Chavasse 3 - Keys of Hell by Jack Higgins

Author:Jack Higgins
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Albania, Action & Adventure, English, Fiction, Suspense Fiction, Adventure Stories, War & Military, Thrillers, Espionage
ISBN: 9780006514671
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 1965-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

THE MOTOR BOAT TURNED OUT OF A side channel into the main stream of the Buene River, the dinghy trailing behind on a line. In the stern, four soldiers huddled together, smoking cigarettes and talking in low tones. The bodies of their two comrades, killed in the lagoon by Chavasse, lay under a tarpaulin beside them.

Orsini was handcuffed to the rail and seemed half unconscious, his head roughly bandaged where a rifle butt had struck him a glancing blow. There was no sign of Francesca Minetti, but Adem Kapo paced the foredeck, impatiently smoking a cigarette, the fur collar of his hunting jacket turned up.

Orsini watched him, eyes half closed, and after a while, another man appeared from the companionway. He was as big as Orsini with a scarred, brutal face and wore the uniform of a colonel in the Army of the Albanian Republic with the green insignia of the Intelligence Corps on his collar.

Kapo turned on him, eyes like black holes in his small face. “Well?”

The colonel shrugged. “She isn’t being very helpful.”

The anger blazed out of the little man like a searing flame. “You said it would work, damn you. That all we had to do was wait and they’d walk right into the net. What in the hell am I supposed to tell them in Tirana?”

“What do you think he’s going to do, swim out of here?” The big man laughed coldly. “We’ll run him down, never fear. A night out on his own in a place like this will shrink him down to size.”

“Let’s hope you’re right.”

Kapo walked across to Orsini, looked down at him for a moment, then kicked him in the side. Orsini continued to feign unconsciousness. Kapo turned away and resumed his pacing.

AS THE MOTOR BOAT ROUNDED A POINT OF land jutting from the mist into the river, Chavasse parted the reeds carefully. He stood up to his chest in water no more than fifteen yards away as it passed and his trained eyes took in everything—Orsini and the soldiers, Kapo standing in the prow, the cigarette holder jutting from a corner of his mouth.

The most interesting thing was the presence of Tashko. When Chavasse had last encountered him, he had been dressed like any seaman off the Taranto waterfront; now he wore the uniform of a colonel in the Albanian Intelligence Corps, which explained a lot. Beyond him, through the deckhouse window, Chavasse could just see the head and shoulders of Haji, the knife man, standing at the wheel.

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.

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