Jack Higgins - Chavasse 02

by Year of the Tiger

He rode across to one of the carts and picked up a Bren gun and two magazines, which he stuffed into his saddlebag, then he gave a quick order to two of the Tibetans and galloped away. A few moments later, leading a spare horse, they went after him.

  Chavasse hit the ground heavily perhaps a hundred yards from the bridge. He lay there for a moment, winded, then stood up and struggled out of his parachute harness. There was still no sign of the Chinese and he unslung the Sten gun and ran along the uneven track between outcrops of rock.

  It was stupid, of course, such exertion of that altitude, and by the time he reached the bridge he was gasping for air, his breath like white smoke. He started across and it swayed gently. He got to the centre, took off the haversack and selected a block of plastique, inserted a five-minute timer, lay down and reached over the edge and wedged the explosive into a space between the ends of two struts. He activated the timer and stood up, and at that moment a Chinese jeep appeared on top of the rise on the other side.

  Its machine gun opened up at once. Chavasse ran, the Sten gun in one hand, the haversack in the other. He reached the end of the bridge, ducked behind one of the supporting posts, found another block of plastique, inserted a yellow two-minute fuse and activated it.

  The jeep kept firing, bullets clipping wood from the post. He laid the plastique block down and returned fire with his Sten, and a lucky shot knocked one soldier out. The jeep, halfway across the bridge, paused, with another just behind it, and on the ridge above the rest of the column arrived.

  “Just stay there,” Chavasse prayed, and tossed the block of plastique out onto the bridge.

  To his horror, it actually bounced over the edge, where it exploded in space. Firing relentlessly, the jeep started forward, followed by the other, and the column moved down on the other side.

  Chavasse ran up amongst the rocks, head down, glancing back to see the two jeeps reach firm ground. At that moment and just as the convoy started across, there was a huge explosion. The centre of the bridge twisted up into the air, lengths of timber flying everywhere. The two lead jeeps in the convoy on the other side went with it.

  As the reverberations died away there were cries of rage from the Chinese in the two jeeps that had got across, three soldiers in one and four in the other. They fired their light machine guns into the rocks below the escarpment and Chavasse cowered down and opened his haversack. There was one block of plastique left. He inserted the remaining two-minute pencil and started to count, the Sten gun ready in his other hand.

  He fired it in short sharp bursts with his left hand, still counting, and the soldiers raked the rocks with machine-gun fire so fierce that he had to keep his head down and hurl the block of plastique blindly. This time his luck was good, for it landed in the jeep containing four soldiers and exploded a second later, with devastating effect.

  He glanced over a rock and saw only carnage. The four soldiers had been killed outright and the other jeep tilted on one side, its three occupants having been thrown from it. As Chavasse watched, they got to their feet, coughing in the acrid smoke, and picked up their weapons. He stood and opened fire with the Sten, three bullets kicking up dirt beside them. Then the magazine simply emptied itself. He threw it down, turned and ran for his life as the three Chinese cried out and came after him.

  Bullets ploughed into the ground beside him, kicking up snow as he struggled up the slope, and then a cheerful voice cried, “Lie down, Paul, for God’s sake.”

  Hamid appeared on the ridge above, holding the Bren light machine gun in both hands. He swept it from side to side, cutting down the three Chinese in a second. As the echoes died away, he looked at the ruins of the bridge.

  “Now that’s what I call close.”

  “You could say that.” Chavasse scrambled up the slope and saw the two Tibetans below holding Hamid’s horse and the spare. “How thoughtful—you’ve brought one for me. Prime Minister Nehru and the Indian government are prepared to receive the Dalai Lama. The Indian air force plane that just dropped me in will be waiting on the airstrip at Gela. We’ll all be in Delhi before you know it.”

  “Excellent,” Hamid said. “So can we kindly get the hell out of here?”

  The British embassy in Delhi was ablaze with light, crystal chandeliers glittering, the fans in the ceiling stirring the warm air, the French windows open to the gardens.

  The ballroom was packed with people, anyone who counted in Delhi, the great and the good, not only the British ambassador, but Prime Minister Nehru, all there to honour the Dalai Lama, who sat in a chair by the main entrance, greeting the well-wishers who passed him in line.

  Chavasse, in a white linen suit, black shirt and pale lemon tie, stood watching. Hamid was at his side, resplendent in turban and khaki uniform, his medal ribbons, particularly the Military Cross from the British, making a brave show.

  “Look at them,” Chavasse said. “All they want to do is to be able to boast that they shook his hand. They’d ask for his autograph if they dared.”

  “The way of the world, Paul,” the Pathan told him.

  There was a Chinese in the line, a small man with horn-rimmed glasses, an eager smile on his face. Chavasse stiffened.

  “Who’s that?”

  The young lieutenant behind them said, “His name is Chung. He’s a doctor. Runs a clinic for the poor. He’s Chinese Nationalist from Formosa. Came here six months ago.”

  Dr. Chung took the Dalai Lama’s hand. “Chung—Formosa, Holiness,” they heard him say. “Such an honour.”

  The Dalai Lama murmured a response, and Chung moved away and took a glass from a tray held by one of the many turbanned waiters.

  The Dalai Lama beckoned the young lieutenant, and said to him, “Enough for the moment. I think I’ll have a turn in the garden. I could do with some fresh air.” He smiled at Chavasse and Hamid. “I’ll see you again in a little while, gentlemen.”

  Escorted by the lieutenant, he made his way through the crowd, nodding and smiling to people as he passed, then went out through one of the French windows. The lieutenant returned.

  “He seems tired. I’ll just go and tell them at the door to warn new guests that he’s not available for presentation.”

  He walked away and Hamid said, “When do you return to London?”

  Chavasse lit a cigarette. “Not sure. I’m waiting for orders from my boss.”

  “Ah, the Chief, the famous Sir Ian Moncrieff.”

  “You’re not supposed to know that,” Chavasse said.

  “No, you’re certainly not,” a familiar voice said.

  Chavasse swung round in astonishment and found Moncrieff standing there. He wore a crumpled sand-coloured linen suit and a Guards tie, and his grey hair was swept back.

  “Where on earth did you spring from?” Chavasse demanded.

  “The flight from London that got in two hours ago. Magnificent job, Paul. Thought I’d join in the festivities.” He turned to the Pathan. “You’ll be Hamid?”

  They shook hands. “A pleasure, Sir Ian.”

  Moncrieff took a glass from the tray of a passing waiter and Chavasse said, “Well, they’re all here, as you can see.”

  Moncrieff drank some of the wine. “Including the opposition.”

  “What do you mean?” Hamid asked.

  “Our Chinese friend over there.” Moncrieff indicated Chung, who was working his way through the crowd towards the French windows.

  “Chinese Nationalist from Formosa,” Chavasse said. “Runs a clinic for the poor downtown.”

  “Well, if that’s what Indian intelligence believe they’re singularly ill-informed. I saw his picture in a file at the Chinese Section of SIS in London only last month. He’s a Communist agent. Where’s the Dalai Lama, by the way?”

  “In the garden,” Hamid told him.

  At that moment Chung went out through one of the open French windows. “Come on,” Chavasse said to Hamid, and pushed his way quickly through the crowd. The garden was very beautiful—flowers everywhere, the scent o
f magnolias heavy on the night air, palm trees swaying in a light breeze. The spray from a large fountain in the centre of the garden lifted into the night and the Dalai Lama followed a path towards it, alone with his thoughts. He paused as Dr. Chung stepped from the bushes.

  “Holiness, forgive me, but your time has come.”

  He held an automatic pistol in one hand, a silencer on the end. The Dalai Lama took it in and smiled serenely.

  “I forgive you, my son. Death comes to all men.”

  Hamid, running fast, Chavasse at his back, was on Chung in an instant, one arm around his neck, a hand reaching for the right wrist, depressing the weapon towards the ground. It fired once, a dull thud, and Chung, struggling desperately, managed to turn. For a moment they were breast to breast, the tall Pathan and the small Chinese. After another dull thud, Chung went rigid and slumped to the ground. For a moment he lay there kicking, then he went very still.

  Chavasse went down on one knee and examined him as Moncrieff arrived on the run. Chavasse stood up, the gun in his hand.

  “Is he dead?” the Dalai Lama asked.

  “Yes,” Chavasse told him.

  “May his soul be at peace.”

  “I’d suggest you come with me, sir,” Moncrieff said. “The fewer people who know about this the better. In fact it never happened, did it, Major?”

  “I’ll handle it, sir,” Hamid said. “Utmost discretion. I’ll get the head of security.”

  Moncrieff took the Dalai Lama away. Hamid said, “Pity the poor sod decided to shoot himself here, and we’ll never know why, will we? As good a story as any. You stay here, Paul. You’ll make a fine witness, and so will I.” He shook his head. “Peking has a long arm.”

  The Pathan hurried away and Chavasse lit a cigarette and went and sat on a bench by the fountain and waited.

  LONDON 1962

  3

  Chavasse stood in the entrance of the Caravel Club on Great Portland Street and looked gloomily out into the driving rain. He had conducted a wary love affair with London for several years, but four o’clock on a wet November morning was enough to strain any relationship, he told himself as he stepped out onto the pavement.

  There was a nasty taste in his mouth from too many cigarettes, and the thought of the 115 pounds which had passed across the green baize tables of the Caravel didn’t help matters.

  He’d been hanging around town for too long, that was the trouble. It was now over two months since he’d returned from his vacation after the Caspar Schultz affair, and the Chief had kept him sitting behind a desk at headquarters dealing with paperwork that any reasonably competent general-grade clerk could have handled.

  He was still considering the situation and wondering what to do about it when he turned the corner onto Baker Street, looked up casually and noticed the light in his apartment.

  He crossed the street quickly and went through the swing doors. The foyer was deserted and the night porter wasn’t behind his desk. Chavasse stood there thinking about it for a moment, a slight frown on his face. He finally decided against using the lift and went up the stairs quickly to the third floor.

  The corridor was wrapped in quiet. He paused outside the door to his apartment for a moment, listening, and then moved round the corner to the service entrance and took out his key. The plump woman who sat on the edge of the kitchen table reading a magazine as she waited for the coffeepot to boil was attractive in spite of her dark, rather severe spectacles.

  Chavasse closed the door gently, tiptoed across the room and kissed her on the nape of the neck. “I must say this is a funny time to call, but I’m more than willing,” he said with a grin.

  Jean Frazer, the Chief’s secretary, turned and looked at him calmly. “Don’t flatter yourself, and where the hell have you been? I’ve had scouts out all over Soho and the West End since eight o’clock last night.”

  A cold finger of excitement moved inside him. “Something big turned up.”

  She nodded. “You’re telling me. You’d better go in. The Chief’s been here since midnight hoping you’d turn up.”

  “How about some coffee?”

  “I’ll bring it in when it’s ready.” She wrinkled her nose. “You’ve been drinking again, haven’t you?”

  “What a hell of a wife you’d make, sweetheart,” he told her with a tired grin, and went through into the living room.

  Two men were sitting in wing-backed chairs by the fire, a chessboard on the coffee table between them. One was a stranger to Chavasse, an old white-haired man in his seventies who wore gold-rimmed spectacles and studied the chessboard intently.

  The other, at first sight, might have been any high Civil Service official. The well-cut, dark grey suit, the old Etonian tie, even the greying hair, all seemed a part of the familiar brand image.

  It was only when he turned his head sharply and looked up that the difference became apparent. This was the face of no ordinary man. Here was a supremely intelligent being, with the cold grey eyes of a man who would be, above all things, a realist.

  “I hear you’ve been looking for me,” Chavasse said as he peeled off his wet trench coat.

  The Chief smiled faintly. “That’s putting it mildly. You must have found somewhere new.”

  Chavasse nodded. “The Caravel Club in Great Portland Street. They do a nice steak and there’s a gaming room, chemmy and roulette mostly.”

  “Is it worth a visit?”

  “Not really,” Chavasse grinned. “Rather boring and too damned expensive. It’s time I saw a little action of another kind.”

  “I think we can oblige you, Paul,” the Chief said. “I’d like you to meet Professor Craig, by the way.”

  The old man shook hands and smiled. “So you’re the language expert? I’ve heard a lot about you, young man.”

  “All to the good, I hope?” Chavasse took a cigarette from a box on the coffee table and pulled forward a chair.

  “Professor Craig is chairman of the Joint Space Research Programme recently set up by NATO,” the Chief said. “He’s brought us rather an interesting problem. To be perfectly frank, I think you’re the only available Bureau agent capable of handling it.”

  “Well, that’s certainly a flattering beginning,” Chavasse said. “What’s the story?”

  The Chief carefully inserted a Turkish cigarette into an elegent silver holder. “When were you last in Tibet, Paul?”

  Chavasse frowned. “You know that as well as I do. Three years ago, when we brought out the Dalai Lama.”

  “How would you feel about going in again?”

  Chavasse shrugged. “My Tibetan is still pretty fair. Not fluent, but good enough. It’s the other problems specific to the area which would worry me most. Mainly the fact that I’m a European, I suppose.”

  “But I understood you to say you’d helped out the Dalai Lama three years ago,” Professor Craig said.

  Chavasse nodded. “But that was different. Straight in and out again within a few days. I don’t know how long I could get by if I was there for any period of time. I don’t know if you’re aware of this fact, Professor, but not a single Allied soldier escaped from a Chinese prison camp during the Korean War, and for obvious reasons. Drop me into Russia in suitable clothes and I could pass without question. In a street in Peking, I’d stick out like a sore thumb.”

  “Fair enough,” the Chief said. “I appreciate your point, but what if we could get round it?”

  “That would still leave the Chinese,” Chavasse told him. “They’ve really tightened up since I was last there. Especially after the Tibetan revolt. Although mind you, I think their control of large areas must be pretty nominal.” He hesitated and then went on, “This thing—is it important?”

  The Chief nodded gravely. “Probably the biggest I’ve ever asked you to handle.”

  “You’d better tell me about it.”

  The Chief leaned back in his chair. “What would you say was the gravest international problem at the moment—the Bomb?”

/>   Chavasse shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Not anymore, anyway. Probably the space race.”

  The Chief nodded. “I agree, and the fact that John Glenn and those who have followed him have successfully emulated Gagarin and Titov has got our Russian friends worried. The gap is narrowing—and they know it.”

  “Is there anything they can do about it?” Chavasse said.

  The Chief nodded. “Indeed there is, and they’ve been working on it for too damned long already—but perhaps Professor Craig would like to tell you about it. He’s the expert.”

  Professor Craig took off his spectacles and started to polish their lenses with the handkerchief from his breast pocket. “The great problem is propulsion, Mr. Chavasse. Bigger and better rockets just aren’t the answer, not when it comes to travelling to the moon, and anything farther involves immense distances.”

  “And presumably the Russians have got something?” Chavasse said.

  Craig shook his head. “Not yet, but I think they may be very near it. Since 1956, they’ve been experimenting with an ionic rocket drive using energy emitted by stars as the motive force.”

  “It sounds rather like something out of a science-fiction story,” Chavasse said.

  “I only wish it were, young man,” Professor Craig said gravely. “Unfortunately it’s hard fact, and if we don’t come up with another answer quickly we might as well throw in the towel.”

  “And presumably, there is another answer?” Chavasse said softly.

  The professor adjusted his spectacles carefully and nodded. “In normal circumstances, I would have said no, but in view of certain information which has recently come into my hands, it would appear that there is still a chance for us.”

  The Chief leaned forward. “Ten days ago, a young Tibetan nobleman arrived in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir. Ferguson, our local man, took him in charge. Besides possessing valuable information about the state of things in western Tibet at the present time, he was also carrying a letter for Professor Craig. It was from Karl Hoffner.”