Desmond Bagley - Running Blind / The Freedom Trap

Elin passed the salt cellar. ‘I think maybe he had a drinking problem at one time and decided to cut it out because, as far as the Department is aware, he’s a non-drinker. You heard Taggart on that.’

Elin began to cut into a loaf of bread. ‘I don’t see the point of all this,’ she complained.

‘I’m coming to it. Like a lot of men with an alcohol problem he can keep off the stuff for months at a time, but when the going becomes tough and the pressures build up then he goes on a toot. And, by God, there are enough tensions in our line of work. But the point is that he’s a secret drinker; I only found out when I got next to him in Sweden. I visited him unexpectedly and found him cut to the eyeballs on Calvados – it’s the only stuff he inhales. He was drunk enough to talk about it, too. Anyway, I poured him into bed and tactfully made my exit, and he never referred to the incident again when I was with him.’

I accepted a piece of bread and dabbed at the yolk of an egg. ‘When an agent goes back to the Department after a job he is debriefed thoroughly and by experts. That happened to me when I got back from Sweden, but because I was raising a stink about what had happened to Jimmy Birkby maybe the debriefing wasn’t as thorough as it should have been, and the fact that Kennikin drinks never got put on record. It still isn’t on record, as I’ve just found out.’

‘I still don’t see the point,’ said Elin helplessly.

‘I’m just about to make it,’ I said. ‘When Slade came to see me in Scotland he told me of the way I had wounded Kennikin, and made the crack that Kennikin would rather operate on me with a sharp knife than offer to split a bottle of Calvados. How in hell would Slade know about the Calvados? He’s never been within a hundred miles of Kennikin and the fact isn’t on file in the Department. It’s been niggling at me for a long time, but the penny only dropped this afternoon.’

Elin sighed. ‘It’s a very small point.’

‘Have you ever witnessed a murder trial? The point which can hang a man can be very small. But add this to it – the Russians took a package which they presumably discovered to be a fake. You’d expect them to come after the real thing, wouldn’t you? But who did come after it, and with blood in his eye? None other than friend Slade.’

‘You’re trying to make out a case that Slade is a Russian agent,’ said Elin. ‘But it won’t work. Who was really responsible for the destruction of Kennikin’s network in Sweden?’

‘Slade master-minded it,’ I said. ‘He pointed me in the right direction and pulled the trigger.’

Elin shrugged. ‘Well, then? Would a Russian agent do that to his own side?’

‘Slade’s a big boy now,’ I said. ‘Right next to Taggart in a very important area of British Intelligence. He even lunches with the Prime Minister – he told me so. How important would it be to the Russians to get a man into that position?’

Elin looked at me as though I’d gone crazy. I said quietly, ‘Whoever planned this has a mind like a pretzel, but it’s all of a piece. Slade is in a top slot in British Intelligence – but how did he get there? Answer – by wrecking the Russian organization in Sweden. Which is more important to the Russians? To retain their Swedish network – which could be replaced if necessary? Or to put Slade where he is now?’

I tapped the table with the handle of my knife. ‘You can see the same twisted thinking throughout. Slade put me next to Kennikin by sacrificing Birkby; the Russkies put Slade next to Taggart by sacrificing Kennikin and his outfit.’

‘But this is silly!’ burst out Elin. ‘Why would Slade have to go to all that trouble with Birkby and you when the Russians would be co-operating with him, anyway?’

‘Because it had to look good,’ I said. ‘The operation would be examined by men with very hard eyes and there had to be real blood, not tomato ketchup – no fakery at all. The blood was provided by poor Birkby – and Kennikin added some to it.’ A sudden thought struck me. ‘I wonder if Kennikin knew what was going on? I’ll bet his organization was blasted from under him – the poor bastard wouldn’t know his masters were selling him out just to bring Slade up a notch.’ I rubbed my chin. ‘I wonder if he’s still ignorant of that?’

‘This is all theory,’ said Elin. ‘Things don’t happen that way.’

‘Don’t they? My God, you only have to read the published accounts of some of the spy trials to realize that bloody funny things happen. Do you know why Blake got a sentence of forty-two years in jail?’

She shook her head. ‘I didn’t read about it.’

‘You won’t find it in print, but the rumour around the Department was that forty-two was the number of our agents who came to a sticky end because he’d betrayed them. I wouldn’t know the truth of it because he was in a different outfit – but think of what Slade could do!’

‘So you can’t trust anyone,’ said Elin. ‘What a life to lead!’

‘It’s not as bad as that. I trust Taggart to a point – and I trust Jack Case, the man I’m meeting at Geysir. But Slade is different; he’s become careless and made two mistakes – one about the Calvados, and the other in coming after the package himself.’

Elin laughed derisively. ‘And the only reason you trust Taggart and Case is because they’ve made no mistakes, as you call them?’

‘Let me put it this way,’ I said. ‘I’ve killed Graham, a British intelligence agent, and so I’m in a hot spot. The only way I can get out of it is to prove that Slade is a Russian agent. If I can do that I’ll be a bloody hero and the record will be wiped clean. And it helps a lot that I hate Slade’s guts.’

‘But what if you’re wrong?’

I put as much finality into my voice as I could. ‘I’m not wrong,’ I said, and hoped it was true. ‘We’ve had a long hard day, Elin; but we can rest tomorrow. Let me put a dressing on your shoulder.’

As I smoothed down the last piece of surgical tape, she said, ‘What did you make of what Taggart said just before the storm came?’

I didn’t like to think of that. ‘I think,’ I said carefully, ‘that he was telling me that Kennikin is in Iceland.’

Tired though I was after a hard day’s driving I slept badly. The wind howled from the west across the crater of Askja, buffeting the Land-Rover until it rocked on its springs, and the heavy rain drummed against the side. Once I heard a clatter as though something metallic had moved and I got up to investigate only to find nothing of consequence and got drenched to the skin for my pains. At last I fell into a heavy sleep, shot through with bad dreams.

Still, I felt better in the morning when I got up and looked out. The sun was shining and the lake was a deep blue reflecting the cloudless sky, and in the clear, rain-washed air the far side of the crater seemed a mere kilometre away instead of the ten kilometres it really was. I put water to boil for coffee and when it was ready I leaned over and dug Elin gently in the ribs.

‘Umph!’ she said indistinctly, and snuggled deeper into the sleeping bag. I prodded her again and one blue eye opened and looked at me malignantly through tumbled blonde hair. ‘Stop it!’

‘Coffee,’ I said, and waved the cup under her nose.

She came to life and clutched the cup with both hands. I took my coffee and a jug of hot water and went outside where I laid my shaving kit on the bonnet and began to whisk up a lather. After shaving, I thought, it would be nice to go down to the lake and clean up. I was beginning to feel grubby – the Odàdahraun is a dusty place – and the thought of clean water was good.