Jack Higgins - Chavasse 02 (4 page)

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 of 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.

 

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.”

Chavasse frowned. “I've heard of him vaguely. Wasn't he some kind of medical missionary in Tibet for years?”

The Chief nodded. “A very wonderful man whom most people have completely forgotten. Remarkably similar career to Albert Schweitzer. Doctor, musician, philosopher, mathematician. He's given forty years of his life to Tibet.”

“And he's still alive?” Chavasse said.

The Chief nodded. “Living in a small town called Changu about one hundred and fifty miles across the border from Kashmir. Under house arrest, as far as we can make out.”

“This letter,” Chavasse said, turning to Professor Craig. “Why was it addressed to you?”

“Karl Hoffner and I were fellow students and research workers for years.” Craig sighed heavily. “One of the great minds of the century, Mr. Chavasse. He could have had all the fame of an Einstein, but he chose to bury himself in a forgotten country.”

“But what was in the letter that was so interesting?” Chavasse asked.

“On the face of it, nothing very much. It was simply a letter from one old friend to another. He'd apparently heard that this young Tibetan was making a break for it and decided to take the opportunity of writing to me, probably for the last time. He's in poor health.”

“How are they treating him?”

“Apparently quite well.” Craig shrugged. “He was always greatly loved by the people. Probably the Communists are using him as a sort of symbol. He said in his letter that he had been confined to his house for more than a year and to help pass the time had returned to his greatest love, mathematics.”

“Presumably this is important?”

“Karl Hoffner is probably one of the great
mathematicians of all time,” Professor Craig said solemnly. “Do you mind if I get a little technical?”

“By all means,” Chavasse told him.

“I don't know the extent of your knowledge of mathematical concepts,” Craig said, “but you are perhaps aware that Einstein demonstrated that matter is nothing but energy fixed in a rigid pattern?”

“E equals mc squared.” Chavasse grinned. “I'm with you so far.”

“In a celebrated thesis written for his doctorate while a young man,” Craig went on, “Karl Hoffner demonstrated that energy itself is
space
locked up in a certain pattern. His proof involved an audacious development of non-Euclidean geometry which was as revolutionary as Einstein's theory of relativity.”

“Now, you've completely lost me,” Chavasse said.

“It doesn't matter.” Craig smiled. “Probably only six brains on earth were capable of understanding his theory at the time, such was its complexity. It aroused considerable interest in academic circles and was then virtually forgotten. It was only theoretical, you see. It led nowhere and had no conceivable practical application.”

“And now he's taken it one stage further,” Chavasse said. “Is that what you're leading up to?”

Craig nodded. “He mentioned in his letter,
quite casually I might add, that he had reached the solution to the problem. He has proved that space can be twisted, manipulated if you like, until it becomes an energy field.”

“And this is really important?” Chavasse said.

“Important?” The professor sighed. “For one thing, it relegates nuclear physics to roughly the Eocene Age of science. For another, it gives us an entirely new concept of space travel. We could produce an energy drive for our rockets from space itself, something that would be infinitely superior to the Russian concept of the ionic drive.”

“Do you think Hoffner has any idea of the important of his discovery?” Chavasse said.

Craig shook his head. “Given his circumstances, I don't think he is even aware that orbital flights have taken place. If he knew that man had already crossed the space threshold, the value of his discovery would be at once obvious to him.”

“It's incredible,” Chavasse said. “Quite incredible.”

“What's even more to the point is that knowing this does us no damn good at all as long as the know-how remains locked in the brain of a sick old man under house arrest in a Communist-dominated country,” the Chief said. “We've got to get him out, Paul.”

Chavasse sighed. “Well, I was begging for action,” he said, “and now I've got it, though
how the hell I'm supposed to pull it off, I don't know.”

“I've already given that quite some thought.” The Chief pushed the chessboard out of the way and unfolded a large map.

“Now this is the area involved—Kashmir and western Tibet. Changu is about a hundred and fifty miles from the border. You'll notice that some fifty miles into Tibet, there's a village called Rudok. In his despatch the other day, Ferguson had already informed me that, according to the young Tibetan nobleman who brought out the letter, the Chinese have little control of the area. He says the monastery outside Rudok is quite a centre of resistance. If we could get you there, you'd at least have a base. Of course, from then on, you'd have to play it by ear.”