I said thoughtfully, Is Lee Nordlinger still at the base at Keflavik?
Yes, said Elin. I saw him two weeks ago.
I poked at the gadget. Hes the only man in Iceland who might have the faintest idea of what this is.
Are you going to show it to him?
I dont know, I said slowly. He might recognize it as a piece of missing US government property and, since hes a commander in the US Navy, he might think he has to take action. After all, Im not supposed to have it, and thered be a lot of questions.
I put the gadget back into its box, laid the lid on top and taped it into place. I dont think this had better go underneath again now that Ive opened it.
Listen! said Elin. Thats our number.
I reached up and twisted the volume control and the voice became louder. Seydisfjördur calling seven, zero, five; Seydisfjördur calling seven, zero, five.
I unhooked the handset. Seven, zero, five answering Seydisfjördur.
Seydisfjördur calling seven, zero, five; your call to London has come through. I am connecting.
Thank you, Seydisfjördur.
The characteristics of the noise coming through the speaker changed suddenly and a very faraway voice said, David Taggart here. Is that you, Slade?
I said. Im speaking on an open line a very open line. Be careful.
There was a pause, then Taggart said, I understand. Who is speaking? This is a very bad line.
He was right, it was a bad line. His voice advanced and receded in volume and was mauled by an occasional burst of static. I said, This is Stewart here.
An indescribable noise erupted from the speaker. It could have been static but more likely it was Taggart having an apoplexy. What the hell do you think youre doing? he roared.
I looked at Elin and winced. From the sound of that it appeared that Taggart was not on my side, but it remained to be found if he backed Slade. He was going full blast. I talked to Slade this morning. He said you er tried to terminate his contract. Another useful euphemism. And whats happened to Philips?
Who the hell is Philips? I interjected.
Oh! You might know him better as Buchner or Graham.
His contract I did terminate, I said.
For Christs sake! yelled Taggart. Have you gone out of your mind?
I got in first just before he tried to terminate my contract, I said. The competition is awful fierce here in Iceland. Slade sent him.
Slade tells it differently.
Ill bet he does, I said. Either hes gone off his rocker or hes joined a competing firm. I came across some of their representatives over here, too.
Impossible! said Taggart flatly.
The competing representatives?
No Slade. Its unthinkable.
How can it be unthinkable when Im thinking it? I said reasonably.
Hes been with us so long. You know the good work hes done.
Maclean, I said. Burgess, Kim Philby. Blake, the Krogers, Lonsdale all good men and true. Whats wrong with adding Slade?
Taggarts voice got an edge to it. This is an open line watch your language. Stewart, you dont know the score. Slade says you still have the merchandise is that true?
Yes, I admitted.
Taggart breathed hard. Then you must go back to Akureyri. Ill fix it so that Slade finds you there. Let him have it.
The only thing Ill let Slade have is a final dismissal notice, I said. The same thing I gave Graham or whatever his name was.
You mean youre not going to obey orders, said Taggart dangerously.
Not so far as Slade is concerned, I said. When Slade sent Graham my fiancée happened to be in the way.
There was a long pause before Taggart said in a more conciliatory tone. Did anything ? Is she ?
Shes got a hole in her, I said baldly, and not giving a damn if it was an open line. Keep Slade away from me, Taggart.
He had been called Sir David for so long that he didnt relish the unadorned sound of his own name, and it took some time for him to swallow it. At last he said, in a subdued voice, So you wont accept Slade.
I wouldnt accept Slade with a packet of Little Noddys Rice Crispies. I dont trust him.
Who would you accept?
That I had to think about. It had been a long time since I had been with the Department and I didnt know what the turnover had been. Taggart said, Would you accept Case?
Case was a good man; I knew him and trusted him as far as Id trust anyone in the Department. Ill accept Jack Case.
Where will you meet him? And when?
I figured out the logic of time and distance. At Geysir five p.m. the day after tomorrow.
Taggart was silent and all I heard were the waves of static beating against my eardrum. Then he said, Cant be done I still have to get him back here. Make it twenty-four hours later. He slipped in a fast one. Where are you now?
I grinned at Elin. Iceland.
Even the distortion could not disguise the rasp in Taggarts voice; he sounded like a concrete-mixer. Stewart, I hope you know that youre well on your way to ruining a most important operation. When you meet Case you take your orders from him and youll do precisely as he says. Understand?
Hed better not have Slade with him, I said. Or all bets are off. Are you putting your dog on a leash, Taggart?
All right, said Taggart reluctantly. Ill pull him back to London. But youre wrong about him, Stewart. Look what he did to Kennikin in Sweden.
It happened so suddenly that I gasped. The irritant that had been festering at the back of my mind came to the surface and it was like a bomb going off. I want some information, I said quickly. I might need it if Im to do this job properly.
All right; what is it? said Taggart impatiently.
What have you got on file about Kennikins drinking habits?
What the hell! he roared. Are you trying to be funny?
I need the information, I repeated patiently. I had Taggart by the short hairs and he knew it. I had the electronic gadget and he didnt know where I was. I was bargaining from strength and I didnt think hed hold back apparently irrelevant information just to antagonize me. But he tried.
Itll take time, he said. Ring me back.
Now youre being funny, I said. You have so many computers around you that electrons shoot out of your ears. All you have to do is to push a button and youll have the answer in two minutes. Push it!
All right, he said in an annoyed voice. Hold on. He had every right to be annoyed the boss isnt usually spoken to in that way.
I could imagine what was going on. The fast, computer-controlled retrieval of microfilm combined with the wonders of closed circuit television would put the answer on to the screen on his desk in much less than two minutes providing the right coding was dialled. Every known member of the opposition was listed in that microfilm file together with every known fact about him, so that his life was spread out like a butterfly pinned in a glass case. Apparent irrelevancies about a man could come in awfully useful if known at the right time or in the right place.
Presently Taggart said in a dim voice, Ive got it. The static was much worse and he was very far away. What do you want to know?
Speak up I can hardly hear you. I want to know about his drinking habits.
Taggarts voice came through stronger, but not much. Kennikin seems to be a bit of a puritan. He doesnt drink and, since his last encounter with you, he doesnt go out with women. His voice was sardonic. Apparently you ruined him for the only pleasure in his life. Youd better watch The rest of the sentence was washed out in noise.
What was that? I shouted.
Taggarts voice came through the crashing static like a thin ghost. best of knowledge Kenni Iceland hes
And that was all I got, but it was enough. I tried unavailingly to restore the connection but nothing could be done. Elin pointed to the sky in the west which was black with cloud. The storm is moving east; you wont get anything more until its over.
I put the handset back into its clip. That bastard, Slade! I said. I was right.
What do you mean? asked Elin.
I looked at the clouds which were beginning to boil over Dyngjufjöll. Id like to get off this track, I said. We have twenty-four hours to waste and Id rather not do it right here. Lets get up into Askja before that storm really breaks.
FOUR
The great caldera of Askja is beautiful but not in a storm. The wind lashed the waters of the crater lake far below and someone, possibly old Odin, pulled the plug out of the sky so that the rain fell in sheets and wind-driven curtains. It was impossible to get down to the lake until the water-slippery ash had dried out so I pulled off the track and we stayed right there, just inside the crater wall.
Some people I know get jumpy even at the thought of being inside the crater of what is, after all, a live volcano; but Askja had said his piece very loudly in 1961 and would probably be quiet for a while apart from a few minor exuberancies. Statistically speaking, we were fairly safe. I put up the top of the Land-Rover so as to get headroom, and presently there were lamb chops under the grill and eggs spluttering in the pan, and we were dry, warm and comfortable.
While Elin fried the eggs I checked the fuel situation. The tank held sixteen gallons and we carried another eighteen gallons in four jerrycans, enough for over 600 miles on good roads. But we werent on good roads and, in the Óbyggdir, wed be lucky to get even ten miles from a gallon. The gradients and the general roughness meant a lot of low gear work and that swallows fuel greedily, and the nearest filling station was a long way south. Still, I reckoned wed have enough to get to Geysir.
Miraculously, Elin produced two bottles of Carlsberg from the refrigerator, and I filled a glass gratefully. I watched her as she spooned melted fat over the eggs and thought she looked pale and withdrawn. Hows the shoulder?
Stiff and tender, she said.
It would be. I said, Ill put another dressing on it after supper. I drank from the glass and felt the sharp tingle of cold beer. I wish I could have kept you out of this, Elin.
She turned her head and offered me a brief smile. But you havent. With a dextrous twist of a spatula she lifted an egg on to a plate. I cant say Im enjoying it much, though.
Entertainment isnt the object, I said.
She put the plate down before me. Why did you ask about Kennikins drinking habits? It seems pointless.
That goes back a long way, I said. As a very young man Kennikin fought in Spain on the Republican side, and when that war was lost he lived in France for a while, stirring things up for Leon Blums Popular Front, but I think even then he was an undercover man. Anyway, it was there he picked up a taste for Calvados the Normandy applejack. Got any salt?
Elin passed the salt cellar. I think maybe he had a drinking problem at one time and decided to cut it out because, as far as the Department is aware, hes a non-drinker. You heard Taggart on that.
Elin began to cut into a loaf of bread. I dont see the point of all this, she complained.
Im coming to it. Like a lot of men with an alcohol problem he can keep off the stuff for months at a time, but when the going becomes tough and the pressures build up then he goes on a toot. And, by God, there are enough tensions in our line of work. But the point is that hes a secret drinker; I only found out when I got next to him in Sweden. I visited him unexpectedly and found him cut to the eyeballs on Calvados its the only stuff he inhales. He was drunk enough to talk about it, too. Anyway, I poured him into bed and tactfully made my exit, and he never referred to the incident again when I was with him.
I accepted a piece of bread and dabbed at the yolk of an egg. When an agent goes back to the Department after a job he is debriefed thoroughly and by experts. That happened to me when I got back from Sweden, but because I was raising a stink about what had happened to Jimmy Birkby maybe the debriefing wasnt as thorough as it should have been, and the fact that Kennikin drinks never got put on record. It still isnt on record, as Ive just found out.
I still dont see the point, said Elin helplessly.
Im just about to make it, I said. When Slade came to see me in Scotland he told me of the way I had wounded Kennikin, and made the crack that Kennikin would rather operate on me with a sharp knife than offer to split a bottle of Calvados. How in hell would Slade know about the Calvados? Hes never been within a hundred miles of Kennikin and the fact isnt on file in the Department. Its been niggling at me for a long time, but the penny only dropped this afternoon.
Elin sighed. Its a very small point.
Have you ever witnessed a murder trial? The point which can hang a man can be very small. But add this to it the Russians took a package which they presumably discovered to be a fake. Youd expect them to come after the real thing, wouldnt you? But who did come after it, and with blood in his eye? None other than friend Slade.
Youre trying to make out a case that Slade is a Russian agent, said Elin. But it wont work. Who was really responsible for the destruction of Kennikins network in Sweden?
Slade master-minded it, I said. He pointed me in the right direction and pulled the trigger.
Elin shrugged. Well, then? Would a Russian agent do that to his own side?
Slades a big boy now, I said. Right next to Taggart in a very important area of British Intelligence. He even lunches with the Prime Minister he told me so. How important would it be to the Russians to get a man into that position?
Elin looked at me as though Id gone crazy. I said quietly, Whoever planned this has a mind like a pretzel, but its all of a piece. Slade is in a top slot in British Intelligence but how did he get there? Answer by wrecking the Russian organization in Sweden. Which is more important to the Russians? To retain their Swedish network which could be replaced if necessary? Or to put Slade where he is now?