The Keys Of Hell

NINE

FRANCESCA COOKED A HOT MEAL, PERHAPS the last they would have for some time, and afterwards Carlo and Chavasse broke out the large rubber dinghy, inflated it and attached the outboard motor.

When they went below for the Aqua-lung, Orsini was sitting on the edge of the table loading a machine pistol. The top of one of the salon seats had been removed and inside there was a varied assortment of weapons. The submachine gun, a couple of automatic rifles and an old Bren of the type used by the British infantry during the war.

“Help yourself,” he said. “A selection to suit all tastes.”

Chavasse picked up one of the automatic rifles, a Garrand, and nodded. “This will do me. What about ammo?”

“There should be plenty in there somewhere.”

There were three boxes stacked together. The first contained grenades, the second, several pouched bandoliers. Chavasse picked one up and Orsini shook his head.

“That’s an explosive we used during the war for underwater sabotage. I’ve had it for years.”

“A hell of a thing to have people sitting on,” Chavasse said.

Orsini grinned. “Just the thing for fishing. You stick a chemical detonator in a piece as big as your fist, heave it over the side and wait. They come floating up by the thousands. I’ll take some along, just in case we need to do any blasting.”

Chavasse found the ammunition in another box, loaded his Garrand and strapped a bandolier containing a hundred rounds about his waist. He helped Carlo up top with one of the Aqua-lungs and they stowed it in the prow of the dinghy along with several other items of equipment. As they finished, Orsini and Francesca came up on deck.

She was wearing an old reefer coat of Carlo’s against the cold, the sleeves rolled back and a scarf tied around her head, peasant-fashion. She seemed calm but was extremely pale, and there were blue shadows under her eyes.

Chavasse squeezed her hand as he helped her into the dinghy and whispered, “Soon be over. We’ll be on our way out again before you know it.”

She smiled wanly, but made no reply, and he clambered into the dinghy beside her and sat on one side, the Garrand across his knees. Orsini followed, seating himself in the stern. He glanced up at Carlo and grinned.

“If all goes well, we could be back by this evening. Certainly no later than dawn tomorrow.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Always you look on the dark side.”

Orsini pressed the automatic starter and the powerful motor roared into life. Wildfowl rose from the reeds in alarm, the sound of them filling the air. As Carlo released the line, the dinghy moved forward quickly. Chavasse had one final glimpse of his dark, saturnine face scowling at them over the rail and then the marsh moved in to enfold them.

THE REEDS LIFTED OUT OF THE MIST LIKE pale ghosts on either hand, the only sound the steady rattle of the outboard motor. Orsini consulted his compass, turning from one narrow waterway to the other, moving always toward the position on the chart Francesca had given them.

She sat in silence, her hands buried in the pockets of the reefer coat, and Chavasse watched, wondering what she was thinking. About her brother, probably. Of his death and her own struggle for survival in this waking nightmare. The stench of the marshes, heavy and penetrating, filled his nostrils and he hurriedly lit a cigarette.

It was perhaps an hour later that they emerged into a broad waterway and Orsini cut the motor. “This is as near as I can make it from the position you gave me,” he told Francesca. “Recognize anything?”

She stood up and gazed around her. When she sat down, there was a troubled look on her face. “They all look the same, these waterways, but I’m sure this wasn’t the place. It was much smaller. I can remember my brother running the boat into the reeds to hide her and then we suddenly emerged into this small lagoon.”

Orsini stood up and looked around, but the reeds stretched into the mist, an apparently impenetrable barrier. He turned to Chavasse and shrugged. “This is definitely the position he charted, so this lagoon she speaks of can’t be far away. We’ll have to go looking for it, that’s all.”

Chavasse started to undress. “I hope to God those last malaria shots I had are still active.”

He kept on his shirt, pants and shoes against the cold, went over the side and struck across the channel. Orsini followed a moment or so later and swam into the mist in the opposite direction.

It was bitterly cold and Chavasse coughed, retching as the strong earthy stench caught at the back of his throat. He swam into the reeds, following a narrow waterway that turned in a circle, bringing him back into the main channel.

He tried another, emerging a few moments later into a shallow lagoon no more than four or five feet deep, and he swam across into the reeds, forcing his way through. Just then, Orsini called through the mist from the other side of the barrier and Chavasse pushed toward him. He came out on the perimeter of a lagoon no more than a hundred feet across as Orsini surfaced in the center.

The Italian floated there, coughing a little, hair plastered across his forehead. Chavasse looked down at the launch, mirrored in five fathoms of clear water, then did a steep surface dive.

He swallowed to ease the pressure in his ears, then grabbed for the deck rail and hung there. The launch had tilted over on the shelving bottom, and he worked his way round to the stern, where he found the name Teresa – Bari inscribed in gold paint across the counter. He had a quick look at the general condition of the wreck, then released his hold and shot to the surface.

He trod water, gasping for air and grinned at Orsini. “Good navigating.”

“My mother, God rest her, always told me I was a genius.”

Orsini turned and swam across the lagoon, plunging into the reeds, and Chavasse followed. They emerged into the main channel within sight of the dinghy and swam toward it.

“Any luck?” Francesca asked.

Orsini nodded. “Just as you described. So near and yet so far. Without that cross-bearing it would have been hopeless. One could have searched these marshes for a year without finding anything.”

They climbed back into the dinghy and he started the motor and steered for the wall of reeds. For a moment, they seemed an impossible barrier and Chavasse and Francesca pulled desperately with all their strength. Quite suddenly, the reeds parted and the dinghy passed into the lagoon.

Orsini cut the motor and they drifted toward the center. Francesca gazed over the side, down through the clear water, her face very pale. She shivered abruptly and looked up.

“Will it take long?”

Orsini shook his head. “We’ll fix a line to hold us in position and one of us will go down. With luck we’ll be out of here in a couple of hours.” He turned to Chavasse. “Feel like another swim?”

Chavasse nodded. “Why not? It couldn’t be any colder than it is up here.”

The wind sliced through his wet shirt as he lifted the Aqua-lung onto his back and Orsini strapped it into place. Francesca watched, eyes very large in the white face, and Chavasse grinned.

“A piece of cake. We’ll be out of here before you know it.”

She forced a smile and he pulled on his diving mask, sat on the rail and allowed himself to fall back into the water. As he surfaced, Orsini tossed him a line. Chavasse went under, paused to adjust his air supply and swam down toward the launch in a sweeping curve.

The Teresa was almost bottom-up, and he hovered over the stern rail to attach the end of his line and then swam toward the deckhouse, which was jammed against the sandy bottom of the lagoon at a steep angle.

There were jagged bullet holes in the hull and superstructure, mute evidence of the fight between the Teresa and the Albanian patrol boat. Some sort of a direct hit had been scored on the roof of the salon and the companionway was badly damaged, the only entrance being a narrow aperture.

He managed it, pulling himself through by force, the Aqua-lung scraping protestingly against the jagged edges of the metal. The salon table had broken free of its floor fastenings and floated against the bulkhead together with several bottles and the leather cushions from the salon.

There was no sign of the Madonna or anything remotely resembling it, and he swam toward the door leading to the forward cabin. The roof at this point had been smashed in by what looked like a cannon shell and a twisted mass of metal blocked the door. He turned and swam out through the salon, squeezed through the entrance and struck up toward the light.

He surfaced a few feet astern of the dinghy and swam toward it. Orsini gave him a hand over the side and Chavasse crouched in the bottom and pushed up his mask.

“The interior’s in one hell of a mess. Stuff all over the place.”

“And the Madonna?”

“No sign at all. I couldn’t get into the inner cabin. There’s a lot of wreckage at that end of the salon and the door’s jammed.”

“But that is where it is!” Francesca said. “I remember now. Marco put it under one of the bunks for greater safety when the shooting started. It was wrapped in a blanket and bound in oilskin against the damp. The whole bundle was about five feet long.”

Orsini pulled a package from under the stern seat. “A good thing I brought along some of that explosive. You’ll have to blast your way in.”

He unfolded a bandolier and took out a piece of plastic explosive shaped like a sausage. “That should be enough. We don’t want to blow the whole boat apart.”

From another bundle he took a small wooden box containing several chemical pencil detonators, each one carefully packed in a plastic sheath.

“How long do these things give me?” Chavasse demanded.

“A full minute. I’ve got some which take longer, but I left them on the boat.”

“Well, thanks very much, friend,” Chavasse said. “What are you hoping to do – collect on my insurance?”

“A minute should be plenty. All you have to do is insert the fuse, break the end and get out of it. I’ll go myself if you like.”

“Stop trying to show off,” Chavasse told him. “In any case, you’ll never get that frame of yours in through the salon companionway.”

He was conscious of Francesca’s face, white and troubled as he gripped the rubber mouthpiece of his breathing tube between his teeth, pulled down his mask and went backwards over the side.

He went down through the clear water quickly, negotiated the companionway with no trouble and moved inside. He jammed the plastic explosive into the corner at the bottom of the door, inserted the detonator carefully. For a moment, he floated there looking at it, then he snapped the end.

The fuse started to burn at once, fizzing like a firecracker, and he turned and swam for the companionway. As he squeezed through the narrow opening, his Aqua-lung snagged on the jagged metal. He paused, fighting back the panic, and eased himself through. A moment later he was shooting toward the surface.

He broke through at the side of the dinghy and Orsini pulled him over. There was a muffled roar and the dinghy rocked in the turbulence. The surface of the water boiled and wreckage bobbed up, sand and mud spreading in a great stain toward the reeds.

They waited for fifteen minutes, and gradually the water cleared again and the hull of the launch became visible. Orsini nodded and Chavasse went over the side.

There was still a lot of sand and mud hanging in suspension like a great curtain, obscuring his vision, but not seriously, and he went down toward the Teresa.

The explosion had even disturbed the entrance to the companionway, the turbulence blowing the wreckage back out onto the deck, and he passed through the salon himself with no trouble.

Where the door to the cabin had been, there was now only a gaping hole, and he swam forward, paused for a moment and then moved inside.

The tiered bunks were still intact but bedding floated against the bulkhead, moving languorously in the water like some living thing. He pushed his way through their pale fronds and looked for the Madonna. It became immediately obvious that he was wasting his time. There was no five-foot bundle wrapped in oilskins as Francesca had described.

The Madonna was carved out of ebony, a heavy wood, but one that would float, and he drifted up through the waving blankets, pulling them to one side, searching desperately, but he was wasting his time.

Back outside, he grabbed for the stern rail and floated there like some strange sea creature, his webbed feet hanging down. Perhaps Francesca had been wrong. Maybe her brother had moved it to some other place in the launch. And there was always the chance that it had been blown clear in the explosion.

He decided to start again, working his way from one end of the launch to the other. But first he had to let Orsini know what had happened.

He surfaced a few feet away from the dinghy and went under again in the same moment. Orsini was standing with his back to him, hands above his head. On the far side of the dinghy was a flat-bottomed marsh punt, an outboard motor at its stern. Its occupants were three Albanians in drab and dirty uniforms, on their peaked caps the red star of the Army of the Republic. Two of them menaced Orsini and Francesca with submachine guns while the third was in the act of stepping across.

Chavasse went under the dinghy in a shallow dive as submachine-gun fire churned the water where he had surfaced. His Aqua-lung scraped the bottom of the punt and he reached up, grabbed the thwart and pulled the frail craft completely over.

One of the soldiers sprawled against him, legs thrashing in a panic, and Chavasse slipped an arm around his neck and took him into deep water. His legs scraped painfully against the stern rail of the Teresa and he hung on with one hand, tightening his grip.

The soldier’s face twisted to one side, hands clawing back, wrenching the breathing tube from his assailant’s mouth. Chavasse tightened his lips and hung on. The man’s limbs moved in slow motion, weakening perceptibly, until suddenly he stopped struggling altogether. Chavasse released his grip and the body spun away from him.

The sand at the bottom of the lagoon had churned into a great cloud and he clamped the mouthpiece of his breathing tube between his teeth and struck out for the surface. Above him there was a tremendous disturbance, limbs thrashing together in a violent struggle.

He came up into the center of it, pulling his knife from his sheath, and struck out at a dim, khaki-clad shape. The soldier bucked agonizingly, shoving Chavasse away so that he broke through to the surface.

A couple of yards away from him, a fifteen-foot motor boat bumped against the dinghy. He was aware of Francesca struggling in the grip of two soldiers, of Orsini floating against the hull, blood on his face.

A soldier rushed to the rail, machine gun leveled, and a man in a dark leather coat with a high fur collar ran forward and knocked the barrel to one side, the bullets discharging themselves harmlessly in the sky.

“Alive! I want him alive!”

For one brief moment Chavasse looked up into Adem Kapo’s excited face, then he jackknifed and went down through the water, his webbed feet driving him toward the edge of the lagoon. He swam into the reeds, forcing his way through desperately. A few moments later he surfaced. Behind him he could hear voices calling excitedly, and then the engine of the motor boat coughed into life.

He broke through into the main channel, moved straight across it into a narrow tributary and started to swim for his life.