Jack Higgins - Year Of The Tiger

“A pleasure,” Chavasse told him.

The Chinese smiled. “Until this evening, then.”

He saluted Katya, clicked his heels together like a Prussian and walked away across the courtyard.

“You must excuse me,” Katya said. “I have to see the cook about the evening meal.”

Her tone was formal, almost cold, and before Chavasse could reply she had turned and vanished into the interior of the house. For a moment he stood there, a slight frown on his face, and then he followed her in.

He found Hoffner in the library sitting in front of a roaring fire with a book on his knee, drinking tea from a delicate porcelain cup. The old man looked up. “Did you enjoy your ride?”

Chavasse warmed his hands at the fire. “It was pleasant enough, but the courtryside round here is dreadfully monotonous. I don’t think I could stand it for long.”

“Oh, it has its points,” Hoffner said. “I suppose you know Tsen’s been here?”

Chavasse nodded. “I met him on his way out. He’s already had a word with Joro. It’s nothing to worry about, only some report he has to send to Lhasa. He said he’d have a word with me tonight after dinner.”

“Katya seemed very subdued when she came in,” the old man said tentatively. “I take it you’ve had a word with her?”

Chavasse sat down in the opposite chair and helped himself to tea. “She’s far from happy about the whole thing, but she’s willing to go along.”

“Presumably you haven’t told her the real reason I’m leaving?”

Chavasse shook his head. “There’s no need. The reason you’ve given is a perfectly logical one.” He hesitated and then continued. “As a matter of fact, Doctor, if anything ever goes wrong with this business and the Chinese question you, tell them exactly what you’ve told Katya. That you’re an old man in poor health who prefers to end his days in his own country. The beauty of it is that it makes perfect sense. They’d probably accept it without probing any deeper.”

The old man smiled faintly and shook his head. “But I have the greatest possible faith in the fact that nothing will go wrong.”

At that moment, there was the sound of a vehicle braking to a halt outside. Hoffner frowned and put down his cup. “Now I wonder who that can be.”

As Chavasse started to his feet, the door opened and Katya rushed in. “Colonel Li!” she said quickly in Russian.

Chavasse was aware of the extreme pallor of her face, of the dark eyes suddenly smudged with shadow. He managed one quick smile of confidence as the coldness seeped through him, then picked up his cup of tea.

“What an unexpected pleasure,” he said calmly.

There were quick footsteps in the hall and a man paused in the doorway. He was almost as tall as Chavasse, his uniform perfectly tailored to his slim figure, and a khaki greatcoat with a fur collar swung from his shoulders.

He carried a riding crop in his gloved hand and, smiling, touched it to the brim of his fur cap. “My dear Doctor, how very nice to see you.”

He spoke in Chinese in a deep, pleasant voice and it was obvious that, like Katya, he had European blood in him. His eyes lifted slightly at the corners, but they were shrewd and kindly in a bronzed, healthy face and the lips below the straight nose were well-formed and full of humour.

“We didn’t expect to see you back before the end of the week, Colonel,” Hoffner said calmly.

“As the English would say, something came up.” Li turned to Katya and lifted one of her hands to his lips. “My dear, you look as charming as usual.”

She managed a tight smile. “We’ve had an unexpected guest since you were here last, Colonel. Allow me to introduce you to Comrade Kurbsky, a foreign correspondent of Pravda who is here to interview the doctor.”

The colonel turned to face Chavasse, who held out his hand. “An honour, Colonel.”

Colonel Li smiled good-naturedly and shook hands. “But I’ve already had the pleasure of making Comrade Kurbsky’s acquaintance,” he announced.

There was a moment’s complete silence in which the whole world seemed to stop breathing. “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Chavasse said carefully.

“But surely you remember, comrade?” Li’s mouth curved good-humouredly. “Four nights ago at Rangong? We stayed at the village inn together. Filthy hole, wasn’t it?”

Chavasse took a quick step forward, kicked Colonel Li’s feet from under him and sent him backwards over Hoffner’s chair with a stiff right arm.

As he ran out into the hall, he was already reaching for the Walther. There was no time to think of Hoffner or Katya now. This was a matter of survival and in life, as in war, it was the quick and the unexpected that won the day.

A jeep was parked at the bottom of the steps outside the front door and four soldiers lounged beside it, chatting idly. They glanced up in alarm and he turned to go back inside.

Colonel Li appeared in the hall, an automatic in one hand. Chavasse raised the Walther and pulled the trigger, and nothing happened. He tried again without success, threw the useless weapon at Li’s head and vaulted over the parapet into the courtyard.

He landed badly, losing his balance, and as he got to his feet, there was a sudden pain in his ankle. He gritted his teeth and ran for the gate.

Behind him, boots pounded and he heard Li call loudly, “No shooting!”

He was within a yard of the gate when a foot tripped him and he hurtled to the ground, instinctively putting his hands to his face and rolling away to avoid the swinging kicks. A foot caught him in the side, another grazed his face, and then he was on his feet again, standing with his back to the wall.

He caught one brief glimpse of Katya Stranoff’s face as she stood in the entrance with Hoffner, and then the four soldiers started to move in.

One of them carried a long military truncheon and darted forward and swung at Chavasse’s head. Chavasse ducked, and as the truncheon dented the wall behind him, he lifted a foot into the man’s crotch. The truncheon rattled against the ground as the man collapsed.

The other three soldiers hesitated for a moment and then one of them pulled out his bayonet and started forward cautiously.

Colonel Li was running across the courtyard, and he cried out, “No. I want him alive!”

Chavasse dropped to one knee, snatched up the truncheon and smashed it across the soldier’s arm. The bone snapped like a dry twig and the man screamed, the bayonet slipping from his nerveless hand.

As Chavasse started to rise, the other two soldiers came in with a rush. The first one kicked him in the side, lifting him against the wall.

He grabbed for the man’s foot and they fell to the ground, rolling over and over. As Chavasse pulled himself on top, Colonel Li, who had arrived at that precise moment, picked up the truncheon and hit him one neat and expert blow across the back of the neck.

When they threw him into the cell, Chavasse stumbled over a body and fell against the opposite wall. He crouched on his hands and knees and breathed deeply a couple of times to clear his head. After a while, he felt a little better and turned to examine his surroundings.

The cell was perhaps twenty feet square, its only illumination a small butter lamp which stood in a niche in the wall above his head. In its pale light he saw that the place was crammed with stinking humanity. A few heads turned towards him listlessly to stare vacantly a moment before turning away.

Most of them were Tibetan peasants, their sheepskin shubas wrapped closely about them while they slept. In one corner, an old lama, his face wrinkled with age, yellow robes torn and soiled, stared into space, fingers clicking through his beads while he intoned a succession of Om ma-ni pad-me hums in a low, monotonous voice.