Luciano's Luck (6 page)

but today, we'll do it from a thousand. All right.' She nodded. 'Fine.' The Dakota was banking back towards the airport now. Carter said to Luciano, 'You first, Maria second and I'll bring up the rear.' Luciano grinned as he moved towards the door. 'I hope you're getting a picture of this for my parole board.' The sergeant-instructor moved into position as the red light blinked above the door. Luciano turned and called, 'With my luck, I'll probably break that leg. Then what happens?' The green light flared and the Sergeant yelled, 'GoI* and slapped him on the back. 88 Luciano went head first into space and Maria, terrified, heart pounding, throat dry, went after him without hesitation. Carter clipped on to the anchor line and followed. There wasn't much time to think. Luciano was aware of himself turning over a couple of times, the sudden slap of the parachute opening, a jerk and then he was swinging beneath a khaki umbrella. The airport was laid out like a child's plaything beneath him, the hangars, the aircraft standing outside in neat rows and there were faces, lots of them, turned up to watch. He looked up and saw Maria above and to one side, Carter perhaps sixty or seventy yards further away. Then suddenly, the airport was much larger and he seemed to be going in very fast. He hit the tarmac hard, rolled and miraculously found himself on his feet, the parachute itself giving him no problem because of the almost total lack of wind. As he turned and undipped the harness, he saw that Maria was down forty or fifty yards away. Carter was just hitting the ground on the far side of her. He rolled expertly, for this was his fifteenth drop, and came to his feet. As he disengaged from his harness, he saw Luciano running towards Maria who was still on the ground, crouched over her chute. Carter hurried towards them anxiously, but before he reached them, Luciano had turned and was coming to meet him, a smile on his face. 'Is she all right?' Carter called. 'Oh, sure.' Luciano fished out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and lit one. 'What's wrong then?' 'Nothing. Two Hail Marys and three Our Father's for a safe deliverence or something like that.' He offered , Carter a cigarette. 'That was great. We must do it again I come time.' 'You will, Mr Luciano,' Carter said. 'Soon.* Bransby Abbey was close to Alderley Edge, one of the most beautiful parts of Cheshire and about ten miles from Ringway Airport. Parts of it dated from the fourteenth century, but it had been heavily restored in the eighteen-fifties. It was constructed in mellow grey stone surrounded by a high wall. Bransby was one of a number of safe houses operated by SOE; a place where agents could be prepared for specific missions or receive last minute training. On the afternoon of the following day, Luciano and Carter went for a run through the grounds. There was a trail through the woods, an assault course with commando nets, ropes stretched between trees and similar hazards. Luciano was enjoying himself in spite of the rain. He wore a commando stocking cap, and army fatigues and was soon soaked with rain and mud. He crawled through a line of barbed wire, aware that he had lost Carter somewhere back there in the woods. As he got up, a voice called, 'Heh, you down there.' Luciano glanced up and saw a United States Army Officer standing on the hill, wearing a fieldcap, captain's bars on his military trenchcoat. 'I want a word with you.' It wasn't so much a request as an order and delivered in fine Bostonian tones of the kind you usually got in New England and nowhere else in America. Luciano didn't like that kind of voice, never had, so he didn't bother to reply. 'I'm talking to you, soldier.' 'Great,' Luciano said. 'I'm very happy for you.' Then a hand had him by the shoulder and a voice that was straight out of New York's Eastside said, 'When the Captain speaks, you answer, you bum, hear me?' Luciano glanced over his shoulder and found himself in the grip of an army sergeant who was considerably larger than he was, with a raw, bony face swollen by the 9� scar tissue of a professional prizefighter. 'Heh, you got real medals,' Luciano said. He dipped one shoulder in under the big man's arm and twisted and the sergeant went headfirst down into the hollow. Luciano looked up at the other officer. 'He made a mistake. Don't let him make another.' The Captain was tall with very fair hair and a handsome, arrogant face. Something moved in the blue eyes, and then the sergeant was up out of the hollow, arms reaching to destroy. When he was about six feet away, Luciano's hand came out of his hip pocket holding the ivory madonna. There was a nasty click and the blade jumped into view. The sergeant stopped dead, then crouched to move close. He frowned suddenly and stood very still, his jaw slack with amazement. 'Heh, I know you.' The Captain called, 'Detweiler, stay where you are! That's an order.' And then Carter joined in, appearing from the trees on the run. 'What's going on here?' 'Colonel Carter?' 'That's right.' The Captain saluted and produced a buff envelope from inside his trenchcoat. 'Jack Savage, Captain, Ranger Division and this is Sergeant Detweiler. My orders were to report to you here as soon as possible.' He glanced at Luciano. 'I'm sorry for any apparent misunderstanding, but this soldier...' 'Captain Orsini, OSS,' Carter said. As Luciano started to grin, Detweiler said angrily, 'Orsini my ass, sir. I was raised in New York, lived most of my life on Tenth Street and I've seen this guy a hundred times or more. He's a gangster named Lucky Luciano.' Jack Savage was twenty-four, the younger son of a career diplomat who had spent his time in places like Paris and 91 Rome. As a result, the boy had been raised to be fluent in both languages. The Savage family was one of the wealthiest in Boston with huge interests in oil and steel, none of which interested Savage in the slightest. The fact was that, from an early age, he had shown quite an extraordinary talent for drawing. Out of deference to his parents, he had gone to Yale to study Economics, but enough was enough, and after his first degree he had moved on to London to study painting at the Slade. He was in Paris living in the artists' colony in Mont-martre when the Germans took the city, had stayed for another six months before moving on to Madrid. He had finally returned home to join the army just before America entered the war. The Americans had no equivalent to the British SOE until June 1948, when Wild Bill Donovan, who had firsthand knowledge of British methods, set up the Office of Strategic Services, the OSS. Jack Savage, by then a very bored Intelligence lieutenant at the Pentagon, had been one of the first recruits. He made a brave show standing in front of Carter's desk in the library at the Abbey, a tall, handsome young man in olive drab battledress, his pants tucked into jump boots. On his right sleeve he carried a double set of parachutist's wings, a rare distinction for that handful of members of American Special Forces who had completed jump training with the British. Detweiler was still letting his views be known forcibly. 'Orsini nothing, Captain. That guy is Luciano!' Harry Carter held up the orders Savage had given him. 'You have read these, Captain. You do appreciate that they place you and the sergeant entirely under my command?' 'Of course, sir.' 'Good, I thought there might be some misunderstanding.' He turned on Detweiler coldly. 'Which means that in 9* future, when I want your opinion, I ask for it.* Detweiler was badly shocked and it showed. He turned in a kind of appeal to Savage, 'For Christ's sake, Captain.. �' Carter cut in fast. 'Get your feet together and stay that way until I tell you different. Come on, man! Movel' Detweiler, red in the face, did as he was told. Carter took the envelope from the inside pocket of his battledress tunic, extracted the letter of authorization General Eisenhower had given him in Algeria and the similar one he had obtained from President Roosevelt. 'Read those.' Savage did as he was told and looked up in astonishment. 'Good God!' he whispered. 'Exactly,' Carter said. 'I'm not going to mince matters. I don't like your sergeant's attitude. If there was time to dump him, I would, but there isn't.' 'Colonel, Detweiler's a good soldier. We've been through a lot together. I know.' 'Good, then show him those letters and see if you can talk some sense into him. I'll be back in five minutes to explain exactly what's going on here.' Luciano was sitting against one of the stone lions on the terrace. He had changed into black sweater and pants, but still needed a shave. He looked up at Carter, shaking his head. 'Where the hell did you find them?' 'His uncle's a three star general.' 'And I used to know Al Capone very well indeed. What in the hell does that have to do with the price of tomatoes? Listen, Professor, I know the type. Boston, the first four hundred. The kind of people who fell over each other in their scramble to be first off the Mayflower. Who needs him?' ' 'We do.' 93 'Would you mind telling me why?' 'Because, strictly speaking, the whole thing is an American operation, so it seemed like a good idea to the powers that be to have somebody like Savage and Det-weiler along.' 'Oh, I see. You mean I didn't count?' 'Something like that.' Carter smiled, aware that there was no strain with Luciano at all. That for some reason it was like old friends talking. No need to pretend or pull punches. 'Great,' Luciano said. 'That really makes me feel wanted.' 'He's a good man. Two DSCs, a Silver Star. Even the French have decorated him. When he operated in France as an OSS agent, the Gestapo had him and he got away. Since then he's raided across the Channel into France with Special Forces on a number of occasions.' 'France isn't Sicily. What's he doing here?' 'His father was a diplomat at the American Embassy in Rome before the war for four years. Savage went to school there. Speaks good Italian.' Luciano said. 'Rome Italian. Professor, there are villages in the Cammarata where that will sound like Greek. Anyway what's Detweiler's story?' 'He was born and raised in New York, but his mother is Italian. I've already given them a brief rundown on the whole affair. I've arranged to meet in the library for a full briefing. Do you know where Sister Maria is?' There was a rumble of thunder overhead as if rain, threatened. Luciano said, 'I think she went for a walk in the grounds. I'll find her.' 'Good. The library in half an hour then,' Carter said and went inside. Maria sat on a stone bench by the fountain in the rose garden. She wore slacks, an olive green army sweater that was 94 least two sizes too large for her and a scarf twisted Ground her head like a turban. It was very calm, peaceful, the only sounds rooks calling to each other in the beech trees at the end of the rose gar-A n The fact that she was here and in the open instead of inside the house was in itself significant. She was trying to come to terms with freedom for the first time in years. It was nothing as simple as being away from the convent on her own. That happened every day of her life because of her hospital work. This was different. Now she was once again responsible for herself in a way that she had not been since her entry into the Order. She had not only pledged herself to God, but to a community and a way of life which had sustained her totally during that dark night of the soul she had gone through for so long. Now, she was responsible once again for her own destiny. As thunder rumbled again, she glanced towards the sky and turned to move towards the house. Luciano came into the walled garden through the arched entrance carrying a spare trenchcoat. 'Now you see why they baptized me Salvatore/ he said cheerfully. 'Thank you, Mr Luciano.' 'Carter wants us in the library in twenty minutes, just to tie up all the loose ends. The rest of the team has turned up. A Captain Savage and a Sergeant Detweiler.' 'We'd better get moving then.' 'No hurry.' He lit a cigarette and carried on in Sicilian. 'Poor Maria, I worry you, don't I? Disturb the calm order of your life. The serpent in Eden.' 'Is that how you see yourself? As some romantic outsider?' As they went out through the arch the rain increased in force and he pulled her under the pergola to avoid the worst of it. � 95 'And you?' he said. 'How do you see me? No, don't answer that.' He put a finger to his lips. 'Because whatever you think I am, that's what I'm not.' 'True for all of us.' 'Tell me something,' he asked her. 'The religious thing. How did that happen?' 'Oh, when I first reached London I had very little money. I worked in a shop for a while and then I became ill - very ill. For a while, I was in a charity ward in a hospital where some of the nurses were Sisters of Pity.' 'So you decided that was for you? A blinding flash, God sending someone down off the mountain to tell you or what?' She remembered so clearly that final day during Special Mass on her knees, asking Mother Superior for permission to make her perpetual profession in the Society of the Little Sisters of Pity, resolving to undertake a life of perfect chastity, obedience, poverty and service. It still made her uneasy to discuss it and yet it could not be avoided. 'No, I think it's obvious enough now why I joined the Order. I sought refuge. I should add that I found God, Mr Luciano, but only in His own good time.' 'And Carter turns up like something out of a bad movie, saying I've to come to take you away from all that.' 'I suppose you're right,' she smiled. 'With the Devil trailing behind?' 'Is that supposed to be you? If so, where are the horns?' 'Oh, I don't know. We all end up the same way,' he said, suddenly sombre. 'The one absolute certainty, Death.' He took her arm before she could reply. 'Come on, let's get out of here.' Carter was waiting in the library with Savage and Det-weiler when they went in. *Ah, there you are,' he said and started to make the introductions. 'Sister Maria Vaughan, Captain Savage.' 96 She put up a hand. 'Plain Maria will be better in the circumstances.' She took Savage's hand briefly and sat down, pulling off her turban as she did so, revealing dark hair cropped very closely to her skull, giving her a boyish look. 'Christ Almighty t * Detweiler said in a whisper. Carter said, 'Mr Luciano, you've already met.' Savage nodded, Detweiler glared, and Luciano, indifferent to both of them, lounged in the window seat. Carter said, 'May I make one thing clear? I've been concerned with this kind of intelligence operation for some time now and as far as most of them go, the truth is that, succeed or fail, it isn't gong to make a scrap of difference to the war as a whole.' Savage frowned, as he was bound to do at a suggestion which so put down his own war career. 'Don't you think that's going a little far, Colonel?' 'No I don't, but one thing is for sure.
It isn't true of this present venture. If we can get into Sicily in one piece, if Mr Luciano and Maria between them make the contact we hope for, then many lives will be saved. If we fail, Pat-ton's army will sustain thousands of needless casualties. It's as simple as that.' There was silence. It was Savage who finally said, 'When do we go, sir?' 'Tomorrow night from RAF Hovington in a Lancaster bomber, straight across France and the Mediterranean to Algiers.' 'And then?" 'Sicily any time within four or five days after that, depending on the best conditions for the drop. One more thing, Captain Savage. You and Detweiler will be operating in civilian clothes. You understand what that means if you fall into enemy hands?' 'They've been shooting Ranger and Commando prisoners in uniform under the terms of Hitler's Kom- mandobefehl for two years now, sir. I can't see that it tnak.es much difference.' 'As long as you understand that. Now gather round the map, all of you, and I'll go over the whole thing in detail.' In Bellona, at the same moment, Vito Barbera was climbing a short wooden ladder to the coffin room above the mortuary. He opened the cupboard at the far end and felt for a hidden catch inside. The entire back, shelves and all, swung open to reveal a cubbyhole, containing a radio receiver and transmitter. He switched on the light, sat down, put on the earphones then waited patiently for the allotted hour as he did three times a week. He straightened, suddenly excited as he started to receive a signal. He reached for a pencil and made notes. Behind him, the secret door opened and Rosa entered with coffee on a tray. He motioned her to silence and continued to write. After a while, he took off the headphones and sat there, reading what he had written, a look of astonishment on his face. 'Is it something important?' she asked. 'Carter is returning.' 'On his own?' she said. He shook his head. 'No, Rosa, not on his own.' Looking for Carter after supper, Luciano was directed to the firing range in the basement where he discovered Carter and Savage on the firing line. Detweiler was helping the armourer, an Ordnance Corps sergeant-major named Smith, to load. Luciano stood watching, Carter took careful aim with both hands and squeezed one off, chipping the right arm of one of the replicas of a charging German at the other end. 98 'Very good, sir,' Savage told him. 'Not if you consider that I was aiming for the heart,' Carter said. He fired another five rounds and hit the target twice more, once in the neck and again in the arm. 'Oh, well, I never was much good with handguns.' 'It's a knack, sir, like anything else,' Savage said cheerfully and fired, like Carter, double-handed, but much more rapidly, hitting the general area of the chest in a solid group. Detweiler said, 'I don't recall anyone being much better at it than you, Captain.' Carter turned to Luciano, 'What about you?" Luciano hefted one of the Brownings in his hand and shook his head. 'The trouble with automatics is they can jam.' He turned to the armourer. 'What else you got?' 'Webley .38, sir?' Smith suggested. 'Too clumsy.' 'The only other revolver I have here at the moment is a Smith and Wesson .32 with a three-inch barrel.' Luciano tried it in his right hand, then the left. 'That's more like it. You got a silencer for this?' 'Sure - over here.' Smith got one from the cupboard and screwed it into place. As he handed the weapon to Luciano, Detweiler said, 'A popgun. You'd need to get damn close to do any good with that. But then, that's your style, isn't it?' Luciano turned and fired twice very fast, right arm extended, both rounds hitting the heart. There was a respectful silence. Savage said, 'I'd say the second round was rather superfluous, Mr Luciano.' 'I like to cover my bets,' Luciano told him, 'And a wounded man can always shoot back.' Savage said to Detweiler, 'I think we could do with a couple of fresh targets down there.' As Detweiler obediently moved down the range, 99 Luciano laid down the Smith and Wesson, following normal safety precautions. Detweiler replaced two of the targets and turned. Luciano called, 'Heh, Detweiler! Like you said, I always do my best work in close.' He picked up the Smith and Wesson, fired twice without apparently taking aim, and shot out the eyes of the target next to Detweiler. Detweiler cried out in alarm and ducked and Luciano started to laugh, was still laughing as he walked out. 'They say he's killed at least twenty men personally,' Carter observed. 'Well, all I can say, Colonel, is that I'm damn glad he's on my side,' Savage told him. Maria awakened early on the following morning from a deep sleep. Pale sunshine filtered in through, the curtains. She lay there for a few moments, remembering that this was the last day. Tonight, she would be on a plane for Algeria, set on a course from which there would be no turning back. It was not that she was afraid. It was simply that nothing fitted. It was as if this was all a dream. A few days before, her world had consisted of the convent and hospital, a daily round that filled her time and life, work for the mind and for the body. Nothing that ever needed to be questioned. But now? She got up and stood beside the bed for a moment. She had slept in the nude, something she had not done for years, always wearing the nun's linen shift of modesty. 'A crack in the fabric already, Maria,' she said softly, and pulled on a towelling robe. Her room was on the ground floor and she opened the French window, looked out into the garden and moved on to the terrace. It was incredibly beautiful in the early morning sun, the trees touched with a kind of nimbus, the rooks cawing lazily to each other. And yet she felt detached, not part of any of this at all, not really aware. It was as if she was looking at things under water in slow motion. She went down the steps without thinking about it, bare-footed in the damp grass. Luciano had also awakened early. He was sitting at the window of his bedroom in pyjamas, smoking the first cigarette of the day as she crossed the lawn and entered the wood. He stood up, frowning slightly, watching her go, then tossed his cigarette out of the window, turned and started to dress quickly. She advanced through the wood, still caught in that dream-like state and the sound of the rooks seemed to fade and there was the most profound silence she had ever known. She came out on to a long jetty beside an ornamental lake and stood there looking across the water. Suddenly, a voice said quite distinctly: Having nothing, yet possessing everything. It was her voice which had spoken, she broke through to reality again, aware of the rooks in the beech trees above her head, the smell of the damp grass, the golden glory of the morning. 'So this is what it's like!' she thought. 'Total certainty.' She had never felt so much at one with everything, so much a part of the whole. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to slip out of her robe and wade into the cold water of the lake. She turned on her back and floated there in the lily pads, face up to the sun, eyes closed. Luciano, walking along the path through the wood, paused, aware of Detweiler crouched behind a tree where the path dipped down towards the lake. He went forward quietly until he was close enough to see the object of the sergeant's attention, Maria Vaughan floating in the water-lilies below. 101 'Heh, Detweiler!' Luciano whispered softly, and when the sergeant turned, lifted a knee into his face, sending him over on to his back. Detweiler rolled over once, then was on his feet and moving in fast. Luciano's hand came up clutching the ivory Madonna, there was a click and the needlepoint drew blood under Detweiler's chin. Luciano said, 'Now hear this and hear good because I only say it once. If I catch you anywhere near her again, they'll find you in a ditch with a very personal part of your anatomy stuffed into your mouth. An old Sicilian custom.' Detweiler glared, an expression that was a compound of fear and hatred on his face. 'Damn you to hell, you Guinea bastard!' he said hoarsely, took a step back, turned and walked away. Luciano folded the knife and replaced it in his hip pocket. 'Heh, pretty one I' he called in Sicilian. 'You decent?' 'Mr Luciano,' she called back. 'Please stay where you are.' He took his time over lighting a cigarette and finally went down the path to find her on the jetty, tying hex robe. 'You're crary,' he said. 'You know that?' Her smile was enchanting. 'I've never felt so hungry.* 'Then we'll get back and have some breakfast.' She shook her head. 'Not possible just yet. There's a little Catholic church in the village. I'm going to early morning mass. What about you?' 'Do I look as if I would?' 'It's possible for anyone to end up on their knees, even Lucky Luciano.' He laughed, 'Okay, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll walk you down to the church, wait for you outside. How about that?' 10a 'It's a start.' They went up the path together. A small wind blowing across the lake brought with it the dark wet smell of rotting leaves. She paused, smiling. 'Isn't it wonderful? Doesn't a day like this make you feel good to be alive?' She ran up the path, lifting the skirts of her robe and Luciano watched her go, cold in spite of the sun as if someone somewhere had stepped on his grave. Reverting to his Sicilian childhood, he instinctively formed two fingers and a thumb into the ancient sign to ward off the Evil One and went after her. 8 The Avro Lancaster was the most successful Allied bomber of the Second World War. Its exploits included the sinking of the German pocket battleship, Tirpitz. Only three weeks previously, Lancasters of 617 Squadron had carried out one of the most daring raids of the war, breaching the Ruhr Dams and flooding the most important industrial area in Germany. It was shortly after nine o'clock that evening when Lancaster S-Sugar lifted off the main runway at RAF Hovingham and joined on the tail end of a stream of heavy bombers from stations all over the Midlands and East England. By the time they converged over the North Sea, they comprised a force of over six hundred in a tailback a hundred miles long. The target was the docks at Genoa, all the way across France and the Alps, except for S-Sugar which, at an appropriate point, would leave the mainstream and change course for North Africa. It was bitterly cold in the cramped interior and the noise from the four great piston engines was almost intolerable. Carter's party had been issued with heavy flying suits and sleeping bags and they huddled together in the body of the plane. Luciano looked up at the gunner in the mid-upper turret above his head, then glanced across at Maria who was sitting opposite him, apparently asleep. Her eyes flickered open and he leaned across. 'You okay?' 104 Tine/ she smiled. Which was a lie, of course, for she was afraid again. Not only of the danger that lay ahead, but desperately afraid of the prospect of meeting her grandfather. At the thought of what that might unleash inside her, her stomach cramped in panic. Luciano leaned back and burrowed into the sleeping bag, aware of the vibrations of the fuselage, the roar of the engine, the fierce cold. What in the name of God am I doing here? he asked himself, and closed his eyes and tried to sleep. From further along the plane, Detweiler watched him, eyes filled with hate. The Franciscan monastery of the Crown of Thorns lay five miles outside Bellona. Centuries earlier it had been a Saracen castle sited on a ridge a thousand feet above the valley with views across the surrounding countryside for twenty miles in every direction. And a castle was what it still most resembled, with smooth stone walls over a hundred feet high. It took Vito Barbera an hour and a half to get there by mule from Bellona, following the dirt road which zigzagged up the side of the mountain. The defensive ditch from the old days was still there at the base of the walls, choked with weeds and rubbish now. He crossed the wooden bridge that gave access to the only entrance and reined in at the oaken gates. There was a bellchain to one side and he leaned over and pulled it, staying in the saddle. The sound was remote, unreal in the heat of the afternoon, and he waited, tired, gazing out across the valley. After a while, a small shutter opened and a young bearded monk peered out. He said nothing, simply dosed the shutter. A moment later, the great gates creaked open and Barbera rode inside. Padre Giovanni, the prior of the monastery, was a tall, frail old man of seventy, full-bearded as indeed were all Franciscans at Crown of Thorns, although in his case it was almost pure white except for the nicotine staining around his mouth. He wore a brown beretta on his head, a plain brown habit with knotted cord at his waist from which hung a large crucifix. His face was full of strength, firm, aesthetic, and yet shrewd good humour was never far from his eyes. The red-pantiled roofs of the monastery extended like a series of giant uneven steps to the highest point on the ramparts where he kept his pigeons, the great love of his life. He was working on them now when young Brother Lucio brought Vito Barbera to him. 'Ah, Vito,' the old prior said. 'How good to see you.' Barbera pulled off his cap and kissed the extended hand; not for religious reasons only for Padre Giovanni's connections with Mafia were a matter of public knowledge. Mori, Mussolini's notorious Chief of Police, had expended considerable time in attempting to prove the fact. He had even succeeded in bringing Giovanni to court, a trial which had descended to low farce and had ended with the jury finding Padre Giovanni and other members of his order not guilty of even feeding pigeons in the park. He helped himself to a cigarette from the tin on the parapet. 'How are things in the village?' 'Bad,' Barbera told him. 'The man from the Gestapo, Meyer, and those Russians of his ...' He shook his head. 'And the other, this Colonel Koenig?' 'A good man in the wrong uniform.' Barbera shrugged. 'A holy fool, Padre. He thinks you can still fight wars acording to rules, like a game of cards.' 'So.' The old man nodded. 'What can I do for you?' 'I have a message for Don Antonio.' The old man smiled. 'My dear Vito, who knows where Don Antonio is?' 106 Barbera moved to the pigeon loft and scratched the wvre, cooing at the birds inside. 'I'm sure he has a friend or two in here who could find him, and not too far away.' Padre Giovanni sat down in the old wicker chair by the low parapet. 'Vito, if you have heard from your friends in Algeria again, if this is to do with Mafia and the American invasion, I tell you now you are wasting your time. Don Antonio's dislike of the Germans is followed closely by his hatred of all things American. No, in this case he stays in the mountains. He does not wish to be involved.' 'But it's all different