Jack Higgins - Year Of The Tiger

He had been subconsciously aware of a slight draught on his right cheek for several moments.

He turned and found Katya standing just inside the door, holding a tray on which stood a glass of hot milk.

He wondered how long she’d been standing there and, more important, just how much she had heard, but she gave him no sign. She moved forward, handed the glass of milk to Hoffner and said calmly in Russian, “Time for bed, Doctor. It’s been a long day.”

Hoffner sighed, took a sip of milk and made a face. “You see, my friend,” he told Chavasse. “The wheel has come full circle. Like a schoolboy, I do as I am told.”

“I’m sure Comrade Stranoff knows what’s best for you,” Chavasse said.

She smiled down at him enigmatically. “But of course, Comrade Kurbsky. In everything.”

For a moment, there was something strange in her eyes. Only briefly, but it told him what he wanted to know before she turned, crossed to the door and went out again.

It was pleasantly warm in the bedroom and someone had obviously made up the fire quite recently. Chavasse placed the oil lamp on the table beside the bed, opened the shutters and stepped out onto a covered balcony which ran the length of the house and overlooked the garden at the rear.

There was no rain, but the wind was moist and he inhaled the freshness of wet earth, and then the tiredness hit him and he went back inside and closed the shutters.

As he started to undress, there was a soft knock at the door and Hoffner came in. He carried an old bathrobe over one arm and, smiling, dropped it across the end of the bed. “I thought you might need one.”

There was something in his voice, a slight element of strain, that brought a frown to Chavasse’s face. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

Hoffner sighed and sat down on the bed. “I’m afraid Katya knows everything.”

Chavasse lit a cigarette calmly. “You’d better tell me about it.”

“It’s very simple. She heard rather more of the tail end of our conversation than we thought. For one thing, she speaks very good English; for another, she’s no fool. She’s just been to my room. Wanted to know exactly what was going on and who you really were.”

“What did you say?”

Hoffner shrugged. “That I’m a tired old man who wants to go home to die and that friends of mine have sent you in to help me get out.”

“And nothing more than that?”

“There didn’t seem any point at the moment.”

“That was wise,” Chavasse told him. “After all, she is a Russian citizen. Helping you is one thing, but aiding and abetting in an affair, the success of which can only be to the ultimate harm of her country, presents her with a difficult psychological choice. In any case, as I said before, the less she knows, the less she can give out under pressure.”

“You know best,” Hoffner said, “but I don’t think you need to worry. As I said before, she isn’t interested in politics. She isn’t even a Party member.”

“If anything goes wrong and Chinese intelligence gets their hands on her, she’ll end up being anything they want her to be,” Chavasse told him grimly.

“I suppose you’re right.” Hoffner got to his feet. “You’d better have a word with her in the morning; at the moment she is quite convinced I’d be committing suicide. That my heart wouldn’t stand the trip.”

“I’ll handle it,” Chavasse told him. “You get some sleep and don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine, I promise you.”

The door closed softly behind the old man and Chavasse stood there for a moment, thinking about the whole affair, and then the tiredness hit him again, driving everything else from his mind.

He had barely sufficient strength to strip the clothes from his body and climb into bed. He blew out the lamp and, for a while, lay there, allowing each tired muscle to relax, staring up at the shadows on the ceiling, and then he was asleep.

He was not aware of coming awake, only of the fact that he was lying there and that the fire was almost out. He raised his wrist and the luminous dial of his watch glowed through the darkness. It was just after two A.M., which meant that he had been asleep for no more than four hours. And yet he no longer felt tired.

As he lay there, the very air seemed electric and humming with energy, as if there was nothing sleeping, as if, outside in the darkness, a presence waited for something to happen.

In the distance, thunder rumbled menacingly and then lightning flared, and in the split second of its illumination he saw each item of furniture in the room clearly.

He swung his legs to the floor, reached for the bathrobe Hoffner had provided him and padded across to the window. As he opened the shutters and stepped out onto the balcony, the rain came in a sudden great rush, filling the air with its voice.

It was bitterly cold, but for a moment or two he stood there breathing deeply, taking the freshness into his lungs, filled with a strange inward restlessness.

A quiet voice said in English, “The night air is not good for one at this altitude, Mr. Chavasse.”

He turned slowly, every sense alert. Katya Stranoff stood a few feet away by the rail and as lightning exploded again, her face seemed to jump out of the night, the high cheekbones somehow accentuating the depths of her dark eyes, her flaxen hair falling down to her shoulders.

And she was beautiful – that was the thing that came to him suddenly and with a sense of wonder. That she was pretty and attractive had been perfectly clear previously, but in that split second as the lightning had flared, he had seen something more.

There was about her an air of innocence trying desperately to come to grips with the harsh realities of the world, reminding him, with a pang, of another girl in another time and another place.

“Can’t you sleep?” he asked.

She shook her head. “One could say I’ve got too much on my mind.”

“Then let’s go inside and discuss it,” he said. “The fire is almost out in my room, but it’s quite warm.”

She moved past him without a word and he followed her in and closed the shutters. When he turned, he saw that she had poked the fire into life again and replenished it with a couple of logs from the pile that was neatly stacked at one side of the hearth.

She sat on the sheepskin rug and held her hands to the blaze, and he pulled a chair forward.

“I saw Hoffner leaving your room earlier,” she said without looking at him. “I suppose he told you about our conversation?”

He nodded. “You mean about your eavesdropping on us when we were talking after dinner?”

She turned quickly, and something sparked in her eyes. “I’m not ashamed. He’s an old man. If I don’t worry about him, no one else will.”

There was a toughness in her voice, an indication of something stronger in her than he would have imagined, and he grinned and held up a hand in mock alarm. “Hey, I’m on your side.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, immediately contrite, “but Hoffner’s been like a father to me. He’s a very wonderful man. I only want what’s best for him.”

“We’re in agreement on that point, for a start.”

“But are we?” she asked. “Do you honestly think that a seventy-four-year-old man with a weak heart has the slightest chance of enduring the kind of trip you contemplate?”

“Under the right circumstances, I do,” Chavasse told her.

“But he’s a sick man,” she insisted. “Do you seriously think he could survive a trip on horseback at this altitude over some of the roughest country in the world?”

“Maybe he won’t have to.”

She frowned at once. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”