. All diving instructors, regardless of gender, have bloated egos. Perhaps it is a matter of being driven to prove themselves, having come to the profession as a last resort after failing elsewhere? Or maybe it’s their nonconformist pride as free spirits traveling the world in search of the ultimate diving spot, much more eclectic than the simple sheep they herd? Whatever. Each and every one of them believes they know better than the others. Sam discovered this idiosyncrasy during his training in Thailand. Accustomed to being the know-it-all, he objected to his teachers’ knoweven-more condescension and provoked more than one cockfight. Here, though, he finds it gratifying to readily submit to lectures and to humbly bow down to the alpha male or female of the day.

He has their respect and that is enough. He is closemouthed when it comes to his executive past, his advanced age is suspicious enough. Most of his colleagues are somewhere between early twenties and early thirties.

The only other exception is Ilias. A whitebearded Greek, Ilias had high-tailed it to Iceland to get his cut of the highest diving instructor wages in the world. Two thousand euros a month plus lodging is more than twice as much as paid elsewhere. It turns out though, that the wages are so high due to Iceland’s exorbitant cost of living. Sam soon discovered that they are only getting the required minimum wage, less than what a supermarket cashier earns. None of Sam’s colleagues seem to mind, though. Many are there to save money for other ventures when the season in Iceland closes. They are adept at frugality. And Ilias is truly spartan.

A couple years back, Ilias had fulfilled a lifelong dream and opened a diving shop in Thailand. Not an easy undertaking since commercial law requires the greater share of all foreign enterprises – at least fifty-one percent – to be held in native hands. Risky business for foreigners, which is why most of them partner up with Thai trustee operations, relying on contract fidelity. Others, as was the case with Ilias, rely on fidelity of the heart. He was truly besotted with his lady partner, Phat.

And business boomed. Attracting not only eager tourists, but covetous racketeers as well. Not long, and the local mobsters turned up, wanting their portion of the pie in exchange for services rendered, including their private version of fire insurance. It would be a crying shame to see the lovely diving shop burned to the ground. Phat knew her country’s customs and urged Ilias to pay and be done with it, but he refused. His European ethics cost him both his love and his livelihood. Especially when Phat offered to buy him out for a tenth of what the place was worth, which Ilias also turned down, pained and offended.

Things came to a head when the mob told him flat out that he would not be the first foreigner to have a diving accident, his body washed up on some unknown shore. Shark bait. Ilias fled the country he loved with nothing more than the clothes on his back.

The story came out one night while Sam and Ilias were having a couple beers together. It was a rare occasion. Otherwise exceedingly closemouthed, the Greek cooks his meals and sits alone on the dilapidated sofa in the hallway, eating in grim determination. He will stick out the summer, save as much as he can, return to Thailand and start afresh. Nothing else interests him. He would leave today, if he had the cash.

The two older men share a shelf in one of the refrigerators posted around the tables like massive sentries. Each resident has a shelf for their supplies, marked with their names. Beer, a veritable luxury at five euros a can, is better kept in your room or hung outside, if you are lucky enough to have a window. Otherwise, it’s gone. When a higher percentage of alcohol is desired, beer is mixed with Brennivín, Icelandic firewater, both of which can only be bought at Vínbúðin, stateowned liquor stores. For many years, beer was banned from Iceland. The result is a country of liquor drinkers.

If you cook your own food, keeping to a monodiet of cheap pasta, and imbibe a minimum of alcohol, you can live well on ten euros a day. The first week or two, Sam took the bus and ate downtown. Unlike most of his colleagues, he can afford such luxuries. But he eventually lost his taste for thirty-euro burgers and eating alone. He resorted to stockpiling frozen Asian convenience foods and, for diversity, picking up an occasional pizza from the gas station across the turnpike from V18. Now, he ‘cooks’ his frozen cardboard dishes in the microwave, usually joining his teammates at the table.

For the umpteenth time, Sam lifts his mattress and reinstates the escaped slats. Burning thirst and queasiness remind him of the barbecue last night. Pulling up the blinds with one hand, he grabs a carton of orange juice from the flimsy shelf next to his bed with the other. For a moment he watches shredded clouds whip over the bay and shrilly tooting cranes shift containers from here to there. Beyond the bay, clouds have gathered at Esja’s pinnacle and it looks like it’s raining up there. Locals speak of the nine-hundred-fourteen-meter-high mountain as if it is a dear house pet. It is just another day. It could be worse. It could be yesterday.

V18 squats in the center of an industrial area, surrounded by wind and weather-beaten car repair shops and warehouses. Behind the dilapidated dormitory is an emergency exit opening onto a spacious concrete slab, on the edge of which is a fire escape leading down to the access road below. This barren terrace is where the diving teams meet once a week to grill sausages, drink beer and recap the week’s tours.

On the side facing the road embankment, wild lupines abound, the same flowers that magically color the summer-green volcanos a gentle violet. On the other side, they are entertained by the bustling container harbor and heavy grey ocean. Someone had found a few plastic chairs long past their prime and installed them on the terrace. Another someone had scrounged up a couple of trestle tables and benches. Their grill consists of concrete blocks with twisted, rusting reinforcing bars.

And yet, sit there at two in the morning with sunglasses firmly in place. Watch the perpetual wind whip lathered clouds across the sky and mottle the low-lying sun. Bathing in ever-shifting, ethereal and spectacular light, you find yourself on another planet altogether.

Yesterday evening, Sam joined the others around ten. As usual, Chuck was sprawled in his deck chair, sun-bathing in t-shirt and shorts by fourteen degrees Celsius, regaling them with his British humor and laughing loudest at his own jokes. Spotting Sam, he put down his beer, brushed some long, black strands of hair from his face and went to get another chair. When he returned, he pulled Sam into a hug, patting him on the back and muttering: "It'll be okay, mate!" The next moment, he ladled potato salad and two sausages onto a plate, fished a can of beer from a tub, handed them to Sam and beckoned him to sit by his side. Jace, head down, eyes boring holes in the concrete while mechanically stroking his bushy red beard, occupied the chair on Sam’s other side. Like Chuck, Jace is also British, but aside from their nationality’s dedication to black humor, they have little in common. Chuck’s stocky physique and aggressive nature puts one in mind of a pit bull. His polite, English veneer thinly masks his underlying unpredictability, ever ready for a wild brawl. Jace, on the other hand, is a tall, gangly man, his build typical of long-distance runners. He is sparing of words until beer loosens his tongue.

Emma, next to Jace, is leaning her lovely head on his shoulder. The two of them fell hard and deeply in love when they met here in Iceland. At twenty-two, with a bobbysoxer figure and countless freckles in a cheerful face, Emma was initially underestimated. But not for long. She is a masterful diving instructor and can be very firm when she has to be – such as when tourists hesitate to follow her safety instructions. Then, her kind eyes turn adamant and Sam gets a glimpse of an indomitable will lying just beneath inherent good cheer, girlish innocence or motherly tenderness, whichever is currently on the surface. An astonishingly multifaceted woman for her age and Sam sometimes wonders which is the true Emma. According to Jace, Emma is a loved child of well-situated parents, growing up with all the British upper-class privileges during her childhood on her family’s estate. This would explain Emma’s self-assurance as well as her clearly defined concepts of right and wrong. On anyone else her conservative ethics would seem arrogant amid the lax morality of a diving guide’s adventurous lifestyle. Yet she is anything but snooty, sensing when to concede a point and her evident professionalism is rightfully admired. Emma’s cheerful, outgoing nature is a good match for Jace’s silent brooding. She even thinks to bring him sandwiches along for the tour each day.

Yesterday, Chuck and Sam were paired for the Silfra tour, along with Marie, a beautiful French woman Sam found extraordinarily attractive. She stood behind him now, gently massaging his shoulders.

“Don’t worry, now, you didn’t drown anyone. The two of us are fine, too. So, let’s forget it about it and enjoy our beer,” Chuck exclaimed and erupted in laughter.

“It could have been you,” Sam teased Jace, who, although he wasn’t directly involved, was taking things much more seriously. Sam gave his beard an amiable tug, earning a crooked smile. They clacked their beer cans and drank deeply.

Mickey and Julia joined them. He is another bearded, lanky Englishman; she a blond Ukrainian. They had met at the Great Barrier Reef some years ago and have been travelling the diving circuit together ever since. A few minutes later, Barbu and Simi turned up. The Romanian brothers had warmly welcomed Sam upon his arrival, going out of their way to show him around the dorm and diving shop.

Chuck challenged Sam with his eyes, spreading his arms wide and laughing. Everyone was waiting for him to tell them what really happened. Left with no choice, Sam began to recount the story, knowing full well that Chuck had already given his version and that word had spread like wildfire before the threesome had even gotten back to V18. He was also aware of how quickly the facts would be twisted, embellished and posted on every social media platform on the web. So, he was glad to tell it from his perspective.

Finishing his narrative, he looked up to find Drake and Tara, the diving shop managers, standing in front of him. Sam rose like a guilty child and found himself hugged by first one then the other.

“Well, have you rejoined the warm-blooded community? Is your body temperature back to normal?” Drake teased Sam. Tara added, “How are you handling the shock?” Sam’s response was a shrug and a smile. Chuck gave his stock impudent grin; he was beyond the need for such reassurances.

Sam had met Drake for the first time during his instructor training in Thailand. An experienced diving manager and attractive Englishman in his midforties, Drake has traveled the world. He could easily be Clint Eastwood’s twin, thinning hair and all. Especially his eyes, a sparkling grey, lit up when he spoke while rolling an omnipresent, unlit cigarillo around in his mouth. Sam has never seen him with a woman. Once in Thailand, when Drake went to pay for a round of drinks and left his wallet open on the table, he saw a picture of a woman and three children. Sam wanted to ask about the photograph, but a warning glance from Drake held him back. Sam believed he saw pain in that look. Like so many professional divers, Drake seemed to have little talent for settling down. Perhaps, that was what made them diving nomads in the first place.

Drake and Tara share Silfra Scuba management, an almost twenty-four-hour job on seven days of the week. Inquiries come from everywhere on the planet and reservations are slotted into six shifts with a maximum of eight snorkelers or two divers per guide. Safety is an extremely high priority. There have been deaths in the past and Silfra was in danger of getting a reputation as a high-risk diving spot, thanks to social media posts. At their first briefing with the new diving guides, Drake had quoted the founders of Easy Jet, "If you are concerned about the cost of safety, think about the price of an accident.”

Tara is a former nurse from Glasgow where she had been in charge of a hospice for incurable drug addicts. She has seen countless young people die agonizing deaths. Instead of despairing, she drew strength from her own life’s possibilities. Not quite thirty years old, Tara is a circumspect, confident manager on top of even the most hectic situation. She’s feisty and has a seemingly endless collection of off-color jokes she employs, using humor to deflate her guides’ bloated egos. She only comes up to Sam’s chest but when called for, will plant her fists on her expansive hips, whip her blond braids from her chest and make herself heard.

Both Tara and Drake were visibly relieved that the day’s events were nothing worse than a close shave. Apparently, they had been exhaustively questioned by the authorities and felt the aftermath called for a case of beer and a visit to their employees.

Drake tapped two bottles together and the resulting ping was the signal for all of them to rise from their seats and retrieve a beer. Ian, the easygoing bear of a man at the grill rolled sausages out of the fire’s heat and came over, too. With his mighty red beard, wild mane and eyes permanently twinkling, Ian was a giant version of Gimli, the dwarf in Lord of the Rings.