your function on this particular exercise, Graham? As a bodyguard you’re
a dead loss, so it can’t have been that.’
‘You’d better stop thinking about me and start to think about yourself,’
he said. ‘You have a lot of explaining to do.’
‘True,’ I said, and put down the brush and picked up the razor. The act
of scraping one’s face with a sliver of sharp metal always seems futile
and a little depressing; I would have been happier in one of the hairier
ages – counterespionage agent by appointment to Her Majesty Queen
Victoria would have been the ideal ticket.
I must have been more nervous than I thought because I shaved myself
down to the blood on the first pass. Then someone knocked perfunctorily
on the door and Slade came into the room. He kicked the door shut with
his foot and glowered at me with a scowl on his jowly face, his hands
thrust deep into his overcoat pockets. Without an overture he said
briefly, ‘What’s the story, Stewart?’
There’s nothing more calculated to put a man off his stroke than having
to embark on complicated explanations with a face ful of drying lather.
I turned back to the mirror and continued to shave – in silence.
Slade made one of those unspel able noises – an explosive outrush of air
expel ed through mouth and nose. He sat on the bed and the springs
creaked in protest at the excessive weight. ‘It had better be good,’ he
said. ‘I dislike being hauled out of bed and flown to the frozen north.’
I continued to shave, thinking that whatever could bring Slade from
London to Akureyri must be important. After the last tricky bit around
the Adam’s apple, I said, ‘The package must have been more important
than you told me.’ I turned on the cold tap and rinsed the soap from my
face.
‘. . . that bloody package,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry,’ I apologized. ‘I didn’t hear that. I had water in my ears.’
He contained himself with difficulty. ‘Where’s the package?’ he asked
with synthetic patience.
‘As of this moment I couldn’t tel you.’ I dried my face vigorously. ‘It
was taken from me at midday yesterday by four unknown males – but you
know that already from Graham.’
His voice rose. ‘And you let them take it – just like that!’
‘There wasn’t much I could do about it at the time,’ I said equably. ‘I
had a gun in my kidneys.’ I nodded towards Graham. ‘What was he supposed
to be doing about it – if it isn’t a rude answer?’
Slade folded his hands together across his stomach. ‘We thought they’d
tagged Graham – that’s why we brought you in. We thought they’d tackle
Graham and give you a free run to the goal line.’
I didn’t think much of that one. If they – whoever they were – had
tagged Graham, then it wasn’t at al standard procedure for him to draw
attention to me by lurking outside my flat. But I let it go because
Slade always had been a slippery customer and I wanted to keep something
in reserve.
Instead, I said, ‘They didn’t tackle Graham – they tackled me. But
perhaps they don’t know the rules of rugby footbal ; it’s not a game
they go for in Sweden.’ I gave myself a last dab behind the ears and
dropped the towel. ‘Or in Russia,’ I added as an afterthought.
Slade looked up. ‘And what makes you think of Russians?’
I grinned at him. ‘I always think of Russians,’ I said drily. ‘Like the
Frenchman who always thought of sex.’ I leaned over him and picked up my
cigarettes. ‘Besides, they cal ed me Stewartsen.’
‘So?’
‘So they knew who I was – not who I am now, but what I was once. There’s
a distinction.’
Slade shifted his eyes to Graham and said curtly, ‘Wait outside.’
Graham looked hurt but obediently went to the door. When he’d closed it
I said, ‘Oh, goody; now the children are out of the room we can have a
grown-up conversation. And where, for Christ’s sake, did you get that
one? I told you I wouldn’t stand for trainees on the operation.’
‘What makes you think he’s a trainee?’
‘Come, now; he’s stil wet behind the ears.’
‘He’s a good man,’ said Slade, and shifted restlessly on the bed. He was
silent for a while, then he said, ‘Wel , you’ve real y cocked this one
up, haven’t you? Just a simple matter of carrying a smal parcel from A
to B and you fall down on it. I knew you were past it but, by God, I
didn’t think you were so bloody decrepit.’ He wagged his finger. ‘And
they cal ed you Stewartsen! You know what that means?’
‘Kennikin,’ I said, not relishing the thought. ‘Is he here -in Iceland?’
Slade hunched his shoulders. ‘Not that I know of.’ He looked at me
sideways. ‘When you were contacted in Reykjavik what were you told?’
I shrugged. ‘Not much. There was a car provided which I had to drive to
Reykjavik by way of Krysuvik and leave parked outside the Saga. I did
al that.’
Slade grunted in his throat. ‘Run into any trouble?’
‘Was I supposed to?’ I asked blandly.
He shook his head irritably. ‘We had word that something might happen.
It seemed best to re-route you.’ He stood up with a dissatisfied look on
his face and went to the door. ‘Graham!’
I said, ‘I’m sorry about al this, Slade; I real y am.’
‘Being sorry butters no bloody parsnips. We’l just have to see what we
can salvage from this mess. Hel , I brought you in because the
Department is short-handed – and now we have a whole country to seal off
because of your stupidity.’ He turned to Graham. ‘Put a cal through to
the Department in London; I’l take it downstairs. And talk to Captain
Lee at the airport; I want that plane to be ready to take off at five
minutes’ notice. We may have to move fast.’
I coughed delicately. ‘Me, too?’
Slade looked at me malevolently. ‘You! You’ve caused enough of a
shambles on this operation.’
‘Wel , what do I do?’
‘You can go to hel for al I care,’ he said. ‘Go back to Reykjavik and
shack up with your girl-friend for the rest of the summer.’ He turned
and bumped into Graham. ‘What the hel are you waiting for?’ he snarled,
and Graham fled.
Slade paused at the door and said without turning. ‘But you’d better
watch out for Kennikin because I’l not lift a finger to stop him. By
God, I hope he /does/ nail you!’
The door slammed and I sat on the bed and brooded. I knew that if ever I
met Kennikin again I would be meeting death.
Chapter I
Elin rang up as I was finishing breakfast. From the static and the
slight fading I could tel she was using the radiotelephone in the
Land-Rover. Most vehicles travel ing long distances in Iceland are
fitted with radio-telephones, a safety measure cal ed for by the
difficult nature of the terrain. That’s the standard explanation, but
not the whole truth. The fact is that Icelanders /like/ telephoning and
constitute one of the gabbiest nations on earth, coming just after the
United States and Canada in the number of cal s per head.
She asked if I had slept wel and I assured her I had, then I said,
‘When wil you get here?’
‘About eleven-thirty.’
‘I’l meet you at the camp site,’ I said.
That gave me two hours which I spent in walking around Akureyri like a
tourist, ducking in and out of shops, unexpectedly retracing my steps
and, in general, acting the fool. But when I joined Elin at the camp
site I was absolutely sure that I didn’t have a tail. It seemed as
though Slade had been tel ing the truth when he said he had no further
use for me.
I opened the door of the Land-Rover, and said, ‘Move over; I’l drive.’
Elin looked at me in surprise. ‘Aren’t we staying?’
‘We’l drive a little way out of town and then have lunch. There’s
something I want to talk to you about.’
I drove along the north road by the coast, moving fast and keeping a
close check behind. As it became clear that no one was following I began
to relax, although not so much as to take the worry from Elin’s eyes.
She could see I was preoccupied and tactful y kept silent, but at last
she said, ‘There’s something-wrong, isn’t there?’
‘You’re so damn right,’ I said. ‘That’s what I want to discuss.’
Back in Scotland Slade had warned me about involving Elin in the
operation; he had also invoked the Official Secrets Act with its
penalties for blabbermouths. But if my future life with Elin was going