Десмонд Бэгли - Running Blind

‘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.’