Luciano's Luck (19 page)

There was a donkey tethered outside. They moved past it and Rosa opened the door and led the way in. It was very quiet, only the candles, incense heavy on the damp morning air. Down by the altar, the Virgin seemed to float out of darkness, a light fixed smile on her face.

Three people waited by a confessional box, a boy, an old man, an even older woman who wore the usual black headscarf and a decaying sheepskin coat against the cold. She looked at Rosa and Savage curiously.

Savage peered through the partially open door as the
kubelwagen
braked to a halt. The Ukrainians got out and stood beside the fieldcar lighting cigarettes and talking, then all three of them started up the path to the church.

They were casual enough, obviously expecting no trouble. The corporal who led the way carried a sidearm at his belt and the other two had Schmeissers. Savage unslung his M1, evaluating his chances of taking all three before they knew what was happening.

Rosa said softly, ‘You might get the corporal, but not the other two.’

‘So what do we do?’

‘Give me that.’ She pulled the M1 from his hands. ‘And now the pack.’ He did as he was told and she quickly stowed them away behind the confessional box. The two old people and the boy watched impassively.

‘We're here to see the priest to discuss our marriage plans.’ She pulled him over to a pew in the shadows behind the others. ‘No trouble, I can handle it.’

‘Like you have before?’

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘They're men, aren't they? German, Russian what's the difference?’

‘I'm the difference, damn you! I'm the difference!’

He took off his cap and slipped a Browning automatic out of his right hand pocket. He held it in his lap, covered by the cap, without Rosa being aware of the fact and waited.

There was silence, the murmur of the priest's voice in the confessional mingling with the suppliant's. The door opened and steps approached, boots ringing on the flagstones.

‘So, what have we got here?’ the corporal said in bad Italian.

He paused at the old people before moving on to Rosa and Savage. He stood looking down at them and the other two moved up beside him. Tough, brutal men who looked as if they'd seen everything and experienced most things.

‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.

‘Waiting to see the priest,’ Rosa said.

‘What for? To confess your sins.’ Their laughter had an ugly ring to it.

She smiled ingratiatingly. ‘We're getting married next week and need to see the good father to make the arrangements.’

‘Married, eh?’ He moved round behind her.

‘Nice?’ the corporal appealed to the other two and slipped a hand inside the bodice of her dress, cupping the left breast. ‘Virgin, are you?’

‘Yes.’

‘We'll have to do something about that.’ He yanked her to her feet and pulled Savage's head back by the hair at the same time. ‘I'm doing you a favour, son, you do realize that?’

He took her by the arm and she twisted, pleading with Savage. ‘Please, no trouble. It's nothing. I can handle it.’

As the corporal propelled her up the aisle one of the others called, ‘Don't forget your friends.’ He turned, grinning. ‘If I know him, he'll have her on the altar.’

The other put one foot on the pew beside Savage and leaned over him. ‘You don't mind, do you? Like he says, he's doing you a favour. In fact, we're in such a generous mood today, we've all decided to do you a favour.’

Savage fired through the cap, shooting him in the heart at point-blank range, killing him instantly. He shoved the body away, the Browning arching towards the other man who was frantically trying to unsling his Schmeisser. Savage's second bullet caught him in the left shoulder, spinning him round. The third shattered his spine, driving him head-first across the back of one of the pews.

As Savage turned, the corporal already had Rosa in front of him and was jerking the Walther from his holster. He rammed it into her side.

‘Drop it or she dies now.’

But exactly this kind of situation had been a feature of OSS training. Savage's arm swung up and he shot him through the head instantly, the top of the corporal's skull fragmenting as he was hurled back against the altar rail.

Savage rushed for Rosa's hand. He pulled her away and, turning, found the old couple and the boy already making for the door fast followed by another old woman who had just emerged from the confessional box with the priest.

He was about fifty, bearded, and wore the brown robes of the Franciscans. He came forward, his face strangely calm considering the circumstances. Without a word he proceeded to check the three Ukrainians.

‘All dead. Who are you?’

‘We were on our way to Crown of Thorns to see Padre Giovanni,’ Rosa said. ‘I am Vito Barbera's niece and this is an American officer, Captain Savage.’

‘I am Brother Lucio,’ the Franciscan said.

Savage retrieved his rucksack and M1 and moved to the door quickly. ‘The donkey is still there.’

‘Mine,’ said Lucio.

‘Those people? What about them?’

‘All they want to do is get home and forget this ever happened. They're too old and frightened to want to be involved.’ He turned to survey the carnage. ‘But we'll have to do something about this.’

‘What do you mean?’ Savage asked.

‘If the corpses are found here, it would mean heavy reprisals for Viterba. Much better they disappear all together. Help me and we'll take them out to the fieldcar.’

‘I'll clean up in here,’ Rosa said.

She found a bucket in the vestry, filled it with water from the spring outside the door, went back inside and started to mop the blood from the stone floor with a rag as Savage and Lucio returned for another body. When they came back for the corporal, she was cleaning the altar beside his body.

Savage said, ‘Are you okay?’

‘You think I'm worried about a pig like that?’

She stirred the corpse with her toe and Savage said, ‘Okay, you needn't act so tough. We'll be back in a little while.’

He and Lucio put the corporal in the rear of the
kubelwagen
with the other two, then Savage and the Franciscan got into the front and Savage drove away, following his instructions.

They left the track further down the slope towards the village and turned into the forest, bumping over rough ground between trees. Finally, Lucio tapped Savage on the shoulder and he braked to a halt at the top of a short slope above a dark and stagnant pond. ‘Here, I think.’

They got out and together, put their shoulders to the fieldcar. It ran forward, gathering momentum, ploughed through a screen of young firs and plunged into the pond. One of the bodies was pitched out and the fieldcar turned over on top of him, the other two still inside. It didn't take long to disappear. ‘Right,’ Savage said. ‘A moment, Captain, please.’

Lucio folded his hands and recited in a firm voice the prayers for the dying.
Go, Christian Soul, from this world, in the name of God the Father Almighty who created thee.
By the time he was finished, the surface mud had settled.

He crossed himself and said gravely, ‘And now we go, I think.’

They hurried back up the slope through the trees and along the track to the church. Rosa was waiting outside by the donkey.

Brother Lucio said, ‘You've cleaned up thoroughly?’

‘Of course.’

He swung a leg over the donkey, adjusted his robe and set off. Savage and Rosa followed behind.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked her.

‘Sure.’ She took out her old tobacco tin and lit a cigarette, inhaled a couple of times and passed it to him. ‘There was no need. I could have handled it.’

‘No,’ he said violently. ‘Never again. You understand me?’

‘Sure I do. I think maybe you like me, Savage.’

‘I think maybe you're right.’

‘Good,’ she said calmly. ‘Perhaps I make you a little bit crazy again tonight.’ Savage, hopelessly and genuinely in love for the first time in his life, pulled her into his arms and kissed her, then they hurried after Brother Lucio.

Maria knelt in prayer in front of the altar of the chapel at Crown of Thorns, at peace again for the first time in days, once more a part of a calm and ordered world that she understood. Luciano and Padre Giovanni stood in the shadows by the door.

‘Have you heard from Don Antonio yet?’ Luciano asked.

‘Not a word.’

‘What do you think he'll make of her?’ Luciano nodded down towards Maria.

The old man smiled faintly. ‘A very remarkable young woman. A whiff of holiness would not come amiss in Don Antonio's life, but frankly, I think the fact that Maria is a nun will have little effect on him. He is a strange, stubborn man. Quite unique. Himself alone.’

The door opened, a young brother entered and whispered in his ear. Padre Giovanni said to Luciano, ‘It appears that your friends have arrived.’

He turned and led the way out to the terraced cloisters.

Luciano looked over the rail and saw Savage and Rosa crossing the courtyard.

‘Heh, you two,’ he called. ‘What kept you?’

14

Padre Giovanni led the way down the winding stone stair to the crypt of the monastery. He was preceded by a young monk carrying a couple of lanterns on a pole. Savage and Luciano followed behind.

‘These cellars, more than anything else, have made Crown of Thorns famous all over Sicily,’ Padre Giovanni told them.

The young monk raised the pole high and Savage saw that the place was a charnel house, the bones of the dead visible on every hand. Ribs, pelvises, hands, feet, femurs, tibulas, all cemented into the architecture. There were skulls piled everywhere.

The most horrifying aspect was the bodies, some lying down, some seated, others hanging from pegs. Many were total skeletons, but others retained skin and hair, even eyes and tattered vestiges of clothing.

‘What in the hell goes on here?’ Savage asked in horror. ‘Who were these people?’

‘Only the best, Captain Savage, I assure you,’ Padre Giovanni told him. ‘Sicilian aristocrats over the ages have taken it as a privilege to make this their final resting place. You will find much the same thing in the catacombs of Cappuchin Zita Church in Palermo.’

The remains of a child in a tattered velvet suit hung from a peg nearby and Savage shuddered and turned away.

Luciano said, ‘To the Sicilian, death is ever present and always important. In some villages on All Souls Day, families make pilgrimages to the graves of the departed, taking their favourite food. They sit around the graves at midnight by candlelight. They leave presents for the dead in church.’

‘And why not?’ Padre Giovanni said. ‘It reminds us that we all come to the same end. But I didn't bring you down here to find a suitable setting for a sermon. Over here, gentlemen.’

In one corner of the crypt was an ancient wooden throne in black oak, shaped as a Norman arch and set into the stone. A decaying figure was enthroned in the seat, attired in a Franciscan robe, the hood drawn over the skull.

‘Padre Leonardo, prior of the monastery at the end of the last century.’

He turned a carved wooden rose in the top right hand corner and pushed and the throne swung back with its macabre burden, revealing a dark tunnel.

‘This dates from Saracen times,’ Padre Giovanni said. ‘A way of retreat if things become too hopeless. For you also, I think, which is why it seemed sensible I show it to you.’

‘Have the Germans given you much trouble here at the monastery, Father?’ Savage asked.

‘On occasion. Colonel Koenig and his paratroopers were here three weeks ago. They searched the monastery most thoroughly.’

‘Were they looking for somebody?’

‘No, I think Koenig wished to familiarize himself with the situation here. A strange young man. Courteous and decent in the extreme. Not like those Ukrainians of Major Meyer. We've had them here too.’

Luciano said, ‘So this tunnel emerges somewhere outside the walls?’

‘About a quarter of a mile down the slope. Too far for my old legs to walk, but Filippo will show you the way.’ He reached up and took one of the lanterns from the pole. ‘I'll see you later.’

He turned and walked back through the crypt. Brother Filippo started into the tunnel. Savage glanced sideways at the ghoul in the hooded robe on the wooden throne and hesitated, unwilling to pass him.

Luciano said cheerfully, ‘He reminds me of a judge I once knew, but that's another story. Come on, let's get moving.’

He gave Savage a push and they moved on into the tunnel, following Brother Filippo.

Detweiler leaned against the wall in a daze. He had never been so tired in his life and every limb, every muscle in his body seemed to ache. Conditions in the cell were appalling. The place stank like a sewer and he was weak and lightheaded.

He had no idea how long he had been there just as he had lost count of the number of times he had attempted to slump down to the ground and had been kicked and beaten back on to his feet. A man could only take so much, training or no training, that was apparent. There was a rattle of bolts, the door opened and a shaft of yellow light flooded in.

He stood under a warm shower washing himself, watched by one of the Ukrainian guards. Standing in the passage outside, Meyer and Suslov peered in through the small glass window in the door.

Meyer said, ‘I've just received word that Koenig's been detained in Palermo by General Guzzoni. He won't be returning until tomorrow.’

‘An interesting situation,’ Suslov said. ‘Fraught with possibilites, especially where our friend in there is concerned.’

‘Exactly.’

Meyer opened the door and went in followed by Suslov. Detweiler turned, instinctively covering his private parts with his hands.

Meyer said, ‘I've considered your case and I've now decided you can go.’

Detweiler said stupidly, ‘Go?’

Meyer ignored him and said to Suslov, ‘Give him his clothes, see he gets something to eat, then kick him out.’

He walked out. Suslov said, ‘You're bloody lucky, my friend. If I had my way. Still…’ He nodded to the guard. ‘Get him dressed, then take him to the canteen.’

He went out and the guard threw Detweiler a towel. Detweiler dried himself quickly, then dressed in his clothes which had been piled neatly on the bench. It was incredible. His story had actually worked. The bastards were going to let him go.