“Which doesn’t help any of us one little bit,” Chavasse said.
He went and sat on a packing case, turning up the collar of his jacket, and folded his arms to conserve what heat was left in his body, thinking about Francesca Minetti. So Enrico Noci had been her husband? Strange that a woman so obviously intelligent should fall for that sort of man.
Orsini and Liri were talking together in low voices, an intimacy between them. What was it someone had once said? A day told you as much about a person as ten years? Pity they’d had to meet under such circumstances.
How ironic that Guilio Orsini, the man who had penetrated the main harbor at Alexandria on one of the first underwater chariots, who had sunk two British destroyers, survivor of one desperate exploit after another through the years, should end like this because he had been touched by the apparent sorrow of a young girl. Life could be strangely puzzling. After a while, his head dropped forward on his breast and he slept.
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.