Running Blind / The Freedom Trap (12 page)

‘Then nothing.’

I increased the pressure on his spine slightly. ‘You can do better than that.’

‘I was to wait until someone showed up and then quit and go home.’

‘And who was the someone?’

‘I don’t know—I wasn’t told.’

That sounded crazy; it was even improbable enough to be true. I said, ‘What’s your name?’

‘John Smith.’

I smiled and said, ‘All right, Johnny; start crawling—backwards and slowly. And if I see more than half an inch of daylight between your belly and the ground I’ll let you have it.’

He wriggled back slowly and painfully away from the edge and down into the hollow, and then I stopped him. Much as I would have liked to carry on the interrogation I had to put an end to it because time was wasting. I said, ‘Now, Johnny; I don’t want you to make any sudden moves because I’m a very nervous man, so just keep quite still.’

I came up on his blind side, lifted the butt of the rifle and brought it down on the back of his head. It was no way to treat such a good gun but it was the only thing I had handy. The gun butt was considerably harder than the cosh and I regretfully decided I had fractured his skull. Anyway, he wouldn’t be causing me any more trouble.

I walked over to pick up the jacket he had been using as a gun rest. It was heavy and I expected to find a pistol in the pocket, but the weight was caused by an unbroken box of rounds for the rifle. Next to the jacket was an open box. Both were unlabelled.

I checked the rifle. The magazine was designed to hold five rounds and contained four, there was one in the breech ready to pop off, and there were nineteen rounds in the opened box. Mr Smith was a professional; he had filled the magazine, jacked one into the breech, and then taken out the magazine and stuffed another round into it so he would have six rounds in hand instead of five. Not that he needed them—he had bust the tyre on a moving vehicle at over four hundred yards with just one shot.

He was a professional all right, but his name wasn’t Smith because he carried an American passport in the name of Wendell George Fleet. He also carried a pass that would get him into the more remote corners of Keflavik Naval Base, the parts which the public are discouraged from
visiting. He didn’t carry a pistol; a rifleman as good as he usually despises handguns.

I put the boxes of ammunition into my pocket where they weighed heavy, and I stuck Joe’s automatic pistol into the waistband of my trousers, unloading it first so I didn’t do a Kennikin on myself. Safety catches are not all that reliable and a lot of men have ruined themselves for their wives by acting like a character in a TV drama.

I went to see how Joe was doing and found that he was still asleep and that his name wasn’t even Joe according to his passport. It turned out he was Patrick Aloysius McCarthy. I regarded him speculatively; he looked more Italian than Irish to me. Probably all the names were phoney, just as Buchner who wasn’t Graham turned out to be Philips.

McCarthy carried two spare magazines for the Smith & Wesson, both of them full, which I confiscated. I seemed to be building up quite an armoury on this expedition—from a little knife to a high-powered rifle in one week wasn’t doing too bad. Next up the scale ought to be a burp gun or possibly a fully-fledged machine-gun. I wondered how long it would take me to graduate to something really lethal, such as an Atlas ICBM.

McCarthy had been going somewhere when I thumped him. He had been trying to contact someone by radio, but the walkie-talkie had been on the blink so he’d decided to walk, and that put whoever it was not very far away. I stared up towards the top of the ridge and decided to take a look over the next rise. It was a climb of perhaps two hundred yards and when I poked my head carefully over the top I caught my breath in surprise.

The yellow US Navy helicopter was parked about four hundred yards away and two crewmen and a civilian sat in front of it, talking casually. I lifted Fleet’s rifle and looked at them through the big scope at maximum magnification. The
crewmen were unimportant but I thought I might know the civilian. I didn’t, but I memorized his face for future reference.

For a moment I was tempted to tickle them up with the rifle but I shelved the idea. It would be better to depart quietly and without fuss. I didn’t want that chopper with me the rest of the way, so I withdrew and went back down the hill. I had been away quite a while and Elin would be becoming even more worried, if that were possible.

From where I was I had a good view along the track so I looked to see if Kennikin was yet in sight. He was! Through the scope I saw a minute black dot in the far distance crawling along the track, and I estimated that the jeep was about three miles away. There was a lot of mud along there and I didn’t think he’d be making much more than ten miles an hour, so that put him about fifteen minutes behind.

I went down the hillside fast.

Elin was squashed into the crack in the rock but she came out when I called. She ran over and grabbed me as though she wanted to check whether I was all in one piece and she was laughing and crying at the same time. I disentangled myself from her arms. ‘Kennikin’s not far behind; let’s move.’

I set out towards the Land-Rover at a dead run, holding Elin’s arm, but she dragged free. ‘The coffee pot!’

‘The hell with it!’ Women are funny creatures; this was not a time to be thinking of domestic economy. I grabbed her arm again and dragged her along.

Thirty seconds later I had the engine going and we were bouncing along the track too fast for either safety or comfort while I decided which potholes it would be safe to put the front wheels into. Decisions, decisions, nothing but bloody decisions—and if I decided wrongly we’d have a broken half-axle or be stuck in the mud and the jig would be up.

We bounced like hell all the way to the Tungnaá River and the traffic got thicker—one car passed us going the other way, the first we had seen since being in the
Óbyggdir.
That was bad because Kennikin was likely to stop it and ask the driver if he had seen a long wheelbase Land-Rover lately. It was one thing to chase me through the wilderness without knowing where I was, and quite another to know that I was actually within spitting distance. The psychological spur would stimulate his adrenal gland just that much more.

On the other hand, seeing the car cheered me because it meant that the car transporter over the Tungnaá would be on our side of the river and there would be no waiting. I have travelled a lot in places where water crossings are done by ferry—there are quite a few in Scotland—and it’s a law of nature that the ferry is always on the other side when you arrive at the water’s edge. But that wouldn’t be so this time.

Not that this was a ferry. You cross the Tungnaá by means of a contraption—a platform slung on an overhead cable. You drive your car on to the platform and winch yourself across, averting your eyes from the white water streaming below. According to the
Ferdahandbokin,
which every trav-eller in the
Óbyggdir
ought to consult, extreme care is necessary for people not acquainted with the system. Personally, I don’t recommend it for those with queasy stomachs who have to cross in a high wind.

We arrived at the Tungnaá and the contraption was, indeed, on our side. I checked that it was secured and safe, and then drove on carefully. ‘Stay in the cab,’ I said to Elin. ‘You can’t winch with that broken wing.’

I got out and began to operate the winch, keeping an eye open for Kennikin’s imminent arrival. I felt very exposed and naked and I hoped I had kept my fifteen-minute lead because crossing the Tungnaá is a slow job. But we made it
without incident and I drove off the platform with a great sense of relief.

‘Now we can stop the bastard,’ I said as we drove away.

Elin sat up straight. ‘You’re not going to break the cable!’ There was a note of indignation in her voice. Being shot at was all right but the wanton destruction of public property was unethical.

I grinned at her. ‘I’d do it if I could, but it would take a stronger man than me.’ I pulled the car off the road and looked back; the river was out of sight. ‘No, I’m going to chain up the platform so Kennikin can’t pull it across. He’ll be stuck on the other side until someone going the other way can release it, and God knows when that will be—there’s not much traffic. Stay here.’

I got out, rummaged in the tool kit, and found the snow chains. It wasn’t at all likely we’d need them in the summer and they could do a better job keeping Kennikin off my neck than lying where they were. I lifted them out and ran back down the track.

You can’t really tie a chain into a knot but I tethered that platform with such a tangle of iron that would take anyone at least half an hour to free unless he happened to have an oxy-acetylene cutting torch handy. I had nearly completed the job when Kennikin arrived on the other side and the fun started.

The jeep came to a halt and four men got out, Kennikin in the lead. I was hidden behind the platform and no one saw me at first. Kennikin studied the cable and then read the instructions that are posted in Icelandic and English. He got the hang of it and ordered his men to haul the platform back across the river.

They duly hauled and nothing happened.

I was working like hell to finish the job and just got it done in time. The platform lurched away and then stopped, tethered by the chain. There was a shout from the other side
and someone went running along the bank so as to get into a position to see what was stopping the platform. He saw it all right—he saw me. The next moment he had whipped out a gun and started to shoot.

The pistol is a much over-rated weapon. It has its place, which is about ten yards from its target or, better still, ten feet. The popgun that was shooting at me was a short-barrelled .38 revolver—a belly gun—with which I wouldn’t trust to hit anything I couldn’t reach out and touch. I was pretty safe as long as he aimed at me; if he started to shoot anywhere else I might get hit by accident, but that was a slim chance.

The others opened up as I snagged the last bit of chain into place. A bullet raised the dust two yards away and that was as close as they came. Yet it’s no fun being shot at so I turned and belted away up the track at a dead run.

Elin was standing by the Land-Rover, her face full of concern, having heard the barrage of shots. ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘The war hasn’t broken out.’ I reached inside and took out Fleet’s rifle. ‘Let’s see if we can discourage them.’

She looked at the rifle with abhorrence. ‘Oh, God! Must you kill them? Haven’t you done enough?’

I stared at her and then the penny dropped. She thought I’d got hold of that rifle by killing Fleet; she seemed to think that you couldn’t take that much gun away from a man without killing him. I said, ‘Elin; those men across the river were trying to kill me. The fact they didn’t succeed doesn’t alter their intention. Now, I’m not going to kill anyone—I said I’ll discourage them.’ I held up the rifle. ‘And I didn’t kill the man I took this from, either.’

I walked away down the track but veered away from it before I reached the river. I hunted around until I found suitable cover and then lay and watched Kennikin and his crew unsuccessfully trying to get at the platform. A 30-power scope was a bit too much optical glass for a range of
a hundred yards but it had variable power so I dropped it to a magnification of six which was as low as it would go. A rock in front of me formed a convenient rest and I settled the butt against my shoulder and looked into the eyepiece.

I wasn’t going to kill anyone. Not that I didn’t want to, but bodies you can’t get rid of are inconvenient and lead to the asking of awkward questions by the appropriate authorities. A wounded Russian, on the other hand, would be eliminated just as much as a dead one. He would be smuggled by his friends on to the trawler which was undoubtedly to hand, probably already in Reykjavik harbour. The Russians have more non-fishing trawlers than any other nation on earth.

No, I wasn’t going to kill anyone, but someone would soon wish to God he were dead.

Kennikin had disappeared and the three other men were engaged in a heated discussion about how to solve their little problem. I broke it up by firing five spaced shots in thirty seconds. The first hit the man standing next to the jeep in the kneecap, and suddenly there wasn’t anyone else around to shoot at. He lay on the ground, writhing and shouting, and he’d have one leg shorter than the other for the rest of his life—if he was got into a hospital quickly. If not, he’d be lucky to have a leg at all.

I re-sighted and squeezed the trigger again, this time shooting at the off-side front tyre of the jeep. The rifle was one of the best I’ve ever handled and, at a hundred yards, the trajectory was so flat that I could put a bullet exactly where I wanted it. The tyre wasn’t just punctured; under the close-range hammer blow of that big .375 bullet it exploded into bits, as did the other front tyre when I let fly again.

Someone popped off with a pistol. I ignored that and fed another round into the breech. I centred the cross hairs on to the front of the radiator and fired again, and the jeep
rocked on its springs under the impact. This rifle was chambered to shoot big game and anything that can crack open the frontal skull bone of a buffalo wouldn’t do an engine block much good. I put the last bullet in the same place in the hope of putting the jeep permanently out of action and then withdrew, keeping my head down.

I walked up to the Land-Rover, and said to Elin, ‘It’s a good rifle.’

She looked at me nervously. ‘I thought I heard someone scream.’

‘I didn’t kill anyone,’ I said. ‘But they won’t be driving that jeep very far. Let’s go on. You can drive for a bit.’ I was suddenly very tired.

We drove out of the
Óbyggdir
and hit the main road system. Even if Kennikin was able to follow us we would have a good chance of losing him because this was one of the main areas of population and there was a network of roads harder to police than the simple choices of the
Óbyggdir.
Elin drove while I relaxed in the passenger seat, and once we were on the good roads were able to pick up speed.

‘Where to?’ she asked.

‘I’d like to get this vehicle out of sight,’ I said. ‘It’s too damned conspicuous. Any suggestions?’

‘You have to be at Geysir tomorrow night,’ she said. ‘I have friends at Laugarvatn—you must remember Gunnar.’

‘Weren’t you running around with him before you met me?’

She smiled. ‘It wasn’t serious—and we’re still friends. Besides, he’s married now.’

Marriage, to a lot of men, doesn’t mean an automatic cancellation of their hunting licence, but I let it lie; a more-or-less civilized butting match with Elin’s old boyfriend was preferable to a more deadly encounter with Kennikin. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Head for Laugarvatn.’

We were silent for a while, then I said, ‘Thank you for what you did back there when I was on Búdarháls. It was a damned silly thing to do, but it helped.’

‘I thought it might distract their attention,’ she said.

‘It sure as hell distracted mine for a minute. Did you know you were in the sights of a rifle all the way—and there was a finger on the trigger?’

‘I did feel uneasy,’ she admitted, and shivered involuntarily. ‘What happened up there?’

‘I gave headaches to a couple of men. One of them will probably wind up in hospital at Keflavik.’

She looked at me sharply. ‘Keflavik!’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘They were Americans.’ I told her about Fleet, McCarthy and the waiting helicopter. ‘I’ve been trying to make sense out of it ever since—without much success.’

She thought about it too, and said. ‘But it
doesn’t
make sense. Why would the Americans co-operate with the Russians? Are you sure they were Americans?’

‘They were as American as Mom’s apple-pie—at least Fleet was. I didn’t get to talk to McCarthy.’

‘They could be sympathizers,’ said Elin. ‘Fellowtravellers.’

‘Then they’re travelling closer than a flea to a dog.’ I took out Fleet’s pass to the remoter recesses of Keflavik Air Base. ‘If they’re fellow-travellers then the Yanks had better watch it—their furniture is riddled with woodworm.’ I examined the pass and thought about the helicopter. ‘It’s just about the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard of.’

‘Then what other explanation is there?’

The idea of a nest of communist sympathizers being convenient to hand at Keflavik and able to lay their hands on a navy helicopter at a moment’s notice was untenable. I said, ‘I doubt if Kennikin rang up Keflavik and said, “Look, boys; I’m chasing a British spy and I need your help. Can you lay on a chopper and a sharpshooter and stop him for me?” But there’s someone else who could do it.’

‘Who?’

‘There’s a man called Helms in Washington who could pick up a telephone and say, “Admiral, there’ll be a couple of guys dropping in at Keflavik pretty soon. Let them have a helicopter and a crew—and don’t ask too many questions about what they want it for.” And the Admiral would say, “Yes, sir; yes, sir; three bags full, sir,” because Helms is the boss of the CIA.’

‘But why?’

‘I’m damned if I know,’ I said. ‘But it’s a bloody sight more likely than Keflavik being white-anted by Russian agents.’ I thought of my brief and unsatisfactory conversation with Fleet. ‘Fleet said that his orders were to pin us down until someone—presumably Kennikin—arrived. He said he’d never heard of Kennikin. He also said that when Kennikin arrived his job was over and he could go home. There’s one more question I should have asked him.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Whether his instructions called for him to show himself to Kennikin or whether they specifically forbade it. I’d give a lot to know the answer to that one.’

‘You’re sure we were chased by Russians? I mean, you’re sure it
was
Kennikin?’

‘That’s a face I’ll never forget,’ I said. ‘And there was a lot of swearing in Russian back at the Tungnaá River.’

I could almost see the wheels whizzing round as Elin thought about it. ‘Try this,’ she said. ‘Supposing Slade is also chasing us, and suppose he asked the Americans to co-operate—but what he didn’t know was that Kennikin was closer to us. The Americans were supposed to hold us up until Slade arrived—not Kennikin.’

‘It’s barely possible,’ I conceded. ‘But it shows lousy liaison. And why go to all the trouble of a sniper hidden on a hill? Why not have the Americans just make a simple pinch?’ I shook my head. ‘Besides, the Department isn’t all
that chummy with the CIA—the special relationship has its limits.’

‘My explanation is the more reasonable,’ said Elin.

‘I’m not sure there
is
any reason involved—it’s turning into a thoroughly unreasonable situation. It reminds me of what a physicist once said about his job: “The universe is not only queerer than we imagine but, perhaps, queerer than we can imagine.” I can see his point now.’

Elin laughed, and I said, ‘What the hell’s so funny? Slade has already taken a crack at us, and may do again if Taggart hasn’t pulled him off. Kennikin is sweating blood trying to get at me—and now the Americans have put in their oar. Any minute from now I’m expecting the West Germans to pitch up, or maybe the Chilean Secret Service. I wouldn’t be surprised at anything. But there’s one thing that really worries me.’

‘What?’

I said, ‘Suppose I give this gadget to Case tomorrow night. Kennikin won’t know that, will he? I can’t see Jack Case writing him a letter—”Dear Vaslav, Stewart doesn’t have the football any more; I’ve got it—come and chase
me
.” I’ll be just as much up the creek as before. Farther, in fact, because if Kennikin catches me and I
haven’t
got the damned thing then he’ll be even madder than he is now, if that’s possible.’

I wasn’t so sure I was going to give the gadget to Case, after all. If I was going to be up the creek, I’d better retain the paddle.

Laugarvatn is a district educational centre which takes in children from a wide rural area. The country is so big relative to the population, and the population so scattered, that
the educational system is rather peculiar. Most of the rural schools are boarding schools and in some of them the pupils spend a fortnight at school and a fortnight at home, turn and turn about, during the winter teaching terms. The children from farther away spend all winter at school. In the summer the schools are turned into hotels for four months.

Because Laugarvatn is conveniently close to Thingvellir, Geysir, Gullfoss and other tourist attractions its two large schools come in very useful as summer hotels, and Laugarvatn had become a pony-trekking centre very popular with visitors. Personally, I’ve never cared much for horses, not even the multi-coloured Icelandic variety which is better-looking than most. I think the horse is a stupid animal—any animal which allows another to ride it must be stupid—and I prefer to be bounced by a Land-Rover rather than by a stubborn pony who would rather go home.

Gunnar Arnarsson was a schoolteacher in the winter and in summer ran a pony-trekking operation. Very versatile people, these Icelanders. He was away when we arrived, but his wife, Sigurlin Asgeirsdottir, made us welcome with much clucking at the sight of Elin’s arm in an improvised sling.

One of the problems in Iceland is sorting out the single from the married people, because the woman does not change her name when she gets married. In fact, the whole problem of names is a trap into which foreigners usually fall with a loud thump. The surname just tells everyone who your father was; Sigurlin was the daughter of Asgeir, just as Gunnar was the son of Arnar. If Gunnar had a son and decided to name the boy after his grandfather he’d be called Arnar Gunnarsson. All very difficult and the reason why the Icelandic telephone directory is listed alphabetically under given names. Elin Ragnarsdottir was listed under ‘E’.

Gunnar appeared to have done well for himself because Sigurlin was one of those tall, leggy, svelte, Scandinavian types who go over big when they get to Hollywood, and
what the hell has acting got to do with it, anyway? The widespread belief that the Nordic nations are populated exclusively on the distaff side by these tow-headed goddesses is, however, a regrettable illusion.

From the way she welcomed us Sigurlin knew about me, but not all, I hoped. At any rate she knew a lot—enough to hear the distant chime of wedding bells. It’s funny, but as soon as a girl gets married she wants to get all her old girl-friends caught in the same trap. Because of Kennikin there weren’t going to be any immediate wedding bells—the tolling of a single funeral note was more likely—but, disregarding Kennikin, I wasn’t going to be pressured by any busty blonde with a match-making glint in her eye.

I put the Land-Rover into Gunnar’s empty garage with some relief. Now it was safely off the road and under cover I felt much better. I saw that the collection of small arms was decently concealed and then went into the house to find Sigurlin just coming downstairs. She gave me a peculiar look and said abruptly, ‘What did Elin do to her shoulder?’

I said cautiously, ‘Didn’t she tell you?’

‘She said she was climbing and fell against a sharp rock.’

I made an indeterminate noise expressive of agreement, but I could see that Sigurlin was suspicious. A gunshot wound tends to look like nothing else but, even to someone who has never seen one before. I said hastily, ‘It’s very good of you to offer us a bed for the night.’

‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Would you like some coffee?’

‘Thank you, I would.’ I followed her into the kitchen. ‘Have you known Elin long?’

‘Since we were children.’ Sigurlin dumped a handful of beans into a coffee grinder. ‘And you?’

‘Three years.’

She filled an electric kettle and plugged it in, then swung around to face me. ‘Elin looks very tired.’

‘We pushed it a bit in the
Óbyggdir.
’

That can’t have sounded convincing because Sigurlin said, ‘I wouldn’t want her to come to any harm. That wound…’

‘Well?’

‘She didn’t fall against a rock, did she?’

There was a brain behind those beautiful eyes. ‘No,’ I said. ‘She didn’t.’

‘I thought not,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen wounds like that. Before I married I was a nurse at Keflavik. An American sailor was brought into hospital once—he’d been cleaning his gun and shot himself accidentally. Whose gun was Elin cleaning?’

I sat down at the kitchen table. ‘There’s a certain amount of trouble,’ I said carefully. ‘And it’s best you’re not involved, so I’m not going to tell you anything about it—for your own good. I tried to keep Elin out of it from the beginning, but she’s headstrong.’

Sigurlin nodded. ‘Her family always was stubborn.’

I said, ‘I’m going to Geysir tomorrow evening and I’d like Elin to stay here. I’ll want your co-operation on that.’

Sigurlin regarded me seriously. ‘I don’t like trouble with guns.’

‘Neither do I. I’m not exactly shouting for joy. That’s why I want Elin out of it. Can she stay here for a while?’

‘A gunshot wound should be reported to the police.’

‘I know,’ I said wearily. ‘But I don’t think your police are equipped to cope with this particular situation. It has international ramifications and there is more than one gun involved. Innocent people could get killed if it’s not carefully handled, and with no disrespect to your police, I think they’d be likely to blunder.’

‘This trouble, as you call it—is it criminal?’

‘Not in the normal sense. You might call it an extreme form of political action.’

Sigurlin turned down the corners of her mouth. ‘The only good thing I’ve heard about this is that you want to
keep Elin out of it,’ she said waspishly. ‘Tell me, Alan Stewart; are you in love with her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you going to marry her?’

‘If she’ll have me after all this.’

She offered me a superior smile. ‘Oh, she’ll have you. You’re hooked like a salmon and you won’t get away now.’

‘I’m not so sure of that,’ I said. ‘There are certain things that have come up lately that don’t add to my charms in Elin’s eyes.’

‘Such as guns?’ Sigurlin poured coffee. ‘You don’t need to answer that. I won’t probe.’ She put the cup before me. ‘All right; I’ll keep Elin here.’

‘I don’t know how you’re going to do it,’ I said. ‘I’ve never been able to make her do anything she didn’t want to do.’

‘I’ll put her to bed,’ said Sigurlin. ‘Strict medical supervision. She’ll argue, but she’ll do it. You do what you have to do and Elin will stay here. But I won’t be able to keep her long. What happens if you don’t come back from Geysir?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But don’t let her go back to Reykjavik. To go to the apartment would be extremely unwise.’

Sigurlin took a deep breath. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down. ‘If it weren’t for the concern you show for Elin I’d be inclined to…’ She shook her head irritably. ‘I don’t like any of this, Alan. For God’s sake get it cleared up as quickly as you can.’

‘I’ll do my best.’

The next day seemed very long.

At breakfast Sigurlin read the paper and suddenly said, ‘Well, well! Someone tied up the cable transport on the
Tungnaá just the other side of Hald. A party of tourists was stranded on the farther side for several hours. I wonder who could have done that?’

‘It was all right when we came across,’ I said blandly. ‘What does it say about the tourists? Anyone hurt?’

She looked at me speculatively across the breakfast table. ‘Why should anyone be hurt? No, it says nothing about that.’

I changed the subject quickly. ‘I’m surprised that Elin is still asleep.’

Sigurlin smiled. ‘I’m not. She didn’t know it, but she had a sleeping draught last night. She’ll be drowsy when she wakes and she won’t want to jump out of bed.’

That was one way of making sure of Elin. I said, ‘I noticed your garage was empty—don’t you have a car?’