Running Blind. Desmond Bagley
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looked at it myself, and it looked right back at me and said nothing. ‘Maybe I’d better get out the can-opener,’ I said. ‘But not just yet. Perhaps it might be better not to know.’
Elin made a sound of exasperation. ‘Why must you men make everything complicated? So what are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to lie low,’ I said mendaciously. ‘While I do some heavy thinking. Maybe I’ll post the damned thing to post restante, Akureyri, and telegraph Slade telling him where to pick it up.’
I hoped Elin would swallow that because I was going to do something quite different and infinitely more dangerous. Somebody was soon going to find out he’d been sold a pup; he was going to scream loudly and I wanted to be around to find out who was screaming. But I didn’t want to have Elin around when that happened.
‘Lie low,’ repeated Elin thoughtfully. She turned to me. ‘What about Asbyrgi for tonight?’
‘Asbyrgi!’ I laughed and drained my glass. ‘Why not?’
V
In that dim and faraway time when the gods were young and Odin rode the arctic wastelands, he was out one day when his horse, Sleipnir, stumbled and planted a hoof in Northern Iceland. The place where the hoof hit the ground is now known as Asbyrgi. So runs the legend but my geologist friends tell it a little differently.
Asbyrgi is a hoof-shaped rock formation about two miles across. Within it the trees, sheltered from the killing wind, grow quite strongly for Iceland, some of them attaining a height of nearly twenty feet. It is a green and fertile place nestling between the towering rock walls which surround it. There is nothing to draw one there but the legend and the unaccustomed sight of growing trees, but although it is a tourist attraction they don’t stay the night. More to the point, it is quite off the main road.
We pushed through the narrow entrance to Asbyrgi and along the track made by the wheels of visiting cars until we were well inside at a place where the rock walls drew together and the trees were thick, and there we made camp. It was our custom to sleep on the ground when the climate allowed so I erected the awning which fitted on to the side of the Land-Rover, and brought out the air mattresses and sleeping bags while Elin began to prepare supper.
Perhaps we were sybaritic about our camping because we certainly didn’t rough it. I took out the folding chairs and the table and set them up and Elin put down a bottle of Scotch and two glasses and joined me in a drink before she broiled the steak. Beef is a luxury I insist upon in Iceland; one can get awfully tired of mutton.
It was quiet and peaceful and we sat and enjoyed the evening, savouring the peaty taste of the whisky and talking desultorily of the things farthest from our minds. I think we both needed a respite from the nagging problem of Slade and his damned package, and the act of setting out our camp was a return to happier days which we both eagerly grasped.
Elin got up to cook supper and I poured another drink and wondered how I was to get rid of her. If she wouldn’t go voluntarily then perhaps the best way would be to decamp early in the morning leaving her a couple of cans of food and a water bottle. With those and the sleeping bag she would be all right for a day or two until someone came into Asbyrgi and gave her a lift into civilization. She would be mad as a hornet but she would still be alive.
Because lying low wasn’t good enough. I had to become visible – set myself up like a tin duck at a shooting gallery so that someone would have a crack at me. I didn’t want Elin around when the action started.
Elin brought the supper and we started to eat. She said, ‘Alan, why did you leave the … the Department?’
I hesitated with my fork in the air. ‘I had a difference of opinion,’ I said shortly.
‘With Slade?’
I laid down the fork gently. ‘It was about Slade – yes. I don’t want to talk about it, Elin.’
She brooded for a while, then said, ‘It might be better if you talked about it. You don’t want to keep things locked up.’
I laughed silently. ‘That’s funny,’ I said. ‘Telling that to an agent of the Department. Haven’t you heard of the Official Secrets Act?’
‘What’s that?’
‘If the Department found I’d talked out of turn I’d be slung into jail for the rest of my life.’
‘Oh, that!’ she said disparagingly. ‘That doesn’t count – not with me.’
‘Try telling that to Sir David Taggart,’ I said. ‘I’ve told you more than enough already.’
‘Then why not get it all out? You know I won’t tell anyone.’
I looked down at my plate. ‘Not of your own free will. I wouldn’t want anyone to hurt you, Elin.’
‘Who would hurt me?’ she asked.
‘Slade would, for one. Then there’s a character called Kennikin who may be around, but I hope not.’
Elin said slowly, ‘If I ever marry anyone it will be a man who has no secrets. This is not good, Alan.’
‘So you think that a trouble shared is a trouble halved. I don’t think the Department would go along with you on that. The powers that be don’t think confession is good for the soul, and Catholic priests and psychiatrists are looked upon with deep suspicion. But since you’re so persistent I’ll tell you some of it – not enough to be dangerous.’
I cut into the steak again. ‘It was on an operation in Sweden. I was in a counter-espionage group trying to penetrate the KGB apparat in Scandinavia. Slade was masterminding the operation. I’ll tell you one thing about Slade; he’s very clever – devious and tricky, and he likes a ploy that wins coming and going.’
I found I had lost my appetite and pushed the plate away. ‘A man called V. V. Kennikin was bossing the opposition, and I got pretty close to him. As far as he was concerned I was a Swedish Finn called Stewartsen, a fellow traveller who was willing to be used. Did you know I was born in Finland?’
Elin shook her head. ‘You didn’t tell me.’
I shrugged. 1 suppose I’ve tried to close off that part of my life. Anyway, after a lot of work and a lot of fright I was inside and accepted by Kennikin; not that he trusted me, but he used me on minor jobs and I was able to gather a lot of information which was duly passed on to Slade. But it was all trivial stuff. I was close to Kennikin, but not close enough.’
Elin said, ‘It sounds awful. I’m not surprised you were frightened.’
‘I was scared to death most of the time; double agents usually are.’ I paused, trying to think of the simplest way to explain a complicated situation. I said deliberately, ‘The time came when I had to kill a man. Slade warned me that my cover was in danger of being blown. He said the man responsible had not reported to Kennikin and the best thing to do was to eliminate him. So I did it with a bomb.’ I swallowed. ‘I never even saw the man I killed – I just put a bomb in a car.’
There was horror in Elin’s eyes. I said harshly, ‘We weren’t playing patty-cake out there.’
‘But someone you didn’t know – that you had never seen!’
‘It’s better that way,’ I said. ‘Ask any bomber pilot. But that’s not the point. The point is that I had trusted Slade and it turned out that the man I killed was a British agent – one of my own side.’
Elin was looking at me as though I had just crawled out from under a stone. I said, ‘I contacted Slade and asked what the hell was going on. He said the man was a freelance agent whom neither side trusted – the trade is lousy with them. He recommended that I tell Kennikin what I’d done, so I did and my stock went up with Kennikin. Apparently he had been aware of a leak in his organization and there was enough evidence