Running Blind / The Freedom Trap. Desmond Bagley

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СКАЧАТЬ ‘You look tired; you’ve had a hard day.’

      Elin nodded dispiritedly and got out of the cab. I noticed her favouring her right arm, and said, ‘How is the shoulder?’

      She grimaced. ‘Stiff.’

      ‘I’d better take a look at it.’

      I put up the collapsible top of the Land-Rover and set water to boil, and Elin sat on a bunk and tried to take off her sweater. She couldn’t do it because she couldn’t raise her right arm. I helped her take it off but, gentle though I was, she gasped in pain. Reasonably enough, she wasn’t wearing a brassière under the sweater because the shoulder strap would have cut right into the wound.

      I took off the pad and looked at her shoulder. The wound was angry and inflamed but there was no sign of any pus which would indicate infection. I said, ‘I told you that you’d begin to feel it. A graze like this can hurt like the devil, so don’t be too stiff-upper-lipped about it – I know how it feels.’

      She crossed her arms across her breasts. ‘Has it ever happened to you?’

      ‘I was grazed across the ribs once,’ I said, as I poured warm water into a cup.

      ‘So that’s how you got that scar.’

      ‘Yours is worse because it’s across the trapezius muscle and you keep pulling it. You really should have your arm in a sling – I’ll see what I can find.’ I washed the wound and put on a new medicated dressing from the first-aid box, then helped her put on the sweater. ‘Where’s your scarf – the new woollen one?’

      She pointed. ‘In that drawer.’

      ‘Then that’s your sling.’ I took out the scarf and fitted it to her arm so as to immobilize the shoulder as much as possible. ‘Now, you just sit there and watch me cook supper.’

      I thought this was an appropriate time to open the goody box – the small collection of luxuries we kept for special occasions. We both needed cheering up and there’s nothing like a first-class meal under the belt to lift the spirits. I don’t know if Mr Fortnum and Mr Mason are aware of the joy they bring to sojourners in far-flung lands, but after the oyster soup, the whole roast quails and the pears pickled in cognac I felt almost impelled to write them a letter of appreciation.

      The colour came back into Elin’s cheeks as she ate. I insisted that she didn’t use her right hand and she didn’t have to – the dark, tender flesh fell away from the quail at the touch of a fork and she managed all right. I made coffee and we accompanied it with brandy which I carried for medicinal purposes.

      As she sipped her coffee she sighed. ‘Just like old times, Alan.’

      ‘Yes,’ I said lazily. I was feeling much better myself. ‘But you’d better sleep. We make an early start tomorrow.’ I calculated it would be light enough to move at three a.m. when the rivers would also be at their lowest. I leaned over and took the binoculars.

      ‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

      ‘Just to have a look around. You go to bed.’

      Her eyes flickered sleepily. ‘I am tired,’ she admitted.

      That wasn’t surprising. We’d been on the run for a long time, and bouncing about in the Óbyggdir wasn’t helping – we’d managed to fall into every damned pothole on the track. I said, ‘Get your head down – I won’t be long.’

      I hung the lanyard of the binoculars around my neck, opened the back door and dropped to the ground. I was about to walk away when I turned back on impulse, reached into the cab and picked up the carbine. I don’t think Elin saw me do that.

      First I inspected the river we had to cross. It was flowing well but exposed wet stones showed that the level was already dropping. By dawn the crossing would be easy, and we should be able to get across all the other rivers that lay between us and Sprengisandur before the increased flow made it impossible.

      I slung the carbine over my shoulder and walked back along the track towards the river we had crossed which lay a little over a mile away. I approached cautiously but everything was peaceful. The river flowed and chuckled and there was nothing in sight to cause alarm. I checked the distant view with the binoculars, then sat down with my back against a mossy boulder, lit a cigarette and started to think.

      I was worried about Elin’s shoulder; not that there was anything particularly alarming about its condition, but a doctor would do a better job than I could, and this bouncing about the wilderness wasn’t helping. It might be difficult explaining to a doctor how Elin had come by an unmistakable gunshot wound, but accidents do happen and I thought I could get away with it by talking fast.

      I stayed there for a couple of hours, smoking and thinking and looking at the river, and at the end of that time I had come up with nothing new despite my brain beating. The added factor of the American helicopter was a piece of the jigsaw that wouldn’t fit anywhere. I looked at my watch and found it was after nine o’clock, so I buried all the cigarette stubs, picked up the carbine and prepared to go back.

      As I stood up I saw something that made me tense – a plume of dust in the far distance across the river. I laid down the carbine and lifted the glasses and saw the little dot of a vehicle at the head of that feather of dust like a high-flying jet at the head of a contrail. I looked around – there was no cover near the river but about two hundred yards back a spasm of long gone energy had heaved up the lava into a ridge which I could hide behind. I ran for it.

      The vehicle proved to be a Willys jeep – as good for this country in its way as my Land-Rover. It slowed as it came to the river, nosed forward and came to a stop at the water’s edge. The night was quiet and I heard the click of the door handle as a man got out and walked forward to look at the water. He turned and said something to the driver and, although I could not hear the words, I knew he was speaking neither Icelandic nor English.

      He spoke Russian.

      The driver got out, looked at the water and shook his head. Presently there were four of them standing there, and they seemed to be having an argument. Another jeep came up behind and more men got out to study the problem until there were eight in all – two jeeps full. One of them, the one who made the decisive gestures and who seemed to be the boss, I thought I recognized.

      I lifted the glasses and his face sprang into full view in the dimming light. Elin had been wrong; crossing the river had not been an unjustifiable risk, and the justification lay in the face I now saw. The scar was still there, running from the end of the right eyebrow to the corner of the mouth, and the eyes were still grey and hard as stones. The only change in him was that his close-cropped hair was no longer black but a grizzled grey and his face was puffier with incipient wattles forming on his neck.

      Kennikin and I were both four years older but I think I may have worn better than he had.

       FIVE

      I put my hand out to the carbine and then paused. The light was bad and getting worse, the gun was strange and it hadn’t the barrel to reach out and knock a man down at a distance. I estimated the range at a shade under three hundred yards and I knew that if I hit anyone at that range and in that light it would be by chance and СКАЧАТЬ