Running Blind / The Freedom Trap

So all I had was the knife – the sgian dubh. I stooped and picked it up from where it was lying next to the sleeping bag and tucked it into the waistband of my trousers. Then I withdrew into the trees by the side of the glade and settled down to wait.

It was a long time, nearer to half an hour, before anything happened. He came like a ghost, a dark shape moving quietly up the track and not making a sound. It was too dark to see his face but there was just enough light to let me see what he carried. The shape and the way he held it was unmistakable – there are ways of holding tools, and a man carries a rifle in a different way from he carries a stick. This was no stick.

I froze as he paused on the edge of the glade. He was quite still and, if I hadn’t known he was there, it would have been easy for the eye to pass over that dark patch by the trees without recognizing it for what it was – a man with a gun. I was worried about the gun; it was either a rifle or a shotgun, and that was the sign of a professional. Pistols are too inaccurate for the serious business of killing – ask any soldier – and are liable to jam at the wrong moment. The professional prefers something more deadly.

If I was going to jump him I’d have to get behind him. which meant letting him pass me, but that would mean laying myself wide open for his friend – if he had a friend behind him. So I waited to see if the friend would turn up or if he was alone. I wondered briefly if he knew what would happen if he fired that gun in Asbyrgi; if he didn’t then he’d be a very surprised gunman when he pulled the trigger.

There was a flicker of movement and he was suddenly gone, and I cursed silently. Then a twig cracked and I knew he was in the trees on the other side of the glade. This was a professional all right – a really careful boy. Never come from the direction in which you are expected, even if you don’t think you’ll be expected. Play it safe. He was in the trees and circling the glade to come in from the other side.

I also began to circle, but in the opposite direction. This was tricky because sooner or later we’d come face to face. I plucked the sgian dubh from my waist and held it loosely – puny protection against a rifle but it was all I had. Every step I took I tested carefully to make sure there was no twig underfoot, and it was slow and sweaty work.

I paused beneath a scrawny birch tree and peered into the semi-darkness. Nothing moved but I heard the faint click as of one stone knocking against another. I remained motionless, holding my breath, and then I saw him coming towards me, a dark moving shadow not ten yards away. I tightened my hold on the knife and waited for him.

Suddenly the silence was broken by the rustle of bushes and something white arose at his feet. It could only be one thing – he had walked right on to Elin where she had crouched in hiding. He was startled, retreated a step, and raised the rifle, I yelled, ‘Get down, Elin!’ as he pulled the trigger and a flash of light split the darkness.

It sounded as though a war had broken out, as though an infantry company had let off a rather ragged volley of rifle fire. The noise of the shot bounced from the cliffs of Asbyrgi, repeating from rock face to rock face in a diminishing series of multiple echoes which died away slowly in the far distance. That unexpected result of pulling the trigger unnerved him momentarily and he checked in surprise.

I threw the knife and there was the soft thud as it hit him. He gave a bubbling cry and dropped the rifle to claw at his chest. Then his knees buckled and he fell to the ground, thrashing and writhing among the bushes.

I ignored him and ran to where I had seen Elin, pulling the flashlight from my pocket as I went. She was sitting on the ground, her hand to her shoulder and her eyes wide with shock. ‘Are you all right?’

She withdrew her hand and her fingers were covered in blood. ‘He shot me,’ she said dully.

I knelt beside her and looked at her shoulder. The bullet had grazed her, tearing the pad of muscle on top of the shoulder. It would be painful later, but it was not serious. ‘We’d better put a dressing on that,’ I said.

‘He shot me!’ Her voice was stronger and there was something like wonder in her tone.

‘I doubt if he’ll shoot anyone again,’ I said, and turned the light on him. He was lying quite still with his head turned away.

‘Is he dead?’ asked Elin, her eyes on the haft of the knife which protruded from his chest.

‘I don’t know. Hold the light.’ I took his wrist and felt the quick beat of the pulse. ‘He’s alive,’ I said. ‘He might even survive.’ I pulled his head around so that I could see his face. It was Graham – and that was something of a surprise. I mentally apologized for accusing him of having been wet behind the ears; the way he had approached our camp had been all professional.

Elin said, ‘There’s a first-aid box in the Land-Rover.’

‘Carry on,’ I said. ‘I’ll bring him over.’ I stooped and picked up Graham in my arms and followed Elin. She spread out the sleeping bag and I laid him down. Then she brought out the first-aid box and sank to her knees.

‘No,’ I said. ‘You first. Take off your shirt.’ I cleaned the wound on her shoulder, dusted it with penicillin powder, and bound a pad over it. ‘You’ll have trouble in raising your arm above your shoulder for the next week,’ I said. ‘Otherwise it’s not too bad.’

She seemed mesmerized by the amber light reflected from the jewelled pommel of the knife in Graham’s chest. ‘That knife – do you always carry it?’

‘Always,’ I said. ‘We have to get it out of there.’ It had hit Graham in the centre of the chest just below the sternum and it had an upwards inclination. The whole of the blade was buried in him and God knows what it had sliced through.

I cut away his shirt, and said, ‘Get an absorbent pad ready,’ and then I put my hand on the hilt and pulled. The serrated back edge admitted air into the wound and made extraction easy and the knife came away cleanly. I half expected a gush of arterial blood which would have been the end of Graham, but there was just a steady trickle which ran down his stomach and collected in his navel.

Elin put the pad on the wound and strapped it down with tape while I took his pulse again. It was a little weaker than it had been.

‘Do you know who he is?’ asked Elin, sitting back on her heels.

‘Yes,’ I said matter-of-factly. ‘He said his name is Graham. He’s a member of the Department working with Slade.’ I picked up the sgian dubh and began to clean it. ‘Right now I’d like to know if he came alone or if he has any pals around here. We’re sitting ducks.’

I got up and walked back into the trees and hunted about for Graham’s rifle. I found it and took it back to the Land-Rover; it was a Remington pump action carbine chambered for .30/06 ammunition – a good gun for a murderer. The barrel not too long to get in the way, the fire rapid – five aimed shots in five seconds – and a weight and velocity of slug enough to stop a man dead in his tracks. I operated the action and caught the round that jumped out. It was the ordinary soft-nosed hunting type, designed to spread on impact. Elin had been lucky.

She was bending over Graham wiping his brow. ‘He’s coming round.’

Graham’s eyes flickered and opened and he saw me standing over him with the carbine in my hands. He tried to get up but a spasm of pain hit him and the sweat started out on his brow. ‘You’re not in a position to do much,’ I said. ‘You have a hole in your gut.’

He sagged back and moistened his lips. ‘Slade said … ’ He fought for breath. ‘… said you weren’t dangerous.’

‘Did he, now? He was wrong, wasn’t he?’ I held up the carbine. ‘If you’d come empty-handed without this you wouldn’t be lying where you are now. What was supposed to be the idea?’

‘Slade wanted the package,’ he whispered.

‘So? But the opposition have it. The Russians – I suppose they are Russians?’

Graham nodded weakly. ‘But they didn’t get it. That’s why Slade sent me in here. He said you were playing a double game. He said you weren’t straight.’

I frowned. ‘Now, that’s interesting,’ I said, and sat on my heels next to him with the carbine across my knees. ‘Tell me this, Graham – who told Slade the Russians hadn’t got it? I didn’t tell them, that’s for sure. I suppose the Russkies obligingly told him they’d been fooled.’

A look of puzzlement came over his face. ‘I don’t know how he knew. He just told me to come and get it.’

I lifted the carbine. ‘And he gave you this. I suppose I was to be liquidated.’ I glanced at Elin, and then back at Graham. ‘And what about Elin here? What was to happen to her?’

Graham closed his eyes. ‘I didn’t know she was here.’

‘Maybe not,’ I said. ‘But Slade did. How the hell do you think that Land-Rover got here?’ Graham’s eyelids flickered. ‘You know damned well you’d have to kill any witnesses.’

A trickle of blood crept from the corner of his mouth. ‘You lousy bastard!’ I said. ‘If I thought you knew what you were doing I’d kill you now. So Slade told you I’d reneged and you took his word for it – you took the gun he gave you and followed his orders. Ever hear of a man called Birkby?’

Graham opened his eyes. ‘No.’

‘Before your time,’ I said. ‘It just happens that Slade has played that trick before. But never mind that now. Did you come alone?’

Graham closed his mouth tightly and a stubborn look came over his face. ‘Don’t be a hero,’ I advised. ‘I can get it out of you easily enough. How would you like me to stomp on your belly right now?’ I heard Elin gasp, but ignored her. ‘You have a bad gut wound, and you’re liable to die unless we can get you to a hospital. And I can’t do that if someone is going to take a crack at us as we leave Asbyrgi. I’m not going to put Elin into risk just for the sake of your hide.’

He looked beyond me to Elin, and then nodded. ‘Slade,’ he said. ‘He’s here … about a mile …’

‘At the entrance to Asbyrgi?’

‘Yes,’ he said, and closed his eyes again. I took his pulse and found it very much fainter. I turned to Elin. ‘Start to load; leave enough room for Graham to lie in the back on top of the sleeping bags.’ I stood up and checked the load in the carbine.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Maybe I can get close enough to Slade to talk to him,’ I said. ‘To tell him his boy is badly hurt. Maybe I won’t – in that case I’ll talk to him with this.’ I held up the carbine.

She whitened. ‘You’ll kill him?’

‘Christ, I don’t know!’ I said exasperatedly. ‘All I know is that apparently he doesn’t mind if I’m killed – and you, too. He’s sitting at the entrance to Asbyrgi like a bloody cork in a bottle and this is the only corkscrew I’ve got.’

Graham moaned a little and opened his eyes. I bent down. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Bad.’ The trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth had increased to a rivulet which ran down his neck. ‘It’s funny,’ he whispered. ‘How did Slade know?’

I said, ‘What’s in the package?’

‘Don’t … know.’

‘Who is bossing the Department these days?’

His breath wheezed. ‘Ta … Taggart.’

If anyone could pull Slade off my back it would be Taggart. I said, ‘All right; I’ll go and see Slade. We’ll have you out of here in no time.’

‘Slade said … ’ Graham paused and began again. He seemed to have difficulty in swallowing and he coughed a little, bringing bright red bubbles foaming to his lips. ‘Slade said …’

The coughing increased and there was sudden gush of red arterial blood from his mouth and his head fell sideways. I put my hand to his wrist and knew that Graham would never tell me what more Slade had said because he was dead. I closed his staring eyes, and stood up. ‘I’d better talk to Slade.’

‘He’s dead!’ said Elin in a shocked whisper.

Graham was dead – a pawn suddenly swept from the board. He had died because he followed orders blindly, just as I had done in Sweden; he had died because he didn’t really understand what he was doing. Slade had told him to do something and he had tried and failed and come to his death. I didn’t really understand what I was doing, either, so I’d better not fail in anything I attempted.

Elin was crying. The big tears welled from her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. She didn’t sob but just stood there crying silently and looking down at the body of Graham. I said harshly, ‘Don’t cry for him – he was going to kill you. You heard him.’

When she spoke it was without a tremor, but still the tears came. ‘I’m not crying for Graham,’ she said desolately. ‘I’m crying for you. Someone must.’

II

We struck camp quickly and loaded everything into the Land-Rover, and everything included the body of Graham. ‘We can’t leave him here,’ I said. ‘Someone will be sure to stumble across him soon – certainly within the week. To quote the Bard, we lug the guts into the neighbour room.’

A wan smile crossed Elin’s face as she caught the allusion. ‘Where?’

‘Dettifoss,’ I said. ‘Or maybe Selfoss.’ To go over a couple of waterfalls, one the most powerful in Europe, would batter the body beyond recognition and, with luck, disguise the fact that Graham had been stabbed. He would be a lone tourist who had had an accident.

So we put the body in the back of the Land-Rover. I picked up the Remington carbine, and said, ‘Give me half an hour, then come along as fast as you can.’

‘I can’t move fast if I have to be quiet,’ she objected.

‘Quietness won’t matter – just belt towards the entrance as fast as you can, and use the headlights. Then slow down a bit so I can hop aboard.’

‘And then?’

‘Then we head for Dettifoss – but not by the main road. We keep on the track to the west of the river.’

‘What are you going to do about Slade? You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?’

‘He might kill me first,’ I said. ‘Let’s have no illusions about Slade.’

‘No more killing, Alan,’ she said. ‘Please – no more killing.’

‘It might not be up to me. If he shoots at me then I’ll shoot back.’

‘All right,’ she said quietly.

So I left her and headed towards the entrance to Asbyrgi, padding softly along the track and hoping that Slade wouldn’t come looking for Graham. I didn’t think it likely. Although he must have heard the shot he would have been expecting it, and then it would have taken Graham a half-hour to return after searching for the package. My guess was that Slade wouldn’t be expecting Graham for another hour.

I made good time but slowed as I approached the entrance. Slade had not bothered to hide his car; it was parked in full sight and was clearly visible because the short northern night was nearly over and the sky was light. He knew what he was doing because it was impossible to get close to the car without being seen, so I settled behind a rock and waited for Elin. I had no relish for walking across that open ground only to stop a bullet.

Presently I heard her coming. The noise was quite loud as she changed gear and I saw a hint of movement from inside the parked car. I nestled my cheek against the stock of the carbine and aimed. Graham had been professional enough to put a spot of luminous paint on the foresight but it was not necessary in the pre-dawn light.

I settled the sight on the driving side and, as the noise behind me built up to a crescendo, I slapped three bullets in as many seconds through the windscreen which must have been made of laminated glass because it went totally opaque. Slade took off in a wide sweep and I saw that the only thing that had saved him was that the car had right-hand drive, English style, and I had shot holes in the wrong side of the windscreen.

But he wasn’t waiting for me to correct the error and bucked away down the track as fast as he could go. The Land-Rover came up behind me and I jumped for it. ‘Get going!’ I yelled. ‘Make it fast.’

Ahead, Slade’s car skidded around a corner in a four-wheel drift, kicking up a cloud of dust. He was heading for the main road, but when we arrived at the corner Elin turned the other way as I had instructed her. It would have been useless chasing Slade – a Land-Rover isn’t built for that and he had the advantage.

We turned south on to the track which parallels the Jökulsà à Fjöllum, the big river that takes the melt water north from Vatnajökull, and the roughness of the ground dictated a reduction in speed. Elin said, ‘Did you talk to Slade?’

‘I couldn’t get near him.’

‘I’m glad you didn’t kill him.’

‘It wasn’t for want of trying,’ I said. ‘If he had a left-hand drive car he’d be dead by now.’

‘And would that make you feel any better?’ she asked cuttingly.

I looked at her. ‘Elin,’ I said, ‘The man’s dangerous. Either he’s gone off his nut – which I think is unlikely – or …’

‘Or what?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said despondently. ‘It’s too damned complicated and I don’t know enough. But I do know that Slade wants me dead. There’s something I know – or something he thinks I know – that’s dangerous for him; dangerous enough for him to want to kill me. Under the circumstances I don’t want you around – you could get in the line of fire. You did get in the line of fire this morning.’

She slowed because of a deep rut. ‘You can’t survive alone,’ she said. ‘You need help.’

I needed more than help; I needed a new set of brains to work out this convoluted problem. But this wasn’t the time to do it because Elin’s shoulder was giving her hell. ‘Pull up,’ I said. ‘I’ll do the driving.’

We travelled south for an hour and a half and Elin said, ‘There’s Dettifoss.’

I looked out over the rocky landscape towards the cloud of spray in the distance which hung over the deep gorge which the Jökulsá á Fjöllum has cut deep into the rock. ‘We’ll carry on to Selfoss,’ I decided. ‘Two waterfalls are better than one. Besides, there are usually campers at Dettifoss.’

We went past Dettifoss and, three kilometres farther on, I pulled off the road. ‘This is as close to Selfoss as we can get.’

I got out. ‘I’ll go towards the river and see if anyone’s around,’ I said. ‘It’s bad form to be seen humping bodies about. Wait here and don’t talk to any strange men.’

I checked to see if the body was still decently shrouded by the blanket with which we had covered it, and then headed towards the river. It was still very early in the morning and there was no one about so I went back and opened the rear door of the vehicle and climbed inside.

I stripped the blanket away from Graham’s body and searched his clothing. His wallet contained some Icelandic currency and a sheaf of Deutschmarks, together with a German motoring club card identifying him as Dieter Buchner, as also did his German passport. There was a photograph of him with his arm around a pretty girl and a fascia board of a shop behind them was in German. The Department was always thorough about that kind of thing.

The only other item of interest was a packet of rifle ammunition which had been broken open. I put that on one side, pulled out the body and replaced the wallet in the pocket, and then carried him in a fireman’s lift towards the river with Elin close on my heels.

I got to the lip of the gorge and put down the body while I studied the situation. The gorge at this point was curved and the river had undercut the rock face so that it was a straight drop right into the water. I pushed the body over the edge and watched it fall in a tumble of arms and legs until it splashed into the grey, swirling water. Buoyed by air trapped in the jacket it floated out until it was caught in the quick midstream current. We watched it go downstream until it disappeared over the edge of Selfoss to drop into the roaring cauldron below.

Elin looked at me sadly. ‘And what now?’

‘Now I go south,’ I said, and walked away quickly towards the Land-Rover. When Elin caught up with me I was bashing hell out of the radio-bug with a big stone.

‘Why south?’ she asked breathlessly.

‘I want to get to Keflavik and back to London. There’s a man I want to talk to – Sir David Taggart.’

‘We go by way of Myvatn?’

I shook my head, and gave the radio-bug one last clout, sure now that it would tell no more tales. ‘I’m keeping off the main roads – they’re too dangerous. I go by way of the Odádahraun and by Askja – into the desert. But you’re not coming.’

‘We’ll see,’ she said, and tossed the car key in her hand.

III

God has not yet finished making Iceland.

In the last 500 years one-third of all the lava extruded from the guts of the earth to the face of the planet has surfaced in Iceland and, of 200 known volcanoes, thirty are still very much active. Iceland suffers from a bad case of geological acne.

For the last thousand years a major eruption has been recorded, on average, every five years. Askja – the ash volcano – last blew its top in 1961. Measurable quantities of volcanic ash settled on the roofs of Leningrad, 1,500 miles away. That didn’t trouble the Russians overmuch but the effect was more serious nearer home. The country to north and east of Askja was scorched and poisoned by deep deposits of ash and, nearer to Askja, the lava flows overran the land, overlaying desolation with desolation. Askja dominates north-east Iceland and has created the most awesome landscape in the world.

It was into this wilderness, the Odádahraun, as remote and blasted as the surface of the moon, that we went. The name, loosely translated, means ‘Murderers’ Country’. and was the last foothold of the outlaws of olden times, the shunned of men against whom all hands were raised.

There are tracks in the Odádahraun – sometimes. The tracks are made by those who venture into the interior; most of them scientists – geologists and hydrographers – few travel for pleasure in that part of the Óbyggdir. Each vehicle defines the track a little more, but when the winter snows come the tracks are obliterated – by water, by snow avalanche, by rock slip. Those going into the interior in the early summer, as we were, are in a very real sense trail blazers, sometimes finding the track anew and deepening it a fraction, very often not finding it and making another.

It was not bad during the first morning. The track was reasonable and not too bone-jolting and paralleled the Jökulsá á Fjöllum which ran grey-green with melt water to the Arctic Ocean. By midday we were opposite Mödrudalur which lay on the other side of the river, and Elin broke into that mournfully plaintive song which describes the plight of the Icelander in winter: ‘Short are the mornings in the mountains of Mödrudal. There it is mid-morning at daybreak.’ I suppose it fitted her mood; I know mine wasn’t very much better.

I had dropped all thoughts of giving Elin the slip. Slade knew that she had been in Asbyrgi – the bug planted on the Land-Rover would have told him that – and it would be very dangerous for her to appear unprotected in any of the coastal towns. Slade had been a party to attempted murder and she was a witness, and I knew he would take extreme measures to silence her. As dangerous as my position was she was as safe with me as anywhere, so I was stuck with her.

At three in the afternoon we stopped at the rescue hut under the rising bulk of the great shield volcano called Herdubreid or ‘Broad Shoulders’. We were both tired and hungry, and Elin said, ‘Can’t we stop here for the day?’

I looked across at the hut. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Someone might be expecting us to do just that. We’ll push on a little farther towards Askja. But there’s no reason why we can’t eat here.’

Elin prepared a meal and we ate in the open, sitting outside the hut. Halfway through the meal I was in mid-bite of a herring sandwich when an idea struck me like a bolt of lightning. I looked up at the radio mast next to the hut and then at the whip antenna on the Land-Rover. ‘Elin, we can raise Reykjavik from here, can’t we? I mean we can talk to anyone in Reykjavik who has a telephone.’