Scotland he told me of the way I had wounded Kennikin, and made the
crack that Kennikin would rather operate on me with a sharp knife than
offer to split a bottle of Calvados. How in hel would Slade know about
the Calvados? He’s never been within a hundred miles of Kennikin and the
fact isn’t on file in the Department. It’s been niggling at me for a
long time, but the penny only dropped this afternoon.’
Elin sighed. ‘It’s a very smal point.’
‘Have you ever witnessed a murder trial? The point which can hang a man
can be very smal . But add this to it – the Russians took a package
which they presumably discovered to be a fake. You’d expect them to come
after the real thing, wouldn’t you? But who did come after it, and with
blood in his eye? None other than friend Slade.’
‘You’re trying to make out a case that Slade is a Russian agent,’ said
Elin. ‘But it won’t work. Who was real y responsible for the destruction
of Kennikin’s network in Sweden?’
‘Slade master-minded it,’ I said. ‘He pointed me in the right direction
and pulled the trigger.’
Elin shrugged. ‘Wel , then? Would a Russian agent do that to his own side?’
‘Slade’s a big boy now,’ I said. ‘Right next to Taggart in a very
important area of British Intel igence. He even lunches with the Prime
Minister – he told me so. How important would it be to the Russians to
get a man into that position?’
Elin looked at me as though I’d gone crazy. I said quietly, ‘Whoever
planned this has a mind like a pretzel, but it’s al of a piece. Slade
is in a top slot in British Intel igence – but how did he get there?
Answer – by wrecking the Russian organization in Sweden. Which is more
important to the Russians? To retain their Swedish network ? which could
be replaced if necessary? Or to put Slade where he is now?’
I tapped the table with the handle of my knife. ‘You can see the same
twisted thinking throughout. Slade put me next to Kennikin by
sacrificing Birkby; the Russkies put Slade next to Taggart by
sacrificing Kennikin and his outfit.’
‘But this is sil y!’ burst out Elin. ‘Why would Slade have ?to go to al
that trouble with Birkby and you when the Russians would be co-operating
with him, anyway?’
‘Because it had to look good,’ I said. ‘The operation would be examined
by men with very hard eyes and there had to be real blood, not tomato
ketchup – no fakery at al . The blood was provided by poor Birkby – and
Kennikin added some to it.’ A sudden thought struck me. ‘I wonder if
Kennikin knew what was going on? I’l bet his organization was blasted
from under him – the poor bastard wouldn’t know his masters were sel ing
him out just to bring Slade up a notch.’ I rubbed my chin. ‘I wonder if
he’s stil ignorant of that?’
‘This is al theory,’ said Elin. ‘Things don’t happen that way.’
‘Don’t they? My God, you only have to read /the published/ accounts of
some of the spy trials to realize that bloody funny things happen. Do
you know why Blake got a sentence of forty-two years in jail?’
She shook her head. ‘I didn’t read about it.’
‘You won’t find it in print, but the rumour around the Department was
that forty-two was the number of our agents who came to a sticky end
because he’d betrayed them. I wouldn’t know the truth of it because he
was in a different outfit – but think of what Slade could do!’
‘So you can’t trust anyone,’ said Elin. ‘What a life to ‘lead!’
‘It’s not as bad as that. I trust Taggart to a point – and I trust Jack
Case, the man I’m meeting at Geysir. But Slade is different; he’s become
careless and made two mistakes -one about the Calvados, and the other in
coming after the package himself.’
Elin laughed derisively. ‘And the only reason you trust Taggart and Case
is because they’ve made no mistakes, as you cal them?’
‘Let me put it this way,’ I said. ‘I’ve kil ed Graham, a British
Intel igence agent, and so I’m in a hot spot. The only way I can get out
of it is to prove that Slade is a Russian agent. If I can do that I’l
be a bloody hero and the record wil be wiped clean. And it helps a lot
that I hate Slade’s guts.’
‘But what if you’re wrong?’
I put as much finality into my voice as I could. ‘I’m not wrong,’ I
said, and hoped it was true. ‘We’ve had a long hard day, Elin; but we
can rest tomorrow. Let me put a dressing on your shoulder.’
As I smoothed down the last piece of surgical tape, she said, ‘What did
you make of what Taggart said just before the storm came?’
I didn’t like to think of that. ‘I think,’ I said careful y, ‘that he
was tel ing me that Kennikin is in Iceland.’
*II*
Tired though I was after a hard day’s driving I slept badly. The wind
howled from the west across the crater of Askja, buffeting the
Land-Rover until it rocked on its springs, and the heavy rain drummed
against the side. Once I heard a clatter as though something metal ic
had moved and I got up to investigate only to find nothing of
consequence and got drenched to the skin for my pains. At last I fel
into a heavy sleep, shot through with bad dreams.
Stil , I felt better in the morning when I got up and looked out. The
sun was shining and the lake was a deep blue reflecting the cloudless
sky, and in the clear, rain-washed air the far side of the crater seemed
a mere kilometre away instead of the ten kilometres it real y was. I put
water to boil for coffee and when it was ready I leaned over and dug
Elin gently in the ribs.
‘Umph!’ she said indistinctly, and snuggled deeper into the sleeping
bag. I prodded her again and one blue eye opened and looked at me
malignantly through tumbled blonde hair. ‘Stop it!’
‘Coffee,’ I said, and waved the cup under her nose.
She came to life and clutched the cup with both hands. I took my coffee
and a jug of hot water and went outside where I laid my shaving kit on
the bonnet and began to whisk up a lather. After shaving, I thought, it
would be nice to go down to the lake and clean up. I was beginning to
feel grubby – the /Odadahraun/ is a dusty place – and the thought of
clean water was good.
I finished scraping my face and, as I rinsed the lather away, I ran
through in my mind the things I had to do, the most important of which
was to contact Taggart as soon as it was a reasonable hour to find him
in his office. I wanted to give him the detailed case against Slade.
Elin came up with the coffee pot. ‘More?’
‘Thanks,’ I said, holding out my cup. ‘We’l have a lazy day.’ I nodded
towards the lake at the bottom of the crater. ‘Fancy a swim?’
She pulled a face and moved her wounded shoulder. ‘I can’t do the crawl,
but perhaps I can paddle with one arm.’ She looked up at the sky, and
said, ‘It’s a lovely day.’
I watched her face change. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘The radio antenna,’ she said. ‘It’s not there.’
I whirled around. ‘Damn!’ That was very bad. I climbed up and looked at
the damage. It was easy to see what had happened. The rough ground in
Central Iceland is enough ‘ to shake anything loose that isn’t welded
down; nuts you couldn’t shift with a wrench somehow loosen themselves
and wind off the bolts; split-pins jump out, even rivets pop. A whip
antenna with its swaying motion is particularly vulnerable; I know one
geologist who lost three in a month. The question here was when did we
lose it?
It was certainly after I had spoken to Taggart, so it might have gone
during the mad dash for Askja when we raced the storm. But I remembered
the metal ic clatter I had heard during the night; the antenna might
have been loosened enough by the bumping to have been swept away by the
strong wind. I said, ‘It may be around here – quite close. Let’s look.’
But we didn’t get that far because I heard a familiar sound – the drone
of a smal aircraft. ‘Get down!’ I said quickly. ‘Keep stil and don’t
look up.’
We dropped flat next to the Land-Rover as the light plane came over the