Running Blind / The Freedom Trap by Desmond Bagley Read Free Book Online Page A

package you have nothing more to worry about.’
    ‘That’s it,’ I said. ‘I didn’t deliver it.’ I told her about the four men at Akureyri Airport and she went pale. ‘Slade flew here from London. He was annoyed.’
    ‘He was here —in Iceland?’
    I nodded. ‘He said that I’m out of it, anyway; but I’m not, you know. Elin, I want you to stay clear of me—you might get hurt.’
    She regarded me intently. ‘I don’t think you’ve told me everything.’
    ‘I haven’t,’ I said. ‘And I’m not going to. You’re better out of this mess.’
    ‘I think you’d better complete your story,’ she said.
    I bit my lip. ‘Have you anywhere to stay—out of sight, I mean?’
    She shrugged. ‘There’s the apartment in Reykjavik.’
    ‘That’s compromised,’ I said. ‘Slade knows about it and one of his men has it tagged.’
    ‘I could visit my father,’ she said.
    ‘Yes, you could.’ I had met Ragnar Thorsson once only; he was a tough old farmer who lived in the wilds of Strandasysla. Elin would be safe enough there. I said, ‘If I tell you the full story will you go and stay with him until I send for you?’
    ‘I give no guarantees,’ she said uncompromisingly.
    ‘Christ!’ I said. ‘If I get out of this you’re going to make me one hell of a wife. I don’t know if I’ll be able to stand it.’
    She jerked her head. ‘What did you say?’
    ‘In a left-handed way I was asking you to marry me.’
    Things immediately got confused and it was a few minutes before we got ourselves untangled. Elin, pink-faced and tousle-haired, grinned at me impishly. ‘Now tell!’
    I sighed and opened the door. ‘I’ll not only tell you, but I’ll show you.’
    I went to the back of the Land-Rover and took the flat metal box from the girder to which I had taped it. I held it out to Elin on the palm of my hand. ‘That’s what the trouble is all about,’ I said. ‘You brought it up from Reykjavik yourself.’
    She poked at it tentatively with her forefinger. ‘So those men didn’t take it.’
    I said, ‘What they got was a metal box which originally contained genuine Scottish fudge from Oban—full of cotton wadding and sand and sewn up in the original hessian.’
IV
    ‘What about some beer?’ asked Elin.
    I grimaced. The Icelandic brew is a prohibition beer, tasteless stuff bearing the same relationship to alcohol as candyfloss bears to sugar. Elin laughed. ‘It’s all right; Bjarni brought back a case of Carlsberg on his last flight from Greenland.’
    That was better; the Danes really know about beer. I watched Elin open the cans and pour out the Carlsberg. ‘I want you to go to stay with your father,’ I said.
    ‘I’ll think about it.’ She handed me a glass. ‘I want to know why you still have the package.’
    ‘It was a phoney deal,’ I said. ‘The whole operation stank to high heaven. Slade said Graham had been tagged by the opposition so he brought me in at the last minute. But Graham wasn’t attacked—I was.’ I didn’t tell Elin about Lindholm; I didn’t know how much strain I could put upon her. ‘Doesn’t that seem odd?’
    She considered it. ‘Yes, it is strange.’
    ‘And Graham was watching our apartment which is funny behaviour for a man who knows he may be under observation by the enemy. I don’t think Graham hadbeen tagged at all; I think Slade has been telling a pack of lies.’
    Elin seemed intent on the bubbles glistening on the side of her glass. ‘Talking of the enemy—who is the enemy?’
    ‘I think it’s my old pals of the KGB,’ I said. ‘Russian Intelligence. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.’
    I could see by her set face that she didn’t like the sound of that, so I switched back to Slade and Graham. ‘Another thing—Graham saw me being tackled at Akureyri Airport and he didn’t do a bloody thing to help me. He could at least have followed the man who ran off with the camera case, but he didn’t do a damned thing. What do you make