Running Blind / The Freedom Trap

by Desmond Bagley

  ‘I wouldn’t expect him to,’ I said flatly. ‘At that stage I didn’t need to know.’ I rubbed my chin. ‘But I’d expect him to tell Mrs Smith.’

  ‘He didn’t—but I’ll come to that later.’ Armitage leaned forward. ‘When you and Slade escaped Mackintosh went to see Wheeler. We have established that he saw Wheeler at his club. They had a conversation in the course of which Mackintosh disclosed who you were. That’s how…er…the gaff was blown.’

  I blinked, then closed my eyes and lay back on the pillow. ‘He did it deliberately?’ I asked softly.

  ‘Oh, yes. He wanted to stampede Wheeler into ill-advised action. He wanted to catch him in flagrante delicto. Apparently you were expendable.’

  I opened my eyes and looked at Armitage. ‘I always was. It’s an occupational hazard.’ All the same I thought that Alec Mackintosh was a ruthless son of a bitch.

  ‘Wheeler was stampeded, all right, but I’m not sure that Wheeler’s action was ill-advised,’ said Armitage reflectively. ‘Mackintosh was run down by a car the same day. We’ve impounded all Wheeler’s cars for forensic examination and I’m pretty sure we’ll turn up some evidence even at this late date. I think the job was done by his Irish chauffeur.’

  ‘Or his Chinese cook.’

  Armitage shrugged. ‘So Mackintosh was unconscious in hospital. He was run down on his way to his office where Mrs Smith was awaiting him. Whether he was going to tell her what he’d done we’ll never know. At all events, at this time no one in the Government knew about Wheeler. Do you see what I mean about the security of the operation being too tight?’

  I said, ‘A top-rank Whitehall man, such as yourself, doesn’t turn up in Malta out of the blue so opportunely. Something must have come up.’

  ‘It did. Mackintosh died. He’d taken out insurance. He wrote out a full account of his actions and posted them to his lawyer just before he saw Wheeler. The snag about that was that the sealed envelope was inscribed, “Only to be opened in the event of my death.”‘

  Armitage stared at me. ‘And Mackintosh was in the hands of the doctors. He wasn’t dead, but you’d hardly call him alive although in the legal sense he was. He was a vegetable maintained by modern medical techniques and the doctors’ duty by the Hippocratic Oath, and that was something he hadn’t calculated for. That damned envelope was in the lawyer’s hands for two weeks before Mackintosh died and by then it was nearly too late. It would have been too late were it not for your actions.’

  ‘That’s all very well,’ I said. ‘But how did that lead you to me? Mackintosh didn’t know where I was.’

  ‘We went straight for Wheeler,’ said Armitage. ‘We were just wondering how to tackle him when you took the problem out of our hands.’ He smiled slightly. ‘Your methods are direct, to say the least. It was thought that you might be around, so we brought along people who could recognize you.’

  ‘Brunskill and company,’ I said. ‘So you’ve got Wheeler.’

  He shook his head. ‘No; Wheeler is dead, and so is Slade. You saw to that very effectively, if I may say so. The Special Branch is working on the ramifications of Wheeler’s organizations—those that are legal and those that are not. I think it will be a lengthy task, but that is none of your concern.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘However, you do present a problem to the Government, which is why I am here.’

  I couldn’t suppress the smile. ‘I bet I am.’

  ‘It’s no laughing matter, Mr Stannard,’ said Armitage severely. ‘Already the Press has become alerted to the fact that there is something in the wind.’ He stood up and wandered over to the window. ‘Fortunately, the worst of your…er…crimes were committed outside the United Kingdom and to those we can turn a blind eye. But there is the matter of a diamond robbery which may well prove awkward to handle.’

  I said, ‘Were the diamond merchants paid out by their insurance company?’

  Armitage turned and nodded. ‘I should think so.’

  ‘Well, why not leave it at that.’

  He was affronted. ‘Her Majesty’s Government cannot connive in the cheating of an insurance company.’

  ‘Why not?’ I asked reasonably. ‘Her Majesty’s Government is conniving in the murder of Wheeler and Slade. What the hell’s so sacred about a few thousand quid?’

  That didn’t sit well with him. Property rights come before human rights in British law. He harrumphed embarrassedly, and said, ‘What is your suggestion?’

  ‘Wheeler is dead and Slade is dead. Why shouldn’t Rearden be dead, too? He can be killed while evading arrest—it shouldn’t be too difficult to stage manage. But you’ll have to gag Brunskill, Forbes and Jervis, and you can do that under the Official Secrets Act. Or you can throw the fear of God into them; I don’t think any of that gang would relish being transferred to the Orkneys for the rest of his days.’

  ‘And Mr Stannard comes to life again?’ he queried.

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘I suppose it could be arranged. And how do we explain the spectacular death of Wheeler?’

  ‘It must have been those rockets they were shooting over the harbour,’ I said. ‘One of them must have gone out of whack and hit the ship. It was being repaired at the time—I’ll bet there was some fuel open on deck. I think the Maltese Government ought to be ticked off for not keeping proper control.’

  ‘Very ingenious,’ said Armitage, and took out a notebook. ‘I’ll suggest that the Navy offer a ship and a diver to help lift the wreck. We’ll choose the diver, of course.’ He made a note with a silver pen.

  ‘You’d better,’ I said, thinking of that ram which was probably still embedded in Artina’s side. ‘A sad end to a popular MP. Most regrettable.’

  Armitage’s lips twitched and he put away the notebook. ‘The organization for which you worked before Mackintosh pulled you out of South Africa apparently thinks highly of you. I am asked to inform you that someone called Lucy will be getting in touch.’

  I nodded. How Mackintosh would have sneered at that.

  ‘And the Prime Minister has asked me to pass on his sincere thanks for the part you have played in the affair and for the way you have brought it to a conclusion. He regrets that thanks are all he has to offer under the circumstances.’

  ‘Oh, well; you can’t eat medals,’ I said philosophically,

  III

  I sat in the lounge of the Hotel Phoenicia waiting for Alison. She had been whisked to England by the powers-that-be in order to attend Alec’s funeral. I would have liked to have paid my respects, too, but my face had been splashed in the pages of the British newspapers with the name of Rearden underneath and it was considered unwise for me to put in an appearance until Rearden had been forgotten in the short-lived public memory. Meanwhile I was growing a beard.

  I was deriving much amusement from an intensive reading of an air mail edition of The Times. There was an obituary of Wheeler which should put him well on the road to canonization; his public-spiritedness was praised, his financial acumen lauded and his well-known charitableness eulogized. The first leader said that in view of Wheeler’s work for the prisons his death was a blow to enlightened penology unequalled since the Mountbatten Report. I choked over that one.

  The Prime Minister, in a speech to the Commons, said that British politics would be so much the worse for the loss of such a valued colleague. The Commons rose and stood in silence for two minutes. That man ought to have had his mouth washed out with soap.

  Only the Financial Editor of The Times caught a whiff of something rotten. Commenting on the fall of share prices in the companies of Wheeler’s empire he worried at the question of why it was thought necessary for the auditors to move in before Wheeler’s body was cold. Apart from that quibble Wheeler had a rousing send-off on his journey to hell.

  Rearden came off worse. Condemned as a vicious desperado, his death in a gun battle was hailed as a salutary lesson to others of his kidney. Brunskill was commended for his perseverance on the trail of the villainous Rearden
and for his fortitude in the face of almost certain death. ‘It was nothing,’ said Brunskill modestly. ‘I was only doing my duty as a police officer.’

  It was hoped that Slade would soon be caught. There were full security wraps on Slade’s death and I had no doubt that in another ten or twenty years any number of criminologically inclined writers would make a fair living churning out books about the Slade Mystery.

  I looked up to see Alison coming into the lounge. She looked pale and tired but she smiled when she saw me. I rose to my feet as she approached and she stopped for a moment to survey me, taking in the cast on my arm and the unshaven stubble on my cheeks. ‘You look awful,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not feeling too bad; I can still bend my left elbow. What will you have?’

  ‘A Campari.’ She sat down and I whistled up a waiter. ‘I see you’ve been reading all about it.’

  I grinned. ‘Don’t believe everything you read in the papers.’

  She leaned back in the chair. ‘Well, Owen; it’s over. It’s all over.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry about Alec.’

  ‘Are you?’ she asked in a flat voice. ‘He nearly got you killed.’

  I shrugged. ‘He miscalculated the speed and direction of Wheeler’s reaction. But for that it was a good ploy.’

  ‘Even though he was selling you out?’ Her tone was incredulous.

  ‘God damn it!’ I said. ‘We weren’t playing pat-a-cake. The stakes were too great. Wheeler had to be nailed down and if the way to do it was to sacrifice a man in the field then there was no choice. Wheeler was striking at the heart of the State. The Prime Minister was considering him for a ministerial position, and God knows where he could have gone on from there.’

  ‘If all statesmen are like Alec then God help Britain,’ said Alison in a low voice.

  ‘Don’t be bitter,’ I said. ‘He’s dead. He killed himself, not me. Never forget that.’

  The waiter came with the drinks and we were silent until he had gone, then Alison said, ‘What are you going to do now?’

  I said, ‘I had a visit from Lucy. Of course I can’t do much until the shoulder heals—say a month to six weeks.’

  ‘Are you going back to South Africa?’

  I shook my head. ‘I think I’m being considered for the active list.’ I sipped my drink. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I haven’t had time to think yet. There was a lot to do in London apart from the funeral. Alec’s personal affairs had to be wound up; I spent a lot of time with his solicitor.’

  I leaned forward. ‘Alison, will you marry me?’

  Her hand jerked so that she spilled a few drops of red Campari on to the table. She looked at me a little oddly, as though I were a stranger, then said, ‘Oh, no, Owen.’

  I said, ‘I love you very much.’

  ‘And I think I love you.’ Her lower lip trembled.

  ‘Then what’s the matter? We’re very well suited.’

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ she said. ‘You’re another Alec. In twenty years—if you survive—you’ll be sitting in a little, obscure office pulling strings and making men jump around, just like Alec. You won’t be doing it because you like it but because you think it’s your duty. And you’ll hate the job and you’ll hate yourself—just as Alec did. But you’ll go on doing it.’

  I said, ‘Someone has to do it.’

  ‘But not the man I marry,’ said Alison. ‘I told you once that I was like a Venus Fly Trap. I want to be a cabbage of a housewife, living, perhaps on the green outskirts of an English country town, all tweedy and Country Life.’

  ‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t have that, too,’ I said.

  ‘And stay behind and be alone when you went on a job?’ She shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t work, Owen.’

  I felt a sudden resentment, and said abruptly, ‘Then why did you come back here—to Malta?’

  A look of consternation crossed her face. ‘Oh, Owen; I’m sorry. You thought…’

  ‘You didn’t say goodbye and Armitage told me you’d be coming back after the funeral. What was I supposed to think?’

  ‘I was flown to England in an RAF transport,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve come back to pick up my plane…and to say goodbye.’

  ‘To say goodbye—just like that?’

  ‘No,’ she flared. ‘Not just like that.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Owen, it’s all going wrong.’

  I took her hand in mine. ‘Have you ever been to Morocco?’

  She looked at me warily, taken wrong-footed by the sudden change of subject. ‘Yes; I know it quite well.’

  ‘Could that aircraft of yours fly to Tangier from here?’

  ‘It could,’ she said uncertainly. ‘But…’

  ‘I need a holiday,’ I said. ‘And I have a year and a half of back pay which I need help in spending. I’m sure you’d make an efficient guide to Morocco. I need one—I’ve never been there.’

  ‘You’re trying the blarney again,’ she said, and there was laughter in her voice. ‘Maeve O’Sullivan warned me about that.’

  Maeve had also told me that I wasn’t the man for Alison Smith. She could be right, but I had to try.

  ‘No strings and no promises,’ said Alison.

  I smiled. Six weeks together was all the promise I needed. A lot could happen in six weeks.

  Praise

  DESMOND BAGLEY

  ‘Sizzling adventure.’

  Evening Standard

  THE TIGHTROPE MEN

  When Giles Denison of Hampstead wakes up in an Oslo hotel room and finds the face looking back at him in the mirror is not his own, things could surely get no more bizarre. But it is only the beginning of a hair-raising adventure in which Denison finds himself trapped with no way to escape. One false move and the whole delicately balanced power structure between East and West will come toppling down…

  THE ENEMY

  Wealthy, respectable George Ashton flees for his life after an acid attack on his daughter. Who is his enemy? Only Malcolm Jaggard, his future son-in-law, can guess, after seeing Ashton’s top secret government file. In a desperate manhunt, Jaggard pits himself against the KGB and stalks Ashton to the silent, wintry forests of Sweden. But his search for the enemy has barely begun…

  ‘Bagley has become a master of the genre—a thriller writer of intelligence and originality.’

  Sunday Times

  978-0-00-730475-2

  DESMOND BAGLEY

  ‘Compulsively readable.’

  Guardian

  FLYAWAY

  Why is Max Stafford, security consultant, beaten up in his own office? What is the secret of the famous 1930s aircraft, the Lockheed Lodestar? And why has accountant Paul Bilson disappeared in North Africa? The journey to the Sahara desert becomes a race to save Paul Bilson, a race to find the buried aircraft, and—above all—a race to return alive…

  WINDFALL

  When a legacy of £40 million is left to a small college in Kenya, investigations begin about the true identities of the heirs—the South African, Dirk Hendriks, and his namesake, Henry Hendrix from California. Suspicion that Hendrix is an impostor leads Max Stafford to the Rift Valley, where a violent reaction to his arrival points to a sinister and far-reaching conspiracy far beyond mere greed…

  ‘From word one, you’re off. Bagley’s one of the best.’

  The Times

  978-0-00-730476-9

  DESMOND BAGLEY

  ‘The best adventure stories I have read for years.’

  Daily Mirror

  THE GOLDEN KEEL

  When the Allies invaded southern Italy in 1943, Mussolini’s personal treasure was moved north to safety under heavily armed guard. It was never seen again. Now, an expedition plans to unearth the treasure and smuggle it out of Italy. But their reckless mission is being followed—by enemies who are as powerful and ruthless as they are deadly…

  THE VIVERO LETTER

  Jeremy Wheale’s well-ordered life is blasted apart when his brothe
r is murdered. The killer was after a family heirloom—an antique gold tray—which sets Wheale on a trail from Devon to the tropical rainforest of Yucatan. There he joins the hunt for a lost Mayan city. But in the dense cover of the jungle a band of vicious convict mercenaries are waiting to strike…

  ‘Bagley has no equal at this sort of thing.’

  Sunday Mirror

  978-0-00-730477-6

  DESMOND BAGLEY

  ‘Tense, heroic, chastening…a thumping good story.’

  Sunday Express

  THE SNOW TIGER

  Fifty-four people died in the avalanche that ripped apart a small New Zealand mining town. But the enquiry which follows unleashes more destructive power than the snowfall. As the survivors tell their stories, they reveal a community so divided that all warnings of danger went unheeded. At the centre of the storm is Ian Ballard, whose life depends upon being able to clear his name…

  NIGHT OF ERROR

  When Mark Trevelyan dies on a journey to a remote Pacific atoll, the verdict that it was natural causes doesn’t convince his brother, Mike. The series of violent attacks that follows only adds to his suspicions. Just two clues—a notebook in code and a lump of rock—are enough to trigger off a hazardous expedition, and a violent confrontation far from civilization…

  ‘The detail is immaculately researched—the action has the skill to grab your heart or your bowels.’

  Daily Mirror