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 /Odadahraun,/ as remote and blasted as
the surface of the moon, that we went. The name, loosely translated,
means ‘Murderers’s Country’, and was the last foothold of the outlaws of
olden times, the shunned of men against whom al hands were raised.
There were tracks in the /Odadahraun -/ 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 /Obyggdir./ 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 paral eled the /Jokulsa a Fjollum/ which ran
grey-green with melt water to the Arctic Ocean. By midday we were
opposite Modrudalur 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
Modrudal. There it is mid-morning at daybreak.’ I suppose it fitted her
mood; I know mine wasn’t very much better.
I had dropped al 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 cal ed 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’l 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 cal 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 doubtful y.
I finished the sandwich. ‘I see no reason why it can’t be done. After
al , President Nixon spoke to Neil Armstrong when he was on the moon.
The ingredients are there – al we have to do is put them together. Do
you know anyone in the telephone department?’
‘I know Svein Haraldsson,’ she said thoughtful y.
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 cal ?’
I grinned. ‘I have a feeling that Sir David wil accept any cal coming
from Iceland right now.’
Elin looked up at the radio mast. ‘The big set in the hut wil give us
more power.’
I shook my head. ‘Don’t use it – Slade might be monitoring the telephone
bands. He can listen to what I have to say to Taggart but he mustn’t
know where it’s coming from. A cal from the Land-Rover could be coming
from anywhere.’
Elin walked over to the Land-Rover, switched on that set and tried to
raise Gufunes. The only result was a crackle of static through which a
few lonely souls wailed like damned spirits, too drowned by noise to be
understandable. ‘There must be storms in the western mountains,’ she
said. ‘Should I try Akureyri?’ That was the nearest of the four
radiotelephone stations.
‘No,’ I said. ‘If Slade is monitoring at al he’l be concentrating on
Akureyri. Try Seydisfjordur.’
Contacting Seydisfjordur in eastern Iceland was much easier and Elin was
soon patched into the landline network to Reykjavik and spoke to her
telephone friend, Svein. There was a fair amount of incredulous argument
but she got her way. ‘There’s a delay of an hour,’ she said.
‘Good enough. Ask Seydisfjordur to contact us when the cal comes
through.’ I looked at my watch. In an hour it would be 3:45 p.m. British
Standard Time – a good hour to catch Taggart.
We packed up and on we pushed south towards the distant ice blink of
Vatnajokul . I left the receiver switched on but turned it low and there
was a subdued babble from the speaker.
Elin said, ‘What good wil it do to speak to this man, Taggart?’
‘He’s Slade’s boss,’ I said. ‘He can get Slade off my back.’
‘But wil he?’ she asked. ‘You were supposed to hand over the package
and you didn’t. You disobeyed orders. Wil Taggart like that?’
‘I don’t think Taggart knows what’s going on here. I don’t think he
knows that Slade tried to kil me ? and you. I think Slade is working on
his own, and he’s out on a limb. I could be wrong, of course, but that’s
one of the things I want to get from Taggart.’
‘And if you /are/ wrong? If Taggart instructs you to give the package to
Slade? Wil you do it?’
I hesitated. ‘I don’t know.’
Elin said, ‘Perhaps Graham was right. Perhaps Slade real y thought you’d
defected – you must admit he would have every right to think so. Would
he then . . . .’
‘Send a man with a gun? He would.’
‘Then I think you’ve been stupid, Alan; very, very stupid. I think
you’ve al owed your hatred of Slade to cloud your judgment, and I think
you’re in very great trouble.’
I was beginning to think so myself. I said, ‘I’l find that out when I
talk to Taggart. If he backs Slade . . .’ If Taggart backed Slade then I
was Johnny-in-the-middle in danger of being squeezed between the
Department and the opposition. The Department doesn’t like its plans
being messed around, and the wrath of Taggart would be mighty.
And yet there were things that didn’t fit – the pointless-ness of the
whole exercise in the first place, Slade’s lack of any real animosity
when I apparently boobed, the ambivalence of Graham’s role. And there
was something else which prickled at the back of my mind but which I
could not bring to the surface. Something which Slade had done or had
not done, or had said or had not said – something which had rung a
warning bel deep in my unconscious.
I braked and brought the Land-Rover to a halt, and Elin looked at me in
surprise. I said, ‘I’d better know what cards I hold before I talk to
Taggart. Dig out the can-opener -I’m going to open the package.’
‘Is that wise? You said yourself that it might be better not to know.’
‘You may be right. But if you play stud poker without looking at your
hole card you’l probably lose. I think I’d better know what it is that
everyone wants so much.’
I got out and went to the rear bumper where I stripped the tape from the
metal box and pulled it loose. When I got back behind the wheel Elin
already had the can-opener – I think she was real y as curious as I was.
The box was made of ordinary shiny metal of the type used for cans, but
it was now flecked with a few rust spots due to its exposure. A soldered