Read Running Blind / The Freedom Trap for Free Online

Through the telescopic sight the man sprang plainly to view. He had his back to me but when he turned I saw it was Slade.
    I centred the cross-hairs on his large pallid face and gently squeezed the trigger, and the hammer snapped home with a harmless click. I wondered if I would have done the same had there been a bullet up the spout. The world would be a better place without men like Slade. But to load was too deliberate an act, so I put up the gun and walked towards the cottage. I should have loaded the gun.
    As I approached he turned and waved. ‘Good afternoon,’ he called, as coolly as though he were a regular and welcome guest.
    I stepped up to him. ‘How did you find me?’
    He shrugged. ‘It wasn’t too hard. You know my methods.’
    I knew them and I didn’t like them. I said, ‘Quit playing Sherlock. What do you want?’
    He waved towards the door of the cottage. ‘Aren’t you going to invite me inside?’
    ‘Knowing you, I’ll bet you’ve searched the place already.’
    He held up his hands in mock horror. ‘On my word of honour, I haven’t.’
    I nearly laughed in his face because the man had no honour. I turned from him and pushed open the door and he followed me inside, clicking his tongue deprecatingly. ‘Not locked? You’re very trusting.’
    ‘There’s nothing here worth stealing,’ I said indifferently.
    ‘Just your life,’ he said, and looked at me sharply.
    I let that statement lie and put up the rifle on its rack. Slade looked about him curiously. ‘Primitive—but comfortable,’ he remarked. ‘But I don’t see why you don’t live in the big house.’
    ‘It happens to be none of your business.’
    ‘Perhaps,’ he said, and sat down. ‘So you hid yourself in Scotland and didn’t expect to be found. Protective coloration, eh? A Stewart hiding among a lot of Stewarts. You’ve caused us some little difficulty.’
    ‘Who said I was hiding? I am a Scot, you know.’
    He smiled fatly. ‘Of a sort. Just by your paternal grandfather. It’s not long since you were a Swede—and before that you were Finnish. You were Stewartsen then, of course.’
    ‘Have you travelled five hundred miles just to talk of old times?’ I asked tiredly.
    ‘You’re looking very fit,’ he said.
    ‘I can’t say the same for you; you’re out of condition and running to fat,’ I said cruelly.
    He chuckled. ‘The fleshpots, dear boy; the fleshpots—all those lunches at the expense of Her Majesty’s Government.’ He waved a pudgy hand. ‘But let’s get down to it, Alan.’
    ‘To you I’m Mr Stewart,’ I said deliberately.
    ‘Oh, you don’t like me,’ he said in a hurt voice. ‘But no matter—it makes no difference in the end. I…we…want you to do a job for us. Nothing too difficult, you understand.’
    ‘You must be out of your mind,’ I said.
    ‘I know how you must feel, but…’
    ‘You don’t know a damn thing,’ I said sharply. ‘If you expect me to work for you after what happened then you’re crazier than I thought.’
    I was wrong, of course; Slade knew perfectly well how I felt—it was his business to know men and to use them liketools. I waited for him to put on the pressure and, sure enough, it came, but in his usual oblique manner.
    ‘So let’s talk of old times,’ he said. ‘You must remember Kennikin.’
    I remembered—I’d have to have total amnesia to forget Kennikin. A vision of his face swam before me as I had last seen him; eyes like grey pebbles set above high Slavic cheekbones, and the scar ran from his right temple to the corner of his mouth standing out lividly against the suddenly pale skin. He had been angry enough to kill me at that moment.
    ‘What about Kennikin?’ I said slowly.
    ‘Just that I hear he’s been looking for you, too. You made a fool of him and he didn’t like it. He wants to have you…’ Slade paused as though groping for a thought. ‘What’s that delicate phrase our American colleagues of the CIA use? Oh, yes—Kennikin