edge of the crater wal flying low. As it cleared the edge it dipped
down into the crater to our left. I said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t lift
your head. Nothing stands out so much as a white face.’
The plane flew low over the lake and then turned, spiral ing out into a
search pattern to survey the interior of the crater. It looked to me
like a four-seater Cessna from the brief glimpse I got of it. The
Land-Rover was parked in a jumble of big rocks, split into blocks by ice
and water, and maybe it wouldn’t show up too wel from the air providing
there was no movement around it.
Elin said quietly, ‘Do you think it’s someone looking for us?’
‘We’l have to assume so,’ I said. ‘It could be a charter plane ful of
tourists looking at the /Obyggdir/ from the air, but it’s a bit early in
the day for that – tourists aren’t awake much before nine o’clock.’
This was a development I hadn’t thought of. Damn it, Slade was right; I
/was/ out of practice. Tracks in the /Obyggdir/ are few and it would be
no great effort to keep them under surveil ance from the air and to
direct ground transport by radio. The fact that my Land-Rover was the
long wheelbase type would make identification easier – there weren’t
many of those about.
The plane finished quartering the crater and climbed again, heading
north-west. I watched it go but made no move. Elin said, ‘Do you think
we were seen?’
‘I don’t know that, either. Stop asking unanswerable questions – and
don’t move because it may come back for another sweep.’
I gave it five minutes and used the time to figure out what to do next.
There would be no refreshing swim in the lake, that was certain. Askja
was as secluded a place as anywhere in Iceland but it had one fatal flaw
– the track into the crater was a spur from the main track – a dead end
– and if anyone blocked the way out of the crater there’d be no getting
past, not with the Land-Rover. And I didn’t have any il usions about the
practicability of going anywhere on foot – you can get very dead that
way in the /Obyggdir./ ‘We’re getting out of here fast,’ I said. ‘I want
to be on the main track where we have some choice of action. Let’s move!’
‘Breakfast?’
‘Breakfast can wait.’
‘And the radio antenna?’
I paused, indecisive and exasperated. We /needed/ that antenna – I had
to talk to Taggart – but if we had been spotted from the air then a car
ful of guns could be speeding towards Askja, and I didn’t know how much
time we had in hand. The antenna could be close by but, on the other
hand, it might have dropped off somewhere up the track and miles away.
I made the decision. ‘The hel with it! Let’s go.’
There was no packing to do beyond col ecting the coffee cups and my
shaving kit and within two minutes we were climbing the narrow track on
the way out of Askja. It was ten kilometres to the main track and when
we got there I was sweating for fear of what I might find, but nothing
was stirring. I turned right and we headed south.
An hour later I pulled up where the track forked. On the left ran the
/Jokulsa a Fjollum,/ now near its source and no longer the mighty force
it displayed at Dettifoss. I said, ‘We’l have breakfast here.’ ‘Why
here particularly?’
I pointed to the fork ahead. ‘We have a three-way choice – we can go
back or take either of those tracks. If that plane is going to come back
and spot us I’d just as soon he did it here. He can’t stay up there
forever so we wait him out before we move on and leave him to figure
which way we went.’
While Elin was fixing breakfast I took the rifle I had liberated from
Graham and examined it. I unloaded it and looked down the bore. This was
no way to treat a good gun; not to clean it after shooting. Fortunately,
modern powder is no longer so violently corrosive and a day’s wait
before cleaning no longer such a heinous offence. Besides, I had neither
gun oil nor solvent and engine oil would have to do.
I checked the ammunition after cleaning the rifle. Graham had loaded
from a packet of twenty-five; he had shot one and I had popped off three
at Slade – twenty-one rounds left. I set the sights of the rifle at a
hundred yards. I didn’t think that if things came to the crunch I’d be
shooting at much over that range. Only film heroes can take a strange
gun and unknown ammunition and drop the baddy at 500 yards.
I put the rifle where I could get at it easily and caught a disapproving
glance from Elin. ‘Wel , what do you expect me to do?’ I said
defensively. ‘Start throwing rocks?’
‘I didn’t say anything,’ she said.
‘No, you didn’t,’ I agreed. ‘I’m going down to the river to clean up.
Give me a shout when you’re ready.’
But first I climbed a smal knoll from where I could get a good view of
the surrounding country. Nothing moved for as far as I could see, and in
Iceland you can usual y see a hel of a long way. Satisfied, I went down
to the river which was the milky grey-green colour of melt water and
shockingly cold, but after the first painful gasp it wasn’t too bad.
Refreshed, I went back to tuck into breakfast.
Elin was looking at the map. ‘Which way are you going?’
‘I want to get between Hofsjokul and Vatnajokul ,’ I said. ‘So we take
the left fork.’
‘It’s a one-way track,’ said Elin and passed me the map.
True enough. Printed in ominous red alongside the dashed line which
denoted the track was the stern injunction: /Adeins faert til austurs -/
eastward travel only. We wanted to go to the west.
I frowned. Most people think that because Greenland is covered with ice
and is wrongly named then so is Iceland, and there’s not much ice about
the place. They’re dead wrong. Thirty-six icefields glaciate one-eighth
of the country and one of them alone – Vatnajokull ? is as big as al
the glaciated areas in Scandinavia and the Alps put together.
The cold wastes of Vatnajokul lay just to the south of us and the track
to the west was squeezed right up against it by the rearing bulk of
Trolladyngja – the Dome of Trolls -a vast shield volcano. I had never
been that way before but I had a good idea why the track was one way
only. It would cling to the sides of cliffs and be ful of hair-pin
blind bends – quite hairy enough to negotiate without the unnerving
possibility of running into someone head on. ”
I sighed and examined other possibilities. The track to the right would
take us north, the opposite direction to which I wanted to go. More
damaging, to get back again would triple the mileage. The geography of
Iceland has its own ruthless logic about what is and what is not
permitted and the choice of routes is restricted.
I said, ‘We’l take our chances going the short way and ( hope to God we
don’t meet anyone. It’s stil early in the season and the chances are
good.’ I grinned at Elin. ‘I don’t think there’l be any police around
to issue a traffic ticket.’
‘And there’l be no ambulance to pick us up from the bottom of a cliff,’
she said.
‘I’m a careful driver; it may never happen.’
Elin went down to the river and I walked to the top of the knoll again.
Everything was quiet. The track stretched back towards Askja and there
was no tel -tale cloud of dust to indicate a pursuing vehicle, nor any
mysterious aircraft buzzing about the sky. I wondered if I was letting
my imagination get the better of me. Perhaps I was running away from
nothing.
/The guilty flee where no man pursueth./ 1 was as guilty as hel ! I had
withheld the package from Slade on nothing more than intuition – a hunch
Taggart found difficult to believe. And I had kil ed Graham! As far as
the Department was concerned I would already have been judged, found
guilty and sentenced, and I wondered what would be the attitude of Jack
Case when I saw him at Geysir.
I saw Elin returning to the Land-Rover so I took one last look around
and went down to her. Her hair was damp and her cheeks glowed pink as
she scrubbed her face with a towel. I waited until she emerged, then