Running Blind / The Freedom Trap. Desmond Bagley
to cross the river in the morning only to run into him on the other side.
Then I went down to the river and looked at it. The water level was still dropping and it might have been barely feasible to cross there and then had the light been better. But I wouldn’t risk it without using the headlights and I couldn’t do that because they’d certainly show in the sky. Kennikin’s mob wasn’t all that far away.
I dropped into my berth fully clothed. I didn’t expect to sleep under the circumstances but nevertheless I set the alarm on my wrist watch for two a.m. And that was the last thing I remember until it buzzed like a demented mosquito and woke me up.
II
We were ready to move at two-fifteen. As soon as the alarm buzzed I woke Elin, ruthlessly disregarding her sleepy protests. As soon as she knew how close Kennikin was she moved fast. I said, ‘Get dressed quickly. I’m going to have a look around.’
The black thread was still in place which meant that no vehicle had gone through. Any jeep moving at night would have to stick to the track; it was flatly impossible to cross the lava beds in the darkness. True, someone on foot might have gone through, but I discounted that.
The water in the river was nice and low and it would be easy to cross. As I went back I looked in the sky towards the east; already the short northern night was nearly over and I was determined to cross the river at the earliest opportunity and get as far ahead of Kennikin as I could.
Elin had different ideas. ‘Why not stay here and let him get ahead? Just let him go past. He’d have to go a long way before he discovered he’s chasing nothing.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘We know he has two jeeps, but we don’t know if he has more. It could happen that, if we let him get ahead, we could be the meat in a sandwich and that might be uncomfortable. We cross now.’
Starting an engine quietly is not easy. I stuffed blankets around the generator in an attempt to muffle that unmistakable rasp, the engine caught and purred sweetly, and I took the blankets away. And I was very light-footed on the accelerator as we drove towards the river. We got across easily, although making more noise than I cared for, and away we went towards the next river.
I told Elin to keep a sharp eye to the rear while I concentrated on moving as fast as possible compatible with quietness. In the next four kilometres we crossed two more rivers and then there was a long stretch where the track swung north temporarily, and I opened up. We were now far enough away from Kennikin to make speed more important than silence.
Sixteen rivers in sixty kilometres, Elin had said. Not counting the time spent in crossing rivers we were now averaging a bone-jarring twenty-five kilometres an hour – too fast for comfort in this country – and I estimated we would get to the main Sprengisandur track in about four hours. It actually took six hours because some of the rivers were bastards.
In reaching the Sprengisandur track we had crossed the watershed and all the rivers from now on would be flowing south and west instead of north and east. We hit the track at eight-thirty, and I said, ‘Breakfast. Climb in the back and get something ready.’
‘You’re not stopping?’
‘Christ, no! Kennikin will have been on the move for hours. There’s no way of knowing how close he is and I’ve no urgent inclination to find out the hard way. Bread and cheese and beer will do fine.’
So we ate on the move and stopped only once, at ten o’clock, to fill up the tank from the last full jerrycan. While we were doing that up popped our friend of the previous day, the US Navy helicopter. It came from the north this time, not very low, and floated over us without appearing to pay us much attention.
I watched it fly south, and Elin said, ‘I’m puzzled about that.’
‘So am I,’ I said.
‘Not in the same way that I am,’ she said. ‘American military aircraft don’t usually overfly the country.’ She was frowning.
‘Now you come to mention it, that is odd.’ There’s a certain amount of tension in Iceland about the continuing American military presence at Keflavik. A lot of Icelanders take the view that it’s an imposition and who can blame them? The American authorities are quite aware of this tension and try to minimize it, and the American Navy in Iceland tries to remain as inconspicuous as possible. Flaunting military aircraft in Icelandic skies was certainly out of character.
I shrugged and dismissed the problem, concentrating on getting the last drop out of the jerrycan, and then we carried on with not a sign of anything on our tail. We were now on the last lap, running down the straight, if rough, track between the River Thjórsá and the ridge of Búdarháls with the main roads only seventy kilometres ahead, inasmuch as any roads in Iceland can be so described.
But even a lousy Icelandic road would be perfection when compared with the tracks of the Óbyggdir, especially when we ran into trouble with mud. This is one of the problems of June when the frozen earth of winter melts into a gelatinous car trap. Because we were in a Land-Rover it didn’t stop us but it slowed us down considerably, and the only consolation I had was that Kennikin would be equally hampered when he hit the stuff.
At eleven o’clock the worst happened – a tyre blew. It was a front tyre and I fought the wheel as we jolted to a stop. ‘Let’s make this fast,’ I said, and grabbed the wheel brace.
If we had to have a puncture it wasn’t a bad place to have it. The footing was level enough to take the jack without slipping and there was no mud at that point. I jacked up the front of the Land-Rover and got busy on the wheel with the brace. Because of Elin’s shoulder she wasn’t of much use in this kind of job. so I said. ‘What about making coffee – we could do with something hot.’
I took the wheel off, rolled it away and replaced it with the spare. The whole operation took a little under ten minutes, time we couldn’t afford – not there and then. Once we were farther south we could lose ourselves on a more-or-less complex road network, but these wilderness tracks were too restricted for my liking.
I tightened the last wheel nut and then looked to see what had caused a blowout and to put the wheel back into its rack. What I saw made my blood run cold. I fingered the jagged hole in the thick tyre and looked up at the Búdarháls ridge which dominated the track.
There was only one thing that could make a hole like that – a bullet. And somewhere up on the ridge, hidden in some crevice, was a sniper – and even then I was probably in his sights.
III
How in hell did Kennikin get ahead of me? That was my first bitter thought. But idle thoughts were no use and action was necessary.
I heaved up the wheel with its ruined tyre on to the bonnet and screwed it down securely. While I rotated the wheel brace I glanced covertly at the ridge. There was a lot of open ground before the ridge heaved itself into the air – at least two hundred yards – and the closest a sniper could have been was possibly four hundred yards and probably more.
Any man who could put a bullet into a tyre at over four hundred yards – a quarter mile – was a hell of a good shot. So good that he could put a bullet into me any time he liked – so why the devil hadn’t he? I was in plain view, a perfect target, and yet no bullets had come my way. I tightened down the last nut and turned my back to the ridge, and felt a prickling feeling between my shoulder blades – that was where the bullet would hit me if it came.
I jumped to the ground and put away the brace and jack, concentrating on doing the natural thing. The palms of my hands were slippery with sweat. I went to the back of the Land-Rover and looked in at the open door. ‘How’s the coffee coming?’
‘Just ready,’ said Elin.
I climbed in and sat down. Sitting in that confined space gave a comforting illusion of protection, but that’s all it was – an illusion. For the second time I wished the Land-Rover