Luciano's Luck

by Jack Higgins

  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, Patton'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 Kommandobefehl for two years now, sir. I can't see that it makes 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.

  ‘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, doublehanded, 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 threeinch 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, Luciano laid down the Smith and Wesson, following normal safety precautions. Detweiler replaced two of the targets and turned.

  Luciano called, ‘Heh, Detweiler I 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, barefooted 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 dreamlike 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 waterlilies below.

  ‘Heh, Detweiler!’ Luciano whispered softly, and wh
en 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!’ 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 her robe.

  ‘You're crazy,’ 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?’

  ‘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 SSugar 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 midupper 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?’

  ‘Fine,’ 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 bell-chain 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 closed 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, fullbearded 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 redpantiled 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?’

  Barbera moved to the pigeon loft and scratched the wire, 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 now, Padre,’ Barbera told him. ‘Don Antonio's granddaughter is coming, Maria.’

  The old man looked up, astonishment on his face. ‘You mean to the Cammarata? But how can this be?’

  ‘I've had word on the radio. Carter returns, very soon now.’

  Padre Giovanni stubbed out his cigarette angrily. ‘The fool. I told him when he was last here that enough was enough. He seeks death, that one. But tell m
e more about the girl? Carter brings her with him, does he? They hope she will influence Don Antonio in a way no one else has been able to.’ He shrugged. ‘I'm not too sure that they are right.’

  Barbera said, ‘There's more, Padre, a great deal more. Luciano comes with them.’

  The old man stared at him. ‘Lucania?’ he whispered, using Luciano's Sicilian name. ‘Salvatore Lucania comes here? But he is in prison.’ Then comprehension dawned. ‘Ah, I see now the whole strategy. Lucky Luciano and the old Don's granddaughter. Harry Carter must think the game is his.’

  ‘And you, padre? What is your opinion?’

  ‘How could that be of the slightest importance? I will see that one of my little friends here,’ he touched the pigeon loft, ‘takes news of this to Don Antonio. He will act as he sees fit. When do they come?’

  ‘Within the next few days. I'll be getting a further radio communication.’

  ‘When you have the exact date, let me know. Have you spoken of this to the district committee?’

  ‘No,’ Barbera said.

  District committees had been set up during the previous summer to coordinate the activities of the various groups which made up the resistance movement

  Padre Giovanni put a hand on Barbera's shoulder. ‘And now, my friend, you will join me at the table. Something to sustain you on the journey back to Bellona.’

  Harry Carter was waiting on the terrace of the villa at dar el Ouad when Eisenhower rode into the courtyard. The General dismounted, gave his reins to a groom and went up the steps to the entrance, acknowledging the salute of the sentries. As he moved into the hall, Cusak stood up at his desk.

  ‘Colonel Carter's waiting, General.’

  Eisenhower turned as Carter came in from the terrace. He looked at him fixedly for a moment, then said, ‘Come in, Colonel,’ and led the way into his office.

  He dropped his riding crop on the table. ‘I've read your report, Colonel. You've been busy.’

  ‘A fair description, General.’

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘A small villa near the airfield at Maison Blanche, sir.’