Authors: Jack Higgins
She carried a tray containing an old brass coffee pot, brown sugar and glasses. There was also a bottle of cognac Courvoisier.
Barbera carried on working. ‘Rosa, this is Major Carter. My niece, arrived from Palermo since you were last here.’
‘Rosa,’ Carter said.
She poured coffee and handed it to him without a word.
Barbera said, ‘Good girl. Now go back to the gate and watch the square. Anything anything at all, you let me know.’
She went out and Carter poured himself a brandy, sipping it slowly for the pain in his lung was so intense that he could hardly breathe. ‘I never knew you had a niece. How old is she?’
‘Oh, a hundred and fifty, or sixteen. Take your pick. Her father was my youngest brother. Killed in an auto accident in thirtyseven in Naples. I lost sight of his wife. She died of consumption in Palermo three years ago.’
‘And Rosa?’
‘I only heard about her two months ago through Mafia friends in Palermo. She's been a street whore since she was thirteen. I figured it was time she came home.’
‘You still think of this place as home after Tenth Avenue?’
‘Oh, sure, no regrets. Something Rosa can't understand. New York is still the promised land to her, whereas to me, it was somewhere to leave.’
He was working cream into the old man's face now, touching the cheeks with rouge.
Carter said, ‘What about the Contessa?’
‘The Gestapo took her to Palermo.’
‘Bad for you if they break her.’
‘Not possible.’ Barbera shook his head. ‘A friend passed her a cyanide capsule in the women's prison yesterday afternoon.’
Carter took a long, shuddering breath to steady his nerves. ‘I was hoping she'd have news for me of Luca.’
Barbera paused and glanced at him in some surprise. ‘You waste your time. No one has news of Luca because that is the way he wants it.’
‘Mafia again?’
‘Yes, my friend, Mafia again and you would do well to remember that. What are your plans?’
‘I was supposed to go to Agrigento tonight. I'm due to put to sea with a tuna boat out of Porto Stefano at midnight.’
‘Submarine pickup?’
‘That's it.’
Barbera frowned thoughtfully. ‘I don't see how, Harry, not tonight. The roads will be crawling with Krauts. Maybe tomorrow.’ He gestured to the corpse. ‘I've got to take the old boy here down to Agrigento anyway.’
Before Carter could reply, the door burst open and Rosa looked in. They are here in the square. Many Germans.’ Barbera moved to the window and parted the curtain slightly. Carter struggled up with difficulty and limped to join him. Several vehicles had pulled up in the square,
kubelwagens
and troop carriers and two armoured cars. Soldiers had gathered in a semicircle and were being addressed from the back of a field car by an officer.
Carter said, ‘SS paratroopers. Where in the hell did they come from?’
‘The mainland last month. Specially selected by Kesselring to clear the mountains of partisans. The one doing the talking is their commanding officer, Major Koenig. He's good. They call him the Hunter in the Cammarata.’
As they watched, the SS broke away to commence searching the village. Koenig sat down and his
kubelwagen
started across the square, followed by another.
Barbera closed the curtain. ‘Looks as if he's coming this way.’ He turned to Carter. ‘Did you leave anybody dead up there at the villa, by any chance?’
‘Probably.’ Carter caught him by the sleeve. ‘He'll take it out on the village if I don't turn up.’
Barbera smiled sadly. ‘Not his style. Very definitely a man of honour. Makes it difficult to stick a knife in his back. Now you stay here with Rosa and keep quiet.’
He took the lamp and went out, leaving them in darkness.
They were already knocking at the outer gate as he crossed the courtyard. He eased back the massive bolt and the gate swung open to reveal the first
kubelwagen,
Koenig seated beside the driver. He got out and moved forward.
‘Ah, there you are, Signor Barbera. I've brought some custom for you, I'm afraid;’ he said in fair Italian.
The two
kubelwagens
drove into the courtyard. Barbera saw that there was a body strapped to a stretcher on one of them and covered with a blanket.
Two SS ran round to lift it down and Barbera said, ‘If you'd follow me, Major.’
He crossed the courtyard and led the way in through a short passage. When he opened the door at the end, there was the taint of death on the air.
The room which he entered was quiet, a single oil lamp on a table in the centre the only light. It was a waiting mortuary of a type common in Sicily. There were at least a dozen coffins, each one open and containing a corpse, fingers entwined in a pulley arrangement that stretched overhead to an old brass bell by the door.
Koenig entered behind him. His NCO's field cap was an affectation of some of the old timers, silver death's head badge glinting in the lamplight. The scarlet and black ribbon of the Knight's Cross made a brave show at his throat. He wore a leather greatcoat which had seen long service and paratroopers’ jumpboots. He lit a cigarette, pausing just inside the door, and flicked a finger against the bell which echoed eerily.
‘Has it ever rung?’
‘Frequently,’ Barbera said. ‘Limbs behave strangely as they stiffen in death. If what the Major means is has anyone returned to life, that, too. A girl of twelve and on another occasion, a man of forty. Both revived after death had been pronounced. That, after all, is the purpose of these places.’
‘You Sicilians seem to me to have an excessive preoccupation with death,’ Koenig said.
‘Not to the extent that we are excited by the idea of being buried alive.’
From the preparation room, peering through the crack in the door, Carter leaned against Rosa, fighting the pain, and watched them place the stretcher on a table and uncover Schäfer, the
feldpolizei
sergeant. The face was streaked with blood, the eyes staring. Barbera closed them with a practised movement.
‘Sergeant Schäfer was a good man,’ Koenig said. ‘I need hardly point out that it would be most unfortunate for anyone found harbouring the man who did this.’
Barbera said, ‘What would you like me to do with him, Major?’
‘Clean him up and deliver him to
Geheimefeldpolizei
headquarters in Agrigento.’
Barbera covered Schäfer with the blanket again. ‘I have a previous engagement tomorrow. The family of the Contessa di Bellona wish me to fetch her body from the women's prison in Palermo. A matter of some delicacy.’
‘Understandably,’ Koenig said.
‘In the circumstances, I had intended taking another corpse down to Agrigento tonight. See, in here.’
He moved to the door of the preparation room, opened it and led the way in, holding the lamp high so that Koenig could see the corpse of the old man. In the darkness of the rear cupboard, Carter slumped against Rosa and her arms tightened about him.
‘I could take Sergeant Schäfer at the same time,’ Barbera said. ‘Of course, I would need a pass, Major. I presume your men will be active on all roads tonight.’
He followed Koenig out and Carter waited there in the dark, the pain in his lung like a living thing.
God, he thought, perhaps I'm dying.
He clutched desperately at the girl as if she was life itself, conscious of the softness of her flesh, her breasts tight against him.
He groaned, struggling to control the pain, and she fastened her mouth over his as if to hold the sound in, her tongue working furiously. In spite of the agony, his flesh reacted to her practised hands.
After a while she opened the door cautiously and led him out. Carter propped himself against one of the tables, aware of the sound of vehicles driving away down there in the courtyard.
‘What were you trying to do, kill me or cure me?’ he croaked.
She wiped sweat from his face with one of Barbera's towels. ‘We have a saying, Colonel. There is the big depth and then there is the small death which may be repeated many times. Which would you prefer?’
He stared down into that oldyoung face, but before he could reply Barbera came back, holding a piece of paper.
‘Signed by Major Koenig himself. Good for any road block between here and Agrigento. With luck, you should make that submarine after all.’
‘How?’ Carter said.
‘I wouldn't dream of having a hearse without a hidden compartment. Comes in handy. Of course, you'll be lying flat on your back with two corpses in coffins just inches above your nose, but I can guarantee you won't smell a thing.’ He grinned. ‘Stick with me, old buddy and you'll live for ever.’
The JU52 which flew in from Rome with Field Marshal Albert Kesselring landed at the Luftwaffe base at Punta Raisi outside Palermo just after nine in the morning. An hour later, he was at German Army headquarters in the old Benedictine Monastery near Monte Pellegrino, drinking coffee in the office of Major General Karl Walther who was temporarily in command.
‘Beautiful,’ Kesselring said, indicating the view. ‘Quite remarkable, and so is the coffee.’
‘Yemeni mocha.’ Walther poured him another cup. ‘We still manage some of the finer things in life here.’
‘We had some difficulty driving through the town. There seemed to be religious processions everywhere.’
‘Some sort of holy week. They hold them all the time. Everything grinds to a halt. They're a very religious people.’
‘So it would appear,’ Kesselring said. ‘When one of the processions passed us I noticed a rather unusual feature. The Image of the Virgin they were carrying had a knife through its heart.’
‘Typically Sicilian,’ Walther replied. ‘The cult of death everywhere.’
Kesselring put down his cup. ‘All right, what have I got?’
‘There are eight this morning. All Iron Crosses. First Class, except for the two in whom the Field Marshal has a special interest.’
‘Let's take a look.’
Walther opened the door and ushered him out
onto
a stoneflagged terrace, an ironwork grille between the pillars. Below in the courtyard eight men were drawn up.
‘Koenig on the far end,’ Herr Field Marshal Walther said. ‘The man next to him is Sturmscharführer Brandt.’
‘Who receives the Knight's Cross?’
‘The third occasion that Koenig has put him forward.’
‘So,’ Kesselring nodded. ‘Then let's get on with it.’
Major Max Koenig was twenty-six and looked ten years older. He had seen action in Poland, France and Holland and had transferred to the newly formed 21st SS Paratroop Battalion in time for the drop over Maleme airfield in Crete in 1941 where he was seriously wounded. Then came the Winter War in Russia. Two years of it and it showed: in the gold wound badge that said he'd been a casualty on five separate occasions; in the general air of weariness, the empty look in the dark eyes.
Except for the silver death's head badge in his service cap and the SS runes and rank badges on his collar, he was all
fallschirmjäger
: flying blouse, jump trousers tucked into paratroop boots. On his left sleeve was the
Kreta
cuff title, proud badge of those who had spearheaded the invasion of Crete. The gold and silver eagle of the paratroopers’ qualification badge was pinned to his left breast beside the Iron Cross. The Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves hung at his throat.
Standing at ease at the end of the line waiting to receive the Swords, he felt strangely indifferent and yet strove to find the right thing to say to Sergeant-Major Brandt for whom this was a moment of supreme importance.
‘So, Rudi,’ he whispered. ‘The great occasion at last.’
‘Thanks to you, Major,’ Brandt replied. He was an innkeeper's son from the Austrian Tyrol, a small, wiry man who could climb all day with no need of rest. He and Koenig had been together for more than two years now.
There was a clatter of boots on the stone stain as Kesselring and General Walther appeared and someone called the parade to attention.
It was a pleasant enough affair, for Kesselring was in good humour, full of his usual charm. He had a word for each man as he pinned on the ribbon. They responded well, as was only to be expected, for he was, after all, Commander-in-Chief South and arguably one of the best half-dozen generals on either side during the Second World War.
They had reached Brandt now and Kesselring did a marvellous thing, throwing all distinctions of rank to one side, clapping Brandt on the shoulders and shaking him warmly by the hand before hanging the coveted cross around his neck.
‘My dear Brandt, a real pleasure, I assure you as one soldier to another, and long overdue.’
Brandt was overcome and Koenig was unable to keep a fleeting smile from his lips. A master stroke, but Kesselring knew how to handle men. Then the Field Marshal was standing in front of him, a slightly wry smile on his face as if he had noticed Koenig's reaction and was asking him to bear with him.
‘What on earth can I say, Major? You are only the thirtieth recipient of the swords since the award was created. Normally, our Führer himself would wish to decorate you personally, but these are extraordinary times. I can only say how delighted I am that the honour falls to me.’
He held Koenig by the shoulders for a moment and then, as if in a sudden excess of emotion, embraced him.
Later, back in Walther's office having a cognac before lunch, Kesselring said, ‘A very impressive young man.’
‘He's certainly that,’ Walther agreed.
‘Decent, honourable, chivalrous. A superb soldier. What every member of the Waffen SS would like to imagine himself to be. Let's have him in and get it over with.’
Walther pressed a buzzer on his desk and a moment later an aide looked in.
‘Major Koenig,’ Walther said.
The aide withdrew and Koenig entered. He paused at the desk, clicked his heels, and his hand went to the peak of his fieldcap in a military salute.
The Field Marshal said, ‘Pull up a chair, Major, and sit down.’
Koenig did as he was told. Kesselring turned to the largescale military map of Sicily on the wall. ‘I see you've applied for a transfer already.’