the pistol and to do that with a loaded gun was to ask for a
self-inflicted gut shot.
He pulled off the road and even before the car rolled to a halt I let
him have it, striking sideways in a chopping 1 motion at the base of his
neck. He moaned and fel forward and his feet slipped on the foot
pedals. For one alarming moment the car bucked and lurched but then the
engine stal ed and it came to a standstil .
I dipped into my pocket and put a ful clip into the pistol and jacked a
round into the breech before I examined Slade at close quarters. What I
had done to him was in a fair way towards breaking his neck, but I found
that his head lolled forward because I had merely knocked him cold. I
made sure of that by taking the hand which had a bullet hole through the
palm and squeezing it hard. He didn’t move a muscle.
I suppose I should have kil ed him. The knowledge in his head culled
from his years in the Department was a deadly danger, and my duty as a
member of the Department was to see that the knowledge was permanently
erased. I didn’t even think of it. I needed Slade as one hostage to set
against another and I had no intention of exchanging dead hostages.
E.M. Forster once said that if he had to choose between betraying his
country and betraying his friend then he hoped he would have the guts to
betray his country. Elin was more than my friend – she was my life ? and
if the only way I could get her was to give up Slade then I would do so.
I got out of the car and opened the boot. The sacking which was wrapped
around the rifles came in handy for tearing into strips and binding
Slade hand and foot. I then put him in the boot and slammed the lid on him.
The Remington carbine I had taken from Philips I hid in a crevice of the
lava close to the car, together with its ammunition, but Fleet’s piece
of light artil ery I slung over my shoulder as I walked towards the
house. It was very likely that I would need it.
Chapter II
The last time I had been anywhere near this house it had been dark and I
had plunged away not knowing the lie of the land. Now, in the daylight,
I found I could get to within a hundred yards of the front door without
breaking cover. The ground was broken and three big lava flows had bled
across the landscape during some long-gone eruption and had hardened and
solidified while in ful spate to form jagged ridges ful of crevices
and holes. The ever-present moss grew thickly, covering the spiky lava
with soft vegetable cushions. The going was slow and it took me half an
hour to get as close to the house as I dared.
I lay on the moss and studied it. It was Kennikin’s hideaway, al right,
because a window was broken in the room where I had been kept captive
and there were no curtains at that window. The last time I had seen them
they had been going up in flames.
A car stood outside the front door and I noticed that the air over the
bonnet shimmered a little. That meant the engine was stil hot and
someone had just arrived. Although my own journey had been slow,
Kennikin had farther to travel from Keflavik – there was a good chance
that whatever he intended to do to Elin to get her to tel him where I
was had not yet begun. And, possibly, he would wait for Slade before
starting. For Elin’s sake I hoped so.
I loosened a big slab of moss and pushed Fleet’s rifle out of sight
beneath it, together with the ammunition for it. I had brought it along
as insurance – it was useless in the boot of the car, anyway. It would
also be useless in the house, but now it was tucked away within a fast
sprint of the front door.
I withdrew and began a painful retreat across the lava beds until I
reached the driveway, and the walk towards the house was the longest
distance I have ever walked, psychological y if not physical y. I felt
as a condemned man probably feels on his way to the scaffold, I was
walking quite openly to the front door of the house and if anyone was
keeping a watch I hoped his curiosity would get the better of him enough
to ask /why/ I was coming instead of shooting me down ten paces from the
threshold.
I crunched my way to the car and casual y put out my hand. I had been
right; the engine was stil warm. There was a flicker of movement at one
of the windows so I carried on and walked to the door. I pressed the
bel -push and heard the genteel peal of chimes inside the house.
Nothing happened for a while but soon I heard boots crushing loose lava
chips and looked sideways to see a man coming around the corner of the
house to my left. 1 looked to the right and saw another, and both were
strolling towards me with intent expressions on their faces.
I smiled at them and jabbed the bel -push again and the chimes jingled
softly just as in any house in the stockbroker belt. The door opened and
Kennikin stood there. He had a gun in his hand.
‘I’m the man from the Prudential,’ I said pleasantly. ‘How’s your
insurance, Vaslav?’
Chapter I
Kennikin looked at me expressionlessly and his pistol was pointing at my
heart. ‘Why shouldn’t I kil you now?’
‘That’s what I’ve come to talk to you about,’ I said. ‘It real y would
be a bad thing if you did.’ I heard footsteps behind me as the
outflankers moved in for the kil . ‘Aren’t you interested to know why
I’m here? Why I walked up and rang the bel ?’
‘It did cross my mind that it was strange,’ said Kennikin. ‘You won’t
object to a slight search?’
‘Not at al ,’ I said, and felt heavy hands on me. They took Slade’s gun
and the clips of ammunition. ‘This is most inhospitable,’ I said.
‘Keeping me at the door like this. Besides, what wil the neighbours think?’
‘We have no neighbours for some considerable distance,’ said Kennikin,
and looked at me with a puzzled expression. ‘You’re very cool,
Stewartsen. I think you must have gone mad. But come in.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, and followed him into the familiar room where we had
talked before. I glanced at the burnt patches on the carpet and said,
‘Heard any good explosions lately?’
‘That was very clever,’ said Kennikin. He waved his pistol. ‘Sit down in
the same chair. You wil observe there is no fire.’ He sat down opposite
me. ‘Before you say anything I must tel you that we have the girl, Elin
Ragnarsdottir.’
I stretched out my legs. ‘What on earth do you want her for?’
‘We were going to use her to get you,’ he said. ‘But it seems that is no
longer necessary.’
‘Then there’s no need to keep her. You can let her go.’
Kennikin smiled. ‘You’re real y funny, Stewartsen. It’s a pity the
English music hal has gone into eclipse; you could make quite a good
living as a comedian.’
‘You ought to hear me wow them in the working men’s clubs,’ I said.
‘That should appeal to a good Marxist such as yourself. But I wasn’t
being funny, Vaslav. She is going to walk out of this house unharmed,
and you are going to let her go.’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘You’d better elaborate on that.’
‘I walked in here on my own feet,’ I said. ‘You don’t think I’d do that
unless I could trump your ace. You see, I’ve got Slade. Tit for tat.’
His eyes opened wide, and I said, ‘But I forget – you don’t know a man
cal ed Slade. You told me so yourself, and we al know that Vaslav
Viktorovich Kennikin is an honourable man who doesn’t stoop to fibs.’
‘Even supposing I did know this Slade, what proof have you of this? Your
word?’
I put my hand to my breast pocket and stopped sharply as his gun came
up. ‘Not to worry,’ I said. ‘But do you mind if I dig for a bit of
evidence?’ I took the jerk of the gun as assent and extracted Slade’s
passport from my pocket and tossed it to him.
He stooped to where it had fallen and picked it up, flicking open the
pages with one hand. He studied the photograph intently and then snapped
the passport closed. ‘This is a passport made out in the name of Slade.