Midnight Never Comes - Jack Higgins [1]
'Let's have a look at it then.'
Hammond moved forward quickly, opened the canvas grip and took out a sleeveless jerkin whose nylon surface gleamed in the lamplight.
'This is the bullet-proof waistcoat he was wearing?' Mallory asked.
'That's right, sir. Manufactured by the Wilkinson Sword Co. I believe they prefer to refer to them as flexible body armour.'
Mallory weighed it in his two hands. 'It's heavier than I had imagined.'
'Sixteen pounds. Nylon and titanium. Capable of stopping a .44 magnum bullet at point-blank range.'
'Was that what Paul was hit with?'
Hammond shook his head. 'Smith & Wesson .38.'
'And he's all right?'
'Badly winded. He'll have a nasty bruise for a week or two, but that's all.'
'I understand he lost consciousness.'
Hammond nodded gravely. 'I'm afraid so. If you want my honest opinion, I'd say he was in a pretty poor state of health generally and his nerves seem shot to pieces. Jorgensen said he didn't think he'd last five minutes in the field.'
Mallory gave a sudden exclamation of anger and jumped to his feet. He lit a cigarette, moved to the window and stood staring out into the night.
'It can happen to the best of us, sir,' Hammond said. 'And from what I've been told, he did rather ask for it. I understand this Albanian affair he got mixed up in wasn't even official business.'
Mallory nodded. 'That's true, although the outcome was important from our point of view.'
'What happened, sir?'
'I sent Chavasse to Albania last year to make contact with what's left of the Freedom Party there. He had a rough time. Only just got out by the skin of his teeth so I gave him some leave. We had a girl working in our S2 organisation in Rome--a Francesca Minetti. Italian father, Albanian mother. She persuaded Chavasse and a friend of his to run her across to Albania from a small Italian port called Matano. Her story isn't important now, but Chavasse fell for it.'
'He must have been mad.'
'No reason to doubt her. She'd worked for the Bureau for several years remember. I appointed her myself. She took us all in.'
'A double agent, presumably?'
'That's right. The whole thing was simply a rather clever ruse to enable the Albanians to get their hands on Chavasse and it nearly succeeded.'
'What happened to the girl?'
'Oh, she got what was coming to her, but not before she'd stuck a knife into Paul. Nearly finished him off. In fact you could say that she's succeeded in the final analysis.'
'Was there an enquiry?'
Mallory shook his head. 'No, we can put our own house in order. There won't be any more Francesca Minettis, I can promise you that.' He sighed heavily and dropped the end of his cigarette into the ashtray on the desk. 'Pity about Chavasse though. The most successful agent this department has employed in the fifteen years I've been in charge. I'd even nourished some kind of vague hope that he might survive long enough to take my place when it's time for me to go.'
'I'm sorry, sir,' Hammond said, 'I hadn't realised that.'
Mallory moved across to the sideboard and poured himself a whisky. 'I first came across him in 1955. He was a university lecturer at that time--Ph.D. in modern languages. A friend of his had a sister who'd married a Czech. After the war her husband died. She wanted to return to England but the Communists wouldn't let her go.'
'So Chavasse decided to get her out?'
Mallory walked back to his desk. 'The Government couldn't help and as Chavasse spoke the language, he decided to do something unofficially.'
'It must have been difficult, especially for an amateur.'
'How he managed I'll never know, but he did. He was in hospital in Vienna recuperating from a slight injury when I decided to have a look at him. Perhaps the most interesting thing about him was what he calls his language kink. You know how some people can work out cube roots in their heads and others never forget anything they've ever read?