Running Blind

I

Nordlinger’s Chevrolet was too long, too wide and too soft-sprung and I wouldn’t have given a thank you for it in the Óbyggdir, but it was just what I needed to get into Reykjavik fast along the International Highway which is the only good bit of paved road in Iceland. I did the twenty-five miles to Hafnarfjördur at 80 mph and cursed when I was slowed down by the heavy traffic building up around Kopavogur. I had an appointment at midday in the souvenir shop of the Nordri Travel Agency and I didn’t want to miss it.

The Nordri Travel Agency was in Hafnarstraeti. I parked the car in a side street near Naust and walked down the hill towards the centre of town. I had no intention at all of going into Nordri; why would I when Nordlinger had the gadget tucked away in his safe? I came into Hafnarstraeti and ducked into a bookshop opposite Nordri. There was a café above the shop with a flight of stairs leading directly to it so that one could read over a cup of coffee. I bought a newspaper as cover and went upstairs.

It was still before the midday rush so I got a seat at the window and ordered pancakes and coffee. I spread open the paper and then glanced through the window at the crowded street below and found that, as I had planned, I had a good view of the travel agency which was on the other side of the street. The thin gauze curtains didn’t obstruct my view but made it impossible for anyone to recognize me from the street.

The street was fairly busy. The tourist season had begun and the first hardy travellers had already started to ransack the souvenir shops and carry home their loot. Camera-hung and map in hand they were easy to spot, yet I inspected every one of them because the man I was looking for would probably find it convenient to be mistaken for a tourist.

This was a long shot based on the fact that everywhere I had gone in Iceland the opposition had shown up. I had followed instructions on arrival and gone the long way around to Reykjavik and Lindholm had been there. I had gone to earth in Asbyrgi and Graham had pitched up out of the blue. True, that was because of the radio bug planted on the Land-Rover, but it had happened. Fleet had lain in wait and had shot up the Land-Rover in a deliberate ambush, the purpose of which was still a mystery. Yet he, like Lindholm, had known where to wait. Kennikin had jumped me at Geysir and I’d got away from that awkward situation by the thickness of a gnat’s whisker.

And now I was expected to call at the Nordri Travel Agency. It was a thin chance but it seemed logical to suppose that if past form was anything to go on then the place would be staked out. So I took a more than ordinary interest in those below who window-shopped assiduously, and I hoped that if Kennikin was laying for me I’d be able to recognize his man. He couldn’t have brought a whole army to Iceland and, one way or another, I’d already laid eyes on a lot of his men.

Even so, it was a full half-hour before I spotted him, and that was because I was looking at him from an unfamiliar angle — from above. It is very hard to forget a face first seen past the cross hairs of a telescopic sight, yet it was only when he lifted his head that I recognized one of the men who had been with Kennikin on the other side of the Tungnaá River.

He was pottering about and looking into the window of the shop next to Nordri and appeared to be the perfect tourist complete with camera, street map and sheaf of picture postcards. I whistled up the waitress and paid my bill so that I could make a quick getaway, but reserved the table for a little longer by ordering another coffee.

He wouldn’t be alone on a job like this and so I was interested in his relationship with the passers-by. As the minutes ticked on he appeared to become increasingly restless and consulted his watch frequently and, at one o’clock exactly, he made a decisive move. He lifted his hand and beckoned, and another man came into my line of sight and crossed the street towards him.

I gulped my coffee and went downstairs to lurk at the newspaper counter while observing my friends through the glass doors of the bookshop. They had been joined by a third man whom I recognized immediately — none other than Ilyich who had unwittingly provided me with the butane bomb. They nattered for a while and then Ilyich stuck out his arm and tapped his wrist-watch, shrugging expressively. They all set off up the street towards Posthusstraeti and I followed.

From the bit of action with the watch it seemed that they not only knew the rendezvous I was supposed to keep but the time I was to keep it. They had pulled off duty at one o’clock like workmen clocking off the job. It wouldn’t have surprised me overmuch if they knew the passwords as well.

At the corner of Posthusstraeti two of them got into a parked car and drove away, but Ilyich turned smartly to the right across the street and headed at a quick clip towards the Hotel Borg, into which he disappeared like a rabbit diving into its hole. I hesitated for a moment and then drifted in after him.

He didn’t stop to collect a key at the desk but went immediately upstairs to the second floor, with me on his heels. He walked along a corridor and knocked at a door, so I did a smart about-turn and went downstairs again where I sat at a table in the lounge from where I had a good view of the foyer. This meant another obligatory cup of coffee with which I was already awash, but that’s the penalty of a trailing job. I spread my newspaper at arm’s length and waited for Ilyich to appear again.

He wasn’t away long — a matter of ten minutes — and when he came back I knew triumphantly that all my suspicions had been correct and that everything I had done in Iceland was justified. He came downstairs talking to someone — and that someone was Slade!

They came through the lounge on their way to the dining-room and Slade passed my table no farther away than six feet. It was to be expected that he would wait in his room for a report, positive or negative, and then head for the fleshpots. I shifted in my chair and watched where they would sit and, during the brouhaha of the seating ceremony. I left quickly and walked into the foyer and out of sight.

Two minutes later I was on the second floor and tapping at the same door Ilyich had knocked on, hoping that no one would answer. No one did and so, by a bit of trickery involving a plastic sheet from my wallet, I went inside. That was something I had learned at school — the Department had trained me well.

I wasn’t stupid enough to search Slade’s luggage. If he was as smart as I thought he would have gimmicked it so that he could tell at a glance whether a suitcase had been opened. Standard operating procedure when on a job, and Slade had a double advantage — he’d been trained by both sides. But I did inspect the door of his wardrobe, checking to see if there were any fine hairs stuck down with dabs of saliva which would come free if the door was opened. There was nothing, so I opened the door, stepped inside, and settled down to wait in the darkness.

I waited a long time. That I expected, having seen the way Slade gourmandized, yet I wondered how he would take to the Icelandic cuisine which is idiosyncratic, to say the least. It takes an Icelander to appreciate hakarl — raw shark meat buried in sand for several months — or pickled whale blubber.

It was quarter to three when he came back and by that time my own stomach was protesting at the lack of attention; it had had plenty of coffee but very little solid food. Ilyich was with him and it came as no surprise that Slade spoke Russian like a native. Hell, he probably was a Russian, as had been Gordon Lonsdale, another of his stripe.

Ilyich said, ‘Then there’s nothing until tomorrow?’

‘Not unless Vaslav comes up with something,’ said Slade.

‘I think it’s a mistake,’ said Ilyich. ‘I don’t think Stewartsen will go near the travel agency. Anyway, are we sure of that information?’

‘We’re sure,’ said Slade shortly. ‘And he’ll be there within the next four days. We’ve all underestimated Stewart.’

I smiled in the darkness. It was nice to have an unsolicited testimonial. I missed what he said next, but Ilyich said, ‘Of course, we don’t do anything about the package he will carry. We let him get rid of it in the agency and then we follow him until we get him alone.’

‘And then?’

‘We kill him,’ said Ilyich unemotionally.

‘Yes,’ said Slade. ‘But there must be no body found. There has been too much publicity already; Kennikin was mad to have left the body of Case where he did.’ There was a short silence and then he said musingly, ‘I wonder what Stewart did with Philips?’

To this rhetorical question Ilyich made no answer, and Slade said, ‘All right; you and the others are to be at the Nordri Agency at eleven tomorrow. As soon as you spot Stewart I must be notified by telephone immediately. Is that understood?’

‘You will be informed,’ said Ilyich. I heard the door open. ‘Where is Kennikin?’ he asked.

‘What Kennikin does is no concern of yours,’ said Slade sharply. ‘You may go.’

The door slammed.

I waited and heard a rustle as of paper and a creak followed by a metallic click. I eased open the wardrobe door a crack and looked into the room with one eye. Slade was seated in an armchair with a newspaper on his knee and was applying a light to a fat cigar. He got the end glowing to his satisfaction and looked about for an ashtray. There was one on the dressing-table so he got up and moved his chair so that the ashtray would be conveniently to hand.

It was convenient for me too, because the action of moving the chair had turned his back to me. I took my pen from my pocket and opened the wardrobe door very slowly. The room was small and it only needed two steps to get behind him. I made no sound and it must have been the fractional change of the quality of the light in the room that made him begin to turn his head. I rammed the end of the pen in the roll of fat at the back of his neck and said, ‘Stop right there or you’ll be minus a head.’

Slade froze, and I snaked my other hand over his shoulder to the inside of his jacket where I found a pistol in a shoulder holster. Everyone seemed to be wearing guns these days and I was becoming exceptionally competent at disarming people.

‘I don’t want a move from you,’ I said, and stepped back. I worked the action of the pistol to make sure it was loaded, and threw off the safety catch. ‘Stand up.’

Obediently he stood, still clutching the newspaper. I said, ‘Walk straight forward to the wall in front of you lean against it with your hands high and your arms held wide.’

I stepped back and watched him critically as he went through the evolution. He knew what I was going to do; this was the safest way of searching a man. Being Slade, he tried to pull a fast one, so I said, ‘Pull your feet out from the wall and lean harder.’ That meant he would be off-balance to begin with if he tried anything — just enough to give me that extra fraction of a second that is all-important.

He shuffled his feet backwards and I saw the telltale quiver of his wrists as they took up the weight of his body. Then I searched him swiftly, tossing the contents of his pockets on to the bed. He carried no other weapon, unless you consider a hypodermic syringe a weapon, which I was inclined to do when I saw the wallet of ampoules that went with it. Green on the left for a six-hour certain knockout; red on the right for death in thirty seconds equally certainly.

‘Now bend your knees and come down that wall very slowly.’ His knees sagged and I brought him into the position in which I had had Fleet — belly down and arms wide stretched. It would take a better man than Slade to jump me from that position; Fleet might have done it had I not rammed his rifle in the small of his back, but Slade was not as young and he had a bigger paunch.

He lay with his head on one side, his right cheek pressed to the carpet and his left eye glaring at me malevolently. He spoke for the first time. ‘How do you know I won’t have visitors this afternoon?’

‘You’re right to worry about that,’ I said. ‘If anyone comes through that door you’re dead.’ I smiled at him. ‘It would be a pity if it was a chambermaid, then you’d be dead for nothing.’

He said, ‘What the devil do you think you’re doing, Stewart? Have you gone out of your mind? I think you must have — I told Taggart so and he agrees with me. Now, put away that gun and let me stand up.’

‘I must say you try,’ I said admiringly. ‘Nevertheless, if you move a muscle towards getting up I’ll shoot you dead.’ His only reaction to that was a rapid blinking of the one eye I could see.

Presently he said, ‘You’ll hang for this, Stewart. Treason is still a capital crime.’

‘A pity,’ I said. ‘At least you won’t hang, because what you are doing isn’t treason — merely espionage. I don’t think spies are hanged — not in peacetime, anyway. It would be treason if you were English, but you’re not; you’re a Russian.’

‘You’re out of your mind,’ he said disgustedly. ‘Me — a Russian!’

‘You’re as English as Gordon Lonsdale was Canadian.’

‘Oh, wait until Taggart gets hold of you,’ he said. ‘He’ll put you through the wringer.’

I said, ‘What are you doing consorting with the opposition, Slade?’

He actually managed to summon up enough synthetic indignation to splutter. ‘Dammit!’ he said. ‘It’s my job. You did the same; you were Kennikin’s right-hand man at one time. I’m just following orders — which is more than you are doing.’

‘That’s interesting,’ I said. ‘Your orders are very curious. Tell me more.’

‘I’ll tell nothing to a traitor,’ he said virtuously.

I must say that at that moment I admired Slade for the first time. Lying in a most undignified position and with a gun at his head he wasn’t giving an inch and was prepared to fight to the end. I had been in his position myself when I had got next to Kennikin in Sweden and I knew how nerve-abrading a life it was — never knowing from one day to another whether one’s cover had been blown. Here he was, still trying to convince me that he was as pure as the latest brand of detergent, and I knew that if I let up on him for a fraction of a second so that he could get the upper hand I would be a dead man in that very second.

I said, ‘Come off it, Slade. I heard you tell Ilyich to kill me. Don’t tell me that was an order passed on from Taggart.’

‘Yes,’ he said, without the flicker of an eyelash. ‘He thinks you’ve gone over. I can’t say I blame him, either, considering the way you’ve been behaving.’

I almost burst out laughing at his effrontery. ‘By God, but you’re good!’ I said. ‘You lie there with your face hanging out and tell me that. I suppose Taggart also told you to ask the Russkies to do the job for him.’

Slade’s exposed cheek wrinkled up into the rictus of a half smile. ‘It’s been done before,’ he said. ‘You killed Jimmy Birkby.’

Involuntarily my finger tightened on the trigger, and I had to take a deep breath before I relaxed. I tried to keep my voice even as I said, ‘You’ve never been nearer death than now, Slade. You shouldn’t have mentioned Birkby — that’s a sore point. Let’s not have any more comedy. You’re finished and you know it quite well. You’re going to tell me a lot of things I’m interested in, and you’re going to tell it fast, so speak up.’

‘You can go to hell,’ he said sullenly.

‘You’re a great deal nearer hell right now,’ I said. ‘Let me put it this way. Personally, I don’t give a damn if you’re English or Russian, a spy or a traitor. I don’t give a damn for patriotism either; I’ve got past that. With me this is purely personal — on a man-to-man basis, if you like. The foundation for most murders. Elin was nearly killed in Asbyrgi on your instruction, and I’ve just heard you tell a man to kill me. If I kill you right now it will be self-defence.’

Slade lifted his head a little and turned it so that he could look at me straight. ‘But you won’t do it,’ he said.

‘No?’

‘No,’ he said with certainty. ‘I told you before — you’re too soft-centred. You might kill me under different circumstances; if I were running away, for instance, or if we were shooting at each other. But you won’t kill me while I’m lying here. You’re an English gentleman.’ He made it sound like a swearword.

‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ I said. ‘Maybe Scots are different.’

‘Not enough to matter,’ he said indifferently.

I watched him look into the muzzle of the pistol without a quiver and I had to give the devil his due. Slade knew men and he had my measure as far as killing was concerned. He also knew that if he came for me I would shoot to kill. He was safe enough while lying defenceless, but action was another thing.

He smiled. ‘You’ve already proved it. You shot Yuri in the leg — why not in the heart? By Kennikin’s account you were shooting accurately enough across that river to have given every man a free shave without benefit of barber. You could have killed Yuri — but you didn’t!’

‘Maybe I wasn’t feeling in the mood at the time. I killed Gregor.’

‘In the heat of action. Your death or his. Any man can make that kind of decision.’

I had the uneasy feeling that the initiative was passing from me and I had to get it back. I said, ‘You can’t talk if you’re dead — and you’re going to talk. Let’s begin by you telling me about the electronic gadget — what is it?’

He looked at me contemptuously and tightened his lips.

I glanced at the pistol I held. God knows why Slade carried it because it was a .32 — a popgun just as heavy to lug about as a modern .38 but without the stopping power. But maybe he was a crack shot and could hit his target every time so that wouldn’t matter much. What would matter when shooting in a populous place was that the muzzle blast was much less and so were the decibels. You could probably fire it in a busy street and no one would take much notice.

I looked him in the eye and then put a bullet into the back of his right hand. He jerked his hand convulsively and a strangled cry broke from his lips as the muzzle of the pistol centred on his head again. The noise of the shot hadn’t even rattled the windows.

I said, ‘I may not shoot to kill you but I’ll cut you to pieces bit by bit if you don’t behave yourself. I hear from Kennikin that I’m a fair hand at surgical operations too. There are worse things than getting yourself shot dead. Ask Kennikin some time.’

Blood oozed from the back of his hand and stained the carpet, but he lay still, staring at the gun in my hand. His tongue came out and licked dry lips. ‘You bloody bastard!’ he whispered.

The telephone rang.

We stared at each other for the time it took to ring four times. I walked around him, keeping clear of his legs, and I picked up the telephone whole and entire complete with base. I dumped it next to him, and said, ‘You’ll answer that, and you’ll remember two things — I want to hear both ends of the conversation and that there are plenty of other parts of your fat anatomy. I can work on.’ I jerked the gun. ‘Pick it up.’

Awkwardly he picked up the handset with his left hand. ‘Yes?’

I jerked the gun again and he held up the telephone so that I could hear the scratchy voice. ‘This is Kennikin.’

‘Be natural,’ I whispered.

Slade licked his lips. ‘What is it?’ he asked hoarsely.

‘What’s the matter with your voice?’ said Kennikin.

Slade grunted, his eye on the gun I held. ‘I have a cold. What do you want?’

‘I’ve got the girl.’

There was a silence and I could feel my heart thumping in my chest. Slade went pale as he watched my finger curl around the trigger and slowly take up the pressure. I breathed, ‘Where from?’

Slade coughed nervously. ‘Where did you find her?’

‘At Keflavik Airport — hiding in the Icelandair office. We know her brother is a pilot, and I had the idea of looking for her there. We took her out without any trouble.’

That made it true. ‘Where now?’ I whispered into Slade’s ear and put the gun to the nape of his neck.

He asked the question, and Kennikin said, ‘In the usual place. When can I expect you?’

‘You’ll be right out.’ I pressed the muzzle harder into his fat and felt him shiver.

‘I’ll leave straight away,’ said Slade, and I quickly cut the contact by depressing the telephone bar.

I jumped back fast in case he tried to start something, but he just lay there gazing at the telephone. I felt like screaming, but there was no time for that. I said, ‘Slade, you were wrong — I can kill you. You know that now, don’t you?’

For the first time I detected fear in him. His fat jowl developed a tremor and his lower lip shook so that he looked like a fat boy about to burst into tears. I said, ‘Where’s the usual place?’

He looked at me with hatred and said nothing. I was in a quandary; if I killed him I would have got nothing out of him, yet I didn’t want to damage him too much because I wanted him fit to walk the streets of Reykjavik without occasioning undue attention. Still, he didn’t know my problem, so I said, ‘You’ll still be alive when I’ve finished with you, but you’ll wish you weren’t.’

I put a bullet just by his left ear and he jerked violently. Again the noise of the shot was very small and I think he must have doctored the cartridges by taking out some of the powder to reduce the bang. It’s an old trick when you want to shoot without drawing notice to yourself and, if done carefully and the gun is fired at not too great a range, the bullet is still lethal. It’s much better than using a silencer which is a much overrated contraption and dangerous to the user. A silencer is good for one quiet shot — after that the steel wool packing becomes compressed and the back pressure builds up so high that the user is in danger of blowing off his own hand.

I said, ‘I’m a good shot, but not all that good. I intended to put that bullet exactly where I did, but only you know the accuracy of this popgun. I’m inclined to think it throws to the left a bit, so if I try to clip your right ear you stand a fair chance of stopping one in the skull.’

I shifted the gun a little and took aim. He broke — his nerve gone completely. ‘For God’s sake, stop!’ This sort of Russian roulette wasn’t to his taste.

I sighted on his right ear. ‘Where’s the usual place?’

There was a sheen of sweat on his face. ‘At Thingvallavatn.’

‘The house to which I was taken after Geysir?’

‘That’s it.’

‘You’d better be right,’ I said. ‘Because I have no time to waste in chasing about Southern Iceland.’ I lowered the gun and Slade’s expression changed to one of relief. ‘Don’t start cheering yet,’ I advised. ‘I hope you don’t think I’m going to leave you here.’

I went to the stand at the bottom of the bed and flipped open the lid of his suitcase. I took out a clean shirt and tossed it to him. ‘Rip some strips off that and bind up your hand. Stay on the floor and don’t get any smart ideas such as throwing it at me.’

While he tore up the shirt awkwardly I rummaged about in the suitcase and came up with two clips of .32 ammunition. I dropped them into my pocket then went to the wardrobe and took out Slade’s topcoat, the pockets of which I had already searched. ‘Stand up facing the wall and put that on.’

I watched him carefully, alert for any trickery. I knew that if I made one false step he would take full advantage of it. A man who could worm his way into the heart of British Intelligence hadn’t done it by being stupid. The mistakes he had made weren’t such as would normally have discommoded him and he had done his damnedest to rectify them by eliminating me. If I weren’t careful he could still pull it off.

I picked up his passport and his wallet from the bed and pocketed them, then threw his hat across the room so that it landed at his feet. ‘We’re going for a walk. You’ll keep that bandaged hand in your coat pocket and you’ll behave like the English gentleman you’re not. One wrong move from you and I’ll shoot you dead and take my chances, and I don’t care if it has to be in the middle of Hafnarstraeti. I hope you realize that Kennikin did exactly the wrong thing in taking Elin.’

He spoke to the wall. ‘Back in Scotland I warned you about that. I told you not to let her get involved.’

‘Very thoughtful of you,’ I said. ‘But if anything happens to her you’re a dead man. You may have been right about my inability to kill before, but I hope you’re not counting on it now because one of Elin’s nail parings is of more importance to me than the whole of your lousy body. You’d better believe that, Slade. I protect my own.’

I saw him shudder. ‘I believe you,’ he said quietly.

I really think he did. He knew he had encountered something more primitive than patriotism or the loyalty of a man to his group. This was much more fundamental, and while I might not have killed him because he was a spy I would kill without mercy any man who got between me and Elin.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Pick up your hat and let’s go.’

I escorted him into the corridor, made him lock the door, and then took the key. I had one of his jackets draped over my arm to hide the gun, and I walked one pace behind him and to the right. We left the hotel and walked the streets of Reykjavik to where I had left Nordlinger’s car. ‘You’ll get behind the wheel,’ I said.

We performed an intricate ballet in getting into the car. While unlocking it and getting him settled I had to make sure that never for one moment could he take advantage and, at the same time, our antics had to look reasonably normal to the passers-by. At last I managed to get him seated and myself behind him in the rear.

‘Now you’ll drive,’ I said.

‘But my hand,’ he protested. ‘I don’t think I can.’

‘You’ll do it. I don’t care how much it hurts — but you’ll do it. And never for one moment will you exceed thirty miles an hour. You won’t even think of putting the car into a ditch or crashing it in any other way. And the reason you won’t think of such things is because of this.’ I touched his neck with the cold metal of the pistol.

‘This will be behind you all the way. Just imagine that you’re a prisoner and I’m one of Stalin’s boys back in the bad old days. The approved method of execution was an unexpected bullet in the back of the head, wasn’t it? But if you do anything naughty this is one bullet you can expect for sure. Now, take off, and do it carefully — my trigger finger is allergic to sudden jerks.’

I didn’t have to tell him where to drive. He drove along the Tjarnargata with the duck-strewn waters of the Tjörnin lake on our left, past the University of Iceland, and so into Miklabraut and out of town. He drove in silence and once on the open road he obeyed orders and never let the speed drift above thirty miles an hour. I think this was less out of sheer obedience and more because changing gears hurt his hand.

After a while he said, ‘What do you think you’re going to gain by this, Stewart?’

I didn’t answer him: I was busy turning out the contents of his wallet. There wasn’t anything in it of interest — no plans for the latest guided missile or laser death ray that a master spy and double agent might have been expected to carry. I transferred the thick sheaf of currency and the credit cards to my own wallet; I could use the money — I was out of pocket on this operation — and should he escape he would find the shortage of funds a serious disability.

He tried again. ‘Kennikin won’t believe anything you say, you know. He won’t be bluffed.’

‘He’d better be,’ I said. ‘For your sake. But there’ll be no bluff.’

‘Your work will be cut out convincing Kennikin of that,’ said Slade.

‘You’d better not push that one too hard,’ I said coldly. ‘I might convince him by taking him your right hand — the one with the ring on the middle finger.’

That shut him up for a while and he concentrated on his driving. The Chevrolet bounced and rolled on its soft springing as the wheels went over the corrugated dips and rises of the road. We would have got a smoother ride had we travelled faster but, as it was, we climbed up and down every minuscule hill and valley. I dared not order him to speed up, much as I wanted to get to Elin; 30 mph gave me the leeway both to shoot Slade and get out safely should he deliberately run the car off the road.

Presently I said, ‘I notice you’ve given up your protestations of innocence.’

‘You wouldn’t believe me no matter what I told you — so why should I try?’

He had a point there. ‘I’d just like to clear up a few things, though. How did you know I was going to meet Jack Case at Geysir?’

‘When you make a call on open radio to London you can expect people to listen,’ he said.

‘You listened and you told Kennikin.’

He half-turned his head. ‘How do you know it wasn’t Kennikin who listened?’

‘Keep your eyes on the road,’ I said sharply.

‘All right, Stewart,’ he said. ‘There’s no point in fencing. I admit it all. You’ve been right all along the line. Not that it will do you much good; you’ll never get out of Iceland.’ He coughed. ‘What gave me away?’

‘Calvados,’ I said.

‘Calvados!’ he repeated. He was at a loss. ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

‘You knew that Kennikin drinks Calvados. No one else did, except me.’

‘I see! That’s why you asked Taggart about Kennikin’s drinking habits. I was wondering about that.’ His shoulders seemed to sag and he said musingly, ‘It’s the little things. You cover every possibility; you train for years, you get yourself a new identity — a new personality — and you think you’re safe.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘And then it’s a little thing like a bottle of Calvados that you saw a man drink years before. But surely that wasn’t enough?’

‘It started me thinking. There was something else, of course. Lindholm — who was conveniently in the right place at the right time — but that could have been coincidence. I didn’t get around to suspecting you until you sent in Philips at Asbyrgi — that was a bad mistake. You ought to have sent Kennikin.’

‘He wasn’t immediately available.’ Slade clicked his tongue. ‘I ought to have gone in myself.’

I laughed gently. ‘Then you’d be where Philips is now. Count your blessings, Slade.’ I looked ahead through the windscreen and then leaned forward to check the position of his hands and feet to make sure he wasn’t conning me — lulling me with conversation. ‘I suppose there was a man called Slade once.’

‘A boy,’ said Slade. ‘We found him in Finland during the war. He was fifteen then. His parents were British and had been killed in a bombing raid by our Stormoviks. We took him into our care, and later there was a substitution — me.’

‘Something like Gordon Lonsdale,’ I said. ‘I’m surprised you survived inspection in the turmoil after the Lonsdale case.’

‘So am I,’ he said bleakly.

‘What happened to young Slade?’

‘Siberia perhaps. But I don’t think so.’

I didn’t think so either. Young Master Slade would have been interrogated to a fare-thee-well and then dispatched to some anonymous hole in the ground.

I said, ‘What’s your name — the real Russian one, I mean?’

He laughed. ‘You know, I’ve quite forgotten. I’ve been Slade for the better part of my life, for so long that my early life in Russia seems like something I once dreamed.’

‘Come off it! No one forgets his name.’

‘I think of myself as Slade,’ he said. ‘I think we’ll stick to it.’

I watched his hand hovering over the button of the glove compartment. ‘You’d better stick to driving,’ I said drily. ‘There’s only one thing you’ll find in the glove compartment and that’s a quick, sweet death.’

Without hurrying too much he withdrew his hand and put it back where it belonged — on the wheel. I could see that his first fright was over and he was regaining confidence. More than ever I would have to watch him.

An hour after leaving Reykjavik we arrived at the turnoff to Lake Thingvallavatn and Kennikin’s house. Watching Slade, I saw that he was about to ignore it, so I said, ‘No funny business — you know the way.’

He hastily applied the brakes and swung off to the right and we bumped over a road that was even worse. As near as I could remember from the night drive I had taken with Kennikin along this same road the house was about five miles from the turn-off. I leaned forward and kept one eye on the odometer, one eye on the countryside to see if I could recognize anything, and the other on Slade. Having three eyes would be useful to a man in my position, but I had to make do with two.

I spotted the house in the distance or, at least, what I thought was the house, although I could not be entirely sure since I had previously only seen it in darkness. I laid the gun against Slade’s neck. ‘You drive past it,’ I said. ‘You don’t speed up and you don’t slow down — you just keep the same pace until I tell you to stop.’

As we went past the drive that led to the house I glanced sideways at it. It was about four hundred yards off the road and I was certain this was the place. I was absolutely sure when I spotted the lava flow ahead and to the left where I had encountered Jack Case. I tapped Slade’s shoulder. ‘In a little while you’ll see a level place to the left where they’ve been scooping out lava for road-making. Pull in there.’

I kicked the side of the door and swore loudly as though I had hurt myself. All I wanted to do was to make noise enough to cover the sound of my taking the clip out of the pistol and working the slide to eject the round in the breech. That would leave me unarmed and it wouldn’t do for Slade to know it. I was going to hit him very hard with the butt of the pistol and to do that with a loaded gun was to ask for a self-inflicted gut shot.

He pulled off the road and even before the car rolled to a halt I let him have it, striking sideways in a chopping motion at the base of his neck. He moaned and fell forward and his feet slipped on the foot pedals. For one alarming moment the car bucked and lurched but then the engine stalled and it came to a standstill.

I dipped into my pocket and put a full clip into the pistol and jacked a round into the breech before I examined Slade at close quarters. What I had done to him was in a fair way towards breaking his neck, but I found that his head lolled forward because I had merely knocked him cold. I made sure of that by taking the hand which had a bullet hole through the palm and squeezing it hard. He didn’t move a muscle.

I suppose I should have killed him. The knowledge in his head culled from his years in the Department was a deadly danger, and my duty as a member of the Department was to see that the knowledge was permanently erased. I didn’t even think of it. I needed Slade as one hostage to set against another and I had no intention of exchanging dead hostages.

E. M. Forster once said that if he had to choose between betraying his country and betraying his friend then he hoped he would have the guts to betray his country. Elin was more than my friend — she was my life — and if the only way I could get her was to give up Slade then I would do so.

I got out of the car and opened the boot. The sacking which was wrapped around the rifles came in handy for tearing into strips and binding Slade hand and foot. I then put him in the boot and slammed the lid on him.

The Remington carbine I had taken from Philips I hid in a crevice of the lava close to the car, together with its ammunition, but Fleet’s piece of light artillery I slung over my shoulder as I walked towards the house. It was very likely that I would need it.

II

The last time I had been anywhere near this house it had been dark and I had plunged away not knowing the lie of the land. Now, in the daylight, I found I could get to within a hundred yards of the front door without breaking cover. The ground was broken and three big lava flows had bled across the landscape during some long-gone eruption and had hardened and solidified while in full spate to form jagged ridges full of crevices and holes. The ever-present moss grew thickly, covering the spiky lava with soft vegetable cushions. The going was slow and it took me half an hour to get as close to the house as I dared.

I lay on the moss and studied it. It was Kennikin’s hideaway, all right, because a window was broken in the room where I had been kept captive and there were no curtains at that window. The last time I had seen them they had been going up in flames.

A car stood outside the front door and I noticed that the air over the bonnet shimmered a little. That meant that the engine was still hot and someone had just arrived. Although my own journey had been slow, Kennikin had farther to travel from Keflavik — there was a good chance that whatever he intended to do to Elin to get her to tell him where I was had not yet begun. And, possibly, he would wait for Slade before starting. For Elin’s sake I hoped so.

I loosened a big slab of moss and pushed Fleet’s rifle out of sight beneath it, together with the ammunition for it. I had brought it along as insurance — it was useless in the boot of the car, anyway. It would also be useless in the house too, but now it was tucked away within a fast sprint of the front door.

I withdrew and began a painful retreat across the lava beds until I reached the driveway, and the walk towards the house was the longest distance I have ever walked, psychologically if not physically. I felt as a condemned man probably feels on his way to the scaffold. I was walking quite openly to the front door of the house and if anyone was keeping a watch I hoped his curiosity would get the better of him enough to ask why I was coming instead of shooting me down ten paces from the threshold.

I crunched my way to the car and casually put out my hand. I had been right; the engine was still warm. There was a flicker of movement at one of the windows so I carried on and walked to the door. I pressed the bell-push and heard the genteel peal of chimes inside the house.

Nothing happened for a while but soon I heard boots crushing loose lava chips and I looked sideways to see a man coming around the corner of the house to my left. I looked to the right and saw another, and both were strolling towards me with intent expressions on their faces.

I smiled at them and jabbed the bell-push again and the chimes jingled softly just as in any house in the stockbroker belt. The door opened and Kennikin stood there. He had a gun in his hand.

‘I’m the man from the Prudential,’ I said pleasantly. ‘How’s your insurance, Vaslav?’