After turning hard right we taxied towards the terminal, police cars seen with flashing lights, and after halting – the engine noise dying quickly, steps were driven to us as I stood and moved back.

  The door was opened by a tearful hostess as Decker collected the baby’s mother and older sister, and they appeared with their carry-on bags. Decker had his bag as well as mine over a shoulder, and my jacket.

  A blast of cold air hit us, and I ducked out. ‘Get out the way!’ I told a man in a yellow plastic jacket.

  Down the steps I rushed into freezing night air, met at the bottom by two medics on wet tarmac. ‘Are you doctors?’

  ‘I am. Come.’

  The lady doctor led me to an ambulance and inside, the door closed, which blocked the mother’s access.

  I quickly let out, ‘Baby has a genetic condition in the female lineage, stomach ulcers, normally prevalent past age twelve. An ulcer burst, but it’s penetrated her left lung, which is filling with liquid.’

  I knelt on the floor and held the baby as she glanced around at the odd new surroundings, a stethoscope warmed up and placed on her chest as we drove off, hopefully driving with the baby’s family following us.

  ‘The lung has fluid.’ Oxygen grabbed, a small mask grabbed, and the lady doctor gently placed the mask over the baby with my assistance.

  I told the doctor, ‘If she maintains eye contact with me she won’t scream, that will keep her breathing rate down.’

  ‘Yes,’ the doctor bluntly stated. ‘This oxygen will replace that normal oxygen lost.’

  ‘Risk of brain damage,’ I noted.

  ‘You know medicine, Mister Roskov.’

  ‘Some, yes. Time to the hospital?’

  ‘Twenty minutes, maybe less, roads are quiet now. They are waiting ready.’

  ‘Will she need surgery?’

  ‘At this age it would be difficult. We can use drugs, and inject a freezing liquid to the ulcer to contain it.’

  I could feel us speeding up, and I could hear the sirens, but it was not our siren that I could hear blaring. ‘Tell your head of hospital that I’ll pick up the medical bill, however much it is.’

  ‘We have state hospitals here, there is no cost, and I don’t think they will send you the bill. By now everyone on the island knows and is watching the local TV news – not so much else to do here.’

  I maintained eye contact with the baby, no idea yet what her name was, her head supported by my hand.

  Her eyes slowly closed. ‘Has she passed out?’ I worried.

  ‘Oxygen in babies often sends them to sleep, and in this case the more oxygen overdose the better, a good sign. Her skin colour is good, no serious loss of blood.’

  I eased her head down and I eased back, the blood wiped from my hands, taking my phone out as I sat on the opposite bed, a heart monitor now on the baby. I called Ross Daniels as I shivered; I was only wearing in a white shirt. ‘You awake?’

  ‘Not that late here. You should be on a plane…’ he puzzled.

  ‘I was, but we diverted to Iceland. I found a baby crying and soothed it, it went to sleep, but it then started to cough up blood.’

  ‘My god.’

  ‘Sort any expenses for myself and the air marshal, follow the story, and if the original flight is delayed or something I want to compensate the passengers.’

  ‘Not your fault if the baby is sick. Was there a doctor on board?’

  ‘Yes, and she told the captain to divert.’

  ‘Then you’re in the clear.’

  ‘That’s not the point, I want to compensate them anyhow - not be mad at me.’

  ‘I understand, I’ll talk to the airline now.’

  ‘Call Amblin Studios and explain my delay.’ Next call was Rolf, who would be asleep probably, three or four hours ahead of us.

  ‘Hello?’ he croaked out.

  ‘Were you asleep?’

  ‘Just closed my eyes.’

  ‘Listen, wake the twins and get the TV news on and don’t panic, but I diverted my plane as we flew to London -’

  ‘You did what!’

  ‘I came across a baby crying, so I sat and comforted the baby and … most everyone fell asleep, baby included, but the baby started to cough up blood.’

  ‘My god.’

  ‘She has a family history of stomach ulcers. I’m in an ambulance headed for Reykjavik Hospital, I’ll get a flight to Britain later or tomorrow maybe.’

  ‘Us Danes know Iceland well, I have family there.’

  ‘Then maybe I could meet them, and shock them. Call my parents, then tell the twins, and don’t worry!’

  ‘With you we always worry,’ came a complaint.

  I cut the call and held the baby’s head as we sped down unseen roads on a chill dark night. ‘Hang in there, chubby lump.’

  ‘Chubby … lump?’ the lady doctor repeated.

  ‘Look at those chubby legs, she’ll never be a model with those legs.’

  The doctor shot me a look. ‘She will get taller, they do you grow taller you know.’

  ‘The lung?’

  ‘Filling with blood, but I can’t risk a tube in here, we wait for the hospital.’

  That hospital took another ten minutes to reach, and I followed the doctor out whilst holding the oxygen, and we jogged inside past what seemed to be fifty people stood ready.

  The lady doctor started shouting things in Danish, the Icelandic language, to a grey-haired old man, who seemed to be instructing others. They disappeared into an ICU unit, the oxygen taken off me.

  Blanket removed from around my shoulders, and people glanced at the blood on my shirt.

  I was led to a waiting room, Decker and the mother appearing with a sleepy eight-year-old. I grabbed the daughter and sat her on my lap, her head on my bloodied shirt and shoulder, the blue blanked placed around her. And she was soon asleep, not a hard task given that her eyes had been mostly closed to start with.

  The mother sat, she stared at the floor, and she ignored the commotion we had caused here.

  ‘She’ll make it,’ I told her. ‘Have faith.’

  Without looking up, she began, ‘I don’t have a lot of faith left. I watched my grandmother die slowly in pain, then my mother, now this. My life is … a medical chart with a certain number of days left on it, prognosis … not good.’

  ‘Best do some good with the time left then.’

  She turned her head to me.

  ‘Can you keep a secret?’ I asked as I held the daughter, people walking back and forth.

  She nodded.

  ‘The miracle baby is not much older than your baby, but … she understands commands in several languages. If you ask her to pick up a green ball and touch the black ball, in a variety of languages, she will.’

  ‘How … how is that possible?’

  ‘We don’t know, we just know that she’s special, and we have some faith that it means something … hopefully means something.

  ‘I’m not religious, and if God appeared before me we’d have some harsh words, but the Miracle Baby gives other people hope and … it helps them deal with their sad lives.

  ‘On that basis … I’m happy to go along with the idea that she’s special, it does no harm and … it helps people around the world. And you, you need to prepare yourself for what happens if your baby lives, because the media will be all over you.

  ‘You can see that as an intrusion, or you can use the paparazzi idiots for some good, and campaign about the condition you have, raise money for third world countries and … kids that don’t have an ambulance available.

  ‘You’re in the shit now because it was me that saved your baby, so you need to make a plan; do some good, or hide away for a few years.

  ‘I’d obviously suggest that you … lean towards doing some good, raising money for other kids that might have this condition. And you’ll find that by doing so you’ll feel better.’

  She studied her shoes. ‘Why do you sound like you’re fifty years old?’

  ‘An old head, yes, soccer team captain from age five.’

  My phone trilled, the twins. ‘Relax!’ I got in first.

  ‘You are OK?’ came from Rita.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And this baby?’

  ‘She’s in intensive care now, blood in her lung, but she has fifty doctors with nothing else to do, so she’s getting good treatment.’

  ‘You find her, you rescue her,’ came before a flood of tears. Rolf came on. ‘They think it another miracle.’

  I sighed out. ‘Yeah, me too I’m afraid, some publicity to follow.’

  ‘It is already on the Danish news; they are very closely linked to Iceland of course. And the Faroe Islands. And right now the people of the Faroe Island will be calling each other and switching on the news. Already I have calls.’

  ‘Yeah, well … sorry about that, but saving the baby was more important than your quality sleep.’

  ‘Always,’ he agreed. ‘I will calm the twins.’ He cut the line.

  My phone trilled straight away, the British Prime Minister. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked me.

  ‘Yes, Prime Minister.’

  The mother’s eyes widened.

  ‘I was up late working and they alerted me, 11pm here just about. What the hell happened?’

  I gave him the quick version.

  ‘It will be all over the news in the morning,’ he noted. ‘A few passengers complaining maybe.’

  ‘When they see the news they’ll understand. Hopefully.’

  ‘They tell me that the plane is being refuelled and will depart soon.’

  ‘Good, just a slight delay for the passengers. Have them grab my luggage at Heathrow if you can.’

  ‘I’ll send a note, yes.’

  ‘Thanks for the help.’

  ‘You’re a national treasure, I have to help you, like that statue of Morecombe and Wise we have.’

  I laughed loudly before I cut the call.

  ‘Prime Minister?’ the mother asked as Decker tried to get the vending machine working.

  ‘We have a good working relationship,’ I told her, just as the middle-aged and plump Icelandic Prime Minister walked in dressed casual. And with no security escort.

  He rushed to us and sat. ‘I’m the Prime Minister here,’ he began.

  ‘I recognise you from the newspapers in Denmark,’ I told him.

  ‘Will the baby be OK?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask the doctors, but we got her here in time. This is the baby’s mother, and on my lap is her other daughter.’

  The Prime Minister offered the mother, ‘We will get you and your family a hotel room, no cost, flights home.’

  ‘That’s … very kind of you,’ she puzzled.

  ‘If Ricky helps you, we help you. He is a national hero to Denmark, and here, and the Faroe Islands of course.’

  I asked him, ‘Did you like the advert with the animals?’

  ‘They still show it sometimes, brilliant yes, to get the facial expressions of the animals. And the advert where the Prime Minister there has so many jobs, this we still laugh about – and understand.’

  I asked, ‘Is it true … that everyone here knows where you live and that you don’t lock your door?

  ‘True, yes. But I lock it when I travel.’

  ‘My god,’ the mother let out. ‘I couldn’t sleep without a solid locked door, windows locked.’

  ‘This is not America,’ he proudly boasted. ‘Here you are safe.’

  Decker brought me a coffee, and I sipped it, the Prime Minister off to check with the doctors. He returned ten minutes later.

  ‘They have a tube into the baby’s lung and liquid is being sucked out, she has oxygen and is breathing OK, heart beat normal, blood pressure normal.

  ‘But they said that another half an hour and she would not have made it.’

  I wanted to punch him for saying that, and I glanced at the mother, but she did not react, she just stared at the floor. ‘So she’ll be OK?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, some injection into the ulcer after a scan. She could fly in two days or so.’

  I faced the mother. ‘Hotel, some rest and food, and this one can sleep in a bed.’ I motioned towards the sleeping daughter in my arms. ‘You won’t achieve anything by being here, and we can come back in the morning.’

  She made eye contact with me. ‘You’ll stay with me?’

  ‘As long as you need.’

  I eased up, carrying the daughter, the Prime Minister organising transport for us, Decker following with our bags – and my crumpled jacket, the mother with two shoulder bags, one full of nappies and baby-changing gear.

  Ten minutes later we arrived at a hotel, the staff pleased to see me, rooms allocated free of charge. I said goodnight to the mother, and for her to order some food and to look after her eight-year-old daughter.

  Decker headed to his room, and here in Iceland I felt safe, very safe. Mostly, but not completely, since a deadly foreign assassin could be on my tail.

  Door locked, after calling myself an idiot, I checked the room for deadly assassins anyhow, but there was nowhere for them to hide. At the bathroom sink I read the sign. Water is volcanic, it is very hot and smells like rotten eggs.

  ‘Oh.’

  I ran the tap, it was steaming hot, and it did smell like rotten eggs – the sulphur, which brought a smile to my face. In the shower, which took a while to get cool enough, I washed my shirt of the blood stains then soaked it in very hot water, a bar of soap dropped in.

  I had no spare shirt, so after the shower I called down to reception. They would find one my size for the morning. Remembering my carry-on bag, I found a clean t-shirt and took it out ready.

  My phone trilled, my father.

  ‘Did they wake you?’ I cut in first.

  ‘Yes, the night security man. You’re OK?’

  ‘I calmed a baby on the flight from New York to London, then the baby started to cough up blood.’

  ‘Dear god.’

  ‘So we diverted, a doctor giving advice, and now the little chubby lump is in intensive care and I’m in a hotel, hand-washing the blood from my shirt. I’ll fly back tomorrow maybe.’

  ‘You can afford another shirt I think,’ he quipped.

  ‘I have asked for one, yeah, my luggage is on its way to Heathrow. Tell mum not to worry and to be proud of her only son, I seem to have saved another baby – which is not a bad thing.’

  ‘No, not a bad thing at all.’

  I lay down, a sidelight on, the bed comfy, and I fell asleep quickly.

  The morning after the night before

  I woke as the rain hit my window, a sliver of grey sky seen between the curtains. Out of bed, and after peeing, I opened the curtains to find miserable wet grey rooftops under a miserable grey sky; this was not a place that tourists visited for great photos, there was a real lack of palm trees and white sand here.

  Dressed, cup of tea made, I turned on the TV news, the local channel discussing the baby it seemed before showing images of the ambulance, the aircraft on the tarmac, the outside of the hospital and interviews with doctors.

  They had a schematic diagram of an intubated baby, oxygen mask on, and they seemed to be going through it all in great detail.

  Then up came the photos from the Reuters lady, of me with the sleeping baby, then the baby on the white cloth spotted with red blood. The final image was of me carrying the baby down the aisle in the blue blanket, so a passenger had sold that image already.

  ‘Do they have 24hr photo development in London?’ I asked myself with a puzzled frown.

  I called Rolf. ‘Did you get any sleep?’

  ‘Some, yes, many phone calls.’

  ‘The twins?’

  ‘They have calls from their second-cousins in Iceland, and friends in Copenhagen, and now they are OK. We had Icelandic TV on, and they announced that the baby was stable and out of danger, so we went to bed. At London Airport they interviewed passengers and the captain.’

  ‘What was the delay for the passengers?’ I asked.

  ‘Hour and five minutes only.’

  ‘Not too bad at all, considering,’ I told him.

  ‘Did you get any sleep?’

  ‘Yes, slept well in a hotel, we’ll go back and see the baby this morning, but if the baby is in intensive care then we’d just look through a window anyhow. Not much we can do. Did I make the news?’

  ‘Everywhere,’ he sighed out. ‘The European news all showed it - another miracle in the making, the Italians all glued to the TV news, the Danish-speaking countries more than just glued to the TV news, Sweden as well of course.’

  ‘I met the Icelandic Prime Minister, a very casual and low-key leader.’

  ‘Yes, people knock on his door about local issues, as in the Faroe Islands. You will miss some filming?’

  ‘No, they said I had a day or two anyhow, film crews to fly in and get ready. And to wait for some good weather in Leicester, which could take six months.’

  ‘Our first snow here, but not much yet,’ Rolf told me.

  ‘Tell the twins to relax, and to get some work done.’

  ‘Today is a study day, a friend to lecture them on business and marketing.’

  ‘Ah, good, I shall be a kept man someday soon.’

  ‘You will be far richer than they ever will, and the news about Mandoch Valley has spread far and wide, investors about to start killing each other to get a piece of land there.’

  ‘So we can raise the prices then.’

  ‘Definitely. And tomorrow, Mercedes start to show the next set of adverts, in Britain as well. Next month they show the Mandoch Valley advert, so all will see it, but it has already featured in many publications around Europe.

  ‘And Lars in Corsica, he has three thousand enquiries about the nursing home already.’

  ‘Have the investors all agreed on the first two additional homes?’ I asked him.

  ‘Four … additional homes,’ he corrected me. ‘They make a start soon, every single builder in Corsica to be flat-out busy, men coming out of retirement, teams coming in from mainland France.

  ‘Ground is cut on six separate apartment blocks near the planned nursing homes, for staff, not including our own staff accommodation building.’