Читать книгу Bloody Passage - Jack Higgins, Justin Richards - Страница 6

It was the cold which brought me awake more than anything else and I crouched there in the dark corner, trying to get my bearings. A ray of sunlight drifted out of a channel in the stonework high above my head. I squinted up at it, tried to get to my feet and lost my balance for the excellent reason that I was wearing leg irons and the foot of steel chain between my ankles restricted movement more than a little.

I lay there in the darkness thinking about it for a while, considering the possibility that the whole thing was simply a particularly vivid nightmare, when the iron grating at the top of the shaft was removed and Justin Langley peered in.

Gatano’s battered face appeared at his right shoulder, something which at that stage of the game didn’t surprise me in the least. He laughed hoarsely. ‘He don’t look so good to me, Mr Langley.’

‘A good hot meal inside you, that’s what you need, old stick,’ Langley called. ‘Try this for size.’

He lowered a large biscuit tin on a length of string. It contained a bottle of water and a plate of some kind of cold stew that smelled like a newly opened tin of inferior dog food.

I crouched there like some dumb animal, helpless with rage. Gatano called, ‘Hey, you down there.’

When I looked up he was urinating into the hole. I tried to toss the plate up in his general direction, a futile gesture as I got most of the dogmeat back on my own head.

Langley chuckled. ‘You’ll change your mind, old stick. Tomorrow or the next day or the day after that, you’ll eat it. I promise you.’

My voice, when I answered him, was so calm, so much outside myself that I hardly recognized it as my own. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘What’s it all about?’

The iron grid clanged into place shutting out all light and I sank down into the corner. Some sort of complicated revenge for that evening in Almeria? But that didn’t make any kind of sense. The divers, the seaplane, this place. It was all too elaborate. There was some hidden meaning here, a deeper purpose and I drifted into sleep again thinking about it.

Most men spend their lives trying to claw their way out of one kind of a hole or another, but mine was something very special indeed. A stone shaft fifteen feet deep and four feet square and unclimbable, especially in those leg irons. It was only possible to lie down corner-to-corner, but it was so damn cold that I usually preferred to curl up in as tight a ball as possible.

No blankets and definitely no sanitary arrangements so that by the third day, the stench in that confined space had to be experienced to be believed. I could mark the passage of time simply enough by the light which filtered in through the narrow channel in the stonework above my head and there was always the daily ration lowered in the biscuit tin, although after that first day, it was never possible to see who was up there. I tried calling a few times, but nobody ever answered, and after a while I gave up, for it was obviously the intention to isolate me from any kind of human contact.

It was always the same – a bottle of water and the dog food and Langley was right. By the third day I was cleaning the plate, but boredom was the main problem. There was always sleep, but the cold didn’t help too much there so I tried passing the time by undertaking a kind of personal psychoanalysis.

Freud would have been proud of me. I actually made it back to my third birthday; for the first time since that happy event recalled burying a box of scarlet-coated Grenadier Guards in a cornfield at the back of my English grandfather’s Dorset farmhouse and the feeling of utter desolation at forgetting where. And the next day my father, who was a captain in the Marine Corps stationed at the American Embassy in London …

The grating clanged above my head and Langley peered in. I got to my feet and looked up at him. By my reckoning it was exactly a week since that first morning.

‘My God,’ he said. ‘Something must have crawled in and died. Hose him down.’

The jet of water which followed was cold, but really quite pleasant. It stopped after a while and Langley leaned over and lowered a rope with a loop on the end.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Up with you.’

I came up out of the darkness and found myself in some sort of vault, stone pillars supporting the roof. It was neatly whitewashed and lit by electric light and stone steps in one corner led up to a stout oak door. Two men had the other end of the rope, peas out of the same pod, dark, swarthy looking, wearing identical heavy fishermen’s sweaters, capable of most things if appearances were anything to go by.

They released the rope and one of them said to the other in Italian, ‘Mother of God, he stinks like a dung heap.’

Justin Langley came forward, Gatano at his back. His blond hair hung to his shoulders. He wore a black nylon shirt, skin tight and open at the neck. The broad belt at his waist had a round brass buckle that must have been four inches in diameter and he wore a gold chain round his neck with a bauble on the end which he twirled between his fingers.

I said, ‘You look sweet – honestly.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t, old stick.’ He sighed. ‘It brings out the worst in me.’

He nodded to Gatano who moved forward, a look of what might be termed eager anticipation on his face. When he was close enough he put a fist into my belly. As I doubled over, he hooked his foot under the chain between my ankles and pulled me down.

Langley said sharply, ‘Don’t mark his face!’

I wasn’t sure whether Gatano had heard him or not for he was obviously enjoying himself. He put his boot into me, not very scientifically, three or four times, grunting with effort and then Langley said, ‘All right, that’s enough!’ and pulled him off.

They put the hose on me again and the two Italians picked me up between them and we followed Langley and Gatano up the stone steps. Gatano opened the door and we went out into bright morning sunshine.

I was beginning to function again, well below par, but enough to get by for the moment. We had emerged into a cobbled courtyard surrounded by stone walls. There was a gate at the far end and on the right, steps up to ramparts.

I negotiated them with some difficulty because of the leg irons, but the view was worth it. Massive cliffs, a calm blue sea shimmering in the heat haze, and above us at an even higher level, a citadel standing in a garden.

There was the scent of wisteria and I could smell almond trees as we passed through an iron gate into a semi-tropical paradise. There was the sound of water everywhere, splashing in fountains, gurgling in the conduits as it dropped from terrace to terrace between the palm trees.

We climbed a final flight of steps and emerged on to a broad terrace at a point where the ramparts came together like the prow of a ship. The view was really quite astonishing. There was a table beneath an awning, white linen cloth, silverware, a couple of bottles of wine in a bucket, a waiter in a neatly starched coat at the ready, napkin folded over one arm.

His master stood at the ramparts, an immensely fat man in a white linen suit, long, dark hair flecked with silver. When he turned I saw that he had a walking stick in each hand and leaned heavily on both of them.

It was a strange face, dark, hooded eyes that seemed to look through and beyond you. A brutal, rather sensual mouth and overall a kind of total arrogance. And it was a familiar face, that was the most disturbing thing of all, yet for the life of me I couldn’t remember where I’d seen him before.

He examined me for a long moment, those strange, brooding eyes giving nothing away, then he shuffled across to the table and eased himself down into a wicker chair. He nodded to the waiter who took one of the bottles from the bucket and filled a glass. I was immediately aware of the distinctive aroma of anis.

‘Your health, Major Grant,’ he toasted me.

He had a deep bass voice, totally American, nothing of Europe in it at all. I said, ‘You want to watch it. Too much of that stuff in the heat of the day can freeze your liver. I’ve seen it put strong men on their backs for a week.’

Langley started to say something, but my fat friend waved him down with one hand. He stared at me intently, a frown on his face, then smiled. ‘By God, you know where you are, sir. Confess it!’

‘I think so.’

He slapped his thigh in high good humour and turned to Langley. ‘Didn’t I tell you I’d picked the right man?’

Langley twirled the golden bauble between his fingers. ‘He has a big mouth, I’ll give you that.’

The fat man turned his attention back to me and leaned forward, hands folded over the handle of one of his walking sticks. ‘Come, sir, don’t let me down.’

‘All right.’ I shrugged. ‘The architecture of this fortress for a start. Walls are Norman, probably twelfth century. Most of the rest is Moorish. Then there’s the garden. Papyrus by the main pool, another Arab innovation, and the wine you’re drinking. Zibibbo from the island of Pantellaria. I can smell the anis.’

‘Which all adds up to?’

‘Sicily.’ I squinted up at the sun. ‘Somewhere on the southern coast.’

‘Southeast,’ he said. ‘Capo Passero to be exact.’ He shook his head solemnly, sipped a little of his wine and said to Langley, ‘Remarkable is it not, what the trained mind is capable of?’

Langley looked sullen, picked up a wineglass and held it out to the waiter who filled it for him. The fat man chuckled. ‘Justin is not impressed, Major Grant, but then he likes to be first in the field always. It comes of having been educated at Eton.’

‘You mean the reformatory?’ I said. ‘In Northern Nebraska?’ I shook my head. ‘Poor kid, I don’t suppose he ever really stood a chance.’

Strangely enough Langley reacted to that one with apparent indifference, but his fat friend rocked with laughter. ‘I like that. Yes, I really like that.’ He wiped tears from his eyes with a large white pocket handkerchief. ‘You know who I am, Major Grant?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Stavrou, sir. Dimitri Stavrou.’ He expected a reaction and seeing it in my face, grinned slyly. ‘You know me now, I think?’

‘I should,’ I said. ‘Your picture was on enough front pages nine or ten months ago when they deported you from the States.’

‘An affront to justice.’ He seemed angry for the moment, though whether this was genuine or assumed, it was impossible to say. ‘Although I was born in Cyprus, I lived in America for forty years of my life, Major Grant. I had legitimate business interests.’

‘Like gambling, drugs, prostitution?’ I said. ‘Front man for the Syndicate or the Mafia or whatever they call themselves these days, wasn’t that it?’

There was a hot spark of anger behind those dark eyes. ‘The pot, sir, calling the kettle black, isn’t that how the English would put it?’ He snapped his fingers. ‘The file, Justin, there’s a good boy.’

There was a briefcase leaning against the back of Stavrou’s cane chair. Langley opened it, took out a buff coloured folder and laid it on the table in front of him.

Stavrou put a hand on it. ‘Oliver Berkley Grant. In detail.’

‘What, warts and all?’ I said.

‘I must know it by heart by now.’ He pushed it away ostentatiously and closed his eyes. ‘Father, colonel in the Marine Corps, killed in action in Korea in 1951. Mother English. You were educated at an English public school, Winchester. That was to please her, then West Point. You first went to war the year your father was killed. By the end of the Korean conflict you had collected a D.S.C. and Silver Star and a wound which put you in hospital for nine months. It was the last time you fought in any conventional sense as a soldier.’

Most of this had been delivered in a rather flat monotone at some speed and now, he opened his eyes. ‘How am I doing?’

‘Now I know where I’ve seen you before,’ I said. ‘Gypsy Rose. You had a tent two summers ago on the boardwalk at Atlantic City.’

He was not provoked in the slightest. ‘For the next seven years, Special Services Executive, Major Grant. Military Intelligence. You became especially expert at getting people out of places. After the Bay of Pigs fiasco the Cubans got their hands on an American colonel named Hurwitz. They intended to stage a show trial that would expose America to the world and then on the night of …’ He hesitated. ‘The 31st October, am I right? You landed with half a dozen special service troops and spirited Hurwitz away from an apparently impregnable fortress.’

I was shaken now, rocked straight back on my heel, because what he was giving out was classified information at the highest level.

‘You must be on good terms with the President.’

‘A brilliant operation which made you famous in the Pentagon, at least in a discreet way and one you repeated seven or eight times over the ensu-ing years. Cuba once again. Cambodia, twice in Vietnam and then Albania. An American U2 pilot named Murphy was to be put on trial as a spy. You got him out of the top state security prison in Tirana.’

‘It’s just a knack,’ I said. ‘Something my old grannie taught me when I was in short pants.’

‘And now we come to August, 1966,’ he said. ‘Sylvia Gray, a seventeen-year-old student from Boston, daughter of a friend of your grandfather. An impulsive young lady who went to Prague with a group of other students during the Czechoslovakian revolt and was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a Russian soldier. She shot him in the back three times.’

‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘He was trying to rape a fourteen-year-old girl at the time.’

‘You went to your superiors and asked permission to get the girl out and they refused.’

Strange that I could feel the same impotent rage so many years later.

‘So you went anyway, entered Czechoslovakia illegally and with the help of an underground organization broke the girl out of jail and got her safely home after a rather public gun fight on the Austria–Czech border.’

‘You seem to know it all.’

‘But I do. Everything. A General Court Martial, all highly secret, but just as nasty. They stripped you bare and dumped you in disgrace, well and truly on your ass, if you’ll excuse such an uncouth expression.’

And now I was worried because he really had got too close for comfort and I waited for the axe to fall.

‘Which left you in one hell of a fix because you had responsibilities. The year your father was killed, your mother died in childbirth leaving a little girl, your sister, Hannah. Twenty years your junior. A grave responsibility. Your maternal grandmother raised her in London. You provided for both of them. More than essential in view of the fact that your sister is totally blind, but then, her musical gifts make up for that to some extent. She studies piano at the Royal College of Music, I understand.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘It’s been fun, really it has, only let’s get to the point.’

‘You tried writing thrillers, which brought you only a modest return, and then you were approached in London by an ex-British Intelligence officer who knew something of your background. There was a man in prison in Birmingham, one of a number who had robbed a train of several million pounds, most of which had never been recovered. With only a thirty-year sentence to look forward to, he was happy to pay fifty thousand pounds into a Swiss bank account to anyone who could get him out and you couldn’t resist the challenge, could you, Major Grant?’

‘I wish you wouldn’t keep calling me that,’ I said. ‘Under the circumstances it’s almost obscene.’

‘After that, you never looked back. A reasonably constant demand for the services of someone with your very special talents. When you retired last year you had over four hundred thousand pounds in your Geneva account. Would you like the number, by the way?’

There was a longish pause as if he actually expected an answer. I glanced at Langley who smiled beautifully. ‘You’re really quite a card, aren’t you, old stick?’

‘So there you were,’ Stavrou said, ‘with all the money in the world, or so it seemed, so that when someone approached you three months ago and offered you one hundred thousand dollars to get a young American named Stephen Wyatt out of a penal colony in Libya where he was recently sentenced to life imprisonment, you refused.’

There was a long pause and then the whole thing suddenly clicked into place. ‘You?’ I said.

‘Stephen Wyatt is my stepson, Major Grant,’ he told me softly. ‘My dead wife’s son. A stupid, misguided boy who dropped out of Yale after war service with the Paratroops in Vietnam, came out to the Mediterranean and got mixed up with some counter revolutionary organization in Libya aimed at overthrowing Colonel Gaddafi.’

‘And they gave him life?’ I said.

‘Exactly. I want him out.’

My anger was like a fuse slow-burning. I said, ‘Are you telling me this whole thing was a set-up from the beginning? The guy in the marsh at Cape de Gata with his Lee Enfield, for instance?’

‘Now he did get a little over enthusiastic,’ Stavrou said. ‘All he was supposed to do was rattle you. Leave you a little worried, but he went too far.’

‘And bit off more than he could chew.’

‘An impressive performance, major, I must say. He was actually supposed to be resting, isn’t that the term theatricals use? A young man who’d had a considerable success as a sniper in Ulster with the Provisional IRA.’

‘And everything since? The Hole, for example?’

‘You’re surely familiar with brainwashing techniques, particularly as practiced by the Chinese? Pavlovian in concept. First of all it is necessary to bring about the complete alienation of the individual, destroy his confidence in any kind of order or pattern to his life. Degrade him if at all possible.’

Langley said, with a grin, ‘We certainly did a good job of that, old stick, credit where credit’s due.’

I gave him some old-fashioned Anglo Saxon, tried to reach him and tripped over my chains. Stavrou said, ‘I wished to show you that I hold you in the hollow of my hand, my friend. That was the sole purpose of the exercise. There is nowhere you can run. Nowhere you can be certain of safety. No single person you can trust.’

‘You go to hell,’ I said.

He smiled patiently. ‘I’ll prove it to you. The final and ultimate truth.’ He reached for a small handbell and rang it.

A moment later, Simone Delmas came through a gate in the wall and stood beside him, a hand on his shoulder, her face calm, untroubled. She wore a silk mini dress in olive green open at the throat.

‘Is she not lovely, Major Grant?’

She leaned down to kiss him, he slipped a hand under the edge of the skirt, stroking her thigh, and opened the file.

‘August 10th, Subject returned from Almeria with Miss Delmas at ten-thirty. They made love on the terrace. Four-thirty, subject returned from swimming with Miss Delmas. They made love on the terrace. Do you want me to go on? We do have some rather excellent film also.’ He smiled up at Simone, his hand steadily stroking the thigh. ‘She does enjoy this kind of thing so.’

By then, of course, nothing was even halfway funny anymore. I said, ‘You’re wasting your time. I won’t play.’

‘Oh, but I think you will.’ He levered himself to his feet. ‘If you’ll be kind enough to follow me, I’ll show you why.’

It was going to be good, it had to be and I shuffled after him, giving Simone a wide berth, and they all followed. We passed through the garden to the far end. Someone somewhere was playing the piano, a piece I recognized for once, April from a little suite by Tchaikowsky called The Seasons. My throat went dry and I think I was already ahead of him as we paused by the barred window in the end wall.

‘Your sister, Major Grant,’ he said calmly, ‘who you imagine to be in London at this very moment pursuing her studies. Take a look inside.’

And she was there, of course, as I had known she must be, sitting at a grand piano in the centre of what was obviously the library.

She was a small, quiet girl with a generous mouth, high cheekbones, black hair parted in the centre and tied back tightly. Only a slightly vacant look in the dark eyes hinted at her condition.

I didn’t see her very often, mainly because I had a vague superstitious feeling that in some way she might be tainted by what I had become. By the life I led, and I loved her too much for that. I’d contented myself over the years by providing for her every need and leaving her to my grandmother’s care, safe and secure in her own small world in the house in St John’s Wood.

I’d last seen her at the Festival Hall in London nine months previously playing the final movement of Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto in a Royal College of Music student’s concert. There was the same look of total concentration on her face now.

The far door opened and a woman entered, a black and tan Doberman at her side. The animal crossed to Hannah, who stopped playing for a moment to fondle it.

‘Amazing,’ Stavrou said. ‘Usually Frau Kubel is the only one who can even get near the beast.’

Langley said, ‘His favourite trick is pulling people’s arms off. I’d advise you to remember that, old stick.’

Frau Kubel looked about sixty with a grim, bleak face, hair drawn back tightly into a bun. She wore a black bombazine dress and white apron and her legs were slightly bowed. If she’d ever been in a concentration camp it could only have been as a guard.

She said something to Hannah who stood up. Frau Kubel took her arm and they walked to the door and went out.

I said slowly, ‘How did you get her here?’

‘She’s supposed to be spending a holiday with you. It was easy enough to arrange. A phone call to your grandmother with a message from you. She saw the girl off at Heathrow and when she landed at Palermo yesterday, Justin at his most charming was there to greet her with a tale of your having been delayed.’ He smiled gravely. ‘You get the picture now, sir?’

The anger, the black, killing rage rose inside me like a living thing, but I fought to control it. ‘I think so.’

‘So long as we understand each other. From those ramparts down to the beach is all of four hundred feet. A long way to fall.’ He put a cigar in his mouth and Langley lit it for him. ‘Yes, a dangerous place.’ He blew out smoke in a long column. ‘Especially for someone with your sister’s difficulties.’

I tried to get at him, tripped over those damned chains and found myself on my hands and knees in front of him again. By some small miracle, Langley had an automatic in his right hand and screwed the muzzle into the side of my neck.

Stavrou gazed down at me dispassionately and I was aware of Simone standing behind him, hands on the back of the wheelchair, face wiped clean of all expression.

Stavrou said slowly, ‘All right, Grant, you were right. I’ve been in the rackets all my life. Al Capone, O’Bannion, Frank Nitti, Legs Diamond. I knew them all, only they’re long gone and I’m still here. You know why? Because when I say it, I mean it. I always carry it through, no matter how rough.’

He stopped talking for a moment and it was very quiet and then he continued, ‘My wife, Major Grant, was a lady, and I mean a lady. Boston Society and all that kind of stuff. When she said she’d marry me, I couldn’t believe it. And the years we had together …’

He ran a hand wearily over his face. ‘This son of hers was always trouble, but before she died I promised her I’d see him through.’ He sighed, a brief ironic smile on his mouth. ‘I’m going to tell you something. That kid hates my guts, but it doesn’t matter a damn. I’m going to get him out of that place for her sake, and you’re going to see to it for me. Understand?’

To which there was little I could say – for the moment. He swung the wheelchair round in a circle and said to Langley, ‘All right, bring him along.’

Gatano pulled me to my feet, the two characters in the fisherman sweaters got an arm each and we all went back through the garden to the terrace. Someone positioned him at the table and filled a glass with more wine.

He sipped a little and looked up at me. ‘I’ll make the point again. If you even attempt to step out of line, your sister takes a fall. You understand me?’

‘Perfectly.’

‘Good.’ He nodded to Gatano. ‘Unchain him.’

Gatano did as he was told without a word. I stood there flexing my wrists, feeling curiously unsteady. ‘What happens now?’

‘That’s up to you. You can have anything you want. Money, equipment, men. Just ask. As for this place where they’re holding the boy – plans, maps, every scrap of information we could get hold of – you’ll find all that in your room. And a man called Zingari is waiting to see you.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘There’s a little town on the coast about fifteen miles from the prison called Zabia. He runs a bar there.’

‘Amongst other things?’

‘Exactly. He should be more than useful.’

I moved to the table, helped myself to a glass and one of the bottles of Zibibbo. It tasted fresh and cool, and as I drank it I noticed Simone’s nose wrinkle in disgust, and she backed away slightly.

‘I know, angel,’ I said. ‘I smell like a sewer. Isn’t life hell?’ She flushed angrily and I turned to Stavrou. ‘How long have I got?’

‘Two weeks.’

‘And I’ve got a free hand?’

He nodded gravely. ‘Completely.’

‘To choose my own team?’

There was a moment of silence and Langley poured himself a glass of wine, a slight, cynical smile on his face.

Stavrou nodded to the two stalwarts in the fisherman sweaters. ‘Moro and Bonetti here are good men, and Justin …’

‘Always likes to be number one.’ I shook my head. ‘I wouldn’t touch any of them with a ten-foot pole. My own team, or it’s not on.’

He laughed harshly and slapped his thigh. ‘I like a man who knows what he wants and goes after it. We’ll play it your way.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘And now if somebody would show me to my room I’d like a bath.’

‘Of course,’ Stavrou said. ‘But before you go there are a couple of rather important items to take care of.’ He looked up at Langley. ‘Check if the London call has come through yet.’

Langley picked up the phone and spoke briefly in fluent Italian. He said to Stavrou, ‘The old lady’s out, but they have the housekeeper on the line.’

He held the phone out to me and Stavrou said, ‘You can always leave a message, Major Grant. We wouldn’t want your grandmother to worry, now would we?’

I did as I was told, choking back the anger, then slammed the receiver back into place. ‘Can I go now?’

‘Not yet.’ Stavrou nodded to Langley who picked up the phone again and pressed one of the intercom buttons. ‘Your sister, Major Grant. We don’t want her to worry unnecessarily either, do we? You’re in Cairo, I think. Delayed by important business. You hope to be with her in a matter of days.’

Everyone watched as Langley held out the phone to me again. ‘I’d do as he says if I were you, old stick,’ he told me. ‘He can be a bit of a sod when he wants to be.’

I could hear her voice, a faint echo as I reached for the receiver and forced myself to sound cheerful.

‘Hannah? This is Oliver.’

The delight in her voice was almost more than I could take in the circumstances and keeping that conversation going with Stavrou and his friends listening in politely was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life.

When I finally put the phone down, my hand trembled slightly, the violence barely contained. ‘Can I go now?’ I said hoarsely.

‘But of course.’

I turned and Gatano grabbed my shoulder. ‘Come on, you heard Mr Stavrou. Move it.’

Which was definitely the very last straw, so I pivoted, putting a knee into his fat gut, giving it to him again full in the face as he keeled over. He rolled down the steps into the bushes and when I swung to face him, Langley jumped back, hands raised defensively, something close to amusement on his face.

‘Oh, no,’ I said. ‘Not today. I’m saving you until later, you bastard,’ and I turned and staggered down the steps into the garden, suddenly very tired.