Running Blind / The Freedom Trap (3 page)

I enjoyed breakfast all the more because of my hungry friend across the street. ‘You’re looking more cheerful,’ said Elin.

‘It’s your cooking,’ I said.

She looked at the herring, the cheese, the bread and the eggs. ‘What cooking? Anyone can boil an egg.’

‘Not like you,’ I assured her.

But I
was
more cheerful. The dark thoughts of the night had gone and in spite of all the unanswered questions the death of Lindholm no longer oppressed me. He had tried to kill me and failed, and had suffered the penalty for failure. The fact that I had killed him didn’t weigh too heavily upon my conscience. My only lingering worry was for Elin.

I said, ‘There’s a flight for Akureyri from Reykjavik City Airport at eleven.’

‘You’ll have lunch there,’ said Elin. ‘Spare a thought for me bouncing about down in Kaldidalur.’ She swallowed hot coffee hastily. ‘I’d like to leave as soon as possible.’

I waved at the laden table. ‘I’ll clean up here.’

She got ready to leave, then picked up the binoculars. ‘I thought these were in the Land-Rover.’

‘I was just checking them,’ I said. ‘They seemed a bit out of focus last time I used them. They’re all right, though.’

‘Then I’ll take them,’ she said.

I went with her down to the garage and kissed her goodbye. She looked at me closely, and said, ‘Everything
is
all right, isn’t it, Alan?’

‘Of course; why do you ask?’

‘I don’t really know. I’m just being feminine, I suppose. See you in Akureyri.’

I waved her off and watched as she drove away. Nobody seemed to bother; no heads popped around corners and no one followed in hot pursuit. I went back into the flat and checked on the watcher in the alley. He wasn’t to be seen, so I made a mad dash for the upstairs landing from where I could get a better view and I breathed easier when I saw him leaning against the wall, beating his hands against his arms.

It would seem that he was not aware that Elin had left or, if he was, he didn’t care. It lifted a considerable load off my mind.

I washed the breakfast crockery and then went to my room where I took a camera bag and emptied it of its contents. Then I took the hessian-covered steel box and found that it fitted neatly into the leather bag. From now on it was not going to leave my person until I handed it over in Akureyri.

At ten o’clock I rang for a taxi and left for the airport, a move which resulted in some action. I looked back along the street and saw a car draw up near the alley into which my watcher jumped. The car followed the taxi all the way to the airport, keeping a discreet distance.

On arrival I went to the reservation counter. ‘I have a reservation on the flight to Akureyri. My name is Stewart.’

The receptionist checked a list. ‘Oh, yes; Mr Stewart.’ She looked at the clock. ‘But you’re early.’

‘I’ll have a coffee,’ I said. ‘It passes the time.’

She gave me the ticket and I paid for it, then she said, ‘Your luggage is weighed over there.’

I touched the camera case. ‘This is all I have. I travel light.’

She laughed. ‘So I see, Mr Stewart. And may I compliment you on how you speak our language.’

‘Thank you.’ I turned and saw a recognized face lurking close by—my watcher was still watching. I ignored him and headed for the coffee-counter where I bought a newspaper and settled down to wait.

My man had a hurried conversation at the reservation counter, bought a ticket, and then came my way and both of us ignored each other completely. He ordered a late breakfast and ate ravenously, his eyes flicking in my direction infrequently. Presently I had a stroke of luck; the announcement loudspeaker cleared its throat and said in Icelandic, ‘Mr Buchner is wanted on the telephone.’ When
it repeated this in fluent German my man looked up, got to his feet, and went to answer the call.

At least I could now put a name to him, and whether the name was accurate or not was really immaterial.

He could see me from the telephone-box and spoke facing outwards as though he expected me to make a break for it. I disappointed him by languidly ordering another coffee and becoming immersed in a newspaper account of how many salmon Bing Crosby had caught on his latest visit to Iceland.

In airport waiting lounges time seems to stretch interminably and it was a couple of eons before the flight to Akureyri was announced. Herr Buchner was close behind me in the queue and in the stroll across the apron towards the aircraft, and he chose a seat on the aisle just behind me.

We took off and flew across Iceland, over the cold glaciers of Langjďkull and Hofsjďkull, and soon enough we were circling over Eyjafjďrdur preparatory to landing at Akureyri, a city of fully ten thousand souls, the metropolis of Northern Iceland. The aircraft lurched to a halt and I undid my seat-belt, hearing the answering click as Buchner, behind me, did the same.

The attack, when it came, was made with smoothness and efficiency. I left the airport building and was walking towards the taxi rank when suddenly they were all about me—four of them. One stood in front of me and grabbed my right hand, pumping it up and down while babbling in a loud voice about how good it was to see me again and the enormous pleasure it would give him to show me the marvels of Akureyri.

The man on my left crowded hard and pinned my left arm. He put his mouth close to my ear, and said in Swedish, ‘Don’t make trouble, Herr Stewartsen; or you will be dead.’ I could believe him because the man behind me had a gun in my back.

I heard a snip and turned my head just as the man on my right cut through the shoulder-strap of the camera case with a small pair of shears. I felt the strap snake loose and then he was gone and the camera case with him, while the man behind me took his place with one arm thrown carelessly over my shoulder and the other digging the gun into my ribs.

I could see Buchner standing by a taxi about ten yards away. He looked at me with a blank face and then turned and bent to get into the car. It drove away and I saw the white smudge of his face as he looked through the back window.

They kept up the act for two minutes more to give the man with the camera case time to get clear, and the man on my left said, again in Swedish, ‘Herr Stewartsen: we’re going to let you go now, but I wouldn’t do anything foolish if I were you.’

They released me and each took a step away, their faces hard and their eyes watchful. There were no guns in sight but that didn’t mean a damn thing. Not that I intended to start anything; the camera case was gone and the odds were too great anyway. As though someone had given a signal they all turned and walked away, each in a different direction, and left me standing there. There was quite a few people around but not one of the good people of Akureyri had any idea that anything untoward had just happened in their line of sight.

I felt ruffled so I straightened my jacket and then took a taxi to the Hotel Vardborg. There wasn’t anything else to do.

Elin had been right; I was in time to lunch at the Vardborg. I had just stuck my fork into the mutton when Herr Buchner walked in, looked around and spotted me, and
headed in my direction. He stood on the other side of the table, twitched his moustache, and said, ‘Mr Stewart?’

I leaned back. ‘Well, if it isn’t Herr Buchner! What can I do for you?’

‘My name is Graham,’ he said coldly. ‘And I’d like to talk to you.’

‘You were Buchner this morning,’ I said. ‘But if I had a name like that I’d want to change it, too.’ I waved him towards a chair. ‘Be my guest—I can recommend the soup.’

He sat down stiffly. ‘I’m not in the mood for acting straight man to your comedian,’ he said, extracting his wallet from his pocket. ‘My credentials.’ He pushed a scrap of paper across the table.

I unfolded it to find the left half of a 100-kronur banknote. When I matched it against the other half from my own wallet the two halves fitted perfectly. I looked up at him. ‘Well, Mr Graham; that seems to be in order. What can I do for you?’

‘You can give me the package,’ he said. ‘That’s all I want.’

I shook my head regretfully. ‘You know better than that.’

He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that I can’t give you the package because I haven’t got it.’

His moustache twitched again and his eyes turned cold. ‘Let’s have no games, Stewart. The package.’ He held out his hand.

‘Damn it!’ I said. ‘You were there—you know what happened.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was where?’

‘Outside Akureyri Airport. You were taking a taxi.’

His eyes flickered. ‘Was I?’ he said colourlessly. ‘Go on!’

‘They grabbed me before I knew what was happening, and they got clean away with the package. It was in my camera case.’

His voice cracked. ‘You mean you haven’t got it!’

I said sardonically, ‘If you were supposed to be my bodyguard you did a bloody awful job. Slade isn’t going to like it.’

‘By God, he’s not!’ said Graham with feeling. A tic pulsed under his right eye. ‘So it was in the camera case.’

‘Where else would it be? It was the only luggage I carried. You ought to know that—you were standing right behind me with your big ears flapping when I checked in at Reykjavik airport.’

He gave me a look of dislike. ‘You think you’re clever, don’t you?’ He leaned forward. ‘There’s going to be a Godawful row about this. You’d better stay available, Stewart; you’d better be easy to find when I come back.’

I shrugged. ‘Where would I go? Besides, I have the Scottish sense of thrift, and my room here is paid for.’

‘You take this damned coolly.’

‘What do you expect me to do? Burst into tears?’ I laughed in his face. ‘Grow up, Graham.’

His face tightened but he said nothing; instead he stood up and walked away. I put in fifteen minutes of deep thought while polishing off the mutton and at the end of that time I came to a decision, and the decision was that I could do with a drink, so I went to find one.

As I walked through the hotel foyer I saw Buchner-Graham hard at work in a telephone-box. Although it wasn’t particularly warm he was sweating.

I came out of a dreamless sleep because someone was shaking me and hissing, ‘Stewart, wake up!’ I Opened my eyes and found Graham leaning over me.

I blinked at him. ‘Funny! I was under the impression I locked my door.’

He grinned humourlessly. ‘You did. Wake up—you’re going to be interviewed. You’d better have your wits sharpened.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Five a.m.’

I smiled. ‘Gestapo technique, eh! Oh, well: I suppose I’ll feel better when I’ve shaved.’

Graham seemed nervous. ‘You’d better hurry. He’ll be here in five minutes.’

‘Who will?’

‘You’ll see.’

I ran hot water into the basin and began to lather my face. ‘What
was
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 full of drying lather. I turned back to the mirror and continued to shave—in silence.

Slade made one of those unspellable noises—an explosive outrush of air expelled 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 tell 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 all 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 football;
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 called me Stewartsen.’