Authors: Jack Higgins
Maria said from the doorway, ‘We're ready to move, Mr Luciano.’
Luca sat there, no expression on his face, no emotion. Luciano put down his glass and moved to the door. She started to turn and he said softly, ‘He's an old man. He may think otherwise, but without you, there is nothing.’
She stared up at him for a moment, then something moved in the eyes. She turned and crossed to Luca and knelt in front of him. Her words, when they came, were pure Sicilian, a ritual as old as time itself.
‘I go on a long journey, grandfather. I seek your blessing.’
Luca was transfixed, his iron features dissolving. Almost as a reflex, he placed a hand on her head and replied with the same ritual words. ‘Go with God, go in peace, go with my love and return in safety.’
She stood up, leaned forward and kissed him gently on both cheeks, then turned and walked out, brushing past Luciano. Luca sat there, staring blindly into space, tears in his eyes.
Luciano went forward and kissed his right hand as a mark of respect. Luca whispered, ‘Can it be that she still loves me in spite of everything?’
Luciano put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Old friend, she never stopped.’
Detweiler's body was racked by convulsions as he bucked and twisted, heaving against the chair to which he was tied. It took three of the Ukrainians to hold him still.
Meyer said, I'll ask you again. Where did you get the American weapons from?’
Detweiler's eyes bulged and there was froth on his lips. He tried to speak, wanted to tell them everything, but the words wouldn't come.
Meyer said, ‘Give him another ten cc's.’
‘I'm not sure if he can take it, Major,’ Suslov said. ‘I've seen them like this before. It's like a dam building up. The heart…’
‘Get on with it,’ Meyer said impatiently.
Suslov jabbed in the needle. Detweiler went into another convulsion, lost his balance and fell over, still strapped to the chair.
‘For Christ's sake!’ Suslov said angrily and kicked him in the body.
And the dam finally burst inside Detweiler in a great aching scream and he cried out in English, ‘No more! No more!’
Meyer turned from the window, thunderstruck. ‘He's American.’
Suslov and his men had Detweiler upright in the chair again and Meyer leaned over him, shaking him by the shoulders. ‘Who are you?’ he asked in English.
Detweiler sat there, eyes glazed and Meyer turned to the desk and quickly refilled the hypodermic.
Suslov said, ‘Another shot will kill him, Major. I've never known anyone survive such a massive dosage.’
Detweiler seemed to calm down after the final injection. He sat there in the chair, head slumped on his chest and Meyer waited. Finally, he leaned forward and tilted Detweiler's chin up.
‘Now then, who are you?’ he said again in English.
Detweiler tried hard, something moving in the eyes. The mouth parted and he said hoarsely, ‘Sergeant Joseph Detweiler, Ranger Division, on detachment from the Twenty-first Specialist Raiding Force.’
Meyer pulled up a chair and sat in front of him. His voice, when he next spoke, was soft and gentle.
‘I see, Sergeant. That's very interesting. Tell me more.’
Twice on the way to Agrigento, Koenig and Guzzoni, travelling in the general's staff car, had to take shelter in trees at the side of the road when military convoys, en route for the coast, were strafed by RAF Hawker Typhoons, whose cannon inflicted severe damage.
Before reaching Agrigento, they called at the coastal defence command post for the section of the coast bordering the Sicilian Channel. Koenig waited in the car. When Guzzoni returned, he looked glum.
‘Not good,’ he said as they drove on into Agrigento. ‘They're hitting harbours and airports hard and Messina has taken a real pasting. They estimate five thousand tons of bombs at least. Something's up, that's obvious.’
They were driving along the coast road and Koenig looked out to sea. The waves were already lifting into white caps.
‘Well, if they're coming, I don't envy them. Hell in those landing craft in this weather.’
‘On the other hand, how far would you say you could see out to sea at the moment?’ Guzzoni asked. ‘Six or seven hundred yards? There could be an armada out there now ready to pounce.’
Koenig said delicately, ‘Do we assume that the enemy must succeed with his landing?’
Guzzoni said, ‘That is quite impossible, I assure you. Mussolini has ordered us to wipe out the invader before he can break through inland.’
‘Indeed?’ Koenig said drily.
‘Yes, I believe the phrase was, as he takes off his bathrobe and before he has time to get dressed.’
‘The enemy or the Duce?’ Koenig enquired.
Guzzoni laughed heartily. ‘That's really very good. Have a cigarette,’ and he offered his carved ivory case.
It was long after lunch and the officers’ mess at the Agrigento barracks was empty when General Guzzoni and Koenig went in. The barman hurried to serve them and they took a corner table and waited while he opened a bottle of Chianti.
Rudi Brandt came in, glanced around quickly, then approached and saluted smartly.
‘My apologies, Colonel, but might I have a word?’
Guzzoni waved his hand. ‘Carry on, by all means.’
Koenig walked to the window with Brandt. ‘I saw you come in, Colonel and came straight over. There's something going on to do with that prisoner. The suspected partisan.’
‘I gave orders that he was to be left alone until I returned,’ Koenig said.
‘I don't know what happened but he's dead. I was tipped off by one of the attendants from the infirmary mortuary. But more than that, Major Meyer's left instructions that I notify him the moment you arrive.’
There was a quick step in the doorway and Meyer appeared. He carried a folder in one hand.
Koenig said, ‘I told you that the prisoner brought in the other day would be dealt with by me on my return. I now find he's lying in the infirmary, dead.’
Meyer offered Guzzoni the folder. ‘Read that, Herr General, and see who has behaved in the most responsible manner. Me or the Colonel.’
Guzzoni, frowning, opened the file. He scanned the first page and his eyes widened. He looked up. ‘Is this true?’
‘Most certainly.’ Meyer turned to Koenig. ‘This ragged peasant who you treated with such consideration, Colonel. Do you know who he was? A sergeant in the American Ranger Division.’
Koenig turned to Guzzoni, who nodded. ‘According to this he parachuted in with a party two nights ago. He became separated from the others and landed in the wrong valley.’
‘Read it, why don't you?’ Meyer said. ‘Your old friend Carter, a Colonel now, it seems, who you let slip through your fingers last time, and some interesting companions.’
Guzzoni passed the file to Koenig who moved to the window to read it. After a while, he turned.
‘How did you obtain this information?’
Meyer shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’
‘To me it does. I'd be interested to see the condition of the body.’
Guzzoni said, ‘Colonel, the morality of what has occured here is one thing, but the facts are something else again. To speak plainly, there is considerable merit in this plan to enlist Mafia aid on the side of the Americans in the coming invasion. From what Detweiler admitted in his interrogation, the man, Luciano, is dead, but Colonel Carter still has the daughter of Antonio Luca in his charge. Luca holds immense power in Sicily, believe me. If he falls in with their wishes, then anything is possible.’
‘Perhaps he already has,’ Koenig said.
Guzzoni spread his hands. ‘On the other hand, they have not had a great deal of time to operate. I suggest we proceed on the assumption that they haven't. This monastery they are using as a base, Crown of Thorns near Bellona. Do you know it?’
‘Yes,’ Koenig told him.
‘The Franciscans of Crown of Thorns,’ Guzzoni said. ‘Now I remember. There was a considerable scandal several years ago. A trial in Palermo. The Mafia monks, the newspapers called them. You could have trouble there.’
‘With respect, Herr General, I don't really think so,’ Meyer said. ‘I can be up there in four hours. We'll be through the front gate before they know what's hit them. If Carter and his people are still here, we'll root them out, believe me.’
Koenig laughed harshly. ‘You wouldn't get within ten miles of the place before they knew you were coming. Every shepherd on the mountain, every goatherd, is in some way involved with the resistance movement. They have a signalling system from crag to crag. A normal approach would be quite impossible.’
Meyer started to protest and Guzzoni cut him off impatiently ‘Colonel Koenig, in this kind of soldiering you are second to none, that is a known fact. Is there any way at all, in your opinion, in which Colonel Carter and his party might be apprehended, particularly the lady in question, Luca's granddaughter, this Sister Maria Vaughan. Her capture is of primary importance.’ He smiled gently. ‘I need also, I trust, hardly stress the necessity for delicate treatment in her case. We don't wish to offend the Vatican if it can be avoided.’
‘But General,’ Meyer protested, ‘the woman is a spy and as such liable to be shot under the rules of the Geneva Convention.’
‘A question of attitude, I suppose,’ Guzzoni said. ‘We Italians perhaps take a different view of these matters, but then, we are an old race.’ He selected a cigarette from his ivory case. ‘Well, Colonel?’
Brandt, who had stood by silently all this time, stepped smartly forward and gave him a light. Koenig said, ‘There is a way, General. A parachute drop.’
‘Could it be done?’
‘I'm not sure. I'd need some advice on that. With your permission?’ Guzzoni nodded and Koenig said to Brandt. ‘Get a message through to Colonel Kubel at Otranto Luftwaffe base. Present General Guzzoni's compliments and ask him to get here as quickly as he can.’
Brandt turned smartly on heel and went out on the double.
‘Excellent,’ Guzzoni said. ‘Now, as we last ate in Palermo, I suggest some late lunch.’ He turned to Meyer. ‘And you, Major, must be about your duties, I'm sure.’
‘Herr General Colonel.’ Meyer turned and marched out stiffly.
Wolf Kubel was twenty-five and already a full colonel,
Gruppenkommandant
at Otranto and responsible for three
Stafflen.
He had seen combat service in Poland and Norway, had shot down sixty-nine enemy aircraft over the Channel and England by the end of 1941. In Russia, he had achieved even greater distinction, adding another eighty-four to his total until a bad crash had necessitated the amputation of his left leg. Not that this had deterred him; he had returned to combat flying within six weeks until he had been relegated to a desk job on Goering's personal order.
He had very fair hair, a handsome, rather dashing young man in an old black leather Luftwaffe flying jacket who wore the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds at his throat.
He leaned over the large scale map in Koenig's office, a frown on his face. ‘Lousy flying country.’
‘Could it be done?’ Guzzoni demanded.
‘Getting there is no problem no more than fifteen minutes’ flying time from Otranto but it's getting this madman and his men on target worries me. I mean, you want someone to fly up that valley at four hundred feet and drop your men inside the walls of this damn monastery.’ He shook his head. ‘As good a way of committing suicide as I've heard of.’
Koenig said to Guzzoni. ‘General, my men are a special breed. Six jumps earns the paratroopers’ qualification badge and after that, never less than six a year if he wishes to keep it. We make a speciality of jumping from under four hundred feet. Is this not so, Sergeant?’ he said to Brandt.
Guzzoni said to Kubel, ‘Are you saying that it can't be done?’
‘Not at all, Herr General. A Junkers 52, doing no more than a hundred miles an hour, would be the thing, but they'd have to get out damn fast.’
‘A dawn drop to catch them wholly by surprise,’ Koenig said. ‘Not the best time for flying in the mountains.’
Kubel rubbed his chin. ‘Which means you're going to need the best pilot I've got.’ He grinned. ‘Not that I mind. I could do with a little action.’
‘Twenty men including myself,’ Koenig said. ‘No time for more than that number to jump over the target, but it should suffice.’
‘And what of my command?’ Meyer, who had been standing silently by, asked.
‘Leave here in the early hours of the morning, approach under cover of darkness. No more than twenty men. You wait here at the head of the valley.’ He indicated the place with his finger. ‘Make your move when you see the Junkers pass overhead. By the time you reach the monastery, we should be in control and the gates open;’
‘An excellent plan,’ Guzzoni said. ‘Which seems to cover all contingencies. Wouldn't you agree, Major?’
‘So it would appear, General,’ Meyer said.
‘Good.’ Guzzoni slapped his thigh. ‘Well, I've got things to attend to. I'll try and see you off in the morning, Koenig. Until then.’
Meyer moved to the door. Koenig said, ‘A moment, Major.’
Meyer turned. ‘Well?’
‘I am in command of this operation. I use you and your men with considerable reluctance, but for good or ill, they will follow my orders. Is that clear?’
‘Perfectly, Colonel,’ Meyer said calmly. ‘May I go now?’
‘Of course.’
Meyer went out and Rudi Brandt said, ‘You've got trouble there.’
‘Never mind that now,’ Koenig said. ‘We've more important things to consider. You and me, Rudi, which means selecting another eighteen. You can handle that dirty job for me. You won't be popular with the men who stay behind.’
‘That's what sergeant-majors are for, Colonel.’
Brandt saluted and went out.
In the cubbyhole behind the coffin room at the mortuary, Harry Carter sat at the radio. He finished transmitting and waited for a reply. After a while, he took off the headphones. As he lit a cigarette, the secret door opened and Vito Barbera came in.
‘Well?’ he asked.
‘They're on their way.’
‘In this weather? It's blowing up a real storm out there.’
‘All the better when they hit the coast.’