Assignment - Palermo (18 page)

“And now you regret it?”

“No, I only regret Kronin. He came into the picture through me. As a boy, I was filled with revolutionary fire. The people were oppressed, savagely mistreated. I sought for years to help them, through youthful idealism. I joined the Communists. Does that surprise you? I am still a member. That surprises
me
, you see. And not long ago, when I was at Dubrovnik, in Yugoslavia, ostensibly on a pleasure cruise, I was ordered to report to Albania.” “Then, you tried to serve two masters.”

“Yes. A stupid donkey straddling a deep stream. In Albania I met many Chinese Reds from Peiping. I was treated with much respect. They knew all about me. They had been holding me as a silent agent until a time when I might be useful. Their hatred for your country, Mr. Durell, goes beyond all reason. They decided that the time had come to use me and use my position in the Fratelli della Notte.”

“That’s where Karl Kronin came in?”

“I was ordered to recommend him to Vecchio Zio for his present position. I obeyed. It was that or my destruction. They knew all about my false business enterprises, enough to put me in jail for life as a criminal.

I had no choice. And at first I saw no real harm.”

“And Zio accepted Kronin?”

“Yes.”

“Knowing who and what he is?”

“I am not sure about that. I was not admitted to their councils after the first meeting. When I went to Zio recently, I was told nothing and ordered to keep silent. Zio gave me these orders.” Uccelatti stood up. “My life is in the balance now. I am a rebel, you might say. By talking to you, I forfeit everything, according to the Fratelli law. But the time has come for decision. Either I am a fool and so deserve to die, or a great evil has been done, which only I can correct. So I have told you everything.”

“Not everything,” Durell said.

“What more can I do?”

“Two things. I want O’Malley first.”

“I cannot release him.”

Durell was impatient to be moving. Every moment counted, and he felt time slipping inexorably away. “What you want O’Malley for,” he said flatly, “is as a hostage to fortune in case you’ve made a mistake. But you can’t have it both ways. You must commit yourself or you’re a dead man, Uccelatti. You know this, but you don’t want to face it. But you’ve come too far to my side now. Keeping O’Malley for Zio’s revenge later won’t help.”

Uccelatti was a tormented man. The sound of sprightly music on deck sharply contrasted with his haunted eyes as he looked at Durell’s implacable figure. He shuddered violently, then was still and regarded Pietro. “What do you think, my friend?”

Pietro seemed shocked at this request for his opinion. “I do not know,
Barone
. He sounds logical.”

“We are emotional, not a logical people. It is a bad fault.” He turned to Durell again. “You asked for two things. O’Malley first. Very well, you can have him. And the second matter?”

“Tell me where to find Vecchio Zio. You sent Gabriella there, and Kronin will kill her. I don’t know about this old wizard godfather of hers. That’s what I must

find out. There is a mystery here, and it must be resolved if any of us are to stay alive. So tell me the way. Now is not the time to stick to the rules.”

Uccelatti said, “But if you try to get in by force, you will never make it alive. Believe me. There are traps. That place is impregnable. Much as I respect your ability, Signor Durell, you will find it too much even for your talents. It is the best-kept secret of the Fratelli. Zio is our chief. He has led us for two generations. He is almost a myth today except to a few of us. One does not even mention his name lightly, as you do.”

“You must tell me,” Durell said.

Again the man sighed, then straightened and stood up. “Pietro, release O’Malley. See that he has some food and wine. Quickly! As for you, Signor Durell, I fear I send you to your death. But you insist, and I will not deny you. We are lost in any case. That poor girl, that poor Gabriella—”

“What is the name of the place?”

“It is in the mountains. It is called Sangieri. It is an old stronghold, not well known to historians. It is not easy to find. I will describe to you the roads you must follow and I will give you a car to go there.”

O’MALLEY said, “It’s past midnight. You sure this is the right way?” He rubbed his wrists, where he had been bound helplessly in the
Vesper’s
engine room.

They had f oho wed Route 186 southwest out of Palermo, climbing the hills to Monreale. Beyond the royal pleasure grounds of ancient Norman kings they drove by the wine-colored cathedral with its Moorish cloisters. Only an occasional truck or flashy sports car passed them toward the city. Uccelatti had lent them his gun-metal Jaguar with its built-in bar and two-way radio. The night cooled rapidly as they followed the twisting road into the spiny hills. Durell drove. From Monreale they cut left along a secondary road, picked up the larger highway 586 to Altofione, then climbed again along a twisting route out of the valley toward Lago di Piana d’Albanesi.

O’Malley sat beside Durell on the front bucket seat. Bruno and Joey sat in the back. There was an air of constraint among all of them. A few minutes after O’Malley spoke Durell found the small graveled road that ran south across a small bridge and then wound into the barren, treeless mountains of interior Sicily.

“You waiting for an apology, Cajun?” O’Malley asked finally.

“You don’t owe me anything,” Durell said.

O’Malley looked wolfish in the glow from the walnut-veneered dashboard. “I figured the odds at seven to five I made the right break.”

“You gambled with Gabriella’s life when you pulled out in Naples.”

“I figured it was helping her, Cajun. And the way she looked at you and depended on you.” O’Malley paused. “So I was wrong. I was stupid. I never wanted to put her in danger by goin’ to her. She comes first with me. When I saw what happened, I decided to hell with patriotism and I tried to pull her out of it the best I could. So thanks for getting me out of the jam— after I was so dumb about it.”

“We’re not out of it yet. Gabriella’s had a long start. Kronin might have her by now.”

“Don’t rub in the salt, Cajun.”

“You need it,” Durell said.

The lush coastal area of palms and almond trees was far behind. The mountains, long stripped of their forests by ancient seafarers for ship timbers, looked barren and desolate. Now and then they passed a shepherd’s hut, dark and forlorn, in the craggy defiles. The air turned chilly. There were no road signs. Now and then a rutted trail led from the road Durell followed, and once he lost a precious five minutes at a fork where the branches seemed equally important. Low stone walls lined their way.

“Are we getting anywhere?” O’Malley asked.

“I’m just following directions,” Durell said.

“That Uccelatti is scared out of his skin. I wouldn’t trust him. He promised he’d take care of Gabriella, then he clobbered me and tied me up and sent her off into this crazy country all alone to see this great-grand-uncle of hers. Sending an innocent girl to do his dirty work! Like sending a child on a truce mission to the Vietcong. They’ll zap her on sight.”

O’Malley’s yellow eyes were savage in his narrow hunter’s face. Durell sensed a change in him. Desperation was the main evidence. He remembered O’Malley as a laughing, reckless boy; but he was different now. It was a quality of doom that Durell had seen in other men, a sense that life was of no further importance. He began to wonder if it would not have been better to leave O’Malley on the
Vesper
.

They were all armed, but there was no guessing their needs when they arrived. Uccelatti could give no details of the headquarter’s defenses. And somehow Durell was sure that Karl Kronin was there waiting for them. It could be a trap. But he had to walk into it.

They roared through another dark village with blue Arab doors—the blue symbolized the gates of heaven—-and the houses were dark and shuttered against the full moon as it shone on the bleak poverty of these mountains. The inevitable cathedral soared with ironic, airy grace, like a Moorish dream, into the pale night sky. Then the rutted road led them up a narrow valley, hemmed in by craggy heights, where a small stream rushed southward in silvery froth. They turned left again. The stone walls that protected them against the dizzy drops gradually eroded, and the stiff springs of the Jaguar jounced heavily. Durell gripped the wheel hard to keep them on the path.

They ended abruptly in a stony pasture. He braked the car. The powerful engine ticked over, purring like a sleepy cat. They should be near their destination now, but there were no signposts to indicate a place named Sangieri. The moonlight mocked him. The stars laughed. The mountains sang of their silence.

“We’re nowhere,” O’Malley sighed.

“Lost?” Bruno rumbled.

“That son-of-a-bitch-Uccelatti,” O’Malley said. “I’ll kill him if anything’s happened to Gabriella.”

Two goats grazed within the bounds of the stony field. There was no sign of a house. He slammed the Jaguar into reverse and roared back for perhaps a hundred yards. He had missed the tracks that curved to the left in the straggly grass. He started the car that way.

“This ain’t no road,” Bruno objected.

“There’s been a car ahead of us,” Durell insisted. “You can see the tire marks in the grass.”

“Like I don’t see nothing,” Bruno grunted; but he subsided and clung to the strap as they bounced over stones and ruts that seemed to lead nowhere.

Durell used only the dimmers as they crawled ahead. He was looking for the cottage where Uccelatti said his parents lived. If Gabriella came this way, there had to be a sign soon. His sense of lost time grew more acute.

The Jaguar stalled. He started it again, regretting the engine noise. The dim path led along a grassy ridge that bordered a sheer drop into a rocky valley. The road twisted south, and it seemed as if they had lost all contact with civilization. He was not even sure he could see the trail of the other car now, and he wondered if his imagination had played a trick on him.

“Hold it,” O’Malley said.

Durell looked at him and saw a gun in O’Malley’s hand. The man’s eyes gleamed with an angry, feral light.

“What is it?”

“I thought I heard somebody yell. Like a scream.”

“Man or woman?”

“Gabriella.”

Durell urged the big Jaguar forward again over a wilderness of bumps and rocks. Abruptly the way sloped down into a cuplike depression, where cedar trees screened them from the surrounding mountains. He listened for anything O’Malley might have heard above the low hum of the engine; but he heard nothing.

“There,” O’Malley said.

His word came like a small explosion, and he pointed to a rough stone wall that barred their way. There was a wooden gate, and beyond it was a well-defined path. The gate stood open, like an ominous invitation for them to enter. Durell drove through.

The heavy car responded gratefully to the solid roadbed. The trees lined each side of the route, cutting off their view. Certainly no wandering tourists could ever find this place beyond the pasture where the goats were tethered. Then a rocky bluff barred their way. The road vanished through a small hand-hewn tunnel. On the other side, when they came out, they saw the house.

It was of stone, small and neat, with a red tiled roof that looked black in the moonlight, and a square tower at one end. A low wall enclosed a garden plot and a few fruit trees that lifted twisted arms to the inhospitable environment. The wooden shutters looked tightly shut on all the windows; but Sicilians were adverse to the night air and the dangers of banditry. Yet the front door, a massive affair with metal straps, stood ajar.

Durell checked the car, switched off the engine, and listened. All he heard was the singing of the mountains. The bonnet gave off a soft metallic ping! as the cool wind struck its heat. O’Malley gave a great start.

“Take it easy,” Durell told him.

“I don’t see no headquarters pad around here.”

The house was much too small for what they sought. But it could be where Uccelatti’s parents lived. Beyond the house was a rise of ground and a row of cypress trees. The road went around the house, but he could not see how much farther it proceeded.

“Bruno. Joey,” Durell said. “Get to the fence by the garden and watch that front door. Don’t go in the house. O’Malley and I will case the back. Wait until you hear from us before you move. And don’t shoot at anything until you’re sure of what it is. Let’s go, Frank.”

O’Malley slid out with quick and silent grace. The night wind slapped them with chilly force. The pasture offered no cover as they circled the dark and silent house. They went through the cypress grove, and Durell pointed to the tire marks of cars.

“More than one,” he said softly.

O’Malley’s face was lumpy with corded muscles along the jaw. His blond hair blew in the wind. “Cajun, if anything happens—”

“Plenty is going to happen.”

“I mean, to me. Or to Gabriella. I want you to know why I creamed out in Naples. It wasn’t the money they offered. Or the immunity. It was Gabriella. The way she looked at you and began to depend on you. I got stupid about it. She doesn’t know about men. She’s the most innocent girl I ever met. She’s got a—a beautiful soul.” O’Malley spoke between clenched teeth. Durell started forward, and again O’Malley checked him. “Listen, Cajun. The way she looked at you—well, she worships the ground you walk on, you know that? She’s vulnerable. I never could get her to look at me like that.”

“I didn’t encourage her,” Durrell said. “And she loves you, Frank.”

“I’m not so sure. But all of a sudden it doesn’t mat

ter so much. I mean, about me and her. I’m only worried about Gabriella. Cajun, they’ll kill her!”

“Yes,” Durell said.

“I just want you to know I’m not sore now about how she feels about you.”

“You’re wrong about that. But there is her car.”

He pointed to a small Fiat parked in the dooryard behind the stone house. There was still no sign of life about the place. More goats were tethered in the yard, and one of them bleated softly and stamped small hooves as they approached. It was a giveaway that could not be avoided, but Durell swore softly. In a low shed with one side open to the south he made out an elaborately decorated Sicilian farm cart, the bulk of a draft horse in a stall, and the glimmer of pitchforks and farm tools. A haycock stood to the left of the shed.