I ticked off the sequence of events. At Geysir I had told Case of my
suspicions of Slade, and Case had agreed to pass them on to Taggart. No
matter what happened Slade would then be thoroughly investigated. But I
had seen Slade talking to Case just before Kennikin took me. Suppose
that Case had aroused Slade’s suspicions in some way? Slade was a clever
man – a handler of men – and maybe Case had shown his hand.
What would Slade do? He would contact Kennikin to find if I had been
captured. He would insist that his cover next to Taggart should remain
unbroken at al costs and that this was more important than the gadget.
He would say, ‘Kil the bastard!’ That was why Kennikin had switched.
/And it would be just as important to kil Jack Case before be talked to
Taggart./ I had played right into Slade’s hands and left Case for
Kennikin to find, and Kennikin had stabbed him with my knife. Kennikin
had traced where the Volkswagen had come from and gone looking for me,
and he had left the body of Case. Terrorist tactics.
It al tied together except for one loose end which worried me. Why,
when I had been jumped at Geysir by Kennikin’s mob, had Jack Case run
out on me? He hadn’t lifted a finger to help; he hadn’t fired a shot in
my defence even though he was armed. I knew Jack Case and that was very
unlike him, and that, together with his apparent chumminess with Slade,
had been the basis of my mistrust of him. It worried me very much.
But it was al past history and I had the future to face and decisions
to make. I said, ‘Did you check on Bjarni?’
Elin nodded listlessly. ‘He’s on the Reykjavik-Hofn run. He’l be in
Reykjavik this afternoon.’
‘I want him over here,’ I said. ‘And you’re to stick in this office
until he comes. You’re not to move out of it even for meals. You can
have those sent up. And most emphatical y you’re not to go out into the
concourse of the airport; there are too many eyes down there looking for
you and me.’
‘But I can’t stay here forever,’ she protested.
‘Only until Bjarni comes. Then you can tel him anything you think fit –
you can even tel him the truth. Then you’re to tel him what he must do.’
She frowned. ‘And that is?’
‘He’s got to get you on a plane and out of here, and he has to do it
discreetly without going through normal channels. I don’t care if he has
to dress you up as a hostess and smuggle you aboard as one of the crew,
but you mustn’t go down into the concourse as an ordinary passenger.’
‘But I don’t think he could do that.’
‘Christ!’ I said. ‘If he can smuggle in crates of Carlsberg from
Greenland he can smuggle you out. Come to think of ‘ it, going to
Greenland might not be such a bad idea; you could stay in Narsassuaq
until al this blows over. Not even Slade, clever though he is, would
think of looking there.’
‘I don’t want to go.’
‘You’re going,’ I said. ‘I want you from underfoot. If you think things
have been rough for the last few days then compared to the next
twenty-four hours they’l seem like an idyllic holiday. I want you out
of it, Elin, and, by God, you’l obey me.’
‘So you think I’m useless,’ she said bitterly.
‘No, I don’t; and you’ve proved it during the last few days. Everything
you’ve done in that time has been against your better judgment, but
you’ve stuck by me. You’ve been shot and you’ve been shot at, but you
stil helped out.’
‘Because I love you,’ she said.
‘I know – and I love you. That’s why I want you out of here. I don’t
want you kil ed.’
‘And what about you?’ she demanded.
‘I’m different,’ I said. ‘I’m a professional. I know what to do and how
to do it; you don’t.’
‘Case was a professional too ? and he’s dead. So was Graham, or whatever
his name real y was. And that man, Volkov, was hurt at Geysir – and he
was a professional. You said yourself that the only people hurt so far
have been the professionals. I don’t want you hurt, Alan.’
‘I also said that no innocent bystanders have been hurt,’ I said.
‘You’re an innocent bystander – and I want to keep it that way.’
I had to do something to impress the gravity of the situation upon her.
I looked around the room to check its emptiness, then quickly took off
my jacket and unslung Case’s shoulder holster complete with gun. I held
it in my hand and said, ‘Do you know how to use this?’
Her eyes dilated. ‘No!’
I pointed out the slide. ‘If you pull this back a bullet is injected
into the breech. You push over this lever, the safety catch, then you
point it and pull the trigger. Every time you pull a bullet comes out,
up to a maximum of eight. Got that?’
‘I think so.’ ‘Repeat it.’
‘I pul back the top of the gun, push over the safety catch and pull the
trigger.’
‘That’s it. It would be better if you squeezed the trigger but this is
no time for finesse.’ I put the pistol back into the holster and pressed
it into her reluctant hands. ‘If anyone tries to make you do anything
you don’t want to do just point the gun and start shooting. You might
not hit anyone but you’l cause some grey hairs.’
The one thing that scares a professional is a gun in the hands of an
amateur. If another professional is shooting at you at least you know
he’s accurate and you have a chance of out-manoeuvring him. An amateur
can kil you by accident.
I said, ‘Go into the loo and put on the holster under your jacket. When
you come back I’l be gone.’
She accepted the finality of the situation along with the pistol. ‘Where
are you going?’
‘The worm is turning,’ I said. ‘I’m tired of running, so I’m going
hunting. Wish me luck.’
She came close to me and kissed me gently and there were unshed tears in
her eyes and the gun in its holster was iron-hard between us. I patted
her bottom and said, ‘Get along with you,’ and watched as she turned and
walked away. When the door closed behind her I also left.
Chapter I
Nordlinger’s Chevrolet was too long, too wide and too soft-sprung and I
wouldn’t have given a thank you for it in the /Obyggdir,/ but it was
just what I needed to get into Reykjavik fast along the International
Highway which is the only good bit of paved road in Iceland. I did the
twenty-five miles to Hafnarfjordur at 80 mph and cursed when I was
slowed down by the heavy traffic building up around Kopavogur. I had an
appointment at midday in the souvenir shop of the Nordri Travel Agency
and I didn’t want to miss it.
The Nordri Travel Agency was in Hafnarstraeti. I parked the car in a
side street near Naust and walked down the hil towards the centre of
town. I had no intention at al of going into Nordri; why would I when
Nordlinger had the gadget tucked away in his safe? I came into
Hafnarstraeti and ducked into a bookshop opposite Nordri. There was a
cafe above the shop with a flight of stairs leading directly to it so
that one could read over a cup of coffee. I bought a newspaper as cover
and went upstairs.
It was stil before the midday rush so I got a seat at the window and
ordered pancakes and coffee. I spread open the paper and then glanced
through the window at the crowded street below and found that, as I had
planned, I had a good view of the travel agency which was on the other
side of the street. The thin gauze curtains didn’t obstruct my view but
made it impossible for anyone to recognize me from the street.
The street was fairly busy. The tourist season had begun and the first
hardy travel ers had already started to ransack the souvenir shops and
carry home their loot. Camera-hung and map in hand they were easy to
spot, yet I inspected every one of them because the man I was looking
for would probably find it convenient to be mistaken for a tourist.
This was a long shot based on the fact that everywhere I had gone in
Iceland the opposition had shown up. I had fol owed instructions on
arrival and gone the long way around to Reykjavik and Lindholm had been
there. I had gone to earth in Asbyrgi and Graham had pitched up out of