Jack Higgins - The Keys Of Hell

The motor boat passed into the mist and he waded onto a piece of comparatively dry land to take stock of the situation. The stench of the marsh filled his nostrils and the bitter cold ate into his bones.

There was a hell of a lot about the whole affair that didn’t make any kind of sense, but the basic situation was obvious enough. Adem Kapo was no ordinary agent, but someone a lot more important than that. Probably a high-ranking sigurmi officer. He’d have to be to have a colonel of Intelligence taking orders from him.

In any event he was a man who knew what he was doing. He’d obviously sailed straight for the Buene from Matano and his twenty-four-hour start had given him the time he’d needed to reach Tama and organize a suitable reception.

The Buona Esperanza must have been under observation from the moment it hit the coast, and tracking the dinghy would have been no great trick to men who knew the marshes.

He wondered what had happened to Carlo. He too was probably on his way to Tama by now. It was the only sizable town in the area and certain to be Kapo’s base.

The engine of the motor boat faded into the distance and he slid into the water and started to swim after it. Within an hour at the outside, they’d be out in force looking for him, probably concentrating their search toward the coast.

Under the circumstances, Tama would probably be a whole lot safer. At least there would be houses scattered along the riverbank, and where there were houses there was dry clothes and food. There might even be a chance of doing something about the others, although he didn’t hold out much hope of that.

ABOUT FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER THE AIR IN his Aqua-lung ran out. He surfaced quickly and waded from the river into the reeds. He pulled off his rubber flippers, unbuckled the heavy Aqua-lung and let it sink into the ooze.

He went forward through the reeds and the wildfowl called as they lifted from the water, disturbed by his passing. After a while he came out on higher ground and moved on through the mist, keeping the river on his left.

It was hard going through mud flats and marsh, and constantly he had to wade across narrow creeks, often sinking up to his waist in thick, glutinous mud. The saltwater stung his eyes painfully and the intense cold steadily drove every trace of warmth from his body until his limbs had lost all feeling.

He moved into the gray curtain and the ground became firmer, and he found himself stumbling across firm sand and springy marsh grass. He paused on a small hillock, head turned slightly to one side. He could smell woodsmoke, heavy and pungent on the air, drifting before the wind.

A narrow arm of the river encircled a small island and a low house looked from the mist. There was no sign of life and no boat was moored at the narrow wooden jetty. Probably the home of a fisherman or wildfowler out at his traps. Chavasse moved upstream, disturbing a wild duck, and walked into the river, allowing the current to sweep him in toward the island.

He landed in the reeds and moved through them carefully, drawing his knife. The house was no more than twenty yards away, a poor enough looking place of rough-hewn logs with a shingle roof and stone chimney.

Two or three scrawny hens picked apathetically at the soil and scattered as he moved across the patch of open ground. The back door was simply several heavy wooden planks nailed together, and it opened with a protesting groan as he unfastened the chain that held it.

He moved into a small dark room that was obviously some sort of kitchen. There was a cupboard, a rough table and a pail of fresh water at the side of the door. The living room was furnished with a table and several chairs. There were two or three cupboards, and a skin rug covered the wooden floor in front of the stone hearth on which logs burned fitfully, heavily banked by ashes.

He crouched to the warmth, spreading his hands, and a cold wind seemed to touch the side of his face. A voice said quietly, “Easy now. Hands behind your neck and don’t try anything stupid.”

He came up slowly. There was a soft footstep and the hard barrel of a gun was pushed against his back. As a hand reached for the hilt of the knife at his waist, he pivoted to the left, swinging away from the gun barrel. There was a cry of dismay as they came together and fell heavily to the floor. Chavasse raised his right arm to bring down the edge of his hand.

He paused. His opponent was a young girl, perhaps nineteen or twenty, certainly no more. She wore a heavy waterproof hunting jacket, corduroy breeches and leather knee boots, and her dark hair was close-cropped like a young boy’s, the skin sallow over high cheekbones, the eyes dark brown. She was not beautiful and yet in any crowd she would have stood out.

“Now there’s a thing,” he said softly and sat back. For a moment, she lay there, eyes widening in surprise and then, in a flash, she was on her feet again like a cat, the hunting rifle in her hands.

She stood there, feet apart, the barrel steady on his chest and he waited. The barrel wavered, sank slowly. She leaned the rifle against the table and examined him curiously. Her eyes took in his bare feet, the shirt and pants that were clinging to his body.

She nodded. “You’re on the run, aren’t you? Where from? The chain gang at Tama?”

He shook his head. “I’m on the run all right, angel, but not from there.”

She scowled and reached for the rifle again. “You’re no gegh , that’s for sure. You speak like a tosk from the big city.”

Chavasse was aware of the enmity that still existed between the two main racial groups in Albania. The geghs of the north with their loyalty to family and tribe, and the tosks of the south from whom Communism had sprung.

There were times when a man had to play a hunch and this was one of them. His face split into that inimitable charming smile that was one of his greatest assets and he raised a hand as the rifle was turned again.

“Neither gegh or tosk. I’m an outlander.”

Her face was a study of bewilderment. “An outlander? From where? Yugoslavia?”

He shook his head. “Italy.”

Understanding dawned. “Ah, a smuggler.”

“Something like that. We were surprised by the military. I managed to get away. I think they’ve taken my friends to Tama.” She stood watching him, a thoughtful frown on her face, and he made the final gesture and held out his hand. “Paul Chavasse.”

“French?” she said.

“And English. A little of both.”

She made her decision and her hand reached for his. “Liri Kupi.”

“There was a gegh chieftain called Abas Kupi, leader of the Legaliteri, the royalist party.”

“Head of our clan. He fled to Italy after the Communists murdered most of his friends at a so-called friendship meeting.”

“You don’t sound as if you care for Hoxha and his friends very much?”

“Hoxha?”

She spat vigorously and accurately into the fire.

CHAVASSE STOOD ON A RUSH MAT BESIDE the large bed and rubbed himself down with a towel until his flesh glowed. He dressed quickly in the clothes Liri had provided; corduroy pants, a checked wool shirt and knee-length leather boots a size too large so that he took them off again and pulled on an extra pair of socks.

The clothes had belonged to her brother. Conscripted into the army at eighteen, he had been killed in one of the many patrol clashes that took place almost daily along the Yugoslavian border. Her father had died fighting with the royalist party, in the mountains in the last year of the war. Since the death of her mother she had lived alone in the marshes where she had been born and bred, earning her living from wildfowling.

She was crouched at the fire when he went back into the living room, stirring something in a large pot suspended from a hook. She turned and smiled, pushing back the hair from her forehead.