by Robert Ryan
‘I wasn’t!’ I felt the bike slide under us and we both steadied and kicked with our feet in unison to keep us upright. My spine began to ache as every stone on the path jarred it. I looked back, wondering what the flapping noise was, and saw the rear tyre was busy ripping itself apart.
As the slapping got worse, I glanced around us. The helicopter was hovering to the south, patrolling downhill, thrown off by Lindy’s sudden swerve. To our left, uphill, I could see another factor that might make the Bell keep its distance. A harsh cliff face reared up above the forest in a series of narrow natural steps or terraces, its top almost lost in the mist streaming across it. The storm was rolling over that cliff, and even a chopper jockey would know about the draught that would be carried with it. I also saw something else, although part of me thought I half-imagined it, the way you see faces in the clouds as a child. I looked again, and it was there all right, and it was definitely man-made.
‘Turn towards the cliff!’ I yelled.
Lindy obediently yanked the bike around and urged it on through the trees, bouncing over fallen branches, all the time the squealing noise from the rear wheel getting worse. Even as I watched it, the last layer of rubber detached itself and spun away.
‘Off.’
She did as she was told and I took the handlebars and heaved the CrossCountry up the hill.
‘Leave it,’ she panted.
‘No.’
Our goal was around 200 yards beyond the edge of the trees, sitting in front of the cliff on a pedestal of scree, a single decent stone path leading up to its ruined doorway. I had found one of the chain of forts and lookouts built across Val Grande half a century previously, when the Italians thought the Austrians or Swiss might have territorial ambitions on the region. The structure, snug against the rockface, was well disguised, yet would give its garrison a commanding view over the valley below.
Lindy helped me with the bike as we pushed up towards the decrepit castle, the pebbles and stones skittering under our feet. As I kicked at the gate, crows squawked and took to the air above our heads, outraged at the intrusion. I swore as their vulgar sound swirled across the valley.
Lindy said quietly, ‘Now they know where we are.’
‘Now they know where we are,’ I confirmed.
We managed to manhandle the wrecked bike through the twin wooden doors, and to close them, after a fashion. There was no lock or crossbeam to wedge the gates shut, so I leaned the bike against the gap between the two halves and piled some rocks around the wheels to stop it slipping. I gave the CrossCountry a once-over. The petrol tank hadn’t been holed, but the tyre-less rear wheel was badly buckled, and the engine was bleeding oil in several places. We wouldn’t be going anywhere on it. Lindy had slid down the inner wall to a crouching position and was sobbing into her folded arms. Looked like I’d be exploring our new home on my own.
The surface of the steps up to the main wall had been badly crumbled by countless frosts, but they were solid enough to get me to the battlements. I poked my head over the parapet and surveyed the scene below. Low, damp cloud was coming in from each side and I could hear the whine of the Bell’s engines, although I could no longer see it. It was landing, probably in the meadow we had just left. They would clean up the mess there, maybe stay the night, and, at some point, come for us.
I checked the magazine of my gun. Six shots left.
I jumped at the touch on my shoulder. It was Lindy, the tears gone, determination in her voice.
‘Sorry about that. What do we do now, Skip?’
‘We try and stay alive,’ I said harshly. I wasn’t about to forgive her duplicity that easily.
‘Listen, it wasn’t all lies, you know. The story of Dad and the plane.’
‘I know,’ I said, my eyes still on the clearing and the forest beneath us. In my mind, I ran through what had happened in the past few days and weeks. ‘What about the little pantomime in the hotel? When you were so pissed you even fancied me? What was that all about, Lindy?’
‘I was drunk …’ she admitted.
‘But?’
‘Lang told me you’d been honeytrapped by this woman. Is that the word?’
‘It’ll do.’
‘He said your brains were in your balls.’
‘And you thought you’d check? See if I’d indulge in some pillow talk?’
‘Something like that. I was curious to know … ah, forget it. It was a dumb idea.’
‘You can say that again.’
‘Is it true?’ she asked.
‘Which bit? My brain being in my balls?’
‘That you fell in love. That you compromised your mission?’
‘Lang liked to think so. It’s not that simple, Lindy. It never is.’
I saw her face crease up and knew she was thinking about Furio. A drizzle hit us, and I took her and hugged her to me. ‘What a mess. Come on, let’s take a look around.’
She didn’t move or say anything. I held her away from me and looked at her smudged face, that healthy glow hidden behind smoke and cuts and blood. I examined the arm, but the wound seemed to have congealed. I licked a finger and ran it down her face. A clean line of skin emerged, pallid but unblemished. Underneath the grime she was in pretty good shape, physically at least.
‘You’ll live,’ I said.
‘Will I?’
I didn’t need her giving up, I didn’t need her even recognising the possibility of death. ‘Of course you will. What are you thinking?’
She gave me a wan, tired smile and stared out into the darkness where our opponents were gathering. ‘I was thinking … have you seen that film Zulu?’
Thirty-Four
THE FORT WAS EVEN older than I had first thought, probably dating back to the turn of the century, and the weather hadn’t been good to it. There was a large courtyard, divided into three separate areas, the central one, where we were, filled with debris from the cliff face above, and colonised by hardy plants used to eking a living from the roughest of grounds. I knew the feeling.
Near the main gateway, I found an old metal chest. It was almost rusted shut, but it opened with a metallic shriek of protest. Inside was a reddish tangle of nuts, bolts and washers, and two corroded screwdrivers. I closed the lid again and tried to drag the box across to help bar the door, but it was too heavy.
‘Want a hand?’ asked Lindy.
I felt a muscle in my back tense and stood up. ‘No. Leave it. Let’s see what else we can find.’
At the rear of the fort was the equivalent of the keep, a two-storey bunker with a collapsed slate roof. The structure was big enough to house twenty or thirty men, with a kitchen and what were probably intended as latrines and a washroom, but no plumbing had ever been installed. The forts had never been required, since the Swiss hadn’t swarmed over the Alps to ravage and pillage. That wasn’t their style.
All I found in the keep, apart from bird and bat droppings, was a lonely bucket, almost rusted through. For no good reason, I brought the pail with me. The way things were going, I might end up having to bucket someone to death.
There was thunder now, away to the west, the rumbles rolling through the valleys towards us; the glow of lightning flicked on the horizon. The air around us was thick and damp. We both finished our brief tour of the main compound and stood shivering.
‘What now?’ Lindy asked.
I pointed up the steps to the equivalent of the battlements, although the capstones lacked the castellations of olde English models. ‘I’ll go back up there, keep an eye out. When it gets properly dark, maybe we’ll try and find our way down.’
‘Is that wise?’
‘You’re asking me about wise?’ I shook my head in disbelief. I didn’t want to remind her how we had got into this mess. ‘None of this is very wise.’
‘Who is out there?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know.’ That wasn’t strictly true. I had a good idea who one or two of them might be. I walked wearily back to the stone steps. Lindy followed
and put a hand on my shoulder.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘What for?’
‘All of this. Furio. You. Lang.’
‘Don’t be sorry for Lang.’
‘Why not? If it wasn’t for him …’
‘If it wasn’t for him, this would have been a straightforward search for your father.’ We had reached the parapet and I lowered my voice. ‘But he made sure you saw it as revenge for the plane going down. That was nobody’s fault—I see that now. It crashed, for whatever combination of reasons. It happens in war. People die. End of story.’
‘And Jimmy Morris?’
I paused. That was Lang’s real agenda, of course, not Bill or Lindy Carr. ‘That’s different,’ I said. ‘That was somebody’s fault.’
‘See?’
‘But that wasn’t your business; that wasn’t your war or your dad’s war. That was Lang’s. He shouldn’t have used you.’
‘Or you.’
‘Or me.’
When I reached the top of the steps and looked over the parapet I saw the glow in the trees. It was a cigarette. And whoever was at the soggy end of that butt probably knew I could see him in the last of the twilight. I cocked the pistol and the click carried down the scree slopes of the fort to the pines and died in the trees. He heard it, though.
‘Jaaaack.’
My name made my heart leap in my chest. I swallowed back the bitter taste that comes when you know you have been very foolish. The tone of that voice, the elongated vowel, it took me back twenty years.
Fausto.
‘Stay where you are,’ I shouted out into the darkness, for want of anything better to say. Like I was in a position to make demands of him.
‘Jaaack. It’s me.’
The rain began in earnest, drumming on the stones around me. ‘I know, Fausto. Who else have you got out there? Rosario?’
‘Yes. How do you know?’
‘I still recognise an MP40 when I hear it.’ It was the rate of fire. It was only fifty rounds a minute slower than a Sten, but to the ear it seemed a lot lazier, albeit a damn sight more accurate. The sound of the machine pistol told me that my old friend Rosario, the diminutive jazzman, had been in the chopper. If Fausto said jump, we all asked how high. It had always been the case.
I saw the red tip of the cigarette move between two trees, burning bright as he sucked on it. He was formulating his next move. I had to do the same, to stay one jump ahead of him. You have the higher ground. Fausto won’t like that, will he? He’ll try and pull you down.
Perhaps.
‘It’s cold up here. Wet. You should come down, Jack. We can go somewhere warm and talk.
‘I was talking to Lang. Look what happened to him.’
A laugh. ‘You won’t care about that, will you, Jack? You won’t hold him against me. You always hated him.’
‘Not that much. You’re right, though, it’s not him I really care about. You killed my friend, Fausto. He was in the Beech. He was just a kid. It was meant to be me, wasn’t it?’
‘No. No, it wasn’t.’ It almost sounded genuine.
‘Don’t give me that crap, you bastard. You didn’t know Furio would fly today. Hell, I didn’t know till last night.’
I saw the light from the cigarette stop moving and I ducked down, pulling Lindy with me.
‘I thought you would be in it, Jack. That’s true. But I knew that you wouldn’t have crashed, would you? You’d have come out of that with a fright and a ruined plane. Then maybe you’d stop poking around. You may not have been a good partisan, but you were a decent flyer. The boy wasn’t good enough, Jack. Tell me I am wrong.’
I didn’t answer, because he was right. I’d have recovered from losing an engine, even at that height. Furio didn’t have the hours under his belt; he didn’t stand a chance.
‘Come out, Jack. Let’s talk properly. It’s been a long time, eh?’
I grabbed Lindy’s hand and ran down the steps. I reached the crippled motorcycle and knelt before it, pulling off the tube between petrol filter and tank. The fuel began to spill onto the ground, and I filled up the bucket. I pointed to where Lindy should direct the rest of the flow and she took the line from me.
I tried not to sound breathless when I got back up top with the bucket. I laid it next to me, the fumes stinging my eyes. I said: ‘You’ll have to pay for Furio.’
‘He shouldn’t have been up there, Jack.’
I leaned over the wall and thought I saw a movement off to the right. I listened. There were scraping sounds. It was impossible to climb towards the walls without making a noise on the slippery scree, even if you could keep your footing. The figure moved closer, towards the main path that led to the doors of our compound.
‘Oh no, Fausto. You let me think I was responsible for that Liberator for too long. I know you didn’t light your flares.’
‘Ah. She told you that.’
‘She told me that.’ I had him now, I knew what he’d done. I knew what he was, at last. ‘You found Morris and killed him, didn’t you? When I heard he had a bullet through his head, I thought of you that night, finishing off the dead of the SS after we had ambushed them. It wasn’t a pistol round that they found in his skull, was it? It was a 9mm Labora, through the temple.’
The bullet hit the stonework to my right and whined off into the night, leaving me on the floor, wheezing and panicked.
‘I still have the Labora,’ came the voice. ‘For old times’ sake. Don’t worry, I wasn’t aiming. Not really.’
‘Tell me about Riccardo Conti.’
After I said it, I ran down the steps to Lindy and, as we rolled the bike away so the doors could swing freely, I spoke softly, watching her eyes widen in the gloom as I told her what she had to do.
‘I don’t know if I can,’ she began to object.
‘For Furio,’ I hissed. ‘Or he’ll never have justice.’
‘You want to know about Conti?’ came the voice. There was a wistful tone to it as he said: ‘You people put so much store by names, identities. You know, for the first six years of my life, I didn’t have a surname. Imagine that. I was just Cesare the bastard.’ Cesare? That was a new one on me. But few of the gruppi heads had used their real names back then. ‘If you must know, Riccardo Conti was a loyal officer of the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana by day. By night, he was Fausto, the brave partisan leader, scourge of the Garibaldis and the Nazis.’
I heard the chuckle, and by the time it faded I was back up at the top, hoping my heart wasn’t going to burst through my ribs. ‘So you managed to get a ride on a convoy carrying stolen art, and in the chaos of the attack you organised, you killed the guards, arranged for the trucks to disappear and came back to the scene as Fausto.’
‘Was that so bad?’
‘You used some of the loot to buy guns through Nino. And got Nino to fake your death, to stop the OSS and SOE coming after you with their told-you-sos.’
‘When it was over, Conti had to be released from his brutal captivity. That bit was easy. A quick shave and a haircut, a smart uniform. We had lost by then. I—he—had the chance to make sure there were no reprisals.’
‘Just the odd Communist leader.’
‘Just a few token executions. No civilian reprisals. You know how unusual that was? You know how much I worked for that? It could have been another Val Grande massacre.’
I leaned over the wall, saw the bulky figure of inky black, darker than the night, disappearing from view into the archway of the door below.
‘Fausto!’ I yelled.
‘Yes?’ came the voice from the treeline.
I loosed off a shot in the general direction of his voice, then screamed: ‘Now!’
Down below, I heard the click of her lighter, the whoosh of petrol igniting, and the crackle as the flames ran under the door to the outside, following the stream Lindy had created.
I heard an exclamation and, as a thin filament of lightning lit the far sky, giving me just enough illumination for
an accurate throw, and the big man leaped backwards out of the doorway, I tipped the bucket of petrol down.
Not all of it hit him, but more than half of it went over his head and body. The flames around his feet sucked at the vapour, tendrils of fire sprang upwards and, within a second, his torso was a fiery torch. The screams were louder now, and he was rolling on the ground, trying to extinguish the fire with his hands. They ignited too. The screech of his agony filled my head and I fired two shots at the writhing shape and then a third at the trees.
I ducked back down, pleased that the screams had been silenced, and I heard return rounds hit the other side of the wall, the impact vibrating through the old stone, the air suddenly full of dust. Fine, keep trying to hit me, Fausto.
I heard the door below squeak open and the shuffle of hasty footsteps. Within a few seconds, the gates slammed shut again and the bike was rolled back into place. That was fast, I thought. She could get up some speed when she needed it.
The firing ceased. I tried to close my ears to the hiss and pop of the dying flames outside on the rocky slope.
‘You OK?’ I shouted down.
Lindy caught her breath before she replied, ‘Yes.’
‘Got it?’
‘Yes.’
I raised my voice. ‘Fausto. Now I have an MP40. The odds are getting even.’
I heard Rosario’s angry voice across the clearing. ‘No—now you have a Sten, you bastard! Not as good!’
I looked down into the courtyard. Lindy bravely held up the machine gun like the trophy it was. It was the unmistakable shape of a Sten. Which meant I must have killed Ragno, the spider boy, the one person in the group who actually liked the weapon. I should have guessed from the size of the figure who’d crept up to the door. I’d assumed it was Rosario with extra padding against the cold, but it was my fat friend Ragno.
He’d come back to help Fausto, his old master, the man who took him and trained him, who gave the boy a chance to fight when everyone else said he was too young. I would have died for that man, he had said at the Moto Guzzi factory. Well, now he had.
‘Jaaack.’ It was Fausto again. ‘What is this? What have I done to you?’