Читать книгу Running Blind / The Freedom Trap - Desmond Bagley, Desmond Bagley - Страница 24

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 not by intention.

If I had my own gun I could have dropped Kennikin as easily as dropping a deer. I have put a soft-nosed bullet into a deer and it has run for half a mile before dropping dead, and that with an exit wound big enough to put your fist in. A man can’t do that – his nervous system is too delicate and can’t stand the shock.

But I hadn’t my own rifle, and there was no percentage in opening fire at random. That would only tell Kennikin I was close, and it might be better if he didn’t know. So I let my fingers relax from the carbine and concentrated on watching what was going to happen next.

The arguing had stopped with Kennikin’s arrival, and I knew why, having worked with him. He had no time for futile blathering; he would accept your facts – and God help you if they were wrong – and then he would make the decisions. He was busily engaged in making one now.

I smiled as I saw someone point out the tracks of the Land-Rover entering the water and then indicate the other bank of the river. There were no tracks where we had left the water because we had been swept sideways a little, and that must have been puzzling to anyone who hadn’t seen it happen.

The man waved downstream eloquently but Kennikin shook his head. He wasn’t buying that one. Instead he said something, snapping his fingers impatiently, and someone else rushed up with a map. He studied it and then pointed off to the right and four of the men got into a jeep, reversed up the track, and then took off across country in a bumpy ride.

That made me wrinkle my brows until I remembered there was a small group of lakes over in that direction called Gaesavötn. If Kennikin expected me to be camping at Gaesavötn he’d draw a blank, but it showed how thorough and careful he was.

The crew from the other jeep got busy erecting a camp just off the track, putting up tents rather inexpertly. One of them went to Kennikin with a vacuum flask and poured out a cup of steaming hot coffee which he offered obsequiously. Kennikin took it and sipped it while still standing at the water’s edge looking across the impassable river. He seemed to be staring right into my eyes.

I lowered the glasses and withdrew slowly and cautiously, being careful to make no sound. I climbed down from the lava ridge and then slung the carbine and headed back to the Land-Rover at a fast clip, and checked to make sure there were no tyre marks to show where we had left the track. I didn’t think Kennikin would have a man swim the river – he could lose a lot of men that way – but it was best to make sure we weren’t stumbled over too easily.

Elin was asleep. She lay on her left side, buried in her sleeping bag, and I was thankful that she always slept quietly and with no blowing or snoring. I let her sleep; there was no reason to disturb her and ruin her night. We weren’t going anywhere, and neither was Kennikin. I switched on my pocket torch shading it with my hand to avoid waking her, and rummaged in a drawer until I found the housewife, from which I took a reel of black thread.

I went back to the track and stretched a line of thread right across it about a foot from the ground, anchoring each end by lumps of loose lava. If Kennikin came through during the night I wanted to know it, no matter how stealthily he went about it. I didn’t want 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.