Десмонд Бэгли - Running Blind

‘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.