Running Blind / The Freedom Trap

by Desmond Bagley

  There still remained a few things to do. I opened the wardrobe and considered the contents. There was a suit of a decent dark grey, and there was a sports coat with non-matching trousers and brown shoes. I didn’t know where I was—country or town—and if I emerged into a town then the suit would be more appropriate; but if I was in the heart of the country the suit would stick out a mile whereas the more informal dress would not be out of place in a town. So I plumped for the sports coat and associated trimmings. I’d also take the hat and the raincoat.

  I’d been on the run before and I knew that one of the most difficult things to do is the apparently simple act of washing and the general idea of keeping clean. If my beard grew out a different colour than my hair I’d be an object of attention—that blonde had warned me to shave twice a day. This question of cleanliness is something of which the police are well aware, and in searching for a man on the run a check is routinely made on all public washrooms in railway stations and large hotels.

  So I was taking the shaver, a tablet of soap, a face cloth and a hand towel—all of which would fit conveniently into the pockets of the raincoat without bulging too much. I coiled my garrotting wire loosely and fitted it into the sweatband of the hat. Any copper worthy of the name knows one of those when he sees it, and if I was searched I didn’t want it to be obvious—I’d be thrown in the nick immediately if it were found.

  That also went for the gun—if I could get hold of Fatface’s artillery. Which brought me to another question. How far was I justified in using a gun if the occasion arose?

  The cult of James Bond has given rise to a lot of nonsense. There are no double-o numbers and there is no ‘licence to kill’. As far as I knew I didn’t have a number at all, except perhaps a file number like any other employee; certainly no one ever referred to me as number 56, or whatever it was—or even 0056. And agents don’t kill just for the hell of it. That doesn’t mean that agents never kill, but they kill strictly to order under carefully specified conditions. Elimination by death is regarded with distaste; it’s messy and irretrievable, and there are usually other ways of silencing a man which are almost as effective.

  Yet sometimes it has to be done and an agent is detailed to do it. Whether this constitutes a licence to kill I wouldn’t know; it certainly doesn’t grant a general licence to commit unrestricted mayhem. You leave too many unexplained bodies lying around and the secret service stops being secret.

  Now, Mackintosh hadn’t told me to kill anyone apart from Slade and that meant, generally speaking, no killing. Such unordered deaths are known in the trade as ‘accidental’ and any agent who is crass enough to cause such an accidental death quickly gets the chop as being unreliable and inept. For an agent to leave a trail of corpses in his wake would cause untold consternation in those little hole-in-the-corner offices in Whitehall which have the innocuous and deceptive names on the doors.

  In fact, it came back to the old moral problem—when is a man justified in killing another man? I resolved it by quoting the phrase—‘Kill or be killed!’ If I were in danger of being killed then I would kill in self-defence—and not until then. I had killed only one man in my life and that had made me sick to my stomach for two days afterwards.

  That settled in my mind, I began planning arson. An inspection of the liquor cabinet showed a bottle and a half of South African brandy, the best part of a bottle of Scotch, ditto gin, and a half-bottle of Drambuie. A few tests showed the brandy and the Drambuie as being most flammable, although not as fiery as I would have wished. I was sorry I hadn’t developed a taste for rum—there’s some nice 100º stuff on the market which would have suited me fine—although God knows what it does to the lining of the stomach.

  Then I went to bed and slept the sleep of the morally just.

  II

  There was no breakfast next morning. Instead of Taafe trundling his trolley before him he came in empty-handed and jerked his thumb at the door. I shrugged and walked out. It seemed as though the party was over.

  I was taken downstairs and across the hall into the closely curtained room where I had signed the cheque. In the hall I passed an elderly couple, Darby and Joan types, who were sitting nervously on the edges of their chairs as though they thought it was a dentist’s waiting room. They looked at me incuriously as I walked past them into the room where Fatface was waiting for me.

  There was a bleak look on his face. ‘You’ve had a night to think about it,’ he said. ‘Your story had better be very good, Mr Whoever-you-are.’

  I went on the attack. ‘Where’s that dab-sheet?’

  ‘We don’t keep it here,’ he said shortly. ‘In any case, it isn’t necessary.’

  ‘I still don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said. ‘And if you think I’ve spent all night cooking up a cock-and-bull story just to satisfy you then you’re crazy. I don’t have much to do with my time, but I’ve better things to do than that.’ I was telling him the exact truth.

  He made a noise expressive of disgust. ‘You’re a liar. Can’t you get it into your thick skull that the gaff has been blown? There’s just one little detail missing—your identity.’ He shook his head pityingly. ‘We know you’re not Rearden. All we want to know is who the devil you really are.’

  Now, why did he want to know that? I had a fair idea, and I didn’t like it at all. If I wasn’t Rearden then he’d want to know if I’d be seriously missed. That’s an important thing to know if you’re contemplating murdering anyone. Was I important? Did I have important connections? For whom was I working? And why? All those were questions he would want answering.

  And he was too damned certain that I wasn’t Rearden, which was faintly alarming. I heaved a deep sigh. ‘I’m Joseph Rearden. From what Cosgrove told me before you got me out of the nick you’ve done a thorough check on me. Why this sudden switch, Fatface? Are you trying to slip out of your obligations?’

  ‘Don’t call me Fatface,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t need fingerprints to tell me you’re not Rearden because you’ve just proved it yourself. Out there in the hall you passed a couple of old people, Mr and Mrs Rearden from Brakpan, South Africa. Your dear old father and your sainted old mother, you son of a bitch. You didn’t recognize them and they didn’t recognize you.’

  There wasn’t much to say to that, so I kept my mouth shut. But my stomach did a back flip.

  Fatface showed his teeth in a savage grin. ‘I said the gaff has been blown, and I meant it. We know about Mackintosh, and there’s no point in you denying you know him. We know all about that tricky little set-up, so you’d better get ready to tell the truth for a change.’

  This time I really was jolted—and badly. I felt as though I’d just grabbed a live wire and I hoped it didn’t show on my face. For my cover to be blown could have meant any number of things; for Mackintosh’s cover to be blown sky-high was bloody serious.

  I said, ‘For God’s sake—who is Mackintosh?’

  ‘Very funny,’ said Fatface acidly. He looked at his watch. ‘I can see we’ll have to take stronger measures but, unfortunately, I have an appointment and I don’t have the time now. I’ll give you two hours to think about those stronger measures; I can assure you they will be most unpleasant.’

  Depressed as I was I nearly laughed in his face. He was acting like the villain in a ‘B’ picture. He had no appointment and the two hours were intended to break me down thinking of very imaginable tortures. And he wouldn’t be away for two hours, either; he’d be back in an hour, or possibly three hours. It was supposed to add to the uncertainty of the situation. Fatface was an amateur who seemed to get his ideas from watching TV. I think he was too soft-centred to get down to the torture bit and he was hoping I’d break down more-or-less spontaneously.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘If you want me to cook up a story, then I’ll cook up a story. It will take me two hours to think it up.’

  ‘We don’t want a story—as you put it. We want the truth.’

  ‘But you’ve got the
truth, damn it!’

  He merely shrugged and waved to the man behind me who took me upstairs again. The Reardens—if that’s who they were—had vanished from the hall. It struck me that Fatface might very well have been bluffing about them. But he still knew about Mackintosh.

  Once locked in the bedroom I got on with what I had to do. I shaved quickly and put the shaver and the rest of the stuff into the pockets of the raincoat. I dressed and put on the tweed sports coat, grabbed my weighted sock and took up position behind the door, the end of the improvised cord held in my fingers.

  It was a long wait and it seemed to be hours, but I had to stay there, exactly in that place, because in this thing timing was everything. I looked about the bedroom, checking to see that all was in order, and found it good. The bathroom door was ajar, but looked closed; the cord going around the room was invisible and wouldn’t be noticed by the casual eye. All I had to do was to stay behind that door and wait.

  Although it seemed a long time he was back on the hour—I’d been right in predicting that. I heard the murmur of voices on the other side of the door and tightened my fingers on the cord. As soon as I heard the key in the lock I began to pull, exerting a steady and growing pressure on the piston in the cistern.

  As the door opened the cistern flushed noisily.

  Fatface came into the room alone and cautiously, but relaxed visibly as he heard the noise from the bathroom. He took a step forward, pushing the door closed behind him, and I heard the key turn as the outside guard locked it. He took another step forward without looking behind him. He could easily have seen me by a half turn of his head but the thought never came to him. After all, wasn’t I in the bathroom?

  I wasn’t! I hit him with the weighted sock very hard, much harder than I’d hit the postman in the Kiddykar office. He gasped and his knees buckled but he kept his feet and he twisted his head slightly so that I could see his mouth was open and he was gasping for air and struggling to shout. I knew the sock wasn’t too efficient—not like a proper sandbag—so I hit him even harder, and then again, pounding unconsciousness into his skull.

  I caught him as he fell. I didn’t want him thumping on the floor with a noise which might be heard outside. Even then, the repeated thud of the sock hitting his head had seemed to echo around the room and I paused for a moment, holding him in my arms, and waited to see if anything would happen.

  Nothing did, so with a sigh of relief I lowered him to the floor. The first thing I did was to go for his gun. It was a neat flat automatic with nine rounds in the magazine but nothing in the chamber. I had been right; the man was an amateur, after all! To carry a gun with nothing up the spout is to carry a piece of junk metal. What’s the use of a gun which can’t be fired at a split second’s notice?

  I put back the magazine, worked the action to jump a round into the breech, saw the gun was on safety, and put it into my pocket. And all the time I was talking aloud. The guard outside must not hear dead silence.

  I stripped off Fatface’s jacket and took off the shoulder holster he wore. Then I trussed him like a fowl, using the strips of sheeting I had prepared, and not forgetting to stuff his mouth with a gag. He was breathing heavily through his mouth and I wondered for a moment if the gag would suffocate him, but he began to breathe through his nose rather noisily and I knew I hadn’t hit him too hard. Apart from the moral aspect of murder I wanted him alive. I had a use for him.

  Swiftly, I went through the pockets of his jacket. There was a wallet, which, when flicked open briefly, displayed the edges of many bank notes. That was very good—I’d need money. I didn’t investigate it further, but stowed it away, together with a small notebook I found, and got on with the search. I found a handful of loose change which went into my pocket and a couple of spare magazines for the pistol, also well worth confiscating. Everything else I left, except for a penknife and a fountain pen, both of which could prove handy to have.

  Then I went about the next part of the plan. I tossed the mattress on to the floor just by the door and ripped open the ticking, using Fatface’s useful penknife. There was a lot of beautifully inflammable cotton wadding which I piled in a heap ready for the conflagration, and I set the bottles of brandy and Drambuie close to hand.

  Then I turned my attention to Fatface who was just coming round. He stirred a little and a heavy snoring noise came from his nose which would have been a groan if he hadn’t been gagged. I went into the bathroom, filled the tooth glass with cold water, went back and dumped the lot on his face. He snorted again and his eyes flickered open.

  It must have been quite a shock for him to see the muzzle of his own gun held not a foot from his head. I waited until full comprehension came to him, then said casually, ‘If you think there isn’t one up the spout, you’re wrong. If I want to blow your brains out all I have to do is pull the trigger,’

  He flinched and arched his neck, trying to pull his head away, while muffled noises came from behind the gag. ‘Take it easy,’ I counselled. ‘That way you won’t get hurt.’ I could see the muscles of his arms working as he tested the bindings on his wrists which were pinioned behind his back. When he had finished struggling, I said, ‘I’m going out of here—and you are going to help me. You can help voluntarily or involuntarily; take your pick. I have to warn you that one mistaken move on your part might mean your death. You’ll be in the middle and if any shooting starts you’ll probably stop a bullet.’

  I didn’t wait to see his reaction to that—it didn’t really matter—but took the raincoat and hat and put them on, and checked the pockets to see if I had everything. Then I doused the mattress wadding with the spirits, pouring liberally until the room smelled like a distillery.

  I returned to Fatface and cut his ankles free. ‘Get up—slowly!’

  He staggered to his feet, hampered by the bonds on his arms. He stood quite passively, just looking at me, and I could read no expression in his eyes. I jerked the gun. ‘Walk forward to the door and stop a yard in front of it. I wouldn’t kick it, though; that could be fatal.’

  He shuffled forward obediently, and I took his jacket and draped it across his shoulders so that the empty sleeves hung loose. Apart from the gag and the lack of hands he looked quite normal—normal enough to give me a fraction of a second’s advantage when that door opened. The trick is to keep the opposition off balance, and the guard would have other things to do with his eyes just at that moment.

  I struck a match and dropped it on the pile of wadding, and blue flames ran over the surface. It wasn’t much of a fire but it was the best I could do under the circumstances. I kept an eye on it until the first yellow flames appeared, then pressed the bell-push—the signal that Fatface wanted to be let out.

  When the lock snapped I was right behind him, prodding him with the pistol to make sure he understood the spot he was in. The door swung open and I pushed him forward, the flat of my hand in the middle of his back, and yelled at the top of my voice. ‘Fire!’

  I followed up fast as he staggered into the corridor and, over his shoulder, saw the startled face of the guard who was slow in reacting. He had some kind of a weapon in his hand, but he dithered as he saw Fatface lurch towards him and the flickering glow of the flames from the room. With the opening of the door a draught had swept into the bedroom and the fire really got going. I don’t think the guard saw me at all.

  I gave Fatface another mighty push so that he collided heavily with the guard and they both went down in a tangled heap. A gun went off and someone screamed; it must have been the guard because Fatface had a gag in his mouth.

  I jumped over the sprawl of wriggling bodies and ran down the corridor, the pistol in my hand with the safety catch off. The corridor was wood-panelled with doors on either side which I ignored. At the end was a stair landing with stairs going both up and down. I went up. I had made my decision on that one the previous evening. It’s a curious thing, but people escaping from a house always try to get immediately to the ground floor—which is why th
ey’re usually caught. I suppose it’s an instinctive reaction, but the department that trained me worked hard to eradicate it.

  The floor above was not so fancy—no wood-panelled walls—so I figured I was in the servants’ quarters, which meant I had to look out for Taafe, if he was that kind of servant, which I doubted. I moved fast, trying to make no noise, and heard an increasing uproar from downstairs. It was becoming too dangerous to stay in the corridors so I ducked into the nearest room—gun first.

  It was empty of occupants, thank God, and I’d done it just in time because someone ran down the corridor with a heavy thumping tread. I shot the bolt and crossed to the window and found I was on the other side of the house away from the courtyard. For the first time I could see the surrounding country and it was very pleasant to view—rolling fields and areas of woodland with blue-green mountains beyond. About half a mile away a car sped along a road. There lay freedom.

  For over a year and a half I had seen nothing but stone walls and my eyes had focused on nothing further away than a few yards. This glimpse of countryside caused a sudden lump to come to my throat and my heart thumped in my chest. It didn’t matter that dark clouds were lowering and that a sudden shift of wind sent a spatter of raindrops against the window. Out there I would be free and nobody was going to stop me.

  I returned to the door and listened. There was a slice of chaos downstairs and it seemed that the fire I had started had got out of hand. I unbolted the door and opened it a crack, to hear Fatface shout, ‘To hell with the fire—I want Rearden. Taafe, get downstairs to the front door; Dillon, you take the back door. The rest of us will search the house.’

  A deep voice said, ‘He’s not upstairs. I’ve just come down.’

  ‘All right,’ said Fatface impatiently. ‘That leaves just this floor. Taafe was at the bottom of the stairs and didn’t see him. Get moving.’