( A hard hand pinned my wrist to the wal and Slade raised his gun. I
had just sense enough and time enough to stop making a fist and to
spread my fingers so he wouldn’t shoot through them before he pulled the
trigger and I took the bullet in the palm of my hand. Curiously enough,
after the first stabbing shock it didn’t hurt. All I felt was a dead
numbness from shoulder to fingertip. It would hurt soon enough as the
shock wore off, but it didn’t hurt then.
My head swam and I heard Elin scream, but the cry seemed to come from a
long way away. When I opened my eyes I saw Slade looking at me
unsmilingly. He said curtly, ‘Take him back to his chair.’ It had been a
purely vindictive act of revenge and now it was over and he was back to
business as usual.
I was dumped back into the chair and I raised my head to see Elin
leaning against the chimney piece with tears streaming down her face.
Then Slade moved between us and I lost sight of her.
‘You know too much, Stewart,’ he said. ‘So you must die -you know that.’
‘I know you’l do your best,’ I said dully. I now knew why Slade had
cracked in the hotel room because the same thing” was happening to me. I
found I couldn’t string two consecutive thoughts together to make sense
and I had a blinding headache. The penetration of a bullet into flesh
has that effect.
Slade said, ‘Who knows about me – apart from the girl?’
‘No one,’ I said. ‘What about the girl?’
He shrugged. ‘You’l be buried in the same grave.’ He turned to
Kennikin. ‘He might be tel ing the truth. He’s been on the run and he
hasn’t had a chance to let anyone know.’
‘He might have written a letter,’ said Kennikin doubtful y.
‘That’s a risk I’l have to take. I don’t think Taggart has any
suspicions. He might be annoyed because I’ve dropped out of sight but
that wil be al . I’l be a good boy and take the next plane back to
London.’ He lifted his wounded hand and grinned tightly at Kennikin.
‘And I’l blame this on you. I’ve been wounded trying to save this
fool.’ He reached out and kicked my leg.
‘What about the electronic equipment?’
‘What about it?’
Kennikin took out his cigarette case and selected a cigarette. ‘It seems
a pity not to complete the operation as planned. Stewartsen knows where
it is, and I can get the information from him.’
‘So you could,’ said Slade thoughfully. He looked down at me. ‘Where is
it, Stewart?’
‘It’s where you won’t find it.’
‘That car wasn’t searched,’ said Kennikin. ‘When you were found in the
boot everything else was forgotten.’ He snapped out orders and his two
men left the room. ‘If it’s in the car they’l find it.’
‘I don’t think it’s in the car,’ said Slade.
‘I didn’t think /you/ were in the car,’ said Kennikin waspishly. ‘I
wouldn’t be at al surprised to find it there.’
‘You may be right,’ said Slade. His voice indicated that he didn’t think
so. He bent over me. ‘You’re going to die, Stewart – you may depend upon
it. But there are many ways of dying. Tel us where the package is and
you’l die cleanly and quickly. If not, I’l let Kennikin work on you.’
I kept my mouth firmly shut because I knew that if I opened it he would
see the tremulous lower lip that is a sign of fear.
He stood aside. ‘Very wel . You can have him, Kennikin.’ A vindictive
note entered his voice. ‘The best way to do it is to shoot him to pieces
slowly. He threatened to do it to me.’
Kennikin stepped in front of me, gun in hand. ‘Wel , Alan; we come to
the end of the road, you and I. Where is the radar equipment?’
Even then when facing his gun I noted that new piece of information.
/Radar equipment./ I screwed up my face and ‘ managed a smile. ‘Got
another cigarette, Vaslav?’
No answering smile crossed his face. His eyes were bleak and his mouth
was set in grim lines. He had the face of an executioner. ‘There is no
time for tradition – we are done with that foolery.’
I looked past him. Elin was stil standing there, forgotten, and there
was an expression of desperation on her face. But her hand was inside
her anorak and coming out slowly, grasping something. The jolting
realization came that she stil had the gun!
That was enough to bring me to my senses fast. When al hope is gone and
there is nothing more to look forward to than death one sinks into a
morass of fatalism as I had done. But given the faintest hint that al
is not lost and then a man can act – and my action now was to talk and
talk fast.
I turned my head and spoke to Slade. I had to attract his attention to
me so he would not even think of looking at Elin. ‘Can’t you stop him?’
I pleaded.
‘You can stop him. All you have to do is to tel him what we want to know.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ I said. ‘I’l stil die, anyway.’
‘But easier,’ said Slade. ‘Quickly and without pain.’
I looked back to Kennikin and, over his shoulder, saw that Elin had now
withdrawn the pistol and it was in plain sight. She was fiddling with it
and I hoped to God she remembered the sequence of actions she would have
to go through before it would fire.
‘Vaslav,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t do this to an old mate. Not you.’
His pistol centred on my bel y and then dropped lower. ‘You don’t have
to guess to know where I’m going to put the first bullet,’ he said. His
voice was deadly quiet. ‘I’m just following Slade’s orders – and my own
inclination.’
‘Tel us,’ urged Slade, leaning forward.
I heard the snap of metal as Elin pulled back the slide of the pistol.
So did Kennikin and he began to turn. Elin held the pistol in both hands
and at arm’s length and as Kennikin began his turn she fired and kept on
firing.
I distinctly heard the impact of the first bullet in Kennikin’s back.
His hand tightened convulsively around his gun and it exploded in my
face, the bullet burying itself in the arm of the chair next to my
elbow. By then I was moving. I dived for Slade head first and rammed him
in the paunch. My skul was harder than his bel y and the breath came
out of him in a great whoosh and he folded up and lay gasping on the floor.
I rolled over, aware that Elin was stil shooting and that bullets were
stil whanging across the room. ‘Stop!’ I yel ed.
I scooped up Slade’s popgun and came up under Elin’s elbow, grabbing her
by the wrist. ‘For Christ’s sake, stop!’
I think she had shot off the whole magazine. The opposite wal was
pock-marked and Kennikin lay in front of the chair in which I had been
sitting. He lay face upwards gazing sightlessly at the ceiling. Elin had
hit him twice more which was hardly surprising, considering she had been
shooting at a range of less than six feet. Come to think of it, I was
fortunate she hadn’t put a bullet into me. There was a ragged red spot
dead centre in Kennikin’s forehead to prove he’d had the vitality to
turn around and try to shoot back. Another bul et had caught him in the
angle of the jaw and had blown off the bottom half of his face.
He was very dead.
I didn’t stop to ruminate about how in the midst of life we are in
death. I dragged Elin behind me and headed for the door. The boys
outside might be prepared for the odd shot, especial y after Slade’s
little demonstration, but the barrage Elin had laid down would be a
matter of urgent investigation and that had to be discouraged.
At the door I let go of Elin’s wrist with my left hand and swapped it
for the gun I held in my wounded right hand. With a hole through the
palm I couldn’t possibly use a gun in that hand, even one with as little
recoil as Slade’s gimmicked weapon. I’m a lousy pistol shot at the best
of times and even worse when shooting left-handed; but one of the nice
things about gun battles is that the man you’re shooting at doesn’t ask
you for a proficiency certificate before he decides to duck.
I glanced at Elin. She was obviously in a state of shock. No one can
shoot a man to death without undergoing an emotional upheaval –