“Do I get it?”
The old man looked out over the city, an abstracted frown on his face. “Oh, yes, Paul, you can have your leave – after you’ve done a little chore for me.”
Chavasse groaned and the older man turned and came back to the desk. “Don’t worry, it won’t take long, but you’ll have to leave tonight.”
“Is that necessary?”
The old man nodded. “I’ve got transport laid on and you’ll need help. Preferably this chap Orsini from the sound of him. We’ll offer a good price.”
Chavasse sighed, thinking of Francesca Minetti waiting on the terrace, of the good food and wine in the buffet room below. He sighed again and stubbed out his cigarette carefully.
“What do I do?”
The Chief pushed a file across. “Enrico Noci, a double agent who’s been working for us and the Albanians. I didn’t mind at first, but now the Chinese have got to him.”
“Which isn’t healthy.”
“They never are. Too damned earnest for my liking. There’s a boat waiting at Bari to take Noci over to Albania tomorrow night. All the details are in there.”
Chavasse studied the picture, the heavy, fleshy face, the weak mouth. A man who was probably a failure at everything he had put his hand to, except perhaps women. He had the sort of tanned beach-boy good looks that some of them went for.
“Do I bring him in?”
“What on earth for?” The Chief shook his head. “Get rid of him; a swimming accident, anything you like. Nothing messy.”
“Of course,” Chavasse said calmly.
He glanced through the file again, memorizing the facts it contained, then pushed it across and stood up. “I’ll see you in London?”
The Chief nodded. “In three weeks, Paul. Enjoy your holiday.”
“Don’t I always?”
The Chief pulled a file across, opened it and started to study the contents, and Chavasse crossed to the door and left quietly.
THREE
ENRICO NOCI LAY STARING THROUGH the darkness at the ceiling, smoking a cigarette. Beside him the woman slept, her thigh warm against his. Once, she stirred, turning into him in her sleep, but didn’t awaken.
He reached for another cigarette and there was a slight distinctive rattle as something was pushed through the letter box in the outer hall. He slid from beneath the blankets, careful not to waken the woman, and padded across the tiled floor in his bare feet.
A large buff envelope lay on the mat at the front door. He took it into the kitchen, lit the gas under the coffeepot and opened the envelope quickly. Inside there was a smaller sealed envelope, the one he was to take with him, and a single typed sheet containing his movement orders. He memorized them, then burned it quickly at the stove.
He glanced at his watch. Just before midnight. Time for a hot bath and something to eat. He stretched lazily, a conscious pleasure seeping through him. The woman had really been quite something. Certainly a diverting way of spending his last evening.
HE WAS WALLOWING UP TO HIS CHIN IN HOT water, the small bathroom half full of steam when the door opened and she came in, yawning as she tied the belt of his silk dressing gown.
“Come back to bed,
For the life of him he couldn’t remember her name and he grinned. “Another time, angel. I must get moving. Scrambled eggs and coffee like a good girl. I’ve got to be out of here in twenty minutes.”
When he left the bathroom ten minutes later, he was freshly shaved, his dark hair slicked back, and he wore an expensive hand-knitted sweater and slacks. She had laid a small table in the window and placed a plate of scrambled eggs in front of him as he sat down.
As he ate, he pulled back the curtain with one hand and looked down across the lights of Bari to the waterfront. The town was quiet and a slight rain drifted through the yellow street lamps in a silver spray.
“Will you be coming back?” she said.
“Who knows, angel?” He shrugged. “Who knows?”
He finished his coffee, went into the bedroom, picked up a dark blue nylon raincoat and a small canvas grip and returned to the living room. She sat with her elbows on the table, a cup of coffee in her hands. He took out his wallet, extracted a couple of banknotes and dropped them on the table.
“It’s been fun, angel,” he said and moved to the door.
“You know the address.”
When he closed the outside door and turned along the street it was half past twelve exactly. The rain was falling quite heavily now and fog crouched at the ends of the streets, reducing visibility to thirty or forty yards.
He walked briskly along the wet pavement, turning confidently out of one street into another and, ten minutes later, halted beside a small black Fiat sedan. He opened the door, lifted the corner of the carpet and found the ignition key at once. A few moments later he was driving away.
On the outskirts of Bari, he stopped and consulted the map that he found in the glove compartment. Matano was about twelve miles away on the coast road running south to Brindisi. An easy enough run, although the fog was bound to hold him up a little.
He lit a cigarette and started off again, concentrating on his driving as the fog grew thicker. He was finally reduced to a cautious crawl, his head out of the side window. It was almost an hour later when he halted at a signpost that indicated Matano to the left.
As he drove along the narrow road he could smell the sea through the fog, and gradually it seemed to clear a little. He reached Matano fifteen minutes later and drove through silent streets toward the waterfront.
He parked the car in an alley near the Club Tabu as instructed and went the rest of the way on foot.
It was dark and lonely on the waterfront, and the only sound was the lapping of water against the pilings as he went down a flight of stone steps to the jetty.
It was quiet and deserted in the yellow light of a solitary lamp and he paused halfway along to examine the motor cruiser moored at the end. She was a thirty-footer with a steel hull, probably built by Akerboon, he decided. She was in excellent trim, her sea-green paintwork gleaming. Not at all what he had expected. He examined the name
When he stepped over the rail, the stern quarter was festooned with nets, still damp from the day’s labor and stinking of fish, the deck slippery with their scales.
Somewhere in the distance the door of an all-night cafe opened and music drifted out, faint and far away, and for no accountable reason Noci shivered. It was at that moment that he realized he was being watched.
The man was young, slim and wiry with a sun-blackened face that badly needed a shave. He wore denims and an old oilskin coat, and a seaman’s cap shaded calm expressionless eyes. He stood at the corner of the deckhouse, a coiled rope in one hand, and said nothing. As Noci took a step toward him, the door of the wheelhouse opened and another man appeared.
He was at least six feet three, great shoulders straining the seams of his blue pilot coat, and wore an old Italian navy officer’s cap, the gold braid tarnished by exposure to salt air and water. He had perhaps the ugliest face Noci had ever looked upon, the nose smashed and flattened, the white line of an old scar running from the right eye to the point of the chin. A thin cigar of the type favored by Dutch seamen was firmly clenched between his teeth and he spoke without removing it.
“Guilio Orsini, master of the
Noci felt a sudden surge of relief flow through him as tension ebbed away. “Enrico Noci.”
