Luciano's Luck (13 page)

Guzzoni, a firstrate soldier and veteran of numerous campaigns, had spent an hour explaining the strategic situation in the Mediterranean.

‘So, gentlemen,’ he ended. ‘They come soon, we know that. A feint at some point on the Sicilian coast and the main attack probably Sardinia. One thing seems certain. We can expect no activity for at least a week. ‘Any questions? The meteorological report indicates some very stormy weather.’

There were a few and after a while, Meyer raised his hand. ‘General, I'd like to discuss the question of partisan activity in the mountains.’ Guzzoni said, ‘In what respect, Major?’

‘A question of cooperation, General,’ Meyer said. ‘I expect none from these damn peasants in the mountains, but when I experience what I can only describe as a total lack of assistance from units of the Italian Army…

There was an angry murmur from the Italian officers present and it was Koenig who defused the situation by standing up and saying, ‘You must excuse Major Meyer, General. He is perhaps not familiar with the fact that Italian dead lie as far east as the outskirts of Moscow and in considerable number in Stalingrad. I have been lucky enough to have them on my flank on more than one occasion and have been grateful for it.’

A number of Italian officers around him broke into spontaneous applause. Meyer glanced at him calmly, picked up his briefcase and walked out.

Guzzoni walked through the crowd and held out his hand. ‘You've made an enemy there, I think.’

‘Then I'll just have to live with it, sir.’

Guzzoni put a hand around his shoulder. ‘I had the pleasure of meeting your father in Berlin when I attended the OKW conference last month. Come and have lunch with me and I'll tell you how he was.’

The villa Carter's party was using was five miles along the coast from Maison Blanche. It wasn't much of a place, being run down and badly in need of a coat of whitewash, but the area behind it was astonishingly beautiful. Sand dunes separated the overgrown garden from the sea. Beyond them, a white beach ran as far as the eye could see.

Carter had assembled the whole party in the living room of the villa for a general briefing. There was a map of Sicily on the wall and several large envelopes on the table.

Most of what he said was simply a reworking of what had already been discussed before. When he was finished, he said, ‘Any questions?’

Detweiler asked, ‘When is the invasion to take place, Colonel?’

‘No need for you to know that yet,’ Carter said. ‘I believe it's a sound principle to keep knowledge of dates, facts, identities of sympathizers to a minimum when going into the field. The less you know, the less you can disclose under pressure. False papers have, of course, been prepared for each of you.’

Savage said, ‘But if anything goes wrong with the landing? If one of us becomes separated from the others, where do we make for?’

‘Here, at the head of the valley. The Franciscan monastery of the Crown of Thorns. That will be our general headquarters. Any further questions?’ There was silence.

Maria was sitting in a hollow in the dunes when Luciano found her. He flung himself down beside her and lit a cigarette.

‘Carter's back. He wants to see us all together in thirty minutes.’

‘Is it on?’ she said.

‘Apparently.’ She turned away, gazing out to sea, hugging her knees and he said, ‘What are you trying to see Sicily?’

‘It's been a long time.’

‘And your grandfather. That's been a long time, too.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Maybe too long for both of us. Have you considered that?’

‘I have, but I don't think the Professor has.’

She shook her head. ‘The omnipotent Luciano. Is nothing impossible to you?’

‘Some things. Even the Devil has his off days.’ He held out a hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘Come on, time to eat.’

They walked away sidebyside and disappeared over the sand dunes. There was a stirring in a patch of long grass near by and Detweiler stood up. He brushed sand from his fatigues for a moment, a strange, dazed look in his eyes, and then went after them.

9

In the living room of his house at the back of the mortuary, Vito Barbera presided over a meeting of the district committee. There was Pietro Mori, the schoolmaster, a thin, intense man of forty-six with steel-rimmed glasses, who had fought with the International Brigade in Spain. So had Ettore Russo, the one thing they had in common, for the fact that Russo had inherited his father's sheep farm made him suspect in the minds of many of the comrades.

The Christian Democrats were represented by Father Collura, the parish priest for the Bellona district, and the Separatists by Verga, the innkeeper. And although it was not stated, had never needed to be, Vito Barbera stood there for the Honoured Society for Mafia.

When he finished talking, there was a long pause. It was Mori who spoke first. ‘So, what do you want us to do? Genuflect because this Mafia cutthroat comes amongst us?’

‘Salvatore comes as a saviour,’ Ettore Russo mocked. ‘Who from?’

‘The Germans,’ Barbera suggested.

‘Yes, but not from Mafia.’ It was Verga, the innkeeper speaking now. ‘We of the Separatist movement want a Sicily that is genuinely free, not just separated from Italy, but with the same old Mafia gang running things as before.’

Father Collura said mildly, ‘Shouldn't our primary task be to aid the American invasion as much as possible? The question of who is going to run the country can come afterwards. A matter of free democratic election.’

‘Marvellous,’ Mori said. ‘Free democratic election with a Mafia hand on every throat.’

Barbera said, ‘Whatever else may be said, Mafia has always stood outside politics. I think no one here can deny that.’

‘And behind whoever was in power,’ Russo replied.

Barbera sighed. ‘I may take it, then, that no one is in favour of any concerted action at the moment?’

‘When the Americans come, we will rise in the mountains,’ Mori said. ‘But as for Luciano. To hell with him.’

‘And Don Antonio Luca's granddaughter? To hell with her also?’

There was silence at the mention of that name. Mori glanced at Russo and forced a smile. ‘Now look, Vito, old friend, we certainly meant no offence to Don Antonio.’

‘No, that's what I thought.’ Barbera looked at his watch and stood up. ‘My friends will be dropping in approximately three hours, so you must excuse me. I know, of course, that this information is safe with you. If anything did go wrong, one would so obviously know where to start looking.’ He shrugged, smiling. ‘But what am I saying.’

They moved out into the darkness of the side street and went their separate ways except for Mori and Russo who walked together for a while.

Mori said, ‘I know we don't always see eye to eye but in this present affair, I sense a considerable agreement.’

‘If you mean something should be done about Luciano, then I'm with you,’ Russo told him.

Mori put an arm around his shoulders. ‘Come back to my house for supper. We can talk things over in peace there and I have an excellent bottle of Chianti.’

At Maison Blanche, a heavy damp fog rolling in off the Mediterranean reduced visibility to no more than two hundred yards. The Junkers, once more with Luftwaffe markings, squatted on the runway, had been there for something like halfanhour. Carter and the rest of his party were crowded together into the narrow fuselage, their bodies swollen with parachutes and equipment.

Flight Lieutenant Collinson, the navigator, was already on board, familiarizing his eyes with the Lichtenstein radar set that, in effect, enabled the Junkers to see in the dark.

Harvey Grant stood outside the crew room with Air Marshal Sloane who had come down to see them off personally.

‘It's not good, Harvey,’ he said. ‘About as bad as I've seen. If you go, you might not be able to land, even if you get back.’

A young pilot officer appeared and handed Grant a weather report. ‘Rain and thunderstorms predicted,’ Grant said cheerfully. ‘That's good enough for me, sir. See you in a couple of hours. This soup will all be washed away by then.’

He turned and walked towards the Junkers, pulling on his flying helmet. Sloane watched him go up the ladder and pull it up behind him. A moment later, the engines, which had already been warmed up, rumbled into life.

As Grant boosted power, the Junkers moved forward with increasing speed, following the line of flares. The fog swallowed it from sight and Sloane and the others standing outside the crew room, waited, holding breath.

Not that there was any need, for at precisely the right moment, Grant hauled back the column, and the Junkers lifted, climbing up out of the fog into clear air. Grant put pressure on the right rudder and turned out to sea.

After a while he spoke to Carter over the intercom which had been specially set up. ‘How are things back there?’

‘Fine,’ Carter said.

‘Good. Estimated time of arrival in the target area, fifty minutes. The weather isn't too good there. Raining, but visibility should be okay. Thunderstorms forecast so it may get bumpy.’

He settled the Junkers at a thousand feet exactly and sat back, barely touching the controls, thoroughly enjoying himself as they skimmed the surface of the fog.

Twenty minutes from target and sixty miles southwest of Cape Granitola in Sicily, Collinson, leaning over the Lichtenstein set, gave a sudden cry.

‘I've got something, sir, probably a night fighter.’

Grant said over the intercom, ‘Red alert, Harry, we've got company.’

In their cramped quarters in the body of the Junkers, Carter, Luciano and the others couldn't see a thing. Carter said, ‘Are you sure?’

‘Now I am,’ Grant told him as a Junkers, twin to his own, burst out of the fog to starboard and took up station. Grant raised a hand and could see the pilot of the other plane return the gesture. It stayed with them for a while, then peeled off to starboard and vanished into the night.

‘Worked perfectly,’ Grant said cheerfully over the intercom to Carter. ‘He's just pissed off. We've got exactly fifteen minutes so better make sure you're ready.’

In a meadow at the head of the valley beyond the Contessa di Bellona's villa, Vito Barbera and Rosa waited. It was raining steadily and they sheltered under the trees at the edge of the meadow. Rosa wore a tweed cap and an old belted raincoat.

‘Are you all right?’ Barbera asked. ‘This stinking weather is something I hadn't counted on.’

‘Why don't you worry about something important like those Communist bastards, Mori and Russo? They could bring the Germans down on us any time they liked.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I don't think so. Mori is no fool. He wouldn't put his head on the block so stupidly.’

She grabbed his arm. ‘Listen, they come.’

In the distance, there was the rumble of engines. He said, ‘You know what to do.’

She ran across to the far side of the field and Barbera tossed a match to the petrol soaked bonfire they had prepared an hour earlier. It roared into life and on the other side of the meadow flame blossomed also as Rosa performed her part.

Barbera looked up into the night and waited.

The Junkers was down to a thousand feet when Harvey Grant saw the two fires marking the north and south edges of the meadow.

‘Did you see that, Joe?’ he said to Collinson.

‘Go it, sir.’

Grant banked to starboard, lifting over a ridge, turned and started his run.

‘You've got two minutes. Harry,’ he called over the intercom.

Carter said, ‘Fine, Harvey, all we need.’

He nodded to the rest of the group and they all stood, crouching awkwardly in the confined space and clipped their static lines which opened the parachute automatically when they jumped to the anchor cable. Carter moved down the line, checking each of them personally, first Maria, then Savage followed by Luciano, Detweiler bringing up the rear.

He went back to the head of the line, clipped his own static line in place, then slid back the exit door. Rain and cold air rushed in and a moment later, the green light flashed above his head.

Carter, already aware of the fire blossoming in the night below, jumped without hesitation. Maria froze for the briefest of moments only and Savage shoved her out bodily and went after her.

What happened next was not by any design. It was a kind of reflex gesture, a reflection of hate Detweiler had come to bear Luciano. He pulled the razorsharp gravity knife from its scabbard on his right knee. Luciano, poised in the entrance clutching his supply bag, was aware of the knife slicing through the static line above his head before the sergeant shoved him out into space.

Collinson, looking back through the open door of the cockpit, saw nothing of this action; in the halflight knew only that Detweiler was still with them for the sergeant had paused in the doorway, frozen, his mind numb, stunned by the enormity of what he had done.

Grant, already way beyond the target, was pulling back the column to take the Junkers over the ridge ahead and Collinson clapped him on the shoulder.

‘We've still got company.’

And then, as the line of the ridge lifted to meet them, Grant boosted power and banked to port and Detweiler lost his balance and pitched headfirst into darkness.

At four hundred feet, it takes twenty seconds to hit the ground.
Luciano falling, past the halfway mark, remembered Carter's words in the Dakota at Ringway. He turned over once, twice, then released the supply bag he had been clutching and his fingers tore at the cover of the emergency chute, strapped across his belly, found the handle of the ripcord and pulled.

There was a sudden jerk, the crack of the chute catching air no more than a hundred feet to go and then he was swinging beneath that dark khaki umbrella, the supply bag below on the end of a line dipped to his waist. And he was right on target, dropping fast towards the fire at the north end of the meadow, aware of Carter and Maria already down. He glanced up, but there was no sign of Detweiler's parachute. He drifted in over Savage as the captain hit the grass and then the fire seemed to be rushing towards him and he was aware of someone standing there looking up at him, a boy in an old raincoat and cloth cap.