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 thoughtful y. She turned to me. ‘What about
Asbyrgi for tonight?’
‘Asbyrgi!’ I laughed and drained my glass. ‘Why not?’
Chapter 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 tel it a little differently.
Asbyrgi is a hoof-shaped rock formation about two miles across. Within
it the trees, sheltered from the kil ing 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 wal s 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 wel inside at a place
where the rock wal s drew together and the trees were thick, and there
we made camp. It was our custom to sleep on the ground when the climate
al owed 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.
Ellin 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 al 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 stil be alive.
Because lying low wasn’t good enough. I had to become visible – set
myself up like a tin duck at a shooting gal ery 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. ‘Tel ing 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 tel ing that to Sir David Taggart,’ I said. ‘I’ve told you more
than enough already.’
‘Then why not get it al out? You know I won’t tel anyone.’
I looked down at my plate. ‘Not of your own free wil . I wouldn’t want
anyone to hurt you, Elin.’
‘Who would hurt me?’ she asked.
‘Slade would, for one. Then there’s a character cal ed Kennikin who may
be around, but I hope not.’
Elin said slowly, ‘If I ever marry anyone it wil 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’l tel 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’l tel 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 cal ed
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 cal ed Stewartsen,
a fel ow travel er who was wil ing to be used. Did you know I was born
in Finland?’
Elin shook her head. ‘You didn’t tel me.’
I shrugged. ‘I 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 al 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 usual y 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 kil 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 swal owed. ‘I never
even saw the man I kil ed – I just put a bomb in the 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 kil ed 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 hel was going on.
He said the man was a freelance agent whom neither side trusted – the
trade is lousy with them. He recommended that 1 tel 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
around to point to the man I had kil ed. So I became one of his
blue-eyed boys – we got real y chummy – and that was his mistake because
we managed to wreck his network completely.’
Elin let out her breath. ‘Is that al ?’
‘By Christ, it’s not al !’ I said violently. I reached for the whisky
bottle and found my hand was trembling. ‘When it was al over I went
back to England. I was congratulated on doing a good job. The
Scandinavian branch of the Department was in a state of euphoria and I
was a minor hero, for God’s sake! Then I discovered that the man I had
kil ed was no more a freelance agent than I was. His name – if it
matters – was Birkby, and he had been a member of the Department, just
as I was.’
I slopped whisky into the glass. ‘Slade had been playing chess with us.
Neither Birkby nor I were deep enough in Kennikin’s outfit to suit him
so he sacrificed a pawn to put another in a better position. But he had