Десмонд Бэгли - Running Blind

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.

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?’

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.’