Jack Higgins - A Fine Night for Dying

The summer house reminded him of childhood. The roof leaked and half the floorboards were missing and he slumped down against the wall underneath the gaping window. He used to play in just such a place a thousand years ago.

He closed his eyes, tiredness flooding over him, and a board creaked. When he looked up, Rossiter stood in the doorway, Famia at his side.

Her face was calm, completely impassive, pure as a painting of a medieval Madonna.

The cellar into which two more Chinese guards pushed him was so dark that he had to pause for a couple of moments after the door was closed, waiting for his eyes to become accustomed to the gloom.

“Darcy, are you there?” he called softly.

“Over here, Paul.” There was a movement in the darkness and Chavasse reached out.

“What happened when I jumped the boat? Are you all right?”

“A knock on the head, that’s all. What about you? I thought you’d be long gone.”

Chavasse told him. When he had finished, the Jamaican sighed. “He certainly must have got through to that girl.”

Chavasse nodded. “It doesn’t make sense. She knows what happened on the Leopard . How can she possibly believe anything he says?”

“There could be a very simple explanation,” Darcy pointed out.

“She’s fallen in love with him, you mean?”

“Could be more than that. Might be one of those strong sexual attractions that some people have for each other. It’s possible.”

“I suppose so. Immaterial now, anyway.” Chavasse moved through the darkness, hand outstretched until he touched the wall. “Have you explored?”

“Not really. I was still unconscious when they first dumped me in here.”

Chavasse moved along the wall, feeling his way cautiously. He touched some kind of flat board, felt for the edge and pulled. It came away with a splintering crash and light flooded in.

The window was barred, the glass long since disappeared. It was at ground level and the view was confined to a section of what had once been the lawn stretching down to the landing stage that Chavasse had been unable to see from the other side of the island.

The landing stage had definitely seen better days and half of it had decayed into the lagoon. The rest was occupied by a forty-foot seagoing launch that had obviously once been a motor torpedo boat and L’Alouette .

Four men passed by, carrying boxes between them, and went toward the launch. They certainly weren’t Chinese, and Chavasse strained forward and managed to catch the odd word as they passed by.

“Albanian,” he whispered to Darcy. “Which makes sense. Remember the incident on L’Alouette when Ho Tsen took a swing at Rossiter? He told him he’d have a lot to answer for when they reached Tirana.”

“The only European Communist nation to ally itself with Red China rather than Russia. It certainly explains a great deal.”

The men from the launch returned. A few minutes later, they reappeared, carrying a couple of heavy traveling trunks. “Looks as if somebody is moving house,” Darcy commented.

Chavasse nodded. “Destination Albania. They’ve got to get out, now that we’ve been nosing around. They’ve no guarantee that others won’t follow.”

“But why keep us in one piece?” Darcy said. “I wouldn’t have thought they’d want excess baggage.”

“But we aren’t. I’ve had dealings with the Albanians before, and the Chinese. They’d love to have me back. And you might be useful, too. They can’t tell until they’ve squeezed you dry.”

The bolt rattled in the door, it opened and the two Chinese men appeared. One of them held a machine pistol threateningly, the other came forward, grabbed Chavasse and pushed him roughly outside. They locked the door and shoved him along the corridor.

They passed through a large entrance hall, mounted a flight of uncarpeted stairs and knocked on the first door. It was opened, after a slight delay, by Rossiter who was wearing a dressing gown. He looked as if he had just pulled it on and was certainly naked to the waist. He tightened the cord and nodded.

“Bring him in.”

Beyond him another door stood open and Chavasse caught a glimpse of a bed, the covers ruffled and Famia stepping into her skirt in front of a mirror. Rossister closed the door and turned.

“You do keep popping up, don’t you? Of course, now we know what you are, it isn’t really surprising.”

“What’s happened to the man from Peking?” Chavasse asked. “Doesn’t he want to put his two cents’ worth in?”

“Indeed he does, but at the moment he’s busy packing. Thanks to you and your friend, we’re obviously going to have to leave in something of a hurry.”

“For Albania.”

Rossiter smiled. “You really are on the ball. They’ll love you in Tirana.”

“And all points east?”

“Naturally.” Rossiter produced a cigarette case and offered him one. “A friendly warning. The colonel will want a few words with you when he arrives. Don’t get awkward. You saw what he did to your friend. He only asked him once, then started carving. Your man talked fifteen to the dozen when he had one ear gone. I would have thought you could have done better than him.”

“He was an old man,” Chavasse said. “Trying to make a little extra money. There was no need to do that to him.”

Rossiter shrugged. “All over the world, thousands of people die every day. Your friend Malik was just one more. If his death helps our cause, then he lived and died to some purpose.”

“Word perfect,” Chavasse said. “They must have done a good job on you back there at Nom Bek.”

“You just don’t understand-your kind never does.” Rossiter was grave and serious. “I was like you once, Chavasse, until I was helped to find a new answer, a truer answer, a new meaning for life.”

“So now it’s all right to kill people, old men and women?”

“For the cause, don’t you see that? What’s one life more or less-mine or yours? We’re all expendable. How many men have you killed in your career? Ten? Twenty?”

“I don’t notch my gun, if that’s what you mean,” Chavasse said, feeling strangely uneasy.

“Have you ever killed a woman?”

Chavasse’s mouth went dry, and for a brief moment, a face floated to the surface, the face of a woman he would have preferred to forget.

Rossiter smiled, the strange, saintly face touched with something very close to compassion. “I thought so. The difference between us is only in kind. The first and most important lesson to learn is that it isn’t what we do that is so important as why we do it. I serve a cause-freedom for every man, justice, equality. Can you say as much? What do you defend, Chavasse? Imperialism, capitalism, the Church, decay everywhere, the people crushed and strangled, unable to breathe. God, when I think of the years I spent serving corruption.”

“With all its faults, I’d rather have my way than yours. How many have the Chinese butchered in Tibet in the last five years? Half a million, give or take a few, all for the sake of the cause.”

Rossiter looked slightly exasperated. “You just don’t see, do you? No one matters-no person or persons. We’re working for tomorrow, Chavasse, not today.”

Which, significantly, was the exact opposite of the teachings of the creed in which he had been raised and educated to serve. Chavasse knew now that he really was wasting his time, but kept probing.

“So anything goes, even feeding poor old Montefiore heroin?”

“I first met Enrico Montefiore when I returned to Europe after the Korean War was over. My superiors had sent me to Vienna because they had decided that I was in need of psychiatric treatment to overcome the effects of what they were pleased to call Chinese brainwashing. Montefiore had been on drugs for years. One evening we received a call from a private sanatorium where he was a patient and extremely ill. He thought he needed a confessor.”