Assignment - Palermo

by Edward S. Aarons

  “Are we getting anywhere?” O’Malley asked.

  “I’m just following directions,” Durell said.

  “That Uccelatti is scared out of his skin. I wouldn’t trust him. He promised he’d take care of Gabriella, then he clobbered me and tied me up and sent her off into this crazy country all alone to see this great-grand-uncle of hers. Sending an innocent girl to do his dirty work! Like sending a child on a truce mission to the Vietcong. They’ll zap her on sight.”

  O’Malley’s yellow eyes were savage in his narrow hunter’s face. Durell sensed a change in him. Desperation was the main evidence. He remembered O’Malley as a laughing, reckless boy; but he was different now. It was a quality of doom that Durell had seen in other men, a sense that life was of no further importance. He began to wonder if it would not have been better to leave O’Malley on the Vesper.

  They were all armed, but there was no guessing their needs when they arrived. Uccelatti could give no details of the headquarter’s defenses. And somehow Durell was sure that Karl Kronin was there waiting for them. It could be a trap. But he had to walk into it.

  They roared through another dark village with blue Arab doors—the blue symbolized the gates of heaven—-and the houses were dark and shuttered against the full moon as it shone on the bleak poverty of these mountains. The inevitable cathedral soared with ironic, airy grace, like a Moorish dream, into the pale night sky. Then the rutted road led them up a narrow valley, hemmed in by craggy heights, where a small stream rushed southward in silvery froth. They turned left again. The stone walls that protected them against the dizzy drops gradually eroded, and the stiff springs of the Jaguar jounced heavily. Durell gripped the wheel hard to keep them on the path.

  They ended abruptly in a stony pasture. He braked the car. The powerful engine ticked over, purring like a sleepy cat. They should be near their destination now, but there were no signposts to indicate a place named Sangieri. The moonlight mocked him. The stars laughed. The mountains sang of their silence.

  “We’re nowhere,” O’Malley sighed.

  “Lost?” Bruno rumbled.

  “That son-of-a-bitch-Uccelatti,” O’Malley said. “I’ll kill him if anything’s happened to Gabriella.”

  Two goats grazed within the bounds of the stony field. There was no sign of a house. He slammed the Jaguar into reverse and roared back for perhaps a hundred yards. He had missed the tracks that curved to the left in the straggly grass. He started the car that way.

  “This ain’t no road,” Bruno objected.

  “There’s been a car ahead of us,” Durell insisted. “You can see the tire marks in the grass.”

  “Like I don’t see nothing,” Bruno grunted; but he subsided and clung to the strap as they bounced over stones and ruts that seemed to lead nowhere.

  Durell used only the dimmers as they crawled ahead. He was looking for the cottage where Uccelatti said his parents lived. If Gabriella came this way, there had to be a sign soon. His sense of lost time grew more acute.

  The Jaguar stalled. He started it again, regretting the engine noise. The dim path led along a grassy ridge that bordered a sheer drop into a rocky valley. The road twisted south, and it seemed as if they had lost all contact with civilization. He was not even sure he could see the trail of the other car now, and he wondered if his imagination had played a trick on him.

  “Hold it,” O’Malley said.

  Durell looked at him and saw a gun in O’Malley’s hand. The man’s eyes gleamed with an angry, feral light.

  “What is it?”

  “I thought I heard somebody yell. Like a scream.”

  “Man or woman?”

  “Gabriella.”

  Durell urged the big Jaguar forward again over a wilderness of bumps and rocks. Abruptly the way sloped down into a cuplike depression, where cedar trees screened them from the surrounding mountains. He listened for anything O’Malley might have heard above the low hum of the engine; but he heard nothing.

  “There,” O’Malley said.

  His word came like a small explosion, and he pointed to a rough stone wall that barred their way. There was a wooden gate, and beyond it was a well-defined path. The gate stood open, like an ominous invitation for them to enter. Durell drove through.

  The heavy car responded gratefully to the solid roadbed. The trees lined each side of the route, cutting off their view. Certainly no wandering tourists could ever find this place beyond the pasture where the goats were tethered. Then a rocky bluff barred their way. The road vanished through a small hand-hewn tunnel. On the other side, when they came out, they saw the house.

  It was of stone, small and neat, with a red tiled roof that looked black in the moonlight, and a square tower at one end. A low wall enclosed a garden plot and a few fruit trees that lifted twisted arms to the inhospitable environment. The wooden shutters looked tightly shut on all the windows; but Sicilians were adverse to the night air and the dangers of banditry. Yet the front door, a massive affair with metal straps, stood ajar.

  Durell checked the car, switched off the engine, and listened. All he heard was the singing of the mountains. The bonnet gave off a soft metallic ping! as the cool wind struck its heat. O’Malley gave a great start.

  “Take it easy,” Durell told him.

  “I don’t see no headquarters pad around here.”

  The house was much too small for what they sought. But it could be where Uccelatti’s parents lived. Beyond the house was a rise of ground and a row of cypress trees. The road went around the house, but he could not see how much farther it proceeded.

  “Bruno. Joey,” Durell said. “Get to the fence by the garden and watch that front door. Don’t go in the house. O’Malley and I will case the back. Wait until you hear from us before you move. And don’t shoot at anything until you’re sure of what it is. Let’s go, Frank.”

  O’Malley slid out with quick and silent grace. The night wind slapped them with chilly force. The pasture offered no cover as they circled the dark and silent house. They went through the cypress grove, and Durell pointed to the tire marks of cars.

  “More than one,” he said softly.

  O’Malley’s face was lumpy with corded muscles along the jaw. His blond hair blew in the wind. “Cajun, if anything happens—”

  “Plenty is going to happen.”

  “I mean, to me. Or to Gabriella. I want you to know why I creamed out in Naples. It wasn’t the money they offered. Or the immunity. It was Gabriella. The way she looked at you and began to depend on you. I got stupid about it. She doesn’t know about men. She’s the most innocent girl I ever met. She’s got a—a beautiful soul.” O’Malley spoke between clenched teeth. Durell started forward, and again O’Malley checked him. “Listen, Cajun. The way she looked at you—well, she worships the ground you walk on, you know that? She’s vulnerable. I never could get her to look at me like that.”

  “I didn’t encourage her,” Durrell said. “And she loves you, Frank.”

  “I’m not so sure. But all of a sudden it doesn’t mat

  ter so much. I mean, about me and her. I’m only worried about Gabriella. Cajun, they’ll kill her!”

  “Yes,” Durell said.

  “I just want you to know I’m not sore now about how she feels about you.”

  “You’re wrong about that. But there is her car.”

  He pointed to a small Fiat parked in the dooryard behind the stone house. There was still no sign of life about the place. More goats were tethered in the yard, and one of them bleated softly and stamped small hooves as they approached. It was a giveaway that could not be avoided, but Durell swore softly. In a low shed with one side open to the south he made out an elaborately decorated Sicilian farm cart, the bulk of a draft horse in a stall, and the glimmer of pitchforks and farm tools. A haycock stood to the left of the shed.

  A small, slight figure stood just to one side of the haycock, crying softly in the night.

  It was Gabriella.

  23

&n
bsp; SHE LOOKED at them with wonder as they came near and she swallowed a last sob and gave a small cry of gladness and ran toward them. O’Malley stiffened as her arms came up, outstretched. Then she flung herself at him.

  “Frank! Oh, Frank!”

  Durell saw O’Malley look at him over the girl’s head. His face reflected remorse and relief. O’Malley kissed her, murmuring, and stroked her long hair, while Durell turned and considered the dark farmhouse and the surrounding grounds. He saw no danger anywhere. “Cajun?” Gabriella whispered.

  Her face shone with tears. She rubbed them away with the back of her hand, a child’s gesture. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. I thought you’d never come.” Durell looked at O’Malley. “Satisfied now?”

  “Like I apologize, Cajun.”

  Durell turned to the girl. “What happened here?” “Those poor people the Uccelatti’s—are in the house, so beaten—”

  “Still alive?”

  “Y-yes, but—”

  “No one else around?”

  “I saw no one. But it must have happened just before I got here. They knew I was coming.” She turned. “O’Malley, there is terrible danger here. I hid in the shed for a time and then I heard a car and I waited, ready to run. But then I saw you and somehow—it was stupid of me—all I could do was stand here and cry.”

  “Do you remember this place now?” Durell asked.

  “Yes, it has all come back to me. The Fratelli headquarters is just over that rise.” She pointed. “But it is impossible—” She paused again, then smiled with wet, tear-stained lips. “No, nothing is impossible to you and O’Malley.” She kissed Durell briefly. Her face was salty against his mouth. He turned her gently back to O’Malley and said, “Let’s go see the old people.”

  The house was clean, whitewashed, furnished with heavy Spanish chairs and tables, brass and copper cookware in the kitchen, thick rugs, ornately carved wood, and a coat-of-arms plaque over the stone fireplace. Footsteps scraped painfully toward them in the moonlit shadows, and a tall old man with white hair, stained with blood, appeared.

  “Gabriella, child?”

  “It is all right, barone. These are the American friends I told you about. How is the signora?”

  “I have attended to her.” The man’s face was bruised, and he walked stiffly, but still with pride and defiance. “Do not concern yourselves with us. We are old, but we shall survive. Only Zio is important now.” He turned to Durell. “I have not been permitted to see Zio for a month. No one knows what is happening over there. We wrote to our son and asked for his help. It was a hard thing to do, for I never approved of the way he shaped his life. My years are too many to change my ways, and my wife and I have been satisfied in this rustic place. But it must be different for Gabriella. You must help her. And her only hope is to bring her face to face with Zio and ask his forgiveness.” “But I have done nothing wrong, barone.”

  “Then, you must explain this and you must hurry,” “How can this be done?” Durell asked.

  The old man told him. He coughed, and his voice faltered, and he shook like a tall old oak about to fall. Durell did not touch his proud figure. “They say it is impossible,” the old man said. “I do not know how you can get in. But you must try. There are wild horses, and—” He waved a thin, shaking hand. “Please. I must return to my wife. I have put her to bed. And may God help you all. It is not comprehensible how God arranged for you to pay for the sins of all the others.”

  O’Malley looked savage. “You say it’s impossible, but maybe you know a way—”

  Durell checked him. “Come along. Pick up Bruno and Joey. We’ll see what we can do.”

  Beyond the side of the mountain the old Norman castle brooded darkly in the moonlight. Sangieri, Durell thought. Its square towers and strange Arab crenellations and airy arches floated beyond a steep gorge over which a narrow bridge led the way. Two men lounged against the stone wall near the bridge. A sentry box stood at the other end of the span, and another man stood there. The glow of his cigarette was like a firefly in the windy night.

  Durell wondered how many others Kronin had to guard Zio against intrusions. He had Gabriella and his three sinners to put against an armed fortress. It seemed hopeless. But he could only take one step at a time. If he delayed to call for militia or the carabinieri, the birds would fly the coop, warned by other Brothers who undoubtedly had infiltrated the local law. They would only betray themselves by such an appeal.

  To cross the bridge was only the first hurdle. “Frank?” he whispered. “We’ll take the wall.”

  “I know what to do. The Congs in Vietnam were better in a place like this.”

  The guards were alert, but the long wait had blunted their senses. Durell ran in a crouch behind the stone fence that curved toward the bridge over the gorge. O’Malley flitted to the other side. The sound of the stream rushing far below covered any noise they made. O’Malley showed his jungle tactics well. They timed their attack together, and in ten seconds the two guards were down. Durell chopped at the throat of his man, then looked at O’Malley across the open end of the bridge. O’Malley crouched like a beast of prey over the prone figure of his target.

  Then Durell saw the chain. It stretched across the span with small bells attached, to warn the guard at the sentry box fifty feet away. A heavy padlock prevented them from lowering it.

  “Call Bruno,” Durell whispered.

  Bruno, Milan, and the girl came up behind the wall. Durell signaled the huge wrestler what had to be done. “It’s rusted,” he said. “Try to break it.”

  “Like it’s paper,” the big man rumbled.

  “Be careful. Don’t ring the bells.”

  Brutelli’s strength was enormous and controlled. He felt carefully along the links until he found one that was more rusted than the others, then closed powerful hands on the old iron and twisted slowly. For some seconds it resisted him. His big face convulsed. The guard across the bridge threw away his cigarette; it arched far down into the stream at the bottom of the gorge. Then the guard stepped into the sentry box and was out of sight.

  “Now!” Durell whispered.

  Bruno grunted. There came a grinding click, another click as he bent the iron backward, and the chain snapped.

  Durell caught one free end and lowered it with care to prevent the little bells from ringing. “All right. Joey?”

  “Check.”

  The jockey ran across the bridge like an alert chipmunk. The guard was stepping from his box when Joey hit him. A moment later they were all across, carefully stepping over the sentry’s sprawled figure.

  “Now what?” O’Malley demanded.

  “We’ve only just begun,” Durell said.

  “Let’s leave Gabriella here until we get in.”

  “No, we may need her.”

  They were a team, Durell thought, precisely coordinated. He wondered wryly what General McFee, back at K Section in Washington, would think if he could see his sinners in action. Then he concentrated on the problem of getting into the fortress that loomed ahead.

  It seemed impossible.

  There was a sweep of moonlit lawn, a row of cypress bending in the mountain wind. Not a light shone; not a human was in sight. Durell signaled the others, and they circled wide behind the approach. The castle occupied a site on top of the dome of pasture and stone that commanded a view for miles around. It was a barren prospect. But the centuries since it had been a powerful medieval fortress had wrought changes. The old moat was filled in. On the north side there were small huts, fences and paddocks, a stone barn, and storage cribs. Durell and his companions filtered from one shadow to the next as they worked their way around to the back. Twice they had to halt while a patrolling guard passed.

  O’Malley trembled like a hunting hound on leash. His tigerish eyes gleamed in the moonlight. “Two gets you five the old man is dead.”

  “Then we’re finished. He’s the only one who can “give orders to keep Gabriella alive and the only one to give c
ertain other orders I want given.”

  “To wipe out the sabotage network?”

  Durell nodded, and O’Malley said, “But maybe he’s for it. He took Kronin in, didn’t he?”

  “We’ll answer that when we see Zio.”

  The fortress walls were lower on this side. There was a wide wooden gate that did not yield an inch, even when Bruno put his massive weight against it. From behind the gate came a sudden neighing sound. “Uccelatti mentioned horses,” O’Malley said.

  Durell nodded again. “Joey?”

  “I can’t climb it,” Milan said.

  “Gabriella?”

  “Yes, I can do it. My years in the circus—”

  “Go ahead. Up and over.”

  “Now, wait, Cajun—” O’Malley objected.

  “Shut up. We need all the special talent we have,” Durell said.

  He made a stirrup of his hands and gave the girl a quick boost. She was like a small, lithe cat, scrambling up the stone wall with quick, sure grips, and in a moment she disappeared on the other side. Then there came the thunder of angry hooves, another wild neighing like a trumpet blast, and the muffled sound of the girl dropping to the other side of the gate.

  Muscles twitched in Joey Milan’s face. “That horse is a nut. A kook. I know that sound. I been around horse farms long enough to recognize it. He’ll kill her.”

  “You mean a wild stallion?” O’Malley asked thinly.

  “No, no.” Joey spoke with authority. “You get a wild horse, he’s really as timid as a deer. They ain’t like in the movies, Frankie. But you take one with his wires crossed, like he’s been teased or just borned kookie, and you got trouble. They musta kept that one inside there just for somethin’ like this, like a guard.”

  Suddenly the bars inside the gate rattled aside. Bruno heaved his weight against the massive portal and opened it enough for them all to slip through.

  They almost met with disaster.

  A huge black stallion reared and blotted out the moonlit sky with his enormous body and flashing hooves. His wild neighing shook the air. A hoof slammed down at Durell with a murderous blow, and he ducked aside. The gate shook as the heavy beast struck solid wood. Durell drew his gun.