Running Blind / The Freedom Trap

by Desmond Bagley

  Ryan scowled. ‘I’ll doubt if he will. We’ve all had a bellyful of you.’

  There was just one more thing. I said, ‘So Slade is still alive.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ryan. ‘You shot him through the pelvis. If he ever walks again he’ll need steel pins through his hips.’

  ‘The only walking Slade will do for the next forty years is in the exercise yard of a prison,’ said Taggart. He stood up. ‘All this comes under the Official Secrets Act, Stewart. Everything has to be hushed. Slade is in England already; he was flown across yesterday in an American aircraft. He’ll stand trial as soon as he comes out of hospital but the proceedings will be in camera. You’ll keep quiet, and so will that girl-friend of yours. The sooner you turn her into a British subject the better I’ll be pleased. I’d like to have some control over her.’

  ‘Christ Almighty!’ I said wearily. ‘You can’t even act as Cupid without an ulterior motive.’

  Ryan joined Taggart at the door. He turned, and said, ‘I think Sir David owes you a lot, Mr Stewart; a lot more than thanks, anyway—which I notice he hasn’t proffered.’ He looked at Taggart from the corner of his eye, and I thought there was no love lost between them.

  Taggart was impervious; he didn’t turn a hair. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said casually. ‘I dare say something can be arranged. A medal, perhaps—if you like such trinkets.’

  I found that my voice was shaking. ‘All I want is your permanent absence,’ I said. ‘I’ll keep quiet for just as long as you stay away from us, but if you, or any of the boys from the Department, come within shouting distance, I’ll blow the gaff.’

  ‘You won’t be disturbed again,’ he said, and they went out. A moment later he popped his head around the door. ‘I’ll send in some grapes.’

  IV

  Elin and I were flown to Scotland by courtesy of the CIA and the US Navy in a plane laid on by Ryan, and we were married in Glasgow by a special licence provided by Taggart. Both of us were still in bandages.

  I took Elin back to the glen under Sgurr Dearg. She liked the scenery, especially the trees—the marvellous un-Icelandic trees—but she didn’t think much of the cottage. It was small and it depressed her and I wasn’t at all surprised; what suits a bachelor is not good for a married man.

  ‘I’m not going to live in the big house,’ I said. ‘We’d rattle around in there and, anyway, I usually rent it to Americans who come for the shooting. We’ll let a gillie have the cottage and we’ll build our own house a little farther up the glen, by the river.’

  So we did.

  I still have Fleet’s rifle. I don’t keep it over the fireplace as a trophy but decently in the gun cabinet along with all the other working tools. I use it sometimes when the deer herd needs culling, but not often. It doesn’t give the deer much of a chance.

  THE FREEDOM TRAP

  To Ron and Peggy Hulland

  ONE

  Mackintosh’s office was, unexpectedly, in the City. I had difficulty in finding it because it was in that warren of streets between Holborn and Fleet Street which is a maze to one accustomed to the grid-iron pattern of Johannesburg. I found it at last in a dingy building; a well-worn brass plate announcing innocuously that this Dickensian structure held the registered office of Anglo-Scottish Holdings, Ltd.

  I smiled as I touched the polished plate, leaving a smudged fingerprint. It seemed that Mackintosh knew his business; this plate, apparently polished by generations of office boys, was a sign of careful planning that augured well for the future—the professional touch. I’m a professional and I don’t like working with amateurs—they’re unpredictable, careless and too dangerous for my taste. I had wondered about Mackintosh because England is the spiritual home of amateurism, but Mackintosh was a Scot and I suppose that makes a difference.

  There was no lift, of course, so I trudged up four flights of stairs—poor lighting and marmalade-coloured walls badly in need of a repaint—and found the Anglo-Scottish office at the end of a dark corridor. It was all so normal that I wondered if I had the right address but I stepped forward to the desk and said, ‘Rearden—to see Mr Mackintosh.’

  The red-headed girl behind the desk favoured me with a warm smile and put down the tea-cup she was holding. ‘He’s expecting you,’ she said. ‘I’ll see if he’s free.’ She went into the inner office, closing the door carefully behind her. She had good legs.

  I looked at the scratched and battered filing cabinets and wondered what was in them and found I could not possibly guess. Perhaps they were stuffed full of Angles and Scots. There were two eighteenth-century prints on the wall—Windsor Castle and the Thames at Richmond. There was a Victorian steel engraving of Princes Street, Edinburgh. All very Anglic and Scottish. I admired Mackintosh more and more—this was going to be a good careful job; but I did wonder how he’d done it—did he call in an interior decorator or did he have a pal who was a set dresser in a film studio?

  The girl came back. ‘Mr Mackintosh will see you now—you can go right through.’

  I liked her smile so I returned it and walked past her into Mackintosh’s sanctum. He hadn’t changed. I hadn’t expected him to change—not in two months—but sometimes a man looks different on his home ground where he has a sense of security, a sense of knowing what’s what. I was pleased Mackintosh hadn’t changed in that way because it meant he would be sure of himself anywhere and at any time. I like people I can depend on.

  He was a sand-coloured man with light gingery hair and invisible eyebrows and eyelashes which gave his face a naked look. If he didn’t shave for a week probably no one would notice. He was slight in build and I wondered how he would use himself in a rough-house; flyweights usually invent nasty tricks to make up for lack of brawn. But then Mackintosh would never get into a brawl in the first place; there are all sorts of different ways of using your brains.

  He put his hands flat on the desk. ‘So you are,’ he paused, holding his breath, and then spoke my name in a gasp, ‘Rearden. And how was the flight, Mr Rearden?’

  ‘Not bad.’

  ‘That’s fine. Sit down, Mr Rearden. Would you like some tea?’ He smiled slightly. ‘People who work in offices like this drink tea all the time.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, and sat down.

  He went to the door. ‘Could you rustle up another pot of tea, Mrs Smith?’

  The door clicked gently as he closed it and I cocked my head in that direction. ‘Does she know?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said calmly. ‘I couldn’t do without Mrs Smith. She’s a very capable secretary, too.’

  ‘Smith?’ I asked ironically.

  ‘Oh, it’s her real name. Not too incredible—there are plenty of Smiths. She’ll be joining us in a moment so I suggest we delay any serious discussion.’ He peered at me. ‘That’s a rather lightweight suit for our English weather. You mustn’t catch pneumonia.’

  I grinned at him. ‘Perhaps you’ll recommend a tailor.’

  ‘Indeed I will; you must go to my man. He’s a bit expensive but I think we can manage that.’ He opened a drawer and took out a fat bundle of currency. ‘You’ll need something for expenses.’

  I watched unbelievingly as he began to count out the fivers. He parted with thirty of them, then paused. ‘We’d better make it two hundred,’ he decided, added another ten notes, then pushed the wad across to me. ‘You don’t mind cash, I trust? In my business cheques are rather looked down upon.’

  I stuffed the money into my wallet before he changed his mind. ‘Isn’t this a little unusual? I didn’t expect you to be so free and easy.’

  ‘I daresay the expense account will stand it,’ he said tolerantly. ‘You are going to earn it, you know.’ He offered a cigarette. ‘And how was Johannesburg when you left?’

  ‘Still the same in a changing sort of way,’ I said. ‘Since you were there they’ve built another hundred-and-sixty-foot office block in the city.’

  ‘In two months? Not bad!’

  ‘They put it up in twelve days,’ I s
aid drily.

  ‘Go-ahead chaps, you South Africans. Ah, here’s the tea.’

  Mrs Smith put the tea tray on to the desk and drew up a chair. I looked at her with interest because anyone Mackintosh trusted was sure to be out of the ordinary. Not that she looked it, but perhaps that was because she was disguised as a secretary in a regulation twin-set—just another office girl with a nice smile. Yet in other circumstances I thought I could get on very well with Mrs Smith—in the absence of Mr Smith, of course.

  Mackintosh waved his hand. ‘Will you be Mother, Mrs Smith?’ She busied herself with the cups, and Mackintosh said, ‘There’s no real need for further introductions, is there? You won’t be around long enough for anything but the job, Rearden. I think we can get down to cases now.’

  I winked at Mrs Smith. ‘A pity.’

  She looked at me unsmilingly. ‘Sugar?’ was all she asked.

  He tented his fingers. ‘Did you know that London is the world centre of the diamond business?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I thought it was Amsterdam.’

  ‘That’s where the cutting is done. London is where diamonds are bought and sold in all stages of manufacture from uncut stones to finished pieces of jewellery.’ He smiled. ‘Last week I was in a place where packets of diamonds are sold like packets of butter in a grocer’s shop.’

  I accepted a cup of tea from Mrs Smith. ‘I bet they have bags of security.’

  ‘Indeed they have,’ said Mackintosh. He held his arms wide like a fisherman describing the one that got away. ‘The safe doors are that thick and the place is wired up with so many electronic gimmicks that if you blink an eyelash in the wrong place at the wrong time half the metropolitan police begin to move in.’

  I sipped the tea, then put down the cup. ‘I’m not a safe cracker,’ I said. ‘And I wouldn’t know where to begin—you need a peterman for that. Besides, it would have to be a team job.’

  ‘Rest easy,’ said Mackintosh. ‘It was the South African angle that set me thinking about diamonds. Diamonds have all the virtues; they’re relatively anonymous, portable and easily sold. Just the thing a South African would go for, don’t you think? Do you know anything about the IDB racket?’

  I shook my head. ‘Not my line of country—so far.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, perhaps it’s for the better. You’re a clever thief, Rearden; that’s why you’ve stayed out of trouble. How many times have you been inside?’

  I grinned at him. ‘Once—for eighteen months. That was a long time ago.’

  ‘Indeed it was. You change your methods and your aims, don’t you? You don’t leave any recurring statistics for a computer to sort out—no definite modus operandi to trip over. As I say—you’re a clever thief. I think that what I have in mind will be just up your street. Mrs Smith thinks so, too.’

  ‘Let’s hear about it,’ I said cautiously.

  ‘The British GPO is a marvellous institution,’ said Mackintosh inconsequentially. ‘Some say ours is the best postal system in the world; some think otherwise if you judge by the readers’ letters in the Daily Telegraph, but grousing is an Englishman’s privilege. Insurance companies, however, regard the GPO very highly. Tell me, what is the most outstanding property of the diamond?’

  ‘It sparkles.’

  ‘An uncut diamond doesn’t,’ he pointed out. ‘An uncut stone looks like a bit of sea-washed bottle glass. Think again.’

  ‘It’s hard,’ I said. ‘Just about the hardest thing there is.’

  Mackintosh clicked his tongue in annoyance. ‘He’s not thinking, is he, Mrs Smith? Tell him.’

  ‘The size—or the lack of it,’ she said quietly.

  Mackintosh pushed his hand under my nose and curled his fingers into a fist. ‘You can hold a fortune in your hand and no one would know it was there. You could put diamonds worth a hundred thousand pounds into this matchbox—then what would you have?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘You’d have a parcel, Rearden; a package. Something that can be wrapped up in brown paper with enough room to write an address and accept a postage stamp. Something that can be popped into a letter-box.’

  I stared at him. ‘They send diamonds through the post!’

  ‘Why not? The postal system is highly efficient and very rarely is anything lost. Insurance companies are willing to bet large sums of money on the efficiency of the GPO and those boys know what they’re doing. It’s a matter of statistics, you know.’

  He toyed with the matchbox. ‘At one time there was a courier system and that had a lot of disadvantages. A courier would personally carry a parcel of diamonds and deliver it to its destination by hand. That fell through for a number of reasons; the couriers got to be known by the wide boys, which was very sad because a number of them were severely assaulted. Another thing was that human beings are but human, after all, and a courier could be corrupted. The supply of trustworthy men isn’t bottomless and the whole courier system was not secure. Far from it.

  ‘But consider the present system,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘Once a parcel is swallowed into the maw of the Post Office not even God can extract it until it reaches its destination. And why? Because nobody knows precisely where the hell it is. It’s just one of millions of parcels circulating through the system and to find it would not be like finding a needle in a haystack—it would be like searching a haystack for a particular wisp of hay. Do you follow me?’

  I nodded. ‘It sounds logical.’

  ‘Oh, it is,’ said Mackintosh. ‘Mrs Smith did all the necessary research. She’s a very clever girl.’ He flapped his hand languidly. ‘Carry on, Mrs Smith.’

  She said coolly, ‘Once the insurance company actuaries analysed the GPO statistics regarding losses, they saw they were on to a good thing providing certain precautions were taken. To begin with, the stones are sent in all sizes and shapes of parcel from matchbox size to crates as big as a tea chest. The parcels are labelled in a multitude of different ways, very often with the trade label of a well-known firm—anything to confuse the issue, you see. The most important thing is the anonymity of the destination. There are a number of accommodation addresses having nothing to do with the diamond industry to which the stones are sent, and the same address is never used twice running.’

  ‘Very interesting,’ I said. ‘Now how do we crack it?’

  Mackintosh leaned back in his chair and put his fingertips together. ‘Take a postman walking up a street—a familiar sight. He carries a hundred thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds but—and this is the interesting point—he doesn’t know it and neither does anyone else. Even the recipient who is eagerly awaiting the diamonds doesn’t know when they’ll arrive because the Post Office doesn’t guarantee delivery at any specific time, regardless of what they say about first-class post in their specious advertising. The parcels are sent by ordinary post; no special delivery nonsense which would be too easy to crack open.’

  I said slowly, ‘It seems to me that you’re painting yourself into a corner, but I suppose you have something up your sleeve. All right—I’ll buy it.’

  ‘Have you ever done any photography?’

  I resisted the impulse to explode. This man had more ways of talking around a subject than anyone I had ever known. He had been the same in Johannesburg—never talking in a straight line for more than two minutes. ‘I’ve clicked a shutter once or twice,’ I said tightly.

  ‘Black-and-white or colour?’

  ‘Both.’

  Mackintosh looked pleased. ‘When you take colour photographs—transparencies—and send them away for processing, what do you get back?’

  I looked appealingly at Mrs Smith and sighed. ‘Small pieces of film with pictures on them.’ I paused and added, ‘They’re framed in cardboard mounts.’

  ‘What else do you get?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  He wagged his finger. ‘Oh yes, you do. You get the distinctive yellow box the things are packed in. Yes, yellow—I suppose it could be described as
Kodak yellow. If a man is carrying one of those boxes in his hand you can spot it across a street and you say to yourself, “That man is carrying a box of Kodachrome transparencies.”‘

  I felt a thrill of tension. Mackintosh was coming to the meat of it. ‘All right,’ he said abruptly ‘I’ll lay it out for you. I know when a parcel of diamonds is being sent. I know to where it is being sent—I have the accommodation address. Most important of all, I know the packaging and it’s unmistakable. All you have to do is to wait near the address and the postman will come up to you with the damn thing in his hand. And that little yellow box will contain one hundred and twenty thousand quid in unset stones which you will take from him.’

  ‘How did you find out all this?’ I asked curiously.

  ‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘Mrs Smith did. The whole thing is her idea. She came up with the concept and did all the research. Exactly how she did the research is no concern of yours.’

  I looked at her with renewed interest and discovered that her eyes were green. There was a twinkle in them and her lips were curved in a humorous quirk which smoothed out as she said soberly, ‘There must be as little violence as possible, Mr Rearden.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Mackintosh. ‘As little violence as possible commensurate with making a getaway. I don’t believe in violence; it’s bad for business. You’d better bear that in mind.’

  I said, ‘The postman won’t hand it to me. I’ll have to take it by force.’

  Mackintosh showed his teeth in a savage grin. ‘So it will be robbery with violence if you get nabbed. Her Majesty’s judges are hard about that kind of thing, especially considering the amount involved. You’ll be lucky to get away with ten years.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said thoughtfully, and returned his grin with interest.

  ‘Still, we won’t make it too easy for the police. The drill is this; I’ll be nearby and you’ll keep on going. The stones will be out of the country within three hours of the snatch. Mrs Smith, will you attend to the matter of the bank?’