The Keys Of Hell

“Should do,” Murchison said. “Francesca works for the Bureau. She was your radio contact last week. One of our best operatives.”

Chavasse turned. “You were the one who relayed the message from Scutari warning me to get out fast?”

She bowed. “Happy to be of service.”

Before Chavasse could continue, Murchison took him firmly by the arm. “Now don’t start getting emotional, Paul. Your boss has just got in and he wants to see you. You and Francesca can talk over old times later.”

Chavasse squeezed her hand. “That’s a promise. Don’t go away.”

“I’ll wait right here,” she assured him, and he turned and followed Murchison inside.

They moved through the crowded ballroom into the entrance hall, passed the two uniformed footmen at the bottom of the grand staircase and mounted to the first floor.

The long, thickly carpeted corridor was quiet and the music, echoing from the ballroom, might have been from another world. They went up half a dozen steps, turned into a shorter side passage and paused outside a white- painted door.

“In here, old man,” Murchison said. “Try not to be too long. We’ve a cabaret starting in half an hour. Really quite something, I promise you.”

He moved back along the passage, his footsteps silent on the thick carpet, and Chavasse knocked on the door, opened it and went in.

The room was a small, plainly furnished office, its walls painted a neutral shade of green. The young woman who sat at the desk writing busily was attractive in spite of her dark, heavy-rimmed library spectacles.

She glanced up sharply and Chavasse smiled. “Surprise, surprise.”

Jean Frazer removed her spectacles. “You look like hell. How was Albania?”

“Tiresome,” Chavasse said. “Cold, wet, and with the benefits of universal brotherhood rather thinly spread on the ground.” He sat on the edge of the desk and helped himself to a cigarette from a teak box. “What brings you and the old man out here? The Albanian affair wasn’t all that important.”

“We had a NATO intelligence meeting in Bonn. When we got word that you were safely out, the Chief decided to come to Rome to take your report on the spot.”

“Not good enough,” Chavasse said. “The old bastard wouldn’t have another job lined up for me, would he? Because if he has, he can damn well think again.”

“Why not ask him?” she said. “He’s waiting for you now.”

She nodded toward a green baize door. Chavasse looked at it for a moment, sighed heavily and crushed his cigarette into the ashtray.

THE INNER ROOM WAS HALF IN SHADOW the only light a shaded lamp on the desk. The man who stood at the window gazing out at the lights of Rome was of medium height, the face somehow ageless, a strange, brooding expression in the dark eyes.

“Here we are again,” Chavasse said softly.

The Chief turned, taking in everything about Chavasse in a single moment. He nodded. “Glad to see you back in one piece, Paul. I hear things were pretty rough over there.”

“You could say that.”

The older man moved to his chair and sat down. “Tell me about it.”

“ Albania?” Chavasse shrugged. “We’re not going to do much there. No one can pretend the people have gained anything since the Communists took over at the end of the war, but there’s no question of a counterrevolution even getting started. The sigurmi, the secret police, are everywhere. I’d say they must be the most extensive in Europe.”

“You went in using that Italian Communist Party Friendship cover, didn’t you?”

“It didn’t do me much good. The Italians in the party accepted me all right, but the trouble started when we reached Tirana. The sigurmi assigned an agent to each one of us and they were real pros. Shaking them was difficult enough and the moment I did, they smelt a rat and put out a general call for me.”

“What about the Freedom Party? How extensive are they?”

“You can start using the past tense as of last week. When I arrived, they were down to two cells. One in Tirana, the capital, the other in Scutari. Both were still in contact with our Bureau operation here in Rome.”

“Did you manage to contact the leader, this man Luci?”

“Only just. The night we were to meet to really discuss things, he was mopped up by the sigurmi. Apparently, they were all over his place, waiting for me to show my hand.”

“And how did you manage to scrape out of that one?”

“The Scutari cell got a radio signal from Luci as the police were breaking in. They relayed it to Bureau headquarters here in Rome. Luckily for me they had a quick thinker on duty – a girl called Francesca Minetti.”

“One of our best people at this end,” the Chief said. “I’ll tell you about her one of these days.”

“My back way out of Albania was a motor launch called Buona Esperanza run by a man called Guilio Orsini. He’s quite a boy. Was one of the original torpedo merchants with the Italian navy during the war. His best touch was when he sank a couple of our destroyers in Alexandria harbor back in ’41. Got out again in one piece, too. He’s a smuggler now. Runs across to Albania a lot. His grandmother came from there.”

“As I recall the original plan, he was to wait three nights running in a cove near Durres. That’s about thirty miles by road from Tirana, isn’t it?”

Chavasse nodded. “When Francesca Minetti got the message from Scutari, she took a chance and put it through to Orsini on his boat. The madman left his crewman in charge, landed, stole a car in Durres and drove straight to Tirana. He caught me at my hotel as I was leaving for the meeting with Luci.”

“Getting back to the coast must have been quite a trick.”

“We did run into a little trouble. Had to do the last ten miles on foot through coastal salt marshes. Not good with the hounds on your heels, but Orsini knew what he was doing. Once we were on board the Buona Esperanza it was easy. The Albanians don’t have much of a navy. Half a dozen minesweepers and a couple of sub-chasers. The Buona Esperanza has ten knots on any one of them.”

“It would seem that Orsini is due for a bonus on this one.”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

The Chief nodded, opened the official file that contained Chavasse’s report and leafed through it. “So we’re wasting our time in Albania?”

Chavasse nodded. “I’m afraid so. You know the way things have been since the twentieth Party Congress in 1956, and now the Chinese are in there with both feet.”

“Anything to worry about?”

Chavasse shook his head. “The most backward European country I’ve visited and the Chinese are too far from home to be able to do much about it.”

“What about this naval base the Russians were using at Valona before they pulled out? The word was that they’d built it into a sort of Red Gibraltar on the Adriatic.”

“Alb-Tourist took us on an official trip on our second day. Port is hardly the word for the place. Good natural shelter, but only used by fishing boats. Certainly no sign of submarine pens.”

“And Enver Hoxha – you think he’s still firmly in control?”

“And then some. We saw him at a military parade on the third day. He cuts an impressive figure, especially in uniform. He’s certainly the people’s hero at the moment. Heaven knows how long for.”

The Chief closed the file with a quick gesture that somehow dismissed the whole affair, placing it firmly in the past.

“Good work, Paul. At least we know where we stand. Another piece in the jigsaw. You’re due for some leave now, aren’t you?”

“That’s right,” Chavasse said and waited.

The Chief got to his feet, walked to the window and looked out over the glittering city, down toward the Tiber. “What would you like to do?”

“Spend a week or two at Matano,” Chavasse said without hesitation. “That’s a small fishing port near Bari. There’s a good beach and Guilio Orsini owns a place on the front called the Tabu. He’s promised me some diving. I’m looking forward to it.”

“I’m sure you are,” the Chief said. “Sounds marvelous.”