Agreed, Jacob?”
Malik nodded. “I’ll take her out of the harbor. I know what I’m doing. With this engine, we should make it in a little over three hours, allowing for the weather, of course, which I must say doesn’t look too good.”
He went out on deck and Chavasse followed him. He stood at the rail, looking back at Marseilles, as they moved out to sea. An old city-they had all been here. Phoenician, Greek, Roman. Beyond Cape Croisette, the sky was dark and ominous, and as they lifted to meet the swell from the open sea, rain spotted the deck in great heavy drops.
FROM the sea, the Camargue was a line of sand dunes drifting into the distance, and as they moved in, great banks of reeds and marsh grass lifted out of the water as if to greet them. With them came the heavy, pungent odor of the marshes compounded of salt and rotting vegetation and black gaseous mud, a smell that hinted at a darker, more primeval world, a place that time had bypassed.
The bad weather had not developed as expected and the rain had held off except for intermittent showers. As they moved in toward the land, Malik once more took the wheel and Chavasse and Darcy stood at the rail.
A half dozen white horses stood on a sandbank and watched them as they went by, and beyond, hundreds of flamingos paced through the shallows, setting the air aflame with the glory of their plumage.
“What happens now, Paul?” Malik asked. “Do we stop at the village or keep going?”
“No harm in calling in,” Chavasse said. “You can visit the local store, see what you can find out. Darcy and I had better stay in the background, just in case.”
“All right.” Malik nodded. “To pass through without stopping would probably engender an unhealthy interest about our identity and business anyway. Small communities are the same the world over.”
And Chatillon was certainly that: two primitive wooden jetties standing just out of the water, an assortment of small boats and a couple of dozen houses. Malik took
The Pole limped away and Chavasse lounged in the stern, fiddling with a fishing rod, part of the general equipment Malik had provided. There didn’t seem to be a great deal of activity on shore. About fifty yards away, a man worked on a boat, and two old men sat on the other jetty mending wildfowling nets.
Malik returned in fifteen minutes, carrying a paper bag loaded with various provisions. “Typical French provincials,” he said, as Chavasse helped him over the rail. “Suspicious as hell of all strangers, but wanting to know every last detail of your business.”
“And what did you tell them.”
“That I was from Marseilles with a friend to do some bird-watching and a little fishing. As I told you before, they get people like that in here all the time.”
“And they accepted your story?”
“Completely. It was an old woman in her seventies and her idiot son. I got out the map and asked her where there was a good place to tie up for the night, which gave me an excuse to put my finger on Hellgate amongst other places.”
“What was her reaction?”
“Nothing very exciting. It’s private. Nice people, but they don’t encourage visitors.”
“Fair enough,” Chavasse said. “Let’s get moving. It’ll be dark soon.”
Thunder rumbled menacingly in the distance, and Malik pressed the starter as Chavasse cast off. Darcy didn’t come on deck until they were well away from the village and proceeding along a narrow channel, reeds pressing in on either hand.
Chavasse scrambled up on top of the cabin and opened the map. At first it was relatively simple to chart a course, but it became progressively more difficult the deeper into the marshes they went.
They had deliberately avoided staying with the principal waterway that gave direct access to Hellgate and kept to the northeast, so that in the end, they were approaching it from the rear.
It was almost dark when they turned into a small lagoon, and he called softly, “Okay, we’ll make this do.”
Malik cut the motor and Darcy heaved the anchor over the side into eight or nine feet of water. Suddenly, it was quiet except for the croaking of bullfrogs and the occasional stirring of a bird in the thickets.
“How far?” Darcy asked.
“Quarter of a mile, no more,” Chavasse said. “We’ll go on in the rubber boat at first light and take a look at the place.”
“An interesting prospect,” Malik said.
“Oh, it should be that, all right.”
Above them, thunder cracked the sky wide open, and as darkness fell, rain fell with it in a sudden drenching downpour that sent them running to the shelter of the cabin.
Hellgate
It was a cold gray world that Chavasse stepped into when he went on deck at four-thirty on the following morning. Rain hammered into the waters of the marsh with a thousand voices and yet life stirred out there in the gloom. Birds called and wild geese lifted into the rain.
He was wearing waterproof nylon waders and a hooded anorak and a pair of binoculars hung around his neck. Darcy Preston joined him, wearing a similar outfit, and was followed by Malik, who sheltered under a large black umbrella.
“The last place God made.” The Pole shuddered. “I’d forgotten there was such a time of day.”
“Good for the soul, Jacob.” Chavasse hauled in the dinghy. “We shouldn’t be long-a couple of hours at the most. I just want to size things up, that’s all.”
“Just make sure you know how to find your way back,” Malik said. “It’s not too easy in a place like this.”
Darcy Preston took the oars and pulled away, and in a few moments
“This is how it must have seemed at the beginning of time,” Darcy said. “Nothing’s changed.”
There was a rustle in the reeds on their left, they parted, and a young bull plowed through. He stopped in the shallows and watched them suspiciously.
“Just keep going,” Chavasse said. “That’s a fighting bull with a pedigree as long as your arm. They don’t take kindly to strangers.”
Darcy pulled harder and the bull faded from view. “I certainly wouldn’t like to be on foot with one of those things on my tail,” he said. “What in the name of good sense are they doing running around loose?”
“This is where they raise them. This is bull country, Darcy. They just about worship the damn things. We’re the interlopers, not the bulls.”
They emerged into a large lagoon, and the towers of the house loomed out of the mist fifty yards away. Chavasse made a quick gesture and Darcy pulled into the shelter of the reeds on the right. There was a patch of high ground beyond and they beached the dinghy and got out. Chavasse crouched and focused the binoculars.
As Malik had said, the house was very Russian in style and constructed of wood, with a four-story tower at each end and a verandah at the front. The whole was surrounded by pine trees that had probably been specially planted when it was first built, but what had originally been the garden was now an overgrown jungle.
There was something curiously false about the place. It was too much like the real thing-a film set for a Hollywood version of a Chekhov play.
Chavasse couldn’t see the landing stage, which presumably was on the other side. From an approach point of view, the house couldn’t have had a better strategic situation. The lagoon was half-moon shaped and about a hundred yards wide and two hundred long. There was no possibility of an approach under cover during daylight.
He passed the binoculars to Darcy. “What do you think?”
The Jamaican had a look and shook his head. “I don’t see how anyone could get any closer during daylight without being spotted.”
At that moment, a dog barked and two men came running round the corner of the house. They jumped into view when Chavasse focused the binoculars-two Chinese men, each clutching an assault rifle. The dog joined them
