Luciano's Luck (18 page)

Detweiler, his wits sharpened considerably by fear, stood in front of Meyer's desk and waited. The Major ignored him, watching while Suslov took various items from the rucksack: ammunition clips, several grenades, chocolate Krations. He laid them down beside the M1 and the Colt automatic.

‘So?’ Meyer said.

‘The weapons would appear to be brandnew, Major.’

Meyer picked up Detweiler's false papers. ‘Who have we here?’ He spoke without looking up. ‘Mario Brazzi, born Palermo, 1917. It says here you are a shepherd by profession?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Detweiler said, keeping his head down.

‘Employed by whom?’

Detweiler stayed with the story Carter had outlined for him at Maison Blanche. ‘Times are hard. I move from place to place. A few days here, a few days there.’

‘Discharged from the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade in February as a result of a chest wound received in North Africa.’

‘That's right, sir.’

Meyer nodded and Suslov put down the M1, reached across and tore open his shirt. The great raised scar of a gunshot wound was clearly visible on the left side of Detweiler's chest, souvenir of the illfated Dieppe landings.

Meyer sat back. ‘We would appear to have a parodox. Mario Brazzi, wounded veteran and honest shepherd, found wandering the hills with brand new American weapons, American chocolate and Krations.’ He turned to Suslov. ‘What would that suggest to you,
Obersturmführer?’

‘A supply drop to partisans in the area, probably very recent, Major, judging by the carbine and the other items.’

Detweiler pulled out all the stops to stay in character. ‘I'm an honest man, I swear it. I stayed the night in a shepherd's hut on the other side of Viterba, high in the mountains. I found all this stuff hidden under the straw.’

Meyer grimaced and Suslov picked up the M1 and drove the butt into the pit of Detweiler's stomach with all his strength. Detweiler lay on his face, retching.

Meyer said. ‘Let's try again.’

They hauled him to his feet, and at that moment the door opened and Koenig entered. He wore a camouflaged jump jacket over his uniform, his old NCO's fieldcap slanted over one eye.

‘Ah, there you are, Meyer,’ he said. ‘I'm just off.’ He paused, suitably surprised. ‘What's all this?’

Meyer had long since learned to control his anger in Koenig's presence.

He jumped to his feet. ‘A partisan, or so we think, Colonel. Suslov picked him up in the mountains with various items of American equipment. It would appear some sort of drop's taken place in that area recently.’

Koenig picked up the Colt, hefted it and put it back on the desk. ‘And what does he have to say?’

‘That he found all this hidden under the straw in a shepherd's hut.’

Koenig looked Detweiler over and the sergeant, supported by the two Ukrainians, kept his head down, trying to catch his breath.

Koenig said, ‘It's possible, I suppose.’

Meyer was astonished. ‘Colonel?’

‘Put him in a cell, give him something to eat and twenty-four hours to think about his situation. I'm going up to command headquarters in Palermo, but I'll be back some time tomorrow. I'll see him then.’

Meyer smiled slightly. ‘As you say, Colonel.’

Koenig walked to the door and opened it. He turned, ‘And I'd like to find him still in one piece. Do impress that on your men. They have a tendency to get a trifle overenthusiastic on these occasions and that would not please me at all.’

‘Certainly, Colonel, that goes without saying.’

The door closed and Suslov said, ‘This is crazy, Major. Just let me have my way with this bastard.’

Meyer shook his head. ‘When the right moment comes I intend to have Koenig's head, believe me, but I'm not going to jeopardize the situation by a conflict over something like this. It isn't important enough.’

‘So what do we do with this one?’

As Detweiler couldn't speak German he had been unable to follow what was going on. He waited fearfully, trying to play the cringing peasant, with only the expression on Meyer's face giving him a clue as to what was going on.

Meyer said thoughtfully, ‘Twentyfour hours to think things over, the Colonel said. Very well, let's give him just that. Take him down to twentytwo.’

‘Zu Befehl, Sturmbannführer.’
Suslov nodded to his men and they dragged Detweiler out.

They descended stone steps, Suslov leading the way followed by the two Ukrainians holding Detweiler between them.

Detweiler's mind worked furiously, assessing the possibilities. He'd been prepared for this sort of situation in training, of course. Solitary confinement that's what they usually started with, and in total darkness. He remembered what the psychiatrist lecturing to them had said. Sensory deprivation leading to total alienation of the individual. Okay, but all he had to do was hang on because he knew something these bastards didn't. That the invasion was due any day now.

They paused outside a cell door and Suslov unlocked it. The stench was appalling. When Detweiler was pushed forward he saw, as the light flooded in, that there were twelve or more filthy and ragged creatures huddled together on the floor in that confined space.

Suslov nodded and the two Ukrainians started to rip off Detweiler's clothes. When he was naked, they handcuffed his hands behind him. Detweiler had never felt so vulnerable in his life as Meyer came down the stairs and walked along the passage. He looked Detweiler over calmly, then moved into the entrance of the cell.

‘Now listen to me,’ he said in his bad Italian. ‘This man doesn't lie down, doesn't sit, gets no rest whatsoever. And he isn't to sleep when standing. You take turns to make sure my orders are carried out. If you fail me, no water, no food for one week. Just each other.’ He nodded to Suslov who shoved Detweiler down into the cell and slammed the door. Detweiler fell over a prostrate body, aware of the stench of the place and kicked out frantically.

There were hands everywhere, crawling all over him, pulling him to his feet. Someone said hoarsely, ‘I don't know who you are, friend, and we couldn't care less. It's dog eat dog in here. That means we do what that Gestapo bastard wants and you do what we want.’

Detweiler stood there in the darkness, suddenly terribly afraid. ‘Listen to me, for God's sake,’ he began.

The same hoarse voice said, ‘God has nothing to do with it, so be a good boy and do exactly as you're told.’

In late spring and early summer, when the first real heat begins, violent thunderstorms are common in the Sicilian high country. It started to rain again as Savage and Rosa followed a track along a ridge between two mountain peaks.

He said, ‘Does it always rain this much in Sicily?’

She laughed. ‘No, this is not usual.’

Not that Savage minded. Some people were rainwalkers by nature. It gave them a lift just to be out in the stuff. The rainstorm which broke over the Cammarata that morning worked its usual magic on him. The earth came alive and there was a freshness to everything.

She took his arm. ‘One thing I don't understand. Last night when you were making love to me.’

‘Which time was that.’ He tried to keep his face straight. ‘The third or fourth?’

‘No, early this morning, when you woke from sleep. You kept apologizing for being no good. You said you were much better at shooting people.’

‘I don't remember,’ he lied.

‘But you are a wonderful lover. You pleased me many times.’

He was thoroughly embarrassed. ‘You shouldn't talk like that.’

‘Like what?’ she demanded. ‘What did I say that was so terrible?’

‘Let it go,’ he said. ‘Just let it go.’

She pulled him round and looked up at his face, grave beneath the peak of the old tweed cap. ‘I don't know what they've been telling you all these years, but you are not the man they think you are.’ She reached up and touched his face gently. ‘Or the man they have told you to be.’

He put an arm around her and pulled her close. ‘How come all this wisdom in one so young?’

‘Because I was a whore,’ she said harshly. ‘In Palermo. But you knew this about me, I think?’

He was filled with a sense of overwhelming affection, leaned down and kissed her gently.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We'd better make tracks for the monastery and find out what's happened to the others.’

Luciano and Maria walked quietly together through the morning rain. She said, ‘I wish I hadn't had to leave that child.’

‘You've provided one miracle to start with,’ he said. ‘It'll survive. Bound to after such a start. Anyway, I thought you were in the faith business?’

‘And you're not?’

‘I deal in facts.’

‘You don't hate the Germans?’

‘Do you?’

‘I hate some of the things they've done.’

‘Life's a whole lot simpler than that for me.’

‘You reject any kind of personal commitment.’

Luciano shrugged. ‘I know what I am. That tells me who I am. I like you, so I'm on your side.’

‘And the Germans?’

‘I haven't even seen one yet.’

‘It's a game to you, all of it, isn't it, Mr Luciano, just like Mafia?’ She shook her head. ‘With your rules like some game for schoolboys. Your
omerta.
Manliness, honour, solve your own problems and kill your enemy facetoface.’

‘Everyone plays games,’ he said. ‘It helps you get by in life, haven't you noticed that? Flickering candles, medieval robes, plainsong, a man dressed in a woman's robe to wash your spirit clean at frequent intervals? Now what in hell am I supposed to make of that?’

Before she could reply they emerged from the trees and saw a small village in the valley below.

‘The place Solazzo mentioned,’ she said. ‘Viterba.’

Luciano nodded. ‘Okay, let's go down and take a look. See if I can find this guy, Verda, that Solazzo spoke of.’

It was a poor sort of place. Several streets slanted down to a square, mainly open sewers if the stench was anything to go by. Thin children played listlessly in the dirt, stopping to gaze apathetically as Luciano and Maria went by. There was a wine shop, an awning stretched over a few tables outside, rain pouring over the edge.

Luciano said to Maria, ‘Wait here, I'll see if he's inside.’

She sat at one of the tables and he went in. It was very dark, a few tables only and a cracked marble bar with bottles behind. There were no customers, only a short, thickset man in open-necked shirt and soiled white apron, who leaned on the bar reading a magazine.

He looked up warily. ‘Yes?’

‘Mario Solazzo sent me.’

‘So?’

‘I'm trying to get to the Franciscans at Crown of Thorns, He said you'd put us on the way.’

‘Us?’

‘I have a woman with me.’ There was a long pause and Luciano said patiently, ‘You are Verda, aren't you? I was told you were of the Society.’

Verda stared at him blankly and his hand was under the bar now. ‘So?’

Luciano said, ‘I'm going to take something out of my right hand pocket so don't shoot me. It isn't a gun.’

He produced a yellow silk handkerchief and unfolded it. Verda looked down at the black L and his eyes widened. His hand emerged, holding a Beretta automatic of the type issued to Italian officers, and he placed it carefully on the bar.

‘L for Luciano.’ He looked up slowly. Luciano stood there, head back, a hand on his right hip. Verda whispered. ‘You've come, just like they said you would.’

He went round the bar and raised Luciano's hand to his lips and at the same moment, Maria cried out in pain. Luciano turned and ran for the door.

She was pressed back against one of the tables. The two men crowding her were typical of the young men of the region: shabby clothes, broken boots, features brutalized and coarse from a life of toil.

One of them had his arms around her, hands moving over her buttocks, a cruel smile on his face. He whispered some obscenity in her ear, and she slapped his face. To a Sicilian, a woman is there to be used, to do as she is told. To be publicly humiliated by one is unthinkable. The young man raised his hand to strike.

Luciano grabbed him by the wrist and spun him round. They stared at each other, face to face. Already, the other man's expression was changing, first to dismay, then fear. It was not that he recognized Luciano, but what he saw clearly in that implacable face was the self-sufficiency, the quiet arrogance, the power of the
mafioso.

Luciano slapped him. The man didn't say a word; simply stood there. His friend touched his arm and they walked backwards, faces blank, turned and hurried away.

Verda said, ‘Don Salvatore, what can I say? And you, Signorina.’

‘This good lady is one of the sisters of Pity,’ Luciano informed him. ‘There are reasons for her being dressed like this. She is also Don Antonio Luca's granddaughter.’

Verda turned in astonishment to look at her then caught her hand and kissed it before she could prevent him. ‘Please come in. Eat with me and then I'll see you on the road to the monastery.’

Savage and Rosa went over a rise and paused. There was a village about half a mile to the right and below them, in the side of the valley.

‘What's that place?’ he demanded.

‘Viterba, but we keep going this way, where the track climbs up beyond the church to the ridge. The monastery is five miles on the other side.’

As they started down the track he said, ‘A strange place to have a church, out here on its own.’

‘Not really. The villages in the high country are not large enough to have their own church and priest. People walk from many places to this one. It is served by the Franciscan.’

As they approached, Savage was aware of the sound of an engine close at hand and turned to see a
kubelwagen
emerge from the trees in the valley below. It carried three men, one of them sitting behind a heavy machine gun.

He raised his fieldglasses and examined them quickly. ‘Germans.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Ukrainians members of the SS Special Group run by a man called Meyer. He's a Gestapo major operating out of Agrigento.’

She grabbed his arm and hurried him along. ‘Heh,’ he said, ‘What is this?’

‘The church we'll hide in the church.’

She was right, of course. They had really no other choice for the track carried on for hundreds of yards across bare mountainside. Before they could get anywhere, they were certain to be spotted.