Luciano’s Luck. Jack Higgins
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was working cream into the old man’s face now, touching the cheeks with rouge.
Carter said, ‘What about the Contessa?’
‘The Gestapo took her to Palermo.’
‘Bad for you if they break her.’
‘Not possible.’ Barbera shook his head. ‘A friend passed her a cyanide capsule in the women’s prison yesterday afternoon.’
Carter took a long, shuddering breath to steady his nerves. ‘I was hoping she’d have news for me of Luca.’
Barbera paused and glanced at him in some surprise. ‘You waste your time. No one has news of Luca because that is the way he wants it.’
‘Mafia again?’
‘Yes, my friend, Mafia again and you would do well to remember that. What are your plans?’
‘I was supposed to go to Agrigento tonight. I’m due to put to sea with a tuna boat out of Porto Stefano at midnight.’
‘Submarine pick-up?’
‘That’s it.’
Barbera frowned thoughtfully. ‘I don’t see how, Harry, not tonight. The roads will be crawling with Krauts. Maybe tomorrow.’ He gestured to the corpse. ‘I’ve got to take the old boy here down to Agrigento anyway.’
Before Carter could reply, the door burst open and Rosa looked in. They are here in the square. Many Germans.’ Barbera moved to the window and parted the curtain slightly. Carter struggled up with difficulty and limped to join him. Several vehicles had pulled up in the square, kubelwagens and troop carriers and two armoured cars. Soldiers had gathered in a semi-circle and were being addressed from the back of a field car by an officer.
Carter said, ‘SS paratroopers. Where in the hell did they come from?’
‘The mainland last month. Specially selected by Kesselring to clear the mountains of partisans. The one doing the talking is their commanding officer, Major Koenig. He’s good. They call him the Hunter in the Cammarata.’
As they watched, the SS broke away to commence searching the village. Koenig sat down and his kubelwagen started across the square, followed by another.
Barbera closed the curtain. ‘Looks as if he’s coming this way.’ He turned to Carter. ‘Did you leave anybody dead up there at the villa, by any chance?’
‘Probably.’ Carter caught him by the sleeve. ‘He’ll take it out on the village if I don’t turn up.’
Barbera smiled sadly. ‘Not his style. Very definitely a man of honour. Makes it difficult to stick a knife in his back. Now you stay here with Rosa and keep quiet.’
He took the lamp and went out, leaving them in darkness.
They were already knocking at the outer gate as he crossed the courtyard. He eased back the massive bolt and the gate swung open to reveal the first kubelwagen, Koenig seated beside the driver. He got out and moved forward.
‘Ah, there you are, Signor Barbera. I’ve brought some custom for you, I’m afraid,’ he said in fair Italian.
The two kubelwagens drove into the courtyard. Barbera saw that there was a body strapped to a stretcher on one of them and covered with a blanket.
Two SS ran round to lift it down and Barbera said, ‘If you’d follow me, Major.’
He crossed the courtyard and led the way in through a short passage. When he opened the door at the end, there was the taint of death on the air.
The room which he entered was quiet, a single oil lamp on a table in the centre the only light. It was a waiting mortuary of a type common in Sicily. There were at least a dozen coffins, each one open and containing a corpse, fingers entwined in a pulley arrangement that stretched overhead to an old brass bell by the door.
Koenig entered behind him. His NCO’s field cap was an affectation of some of the old timers, silver death’s head badge glinting in the lamplight. The scarlet and black ribbon of the Knight’s Cross made a brave show at his throat. He wore a leather greatcoat which had seen long service and paratroopers’ jumpboots. He lit a cigarette, pausing just inside the door, and flicked a finger against the bell which echoed eerily.
‘Has it ever rung?’
‘Frequently,’ Barbera said. ‘Limbs behave strangely as they stiffen in death. If what the Major means is has anyone returned to life, that, too. A girl of twelve and on another occasion, a man of forty. Both revived after death had been pronounced. That, after all, is the purpose of these places.’
‘You Sicilians seem to me to have an excessive preoccupation with death,’ Koenig said.
‘Not to the extent that we are excited by the idea of being buried alive.’
From the preparation room, peering through the crack in the door, Carter leaned against Rosa, fighting the pain, and watched them place the stretcher on a table and uncover Schäfer, the feldpolizei sergeant. The face was streaked with blood, the eyes staring. Barbera closed them with a practised movement.
‘Sergeant Schäfer was a good man,’ Koenig said. ‘I need hardly point out that it would be most unfortunate for anyone found harbouring the man who did this.’
Barbera said, ‘What would you like me to do with him, Major?’
‘Clean him up and deliver him to Geheimefeldpolizei headquarters in Agrigento.’
Barbera covered Schäfer with the blanket again. ‘I have a previous engagement tomorrow. The family of the Contessa di Bellona wish me to fetch her body from the women’s prison in Palermo. A matter of some delicacy.’
‘Understandably,’ Koenig said.
‘In the circumstances, I had intended taking another corpse down to Agrigento tonight. See, in here.’
He moved to the door of the preparation room, opened it and led the way in, holding the lamp high so that Koenig could see the corpse of the old man. In the darkness of the rear cupboard, Carter slumped against Rosa and her arms tightened about him.
‘I could take Sergeant Schäfer at the same time,’ Barbera said. ‘Of course, I would need a pass. Major. I presume your men will be active on all roads tonight.’
He followed Koenig out and Carter waited there in the dark, the pain in his lung like a living thing. God, he thought, perhaps I’m dying. He clutched desperately at the girl as if she was life itself, conscious of the softness of her flesh, her breasts tight against him.
He groaned, struggling to control the pain, and she fastened her mouth over his as if to hold the sound in, her tongue working furiously. In spite of the agony, his flesh reacted to her practised hands.
After a while she opened the door cautiously and led him out. Carter propped himself against one of the tables, aware of the sound of vehicles driving away down there in the courtyard.
‘What were you trying to do, kill me or cure me?’ he croaked.
She wiped sweat from his face with one of Barbera’s towels. ‘We have a saying, Colonel. There is the big death and then there is the small death which may be repeated many times. Which would you prefer?’
He stared down into that old-young face, but before he could reply Barbera came back, holding a piece of paper.
‘Signed by Major Koenig himself. Good for any road block between here and Agrigento. With luck, you should make that submarine after all.’
‘How?’ Carter said.
‘I wouldn’t dream of having a hearse without a hidden compartment. Comes in handy. Of course, you’ll be lying flat on your back with two corpses in coffins just inches above your nose, but I can guarantee you won’t smell a thing.’ He grinned. ‘Stick with me, old buddy and you’ll live for ever.’
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