Running Blind

I

Kennikin looked at me expressionlessly and his pistol was pointing at my heart. ‘Why shouldn’t I kill you now?’

‘That’s what I’ve come to talk to you about,’ I said. ‘It really would be a bad thing if you did.’ I heard footsteps behind me as the outflankers moved in for the kill. ‘Aren’t you interested to know why I’m here? Why I walked up and rang the bell?’

‘It did cross my mind that it was strange,’ said Kennikin. ‘You won’t object to a slight search?’

‘Not at all,’ I said, and felt heavy hands on me. They took Slade’s gun and the clips of ammunition. ‘This is most inhospitable,’ I said. ‘Keeping me at the door like this. Besides, what will the neighbours think?’

‘We have no neighbours for some considerable distance,’ said Kennikin, and looked at me with a puzzled expression. ‘You’re very cool, Stewartsen. I think you must have gone mad. But come in.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, and followed him into the familiar room where we had talked before. I glanced at the burnt patches on the carpet and said, ‘Heard any good explosions lately?’

‘That was very clever,’ said Kennikin. He waved his pistol. ‘Sit down in the same chair. You will observe there is no fire.’ He sat down opposite me. ‘Before you say anything I must tell you that we have the girl, Elin Ragnarsdottir.’

I stretched out my legs. ‘What on earth do you want her for?’

‘We were going to use her to get you,’ he said. ‘But it seems that is no longer necessary.’

‘Then there’s no need to keep her. You can let her go.’

Kennikin smiled. ‘You’re really funny, Stewartsen. It’s a pity the English music hall has gone into eclipse; you could make quite a good living as a comedian.’

‘You ought to hear me wow them in the working men’s clubs,’ I said. ‘That should appeal to a good Marxist such as yourself. But I wasn’t being funny, Vaslav. She is going to walk out of this house unharmed, and you are going to let her go.’

He narrowed his eyes. ‘You’d better elaborate on that.’

‘I walked in here on my own feet,’ I said. ‘You don’t think I’d do that unless I could trump your ace. You see, I’ve got Slade. Tit for tat.’ His eyes opened wide, and I said, ‘But I forget — you don’t know a man called Slade. You told me so yourself, and we all know that Vaslav Viktorovich Kennikin is an honourable man who doesn’t stoop to fibs.’

‘Even supposing I did know this Slade, what proof have you of this? Your word?’

I put my hand to my breast pocket and stopped sharply as his gun came up. ‘Not to worry,’ I said. ‘But do you mind if I dig for a bit of evidence?’ I took the jerk of the gun as assent and extracted Slade’s passport from my pocket and tossed it to him.

He stooped to where it had fallen and picked it up, flicking open the pages with one hand. He studied the photograph intently and then snapped the passport closed. ‘This is a passport made out in the name of Slade. It is no proof of possession of the man. To hold a passport is meaningless; I, myself, possess many passports in many names. In any case, I know of no Slade. The name means nothing to me.’

I laughed. ‘It’s so unlike you to talk to yourself. I know for a fact that not two hours ago you spoke to a nonexistent man at the Hotel Borg in Reykjavik. This is what you said, and this is what he said.’ I recited the telephone conversation verbatim. ‘Of course, I could have been wrong about what Slade said, since he doesn’t exist.’

Kennikin’s face tightened. ‘You have dangerous knowledge.’

‘I have more than that — I have Slade. I had him even as he spoke to you. My gun was in his fat neck.’

‘And where is he now?’

‘For Christ’s sake, Vaslav!’ I said. ‘You’re talking to me, not some muscle-bound, half-witted ape like Ilyich.’

He shrugged. ‘I had to try.’

I grinned. ‘You’ll have to do a bloody sight better than that. I can tell you this, though — if you go looking for him, by the time you find him he’ll be cold meat. Those are my orders.’

Kennikin pulled at his lower lip, thinking deeply. ‘Orders you have received — or orders you have given?’

I leaned forward, preparing to lie heroically. ‘Let’s make no mistake about this, Vaslav. Those are orders I’ve given. If you, or anyone who even smells like you, gets close to Slade, then Slade dies. Those are the orders I have given and they’ll be followed, you may depend upon it.’

At all costs I had to drive out of his mind any suggestion that I had been given orders. The only man who could give me orders was Taggart, and if he had issued such orders then the game was blown as far as Slade was concerned. If Kennikin believed for one minute that Taggart had penetrated Slade’s cover then he’d cut his losses by killing me and Elin, and get the hell back to Russia as fast as he could move.

I buttressed the argument by saying, ‘I may be rapped over the knuckles when the Department catches up with me, but until then those orders stand — Slade will catch a bullet if you go near him.’

Kennikin smiled grimly. ‘And who will pull the trigger? You’ve said you’re working independently of Taggart, and I know you’re alone.’

I said, ‘Don’t sell the Icelanders short, Vaslav. I know them very well and I have a lot of friends here — and so does Elin Ragnarsdottir. They don’t like what you’ve been doing in their country and they don’t like one of their own being put in danger.’

I leaned back in the chair. ‘Look at it this way. This is a biggish country with a small population. Everyone knows everyone else. Damn it, everyone is related to everyone else if you push it back far enough — and the Icelanders do. I’ve never known a people, other than the Scots, who are so genealogically minded. So everyone cares what happens to Elin Ragnarsdottir. This isn’t a mass society where people don’t even know their next-door neighbour. By taking Elin Ragnarsdottir you’ve laid yourself wide open.’

Kennikin looked thoughtful. I hoped I had given him something to chew over for a long time, but I didn’t have the time so I pushed him. ‘I want the girl down here in this room — intact and in one piece. If any harm has come to her then you’ve made a big mistake.’

He regarded me keenly, and said, ‘It’s obvious you haven’t informed the Icelandic authorities. If you had, the police would be here.’

‘You’re so right,’ I said. ‘I haven’t, and for good reasons. Firstly, it would cause an international brouhaha, which would be lamentable. Secondly, and more important, all the authorities could do would be to deport Slade. My friends are tougher-minded — they’ll kill him if necessary.’ I leaned over and jabbed Kennikin in the knee with a hard forefinger. ‘And then they’ll blow you off to the police, and you’ll be up to your neck in uniforms and diplomats.’ I straightened up. ‘I want to see the girl, and I want to see her now.’

‘You talk straight,’ he said. ‘But, then, you always did...’ His voice tailed away, and he whispered, ‘...until you betrayed me.’

‘I don’t see you have any options,’ I said. ‘And just to screw it tighter I’ll tell you something else. There’s a time limit. If my friends don’t get the word from Elin’s own lips within three hours then Slade gets what’s coming to him.’

I could see Kennikin visibly debating it with himself. He had to make a choice and a damned thin one it was. He said, ‘Your Icelandic friends — do they know who Slade is?’

‘You mean that he’s in Russian Intelligence?’ I said. ‘Or in British Intelligence, for that matter?’ I shook my head. ‘All they know is that he’s a hostage for Elin. I didn’t tell them anything else about him. They think you’re a crowd of gangsters and, by God, they’re not far wrong!’

That clinched it. He thought he had me isolated, that only Elin and I knew the truth that Slade was a double agent. Given that premise which, God knows, was true enough since my Icelandic friends were pure invention, then he could do a deal. He was faced with the choice of sacrificing Slade, who had been laboriously built up over many years into a superlative Trojan Horse, for a no-account Icelandic girl. The choice was obvious. He would be no worse off than before he had taken her, and his weasel mind would already be working out ways of double-crossing me.

He sighed. ‘At least you can see the girl.’ He signalled to the man standing behind him who left the room.

I said, ‘You’ve really queered this one, Vaslav. I don’t think Bakayev is going to be too cheerful about it. It’ll be Siberia for sure this time, if not worse — and all because of Slade. It’s funny, isn’t it? You spent four years in Ashkhabad because of Slade, and now what do you have to look forward to?’

There was a look almost of pain in his eyes. ‘Is it true — what you said about Slade and Sweden?’

‘Yes, Vaslav,’ I said. ‘It was Slade who cut the ground from under you there.’

He shook his head irritably. ‘There’s one thing I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘You say you are willing to trade Slade for the girl. Why should a member of your Department do that?’

‘I swear to God you don’t listen to me. I’m not a member of the Department — I quit four years ago.’

He pondered. ‘Even so — where are your loyalties?’

‘My loyalties are my business,’ I said curtly.

‘The world well lost for a woman?’ he asked mockingly. ‘I’ve been cured of that way of thinking — and you were the doctor.’

‘Now, you’re not still harping on that,’ I said. ‘If you hadn’t jumped when you should have fallen flat you’d have been killed decently.’

The door opened and Elin came in under escort. I was about to get up but subsided again as Kennikin lifted his pistol warningly. ‘Hello, Elin; you’ll forgive me if I don’t get up.’

Her face was pale and when she saw me it acquired a bleak look. ‘You, too!’

‘I’m here by choice,’ I said. ‘Are you all right? They didn’t hurt you?’

‘Not more than was necessary,’ she said. ‘Just some arm twisting.’ She put her hand to her wounded shoulder.

I smiled at her. ‘I’ve come to collect you. We’ll be leaving soon.’

‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ said Kennikin. ‘How do you expect to do it?’

‘In the normal way — through the front door,’ I said.

‘Just like that!’ Kennikin smiled. ‘And what about Slade?’

‘He’ll be returned unharmed.’

‘My dear Alan! Not long ago you accused me of being unrealistic. You’ll have to work out a better exchange mechanism than that.’

I grinned at him. ‘I didn’t think you’d fall for it but, as you said, one has to try. I daresay we can work out something equitable.’

‘Such as?’

I rubbed my chin. ‘Such as sending Elin away. She’ll contact our friends and then you exchange Slade for me. The arrangements can be made by telephone.’

‘That sounds logical,’ said Kennikin. ‘But I’m not sure it’s reasonable. Two for one, Alan?’

‘It’s a pity you can’t ask Slade if it’s reasonable or not.’

‘You make a point.’ Kennikin moved restlessly. He was trying to find the flaws in it. ‘We get Slade back unharmed?’

I smiled apologetically. ‘Er... well — not entirely. He’s been leaking blood through a hole, but it’s minor and not fatal. And he might have a headache — but why should you care about that?’

‘Why, indeed?’ Kennikin stood up. ‘I think I can go along with you on this, but I’d like to think about it a little more.’

‘Not for too long,’ I said warningly. ‘Remember the time limit.’

Elin said, ‘Have you really captured Slade?’

I stared at her, trying to pass an unspoken message and hoping to God she didn’t let me down. ‘Yes. Our friends are taking care of him — Valtyýr is in charge.’

‘Valtyýr!’ She nodded. ‘He’s big enough to handle anyone.’

I switched my eyes back to Kennikin and tried not to show too much relief at the way Elin had played that one. ‘Buck it up, Vaslav,’ I said. ‘Time’s a-wasting.’

He came to the decision quickly. ‘Very well, it shall be as you say.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I also shall lay down a time limit. If there is no telephone call within two hours then you will die regardless of what may happen to Slade.’ He swung on his heel and faced Elin. ‘Remember that, Elin Ragnarsdottir.’

‘There’s just one thing,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to talk to Elin before she leaves to tell her where to find Valtyýr. She doesn’t know, you see.’

‘Then you’ll do it in my hearing.’

I gave him a pained look. ‘Don’t be an idiot. You’d know as much as I do, and that might be unwise. You’d know where Slade is and you might be tempted to get him out. And where would that leave me?’ I stood cautiously. ‘I talk to Elin privately or not at all. It’s another stalemate, Vaslav, but I’m sure you understand that I have to look out for my own skin.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you do,’ he said contemptuously. He gestured with the gun. ‘You may talk in the corner, but I remain in the room.’

‘Fair enough.’ I jerked my head at Elin and we walked over to the corner. I stood with my back to Kennikin because, for all I knew, lip-reading in six languages might have been one of his minor talents.

Elin whispered, ‘Have you really got Slade?’

‘Yes, but Valtyýr doesn’t know about it, nor anyone else. I’ve sold Kennikin a credible story but not the true one. But I have got Slade.’

She put her hand to my chest. ‘They took me so quickly,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t do anything. I was afraid, Alan.’

‘That doesn’t matter now,’ I said. ‘You’re going to walk out of here, and this is how you do it. You...’

‘But you are staying.’ There was pain in her eyes.

‘I won’t be staying long if you do as I say. Listen carefully. You’ll leave here, walk up to the road and turn left. About half a mile along you’ll come to a big dream-boat of an American car. Whatever you do, don’t open the boot. Just climb into it and go like a bat out of hell to Keflavik. Got that?’

She nodded. ‘What do I do there?’

‘See Lee Nordlinger. Raise a storm and demand to see a CIA agent. Lee and everyone else will deny having such an article on the premises, but if you persist long enough they’ll dig one up. You can tell Lee it’s about the gadget he tested; that might help. Tell the CIA man the whole story and then tell him to open the boot of the car.’ I grinned wryly. ‘But don’t call it the boot or he won’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Call it the trunk.’

‘So what is in there?’

‘Slade,’ I said.

She stared at me. ‘He’s here! Just outside this house!’

‘It was all I could do at short notice,’ I said. ‘I had to act quickly.’

‘But what about you?’

‘Get the CIA man to make the telephone call. You’ll have just on two hours from the time you leave here, so you’ll have to be bloody persuasive. If you can’t do it in time or if the CIA man won’t be persuaded, then make the call yourself and spin Kennikin some kind of yarn. Set up a meeting to exchange me for Slade. It might be phoney but it will buy me time.’

‘What if the Americans won’t believe me?’

‘Tell them you know about Fleet and McCarthy. Tell them you’ll give it to the Icelandic newspapers. That should produce some kind of reaction. Oh, yes; and tell them that all your friends know exactly where you are — just as insurance.’ I was trying to cover all the possibilities.

She closed her eyes briefly as she memorized her instructions. When she opened them, she asked, ‘Is Slade alive?’

‘Of course he is. I told Kennikin the truth about that. He’s damaged but alive.’

She said, ‘I was thinking the CIA might believe Slade rather than me. He might even know the CIA people at Keflavik.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘But we have to take that risk. That’s why you must tell the whole story before producing Slade. Get your oar in first. If you pitch it really hot they won’t just let him walk out.’

She didn’t seem too happy about that, and neither was I, but it was the best we could do. I said, ‘Make it fast, but not so fast that you have an accident in that car.’ I put my hand under her chin and tipped her head up. ‘Everything will be all right. You’ll see.’

She blinked rapidly. ‘There’s something you must know. That gun you gave me — I’ve still got it.’

It was my turn to blink. ‘What!’

‘They didn’t search me. I have it on me — in the holster under this anorak.’

I looked at her. Her anorak was admittedly very loose and no sign of the gun was visible. Someone had slipped. It was unlikely that an Icelandic girl would be armed, but even so it was bad workmanship. No wonder Kennikin went off pop periodically about the quality of his team. Elin said, ‘Can I pass it to you safely?’

‘Not a chance,’ I said regretfully, aware of Kennikin at my back. He would be watching like a hawk, and a Smith & Wesson .38 pistol isn’t something you can palm in your hand like a playing-card. ‘You’d better keep it. Who knows, you might need it.’

I put my hand on her good shoulder and drew her towards me. Her lips were cold and hard under mine, and she trembled slightly. I drew back my head, and said, ‘You’d better go,’ and turned to face Kennikin.

‘Very touching,’ he said.

‘There’s one thing,’ I said. ‘Your time limit is too short. Two hours isn’t enough.’

‘It will have to do,’ he said uncompromisingly.

‘Be reasonable, Vaslav. She has to drive through Reykjavik. The day is getting on and by the time she reaches town it will be just after five o’clock — right in the middle of the rush hour when people are going home. You wouldn’t want to lose Slade because of a traffic jam, would you?’

‘You’re not thinking of Slade,’ he said. ‘You’re thinking of yourself. You’re thinking of the bullet in your head.’

‘Maybe I am, but you’d better think of Slade because if I’m dead then so is he.’

He nodded shortly. ‘Three hours,’ he said. ‘Not a minute more.’

Kennikin was a logical man and susceptible to a reasoned argument. I had won Elin another hour in which to convince the top brass at Keflavik. ‘She goes alone,’ I said. ‘No one follows her.’

‘That is understood.’

‘Then give her the telephone number she is to call. It would be a pity if she walked out without it.’

Kennikin took out a notebook and scribbled down a number, then ripped out the sheet and gave it to her. ‘No tricks,’ he said. ‘Especially no police. If there is an undue number of strangers around here, then he dies. You’d better know that I mean it.’

In a colourless voice she said, ‘I understand. There will be no tricks.’

She looked at me and there was something in her eyes that made my heart turn over, and then Kennikin took her by the elbow and led her to the door. A minute later I saw her through the window, walking away from the house up towards the road.

Kennikin returned. ‘We’ll put you somewhere safe,’ he said, and jerked his head at the man who held a gun on me. I was led upstairs and into an empty room. Kennikin surveyed the bare walls and shook his head sadly. ‘They did these things so much better in medieval times,’ he said.

I was in no mood for light conversation but I played along with him. I had the idea that, perhaps, he wouldn’t mind at all if Slade didn’t show up. Then he would be able to get down to the delightful business of killing me — slowly. And I had put the idea into his mind; I had tried to antagonize him towards Slade. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea.

I said, ‘What do you mean?’

‘In those days they built with stone.’ He strode to the window and thumped on the exterior wall. It responded with a wooden hollowness. ‘This place is built like an eggshell.’

That was true enough. The chalets around Thingvallavatn are holiday cottages, not designed for permanent occupancy. A timber frame, skinned on each side with thin planking and with a filling of foamed polystyrene for insulation, finished off with a skim of plaster maybe half an inch thick on the interior to make the place look nice. The nearest thing to a permanent tent.

Kennikin went to the opposite wall and rapped on it with his knuckles. It echoed even more hollowly. ‘You could get through this partition wall in fifteen minutes, using nothing more than your hands. Therefore this man will stay in here with you.’

‘You needn’t worry,’ I said sourly. ‘I’m not Superman.’

‘You don’t need to be Superman to tangle the feet of the incompetents I’ve been given for this operation,’ said Kennikin, equally sourly. ‘You’ve proved that already. But I think the orders I give now will penetrate the thickest head.’ He turned to the man with the gun. ‘Stewartsen will sit in that corner. You will stand in front of the door. Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘If he moves, shoot him. Understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘If he speaks, shoot him. Understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘If he does anything else at all, shoot him. Understand?’

‘Yes,’ said the man with the gun stolidly.

Kennikin’s orders weren’t leaving much room for manoeuvre. He said musingly, ‘Now, have I forgotten anything? Oh, yes! You said that Slade had a hole in him — right?’

‘Not much of one,’ I said. ‘Just in the hand.’

He nodded, and said to the guard, ‘When you shoot him, don’t kill him. Shoot him in the stomach.’ He turned on his heel and left the room. The door slammed behind him.

II

I looked at the guard and the guard looked right back at me. His gun was trained on my belly and didn’t deviate a hair’s-breadth. With his other hand he gestured wordlessly towards the corner, so I backed into it until my shoulder-blades touched and then bent my knees until I was squatting on my heels.

He looked at me expressionlessly. ‘Sit!’ he said economically.

I sat. He wasn’t going to be bluffed. He stood in front of the door about fifteen feet away and he was impregnable. He had the look of a man who would obey orders to the letter; if I rushed him I’d catch a bullet and I couldn’t even con him into doing anything stupid. It was going to be a long three hours.

Kennikin had been right. Left alone in the room and I’d have gone through the partition wall, and it wouldn’t have taken me any fifteen minutes either. True, once through the wall I would still be in the house, but I’d be in an unexpected place, and surprise, as all generals know, wins battles. Now that Elin was gone I was prepared to do anything to get away, and Kennikin knew it.

I looked at the window. All I could see was a small patch of blue sky and a fleecy cloud drifting by. The time oozed on, maybe half an hour, and I heard the crunch of tyres as a car drew up outside. I didn’t know how many men had been in the house when I arrived, although I knew of three, but now there were more and the odds had lengthened.

I turned my wrist slowly and drew back the cuff of my jacket to look at my watch, hoping to God that the guard would not interpret that as an unnatural action. I kept my eye on him and he looked back at me blankly, so I lowered my gaze to see what time it was. It had not been half an hour — only fifteen minutes had passed. It was going to be a longer three hours than I had thought.

Five minutes after that there was a tap at the door and I heard the raised voice of Kennikin. ‘I’m coming in.’

The guard stepped to one side as the door opened. Kennikin came in and said, ‘I see you’ve been a good boy.’ There was something in the way he said it that made me uneasy. He was too damned cheerful.

‘I’d like to go over what you told me again,’ he said. ‘According to you, Slade is being kept with friends of yours — Icelandic friends — I think you said. These friends will kill him unless they get you in exchange. I think that was the argument. Am I right?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

He smiled. ‘Your girl-friend is waiting downstairs. Shall we join her?’ He waved largely. ‘You can get up — you will not be shot.’

I stood up stiffly, and wondered what the hell had gone wrong. I was escorted downstairs and found Elin standing in front of the empty fireplace flanked by Ilyich. Her face was pale as she whispered, ‘I’m sorry, Alan.’

‘You must think I’m stupid,’ said Kennikin. ‘You don’t suppose I thought you had walked here? You tramped up to the front door and immediately I wondered where you had left your car. You had to have a car because this is no country for walking, so I sent a man to look for it even before you rang the bell.’

‘You always were logical,’ I said.

He was enjoying himself. ‘And what do you suppose my man found? A large American car complete with key. He had not been there long when this young lady came up in a very great hurry, so he brought her — and the car — back here. You see, he was unaware of the agreement we had reached. We can’t blame him for that, can we?’

‘Of course not,’ I said flatly. But had he opened the boot? ‘I don’t see that this makes any difference.’

‘No, you wouldn’t. But my man had standing orders. He knew we were looking for a small package containing electronic equipment, and so he searched the car. He didn’t find the package.’

Kennikin stopped and looked at me expectantly. He was really relishing this. I said, ‘Do you mind if I sit down? And for God’s sake, give me a cigarette — I’ve run out.’

‘My dear Alan — but of course,’ he said solicitously. ‘Take your usual chair.’ He produced his cigarette case and carefully lit my cigarette. ‘Mr Slade is very angry with you. He doesn’t like you at all.’

‘Where is he?’

‘In the kitchen having his hand bound up. You’re a very good diagnostician, Alan; he does have a headache.’

My stomach felt as though it had a ball of lead in it. I drew on the cigarette, and said, ‘All right; where do we go from here?’

‘We carry on from where we left off the night we came here from Geysir. Nothing has changed.’

He was wrong — Elin was here. I said, ‘So now you shoot me.’

‘Perhaps. Slade wants to talk to you first.’ He looked up. ‘Ah, here he is.’

Slade looked bad. His face was grey and he staggered slightly as he walked in. When he came closer I saw that his eyes had a curiously unfocused appearance and I guessed he was still suffering from concussion. Someone had bound up his hand neatly with clean gauze bandages, but his clothes were rumpled and stained and his hair stood on end. As he was a man who usually cared very much for outward appearances, I guessed he was probably very disturbed.

I was right, and I found out how much he was disturbed pretty damned quick.

He walked up and looked down at me, and gestured with his left hand. ‘Pick him up and take him over there — to the wall.’

I was grabbed before I could move. Someone put a hammer lock on me from behind and I was dragged from the chair and hustled across the room. As I was slammed against the wall, Slade said, ‘Where’s my gun?’

Kennikin shrugged. ‘How should I know?’

‘You must have taken it from Stewart.’

‘Oh, that one.’ Kennikin pulled it from his pocket. ‘Is this it?’

Slade took the pistol and walked over to me. ‘Hold his right hand against the wall,’ he said, and held up his bandaged hand before my eyes. ‘You did that, Stewart, so you know what’s going to happen now.’

A hard hand pinned my wrist to the wall and Slade raised his gun. I had just sense enough and time enough to stop making a fist and to spread my fingers so he wouldn’t shoot through them before he pulled the trigger and I took the bullet in the palm of my hand. Curiously enough, after the first stabbing shock it didn’t hurt. All I felt was a dead numbness from shoulder to finger-tip. It would hurt soon enough as the shock wore off, but it didn’t hurt then.

My head swam and I heard Elin scream, but the cry seemed to come from a long way away. When I opened my eyes I saw Slade looking at me unsmilingly. He said curtly, ‘Take him back to his chair.’ It had been a purely vindictive act of revenge and now it was over and he was back to business as usual.

I was dumped back into the chair and I raised my head to see Elin leaning against the chimney piece with tears streaming down her face. Then Slade moved between us and I lost sight of her.

‘You know too much, Stewart,’ he said. ‘So you must die — you know that.’

‘I know you’ll do your best,’ I said dully. I now knew why Slade had cracked in the hotel room because the same thing was happening to me. I found I couldn’t string two consecutive thoughts together to make sense and I had a blinding headache. The penetration of a bullet into flesh has that effect.

Slade said, ‘Who knows about me — apart from the girl?’

‘No one,’ I said. ‘What about the girl?’

He shrugged. ‘You’ll be buried in the same grave.’ He turned to Kennikin. ‘He might be telling the truth. He’s been on the run and he hasn’t had a chance to let anyone know.’

‘He might have written a letter,’ said Kennikin doubtfully.

‘That’s a risk I’ll have to take. I don’t think Taggart has any suspicions. He might be annoyed because I’ve dropped out of sight but that will be all. I’ll be a good boy and take the next plane back to London.’ He lifted his wounded hand and grinned tightly at Kennikin. ‘And I’ll blame this on you. I’ve been wounded trying to save this fool.’ He reached out and kicked my leg.

‘What about the electronic equipment?’

‘What about it?’

Kennikin took out his cigarette case and selected a cigarette. ‘It seems a pity not to complete the operation as planned. Stewartsen knows where it is, and I can get the information from him.’

‘So you could,’ said Slade thoughtfully. He looked down at me. ‘Where is it, Stewart?’

‘It’s where you won’t find it.’

‘That car wasn’t searched,’ said Kennikin. ‘When you were found in the boot everything else was forgotten.’ He snapped out orders and his two men left the room. ‘If it’s in the car they’ll find it.’

‘I don’t think it’s in the car,’ said Slade.

‘I didn’t think you were in the car,’ said Kennikin waspishly. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find it there.’

‘You may be right,’ said Slade. His voice indicated that he didn’t think so. He bent over me. ‘You’re going to die, Stewart — you may depend upon it. But there are many ways of dying. Tell us where the package is and you’ll die cleanly and quickly. If not, I’ll let Kennikin work on you.’

I kept my mouth firmly shut because I knew that if I opened it he would see the tremulous lower lip that is a sign of fear.

He stood aside. ‘Very well. You can have him, Kennikin.’ A vindictive note entered his voice. ‘The best way to do it is to shoot him to pieces slowly. He threatened to do it to me.’

Kennikin stepped in front of me, gun in hand. ‘Well, Alan; we come to the end of the road, you and I. Where is the radar equipment?’

Even then when facing his gun I noted that new piece of information. Radar equipment. I screwed up my face and managed a smile. ‘Got another cigarette. Vaslav?’

No answering smile crossed his face. His eyes were bleak and his mouth was set in grim lines. He had the face of an executioner. ‘There is no time for tradition — we are done with that foolery.’

I looked past him. Elin was still standing there, forgotten, and there was an expression of desperation on her face. But her hand was inside her anorak and coming out slowly, grasping something. The jolting realization came that she still had the gun!

That was enough to bring me to my senses fast. When all hope is gone and there is nothing more to look forward to than death one sinks into a morass of fatalism as I had done. But given the faintest hint that all is not lost and then a man can act — and my action now was to talk and talk fast.

I turned my head and spoke to Slade. I had to attract his attention to me so he would not even think of looking at Elin. ‘Can’t you stop him?’ I pleaded.

‘You can stop him. All you have to do is to tell him what we want to know.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ I said. ‘I’ll still die, anyway.’

‘But easier,’ said Slade. ‘Quickly and without pain.’

I looked back to Kennikin and, over his shoulder, saw that Elin had now withdrawn the pistol and it was in plain sight. She was fiddling with it and I hoped to God she remembered the sequence of actions she would have to go through before it would fire.

‘Vaslav,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t do this to an old mate. Not you.’

His pistol centred on my belly and then dropped lower. ‘You don’t have to guess to know where I’m going to put the first bullet,’ he said. His voice was deadly quiet. ‘I’m just following Slade’s orders — and my own inclination.’

‘Tell us,’ urged Slade, leaning forward.

I heard the snap of metal as Elin pulled back the slide of the pistol. So did Kennikin and he began to turn. Elin held the pistol in both hands and at arm’s length and as Kennikin began his turn she fired and kept on firing.

I distinctly heard the impact of the first bullet in Kennikin’s back. His hand tightened convulsively around his gun and it exploded in my face, the bullet burying itself in the arm of the chair next to my elbow. By then I was moving. I dived for Slade head first and rammed him in the paunch. My skull was harder than his belly and the breath came out of him in a great whoosh and he folded up and lay gasping on the floor.

I rolled over, aware that Elin was still shooting and that bullets were still whanging across the room. ‘Stop!’ I yelled.

I scooped up Slade’s popgun and came up under Elin’s elbow, grabbing her by the wrist. ‘For Christ’s sake, stop!’

I think she had shot off the whole magazine. The opposite wall was pock-marked and Kennikin lay in front of the chair in which I had been sitting. He lay face upwards gazing sightlessly at the ceiling. Elin had hit him twice more which was hardly surprising, considering she had been shooting at a range of less than six feet. Come to think of it, I was fortunate she hadn’t put a bullet into me. There was a ragged red spot dead centre in Kennikin’s forehead to prove he’d had the vitality to turn around and try to shoot back. Another bullet had caught him in the angle of the jaw and had blown off the bottom half of his face.

He was very dead.

I didn’t stop to ruminate about how in the midst of life we are in death. I dragged Elin behind me and headed for the door. The boys outside might be prepared for the odd shot, especially after Slade’s little demonstration, but the barrage Elin had laid down would be a matter for urgent investigation and that had to be discouraged.

At the door I let go of Elin’s wrist with my left hand and swapped it for the gun I held in my wounded right hand. With a hole through the palm I couldn’t possibly use a gun in that hand, even one with as little recoil as Slade’s gimmicked weapon. I’m a lousy pistol shot at the best of times and even worse when shooting left-handed; but one of the nice things about gun battles is that the man you’re shooting at doesn’t ask you for a proficiency certificate before he decides to duck.

I glanced at Elin. She was obviously in a state of shock. No one can shoot a man to death without undergoing an emotional upheaval — especially for the first time, especially when a civilian, especially when a woman. I put a snap in my voice. ‘You’ll do exactly as I say without question. You’ll follow me and you’ll run like hell without any hesitation.’

She choked back a rasping sob and nodded breathlessly, so I went out of the front door, and I went out shooting. Even as we went someone took a crack at us from the inside of the house and a bullet clipped the architrave by my ear. But I had no time to worry about that because the pair who had been sent to search the Chevrolet were heading right at me.

I shot at them and kept on squeezing the trigger and they vanished from view, diving right and left, and we belted between them. There was a tinkle of glass as somebody decided it was quicker to smash a window than to open it, and then the bullets came after us. I dropped Slade’s gun and again grasped Elin by the wrist and forced her to follow me in a zigzag. Behind I could hear the heavy thud of boots as someone chased us.

Then Elin was hit. The bullet pushed her forward into a stumble but, as her knees gave in, I managed to put my arm around her to hold her up. We were then ten yards from the edge of the lava flow where I had hidden the rifle, and how we managed to travel that short distance I still don’t know. Elin could still use her legs and that helped, and we scrambled up towards the top of the flow, over the mossy humps, until I stooped and laid my hands on the butt of Fleet’s rifle.

I was jacking a round into the breech even before I got it clear of the moss. Elin fell to the ground as I swung around holding the rifle in my left hand. Even with a hole in the palm of my right hand I could still pull the trigger, and I did so to some effect.

The magazine contained the mixed load I had carefully put into it — steel-jacketed and soft-nosed bullets. The first one that came out was jacketed; it hit the leading pursuer in the chest and went through him as though he wasn’t there. He came on for four more paces before his heart realized it had a hole in it and it was time to quit beating, then he dropped on the spot, nearly at my feet, with a surprised look on his face.

By that time I had shot the man just behind him, and that was spectacular. A man hit by a big, soft-nosed bullet driven by a magnum charge at a range of twenty yards isn’t as much killed as disintegrated, and this character came apart at the seams. The bullet hit him in the sternum and then started to expand, lifted him clear off the ground and throwing him back four feet before lifting his spine out and splattering it over the landscape.

Everything was suddenly quiet. The deep-throated bellow of Fleet’s gun had told everyone concerned that something new had been added to the game and they held their fire while they figured what was going on. I saw Slade by the door of the house, his hand clutched to his belly. I lifted the rifle again and took a shot at him, too quickly and with shaking hands. I missed him but gave him a hell of a fright because he ducked back in haste and there was no one to be seen.

Then a bullet nearly parted my hair and from the sound of the report I knew someone in the house also had a rifle. I got down off the skyline and reached for Elin. She was lying on the moss, her face screwed up with pain and trying to control her laboured breathing. Her hand was at her side and, when she withdrew it, it was red with blood.

I said. ‘Does it hurt much?’

‘When I breathe,’ she said with a gasp. ‘Only then.’

That was a bad sign, yet from the apparent position of the wound she had not been hit in the lung. There wasn’t anything I could do there and then. For the next few minutes I’d be busy making sure we stayed alive for the next few minutes. There’s not much point in worrying about dying of septicaemia in the next week when you might have your head blown off in the next thirty seconds.

I scrabbled for the box of ammunition, took the magazine from the rifle and reloaded it. The numbness had left my hand and it was now beginning to really hurt. Even the experimental flexing of my trigger finger sent a shock up my arm as though I’d grabbed a live wire, and I didn’t know if I could do much more shooting. But it’s surprising what you can do when you’re pushed to it.

I poked my head carefully around a slab of lava and took a look at the house. Nobody and nothing moved. Just to my front lay the bodies of the men I had shot, one lying as though peacefully asleep and the other dreadfully shattered. In front of the house were the two cars; Kennikin’s car appearing to be quite normal, but Nordlinger’s Chevrolet was a bit of a wreck — they had ripped the seats out in the search for the package and the two nearer doors gaped open. I’d be running up quite a bill for damage to people’s cars.

Those cars were less than a hundred yards away and, dearly as I wanted one of them, I knew it was hopeless to try. I also knew we couldn’t leave on foot. Apart from the fact that walking on the lava beds is a sport which even the Icelanders aren’t keen on, there was Elin to consider. I couldn’t leave her, and if we made a break for it we’d be picked up within fifteen minutes.

Which left only one thing — since neither the Mounties nor the US Cavalry were going to show up on the horizon in the time-honoured manner, I had to fight a pitched battle against an unknown number of men securely ensconced in that house — and win.

I studied the house. Kennikin hadn’t thought much of it as a prison. ‘Built like an eggshell,’ he had said. A couple of planks thick, a half-inch of plaster and a few inches of foamed polystyrene. Most people would regard a house as bullet-proof, but I laugh every time I see a Western film when the hero takes refuge in a clapboard hut and the baddies carefully shoot at the windows.

Even a 9 mm bullet from a Luger will penetrate nine inches of pine board from very close range, and that’s a peewee bullet compared to the.44 fired by the Western Colt. A few well placed shots would whittle away the shack from around our hero.

I looked at the house and wondered how those flimsy walls would stand up against the awesome power of Fleet’s rifle. The soft-nosed bullets mightn’t do much — they would tend to splash on impact; but the jacketed bullets should have a hell of a lot of penetrative power. It was time to find out, but first I had to locate that rifleman.

I withdrew my head and looked at Elin. She seemed better now that she had her breathing under control. ‘How are you feeling now?’

‘My God!’ she said. ‘How do you think I feel?’

I grinned at her with some relief. That spurt of temper showed she had improved. ‘Everything will get better from now on.’

‘They can hardly get worse.’

‘Thanks for what you did in there,’ I said. ‘It was very brave.’ Considering the attitude she had previously shown towards killing it was much more than that.

She shivered. ‘It was horrible!’ she said in a low voice. ‘I shall see it as long as I live.’

‘You won’t,’ I said with certainty. ‘The mind has a knack of forgetting things like that. That’s why wars are so long and frequent. But just so you don’t have to do it again, you can do something for me.’

‘If I can.’

I pointed to a lump of lava above her head. ‘Can you push that over the edge when I tell you to? But don’t expose yourself or you’ll get a bullet.’

She looked up at the lava fragment. ‘I’ll try.’

‘Don’t do it until I say.’ I pushed the rifle ahead of me and looked at the house. Still nothing moved and I wondered what Slade was up to. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Shove it over.’

There was a clatter as the rock moved and rolled down the slope of the lava flow. A rifle spoke and a bullet sang overhead and then another, better aimed, struck rock splinters a little to the left. Whoever was shooting knew his work, but I had him spotted. He was in an upstairs room and, by the shadowy movement I had seen, he was kneeling at the window with his head barely showing.

I took aim, not at the window but at the wall below it and a little to the left. I squeezed the trigger and, through the scope, saw the wood of the wall planking splinter under the impact. There was a faint cry and a shift of light at the window, and then I saw the man in full sight standing with his hands to his chest. He staggered backwards and vanished.

I had been right — Fleet’s rifle would shoot through walls.

I shifted sights to the downstairs rooms and methodically put a bullet into the wall alongside every window on the ground floor, just where it would be natural for a man to wait in cover. Every time I squeezed the trigger the torn sinews in my hand shrieked in protest and I relieved my feelings by bellowing at the top of my voice.

I felt Elin tug at my trouser leg. ‘What’s the matter?’ she said worriedly.

‘Don’t hinder the man on the job,’ I said, and dropped back. I took out the empty magazine. ‘Fill that up — it’s difficult for me.’ These periods with an empty gun worried me and I wished Fleet had had a spare clip. To be jumped on by somebody now would be slightly disastrous.

I saw that Elin was coping with reloading the clip with the right bullets and took a look at the house again. Someone was wailing over there and there were confused shouts. I had no doubt that the house was now filled with a considerable amount of consternation; the idea that a bullet can rip through a wall and hit the man behind it is highly unsettling for the man behind the wall.

‘Here,’ said Elin, and passed me the full clip of five rounds. I slotted it into the gun and poked it forward again just in time to see a man break from the front door and take cover behind the Chevrolet. I could see his feet through the telescopic sight. The door nearer to me was swung wide open and, with a mental apology to Lee Nordlinger, I put a bullet through the car and through the metal of the opposite door. The feet moved and the man came into view and I saw it was Ilyich. His hand was at his neck and blood spurted from between his fingers. He tottered a few more steps then dropped, rolled over and lay still.

It was becoming very difficult for me to work the bolt action with my ruined hand. I said to Elin, ‘Can you crawl over here beside me?’ She came up on my right side, and I said, ‘Lift up that lever, pull it back, and ram it forward again. But keep your head down while you’re doing it.’

She operated the bolt while I held the rifle firm with my left hand, and she cried out as the empty brass case jumped out into her face unexpectedly. In this dot-and-carry-one manner I put another three rounds into selected points of the house where I thought they would do most damage. When Elin put the last round into the breech I took out the magazine and told her to fill it again.

I felt happier with that one round in the breech as an insurance against emergency, and I settled down to observe the house and to compile an interim report. I had killed three men for certain, wounded another — the rifleman upstairs — and possibly yet another, judging from the moaning still coming from the house. That was five — six if Kennikin was included. I doubted if there were many more, but that didn’t mean that more weren’t on their way — someone could have used a telephone.

I wondered if it was Slade who was doing the wailing. I knew his voice but it was difficult to tell from that inarticulate and unstructured sound. I glanced down at Elin. ‘Hurry up!’ I said.

She was fiddling desperately. ‘One of them is stuck.’

‘Do your best.’ Again I peered around the rock in front of me and my eye was caught by a movement beyond the house. Someone was doing what they all ought to have done at the start of this action — getting away from the back of the house. It was only because of the sheer unexpectedness of the gun power I wielded that they hadn’t done it before — and it was dangerous because I could be outflanked.

I racked up the telescopic sight to a greater magnification and looked at the distant figure. It was Slade and he was apparently unhurt except for his bandaged hand. He was leaping like a bloody chamois from hummock to hummock at a breakneck speed, his coat tails flying in the breeze and his arms outstretched to preserve his balance. By the convenient range-finder system built into the sight I estimated that he was a little under three hundred yards away and moving farther every second.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly to steady myself and then took aim carefully. I was in considerable pain and had difficulty in controlling the wavering sight. Three times I almost squeezed off the shot and three times I relaxed the pressure on the trigger because the sight had drifted off target.

My father bought me my first rifle when I was twelve and, wisely, he chose a .22 single-shot. When a boy hunts rabbits and hares and knows that he has only one shot at his disposal then he also knows that the first and only shot must count, and no finer training in good shooting habits is possible. Now, again, I had only one shot available and I was back to my boyhood again, but it was no rabbit I was shooting — more like a tiger.

It was difficult to concentrate and I felt dizzy and a wash of greyness passed momentarily in front of my eyes. I blinked and it cleared away and Slade stood out preternaturally clearly in the glass. He had begun to move away at an angle and I led him in the sight and let him run into the aiming point. There was a roaring of blood in my ears and the dizziness came again.

My finger painfully took up the final pressure and the butt of the rifle jolted my shoulder and Slade’s nemesis streaked towards him at 2,000 miles an hour. The distant figure jerked like a marionette with suddenly cut strings, toppled over, and disappeared from sight.

I rolled over as the roaring in my ears increased. The dizziness built up again and the recurring waves of greyness turned to black. I saw the sun glowing redly through the darkness and then I passed out, the last thing I heard being Elin’s voice crying my name.

III

‘It was a deception operation,’ said Taggart.

I was lying in a hospital bed in Keflavik and there was a guard on the door, not so much to keep me imprisoned as to shield me from prying eyes. I was a potential cause célābre, a casus belli and all those other foreign phrases which the leader writers of The Times trot out so readily in moments of crisis, and all attempts were being made to keep the situation potential and to prevent it from becoming actual. All parties concerned wanted the whole thing hushed up, and if the Icelandic government knew what had been going on they were damned careful not to say so.

Taggart was with another man, an American, whom he introduced as Arthur Ryan. I recognized Ryan; the last time I had seen him was through the sights of Fleet’s rifle — he had been standing beside a helicopter on the other side of Búdarháls ridge.

It was the second time they had come to see me. The first time I was drowsy with dope and not very coherent, but still coherent enough to ask two questions.

‘How’s Elin?’

‘She’s all right,’ said Taggart soothingly. ‘In better shape than you are, as a matter of fact.’ He told me that the bullet had been a ricochet and had the force taken out of it; it had just penetrated the flesh and lodged between two ribs. ‘She’s as right as rain,’ said Taggart heartily.

I looked at him with dislike but I was too wobbly to push it then. I said, ‘How did I get here?’

Taggart glanced at Ryan who took a pipe from his pocket, looked at it uncertainly, and then put it away again. He said in a slow voice, ‘That’s quite a girl you have, Mr Stewart.’

‘What happened?’

‘Well, when you passed out she didn’t know what to do. She thought about it a bit, then she loaded the rifle and started to put even more holes into that house.’

I thought of Elin’s attitude towards killing. ‘Did she hit anyone?’

‘I guess not,’ said Ryan. ‘I think you did most of the damage. She shot off all the ammunition — and there was a hell of a lot of it — and then she waited a while to see what would happen. Nothing did, so she stood up and walked into the house. I think that was a very brave thing to do, Mr Stewart.’

I thought so too.

Ryan said, ‘She found the telephone and rang the Base, here, and contacted Commander Nordlinger. She was very forceful and got him really stirred up. He got even more stirred up when the phone went dead.’ He grimaced. ‘It’s not surprising she fainted — that place was like a slaughterhouse. Five dead and two badly wounded.’

‘Three wounded,’ said Taggart. ‘We found Slade afterwards.’

Soon after that they went away because I was in no shape for serious conversation, but twenty-four hours later they were back and Taggart was talking about deception.

‘When can I see Elin?’ I said abruptly.

This afternoon,’ said Taggart. ‘She’s quite all right, you know.’

I looked at him stonily. ‘She’d better be.’

He gave an embarrassed cough. ‘Don’t you want to know what it was all about?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I would. I’d certainly like to know why the Department did its damnedest to get me killed.’ I switched my eyes to Ryan. ‘Even to the extent of getting the cooperation of the CIA.’

‘As I say, it was a deception operation, a scheme cooked up by a couple of American scientists.’ Taggart rubbed his chin. ‘Have you ever considered The Times crossword puzzle?’

‘For God’s sake!’ I said. ‘No, I haven’t.’

Taggart smiled. ‘Let us assume it takes some maniacal genius eight hours to compile it; then it has to be set up in type, a block made, and printed in the paper. This involves quite a few people for a short time. Let us say that a total of forty man-hours is used up in this way — one working man-week.’

‘So?’

‘So consider the consumer end of the operation. Let’s assume that ten thousand readers of The Times apply their brain power to working out the damned thing — and that each one takes an hour. That’s ten thousand hours — five man-years. You see the implication? One man-week of labour has tied up five man-years of brain power in totally unproductive activity.’ He looked at Ryan. ‘I think you can take it from there.’

Ryan had a low, even voice. ‘There are a lot of discoveries made in the physical sciences which have no immediate application, or any conceivable application, for that matter. One example is silly putty. Have you ever seen the stuff?’

‘I’ve heard of it,’ I said, wondering what they were getting at. ‘I’ve never seen it.’

‘It’s funny stuff,’ said Ryan. ‘You can mould it like putty, but if you leave it alone it flows like water. Furthermore, if you hit it with a hammer it shatters like glass. You’d think that a substance with such diverse properties would be useful, but so far no one has thought of a single goddamn thing to do with it.’

‘I believe they’re now putting it into the middle of golf balls,’ offered Taggart.

‘Yeah, a real technological breakthrough,’ said Ryan ironically. ‘In electronics there are quite a few effects like that. The electret, for example, carries a permanent electric charge like a magnet carries a magnetic field. That idea has been around for forty years and only now has a use been found for it. When the scientists began to kick the quantum theory around they came up with any number of odd effects — the tunnel diode, the Josephson effects, and a lot more — some of them usable and some not. A fair number of these discoveries have been made in laboratories working on defence contracts and they’re not generally known.’

He shifted uneasily in his chair. ‘Mind if I smoke?’

‘Go ahead.’

Thankfully he took out his pipe and began to fill it. ‘One scientist, a guy called Davies, surveyed the field and came up with an idea. As a scientist he’s not very bright — certainly not of the first rank — but his idea was bright enough even if he merely intended it as a practical joke. He figured it was possible to put together an electronic package, utilizing a number of these mysterious but unusable effects, which would baffle a really big brain. In fact, he did put together such a package, and it took five top research men at Caltech six weeks to discover they’d been fooled.’

I began to get the drift. ‘The deception operation.’

Ryan nodded. ‘One of the men who was fooled was a Dr Atholl, and he saw possibilities in it. He wrote a letter to someone important and in due course the letter was passed on to us. One of the sentences in that letter is outstanding — Dr Atholl said this was a concrete example of the aphorism: “Any fool can ask a question which the wisest of men cannot answer.” Davies’s original package was relatively unsophisticated, but what we finally came up with was really complex — and it was designed to do precisely nothing.’

I thought of how Lee Nordlinger had been baffled and began to smile. ‘What are you laughing at?’ asked Taggart.

‘Nothing much. Carry on.’

Taggart said, ‘You see the principle, Stewart; it’s just like The Times crossword. The design of the package didn’t take much brain power — three scientists worked on it for a year. But if we could get it into the hands of the Russians it could tie up some of their finest minds for a hell of a long time. And the joke is that the problem was fundamentally unsolvable — there was no answer.’

‘But we had a problem,’ said Ryan. ‘How to get it into the hands of the Russians. We started by feeding them a line by a series of carefully controlled leaks. The word was that American scientists had invented a new form of radar with fascinating properties. It had over the horizon capability, it showed a detailed picture and not just a green blob on a screen, and it wasn’t affected by ground-level clutter and so could detect a low-level air attack. Any nation would sell its Premier’s daughter into white slavery for a gadget like that, and the Russians began to bite.’

He pointed out of the window. ‘You see that funny antenna out there — that’s supposed to be it. The radar is supposed to be having a field test here at Keflavik, and we’ve had jet fighters skimming the waves for five hundred miles around here for the last six weeks just to add to the plausibility. And that’s when we brought you British in.’

Taggart said, ‘We sold another story to the Russians. Our American friends were keeping this radar to themselves and we were annoyed about it, so annoyed that we decided to have a look at it ourselves. In fact, one of our agents was sent to pinch a bit of it — an important bit.’ He flicked a finger at me. ‘You, of course.’

I swallowed. ‘You mean I was intended to let the Russians have it!’

‘That’s right,’ said Taggart blandly. ‘And you were handpicked. Slade pointed out — and I agreed — that you were probably not a good agent any more, but you had the advantage, for our purposes, of being known to the Russians as a good agent. Everything was set up and then you fooled everybody — us and the Russians. In fact, you were a devil of a lot better than anyone supposed.’

I felt the outrage beginning to build up, and said deliberately, ‘You lousy, amoral son of a bitch! Why didn’t you let me in on it? It would have saved a hell of a lot of trouble.’

He shook his head. ‘It had to look authentic.’

‘By God!’ I said. ‘You sold me — just as Bakayev sold Kennikin in Sweden.’ I grinned tightly. ‘It must have complicated things when Slade turned out to be a Russian agent.’

Taggart glanced sideways at Ryan and appeared to be embarrassed. ‘Our American friends are a bit acid about that. It wrecked the operation.’ He sighed, and said plaintively, ‘Counter-espionage work is the very devil. If we don’t catch any spies then everybody is happy; but when we do our job and catch a spy then there’s a scream to high heaven that we haven’t been doing our job.’

‘You break my heart,’ I said. ‘You didn’t catch Slade.’

He changed the subject quickly. ‘Well, there Slade was — in charge of the operation.’

‘Yeah,’ said Ryan. ‘In charge on both sides. What a sweet position to be in. He must have thought he couldn’t lose.’ He leaned forward. ‘You see, once the Russians knew about the operation they decided they had no objection to grabbing the package if they thought it would fool us into believing they’d been fooled. A sort of double blind thing.’

I looked at Taggart with distaste. ‘What a bastard you are,’ I said. ‘You must have known that Kennikin would do his best to kill me.’

‘Oh, no!’ he said earnestly. ‘I didn’t know about Kennikin. I think Bakayev must have realized they were wasting a good man so they decided to rehabilitate him by sending him on this operation. Perhaps Slade had something to do with it too.’

‘He would!’ I said bitterly. ‘And because I was supposed to be a pushover they gave Kennikin a scratch team. He was complaining about that.’ I looked up. ‘And what about Jack Case?’ I demanded.

Taggart didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘He had my orders to steer you to the Russians — that’s why he didn’t help you at Geysir. But when he talked to Slade you had already filled him up with your suspicions. He must have tried to pump Slade, but Slade is a clever man and realized it. That was the end of Case. Slade was doing everything to make sure his cover wasn’t blown and in the end you were more important to him than that damned package.’

‘Write off Jack Case,’ I said sourly. ‘He was a good man. When did you catch on to Slade?’

‘I was slow there,’ said Taggart. ‘When you telephoned me I thought you’d done your nut, but after I sent Case here I found I couldn’t get hold of Slade. He’d made himself unobtainable. That’s against all procedure so I began to look into his record. When I found he’d been in Finland as a boy and that his parents were killed during the war I remembered that you’d mentioned Lonsdale and I wondered if the same trick hadn’t been played.’ He grimaced. ‘But when Case’s body was discovered with your pet knife in it, I didn’t know what the hell to think.’ He nudged Ryan. ‘The knife.’

‘What! Oh, yes — the knife.’ Ryan put his hand into his breast pocket and produced the sgian dubh. ‘We managed to get it from the police. I guess you’d like to have it back.’ He held it out. ‘It’s a real cute knife; I like that jewel in the hilt.’

I took it. A Polynesian would have said it had mana; my own distant ancestors would have named it and called it Weazand Slitter or Blood Drinker, but to me it was just my grandfather’s knife and his grandfather’s before him. I laid it gently on the bedside table.

I said to Ryan, ‘Your people shot at me. What was the idea of that?’

‘Hell!’ he said. ‘You’d gone crazy and the whole operation was in danger. We were floating about in a chopper above that goddamn wilderness and we saw you, and we saw the Russians chasing you, and we reckoned you had a good chance of getting clear away. So we dropped a guy to stop you in your tracks. And we couldn’t be too obvious about it because it had to look good to the Russians. We didn’t know then that the whole operation was a bust, anyway.’

Neither Taggart nor Ryan had a grain of morality, but I didn’t expect it. I said, ‘You’re lucky to be alive. The last time I saw you was through the sights of Fleet’s rifle.’

‘Jesus!’ he said. ‘I’m glad I didn’t know it at the time. Talking about Fleet; you busted him up but good — but he’ll survive.’ He rubbed his nose. ‘Fleet is sort of married to that rifle of his. He’d like to have it back.’

I shook my head. ‘I’ve got to get something out of this deal. If Fleet is man enough let him come and get it.’

Ryan scowled. ‘I’ll doubt if he will. We’ve all had a bellyful of you.’

There was just one more thing. I said, ‘So Slade is still alive.’

‘Yes,’ said Ryan. ‘You shot him through the pelvis. If he ever walks again he’ll need steel pins through his hips.’

‘The only walking Slade will do for the next forty years is in the exercise yard of a prison,’ said Taggart. He stood up. ‘All this comes under the Official Secrets Act, Stewart. Everything has to be hushed. Slade is in England already; he was flown across yesterday in an American aircraft. He’ll stand trial as soon as he comes out of hospital but the proceedings will be in camera. You’ll keep quiet, and so will that girl-friend of yours. The sooner you turn her into a British subject the better I’ll be pleased. I’d like to have some control over her.’

‘Christ Almighty!’ I said wearily. ‘You can’t even act as Cupid without an ulterior motive.’

Ryan joined Taggart at the door. He turned, and said, ‘I think Sir David owes you a lot, Mr Stewart; a lot more than thanks, anyway — which I notice he hasn’t proffered.’ He looked at Taggart from the corner of his eye, and I thought there was no love lost between them.

Taggart was impervious; he didn’t turn a hair. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said casually. ‘I dare say something can be arranged. A medal, perhaps — if you like such trinkets.’

I found that my voice was shaking. ‘All I want is your permanent absence,’ I said. ‘I’ll keep quiet for just as long as you stay away from us, but if you, or any of the boys from the Department, come within shouting distance, I’ll blow the gaff.’

‘You won’t be disturbed again,’ he said, and they went out. A moment later he popped his head around the door. ‘I’ll send in some grapes.’

IV

Elin and I were flown to Scotland by courtesy of the CIA and the US Navy in a plane laid on by Ryan, and we were married in Glasgow by a special licence provided by Taggart. Both of us were still in bandages.

I took Elin back to the glen under Sgurr Dearg. She liked the scenery, especially the trees — the marvellous un-Icelandic trees — but she didn’t think much of the cottage. It was small and it depressed her and I wasn’t at all surprised; what suits a bachelor is not good for a married man.

‘I’m not going to live in the big house,’ I said. ‘We’d rattle around in there and, anyway, I usually rent it to Americans who come for the shooting. We’ll let a gillie have the cottage and we’ll build our own house a little farther up the glen, by the river.’

So we did.

I still have Fleet’s rifle. I don’t keep it over the fireplace as a trophy but decently in the gun cabinet along with all the other working tools. I use it sometimes when the deer herd needs culling, but not often. It doesn’t give the deer much of a chance.