The Keys of Hell
The Keys of Hell
Jack Higgins
Super-spy Paul Chavasse – one of Jack Higgins’s most extraordinary heroes – embarks on a mission to Albania, only to find himself at the centre of a deadly double-cross, fighting for his life.It’s a trip that agent Paul Chavasse will never forget. His destination: the isolated republic of Albania on the Adriatic coast, at a time when the regime is at its most repressive and the people live in daily fear of the ruthless secret police. His job: to find a double agent whose cover has been blown and put him out of commission, permanently. But what Chavasse doesn’t know is that deep within the twisting channels of the perilous coastal marshes, someone has set a trap for him – someone who holds the keys of hell.
JACK
HIGGINS
THE KEYS
OF HELL
COPYRIGHT (#ulink_7882ce08-116e-5a19-a346-dd3d19864f10)
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Special overseas edition 2001
This edition 2002
Published simultaneously in hardback by
HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in the USA by
Berkley Books 2001
Copyright © Harry Patterson 2001
Jack Higgins asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Source ISBN: 9780006514671
Ebook Edition © JULY 2015 ISBN: 9780008159122
Version: 2015-07-31
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE (#ulink_7f90757a-e6a9-5aa7-88a6-c0b90014815b)
THE KEYS OF HELL was first published in the UK by Abelard-Schuman, London, in 1965 under the authorship of Martin Fallon. The author was, in fact, the writer familiar to modern readers as Jack Higgins. Martin Fallon was one of the names he used during his early writing days. The book was later published in paperback by Coronet Books – under the authorship of Jack Higgins – but it has been out of print for several years.
In 2001, it seemed to the author and his publishers that it was a pity to leave such a good story languishing on his shelves. So Jack Higgins has created an entirely new framework to the original book, added some scenes and made some changes throughout. We are delighted to be able to bring back THE KEYS OF HELL for the pleasure of the vast majority of us all who never had a chance to read the original edition.
DEDICATION (#ulink_550fef66-c266-5a94-9e89-19a697ba4288)
There are no keys to hell – the doors are open to all men.
Albanian proverb
CONTENTS
Cover (#u1543bdda-2a7c-5499-a6b8-53b338c9191a)
Title Page (#uaf284c93-3b5b-58aa-9421-2d4567de1234)
Copyright (#ulink_15b177fb-2329-5d6f-955c-fdad979be62d)
Publisher’s Note (#ulink_da9ba775-1a39-5c53-862a-49f17ea89ea7)
Dedication (#ulink_66fd5cee-8f6d-59a6-8956-e7763f24d23d)
Manhattan: 1995
Chapter 1 (#ulink_f0f93738-1f5c-50d0-b22f-0e745c709060)
Rome Matano: 1965
Chapter 2 (#ulink_36a32a64-033a-51e6-b6df-6cef0764ccf8)
Chapter 3 (#ulink_7e7f07ea-283e-57ad-a2a3-b84f92faa252)
Chapter 4 (#ulink_8639a8f3-6e27-590a-a7ea-786ea1d50c73)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Manhattan: 1995
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Other Books By (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
MANHATTAN (#ulink_95d9522d-5f12-5b03-a09d-e006e352636e)
1 (#ulink_1a46f231-001a-5a0f-a0df-560108e59943)
The dream was always the same. Plunging into the marsh, forcing his way through the reeds and mist, pushing the punt hard, Guilio Orsini standing at the front finding the way through and then the engine close by breaking into life and a burst of machine-gun fire.
Guilio went over head-first, always did, and Chavasse floundered through the reeds and the bitterly cold water and then, mysteriously, like a curtain, the reeds parted and there was the lagoon and the boat, the Buona Esperanza, and Orsini was at the rail leaning over, a hand outstretched.
‘Now, Paul, now.’
And Chavasse reached and the mist seemed to increase and there was the roaring of the engine and the boat slapped away, vanished, and he was alone again.
Chavasse was subject to dreams of the past, and had always suspected it was a legacy of his Breton father. An old race, the Bretons, an ancient people. But this dream he had not had for some years. Still … he got off the bed, went to the window of his suite and looked down at Manhattan. The lights sparkled in the evening dusk. He liked New York and always had. There as an excitement there, an infinite probability to things.
When the phone went he answered at once, ‘Chavasse.’
‘Ah, Sir Paul. Tino Rossi.’
‘Good evening, Mr Rossi.’
‘Listen, I know we’re meeting later for dinner at the Saddle Room, but I wondered whether you’d mind coming round to my apartment at the Trump Tower first.’
‘Is there a purpose to this?’
‘Well, my lawyer, Mario Volpe, as you may know, is my nephew a couple of times removed. He seems to think there are a few things he could take care of before our meeting. You understand?’
‘Perfectly,’ Chavasse said.
‘I’ll send a limousine. Say half an hour?’
‘No need. As it’s only a couple of blocks, I’ll walk.’
‘Fine. I’ll look forward to seeing you for dinner later.’
Chavasse put down the phone and thought about it, a slight frown on his face, then he went to the wardrobe, took out his rather old-fashioned carpet bag, pulled open a flap in the bottom and produced a short-barrelled Colt, only a .22, but deadly with hollow-point rounds. He checked it out, went into the bathroom and turned on the shower.
In the magnificent sitting room of his Trump Tower apartment Don Tino Rossi replaced the telephone. He was seventy-six years of age and still in good shape, his silver hair almost shoulder-length, his linen suit the best that Savile Row could provide.
The large man in the black suit with the shaven head came forward as the Don nodded, opened a silver box, offered a cigarette and a light. He was Aldo Vinelli, the firm’s head of security. Don Tino’s nephew, Mario Volpe, stood by the terrace window smoking a cigarette, thirty years of age, medium height, good-looking and like Rossi, impeccably dressed.
‘So he’s coming.’
‘Why wouldn’t he?’ his uncle asked. ‘He doesn’t want a car. He’s walking.’
‘You trust this Chavasse?’
‘As much as he trusts me. Our meeting in London made sense.’
‘Good. I’ll make arrangements.’ Volpe nodded to Vinelli. ‘I need you.’ He went out.
The Don said quietly, ‘Aldo, I assigned you to protect my nephew because I trust you and you’ve done a good job.’
‘Thank you, Don Tino.’
‘And where does your loyalty lie?’
‘With you always.’
‘Good.’
The Don held out his hand. Aldo kissed it and went out. Rossi sighed. Strange that facility he’d always had that told him when someone was lying to him. A gift from God really.
Before it was fashionable, Tino Rossi alone amongst Mafia leaders had realized that life had to change, that the old days were long gone. He had turned the Rossi family to respectability. Real estate developments in New York, the same on the Thames in London. Investments in the electronics industry, shipping, banking. His early start meant that these days his only rivals were the Russian Mafia.
The young man he called nephew, Mario, was an important part of the organization. He’d never known his father, and his mother had also died at a young age. Her widowed sister, Signora Volpe, had brought the boy to New York, raised him in Little Italy. As Don Tino’s niece her Mafia connection had assured the success of her café. Mario had gone to Columbia, had taken a law degree. Later, he’d done the same thing at London University and was now indispensable to the family on both sides of the Atlantic for his legal expertise.
He returned to the room. The Don said, ‘Is everything in hand?’
‘Sure. Look, I’ll go with Aldo and monitor him. So he’s crazy enough to want to walk alone on a wet night in Manhattan, but that could be asking for it. I mean, this is an older guy. Sixty-five.’
‘So I’m ten years older.’
‘Heh, Uncle, I didn’t mean …’
‘Make this work, Mario, nothing is more important.’
‘You trust this Chavasse?’
‘As I told you, no more than he trusts me. Sir Paul Chavasse, knighted by the Queen of England, Mario.’
‘So?’
‘This man is what? Half English, half French. He speaks more languages than you’ve had hot dinners. University degrees coming out of his ears. In spite of all that, a killer by nature. For twenty years a field agent for the Bureau, the most secret of British intelligence units. You’ve seen his record. Shot three times, knifed twice.’
‘So he was hot stuff.’
‘More than that, Mario, for the past twenty years he’s been Belfast Bureau Chief and that’s no desk job, not with the IRA and all those other problems. Now he has Eastern Europe on his back. Bosnia, Serbia, Kosova, Albania, and we know who has the greatest input.’
‘The Russian Mafia.’
‘Exactly, and as they are not our friends we can help there. In return, Chavasse will help us.’
‘When possible?’
‘Of course. Look, I suspended all drug operations there years ago and not for moral reasons as you well know. If idiots want to kill themselves with heroin that’s their affair. We make more out of cigarette smuggling from Europe into Britain than we ever would have with drugs.’
‘Still illegal.’
‘Yes, but as you being an expert in English law know, a drug runner pulls ten or twelve years. Get done, as the English say, for cigarette smuggling and what would your client get?’
‘Twelve months and out in six.’ Mario Volpe smiled. ‘Still illegal, running cigarettes by the millions up the Thames, so where does that leave Sir Paul Chavasse?’
‘Exactly as he is. A realist. We’re not destroying the lives of stupid teenagers. We aren’t harming the widows and orphans. He can live with that as long as we provide the expertise on Eastern Europe that he needs. You’ll see that we do.’
‘Of course, Uncle.’
‘Good boy.’ The Don nodded. ‘You take care of things. Tell Sir Paul I’ll see him later for dinner at the Saddle Room. You’d better go now, you and Aldo, to make sure he gets here in one piece.’
‘Uncle.’
Mario Volpe went out. Rain battering the window, Don Tino reached for his unfinished glass of champagne. Such a clever boy. All the virtues really and yet capable of such stupidity. He swallowed the champagne, got up and walked out leaning on his Malacca cane.
When Chavasse emerged from the Plaza Hotel it was raining slightly. He wore a Burberry trench coat in dark blue and an old-fashioned rain hat slanted across his head. Inside, the Colt .22 rested in a special clip. Uncomfortable, but also comforting in its own way. Just a feeling, but that’s why he was still here after all these years. He declined the offer of a cab from the doorman, went down the steps and started along Fifth Avenue.
Waiting in a black Mercedes town car, Mario Volpe and Vinelli watched him.
‘Let’s go, Aldo,’ Volpe said, ‘and don’t lose him.’ Not that there was much chance of that as they pulled away from the sidewalk. Not too many people as the rain increased.
Chavasse liked the rain. Somehow you could inhabit your own private world. It was what he called the cinema of the mind time. You considered the facts, tried to make sense, anticipate the other side’s next move, and there was certainly more to all this than met the eye. All his senses, the product of forty years of living on the edge, told him that.
Not that he distrusted Don Tino particularly. It was more that he didn’t trust anyone. His special kind of life had taught him that. The way Eastern Europe was, the Don could be useful, which was what his meeting with Rossi and Vinelli at the Dorchester Hotel in London had indicated. If a few favours in return was the price, it was worth it, always supposing the price wasn’t too high. So Rossi was a gangster. In essence, that was what Chavasse had been for years. You had to be a kind of gangster to be an intelligence agent. All that kept you alive really.
He paused, produced a silver case from an inside pocket, took out a cigarette and lit it in cupped hands. He was standing at the entrance of a darkened mall at the time and for the moment, the sidewalk was clear. As he started forward, a young man darted out of the mall and blocked his way.
‘Heh, buddy, you got some change?’
At that moment, another one emerged, his twin, hard-faced in bomber jacket and jeans, only he was holding a Browning pistol.
‘This one’s got more than change. Let’s get him in here.’
He rammed the barrel of the Browning against Chavasse’s spine and drove him into the darkness.
All this was seen from the Mercedes.
Volpe said, ‘Those bastards. Why the gun?’
There was the sound of a shot. Vinelli braked to a halt and got the door open.
In the mall the one with the Browning rammed it even harder into Chavasse.
‘A nice fat wallet here I’d day, so let’s stay friendly. You can call me Tommy.’
Chavasse raised his right elbow, struck backwards into the face, turned sideways, pushing the Browning away, grabbed for the barrel, twisted it free and had the gun in his hand.
‘You should never get that close to anyone.’
He pivoted, rammed the barrel of the Browning into the back of Tommy’s right knee and pulled the trigger. Tommy staggered into the wall and fell down with a cry.
The other one backed away, hands raised.
‘Heh, man, don’t do it.’
Vinelli arrived, a gun in his hand, Volpe behind him.
They looked at Tommy lying on the ground and Chavasse tendered the Browning to Vinelli.
‘Not mine, his.’ He looked down at the boy. ‘Terrible class of muggers these days. Not too competent.’
Volpe held out his hand. ‘Mario Volpe, Sir Paul. We were worried about you so I figured we’d check the hotel. Aldo recognized you from London, so we were following. I mean, scum like this, what can I say?’
‘Not much, I expect. Can we go now?’
‘Sure.’ Volpe turned to Vinelli. ‘Take care of this, Aldo. I’ll drive Sir Paul to the Trump, you follow on foot.’
He took Chavasse by the arm and led him away. Aldo turned, reached for the youth who was standing and pulled him close.
‘You were supposed to jump him and wait for us to come to the rescue and what do we get? A gun, for Christ’s sake.’
‘It was Tommy. He’s on crack.’
‘Really?’ Vinelli headbutted him, breaking his nose, sending him staggering.
The youth started to weep, blood everywhere. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Vinelli, but what do I do with Tommy?’
‘You get an ambulance. Three very large black guys beat up on you, and no fairy stories for the cops or the Rossi family will see to you on a more permanent basis.’ He opened his wallet and took out ten hundred-dollar bills. ‘I said a grand and I’m a man of my word.’ He dropped the money on Tommy.
‘I’ll do what you say, Mr Vinelli.’
‘You better had, kid.’
Vinelli patted his face, turned his collar up against the rain and walked away.
In the sitting room of the Trump Tower apartment, Volpe helped Chavasse off with his Burberry and placed it on a chair. Chavasse removed the rain hat and put it on the coat carefully.
‘Drink, Sir Paul? Martini? Champagne?’
‘Irish whiskey,’ Chavasse told him, ‘Bushmills for preference.’
‘Anything. We’ve got it all.’
‘Good.’ Chavasse took a cigarette from his silver case. ‘And then you can tell me exactly what it is you want.’
Vinelli came in and stood by the door, face impassive. Volpe got the whiskey from the bar by the window and brought it over.
‘I don’t really want anything, Sir Paul. My uncle and you laid it out pretty clear at your meeting in London at the Dorchester. I mean, even Aldo here met you but I didn’t, so I figured it was time. I handle all the family’s legal business on both sides of the Atlantic. This whole deal is very important. I wanted to familiarize myself with you.’
‘And why would you want to do that?’
‘Well, on occasions, we’ll be working together, but hell, no problem there. Your record in the intelligence business is amazing.’
‘And how would you know that?’
‘Bureau records are on file at the Public Records Office in London. Sure, maybe they’re on a fifty-year hold, but there are always ways round that. The clerks aren’t very well paid. Give them “a few bob” as you Brits say, and it’s amazing what you get a copy of.’
Chavasse finished his whiskey. He said calmly, ‘What you appear to be saying is that you’ve been checking up on my past record quite illegally.’
‘Yes, but we’ve got to be careful with the London operation.’
‘Does the Don know about this?’
‘Of course.’
Chavasse nodded. ‘So – where are we at?’
‘One case of yours really got to me.’ Volpe went to a side table and returned with a file. ‘This was so amazing I had it copied. Read it. It’s good stuff. I suppose you wrote it originally. I’ve got phone calls to make to all four quarters of the globe. I’ll be about an hour then I’ll take you to Don Tino at the Saddle Room. Anything you want, Aldo will get for you.’
He went out and Vinelli stood there, face impassive. ‘Another whiskey, Sir Paul?’
‘I think champagne might be more appropriate,’ Chavasse said in excellent Italian.
‘Of course.’
‘Is he for real, the boy?’
‘He is young.’
Aldo produced a bottle of Bollinger from the bar and Chavasse lit another cigarette, picked up the file and opened it. It was a fifty-page résumé of certain events in Albania in 1965. It was headed ‘Bureau Case Study 203, Field Agent Doctor Paul Chavasse’.
Aldo stood at the door, still impassive.
It was very quiet, only rain drumming against the window.
A long time ago, Chavasse told himself, a hell of a long time ago.
He started to read.
ROME MATANO (#ulink_db66e5c1-4cb1-5bbd-83e4-f1c8213627da)
2 (#ulink_35bd2f29-916c-5bb8-8905-382971eeb1e7)
When Chavasse entered the Grand Ballroom of the British Embassy, he was surprised to find the Chinese delegation clustered around the fireplace, looking completely out of place in their blue uniforms, and surrounded by the cream of Roman society.
Chou En-lai surveyed the scene from a large gilt chair, the Ambassador and his wife beside him, and his smooth impassive face gave nothing away. Occasionally, guests of sufficient eminence were brought forward by the First Secretary to be introduced.
The orchestra was playing a waltz. Chavasse lit a cigarette and leaned against a pillar. It was a splendid scene. The crystal chandeliers took light to every corner of the cream-and-gold ballroom, reflected again and again in the mirrored walls.
Beautiful women, handsome men, dress uniforms, the scarlet and purple of church dignitaries – it was all strangely archaic, as if somehow the mirrors were reflecting a dim memory of long ago, dancers turning endlessly to faint music.
He looked across to the Chinese and, for a brief instant, the white face of Chou En-lai seemed to jump out of the crowd, the eyes fastening on his. He nodded slightly, as if they knew each other, and the eyes seemed to say: All these are doomed – this is my hour and you and I know it.
Chavasse shivered and, for no accountable reason, a wave of greyness ran through him. It was as if some sixth sense, that mystical element common to all ancient races, inherited from his Breton father, were trying to warn him of danger.
The moment passed, the dancers swirled on. He was tired, that was the trouble. Four days on the run with no more than a couple of hours of uneasy sleep snatched when it was safe. He lit another cigarette and examined himself in the mirror on the wall.
The dark evening clothes were tailored well, outlining good shoulders and a muscular frame, but the skin was drawn too tightly over the high cheekbones that were a heritage from his French father, and there were dark circles under the eyes.
What you need is a drink, he told himself. Behind him, reflected in the mirror, a young girl came in from the terrace through the french windows.
Chavasse turned slowly. Her eyes were set too far apart, the mouth too generous. Her dark hair hung loosely to her shoulders, the white silk dress was simplicity itself. She wore no accessories. None were needed. Like all great beauties, she wasn’t beautiful, but it didn’t matter a damn. She made every other woman in the room seem insignificant.
She moved towards the bar, heads turning as she passed, and was immediately accosted by an Italian Air Force colonel who was obviously slightly the worse for drink. Chavasse gave the man enough time to make a thorough nuisance of himself, then moved through the crowd to her side.
‘Ah, there you are, darling,’ he said in Italian. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’
Her reflexes were excellent. She turned smoothly, assessing him against the situation in a split second and making her decision.
She reached up and kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘You said you’d only be ten minutes. It’s really too bad of you.’
The Air Force colonel had already faded discreetly into the crowd and Chavasse grinned. ‘How about a glass of Bollinger? I really think we should celebrate.’
‘I think that would be rather nice, Mr Chavasse,’ she said in excellent English. ‘On the terrace, perhaps. It’s cooler there.’
Chavasse took two glasses of champagne from the table and followed her through the crowd, a slight frown on his face. It was cool on the terrace, the traffic sounds muted and far away, and the scent of jasmine heavy on the night air.
She sat on the balustrade and took a deep breath. ‘Isn’t it a wonderful night?’ She turned and looked at him and laughter bubbled out of her. ‘Francesca – Francesca Minetti.’
She held out her hand and Chavasse gave her one of the glasses of champagne and grinned. ‘You seem to know who I am already.’
She leaned back and looked up at the stars. When she spoke, it was as if she were reciting a lesson hard-learned.
‘Paul Chavasse, born Paris 1928, father French, mother English. Educated at Sorbonne, Cambridge and Harvard universities. PhD Modern Languages, multilingual. University lecturer until 1954. Since then …’
Her voice trailed away and she looked at him thoughtfully. Chavasse lit a cigarette, no longer tired. ‘Since then … ?’
‘Well, you’re on the books as a Third Secretary, but you certainly don’t look like one.’
‘What would you say I did look like?’ he said calmly.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Someone who got about a lot.’ She swallowed some more champagne and said casually, ‘How was Albania? I was surprised you made it out in one piece. When the Tirana connection went dead, we wrote you off.’
She started to laugh again, her head back, and behind Chavasse a voice said, ‘Is she giving you a hard time, Paul?’
Murchison, the First Secretary, limped across the terrace. He was a handsome, urbane man, his face bronzed and healthy, the bar of medals a splash of bright colour on the left breast of his jacket.
‘Let’s say she knows rather too much about me for my personal peace of mind.’
‘She should,’ Murchison said. ‘Francesca works for the Bureau. She was your radio contact last week. One of our best operatives.’
Chavasse turned. ‘You were the one who relayed the message from Scutari warning me to get out fast?’
She bowed. ‘Happy to be of service.’
Before Chavasse could continue, Murchison took him firmly by the arm. ‘Now don’t start getting emotional, Paul. Your boss has just got in and he wants to see you. You and Francesca can talk over old times later.’
Chavasse squeezed her hand. ‘That’s a promise. Don’t go away.’
‘I’ll wait right here,’ she assured him, and he turned and followed Murchison inside.
They moved through the crowded ballroom into the entrance hall, passed the two uniformed footmen at the bottom of the grand staircase and mounted to the first floor.
The long, thickly carpeted corridor was quiet, and the music echoing from the ballroom might have been from another world. They went up half a dozen steps, turned into a shorter side passage and paused outside a white-painted door.
‘In here, old man,’ Murchison said. ‘Try not to be too long. We’ve a cabaret starting in half an hour. Really quite something, I promise you.’
He moved back along the passage, his footsteps silent on the thick carpet, and Chavasse knocked on the door, opened it and went in.
The room was a small, plainly furnished office, its walls painted a neutral shade of green. The young woman who sat at the desk writing busily was attractive in spite of her dark, heavy-rimmed library spectacles.
She glanced up sharply and Chavasse smiled. ‘Surprise, surprise.’
Jean Frazer removed her spectacles. ‘You look like hell. How was Albania?’
‘Tiresome,’ Chavasse said. ‘Cold, wet and with the benefits of universal brotherhood rather thinly spread on the ground.’ He sat on the edge of the desk and helped himself to a cigarette from a teak box. ‘What brings you and the old man out here? The Albanian affair wasn’t all that important.’
‘We had a NATO intelligence meeting in Bonn. When we got word that you were safely out, the Chief decided to come to Rome to take your report on the spot.’
‘Nice try,’ Chavasse said. ‘The old bastard wouldn’t have another job lined up for me, would he? Because if he has, he can damn well think again.’
‘Why not ask him?’ she said. ‘He’s waiting for you now.’
She nodded towards a green baize door. Chavasse looked at it for a moment, sighed heavily and crushed his cigarette into the ashtray.
The inner room was half in shadow, the only light a shaded lamp on the desk. The man who stood at the window gazing out at the lights of Rome was of medium height, the face somehow ageless, a strange, brooding expression in the dark eyes.
‘Here we are again,’ Chavasse said softly.
The Chief turned, took in Chavasse’s appearance and nodded. ‘Glad to see you back in one piece, Paul. I hear things were pretty rough over there.’
‘You could say that.’
The older man moved to his chair and sat down. ‘Tell me about it.’
‘Albania?’ Chavasse shrugged. ‘We’re not going to do much there. No one can pretend the people have gained anything since the Communists took over at the end of the war, but there’s no question of a counter-revolution even getting started. The Sigurmi, the secret police, are everywhere. I’d say they must be the most extensive in Europe.’
‘You went in using that Italian Communist Party Friendship cover, didn’t you?’
‘It didn’t do me much good. The Italians in the party accepted me all right, but the trouble started when we reached Tirana. The Sigurmi assigned an agent to each one of us and they were real pros. Shaking them was difficult enough, and the moment I did, they smelt a rat and put out a general call for me.’
‘What about the Freedom Party? How extensive are they?’
‘You can start using the past tense as of last week. When I arrived, they were down to two cells. One in Tirana, the other in Scutari. Both were still in contact with our Bureau operation here in Rome.’
‘Did you manage to contact the leader, this man Luci?’
‘Only just. The night we were to meet to discuss things, he was mopped up by the Sigurmi. Apparently, they were all over his place, waiting for me to show my hand.’
‘And how did you manage to get out of that one?’
‘The Scutari cell got a radio signal from Luci as the police were breaking in. They relayed it to Bureau Headquarters here in Rome. Luckily for me, they had a quick thinker on duty – a girl named Francesca Minetti.’
‘One of our best people at this end,’ the Chief said. ‘I’ll tell you about her one of these days.’
‘My back way out of Albania was a motor launch called the Buona Esperanza, run by a man named Guilio Orsini. He’s quite a boy. Was one of the original torpedo merchants with the Italian Navy during the war. His best touch was when he sank a couple of our destroyers in Alexandria harbour back in ’41. Got out again in one piece, too. He’s a smuggler now. Runs across to Albania a lot. His grandmother came from there.’
‘As I recall the original plan, he was to wait three nights running in a cove near Durres. That’s about thirty miles by road from Tirana, isn’t it?’
Chavasse nodded. ‘When Francesca Minetti got the message from Scutari, she took a chance and put it through to Orsini on his boat. The madman left his crewman in charge, landed, stole a car in Durres and drove straight to Tirana. He caught me at my hotel as I was leaving for the meeting with Luci.’
‘Getting back to the coast must have been quite a trick.’
‘We did run into a little trouble. Had to do the last ten miles on foot through coastal salt marshes. Not good with the hounds on your heels, but Orsini knew what he was doing. Once we were on board the Buona Esperanza, it was easy. The Albanians don’t have much of a navy. Half a dozen minesweepers and a couple of sub-chasers. The Buona Esperanza has ten knots on any one of them.’
‘It would seem that Orsini is due for a bonus on this one.’
‘That’s putting it mildly.’
The Chief nodded, opened the file that contained Chavasse’s report and leafed through it. ‘So we’re wasting our time in Albania?’
Chavasse nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. You know the way things have been since the 20th Party Congress in 1956, and now the Chinese are in there with both feet.’
‘Anything to worry about?’
Chavasse shook his head. ‘Albania’s the most backward European country I’ve visited and the Chinese are too far from home to be able to do much about it.’
‘What about this naval base the Russians were using at Valona before they pulled out? The word was that they’d built it into a sort of Red Gibraltar on the Adriatic.’
‘Alb-Tourist took us on an official trip on our second day. “Port” is hardly the word for the place. Good natural shelter, but only used by fishing boats. Certainly no sign of submarine pens.’
‘And Enver Hoxha – you think he’s still firmly in control?’
‘And then some. We saw him at a military parade on the third day. He cuts an impressive figure, especially in uniform. He’s certainly the people’s hero at the moment. Heaven knows for how long.’
The Chief closed the file with a quick gesture that somehow dismissed the whole affair, placing it firmly in the past.
‘Good work, Paul. At least we know where we stand. You’re due for some leave now, aren’t you?’
‘That’s right,’ Chavasse said, and waited.
The Chief got to his feet, walked to the window and looked out over the glittering city, down towards the Tiber. ‘What would you like to do?’
‘Spend a week or two at Matano,’ Chavasse said without hesitation. ‘That’s a small fishing port near Bari. There’s a good beach, and Guilio Orsini owns a place on the front called the Tabu. He’s promised me some diving. I’m looking forward to it.’
‘I’m sure you are,’ the Chief said. ‘Sounds marvellous.’
‘Do I get it?’
The old man looked out over the city, an abstracted frown on his face. ‘Oh, yes, Paul, you can have your leave – after you’ve done a little chore for me.’
Chavasse groaned and the older man turned and came back to the desk. ‘Don’t worry, it won’t take long, but you’ll have to leave tonight.’
‘Is that necessary?’
The old man nodded. ‘I’ve got transport laid on and you’ll need help. This man Orsini sounds right. We’ll offer a good price.’
Chavasse sighed, thinking of Francesca Minetti waiting on the terrace, of the good food and wine in the buffet room below. He sighed again and stubbed out his cigarette carefully.
‘What do I do?’
The Chief pushed a file across. ‘Enrico Noci, a double agent who’s been working for us and the Albanians. I didn’t mind at first, but now the Chinese have got to him.’
‘Which isn’t healthy.’
‘It never is. There’s a boat waiting at Bari to take Noci over to Albania tomorrow night. All the details are in there.’
Chavasse studied the picture, the heavy fleshy face, the weak mouth – the picture of a man who was probably a failure at everything he put his hand to, except perhaps women. He had the sort of tanned beach-boy good looks that some of them went for.
‘Do I bring him in?’
‘What on earth for?’ The Chief shook his head. ‘Get rid of him; a swimming accident, anything you like. Nothing messy.’
‘Of course,’ Chavasse said calmly.
He glanced through the file again, memorizing the facts it contained, then pushed it across and stood up. ‘I’ll see you in London.’
The Chief nodded. ‘In three weeks, Paul. Enjoy your holiday.’
‘Don’t I always?’
The Chief pulled a file across, opened it and started to study the contents, and Chavasse crossed to the door and left quietly.
3 (#ulink_690ee07a-eecf-54d1-9d69-29b7c33fce39)
Enrico Noci lay staring through the darkness at the ceiling, smoking a cigarette. Beside him the woman slept, her thigh warm against his. Once, she stirred, turning into him in her sleep, but didn’t awaken.
He reached for another cigarette and heard a distinctive rattle as something was pushed through the letter box in the outer hall. He slid from beneath the blankets, careful not to wake the woman, and padded across the tiled floor in his bare feet.
A large buff envelope lay on the mat at the front door. He took it into the kitchen, lit the gas under the coffee pot and opened the envelope quickly. Inside was a smaller sealed envelope, the one he was to take with him, and a single typed sheet containing his movement orders. He memorized them, then burned it quickly at the stove.
He glanced at his watch. Just before midnight. Time for a hot bath and something to eat. He stretched lazily, a conscious pleasure seeping through him. The woman had really been quite something. Certainly a diverting way to spend his last evening.
He was wallowing up to his chin in hot water, the small bathroom half-full of steam, when the door opened and she came in, yawning as she tied the belt of his silk dressing gown.
‘Come back to bed, caro,’ she said plaintively.
For the life of him, he couldn’t remember her name and he grinned. ‘Another time, angel. I must get moving. Make me some scrambled eggs and coffee, like a good girl. I’ve got to be out of here in twenty minutes.’
When he left the bathroom ten minutes later, he was freshly shaved, his dark hair slicked back, and he wore an expensive hand-knitted sweater and slacks. She had laid a small table in the window and placed a plate of scrambled eggs in front of him as he sat down.
As he ate, he pulled back the curtain with one hand and looked down across the lights of Bari to the waterfront. The town was quiet, and a slight rain drifted through the yellow street lamps in a silver spray.
‘Will you be coming back?’ she said.
‘Who knows, angel?’ he shrugged. ‘Who knows?’
He finished his coffee, went into the bedroom, picked up a dark blue nylon raincoat and a small canvas grip and returned to the living room. She sat with her elbows on the table, a cup of coffee in her hands. He took out his wallet, extracted a couple of banknotes and dropped them on the table.
‘It’s been fun, angel,’ he said, and moved to the door.
‘You know the address.’
When he closed the outside door and turned along the street, it was half past twelve exactly. The rain was falling heavily now and fog crouched at the ends of the streets, reducing visibility to thirty or forty yards.
He walked briskly along the wet pavement, turned confidently out of one street into another and, ten minutes later, halted beside a small black Fiat sedan. He opened the door, lifted the corner of the carpet and found the ignition key. A few moments later, he was driving away.
On the outskirts of Bari, he stopped and consulted the map from the glove compartment. Matano was about twelve miles away on the coast road running south to Brindisi. An easy enough run, although the fog was bound to hold him up a little.
He lit a cigarette and started off again, concentrating on his driving as the fog grew thicker. He was finally reduced to a cautious crawl, his head out of the side window. It was almost an hour later when he halted at a signpost that indicated Matano to the left.
As he drove along the narrow road, he could smell the sea through the fog and gradually it seemed to clear a little. He reached Matano fifteen minutes later and drove through silent streets towards the waterfront.
He parked the car in an alley near the Club Tabu as instructed and went the rest of the way on foot.
It was dark and lonely on the waterfront and the only sound was the lapping of water against the pilings as he went down a flight of stone steps to the jetty.
It was quiet and deserted in the yellow light of a solitary lamp and he paused halfway along to examine the motor cruiser moored at the end. She was a thirty-footer with a steel hull, probably built by Akerboon, he decided. She was in excellent trim, her sea-green paintwork gleaming. It wasn’t at all what he had expected. He examined the name Buona Esperanza on her hull with a slight frown.
When he stepped over the rail, the stern quarter was festooned with nets, still damp from the day’s labour and stinking of fish, the deck slippery with their scales.
Somewhere in the distance the door of an all-night café opened and music drifted out, faint and far away, and for no accountable reason Noci shivered. It was at that moment that he realized he was being watched.
The man was young, slim and wiry with a sun-blackened face that badly needed a shave. He wore denims and an old oilskin coat, and a seaman’s cap shaded calm, expressionless eyes. He stood at the corner of the deckhouse, a coiled rope in one hand, and said nothing. As Noci took a step towards him, the door of the wheelhouse opened and another man appeared.
He was at least six feet three, his great shoulders straining the seams of a blue pilot coat, and he wore an old Italian Navy officer’s cap, the gold braid tarnished by exposure to salt air and water. He had perhaps the ugliest face Noci had ever looked upon, the nose smashed and flattened, the white line of an old scar running from the right eye to the point of the chin. A thin cigar of the type favoured by Dutch seamen was firmly clenched between his teeth and he spoke without removing it.
‘Guilio Orsini, master of the Buona Esperanza.’
Noci felt a sudden surge of relief flow through him as tension ebbed away. ‘Enrico Noci.’
He held out his hand. Orsini took it briefly and nodded to the young deckhand. ‘Let’s go, Carlo.’ He jerked his thumb towards the companionway. ‘You’ll find a drink in the saloon. Don’t come up until I tell you.’
As Noci moved towards the companionway, Carlo cast off and moved quickly to the stern. The engine burst into life, shattering the quiet, and the Buona Esperanza turned from the jetty and moved into the fog.
The saloon was warm and pleasantly furnished. Noci looked around approvingly, placed his canvas grip on the table and helped himself to a large whisky from a cabinet in one corner. He drank it quickly and lay on one of the bunks smoking a cigarette, a warm, pleasurable glow seeping through him.
This was certainly an improvement on the old tub in which he had done the run to Albania before. Orsini was a new face, but then there was nothing surprising in that. The faces changed constantly. In this business, it didn’t pay to take chances.
The boat lifted forward with a great surge of power, and a slight smile of satisfaction touched Noci’s mouth. At this rate they would be landing him on the coast near Durres before dawn. By noon he would be in Tirana. More dollars to his account in the Bank of Geneva, and this was his sixth trip in as many months. Not bad going, but you could take the pitcher to the well too often. After this, a rest was indicated – a long rest.
He decided he would go to the Bahamas. White beaches, blue skies and a lovely tanned girl wading thigh-deep from the sea to meet him. American, if possible. They were so ingenuous, had so much to learn.
The engines coughed once and died away and the Buona Esperanza slowed violently as her prow sank into the waves. Noci sat up, head to one side as he listened. The only sound was the lapping of the water against her hull.
It was some sixth sense, the product of his years of treachery and double-dealing, of living on his wits, that warned him that something was wrong. He swung his legs to the floor, reached for the canvas grip, unzipped it and took out a pistol. He released the safety catch and padded across to the foot of the companionway. Above him, the door opened and shut, creaking slightly as the boat pitched in the swell.
He went up quickly, one hand against the wall, paused and raised his head cautiously. The deck seemed deserted, the drizzle falling in silver cobwebs through the navigation lights.
He stepped out and, on his right, a match flared and a man moved out of the shadows, bending his head to light a cigarette. The flame revealed a handsome devil’s face, eyes like black holes above high cheekbones. He flicked the match away and stood there, hands in the pockets of his slacks. He wore a heavy fisherman’s sweater and his dark hair glistened with moisture.
‘Signor Noci?’ he said calmly.
‘Who the hell are you?’ Noci demanded.
‘My name is Paul Chavasse.’
It was a name with which Noci was completely familiar. An involuntary gasp rose in his throat and he raised the pistol. A hand like iron clamped on his wrist, wrenching the weapon from his grasp, and Guilio Orsini said, ‘I think not.’
Carlo moved out of the shadows to the left and stood waiting. Noci looked about him helplessly and Chavasse held out his hand.
‘I’ll have the envelope now.’
Noci produced it reluctantly and handed it across, trying to stay calm as Chavasse examined the contents. They could be no more than half a mile from the shore, no distance to a man who had been swimming since childhood, and Noci was under no illusions as to what would happen if he stayed.
Chavasse turned over the first sheet of paper and Noci ducked under Orsini’s arm and ran for the stern rail. He was aware of a sudden cry, an unfamiliar voice, obviously Carlo’s, and then he slipped on some fish scales and stumbled headlong into the draped nets.
He tried to scramble to his feet, but a foot tripped him and then the soft, clinging, stinking meshes seemed to wrap themselves around him. He was pulled forward on to his hands and knees and looked up through the mesh to see Chavasse peering down at him, the devil’s face calm and cold.
Orsini and Carlo had a rope in their hands and, in that terrible moment, Noci realized what they intended to do and a scream rose in his throat.
Orsini pulled hard on the rope and Noci lurched across the deck and cannoned into the low rail. A foot caught him hard against the small of the back and he went over into the cold water.
As he surfaced, the net impeding every movement he tried to make, he was aware of Orsini running the end of the line around the rail, of Carlo leaning out of the wheelhouse window waiting. A hand went up, and the Buona Esperanza surged forward.
Noci went under with a cry, then surfaced on a wave, choking for breath. He was aware only of Chavasse at the rail, watching, face calm in the fog-shrouded light, and then, as the boat increased speed, he went under for the last time.
As he struggled violently, water forcing the air from his lungs, and then suddenly he was aware of no pain, no pain at all. He seemed to be floating on soft white sand beneath a blue sky and a beautiful sun-tanned girl waded from the sea to join him, and she was smiling.
4 (#ulink_c409d7c9-0d8a-5e60-a8f7-d307ba621d39)
Chavasse was tired and his throat was raw from too many cigarettes. Smoke hung in layers from the low ceiling, spiralling in the heat from the single bulb above the green baize table, drifting into the shadows.
There were half a dozen men sitting in on the game. Chavasse, Orsini, Carlo Arezzi, his deckhand, a couple of fishing-boat captains and the sergeant of police. Orsini lit another of his foul-smelling Dutch cheroots and pushed a further two chips into the centre.
Chavasse shook his head and tossed in his hand. ‘Too rich for my blood, Guilio.’
There was a general murmur and Guilio Orsini grinned and raked in his winnings. ‘The bluff, Paul, the big bluff. That’s all that counts in this game.’
Chavasse wondered if that explained why he was so bad at cards. For him, action had to be part of a logical progression based on a carefully reasoned calculation of the risk involved. In the great game of life and death he had played for so long, a man could seldom bluff more than once and get away with it.
He pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘That’s me for tonight, Guilio. I’ll see you on the jetty in the morning.’
Orsini nodded. ‘Seven sharp, Paul. Maybe we’ll get you that big one.’
The cards were already on their way round again as Chavasse crossed to the door, opened it and stepped into a whitewashed passage. In spite of the lateness of the hour, he could hear music from the front of the club, and careless laughter. He took down an old reefer jacket from a peg, pulled it on and opened the side door.
The cold night air cut into his lungs as he breathed deeply to clear his head, and moved along the alley. A thin sea fog rolled in from the water and, except for the faint strains of music from the Tabu, silence reigned.
He found a crumpled packet of cigarettes in his pocket, extracted one and struck a match on the wall, momentarily illuminating his face. As he did so, a woman emerged from a narrow alley opposite, hesitated, then walked down the jetty, the clicking of her high heels echoing through the night. A moment later, two sailors moved out of the entrance of the Tabu, crossed in front of Chavasse and followed her.
Chavasse leaned against the wall, feeling curiously depressed. There were times when he really wondered what it was all about, not just this dangerous game he played, but life itself. He smiled in the darkness. Three o’clock in the morning on the waterfront was one hell of a time to start thinking like that.
The woman screamed and he flicked his cigarette into the fog and stood listening. Again the screaming sounded, curiously muffled, and he started to run towards the jetty. He turned a corner and found the two sailors holding her on the ground under a street lamp.
As the nearest one turned in alarm, Chavasse lifted a boot into his face and sent him back over the jetty. The other leapt towards him with a curse, steel glinting in his right hand.
Chavasse was aware of the black beard, blazing eyes and strange hooked scar on the right cheek, and then he flicked his cap into the man’s face and raised a knee into the exposed groin. The man writhed on the ground, gasping for breath, and Chavasse measured the distance and kicked him in the head.
In the water below the jetty came the sound of a violent splashing, and he moved to the edge and saw the first man swimming vigorously into the darkness. Chavasse watched him disappear, then turned to look for the woman.
She was standing in the shadow of a doorway and he went towards her. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I think so,’ she replied, in a strangely familiar voice, and stepped out of the shadows.
His eyes widened in amazement. ‘Francesca! What in the world are you doing here?’
Her dress had been ripped from neck to waist and she held it in place, a slight smile on her face. ‘We were supposed to have a date on the terrace at the Embassy a week ago. What happened?’
‘Something came up,’ he said. ‘The story of my life. But what are you doing on the Matano waterfront at this time of the morning?’
She swayed forward and he caught her just in time, holding her close to his chest for a brief moment. She smiled up at him wanly.
‘Sorry about that, but all of a sudden I felt a little light-headed.’
‘Have you far to go?’
She brushed a tendril of hair back from her forehead. ‘I left my car somewhere near here, but all the streets look the same in the fog.’
‘Better come back with me to my hotel,’ he said. ‘It’s just around the corner.’ He slipped off his jacket and draped it round her shoulders. ‘I could fix you up with a bed.’
Laughter bubbled out of her, and for a moment she was once again the exciting girl he had met so briefly at the Embassy ball.
‘I’m sure you could.’
He put an arm round her. ‘Don’t worry, I think you’ve had quite enough excitement for one night.’
There was the scrape of a shoe on the cobbles behind them, and he swung round and saw the other man lurching into the fog, hands to his smashed face.
Chavasse took a quick step after him and Francesca caught his sleeve. ‘Let him go. I don’t want the police in on this.’
He looked down into her strained and anxious face. ‘If that’s the way you want it.’
There was something strange here, something he didn’t understand. They walked along the jetty and turned on to the waterfront. As port towns went, Matano was reasonably tame, but not so tame that pretty young girls could walk around the dock area at three a.m. and expect to get away with it. One thing was certain. Francesca Minetti must have had a pretty powerful reason for being there.
The hotel was a small stuccoed building on a corner, an ancient electric sign over the entrance, but it was clean and cheap and the food was good. The owner was a friend of Orsini.
He slept at the desk, head in hands, and Chavasse reached over to the board without waking him and unhooked the key. They crossed the hall, mounted narrow wooden stairs and passed along a whitewashed corridor.
The room was plainly furnished with a brass bed, a washstand and an old wardrobe. As elsewhere in the house, the walls were whitewashed and the floor highly polished.
Francesca stood just inside the door, one hand to the neck of her dress, holding it in place, and looked around approvingly.
‘This is nice. Have you been here long?’
‘Almost a week now. It’s my first holiday in a year or more.’
He opened the wardrobe, rummaged among his clothes and finally produced a black polo-neck sweater in merino wool. ‘Try that for size while I get you a drink. You look as if you could do with one.’
She turned her back and pulled the sweater over her head as he went to a cupboard in the corner. He took out a bottle of whisky and rinsed a couple of glasses in the bowl on the washstand. When he turned, she was standing by the bed watching him, looking strangely young and defenceless, the dark sweater hanging loosely about her.
‘Sit down, for God’s sake, before you fall down,’ he said.
There was a cane chair by the french window leading to the balcony and she slumped into it and leaned her head against the glass window, staring into the darkness. Out at sea, a foghorn boomed eerily and she shivered.
‘I think that must be the loneliest sound in the world.’
‘Thomas Wolfe preferred a train whistle,’ Chavasse said, pouring whisky into one of the glasses and handing it to her.
She looked puzzled. ‘Thomas Wolfe? Who was he?’
He shrugged. ‘Just a writer – a man who knew what loneliness was all about.’ He swallowed a little of his whisky. ‘Girls shouldn’t be on the waterfront at this time of the morning; I suppose you know that? If I hadn’t arrived when I did, you’d have probably ended up in the water after they’d finished with you.’
She shook her head. ‘It wasn’t that kind of assault.’
‘I see.’ He drank some more of his whisky and considered the point. ‘If it would help, I’m a good listener.’
She held her glass in both hands and stared down at it, a troubled look on her face, and he added gently, ‘Is this something official? A Bureau operation, perhaps?’
She looked up, real alarm on her face, and shook her head vigorously. ‘No, they know nothing about it and they mustn’t be told, you must promise me that. It’s a family matter, quite private.’
She put down her glass, stood up and walked restlessly across the room. When she turned, there was an expression of real anguish on her face. She pushed her hair back with a quick nervous gesture and laughed.
‘The trouble is, I’ve always worked inside. Never in the field. I just don’t know what to do in a situation like this.’
Chavasse produced his cigarettes, put one in his mouth and tossed the packet across to her. ‘Why not tell me about it? I’m a great one for pretty girls in distress.’
She caught the packet automatically and stood there looking at him, a slight frown on her face. She nodded slowly. ‘All right, Paul, but anything I tell you is confidential. I don’t want any of this getting back to my superiors. It could get me into real trouble.’
‘Agreed,’ he said.
She came back to her chair, took a cigarette from the packet and reached up for a light. ‘How much do you know about me, Paul?’
He shrugged. ‘You work for us in Rome. My boss told me you were one of the best people we had out here and that’s good enough for me.’
‘I’ve worked for the Bureau for two years now,’ she said. ‘My mother was Albanian, so I speak the language fluently. I suppose that’s what first interested them in me. She was the daughter of a gegh chieftain. My father was a colonel of mountain troops in the Italian occupation army in 1939. He was killed in the Western Desert early in the war.’
‘Is your mother still alive?’
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Jack Higgins
Super-spy Paul Chavasse – one of Jack Higgins’s most extraordinary heroes – embarks on a mission to Albania, only to find himself at the centre of a deadly double-cross, fighting for his life.It’s a trip that agent Paul Chavasse will never forget. His destination: the isolated republic of Albania on the Adriatic coast, at a time when the regime is at its most repressive and the people live in daily fear of the ruthless secret police. His job: to find a double agent whose cover has been blown and put him out of commission, permanently. But what Chavasse doesn’t know is that deep within the twisting channels of the perilous coastal marshes, someone has set a trap for him – someone who holds the keys of hell.
JACK
HIGGINS
THE KEYS
OF HELL
COPYRIGHT (#ulink_7882ce08-116e-5a19-a346-dd3d19864f10)
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Special overseas edition 2001
This edition 2002
Published simultaneously in hardback by
HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in the USA by
Berkley Books 2001
Copyright © Harry Patterson 2001
Jack Higgins asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Source ISBN: 9780006514671
Ebook Edition © JULY 2015 ISBN: 9780008159122
Version: 2015-07-31
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE (#ulink_7f90757a-e6a9-5aa7-88a6-c0b90014815b)
THE KEYS OF HELL was first published in the UK by Abelard-Schuman, London, in 1965 under the authorship of Martin Fallon. The author was, in fact, the writer familiar to modern readers as Jack Higgins. Martin Fallon was one of the names he used during his early writing days. The book was later published in paperback by Coronet Books – under the authorship of Jack Higgins – but it has been out of print for several years.
In 2001, it seemed to the author and his publishers that it was a pity to leave such a good story languishing on his shelves. So Jack Higgins has created an entirely new framework to the original book, added some scenes and made some changes throughout. We are delighted to be able to bring back THE KEYS OF HELL for the pleasure of the vast majority of us all who never had a chance to read the original edition.
DEDICATION (#ulink_550fef66-c266-5a94-9e89-19a697ba4288)
There are no keys to hell – the doors are open to all men.
Albanian proverb
CONTENTS
Cover (#u1543bdda-2a7c-5499-a6b8-53b338c9191a)
Title Page (#uaf284c93-3b5b-58aa-9421-2d4567de1234)
Copyright (#ulink_15b177fb-2329-5d6f-955c-fdad979be62d)
Publisher’s Note (#ulink_da9ba775-1a39-5c53-862a-49f17ea89ea7)
Dedication (#ulink_66fd5cee-8f6d-59a6-8956-e7763f24d23d)
Manhattan: 1995
Chapter 1 (#ulink_f0f93738-1f5c-50d0-b22f-0e745c709060)
Rome Matano: 1965
Chapter 2 (#ulink_36a32a64-033a-51e6-b6df-6cef0764ccf8)
Chapter 3 (#ulink_7e7f07ea-283e-57ad-a2a3-b84f92faa252)
Chapter 4 (#ulink_8639a8f3-6e27-590a-a7ea-786ea1d50c73)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Manhattan: 1995
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Other Books By (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
MANHATTAN (#ulink_95d9522d-5f12-5b03-a09d-e006e352636e)
1 (#ulink_1a46f231-001a-5a0f-a0df-560108e59943)
The dream was always the same. Plunging into the marsh, forcing his way through the reeds and mist, pushing the punt hard, Guilio Orsini standing at the front finding the way through and then the engine close by breaking into life and a burst of machine-gun fire.
Guilio went over head-first, always did, and Chavasse floundered through the reeds and the bitterly cold water and then, mysteriously, like a curtain, the reeds parted and there was the lagoon and the boat, the Buona Esperanza, and Orsini was at the rail leaning over, a hand outstretched.
‘Now, Paul, now.’
And Chavasse reached and the mist seemed to increase and there was the roaring of the engine and the boat slapped away, vanished, and he was alone again.
Chavasse was subject to dreams of the past, and had always suspected it was a legacy of his Breton father. An old race, the Bretons, an ancient people. But this dream he had not had for some years. Still … he got off the bed, went to the window of his suite and looked down at Manhattan. The lights sparkled in the evening dusk. He liked New York and always had. There as an excitement there, an infinite probability to things.
When the phone went he answered at once, ‘Chavasse.’
‘Ah, Sir Paul. Tino Rossi.’
‘Good evening, Mr Rossi.’
‘Listen, I know we’re meeting later for dinner at the Saddle Room, but I wondered whether you’d mind coming round to my apartment at the Trump Tower first.’
‘Is there a purpose to this?’
‘Well, my lawyer, Mario Volpe, as you may know, is my nephew a couple of times removed. He seems to think there are a few things he could take care of before our meeting. You understand?’
‘Perfectly,’ Chavasse said.
‘I’ll send a limousine. Say half an hour?’
‘No need. As it’s only a couple of blocks, I’ll walk.’
‘Fine. I’ll look forward to seeing you for dinner later.’
Chavasse put down the phone and thought about it, a slight frown on his face, then he went to the wardrobe, took out his rather old-fashioned carpet bag, pulled open a flap in the bottom and produced a short-barrelled Colt, only a .22, but deadly with hollow-point rounds. He checked it out, went into the bathroom and turned on the shower.
In the magnificent sitting room of his Trump Tower apartment Don Tino Rossi replaced the telephone. He was seventy-six years of age and still in good shape, his silver hair almost shoulder-length, his linen suit the best that Savile Row could provide.
The large man in the black suit with the shaven head came forward as the Don nodded, opened a silver box, offered a cigarette and a light. He was Aldo Vinelli, the firm’s head of security. Don Tino’s nephew, Mario Volpe, stood by the terrace window smoking a cigarette, thirty years of age, medium height, good-looking and like Rossi, impeccably dressed.
‘So he’s coming.’
‘Why wouldn’t he?’ his uncle asked. ‘He doesn’t want a car. He’s walking.’
‘You trust this Chavasse?’
‘As much as he trusts me. Our meeting in London made sense.’
‘Good. I’ll make arrangements.’ Volpe nodded to Vinelli. ‘I need you.’ He went out.
The Don said quietly, ‘Aldo, I assigned you to protect my nephew because I trust you and you’ve done a good job.’
‘Thank you, Don Tino.’
‘And where does your loyalty lie?’
‘With you always.’
‘Good.’
The Don held out his hand. Aldo kissed it and went out. Rossi sighed. Strange that facility he’d always had that told him when someone was lying to him. A gift from God really.
Before it was fashionable, Tino Rossi alone amongst Mafia leaders had realized that life had to change, that the old days were long gone. He had turned the Rossi family to respectability. Real estate developments in New York, the same on the Thames in London. Investments in the electronics industry, shipping, banking. His early start meant that these days his only rivals were the Russian Mafia.
The young man he called nephew, Mario, was an important part of the organization. He’d never known his father, and his mother had also died at a young age. Her widowed sister, Signora Volpe, had brought the boy to New York, raised him in Little Italy. As Don Tino’s niece her Mafia connection had assured the success of her café. Mario had gone to Columbia, had taken a law degree. Later, he’d done the same thing at London University and was now indispensable to the family on both sides of the Atlantic for his legal expertise.
He returned to the room. The Don said, ‘Is everything in hand?’
‘Sure. Look, I’ll go with Aldo and monitor him. So he’s crazy enough to want to walk alone on a wet night in Manhattan, but that could be asking for it. I mean, this is an older guy. Sixty-five.’
‘So I’m ten years older.’
‘Heh, Uncle, I didn’t mean …’
‘Make this work, Mario, nothing is more important.’
‘You trust this Chavasse?’
‘As I told you, no more than he trusts me. Sir Paul Chavasse, knighted by the Queen of England, Mario.’
‘So?’
‘This man is what? Half English, half French. He speaks more languages than you’ve had hot dinners. University degrees coming out of his ears. In spite of all that, a killer by nature. For twenty years a field agent for the Bureau, the most secret of British intelligence units. You’ve seen his record. Shot three times, knifed twice.’
‘So he was hot stuff.’
‘More than that, Mario, for the past twenty years he’s been Belfast Bureau Chief and that’s no desk job, not with the IRA and all those other problems. Now he has Eastern Europe on his back. Bosnia, Serbia, Kosova, Albania, and we know who has the greatest input.’
‘The Russian Mafia.’
‘Exactly, and as they are not our friends we can help there. In return, Chavasse will help us.’
‘When possible?’
‘Of course. Look, I suspended all drug operations there years ago and not for moral reasons as you well know. If idiots want to kill themselves with heroin that’s their affair. We make more out of cigarette smuggling from Europe into Britain than we ever would have with drugs.’
‘Still illegal.’
‘Yes, but as you being an expert in English law know, a drug runner pulls ten or twelve years. Get done, as the English say, for cigarette smuggling and what would your client get?’
‘Twelve months and out in six.’ Mario Volpe smiled. ‘Still illegal, running cigarettes by the millions up the Thames, so where does that leave Sir Paul Chavasse?’
‘Exactly as he is. A realist. We’re not destroying the lives of stupid teenagers. We aren’t harming the widows and orphans. He can live with that as long as we provide the expertise on Eastern Europe that he needs. You’ll see that we do.’
‘Of course, Uncle.’
‘Good boy.’ The Don nodded. ‘You take care of things. Tell Sir Paul I’ll see him later for dinner at the Saddle Room. You’d better go now, you and Aldo, to make sure he gets here in one piece.’
‘Uncle.’
Mario Volpe went out. Rain battering the window, Don Tino reached for his unfinished glass of champagne. Such a clever boy. All the virtues really and yet capable of such stupidity. He swallowed the champagne, got up and walked out leaning on his Malacca cane.
When Chavasse emerged from the Plaza Hotel it was raining slightly. He wore a Burberry trench coat in dark blue and an old-fashioned rain hat slanted across his head. Inside, the Colt .22 rested in a special clip. Uncomfortable, but also comforting in its own way. Just a feeling, but that’s why he was still here after all these years. He declined the offer of a cab from the doorman, went down the steps and started along Fifth Avenue.
Waiting in a black Mercedes town car, Mario Volpe and Vinelli watched him.
‘Let’s go, Aldo,’ Volpe said, ‘and don’t lose him.’ Not that there was much chance of that as they pulled away from the sidewalk. Not too many people as the rain increased.
Chavasse liked the rain. Somehow you could inhabit your own private world. It was what he called the cinema of the mind time. You considered the facts, tried to make sense, anticipate the other side’s next move, and there was certainly more to all this than met the eye. All his senses, the product of forty years of living on the edge, told him that.
Not that he distrusted Don Tino particularly. It was more that he didn’t trust anyone. His special kind of life had taught him that. The way Eastern Europe was, the Don could be useful, which was what his meeting with Rossi and Vinelli at the Dorchester Hotel in London had indicated. If a few favours in return was the price, it was worth it, always supposing the price wasn’t too high. So Rossi was a gangster. In essence, that was what Chavasse had been for years. You had to be a kind of gangster to be an intelligence agent. All that kept you alive really.
He paused, produced a silver case from an inside pocket, took out a cigarette and lit it in cupped hands. He was standing at the entrance of a darkened mall at the time and for the moment, the sidewalk was clear. As he started forward, a young man darted out of the mall and blocked his way.
‘Heh, buddy, you got some change?’
At that moment, another one emerged, his twin, hard-faced in bomber jacket and jeans, only he was holding a Browning pistol.
‘This one’s got more than change. Let’s get him in here.’
He rammed the barrel of the Browning against Chavasse’s spine and drove him into the darkness.
All this was seen from the Mercedes.
Volpe said, ‘Those bastards. Why the gun?’
There was the sound of a shot. Vinelli braked to a halt and got the door open.
In the mall the one with the Browning rammed it even harder into Chavasse.
‘A nice fat wallet here I’d day, so let’s stay friendly. You can call me Tommy.’
Chavasse raised his right elbow, struck backwards into the face, turned sideways, pushing the Browning away, grabbed for the barrel, twisted it free and had the gun in his hand.
‘You should never get that close to anyone.’
He pivoted, rammed the barrel of the Browning into the back of Tommy’s right knee and pulled the trigger. Tommy staggered into the wall and fell down with a cry.
The other one backed away, hands raised.
‘Heh, man, don’t do it.’
Vinelli arrived, a gun in his hand, Volpe behind him.
They looked at Tommy lying on the ground and Chavasse tendered the Browning to Vinelli.
‘Not mine, his.’ He looked down at the boy. ‘Terrible class of muggers these days. Not too competent.’
Volpe held out his hand. ‘Mario Volpe, Sir Paul. We were worried about you so I figured we’d check the hotel. Aldo recognized you from London, so we were following. I mean, scum like this, what can I say?’
‘Not much, I expect. Can we go now?’
‘Sure.’ Volpe turned to Vinelli. ‘Take care of this, Aldo. I’ll drive Sir Paul to the Trump, you follow on foot.’
He took Chavasse by the arm and led him away. Aldo turned, reached for the youth who was standing and pulled him close.
‘You were supposed to jump him and wait for us to come to the rescue and what do we get? A gun, for Christ’s sake.’
‘It was Tommy. He’s on crack.’
‘Really?’ Vinelli headbutted him, breaking his nose, sending him staggering.
The youth started to weep, blood everywhere. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Vinelli, but what do I do with Tommy?’
‘You get an ambulance. Three very large black guys beat up on you, and no fairy stories for the cops or the Rossi family will see to you on a more permanent basis.’ He opened his wallet and took out ten hundred-dollar bills. ‘I said a grand and I’m a man of my word.’ He dropped the money on Tommy.
‘I’ll do what you say, Mr Vinelli.’
‘You better had, kid.’
Vinelli patted his face, turned his collar up against the rain and walked away.
In the sitting room of the Trump Tower apartment, Volpe helped Chavasse off with his Burberry and placed it on a chair. Chavasse removed the rain hat and put it on the coat carefully.
‘Drink, Sir Paul? Martini? Champagne?’
‘Irish whiskey,’ Chavasse told him, ‘Bushmills for preference.’
‘Anything. We’ve got it all.’
‘Good.’ Chavasse took a cigarette from his silver case. ‘And then you can tell me exactly what it is you want.’
Vinelli came in and stood by the door, face impassive. Volpe got the whiskey from the bar by the window and brought it over.
‘I don’t really want anything, Sir Paul. My uncle and you laid it out pretty clear at your meeting in London at the Dorchester. I mean, even Aldo here met you but I didn’t, so I figured it was time. I handle all the family’s legal business on both sides of the Atlantic. This whole deal is very important. I wanted to familiarize myself with you.’
‘And why would you want to do that?’
‘Well, on occasions, we’ll be working together, but hell, no problem there. Your record in the intelligence business is amazing.’
‘And how would you know that?’
‘Bureau records are on file at the Public Records Office in London. Sure, maybe they’re on a fifty-year hold, but there are always ways round that. The clerks aren’t very well paid. Give them “a few bob” as you Brits say, and it’s amazing what you get a copy of.’
Chavasse finished his whiskey. He said calmly, ‘What you appear to be saying is that you’ve been checking up on my past record quite illegally.’
‘Yes, but we’ve got to be careful with the London operation.’
‘Does the Don know about this?’
‘Of course.’
Chavasse nodded. ‘So – where are we at?’
‘One case of yours really got to me.’ Volpe went to a side table and returned with a file. ‘This was so amazing I had it copied. Read it. It’s good stuff. I suppose you wrote it originally. I’ve got phone calls to make to all four quarters of the globe. I’ll be about an hour then I’ll take you to Don Tino at the Saddle Room. Anything you want, Aldo will get for you.’
He went out and Vinelli stood there, face impassive. ‘Another whiskey, Sir Paul?’
‘I think champagne might be more appropriate,’ Chavasse said in excellent Italian.
‘Of course.’
‘Is he for real, the boy?’
‘He is young.’
Aldo produced a bottle of Bollinger from the bar and Chavasse lit another cigarette, picked up the file and opened it. It was a fifty-page résumé of certain events in Albania in 1965. It was headed ‘Bureau Case Study 203, Field Agent Doctor Paul Chavasse’.
Aldo stood at the door, still impassive.
It was very quiet, only rain drumming against the window.
A long time ago, Chavasse told himself, a hell of a long time ago.
He started to read.
ROME MATANO (#ulink_db66e5c1-4cb1-5bbd-83e4-f1c8213627da)
2 (#ulink_35bd2f29-916c-5bb8-8905-382971eeb1e7)
When Chavasse entered the Grand Ballroom of the British Embassy, he was surprised to find the Chinese delegation clustered around the fireplace, looking completely out of place in their blue uniforms, and surrounded by the cream of Roman society.
Chou En-lai surveyed the scene from a large gilt chair, the Ambassador and his wife beside him, and his smooth impassive face gave nothing away. Occasionally, guests of sufficient eminence were brought forward by the First Secretary to be introduced.
The orchestra was playing a waltz. Chavasse lit a cigarette and leaned against a pillar. It was a splendid scene. The crystal chandeliers took light to every corner of the cream-and-gold ballroom, reflected again and again in the mirrored walls.
Beautiful women, handsome men, dress uniforms, the scarlet and purple of church dignitaries – it was all strangely archaic, as if somehow the mirrors were reflecting a dim memory of long ago, dancers turning endlessly to faint music.
He looked across to the Chinese and, for a brief instant, the white face of Chou En-lai seemed to jump out of the crowd, the eyes fastening on his. He nodded slightly, as if they knew each other, and the eyes seemed to say: All these are doomed – this is my hour and you and I know it.
Chavasse shivered and, for no accountable reason, a wave of greyness ran through him. It was as if some sixth sense, that mystical element common to all ancient races, inherited from his Breton father, were trying to warn him of danger.
The moment passed, the dancers swirled on. He was tired, that was the trouble. Four days on the run with no more than a couple of hours of uneasy sleep snatched when it was safe. He lit another cigarette and examined himself in the mirror on the wall.
The dark evening clothes were tailored well, outlining good shoulders and a muscular frame, but the skin was drawn too tightly over the high cheekbones that were a heritage from his French father, and there were dark circles under the eyes.
What you need is a drink, he told himself. Behind him, reflected in the mirror, a young girl came in from the terrace through the french windows.
Chavasse turned slowly. Her eyes were set too far apart, the mouth too generous. Her dark hair hung loosely to her shoulders, the white silk dress was simplicity itself. She wore no accessories. None were needed. Like all great beauties, she wasn’t beautiful, but it didn’t matter a damn. She made every other woman in the room seem insignificant.
She moved towards the bar, heads turning as she passed, and was immediately accosted by an Italian Air Force colonel who was obviously slightly the worse for drink. Chavasse gave the man enough time to make a thorough nuisance of himself, then moved through the crowd to her side.
‘Ah, there you are, darling,’ he said in Italian. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’
Her reflexes were excellent. She turned smoothly, assessing him against the situation in a split second and making her decision.
She reached up and kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘You said you’d only be ten minutes. It’s really too bad of you.’
The Air Force colonel had already faded discreetly into the crowd and Chavasse grinned. ‘How about a glass of Bollinger? I really think we should celebrate.’
‘I think that would be rather nice, Mr Chavasse,’ she said in excellent English. ‘On the terrace, perhaps. It’s cooler there.’
Chavasse took two glasses of champagne from the table and followed her through the crowd, a slight frown on his face. It was cool on the terrace, the traffic sounds muted and far away, and the scent of jasmine heavy on the night air.
She sat on the balustrade and took a deep breath. ‘Isn’t it a wonderful night?’ She turned and looked at him and laughter bubbled out of her. ‘Francesca – Francesca Minetti.’
She held out her hand and Chavasse gave her one of the glasses of champagne and grinned. ‘You seem to know who I am already.’
She leaned back and looked up at the stars. When she spoke, it was as if she were reciting a lesson hard-learned.
‘Paul Chavasse, born Paris 1928, father French, mother English. Educated at Sorbonne, Cambridge and Harvard universities. PhD Modern Languages, multilingual. University lecturer until 1954. Since then …’
Her voice trailed away and she looked at him thoughtfully. Chavasse lit a cigarette, no longer tired. ‘Since then … ?’
‘Well, you’re on the books as a Third Secretary, but you certainly don’t look like one.’
‘What would you say I did look like?’ he said calmly.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Someone who got about a lot.’ She swallowed some more champagne and said casually, ‘How was Albania? I was surprised you made it out in one piece. When the Tirana connection went dead, we wrote you off.’
She started to laugh again, her head back, and behind Chavasse a voice said, ‘Is she giving you a hard time, Paul?’
Murchison, the First Secretary, limped across the terrace. He was a handsome, urbane man, his face bronzed and healthy, the bar of medals a splash of bright colour on the left breast of his jacket.
‘Let’s say she knows rather too much about me for my personal peace of mind.’
‘She should,’ Murchison said. ‘Francesca works for the Bureau. She was your radio contact last week. One of our best operatives.’
Chavasse turned. ‘You were the one who relayed the message from Scutari warning me to get out fast?’
She bowed. ‘Happy to be of service.’
Before Chavasse could continue, Murchison took him firmly by the arm. ‘Now don’t start getting emotional, Paul. Your boss has just got in and he wants to see you. You and Francesca can talk over old times later.’
Chavasse squeezed her hand. ‘That’s a promise. Don’t go away.’
‘I’ll wait right here,’ she assured him, and he turned and followed Murchison inside.
They moved through the crowded ballroom into the entrance hall, passed the two uniformed footmen at the bottom of the grand staircase and mounted to the first floor.
The long, thickly carpeted corridor was quiet, and the music echoing from the ballroom might have been from another world. They went up half a dozen steps, turned into a shorter side passage and paused outside a white-painted door.
‘In here, old man,’ Murchison said. ‘Try not to be too long. We’ve a cabaret starting in half an hour. Really quite something, I promise you.’
He moved back along the passage, his footsteps silent on the thick carpet, and Chavasse knocked on the door, opened it and went in.
The room was a small, plainly furnished office, its walls painted a neutral shade of green. The young woman who sat at the desk writing busily was attractive in spite of her dark, heavy-rimmed library spectacles.
She glanced up sharply and Chavasse smiled. ‘Surprise, surprise.’
Jean Frazer removed her spectacles. ‘You look like hell. How was Albania?’
‘Tiresome,’ Chavasse said. ‘Cold, wet and with the benefits of universal brotherhood rather thinly spread on the ground.’ He sat on the edge of the desk and helped himself to a cigarette from a teak box. ‘What brings you and the old man out here? The Albanian affair wasn’t all that important.’
‘We had a NATO intelligence meeting in Bonn. When we got word that you were safely out, the Chief decided to come to Rome to take your report on the spot.’
‘Nice try,’ Chavasse said. ‘The old bastard wouldn’t have another job lined up for me, would he? Because if he has, he can damn well think again.’
‘Why not ask him?’ she said. ‘He’s waiting for you now.’
She nodded towards a green baize door. Chavasse looked at it for a moment, sighed heavily and crushed his cigarette into the ashtray.
The inner room was half in shadow, the only light a shaded lamp on the desk. The man who stood at the window gazing out at the lights of Rome was of medium height, the face somehow ageless, a strange, brooding expression in the dark eyes.
‘Here we are again,’ Chavasse said softly.
The Chief turned, took in Chavasse’s appearance and nodded. ‘Glad to see you back in one piece, Paul. I hear things were pretty rough over there.’
‘You could say that.’
The older man moved to his chair and sat down. ‘Tell me about it.’
‘Albania?’ Chavasse shrugged. ‘We’re not going to do much there. No one can pretend the people have gained anything since the Communists took over at the end of the war, but there’s no question of a counter-revolution even getting started. The Sigurmi, the secret police, are everywhere. I’d say they must be the most extensive in Europe.’
‘You went in using that Italian Communist Party Friendship cover, didn’t you?’
‘It didn’t do me much good. The Italians in the party accepted me all right, but the trouble started when we reached Tirana. The Sigurmi assigned an agent to each one of us and they were real pros. Shaking them was difficult enough, and the moment I did, they smelt a rat and put out a general call for me.’
‘What about the Freedom Party? How extensive are they?’
‘You can start using the past tense as of last week. When I arrived, they were down to two cells. One in Tirana, the other in Scutari. Both were still in contact with our Bureau operation here in Rome.’
‘Did you manage to contact the leader, this man Luci?’
‘Only just. The night we were to meet to discuss things, he was mopped up by the Sigurmi. Apparently, they were all over his place, waiting for me to show my hand.’
‘And how did you manage to get out of that one?’
‘The Scutari cell got a radio signal from Luci as the police were breaking in. They relayed it to Bureau Headquarters here in Rome. Luckily for me, they had a quick thinker on duty – a girl named Francesca Minetti.’
‘One of our best people at this end,’ the Chief said. ‘I’ll tell you about her one of these days.’
‘My back way out of Albania was a motor launch called the Buona Esperanza, run by a man named Guilio Orsini. He’s quite a boy. Was one of the original torpedo merchants with the Italian Navy during the war. His best touch was when he sank a couple of our destroyers in Alexandria harbour back in ’41. Got out again in one piece, too. He’s a smuggler now. Runs across to Albania a lot. His grandmother came from there.’
‘As I recall the original plan, he was to wait three nights running in a cove near Durres. That’s about thirty miles by road from Tirana, isn’t it?’
Chavasse nodded. ‘When Francesca Minetti got the message from Scutari, she took a chance and put it through to Orsini on his boat. The madman left his crewman in charge, landed, stole a car in Durres and drove straight to Tirana. He caught me at my hotel as I was leaving for the meeting with Luci.’
‘Getting back to the coast must have been quite a trick.’
‘We did run into a little trouble. Had to do the last ten miles on foot through coastal salt marshes. Not good with the hounds on your heels, but Orsini knew what he was doing. Once we were on board the Buona Esperanza, it was easy. The Albanians don’t have much of a navy. Half a dozen minesweepers and a couple of sub-chasers. The Buona Esperanza has ten knots on any one of them.’
‘It would seem that Orsini is due for a bonus on this one.’
‘That’s putting it mildly.’
The Chief nodded, opened the file that contained Chavasse’s report and leafed through it. ‘So we’re wasting our time in Albania?’
Chavasse nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. You know the way things have been since the 20th Party Congress in 1956, and now the Chinese are in there with both feet.’
‘Anything to worry about?’
Chavasse shook his head. ‘Albania’s the most backward European country I’ve visited and the Chinese are too far from home to be able to do much about it.’
‘What about this naval base the Russians were using at Valona before they pulled out? The word was that they’d built it into a sort of Red Gibraltar on the Adriatic.’
‘Alb-Tourist took us on an official trip on our second day. “Port” is hardly the word for the place. Good natural shelter, but only used by fishing boats. Certainly no sign of submarine pens.’
‘And Enver Hoxha – you think he’s still firmly in control?’
‘And then some. We saw him at a military parade on the third day. He cuts an impressive figure, especially in uniform. He’s certainly the people’s hero at the moment. Heaven knows for how long.’
The Chief closed the file with a quick gesture that somehow dismissed the whole affair, placing it firmly in the past.
‘Good work, Paul. At least we know where we stand. You’re due for some leave now, aren’t you?’
‘That’s right,’ Chavasse said, and waited.
The Chief got to his feet, walked to the window and looked out over the glittering city, down towards the Tiber. ‘What would you like to do?’
‘Spend a week or two at Matano,’ Chavasse said without hesitation. ‘That’s a small fishing port near Bari. There’s a good beach, and Guilio Orsini owns a place on the front called the Tabu. He’s promised me some diving. I’m looking forward to it.’
‘I’m sure you are,’ the Chief said. ‘Sounds marvellous.’
‘Do I get it?’
The old man looked out over the city, an abstracted frown on his face. ‘Oh, yes, Paul, you can have your leave – after you’ve done a little chore for me.’
Chavasse groaned and the older man turned and came back to the desk. ‘Don’t worry, it won’t take long, but you’ll have to leave tonight.’
‘Is that necessary?’
The old man nodded. ‘I’ve got transport laid on and you’ll need help. This man Orsini sounds right. We’ll offer a good price.’
Chavasse sighed, thinking of Francesca Minetti waiting on the terrace, of the good food and wine in the buffet room below. He sighed again and stubbed out his cigarette carefully.
‘What do I do?’
The Chief pushed a file across. ‘Enrico Noci, a double agent who’s been working for us and the Albanians. I didn’t mind at first, but now the Chinese have got to him.’
‘Which isn’t healthy.’
‘It never is. There’s a boat waiting at Bari to take Noci over to Albania tomorrow night. All the details are in there.’
Chavasse studied the picture, the heavy fleshy face, the weak mouth – the picture of a man who was probably a failure at everything he put his hand to, except perhaps women. He had the sort of tanned beach-boy good looks that some of them went for.
‘Do I bring him in?’
‘What on earth for?’ The Chief shook his head. ‘Get rid of him; a swimming accident, anything you like. Nothing messy.’
‘Of course,’ Chavasse said calmly.
He glanced through the file again, memorizing the facts it contained, then pushed it across and stood up. ‘I’ll see you in London.’
The Chief nodded. ‘In three weeks, Paul. Enjoy your holiday.’
‘Don’t I always?’
The Chief pulled a file across, opened it and started to study the contents, and Chavasse crossed to the door and left quietly.
3 (#ulink_690ee07a-eecf-54d1-9d69-29b7c33fce39)
Enrico Noci lay staring through the darkness at the ceiling, smoking a cigarette. Beside him the woman slept, her thigh warm against his. Once, she stirred, turning into him in her sleep, but didn’t awaken.
He reached for another cigarette and heard a distinctive rattle as something was pushed through the letter box in the outer hall. He slid from beneath the blankets, careful not to wake the woman, and padded across the tiled floor in his bare feet.
A large buff envelope lay on the mat at the front door. He took it into the kitchen, lit the gas under the coffee pot and opened the envelope quickly. Inside was a smaller sealed envelope, the one he was to take with him, and a single typed sheet containing his movement orders. He memorized them, then burned it quickly at the stove.
He glanced at his watch. Just before midnight. Time for a hot bath and something to eat. He stretched lazily, a conscious pleasure seeping through him. The woman had really been quite something. Certainly a diverting way to spend his last evening.
He was wallowing up to his chin in hot water, the small bathroom half-full of steam, when the door opened and she came in, yawning as she tied the belt of his silk dressing gown.
‘Come back to bed, caro,’ she said plaintively.
For the life of him, he couldn’t remember her name and he grinned. ‘Another time, angel. I must get moving. Make me some scrambled eggs and coffee, like a good girl. I’ve got to be out of here in twenty minutes.’
When he left the bathroom ten minutes later, he was freshly shaved, his dark hair slicked back, and he wore an expensive hand-knitted sweater and slacks. She had laid a small table in the window and placed a plate of scrambled eggs in front of him as he sat down.
As he ate, he pulled back the curtain with one hand and looked down across the lights of Bari to the waterfront. The town was quiet, and a slight rain drifted through the yellow street lamps in a silver spray.
‘Will you be coming back?’ she said.
‘Who knows, angel?’ he shrugged. ‘Who knows?’
He finished his coffee, went into the bedroom, picked up a dark blue nylon raincoat and a small canvas grip and returned to the living room. She sat with her elbows on the table, a cup of coffee in her hands. He took out his wallet, extracted a couple of banknotes and dropped them on the table.
‘It’s been fun, angel,’ he said, and moved to the door.
‘You know the address.’
When he closed the outside door and turned along the street, it was half past twelve exactly. The rain was falling heavily now and fog crouched at the ends of the streets, reducing visibility to thirty or forty yards.
He walked briskly along the wet pavement, turned confidently out of one street into another and, ten minutes later, halted beside a small black Fiat sedan. He opened the door, lifted the corner of the carpet and found the ignition key. A few moments later, he was driving away.
On the outskirts of Bari, he stopped and consulted the map from the glove compartment. Matano was about twelve miles away on the coast road running south to Brindisi. An easy enough run, although the fog was bound to hold him up a little.
He lit a cigarette and started off again, concentrating on his driving as the fog grew thicker. He was finally reduced to a cautious crawl, his head out of the side window. It was almost an hour later when he halted at a signpost that indicated Matano to the left.
As he drove along the narrow road, he could smell the sea through the fog and gradually it seemed to clear a little. He reached Matano fifteen minutes later and drove through silent streets towards the waterfront.
He parked the car in an alley near the Club Tabu as instructed and went the rest of the way on foot.
It was dark and lonely on the waterfront and the only sound was the lapping of water against the pilings as he went down a flight of stone steps to the jetty.
It was quiet and deserted in the yellow light of a solitary lamp and he paused halfway along to examine the motor cruiser moored at the end. She was a thirty-footer with a steel hull, probably built by Akerboon, he decided. She was in excellent trim, her sea-green paintwork gleaming. It wasn’t at all what he had expected. He examined the name Buona Esperanza on her hull with a slight frown.
When he stepped over the rail, the stern quarter was festooned with nets, still damp from the day’s labour and stinking of fish, the deck slippery with their scales.
Somewhere in the distance the door of an all-night café opened and music drifted out, faint and far away, and for no accountable reason Noci shivered. It was at that moment that he realized he was being watched.
The man was young, slim and wiry with a sun-blackened face that badly needed a shave. He wore denims and an old oilskin coat, and a seaman’s cap shaded calm, expressionless eyes. He stood at the corner of the deckhouse, a coiled rope in one hand, and said nothing. As Noci took a step towards him, the door of the wheelhouse opened and another man appeared.
He was at least six feet three, his great shoulders straining the seams of a blue pilot coat, and he wore an old Italian Navy officer’s cap, the gold braid tarnished by exposure to salt air and water. He had perhaps the ugliest face Noci had ever looked upon, the nose smashed and flattened, the white line of an old scar running from the right eye to the point of the chin. A thin cigar of the type favoured by Dutch seamen was firmly clenched between his teeth and he spoke without removing it.
‘Guilio Orsini, master of the Buona Esperanza.’
Noci felt a sudden surge of relief flow through him as tension ebbed away. ‘Enrico Noci.’
He held out his hand. Orsini took it briefly and nodded to the young deckhand. ‘Let’s go, Carlo.’ He jerked his thumb towards the companionway. ‘You’ll find a drink in the saloon. Don’t come up until I tell you.’
As Noci moved towards the companionway, Carlo cast off and moved quickly to the stern. The engine burst into life, shattering the quiet, and the Buona Esperanza turned from the jetty and moved into the fog.
The saloon was warm and pleasantly furnished. Noci looked around approvingly, placed his canvas grip on the table and helped himself to a large whisky from a cabinet in one corner. He drank it quickly and lay on one of the bunks smoking a cigarette, a warm, pleasurable glow seeping through him.
This was certainly an improvement on the old tub in which he had done the run to Albania before. Orsini was a new face, but then there was nothing surprising in that. The faces changed constantly. In this business, it didn’t pay to take chances.
The boat lifted forward with a great surge of power, and a slight smile of satisfaction touched Noci’s mouth. At this rate they would be landing him on the coast near Durres before dawn. By noon he would be in Tirana. More dollars to his account in the Bank of Geneva, and this was his sixth trip in as many months. Not bad going, but you could take the pitcher to the well too often. After this, a rest was indicated – a long rest.
He decided he would go to the Bahamas. White beaches, blue skies and a lovely tanned girl wading thigh-deep from the sea to meet him. American, if possible. They were so ingenuous, had so much to learn.
The engines coughed once and died away and the Buona Esperanza slowed violently as her prow sank into the waves. Noci sat up, head to one side as he listened. The only sound was the lapping of the water against her hull.
It was some sixth sense, the product of his years of treachery and double-dealing, of living on his wits, that warned him that something was wrong. He swung his legs to the floor, reached for the canvas grip, unzipped it and took out a pistol. He released the safety catch and padded across to the foot of the companionway. Above him, the door opened and shut, creaking slightly as the boat pitched in the swell.
He went up quickly, one hand against the wall, paused and raised his head cautiously. The deck seemed deserted, the drizzle falling in silver cobwebs through the navigation lights.
He stepped out and, on his right, a match flared and a man moved out of the shadows, bending his head to light a cigarette. The flame revealed a handsome devil’s face, eyes like black holes above high cheekbones. He flicked the match away and stood there, hands in the pockets of his slacks. He wore a heavy fisherman’s sweater and his dark hair glistened with moisture.
‘Signor Noci?’ he said calmly.
‘Who the hell are you?’ Noci demanded.
‘My name is Paul Chavasse.’
It was a name with which Noci was completely familiar. An involuntary gasp rose in his throat and he raised the pistol. A hand like iron clamped on his wrist, wrenching the weapon from his grasp, and Guilio Orsini said, ‘I think not.’
Carlo moved out of the shadows to the left and stood waiting. Noci looked about him helplessly and Chavasse held out his hand.
‘I’ll have the envelope now.’
Noci produced it reluctantly and handed it across, trying to stay calm as Chavasse examined the contents. They could be no more than half a mile from the shore, no distance to a man who had been swimming since childhood, and Noci was under no illusions as to what would happen if he stayed.
Chavasse turned over the first sheet of paper and Noci ducked under Orsini’s arm and ran for the stern rail. He was aware of a sudden cry, an unfamiliar voice, obviously Carlo’s, and then he slipped on some fish scales and stumbled headlong into the draped nets.
He tried to scramble to his feet, but a foot tripped him and then the soft, clinging, stinking meshes seemed to wrap themselves around him. He was pulled forward on to his hands and knees and looked up through the mesh to see Chavasse peering down at him, the devil’s face calm and cold.
Orsini and Carlo had a rope in their hands and, in that terrible moment, Noci realized what they intended to do and a scream rose in his throat.
Orsini pulled hard on the rope and Noci lurched across the deck and cannoned into the low rail. A foot caught him hard against the small of the back and he went over into the cold water.
As he surfaced, the net impeding every movement he tried to make, he was aware of Orsini running the end of the line around the rail, of Carlo leaning out of the wheelhouse window waiting. A hand went up, and the Buona Esperanza surged forward.
Noci went under with a cry, then surfaced on a wave, choking for breath. He was aware only of Chavasse at the rail, watching, face calm in the fog-shrouded light, and then, as the boat increased speed, he went under for the last time.
As he struggled violently, water forcing the air from his lungs, and then suddenly he was aware of no pain, no pain at all. He seemed to be floating on soft white sand beneath a blue sky and a beautiful sun-tanned girl waded from the sea to join him, and she was smiling.
4 (#ulink_c409d7c9-0d8a-5e60-a8f7-d307ba621d39)
Chavasse was tired and his throat was raw from too many cigarettes. Smoke hung in layers from the low ceiling, spiralling in the heat from the single bulb above the green baize table, drifting into the shadows.
There were half a dozen men sitting in on the game. Chavasse, Orsini, Carlo Arezzi, his deckhand, a couple of fishing-boat captains and the sergeant of police. Orsini lit another of his foul-smelling Dutch cheroots and pushed a further two chips into the centre.
Chavasse shook his head and tossed in his hand. ‘Too rich for my blood, Guilio.’
There was a general murmur and Guilio Orsini grinned and raked in his winnings. ‘The bluff, Paul, the big bluff. That’s all that counts in this game.’
Chavasse wondered if that explained why he was so bad at cards. For him, action had to be part of a logical progression based on a carefully reasoned calculation of the risk involved. In the great game of life and death he had played for so long, a man could seldom bluff more than once and get away with it.
He pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘That’s me for tonight, Guilio. I’ll see you on the jetty in the morning.’
Orsini nodded. ‘Seven sharp, Paul. Maybe we’ll get you that big one.’
The cards were already on their way round again as Chavasse crossed to the door, opened it and stepped into a whitewashed passage. In spite of the lateness of the hour, he could hear music from the front of the club, and careless laughter. He took down an old reefer jacket from a peg, pulled it on and opened the side door.
The cold night air cut into his lungs as he breathed deeply to clear his head, and moved along the alley. A thin sea fog rolled in from the water and, except for the faint strains of music from the Tabu, silence reigned.
He found a crumpled packet of cigarettes in his pocket, extracted one and struck a match on the wall, momentarily illuminating his face. As he did so, a woman emerged from a narrow alley opposite, hesitated, then walked down the jetty, the clicking of her high heels echoing through the night. A moment later, two sailors moved out of the entrance of the Tabu, crossed in front of Chavasse and followed her.
Chavasse leaned against the wall, feeling curiously depressed. There were times when he really wondered what it was all about, not just this dangerous game he played, but life itself. He smiled in the darkness. Three o’clock in the morning on the waterfront was one hell of a time to start thinking like that.
The woman screamed and he flicked his cigarette into the fog and stood listening. Again the screaming sounded, curiously muffled, and he started to run towards the jetty. He turned a corner and found the two sailors holding her on the ground under a street lamp.
As the nearest one turned in alarm, Chavasse lifted a boot into his face and sent him back over the jetty. The other leapt towards him with a curse, steel glinting in his right hand.
Chavasse was aware of the black beard, blazing eyes and strange hooked scar on the right cheek, and then he flicked his cap into the man’s face and raised a knee into the exposed groin. The man writhed on the ground, gasping for breath, and Chavasse measured the distance and kicked him in the head.
In the water below the jetty came the sound of a violent splashing, and he moved to the edge and saw the first man swimming vigorously into the darkness. Chavasse watched him disappear, then turned to look for the woman.
She was standing in the shadow of a doorway and he went towards her. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I think so,’ she replied, in a strangely familiar voice, and stepped out of the shadows.
His eyes widened in amazement. ‘Francesca! What in the world are you doing here?’
Her dress had been ripped from neck to waist and she held it in place, a slight smile on her face. ‘We were supposed to have a date on the terrace at the Embassy a week ago. What happened?’
‘Something came up,’ he said. ‘The story of my life. But what are you doing on the Matano waterfront at this time of the morning?’
She swayed forward and he caught her just in time, holding her close to his chest for a brief moment. She smiled up at him wanly.
‘Sorry about that, but all of a sudden I felt a little light-headed.’
‘Have you far to go?’
She brushed a tendril of hair back from her forehead. ‘I left my car somewhere near here, but all the streets look the same in the fog.’
‘Better come back with me to my hotel,’ he said. ‘It’s just around the corner.’ He slipped off his jacket and draped it round her shoulders. ‘I could fix you up with a bed.’
Laughter bubbled out of her, and for a moment she was once again the exciting girl he had met so briefly at the Embassy ball.
‘I’m sure you could.’
He put an arm round her. ‘Don’t worry, I think you’ve had quite enough excitement for one night.’
There was the scrape of a shoe on the cobbles behind them, and he swung round and saw the other man lurching into the fog, hands to his smashed face.
Chavasse took a quick step after him and Francesca caught his sleeve. ‘Let him go. I don’t want the police in on this.’
He looked down into her strained and anxious face. ‘If that’s the way you want it.’
There was something strange here, something he didn’t understand. They walked along the jetty and turned on to the waterfront. As port towns went, Matano was reasonably tame, but not so tame that pretty young girls could walk around the dock area at three a.m. and expect to get away with it. One thing was certain. Francesca Minetti must have had a pretty powerful reason for being there.
The hotel was a small stuccoed building on a corner, an ancient electric sign over the entrance, but it was clean and cheap and the food was good. The owner was a friend of Orsini.
He slept at the desk, head in hands, and Chavasse reached over to the board without waking him and unhooked the key. They crossed the hall, mounted narrow wooden stairs and passed along a whitewashed corridor.
The room was plainly furnished with a brass bed, a washstand and an old wardrobe. As elsewhere in the house, the walls were whitewashed and the floor highly polished.
Francesca stood just inside the door, one hand to the neck of her dress, holding it in place, and looked around approvingly.
‘This is nice. Have you been here long?’
‘Almost a week now. It’s my first holiday in a year or more.’
He opened the wardrobe, rummaged among his clothes and finally produced a black polo-neck sweater in merino wool. ‘Try that for size while I get you a drink. You look as if you could do with one.’
She turned her back and pulled the sweater over her head as he went to a cupboard in the corner. He took out a bottle of whisky and rinsed a couple of glasses in the bowl on the washstand. When he turned, she was standing by the bed watching him, looking strangely young and defenceless, the dark sweater hanging loosely about her.
‘Sit down, for God’s sake, before you fall down,’ he said.
There was a cane chair by the french window leading to the balcony and she slumped into it and leaned her head against the glass window, staring into the darkness. Out at sea, a foghorn boomed eerily and she shivered.
‘I think that must be the loneliest sound in the world.’
‘Thomas Wolfe preferred a train whistle,’ Chavasse said, pouring whisky into one of the glasses and handing it to her.
She looked puzzled. ‘Thomas Wolfe? Who was he?’
He shrugged. ‘Just a writer – a man who knew what loneliness was all about.’ He swallowed a little of his whisky. ‘Girls shouldn’t be on the waterfront at this time of the morning; I suppose you know that? If I hadn’t arrived when I did, you’d have probably ended up in the water after they’d finished with you.’
She shook her head. ‘It wasn’t that kind of assault.’
‘I see.’ He drank some more of his whisky and considered the point. ‘If it would help, I’m a good listener.’
She held her glass in both hands and stared down at it, a troubled look on her face, and he added gently, ‘Is this something official? A Bureau operation, perhaps?’
She looked up, real alarm on her face, and shook her head vigorously. ‘No, they know nothing about it and they mustn’t be told, you must promise me that. It’s a family matter, quite private.’
She put down her glass, stood up and walked restlessly across the room. When she turned, there was an expression of real anguish on her face. She pushed her hair back with a quick nervous gesture and laughed.
‘The trouble is, I’ve always worked inside. Never in the field. I just don’t know what to do in a situation like this.’
Chavasse produced his cigarettes, put one in his mouth and tossed the packet across to her. ‘Why not tell me about it? I’m a great one for pretty girls in distress.’
She caught the packet automatically and stood there looking at him, a slight frown on her face. She nodded slowly. ‘All right, Paul, but anything I tell you is confidential. I don’t want any of this getting back to my superiors. It could get me into real trouble.’
‘Agreed,’ he said.
She came back to her chair, took a cigarette from the packet and reached up for a light. ‘How much do you know about me, Paul?’
He shrugged. ‘You work for us in Rome. My boss told me you were one of the best people we had out here and that’s good enough for me.’
‘I’ve worked for the Bureau for two years now,’ she said. ‘My mother was Albanian, so I speak the language fluently. I suppose that’s what first interested them in me. She was the daughter of a gegh chieftain. My father was a colonel of mountain troops in the Italian occupation army in 1939. He was killed in the Western Desert early in the war.’
‘Is your mother still alive?’
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Jack Higgins
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Шпионские детективы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Super-spy Paul Chavasse – one of Jack Higgins’s most extraordinary heroes – embarks on a mission to Albania, only to find himself at the centre of a deadly double-cross, fighting for his life.It’s a trip that agent Paul Chavasse will never forget. His destination: the isolated republic of Albania on the Adriatic coast, at a time when the regime is at its most repressive and the people live in daily fear of the ruthless secret police. His job: to find a double agent whose cover has been blown and put him out of commission, permanently. But what Chavasse doesn’t know is that deep within the twisting channels of the perilous coastal marshes, someone has set a trap for him – someone who holds the keys of hell.