Bloody Passage (v5) (19 page)

"Not so good," she said. "I think he could do with some sleep."

"Me, too."

I closed the door behind me and climbed on to the spare bunk, tiredness flooding over me. After a while, I turned and found Wyatt watching me, his head on one side, the eyes like dark holes in the gaunt face.

"What a bloody mess," he said.

I nodded weakly. "I'm sorry."

"What happens now?"

"I don't know."

"I'm dying, Grant, you know that, don't you?"

"Perhaps--perhaps not."

He turned and looked up at the ceiling of the cabin. "And Dimitri continues to live." He laughed harshly, choking a little. "Now I don't really see how I can allow that to happen, do you?"

But I hadn't the strength to answer, for suddenly darkness swept over me like the seventh wave and I slept.

14
Face to Face

I
t was shortly after noon when I awakened and only then because my leg started to hurt as the effect of the morphine started to wear off. I sat up and found Wyatt's head turned toward me, eyes open. His forehead was pale, almost translucent and damp with sweat.

I said, "Can't you sleep?"

"Rather a waste of time under the circumstances, wouldn't you say?" He smiled faintly. "Do you have any idea what you're going to do yet?"

"Not really."

"Let me know when you do. I'll be happy to go along with anything you decide." He smiled again. "If I'm around long enough, that is."

It was an uncomfortable thought and I got to my feet, opened the door and went into the saloon. There didn't seem to be anybody about, but the medicine chest was on the table. I rummaged about inside until I found the box of morphine ampoules and at that moment Simone came down the companionway.

She was wearing a yellow sou'wester oilskin coat and there was rain on her face which I now saw was quite badly bruised on the right cheek where Langley's elbow had connected.

"So you're up?" she said and then saw the box of ampoules in my hand. "Here, let me do that. How is it?"

"Not so good." I sat down and propped my leg on the table so that she could give me the injection. "What's it like up top?"

"Plenty of rain, winds three to four. Clearing toward evening. I just checked on the radio for Aldo."

"I'll see for myself, I think."

I got to my feet and she protested at once. "You should be taking it easy."

"Some sea air will do me good. I need to clear my head--to think. You have a word with Wyatt. There may be something he needs."

The morphine worked quickly and the pain in the leg was already dying away as I went up the companionway and the rain, stinging my face like lead pellets when I went out on deck, was cold and fresh and made me feel alive again.

Palmyra
rolled her slim length into the wind, plunging over a wave as water broke across her prow, racing the weather. On the port side, briefly on the horizon, I seemed to see land, but could not be sure.

In the wheelhouse Barzini leaned over the chart table. Behind him the wheel clicked to one side eerily to compensate as the
Palmyra
veered to starboard, the automatic pilot in control.

"How are you?" he said.

"Fine--crippled, but fine. Where's Nino?"

"Pumping some fuel in the engine room. He'll be along."

I pointed to the horizon. "Did I see land out there?"

"Malta." He tapped the chart. "We should make Capo Passero by early evening if we can maintain speed and the weather doesn't get any worse. I've been pushing her as hard as she'll go."

He took a flask of brandy from the chart table drawer and passed it to me. I took a long swallow and it seemed to explode somewhere deep inside. Probably didn't mix too well with morphine.

I said, "I think we should have a talk, all of us together, to decide what happens at Capo Passero."

"Okay," he said. "She should be all right on automatic pilot for a while. Let's go."

As we went out on deck Nino climbed up from the engine room and Barzini called him to join us as we went below. We sat round the table and Simone brought fresh coffee from the galley.

I said, "All right, Aldo, so we get to Capo Passero. What happens then? You tell me."

"You want your sister. Stavrou wants his stepson. We make a deal."

"But it isn't that simple," I said. "Not anymore. We know now that Stavrou needs his stepson dead. It means a fortune to him. It also means he doesn't want inconvenient witnesses around. Langley was supposed to see to that for him, only he slipped up."

"But Stavrou doesn't know that," Simone put in. "Let's say he comes on the radio like he said he would the moment we're sighted. He'll expect to hear from Langley that Wyatt's dead. That the rest of you have been disposed of."

"So what are you getting at?"

"It's simple. Instead of Langley, he gets you. You tell him Langley was killed during the prison break."

"I see," I said. "He'll have to go through the whole charade as he originally spelled it out."

"That's right. You'll have to have Wyatt on deck as we go in and Stavrou will have Hannah waiting up on the high terrace. You'll go up to the villa, make the exchange."

Barzini shook his head and slammed a hand against the table. "But it isn't meant to be that way. He never intended it to be that way. He wants Wyatt, but he needs him dead. That means he's got to shut our mouths too and money ain't enough, not to a guy like him."

I said to Simone, "What did you think would happen? Originally, I mean?"

"He had to play rough to get you," she said. "I accepted that, but as for the rest," she shrugged. "He sold me the same bill of goods he sold you. Getting Stephen Wyatt out of Ras Kanai was a sacred duty in loving memory of his wife."

"The bastard," Nino said.

"There is one thing in our favor," I said. "The fact that Stavrou doesn't realize how much we know."

"Just a minute," Simone said. "Wouldn't it occur to him that Wyatt would have said rather a lot?"

"That's easy," I shrugged. "I tell him on the radio that Wyatt's badly wounded from the prison break, delirious. No reason he shouldn't accept that."

"So he'll expect you to take Wyatt up to the villa and hand him over in exchange for Hannah and your money."

"Exactly."

"And you'll be ready for anything he tries?"

"Crazy." Barzini slammed his fist against the table. "It doesn't even begin to face the real problem, which is the girl. What happens to her? She's up on the high terrace, right? With that old cow of a woman breathing down her neck. We take Wyatt up there for a confrontation then start a shooting war." He shook his head. "The girl is the first to go."

He was right of course. There was no way round that--no way at all--and then Nino said almost casually, "What we need is someone on the inside."

Simone said, "But that isn't possible. There's no other way up to the villa from the beach except the road."

"Sure there is," Nino said. "There's the cliff."

There was a kind of stunned silence and we all stared at him. "You think you could climb that cliff?" I said incredulously.

"Nothing to it. A goat could get up there. You give me a decent gun, I'll climb up to the high terrace and shoot that old bitch before she has time to lay a glove on your sister."

Barzini clapped an arm about his shoulders and hugged him. "As a Barzini I'm proud of you. When we get back to Palermo I'll buy off the Mafia. This I swear even if you have to marry that damn girl. I don't care what it costs."

It was Simone who put a damper on things. "All very well," she said. "But what about Wyatt? Is he capable of going through with all that? Will he want to?"

The cabin door creaked and we turned to find Stephen Wyatt on his feet, leaning in the doorway. He smiled crookedly. "Don't worry about him, Miss Delmas. He wouldn't miss it for anything on top of this earth."

It was still raining as we moved in toward the great cliffs below the villa at Capo Passero. Simone was below with Wyatt, Barzini and I were in the wheel-house, and Nino crouched on the floor out of sight. He wore a wetsuit and aqualung and had a canvas waterproof bag attached to his waist containing climbing boots and a pistol. He had a pair of binoculars out and was busy examining the cliff through a hole Barzini had kicked through a panel for him.

"Like I said, nothing to it," he said. "There's a cleft running all the way up on this side of the point just by the entrance to that bay. I'll go up that way and work my way round to the terrace."

"How long will it take you?"

He had another look through the binoculars. "No more than half an hour. Mind you, I'd better get started, just in case."

"Okay, good luck," I said.

"Go with God," Barzini whispered.

We were perhaps fifty or sixty yards out from the entrance to the bay and Aldo slowed down and swung the wheel, turning
Palmyra
momentarily broadside to the cliffs. Nino pulled down his mask, slid across the deck under the rail and dropped into the sea, going under the surface instantly.

As we turned again toward the entrance to the horseshoe bay, the radio crackled and a voice said, "Come in,
Palmyra!
Come in!" It wasn't Stavrou's.

I picked up the hand mike and flipped the switch. "This is
Palmyra."

"Is that you, Mr. Langley?" I recognized the voice then. It was Gatano.

I said, "Langley is dead."

There was a startled exclamation and then Stavrou's voice broke in. "Grant, is that you? What happened?"

"Langley bought it on the way out at Ras Kanai. So did Nino and Angelo Carter."

There was a long pause before he spoke again, his voice harsh and remote. "And my stepson?"

"He's not too good. He was in a bad enough way when we picked him up, then he stopped a bullet. Hasn't been able to say anything that made much sense."

We passed in through the entrance to the bay. The Cessna was still moored to its buoys. He said, "Put Simone on. I want to talk to her."

I looked up at the high terrace. "I don't see my sister, Stavrou."

"You will," he said. "As soon as I see my stepson."

I went below and got Simone and told her what he wanted on the way back. She picked up the mike and said, "Dimitri?"

"What about Justin?"

"Killed," she said. "So were Nino and Angelo, but Dimitri--your son. He's very ill. He needs to get to a hospital as soon as possible."

"I'll take care of that," he said. "First let me see him on deck."

I went below to get Wyatt. He was very pale now, the skin stretched tightly on his face like wrinkled parchment. He wore an old reefer jacket over his prison pajamas.

"How's it going?" he said.

I told him on the way up the companionway and when we went on deck, Barzini came out of the wheelhouse with a folding canvas chair so that he could sit down.

I went back to the radio and picked up the mike. "Satisfied, Stavrou?"

There was a lengthy pause and then he said, "Perfectly."

"And my sister?"

"Look up, sir."

I focussed the binoculars and she jumped into view up there on the top terrace at the iron railings. She was smiling and fondling the Doberman's ears and Frau Kubel was standing close by in the same black bombazine dress.

I picked up the mike, "All right, what now?"

"I'll send the Landrover down. You can all come up and we'll make the exchange. I'll have some really excellent champagne waiting for you. You're a man after my own heart, Major Grant, but then, I had complete confidence in you from the beginning."

I put the mike down and turned to Barzini. "All right, Aldo, take her in and let's get ready."

By the time the Landrover reached the jetty we were ready and waiting, Barzini and I standing on either side of Wyatt, who sat in the canvas chair. We each had an Uzi slung from our right shoulder and I had a Smith and Wesson sticking out of my hip pocket.

The moment the Landrover braked to a halt, Bonetti and Moro jumped out covering us with Sterling sub-machine guns. Gatano got from behind the wheel and came forward.

"What is this?" I demanded.

"No guns!" he said. "Mr. Stavrou's orders."

He took the Uzis and the Smith and Wesson from my pocket and put them in the cab. Which left me with the Stechkin stuck into my belt at the small of my back under my shirt. Barzini had a revolver in the same place and even Simone had a Beretta automatic tucked into the waistband of her slacks under her sweater.

With Moro and Bonetti helping, we manhandled Wyatt into the back of the Landrover still sitting in the canvas chair. He looked really terrible now, his eyes bright and feverish. Once on the brief journey up to the villa I saw him put a hand inside his coat and when he took it out there was blood on the fingers.

We drove in through the entrance to the courtyard and received our first surprise, for Stavrou was standing at the bottom of the steps leading up to the garden, leaning on his canes.

As I got out I looked up and saw Hannah clearly, standing by the railings at the far end of the high terrace, the dog beside her. Frau Kubel was some distance away, leaning over the rail, looking down at what was taking place in the courtyard. There was no sign of Nino.

We lifted Wyatt down in the canvas chair and Barzini and I carried him forward. He kept his chin on his chest and muttered as we put him down, "Get back, you two. I want to talk to him alone. I'll keep it going for as long as I can."

Stavrou tapped his way toward him as Barzini and I moved back to the truck, a genial smile on his face. "Why, Stephen, my boy," he said, "it's good to see you."