Luciano's Luck (16 page)

‘Oh, yes. You will see.’

She led the way across the plateau, picking her way between boulders. When they reached the base of the rock, Savage saw that it wasn't perpendicular at all, but lifted in great slabs, most of which were split and fissured.

She said. ‘Boys herd goats up here.’

Savage ran a hand over his mouth, his throat dry, fear churning his guts. His one secret was a fear of heights. He was a brave man who had placed himself in maximum danger on several occasions, had killed men in hand-to-hand combat, and yet he had never jumped from a plane with his eyes open, had gone through a private hell abseiling down the rock faces on the commando course at Achnacarry in Scotland.

Rosa started to climb. He swallowed hard and forced himself to follow her. The wind cut through his old tweed jacket. Lightning flickered on the mountain tops and it started to rain again.

At least when he looked down he could see nothing. He paused, breathed deeply to steady himself, eyes closed. When he opened them, the girl was crouched beside him.

‘Are you all right?’

He nodded. ‘Fine.’

But she knew, he could sense it, reaching out to touch his face briefly with the fingers of one hand. She turned, starting to climb again and Savage took another deep, shuddering breath and went after her.

Suslov, the Ukrainian
Einsatzgruppen
lieutenant, crossed the farmyard cautiously followed by a corporal and two men carrying machine pistols. The old man and Giorgio, the boy who had brought the message, waited at the barn door.

The old man opened the door. From inside came the sound of Detweiler's heavy breathing. Suslov nodded to the corporal who moved in with the two SS.

There was a sudden muffled cry, the sounds of blows and they reappeared dragging Detweiler between them. They dropped him in the mud and he lay there groaning.

Suslov knelt down and searched him, finding the Colt automatic and the false identity papers Carter had given Detweiler at Maison Blanche. He examined them briefly then took a silver whistle from his pocket and blew a single long blast. There was the sound of engines starting up and a few moments later, five
kubelwagens
drove into the farmyard. The first two had drivers only, but the other three had heavy machine guns mounted and carried three-man crews.

The corporal came out of the barn with Detweiler's rucksack and the M1 rifle. Suslov examined it with interest, then stirred Detweiler with his toe.

‘American rifle, brand-new.’ He held up the Colt. ‘American handgun. You must have some interesting friends. Major Meyer's going to enjoy meeting you.’ He nodded to the corporal. ‘Get him in the car.’

‘Zu befehl, Untersturmbannführer,’
the corporal replied, for it was a strict regulation of Meyer's that all members of his
Einsatzgruppe
spoke German, however badly.

They handcuffed Detweiler's wrists behind his back and bundled him into the rear of one of the front
kubelwagens.
The corporal and two guards got in with him. Suslov moved over to the three rear vehicles and addressed the crews.

‘From the looks of things we've got ourselves a nice one here. A partisan armed with brand-new American weapons. That means they've had a supply drop in this district recently. Patrol the villages on the heights. Anyone in the slightest bit suspicious, haul them in.’

He stood back and they drove away in echelon. As he returned to the front car, the old man pulled off his cap.

‘We did well, Lieutenant, Giorgio and me, eh?’

Suslov lit a cigarette and looked him over contemptuously. ‘You really are a disgusting old bastard, aren't you, but then I suppose every dog must have its bone.’

He took a roll of banknotes from his pocket and threw them in the mud at the old man's feet, then got into the
kubelwagen
and nodded to the driver who drove away at once.

The old man picked up the money and stood there, an arm around Giorgio's shoulders, listening until their sound had faded into the distance. Then he patted the boy on the head and they turned and went inside.

Savage was soaked to the skin and bitterly cold as he hauled himself up over the last slab. The girl reached out and took his hand.

‘Over here,’ she said. ‘Not far.’

He followed her, head down in the howling gale which at that height threatened to blow them off their feet. They scrambled over rough grass and he was aware of another rock face looming out of the night. Then the wind seemed to drop away.

‘Head down,’ Rosa said. He put out a hand in pitch darkness and felt rough stone.

A match flared and he saw Rosa standing a few feet away. She held the match above her head and looked around her, searching. They were in a low roofed cave with every evidence of habitation. There was wood laid ready to burn on a crude stone hearth, a wooden table, sheepskins, blankets and an assortment of cooking pots. The match went out and she struck another and lit an old oil lamp which stood on the table.

‘What is this place?’ Savage asked.

‘The shepherds use it during the lambing season. They stay up here for weeks.’

He put down his M1 and took off his rucksack. He was shaking with cold and folded his arms as if to hold himself together. She turned and put a hand to his cheek and there was the concern on her face that a mother might show for a child.

‘Too cold, Savage. This is not your country, not your way.’ She picked up one of the blankets and unfolded it. ‘Undress and dry yourself with this. I'll light a fire.’

She crouched at the hearth, striking another match, and the dry twigs flared. She took off her raincoat and knelt there, putting logs on the fire. The rain had soaked through to the cotton dress so that it moulded her like a second skin.

Savage struggled to get his wet jacket off. ‘What about you?’

‘I'm used to it.’ She filled a pan with water from a rivulet that trickled down one of the stone walls and set it on the fire.

‘I thought you came from Palermo?’

She paused, turning from the fire. ‘Who told you that?’

‘Colonel Carter. He said …’ Savage hesitated. ‘He said your Uncle Vito brought you last year from Palermo to live with him.’

There was a calculating look in her eyes as if she was trying to assess how much he knew about her. Savage was confused and embarrassed. She was instantly aware of it, smiled slightly and turned back to feed more logs on the fire.

‘I've lived in Bellona with Uncle Vito for nine months now.’

He peeled off his shirt with difficulty. ‘You like it better?’

‘Than Palermo? Oh, sure. I help Vito with the funeral business. And when he needs a runner, I handle that too.’

‘A runner?’

She picked up a blanket and started to dry his back and shoulders vigorously. ‘Runners carry messages between the various resistance groups. They usually use boys, but Vito prefers me.’

‘Why?’

‘I'm smarter, for one thing. Anyway, it's my choice. I like the mountains. I like the air up here and I like being alone.’ She started to unbuckle his belt. ‘Better get your pants off.’

Her breasts were strong and firm, thrusting against the damp linen of her dress, perfectly outlined and he could see her nipples. He panicked slightly, acutely embarrassed like some gangling boy.

His hands went to the belt, pushing her away. ‘That's okay. I'll do it.’

She smiled, went across to a rock shelf and rummaged amongst various utensils and other items there. She held up a tin. ‘Coffee. Old, but it will do.’

She crouched down at the fire again, spooning coffee into the pan of simmering water. Savage, divested of his boots, managed the wet trousers with difficulty and quickly wrapped the blanket around him.

Rosa piled a sheepskin beside the fire. ‘You come over here and get warm,’ she ordered.

He hesitated, then did as he was told. She covered him with a blanket, piled another couple of sheepskins on top. They were old, certainly dirty and very possibly flearidden, but Savage suddenly realized that he didn't give a damn. They were soft and warm and smelled of wood smoke.

She took a cigarette from an old tobacco tin, lit it with a splinter from the fire and passed it to him without a word. He held it with shaking fingers, grateful for the comfort from the cheap, strong tobacco as he inhaled deeply.

For some reason, he remembered the dinner party his mother had given for him during his last leave in Boston. Dinner jackets, handsome men in uniform, pretty women, the Savage silver gleaming in the candlelight, discreet servants. And there was Joanna, of course, Joanna Van der Boegart who had been somewhere around since his earliest memories. Joanna whom he would marry one day, much to everyone's satisfaction.

He remembered her that last time in his arms on the terrace, up from Vassar for the weekend specially for the party. Cool, elegant, her lips firm and full, but never opening for him, not even on an occasion with the possibility of such finality to it.

Not like this not anything like this. He watched Rosa, leaning over the fire pouring coffee carefully into an old tin cup. The damp cotton dress was so tight that he could see the shape of her pants underneath.

There was an immediate sexual stirring of a kind he had not known for some considerable time and he moved uncomfortably. Whatever a soldier monk might be, Jack Savage was a strong contender for the title. He had been celibate for over a year now. The kind of life he had led, the lengthy periods of training interspersed with brief forays into Europe, left little time for any kind of relationship with a woman. He had long since decided to cut that side of things out of his life altogether, at least for the duration.

In any case, he had never thought of himself as being any great shakes with women. The kind of upperclass girl he had been raised with, girls like Joanna, used their virginity as a bargaining factor. Episodes with the other type of girl at college had been unsatisfactory to say the least.

Even Montmartre had failed to work its magic on him during his painting days. There were girls in plenty interested in the handsome American painter with money. but whatever it took to keep them happy, he didn't have. He had long since come to that regrettable conclusion.

Rosa passed him coffee in the old tin mug, hot and black, and Savage swallowed it greedily, burning his mouth, his hand shaking. She stood looking down at him, a hand on her hips, the steam rising from her damp dress. God, but he was cold, shaking so badly that coffee slipped down his chin and she took the cup from him.

‘I think you have a fever,’ she said. ‘And for that, you must sweat.’

She piled more sheepskins on him, then started to unbutton the dress. As she peeled it down, firm breasts gleamed in the firelight. He closed his eyes, aware of the pants sliding down, the dark hair between her thighs and then she was coming in under the sheepskin beside him.

There was an incredible unreality to it all, like one of those fantasies born in the mind when halfasleep.

Her lips nibbled at his ear and then her tongue was probing his mouth. Her hand slid down the blanket across the flat muscular belly and touched him.

She laughed and breathed in his ear. ‘You take me to New York, eh? You take me to New York, Savage, and I make you a little bit crazy.’

And then she moved, rolling on top of him, spreading her thighs, guiding him into her.

Later, lying there, half asleep, still in a fever his arm around her, he was aware of her whispering.

‘Savage, are you awake?’

He made no reply but lay there, thinking about what had happened. He had never known anything like it or like her. The warmth, the primitiveness, the total lack of shame.

Her head went down and he was aware of her tongue tracing a course across his belly. Then she had him in her mouth. He groaned and started to move.

She pulled away and looked up at him. ‘So, you are awake?’

‘Yes,’ he said, pushing her over on her back. ‘I'm awake, damn you!’

She laughed and kissed him as he thrust into her, still half in a delirium, mounting to a climax that seemed to be without end. One thing he was aware of. The way her body moved, the sudden gasp, the hands tightening into his flesh, her smothered cries.

Then afterwards. he stayed on top of her and finally drifted into sleep as she gently stroked his face.

12

Luciano and Maria followed the same rough track for almost two hours. For most of the time its path lay through pine forest and they avoided the worst of the weather. When it emerged from the trees to climb a steep and rocky hillside, the wind drove rain into their faces so that they could only walk head down and she had to hold on to him for support.

They stopped in the shelter of an outcrop of rock and Luciano shouted. ‘This is no good.’

She put a hand to his face. ‘Just a moment. I think I smell wood smoke.’

She was right. He moved out of the shelter into the full force of the wind, aware instantly of the strong, pungent aroma, and they struggled on.

They came over a rise and saw a light in a hollow amongst trees. Dogs started to bark and. they came to a fence and beyond, on the other side of a mud yard, was a cottage. Luciano unslung his M1 and cocked it and they went across the yard. The top half of the door opened, light flooding through, and a man appeared holding a shotgun.

‘Who goes?’ he called.

‘Travellers, caught by the night,’ Luciano replied. ‘We need shelter.’

‘None for you here. We have trouble enough.’

He was perhaps thirty, a typical mountain man with a heavy black moustache and long unkempt hair under the cap.

He started to close the door and Luciano said, ‘I got a woman with me. What kind of man are you, anyway?’

He took a step towards the door and the man raised the shotgun to his shoulder. ‘I said no. Another step and I blow your head off.’

‘And answer to Mafia,’ Luciano said. ‘To Luca himself.’

The man froze, lowered the shotgun slowly. ‘What has Don Antonio to do with this?’

Luciano pulled Maria forward. ‘His granddaughter. We're on our way to the Franciscans at Crown of Thorns.’

The shotgun came all the way down. The man hesitated; then a woman cried out in agony inside and he turned quickly.