Десмонд Бэгли - Running Blind

What would Slade do? He would contact Kennikin to find if I had been captured. He would insist that his cover next to Taggart should remain unbroken at all costs and that this was more important than the gadget. He would say, ‘Kill the bastard!’ That was why Kennikin had switched.

And it would be just as important to kill Jack Case before he talked to Taggart .

I had played right into Slade’s hands and left Case for Kennikin to find, and Kennikin had stabbed him with my knife. Kennikin had traced where the Volkswagen had come from and gone looking for me, and he had left the body of Case. Terrorist tactics.

It all tied together except for one loose end which worried me. Why, when I had been jumped at Geysir by Kennikin’s mob, had Jack Case run out on me? He hadn’t lifted a finger to help; he hadn’t fired a shot in my defence even though he was armed. I knew Jack Case and that was very unlike him, and that, together with his apparent chumminess with Slade, had been the basis of my mistrust of him. It worried me very much.

But it was all past history and I had the future to face and decisions to make. I said, ‘Did you check on Bjarni?’

Elin nodded listlessly. ‘He’s on the Reykjavik-Höfn run. He’ll be in Reykjavik this afternoon.’

‘I want him over here,’ I said. ‘And you’re to stick in this office until he comes. You’re not to move out of it even for meals. You can have those sent up. And most emphatically you’re not to go out into the concourse of the airport; there are too many eyes down there looking for you and me.’

‘But I can’t stay here forever,’ she protested.

‘Only until Bjarni comes. Then you can tell him anything you think fit — you can even tell him the truth. Then you’re to tell him what he must do.’

She frowned. ‘And that is?’

‘He’s got to get you on a plane and out of here, and he has to do it discreetly without going through normal channels. I don’t care if he has to dress you up as a hostess and smuggle you aboard as one of the crew, but you mustn’t go down into the concourse as an ordinary passenger.’

‘But I don’t think he could do that.’

‘Christ!’ I said. ‘If he can smuggle in crates of Carlsberg from Greenland he can smuggle you out. Come to think of it, going to Greenland might not be such a bad idea; you could stay in Narsassuaq until all this blows over. Not even Slade, clever though he is, would think of looking there.’

‘I don’t want to go.’

‘You’re going,’ I said. ‘I want you from underfoot. If you think things have been rough for the last few days then compared to the next twenty-four hours they’ll seem like an idyllic holiday. I want you out of it, Elin, and, by God, you’ll obey me.’

‘So you think I’m useless,’ she said bitterly.

‘No, I don’t; and you’ve proved it during the last few days. Everything you’ve done in that time has been against your better judgment, but you’ve stuck by me. You’ve been shot and you’ve been shot at, but you still helped out.’

‘Because I love you,’ she said.

‘I know — and I love you. That’s why I want you out of here. I don’t want you killed.’

‘And what about you?’ she demanded.

‘I’m different,’ I said. ‘I’m a professional. I know what to do and how to do it; you don’t.’

‘Case was a professional too — and he’s dead. So was Graham, or whatever his name really was. And that man, Volkov, was hurt at Geysir — and he was a professional. You said yourself that the only people hurt so far have been the professionals. I don’t want you hurt, Alan.’

‘I also said that no innocent bystanders have been hurt,’ I said. ‘You’re an innocent bystander — and I want to keep it that way.’

I had to do something to impress the gravity of the situation upon her. I looked around the room to check its emptiness, then quickly took off my jacket and unslung Case’s shoulder holster complete with gun. I held it in my hand and said, ‘Do you know how to use this?’

Her eyes dilated. ‘No!’

I pointed out the slide. ‘If you pull this back a bullet is injected into the breech. You push over this lever, the safety catch, then you point it and pull the trigger. Every time you pull a bullet comes out, up to a maximum of eight. Got that?’

‘I think so.’

‘Repeat it.’

‘I pull back the top of the gun, push over the safety catch and pull the trigger.’

‘That’s it. It would be better if you squeezed the trigger but this is no time for finesse.’ I put the pistol back into the holster and pressed it into her reluctant hands. ‘If anyone tries to make you do anything you don’t want to do just point the gun and start shooting. You might not hit anyone but you’ll cause some grey hairs.’

The one thing that scares a professional is a gun in the hands of an amateur. If another professional is shooting at you at least you know he’s accurate and you have a chance of out-manoeuvring him. An amateur can kill you by accident.

I said, ‘Go into the loo and put on the holster under your jacket. When you come back I’ll be gone.’

She accepted the finality of the situation along with the pistol. ‘Where are you going?’

‘The worm is turning,’ I said. ‘I’m tired of running, so I’m going hunting. Wish me luck.’

She came close to me and kissed me gently and there were unshed tears in her eyes and the gun in its holster was iron-hard between us. I patted her bottom and said, ‘Get along with you,’ and watched as she turned and walked away. When the door closed behind her I also left.

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.