Free The Keys of Hell by Jack Higgins Page A

near the coast by then.”
    The door banged behind him and a small trapped wind lifted the charts, raced round the deckhouse looking for a way out and died in a corner. Chavasse pulled a seat down from the wall and sat back, his hands steady on the wheel.
    This was what he liked more than anything else. To be alone with the sea and the night and a boat. Something deep in his subconscious, some race image handed on from his Breton ancestors, responded to the challenge. Men who had loved the sea more than any woman, who sailed to the Grand Banks of the North American coast to fish for cod, long before Columbus or the Cabots had dreamed of crossing the Atlantic.
    The door opened suddenly as rain dashed against the window and he was aware of the heavy aroma of coffee, together with another, more subtle fragrance.
    “What’s wrong with bed at this time in the morning?” he demanded.
    She chuckled softly. “Oh, this is much more fun. How are we doing?”
    “Dead on course. Another hour and Orsini takes over for the final run-in.”
    She pulled a seat down beside him, balanced her tray on the chart table and poured coffee into two mugs. “What about a sandwich?”
    He was surprised at the keenness of his appetite and they ate in companionable and intimate silence, thighs touching. Afterwards, he gave her a cigarette and she poured more coffee.
    “What do you think our chances are, Paul?” she said. “The truth now.”
    “All depends on how accurately your brother plotted the final position of the launch when she sank. If we can find her without too much trouble, the rest should be plain sailing. Diving for the Madonna will be no great trick in water of that depth. Depending on weather conditions, we could be on our way back by this evening.”
    “And you don’t anticipate any trouble in the Drin Gulf?”
    “From the Albanian navy?” He shook his head. “From an efficiency point of view, it’s almost nonexistent. The Russians had a lot of stuff based here before the big bust-up, but they withdrew when Hoxha refused to toe the line. Something he hadn’t reckoned on and China’s too far away to give him that kind of assistance.”
    “What a country.” She shook her head. “I can well believe the old story about God having nothing but trouble left to give when it came to Albania’s turn.”
    Chavasse nodded. “Not exactly a happy history.”
    “A succession of conquerors, more than any other country in Europe. Greeks, Romans, Goths, Byzantines, Serbs, Bulgars, Sicilians, Venetians, Normans and Turks. They’ve all held the country for varying periods.”
    “And always, the people have struggled to be free.” Chavasse shook his head. “How ironic life can be. After centuries of desperately fighting for independence, Albania receives it, only to find herself in the grip of a tyranny worse than any that has gone before.”
    “Is it really as bad as they say?”
    He nodded. “The sigurmi are everywhere. Even the Italian Workers’ Holiday Association complain that they get one sigurmi agent allocated to each member of their holiday parties. Even at a rough estimate, Hoxha and his boys have purged better than one hundred thousand people since he took over, and you know yourself how the various religious groups have been treated. Stalin would have been proud of him. An apt pupil.”
    He took out his cigarettes and offered her one. She smoked silently for a while and then said slowly, “Last year, two of your people who were operating temporarily through the Bureau in Rome went missing. One in Albania, the other in Turkey.”
    Chavasse nodded. “Matt Sorley and Jules Dumont. Good men both.”
    “How can you go on living the life you do? That sort of thing must happen a lot. Look how close you came to not getting out of Tirana.”
    “Maybe I just never grew up,” he said lightly.
    “How did it all begin?”
    “Quite by chance. I was lecturing in languages at a British university, a friend wanted to pull a