Jack Higgins - The Keys Of Hell

The third book in the Paul Chavasse series, 1965

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 headfirst, 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 was 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 carpetbag, pulled open a flap in the bottom and produced a short-barreled 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 in London 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.” Marco 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.