Running Blind / The Freedom Trap

‘I give no guarantees,’ she said uncompromisingly.

‘Christ!’ I said. ‘If I get out of this you’re going to make me one hell of a wife. I don’t know if I’ll be able to stand it.’

She jerked her head. ‘What did you say?’

‘In a left-handed way I was asking you to marry me.’

Things immediately got confused and it was a few minutes before we got ourselves untangled. Elin, pink-faced and tousle-haired, grinned at me impishly. ‘Now tell!’

I sighed and opened the door. ‘I’ll not only tell you, but I’ll show you.’

I went to the back of the Land-Rover and took the flat metal box from the girder to which I had taped it. I held it out to Elin on the palm of my hand. ‘That’s what the trouble is all about,’ I said. ‘You brought it up from Reykjavik yourself.’

She poked at it tentatively with her forefinger. ‘So those men didn’t take it.’

I said, ‘What they got was a metal box which originally contained genuine Scottish fudge from Oban – full of cotton wadding and sand and sewn up in the original hessian.’

IV

‘What about some beer?’ asked Elin.

I grimaced. The Icelandic brew is a prohibition beer, tasteless stuff bearing the same relationship to alcohol as candyfloss bears to sugar. Elin laughed. ‘It’s all right; Bjarni brought back a case of Carlsberg on his last flight from Greenland.’

That was better; the Danes really know about beer. I watched Elin open the cans and pour out the Carlsberg. ‘I want you to go to stay with your father,’ I said.

‘I’ll think about it.’ She handed me a glass. ‘I want to know why you still have the package.’

‘It was a phoney deal,’ I said. ‘The whole operation stank to high heaven. Slade said Graham had been tagged by the opposition so he brought me in at the last minute. But Graham wasn’t attacked – I was.’ I didn’t tell Elin about Lindholm; I didn’t know how much strain I could put upon her. ‘Doesn’t that seem odd?’

She considered it. ‘Yes, it is strange.’

‘And Graham was watching our apartment which is funny behaviour for a man who knows he may be under observation by the enemy. I don’t think Graham had been tagged at all; I think Slade has been telling a pack of lies.’

Elin seemed intent on the bubbles glistening on the side of her glass. ‘Talking of the enemy – who is the enemy?’

‘I think it’s my old pals of the KGB,’ I said. ‘Russian Intelligence. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.’

I could see by her set face that she didn’t like the sound of that, so I switched back to Slade and Graham. ‘Another thing – Graham saw me being tackled at Akureyri Airport and he didn’t do a bloody thing to help me. He could at least have followed the man who ran off with the camera case, but he didn’t do a damned thing. What do you make of that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Neither do I,’ I admitted. ‘That’s why the whole thing smells rotten. Consider Slade – he is told by Graham that I’ve fallen down on the job so he flies from London. And what does he do? He gives me a slap on the wrist and tells me I’ve been a naughty boy. And that’s too bloody uncharacteristic coming from Slade.’

Elin said, ‘You don’t trust Slade.’ It was a statement.

I pointed over the sea towards Grimsey. ‘I trust Slade as far as I can throw that island. He’s cooked up a complicated deal and I’d like to find out where I fit in before the chopper falls because it might be designed to fall right on my neck.’

‘And what about the package?’

‘That’s the ace.’ I lifted the metal box. ‘Slade thinks the opposition have it, but as long as they haven’t there’s no great harm done. The opposition think they have it, assuming they haven’t opened it yet.’

‘Is that a fair assumption?’

‘I think so. Agents are not encouraged to pry too much. The quartet who took the package from me will have orders to take it to the boss unopened, I think.’

Elin looked at the box. ‘I wonder what’s in it?’

I 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?’