Running Blind / The Freedom Trap

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.’

Elin looked up. ‘Of course. We contact Gufunes Radio and they connect us into the telephone system.’

I said dreamily, ‘Isn’t it fortunate that the transatlantic cables run through Iceland? If we can be plugged into the telephone system there’s nothing to prevent a further patching so as to put a call through to London.’ I stabbed my finger at the Land-Rover with its radio antenna waving gently in the breeze. ‘Right from there.’

‘I’ve never heard of it being done,’ said Elin doubtfully.

I finished the sandwich. ‘I see no reason why it can’t be done. After all, President Nixon spoke to Neil Armstrong when he was on the moon. The ingredients are there – all we have to do is put them together. Do you know anyone in the telephone department?’

‘I know Svein Haraldsson,’ she said thoughtfully.

I would have taken a bet that she would know someone in the telephone department; everybody in Iceland knows somebody. I scribbled a number on a scrap of paper and gave it to her. ‘That’s the London number. I want Sir David Taggart in person.’

‘What if this … Taggart … won’t accept the call?’

I grinned. ‘I have a feeling that Sir David will accept any call coming from Iceland right now.’