Ten minutes later came the sound of the engine, in low gear, protesting a bit. Then the VW poptop lurched into sight, swaying from side to side as it wheezed towards us. Jack stepped into the track and waved it down.
"Where you heading?" A man asked from the passenger's window. His accent sounded faintly Australian. Maria would never mistake him for Jack, neither would I, but a stranger might.
"Alcamo," Jack looked round, but nobody was watching our game of charades.
The man jumped down. "Get in quick."
We heaved the packs from our shoulders. My back felt sore where the straps had rubbed. Jack and I squeezed into the back of the camper and sat on padded benches opposite each other. The man climbed back in and slammed the door. "Anything about?"
I told him about the fishermen and the goatherd. He shrugged, "Forget it. We've not even been tailed since we got here. I reckon they stopped worrying - once we reached Sicily."
The driver resembled me slightly. I had seen him before, in the little room in Manchester Square. He re-started the engine. "Cases are under the benches," he said over his shoulder. "Hurry up and get changed."
It was difficult, undressing in that confined space. Jack and I bumped each other, cursing the unpredictable motion of the van. My suitcase contained my clothes - they really were my clothes, the ones I had worn when I left Rex Place.
The driver glanced at me in his mirror. "Papers are in the glove compartment. It's a rented van, rented in Salerno. Everything's in order. If you're asked why you didn't get a car say the hire firm didn't have one - height of the season and all the rest of it. The VW was all you could get."
I looked around for the microphones. Everything we said could be heard in one of the film company's jeeps. And the van was bugged in another way - with an electronic locating device which transmitted a signal not only to the jeep but to the radio room on board the Miranda.
The man who looked like Jack was watching me, "You'll never find it."
"Don't you have to press a button, switch something on-"
"No, just talk - they can hear everything."
"Can they call us?"
He shook his head. "They've only got a receiver - they can't transmit. Want to run through the procedure again?"
Jack finished tying his shoes and said, "If the plan works and Sam sweet talks them into releasing Maria, I'm to drive her back to Castellamare in this. If we're alone I get her to talk about everything she's seen - how many men they've got, where they are, security systems, everything."
The man nodded. "And if they send someone with you just do the best you can."
The driver interrupted, "Hurry up. You've only got four minutes - then it's our turn. Get ready to swap places."
At least he stopped the van for that, pulling off the road into the shade of an olive grove. But we dealt with the wine-coloured briefcase before we did anything else. I took it out of my knapsack and the man who looked like Jack handcuffed it to my left wrist. "You won't need a key' he told me, "that way you can't take it off and they can't take it away from you. The locating bug in there has the same range as the one on the van - twenty kilometres. It's well hidden but a real search might find it - so don't let them inspect the case too thoroughly. Just keep it padlocked to your wrist and that way we'll follow you wherever you go."
Then we all exchanged places. Jack pulled himself up behind the wheel, I slammed the passenger door, and we were off again. The man who had been driving said, "Move it - we're two minutes down on schedule."
Jack made up the time, he drove well, as if the VW was his Rolls.
"Don't forget, Sam," said the man like Jack, "we allow half an hour for the first part. That's for you to talk them into swapping Jack and Maria for the rest of the list. But an hour after you go in we're coming in after you - whatever happens. One hour, got that?"
I said yes. I knew the plan by heart. Even the reduction in time between my arrival and the troops coming in after me. We were all getting nervous.
"And Jack," he said, "don't worry if they send you and Maria back to Castellamare in a different vehicle. We'll be ready for that. If they let you use this it will be a bonus, that's all."
The parched countryside gave way to a built-up area as we approached Alcamo Marina - a noisy, steamy jungle of clapboard summer houses sandwiched between the road and the railway built by Mafia money, hugely profitable for the owners and hell on earth to live in. And when we passed the marble factory I remembered another of Bonello's stories.
"It's still owned by Mafia," said the man who looked like Jack, "everything is owned by the bloody Mafia."
"Don't forget," said the other man, "parking in the Piazza Ciullo is a right cow. It's always crowded. So we've got a car there waiting for you. A blue Datsun. He'll pull out as you drive into the square. Park in his place, lock up, then walk across to the Cafe Cordina."
We set them down on the outskirts of Alcamo. They stood at the roadside and waved goodbye - two hikers, with packs on their backs, calling thanks for the lift we had given them. I glanced over my shoulder. The clothes they had worn earlier - suits similar to the ones we now wore - were in their backpacks, and behind me the suitcases were under the benches and everything was neat and tidy. The change of identities had been completed in minutes.
"No more decoys," Jack grunted, "we're the hunted now."
"Wrong, we're the hunters and don't you forget it. This is my meeting, Jack. I called it. They snatched Maria to level the odds, that's all. But it's still my meeting and by Christ we'll run it that way."
"Kaufman never had a better pupil," he said, shaking his head, "but that sounds like the old Winner Harris."
"You'd better believe it," I said grimly, sounding more confident than I felt.
We passed some wine tankers. Italian markings, not Hardman's Wine. Probably not even wine, even though vino was painted on the side. Sugar and water and enzymes. A racket worth millions a year. Christ - what a place!
Then we were there. The main square - the Piazza Ciullo. Cars were parked in front of the Jesuit Church. Cars and motorcycles. About 45,000 people live in Alcamo. Maybe they don't all own a motorbike - but it sounded like it.
The blue Datsun waited until we were a few yards away, then reversed at speed, spinning its wheels and burning tyres. Jack slotted the VW into the space a second ahead of a battered Volvo.
I took a deep breath. Alcamo. Forty-eight hours ago I had never heard of it. Since then I had thought of little else. Everything fell into place. The extent of my knowledge surprised me. There was the church - with the Bank of Sicily next to it. The bank was run by the mayor.
The mayor was a Christian Democrat - and the Mafia organised his vote. Wheels within wheels. Next to the bank was a cafe with tables spilling out over the pavement. The Cafe Filipi, the cafe of the peasantry. The Cafe Cordina was opposite. I could see it in the wing mirror. The Cafe Cordina was the cafe for the better off, the wine doctorers, the small traders, the petty Mafia, and the messengers of the Mafia itself.
"Ready?"
I nodded.
Jack reached across to shake hands, a clumsily embarrassed gesture. "Good luck, Sam," he said. "If ... if we get Maria out I'll be straight back. Whatever happens. You know that-"
I punched his arm. "Who else would lend me a hundred grand?"
He smiled and opened the door.
The Cafe Cordina was crowded, but so was the whole of the Piazza Ciullo. Crossing it reminded me of the square in Rabat. Not quite so bad but there were plenty of people about. People and cars, and the ubiquitous motorcycles. Half a dozen youths straddled Hondas outside the Cafe Filipi, revving their engines while shouting to a boy on a balcony. Street vendors called from the fish market fifty yards away. Rubbish littered the pavements, dumped there by the owners of shops and cafes. The warm evening air was scented with cooking smells, and the sky began to turn that shade of blue-black velvet I was beginning to recognise as Mediterranean. It was exactly eight o'clock.
; Most of the tables were occupied, but we found one eventually against the back inside wall. It suited us. From where we sat we could see not only the entrance but most of the cafe. We ordered pizzas and lemon granita with ice pile, and settled back to wait for the man in the Ferrari.
Maria was not there. Nor was any other woman. Like the Oyster Bar, the Cafe Cordina was strictly men only. And they were a mixed bunch. Some played cards at a nearby table, and beyond them four men in black suits talked earnestly over a meal of charcoal grilled fish. Near the door four men draped their jackets over the backs of their chairs. One of them passed our table on his way to the gents. A light-meter hung on a strap around his neck. I watched him return to his table and strained my hearing to eavesdrop on the conversation. Two of the men were American. Brief snatches of their talk reached me - some in English and some in Italian - all about camera angles and shooting schedules and problems with the light. They talked loudly, unworried about being overheard. They were good, I had to admit that.
We ate our food, drank our wine and watched the clock. Eating was difficult with the case chained to my wrist. I tried putting it on the floor next to me, but that made me sit all lopsided - so in the end I rested it in my lap.
Nine o'clock came and went. Quarter past. Jack's face creased with worry. We ordered more wine and fresh coffee. I mixed water with the wine, determined to keep a clear head. People came and went - but many stayed to drink and talk, as obviously was their habit at the end of the day. Time and again I felt we were being watched - but I never caught anyone looking when I glanced up.
Then, when I was as sick with worry and fear as Jack, it happened - at nine-twenty. Jack went to relieve himself and as soon as he vacated his chair a man sat down. "Give me the case," he said softly.
He spoke English with an American accent. I recognised him. He was one of the fish supper crowd - but when I looked their table was empty.
"The case," he repeated.
I eased back to show him the chain connecting the case to my wrist.
"Take it off."
I shook my head. "I don't have a key," I said. I remembered Kaufman's pep talk about taking the initiative, so I added, "I came here for an important meeting. Don't waste my time-"
"You'll do as you're told," he snapped, breaking off as he realised that his voice was rising.
Then Jack came out of the gents. I knew something was wrong as soon as I saw him. He walked straight past me, towards the door. Two men stayed very close behind him. I pushed my chair back but the man at the table restrained me. "One moment," he said, "we don't want to attract attention."
Kaufman's words - they rang in my ears - "Do whatever the man says, Sam - nice and easy, without attracting attention." I stared at the man. He had used the same words. It was uncanny as if he had been briefed by Kaufman too.
He smiled. "Your bill has been taken care of - just get up and walk outside - slowly."
"We've got a van in the square," I said stupidly. "A VW camper."
"I know. It's being looked after. Your friend had the keys."
We passed the film crowd on the way out. One of them told a joke and they all roared with laughter. Another beckoned a waiter for some more wine, they looked like making a night of it.
It was warm outside. Fans had created a draught in the cafe, but outside the air was heavy and oppressive. I wondered what would happen to the VW. We needed that - it was part of the plan.
Kaufman was wrong about the Ferrari, but then Kaufman was wrong about a lot of things. Jack was climbing into an Audi ten yards away. I turned towards it but the man at my side put a hand on my arm. A Mercedes pulled away from the church steps opposite and slid towards us. I panicked. Jack and I were being separated. Holy Christ, we had been separated!
"Jack - wait a minute. I'm coming with you-"
"With us," said the man angrily, pulling my arm.
"Jack!" I shouted.
He turned towards me, but then he was bundled into the car. Two men leapt out of the Mercedes and a second later I was in the back seat with a man either side of me. The man from Cordina's jumped into the front as the driver gunned the engine.
There were plenty of people about. Sixty, eighty, a hundred perhaps - but nobody spared us as much as a glance. I twisted my face to the side window, just in time to see a figure emerge from the Audi and run across to the VW. I was sweating like a pig. Christ, it had all gone wrong! Right at the outset. Jack and I had been separated! We had lost the VW! And Kaufman's bloody army were still in the Cafe Cordina drinking themselves silly.
"Where's Corrao?" I demanded.
The man on my right hammered his elbow into my ribs. I jerked forward but not before I glimpsed the VW swing out behind us. I tried to sit up, but the man grabbed my hair and yanked so hard that I jacknifed in the seat. Then he wrenched my right arm so far up my back that my head touched my knees.
I spent the next twenty minutes like that. I tried to follow our route - when we swayed right it meant a left turn - things like that. It sounds easy but it isn't. I gave up and relied on the bug in the briefcase. I was worried sick about being parted from Jack. Kaufman had never allowed for that. Our plan depended on us staying together. Keep the initiative Kaufman had said - Christ, what bloody initiative!
Then the gunfire broke out and so many things happened at once that events kaleidoscoped. We had been climbing - the tilt of the car told me that. I guessed we were making for the farm in the hills. Suddenly all hell broke loose. The driver screamed. Shots rang in my ears. The man on my left collapsed over me; warm, sticky blood seeped down my arm. The man to my right leapt out of the door. The car was out of control. Then we hit a stone wall...head-on ... I saw it in the headlights. The driver was impaled on the steering wheel, the man from Cordina's went through the windscreen - I damn near dug my eye out with that case, then my head cracked on the door pillar and I was being pulled out of the wreckage. It took me a few moments to recognise my rescuer. It was Henderson.
"It's all gone wrong!" he shouted, "they've got Bonello. For God's sake keep down!"
He had to repeat it - even then it only half registered. We were crouched behind a low wall, next to some men dressed as Mexican soldiers. Beyond them were some arc lamps and a searchlight was being swivelled on the back of a jeep.
Henderson shouted, "Bonello went off with one of the undercover men at two-thirty-"
A flat crack of sound made him throw an arm over my shoulder to pin me to the ground. He cupped his hands to my ear, "Marius, the agent, thought he could guess which farmhouse. They went to scout it out - then they were jumped. They've got Bonello in there somewhere."
There was the farmhouse. At least I assumed it was. Various buildings were about thirty yards from where we crouched. Away to my right the Audi was on its side in flames. Bodies littered the ground like a newsreel clip of a traffic accident. I saw Jack in the flickering glare, blood ran down his face and he clutched his right shoulder with his left hand.
"What's happening?" I shouted.
Henderson grabbed my shoulders and shook me, "Dammit, I just said - I just told you. For God's sake keep down!"
Then Kaufman arrived. He raced across the open ground to the stone wall, ducking and weaving as he ran, to throw himself into the dirt beside me. "They knew we were coming," he gasped. "Fuck everything! They knew it!"
"What's happening?" I repeated.
"Marius took Enrico off to scout possible locations. They were jumped. Marius must have blown cover-" "Where's Bonello now?"
"In there goddamnit! They've had him six hours. Marius escaped and hid out till he could get back to us. We came immediately-" My head began to clear. "You mean you've changed the plan-" "Changed it? What are you - stupid? They've had Enrico six hours. Don't you know what that means?"
When I rubbed my head my hand came away sticky with blood. "He'll have talked? Is that what you're saying?"
But Kaufman was no longer listening. Instead he was shouting at a man who emerged from
behind the blazing Audi. But Henderson was still trying to make me understand. "Sam, they know! They know Enrico. Who he is, what he does - they'll have worked him over."
I felt sick as I remembered that cellar. Poor devil - poor, helpless, forsaken devil. But even as I reeled from that shock I thought of Maria. "My God, what's happened to Maria?" My question was drowned by a screech of brakes as a jeep skidded to a halt behind me. Kaufman was across to it in a flash and instinct took me with him. Then I got another shock as I recognised the Mexican in the passenger seat. It was Lucia. She steadied herself against the dashboard while clutching a microphone in her other hand.
"They've pulled back from the farmhouse," she told Kaufman breathlessly, "we've got most of them trapped on the back road-" "Most of them?" Kaufman snapped.
"Some got across to the villa. At least four. They've got Maria...she's alive...she's in the villa-" Kaufman snatched the microphone. "Murphy, you hear me?" A man's voice boomed across the static, "Receiving you." "Did you see the girl? Was she with them? Definitely?" "Positively. Two of them dragged her between them. We identified Serracino-"
"You got that close! Without stopping them-" "They had a gun at her head. But they've bought a one-way ticket. They can't get out. We've got the back of the villa covered. Johnson's rigging up flood-lights-"
"Any sign of Enrico?"
"No, sir, we searched the farmhouse-"
"Shit! All right, this is what you do. Just stay put. Don't try to flush them out. We'll do that from here. You got that?"
"Yes, sir."
Lucia was in my arms. "Oh, Sam, thank God you're safe. Sam Maria's alive, she's still alive-"
Kaufman was shouting into the microphone, "What about the others? Those on the back road?"
"They're trapped in a gulley with the mountain behind them, solid rock. To get out they've got to walk down a track ten yards wide. The four men I've got covering it could stop an army-"
"Okay," Kaufman sucked in a giant breath of air, "okay Murphy, I'll get back to you."
Suddenly I realised that Jack was next to me and must have heard everything. His first words confirmed it. "She's alive," he whispered, then gripped my arm, "Sam, she's alive!" Then he and Lucia were embracing each other and she was in tears. I hoped my shaky grin concealed what I was thinking - which was to wonder how much longer Maria could stay alive with this circus camped outside the door. But I was only half concentrating - the rest of me was getting my bearings. We were huddled next to the jeep alongside the stone wall. Ten yards to the left was the track which led up to the farmhouse. Away to the right the wall was much higher, and beyond the flames belching from the wrecked Audi were the biggest pair of wrought iron gates I ever saw in my life.
Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1 Page 77