The Keys Of Hell

THIRTEEN

CHAVASSE WAS NOT CERTAIN OF WHAT had caused him to awaken and he lay for a moment, staring through the darkness, conscious of the ache in his cramped muscles, of the bitter cold. His watch was still functioning and the luminous dial told him that it was two A.M. He sat there for a moment, aware of the wind howling across the square outside, and got to his feet.

There was movement in the corridor, and when he looked out through the grille he could see the sentry standing in front of his chair, a look of abject terror on his face. Colonel Tashko confronted him, hands on hips.

“So, you were sleeping, you worm.”

His hand lashed forward, catching the unfortunate sentry across the side of the face, sending him back across his chair with a crash. As the man scrambled to his feet, Tashko booted him along the corridor.

“Go on, get out of it! Report to the guardhouse. I’ll deal with you later.”

Orsini and Liri, awakened by the disturbance, came to the door. “What is it?” Orsini demanded.

“Tashko,” Chavasse told him briefly. “I think he’s drunk.”

The Albanian moved to the door and looked through the grille at Chavasse. His tunic hung open and underneath he was naked to the waist, great muscles standing out like cords.

He unbuckled the black leather holster at his hip and took out a Mauser, then unlocked the door and opened it slowly. Liri took a step forward toward Orsini, whose arm encircled her at once.

“How touching,” Tashko said.

“It’s been a long day and we’d like to get a little sleep,” Chavasse said. “So kindly state your business and get to hell out of here.”

“Still full of fight?” Tashko said. “That’s the way I like it. Let’s have you outside.”

“And what if I tell you to go to hell?”

“I shoot the girl through her left kneecap. A pity to waste good material, but there it is.”

Orsini took a step forward, but Chavasse pushed him back. “Leave it, Guilio. My affair.” He moved into the corridor and Tashko slammed the door and locked it. “I don’t think Kapo’s going to like this. He’s saving me for Peking.”

“To hell with Peking,” Tashko said. “In any case, I’m in charge now. Kapo and the girl left half an hour ago.”

He sent Chavasse staggering down the corridor and followed three feet behind, the Mauser ready for action. They went down a spiral staircase at the far end, turned along a broad stone passage and descended a flight of stone steps that seemed to go down forever.

At the bottom, Tashko produced his keys and unlocked an oaken door bound with bands of iron. Chavasse moved in and Tashko flicked a switch and locked the door behind them.

They stood at the top of a flight of broad stone steps, and beneath them in the dim light of a couple of electric bulbs was an amazing sight. A great Roman plunge bath, perhaps a hundred feet long, stretched into the gloom flanked by broken pillars and the stumps of what must have been at one time well-proportioned colonnades. There was a strong sulphurous smell and steam drifted up from the water.

“Amazing what they got up to, the Romans,” Tashko said. “Of course the medieval fathers who built this monastery weren’t too keen on such pagan survivals. They simply built over it.”

They went down the steps and crossed a cracked tessellated floor. The pool was about six feet deep, the water very still, and the face in the brightly colored mosaic that was its floor gazed blindly up at him out of two thousand years of chaos.

“It’s fed by a natural spring,” Tashko said. “One hundred twenty degrees Fahrenheit. Quite pleasant. They say it’s good for rheumatism.”

As Chavasse turned slowly, the Albanian slipped off his tunic and let it drop to the floor. He held up the keys in one hand, the Mauser in the other, then tossed them into the center of the pool with a quick gesture.

“Nothing to help you this time, my friend.”

So that was it? Quite simply, a case of personal vanity on the part of a man so proud of his brute strength that he couldn’t bear to be beaten by anyone. Chavasse stumbled back as if panic-stricken. If Tashko thought him an easy mark, he might still do something stupid.

The Albanian moved forward, arms at his sides, and laughed harshly. In the same moment he delivered a tremendous reverse punch, the basic karate blow that takes the uninitiated unawares because it is delivered with the hand that is on the same side as the rear foot.

Chavasse crossed his hands above his head to counter with the X-block, the juji-uke, and delivered a forward elbow strike in return that caught Tashko full in the mouth.

The Albanian staggered back, blood spurting from his crushed lips, and Chavasse grinned. “A gyaku-zuki and badly delivered. Is that the best you can do?”

Tashko’s face was twisted by anger, but he immediately dropped into the defensive position, adopting the cat stance, arms down inviting combat. Chavasse moved in, his right forearm vertical, the left protecting his body. They circled warily and Tashko made the first move.

He pushed the heel of his palm at his opponent’s face, and as Chavasse blocked it, delivered a lightning punch to the stomach. Chavasse turned sideways, riding most of the force, and at the same moment fell to one side and delivered a roundhouse kick to the groin. The Albanian keeled over and Chavasse, throwing caution to the wind, raised a knee into the descending face.

He realized immediately that he had made a bad mistake. A blow that would have demolished any ordinary man only succeeded in shaking the Albanian’s massive strength, and great hands clawed across his body, grabbing for his throat.

The lights seemed to be very far away and there was sudden roaring in his ears, and through it he seemed to hear the professor’s monotonous, singsong voice. Science – science and intelligence will beat brute force.

He summoned every effort of willpower and spat full in that great stinking face, and Tashko recoiled in a reflex action that was as natural as breathing. Chavasse stabbed upwards with stiffened fingers at the exposed throat and Tashko screamed and staggered back.

Chavasse rolled over several times and came to his feet as the big man lurched toward him, hands extended, all science forgotten. Chavasse ducked in under the hands, delivering a fore-fist punch, knuckles extended, and it sank into the muscles beneath Tashko’s rib cage. He started to fall and Chavasse raised his knee into the descending face, throwing him back.

Tashko swayed on the edge of the pool, his face a mask of blood, and Chavasse jumped high in the air, delivering a flying front kick, the devastating mae-tobigeri, into the Albanian’s face, knocking him back into the water.

Chavasse followed him in, twisting in midair, going under awkwardly, the warm water drawing him down. His hands took the shock against a bearded mosaic face and he surfaced quickly.

Tashko was about twenty feet away, lurching toward the center of the pool where he had thrown the Mauser, and Chavasse went after him. He scrambled up onto the great back, his hands sliding under the armpits, locking together at the nape of the neck. He started to press and Tashko screamed. All pity dying in him, Chavasse maintained that relentless pressure and the head sank down into the water.

The body bucked and heaved, hands flailing the surface into a cauldron, but Chavasse strengthened his grip and hung on. The end came with startling suddenness. Tashko simply went limp, and when Chavasse released his grip, planed down through the water, turning on his back when he reached bottom.

Chavasse took a quick breath and went after the Mauser. The keys were perhaps ten feet away and he had to push Tashko to one side to pick them up. The Albanian’s eyes stared into eternity, blood drifting in brown strings from his smashed face, and Chavasse turned and swam for the side.

He sat on the edge for perhaps five minutes, his chest heaving, drawing air into his tortured lungs. When he felt a little better, he got to his feet and mounted the steps. He had to try four keys before he found the right one. As he opened the door, he looked down for the last time at Tashko, who stared up at him, just another figure in the mosaic now. He switched off the lights, closed the door and locked it.

The corridors were quiet and he met no one on his way back. Outside the storeroom, the chair on which the sentry had been sleeping still lay on its side, and he righted it before slipping the Mauser into his pocket and fumbling with the keys.

As he worked through them, Guilio Orsini appeared at the grille. He glanced up and down the passage and an expression of bewilderment appeared on his face.

“What happened to Tashko?”

“He made a mistake,” Chavasse said, swinging the door open. “His last. Let’s get going.”

He turned along the passage, remembering the way they had come. A stone spiral staircase dropped to the first floor, another to the basement. All was quiet and he led the way along a narrow whitewashed corridor, pausing to reconnoiter the entrance hall at the end. There was no sentry, but then, why should there be? The building was encircled by two thirty-foot walls, the main gates in each being strongly guarded.

They had explained earlier to Orsini how they had gained access to the monastery and the big Italian followed Chavasse unhesitatingly, the girl at his side.

They kept to the shadow of the wall, skirting the square on the far side of the guardhouse where a light shone in the window, and entered the cloisters through a gap in the ruined wall. It was very dark and Chavasse moved through the pillars cautiously and turned into the passage containing the cells.

He had to try three before he found one with the grille, and it was Orsini who pulled it out, fingers fastening into the latticework like steel hooks.

“I’ll go first,” Chavasse said. “Then Liri. You follow, Guilio, and replace the grille as you come down.”

He shot down the stone chute on his back, forearms raised to protect his face, and landed in the tunnel below with a splash. Liri followed so quickly that she cannoned into him as he was getting to his feet. Orsini joined them a moment later and they crouched in a little group.

It was so dark in the tunnel that they couldn’t see each other’s faces, and Chavasse said quietly, “This isn’t going to be any picnic. Whatever happens, keep close together. As long as we can make it to the main channel, we can’t go wrong, because it’s bound to flow in the direction of the river.”

“Anything’s preferable to what we’ve just left,” Orsini said. “Let’s get moving.”

Chavasse started along the tunnel bent double, Liri holding on to the tail of his oilskin jacket. It was a strange, claustrophobic sensation, like nothing he had ever experienced before, and yet he wasn’t frightened. The darkness was a friend, cloaking their flight, enfolding them in gentle hands, and he was grateful.

A few moments later they emerged from the tunnel into the central cavern. He stood thigh-deep in the stinking water, staring into the darkness.

“Father Shedu counted eight openings to the left from where we came out, Paul,” Liri said.

He nodded. “Keep behind me, both of you. I’ve got an idea.”

He took out the Mauser, pointed it at the water and fired. In the single brilliant flash of light, the tunnel openings stood out like dark wounds. He fired again, counting quickly, then started across the pool.

His questing hand found the opening and he grunted.

Fifty yards farther on, the passage emptied itself into the main tunnel and he could hear the splash and gurgling of the water on its way down to the river. Already the stench seemed to be lessening, and as he followed the wall, Chavasse breathed deeply to clear the heaviness that weighed upon his brain.

The landing stage loomed out of the darkness, light flowing down from the candles burning at the icon in the niche at the head of the stairs. Liri’s punt was still tied to the bottom of the steps, and Chavasse sat on the edge of the landing stage and rubbed the back of one hand wearily across his eyes.

“How much juice you got in that thing? Enough to get us to the coast?”

“I think so. Most of the way, at least.”

“We still need a compass to get back to the Buona Esperanza,” Orsini said. “At least if we’re going to go now in the dark.”

“We can’t afford to wait till dawn,” Chavasse said. “That’s when Kapo will send Francesca in the dinghy. If we’re going to beat them to it, we must go now.”

“Father Shedu will have a compass,” Liri said. “Wait here. I’ll go and get him.”

She mounted the steps and the door closed behind her. Orsini slumped down beside Chavasse. “What a girl. Most would have had hysterics by now.”

“She’ll have to come with us,” Chavasse said. “She can’t stay here.”

“What about an entry permit? I know what it’s like for the stateless refugees.”

“Don’t worry about that. I know the right people at the Ministry in Rome. I’ll see she gets treated like royalty. We’ll even find her a job. She’s earned it.”

“Maybe she won’t need a job.”

Chavasse glanced at him curiously. “You make up your mind in a hurry, don’t you?”

Orsini shrugged. “You either know straightaway, or it’s no good. Of course, I’ve got twenty years on her.”

“I wouldn’t let that worry you,” Chavasse said. “She knows a man when she sees one.”

He sat there, his left arm aching like hell, his strength slowly ebbing, and after a while the door clicked open and Father Shedu came down the steps with Liri.

“So miracles can still happen,” he said as he moved forward.

“My friend Guilio Orsini, Father,” Chavasse said. “I’m glad you kept out of it back there. They still haven’t got the slightest idea how we got inside.”

The priest poured brandy into a couple of tin mugs and handed a small basket to Liri. “Not much, I’m afraid. Bread and cheese and some dried meat. The rich, full life is long in coming for the People’s Republic.”

“We’ll eat it on the way,” Chavasse said. He drank some of the brandy and coughed as it burned its way down his throat.

“Liri has told me what happened in there,” the priest said. “It pains me to know this woman deceived you.”

“And she’ll go on playing the same game unless we can manage to stop her,” Chavasse said. “Liri thought you might have a compass?”

The priest held one forward, pressing a small spring so that the lid flew open. Chavasse examined it, noting the inscription “W.D. 1941” and the official broad arrow.

“British Army issue?”

“A souvenir from another life. Take it with my blessing.” He turned to Liri and placed a hand on her shoulder. “And what happens to you, Liri?”

“She goes with us, Father,” Orsini said gruffly. “I’ll look after her.”

The priest gazed at him searchingly and then smiled. “God moves in His own strange ways. Now go, all of you, while there is still time.”

They dropped into the boat and Liri took the tiller. The roaring of the engine seemed to fill the cavern when it broke into life and the boat turned away quickly.

As they moved through the dark entrance, Chavasse glanced back and saw the Franciscan still standing there watching them. A moment later, they swung into the main current and turned downstream through the darkness.