We found this in the vehicle.” The major of field police held up the top of a broken bottle of vodka. “But the medical corpsman who collected their personal effects found this.” The major pulled the rubberized sheet off the one body that had been thrown clear when the vehicle hit the rocks. The stab wound in the chest was unmistakable. “And you said that the Icelanders were as peaceful as sheep, Comrade General,” the KGB colonel observed sardonically. The major continued, “It is difficult to reconstruct exactly what happened. There was a farm a short distance away whose house was burned to the ground. We found two bodies in the wreckage. Both had been shot.” “Who were they?” General Andreyev asked. “Impossible to identify the bodies. The only way we knew they were shot was the bullet hole in the sternum, so that was likely done at very close range. I had one of our surgeons look at them. A man and a woman, probably in their middle years. According to a local government official, the farm was occupied by a married couple with one daughter, age”—the major checked his notes—“twenty.
