In the Hour Before Midnight (13 page)

“As for Serafino and his boys,” I went on. “They aren't sweating over her fair white body in turn as Hoffer implied. They're working for her. By staying up here, she stays alive. It's as simple as that.”

I gave him the whole story in detail, even the girl's suspicions about her mother's death and I watched him closely all the time. When I was finished, he got to his feet and stood there, staring down into the water, jiggling a handful of pebbles.

“At least it explains a few things. Hoffer had a word with me just before we left. He said he was worried because the girl had a history of what amounted to a kind of mental instability. That she'd had treatment a couple of times without success. He said she was sex mad and probably enjoying every moment of her experience. He seemed to
think she might kick up a fuss about coming with us. He said she very easily became hysterical and was capable of making the wildest accusations.” He turned. “You're sure she isn't . . . ?”

I shook my head. “I've spoken to Serafino. He told me he was hired to kill the girl and changed his mind because he wanted to do Hoffer down. He doesn't like him.”

“The bastard.” Burke threw threw the pebbles he was holding into the water viciously. “Neither do I.”

The main thing which had worried me was now explained and I was conscious of a definite easing of tension and a sudden rush of affection for Burke, coupled with a kind of guilt because I had even admitted the possibility that he was capable of such an act.

He produced his packet of cigarettes for the second time. It was empty and he threw it into the stream. I gave him one of mine and when he lit it, I saw that his hands were shaking. He stared out across the water.

“God, what a fool I've been. I knew there was something phoney about the whole thing. From the beginning I knew that, and yet I still let it all happen.”

“Why, Sean?” I asked.

“Oh, the money was good and it was the only offer I was likely to get.” He shrugged. “You change when you get old, you'll find that out. You grab at straws, take the wrong chances, look the other way when you shouldn't, because all of a sudden, the years are rolling by and you've had it.”

He choked suddenly on a mouthful of smoke and doubled over, struggling for breath. While it lasted, it was anything but pleasant. I got an arm around him and he leaned hard on me as he coughed up half his lungs.

After a while, he managed to get his breath and smiled wanly. “Okay now.” He slapped his chest. “I'm afraid the old lungs aren't what they used to be.”

And in that, there was the answer to many things.

“How bad is it?”

He tried to smile and failed. “Bad enough.”

And then he told me. Not, as I was beginning to believe, cancer, but something as bad. Some rare disease in which a fungus-like growth spreads like a poisonous weed to choke him. There was no cure and drugs could only halt what was an inevitable decline.

To say that I felt guilty at the general way in which I had misjudged him would be an understatement. I was sick to my stomach. There was no excuse. I should have realised from my knowledge of the man that there had to be some logical explanation for his unlikely behaviour.

I came up with the most banal sentence in the world. “I'm sorry, Sean.”

He smiled and slapped me on the shoulder. “Never mind that now, Stacey boy. What's to be done, that's the thing.”

I told him about Joanna Truscott's offer. “I don't know what she has in mind, but nobody would lose by it, and I'd like to put one over on Hoffer.”

So would I, he said with some passion. “I'll put it to Piet and Legrande.”

They tood together in a huddle, talking, and I realised again how tired Legrande looked as they moved to join me. “That's it then,” Burke said. “We've got half our money in advance anyway. Now we'll see if we can make the bastard sweat a little.”

He seemed to swallow suddenly and stopped dead so that, for a moment, I thought he was having another attack, but nothing could have been further from the truth.

“My God,” he said. “We're all forgetting
something—something absolutely bloody perfect. Hoffer will be waiting with our transport on the Bellona road from noon on.”

“You think we could give him a nasty surprise?”

He smiled slightly, that smile of his that was not really a smile at all, looking completely his old self again, a thoroughly dangerous man.

“We can have a damn good try, but we're wasting time talking. We'd better join up with the others as quickly as we can and sort out some sort of plan.”

We moved out fast in single file with me in the lead. I felt full of energy, strong enough to take on anything, a weight lifted from my body and brain. As for Burke, however unfortunate his condition, there was relief in it for me as an explanation of the inexplicable change in conduct I had found in him.

I paused on the edge of the clearing, perhaps thirty yards away from the hut. Our approach had obviously been noted and there was no one in sight. I waited for the others to join me and told Burke I would go down alone to pave the way. The brothers Vivaldi and Joe Ricco had looked capable of anything and I didn't want any unfortunate misunderstandings at this stage.

I called out to Serafino as I ploughed down the
slope through the undergrowth, hands above my head. When I was half-way across the clearing, the door opened and he peered out cautiously, holding my assault rifle ready.

“It's all right,” I said. “Everything is fine.”

Joanna Truscott appeared at his shoulder, her face uncertain. “You've managed to persuade them?”

“Better than that. Hoffer's going to show up himself this afternoon on the Bellona road to pick us up. Could be he'll get one hell of a surprise.”

I'd spoken in Italian and Serafino's face lit up. “Heh, I like that. I could cut the bastard's throat personally. Okay, Stacey Wyatt, call your friends down.”

He whistled sharply and the Vivaldi brothers and Joe Ricco appeared from different places on the edge of the clearing. Serafino grinned apologetically. “I never like to take chances.”

I waved Burke and the other two down and the girl moved to my side. “You're certain my stepfather will be there himself?”

“That's what the man said.” Burke was half-way down to the clearing now, the others just behind him and I grinned and gave Joanna Truscott a little push towards him. “Well, here she is, Sean. The purpose of the exercise.”

And in a single, terrible moment I recognised the expression on his face, had seen it too many times before, but by then it was too late. The rifle snapped to his shoulder and he shot her through the head.

I
OWE MY
life to Jules Legrande, who shot me down in the same second that Burke killed the girl.

The A.K. assault rifle packs one and a half tons of muzzle energy when it goes off and the bullet it fires was designed by the Chinese not only to stop a charging Marine, but to lift him off his feet and deposit him a yard to the rear. Which meant that I was flat on my back when Piet Jaeger opened up with his Uzi sub machine gun.

Serafino was the only one who got off a shot from the hop as he went down, a lucky one that blew away the top of Legrande's head as far as I could see, but I was already rolling into the cover of the fallen log on the other side of the fire.

The Uzi kicked dirt in a fountain towards me
that died abruptly as the magazine emptied and I got to my feet and ran into the trees, head down.

My right arm swung uselessly, blood spurting from a hole in my shoulder. There was no pain, I was too shocked to feel any. That would come later. For the moment I had only one driving passion—to survive.

I stumbled on and behind me there were the cries of the dying, some confused shouting and then several bullets passed uncomfortably close, severing branches and twigs above my head.

The Uzi opened up again, Jaeger working it methodically from side to side, splashing a route through the undergrowth. If I stayed where I was, I had a few seconds more to live at the most and that wasn't good enough, not with the bills I had to pay. I swung sharply to the right, forced my way through a screen of bushes and went head-first into the stream.

The icy coldness sharpened me up wonderfully. I surfaced, took a deep breath and went under. If I'd had to rely on my swimming alone I've had got nowhere. I found it impossible to use my right arm, but the current was fiercer than I had expected and seized me in a grip of iron, pulling me out from the shore so that when I surfaced again, I found myself in the central channel.

There was a cry from the shore and Jaeger burst through the bushes. He plunged knee-deep into the water and as he raised the Uzi and started to fire, Burke joined him. I went under again and a few moments later the water was rocked by a sudden turbulence, the breath was squeezed from my body and I was lifted bodily.

I was aware of Burke standing there, of his arm moving like a flail, the grenade curving through the air to land a yard away. It was the torrent which saved me, sucking me under into the central passage between great granite slabs so that I had already passed over the smooth apron of rock at the end of the reach and was falling into the pool twenty feet below when the grenade went off.

The water was nine or ten feet deep at that point. I touched bottom, surfaced and the current swung me across to the other side to ground gently on a shelving bank of black sand beneath a line of overhanging bushes.

In a moment I was into their shelter, still driven by that fantastic reserve of energy that is in us all and which only comes to the fore in periods of real stress and danger. I looked for the densest thicket I could find, crawled into it and lay there shivering.

 

I discovered that the Smith and Wesson was still with me, thanks to its spring holster, and I got it
out awkwardly with my left hand and lay there waiting.

The woods were silent, I was alone in a primeval world, the undergrowth closing in on either hand. Somewhere nearby a bird called sweetly and was answered and then there was the murmur of voices. They seemed to come from another place, to have no connection with me at all and certainly I made little sense out of what was said.

The only thing I did hear clearly was the sentence. “Can you see the body?” delivered in a harsh South African accent that could only belong to Jaegar. It at least meant that they thought me dead, presumably killed by the second grenade.

Burke's voice answered, then there was silence. Lying there on my belly I was aware of something digging into my chest and remembered Rosa's parting gift. I unscrewed the top of the flask with my teeth and swallowed. Like liquid fire, the brandy burned its way down and exploded in a warm glow.

There was a single shot, presumably someone being finished off. I lay there and waited, my arm more painful by the minute, and thought of Burke who had tricked me. No, more than that, had beaten me all along the line. I also considered how I would settle with him. I thought of that a great
deal and with variations and drank more brandy and waited.

The waiting game is the hardest one to learn, but it is the only one for a soldier if he wants to survive. Once in the Kasai, I crouched with Burke and four other men in a three-foot trench while the ground above us was raked with heavy machine gun fire. Burke told us we must school ourselves to patience, that to go now would be madness. But one by one, the others cracked, made a run for it and were chopped down. Five hours later, when darkness fell, Burke and I crawled away in perfect safety.

My shoulder had stopped bleeding—I think because of my immersion in the ice-cold waters of the stream—and the hole where the bullet had entered had closed into two rather obscene purple lips. And it had gone straight through, thank God, which I discovered when I probed about gingerly with the tips of the fingers of my left hand. The edges of the exit hole seemed to have come together also and although I had obviously lost blood, there was no immediate need to bandage myself up.

I gave it an hour and then started to work my way cautiously through the trees to the top of the apron. I could see the hut, the smoke from the fire, but there was no sign of life.

There was a movement in the bushes over on my right and I crouched, waiting, and then one of the donkeys appeared. A kite called harshly, swooped over the clearing and soared again. He finally went down and perched on the roof of the hut, something he'd never had done if a human had been anywhere around.

That decided me. I stood up and moved cautiously towards the clearing. When I got close, the kite flapped away and left me alone with the dead.

 

The first body I came to was Legrande's, although he was barely recognisable and was minus his camouflaged jump suit which they'd presumably taken off him because it would have excited comment.

Serafino and his three friends lay so close together that the sprawling limbs actually touched each other. In death, Serafino smiled savagely, teeth bared and I judged him to have been shot seven or eight times. The others were in a similar position except for Joe Ricco who had obviously turned to run and had taken his dose in the back.

I could see it all now quite clearly. The girl had been right. Hoffer had intended death and had planned it with Burke's connivance. Now he would go to the police, reluctantly tell his story of the
kidnapping, of the ransom payment that had failed to secure the girl's return. And the police would have to go through the motions, would lay on their ritual search of the area, as they had done so many times before, expecting Serafino to stay one step ahead as usual, only this time it would be different. This time when they started at the usual place, they would find this butcher's shop, aftermath, as the girl had suggested to me earlier, of a fight between rival gangs.

They'd light a few candles in the cathedral in Palermo, Hoffer's friends would commiserate and he'd wipe away a tear with one hand while he was signing the papers that gave him two and a half million with the other.

The girl sprawled partially on one side and when I turned her over, I sucked in my breath. Her face was a mask of blood, flies settling already. I had seen death in all its obscene variations often enough and yet I sat back on my heels, feeling suddenly faint, overwhelmed by the pity of it all, the tragedy of what had happened to this young girl.

I thought of Burke—of how he had fooled me—fooled me right up until the end, taking Jaeger along with him, even poor, ageing Legrande, presumably on the promise of a larger reward than had ever
been suggested to me. Quite a performance when you thought of it. Then something snapped inside and I found myself cursing him wildly out loud.

I think I became wholly Sicilian, the rage boiling over in a torrent of hate.
In this way may I drink the blood of the one who killed you.
Someone had spoken the ancient formula aloud. I gently touched her face, her blood stained my fingers. I raised them to my mouth. It was at that moment that she gave a low moan and stirred.

 

No one could have been blamed for believing her to be dead, so terrible was her appearance. She owed her life to the quantity of blood which had poured down from the wound, covering the face and turning it into a hideous death mask.

The fire was almost out, but the water in the old iron kettle was still warm. I carried it across in my left hand and poured half of it over her face, washing most of the blood away instantly. She moaned, her head moved to one side, then back again.

I crouched, got out my handkerchief which was soaking wet and gently sponged the rest of the blood away. The bullet had gouged a furrow in the flesh, starting just above the right temple and continuing along the side of the skull. It was still bleeding, but not a great deal and the bone showed through.

I had the usual combat medical pack in a side pouch on the right leg and I got it out. The waterproof cover came off in my teeth and exposed the contents—two field dressings and three morphine ampoules in a small plastic box.

I jabbed two of the ampoules into her arm one after the other. She was going to need all the help she could get in the next few hours, because getting her out of here was going to be rough.

I hesitated over the third ampoule, debating whether to use it on myself, but decided against it in the end. I would need all my wits about me and it was a reasonable assumption that the very real pain I was beginning to feel in my shoulder would keep me up to the mark.

I raised her to a sitting position, got a knee behind her and allowed her to sag back against it. There was three feet of bandage on each end of the field dressing and by the time I got it all wound round her head the morphine had done its work. All strain left her face and when I eased her on to her back, she looked calm and relaxed. Only her extreme paleness indicated that something was wrong.

After transferring my holster from my right hip to my left, I managed to bandage my shoulder with the other field dressing rather imperfectly. Then I
took the sling from Serafino's M.I. and buckled it about my waist in such a way that my right arm was strapped firmly against my side.

The sun was really beginning to get through the clouds now and when I checked my watch I saw that it was only just coming up to seven
A
.
M
. I got out my copy of the map which, due to a nylon backing, was still in one piece in spite of its soaking, and had a look at the situation.

Hoffer had said he would be waiting at a certain map reference on the Bellona road from noon on which I saw no reason to doubt. Even if he didn't actually turn up in person, someone was certain to be waiting there with transport. With only themselves to worry about, Burke and Piet Jaeger would make excellent time, spurred on no doubt by the thought of a good job well done. In fact it was more than likely that they would reach the rendezvous with time to spare.

In my case I had no option but to make for Bellona and I couldn't see myself doing it in less than six or seven hours and there was always the possibility that my limbs might give out on me on the way, my body refusing to keep going.

I shivered slightly as the sun touched me, conscious for the first time of how wet I was. I got Rosa's flask out and drank a little more brandy.
Joanna Truscott lay still and quiet, her arms neatly arranged on either side. She might have been sculpted from marble and resting on top of her own tomb for all the life she showed.

If I left her and pushed myself hard, I might make it to Bellona in five or six hours, always supposing I didn't collapse on the way. Even for a man as efficient as Cerda, it would take an hour or so to get together a rescue party and the return trip back up into the high country would take even longer.

It came down to this then. If I left her, she would lie here alone for fifteen to sixteen hours at the very least and probably longer. By then she could be dead, which was something I had no intention of allowing to happen. She was going to live and I wanted to be there to see Hoffer's face when he found out.

The animals, which earlier had grazed so peacefully, had disappeared, obviously stampeded by the noise of the shooting. There were some bridles hanging by the door. I took one a little way into the woods and finally found a couple of goats and one of the donkeys nibbling a bush together. The donkey allowed me to get the bridle on him with no fuss and I led him back to the clearing and tethered him by the hut.

The animal had obviously been kept to carry in supplies for Serafino and his men which meant there must be a pack saddle somewhere. I found two inside the hut, both of the same distinctive local pattern, made of wood and leather with a great V-shaped wooden trough in which sacks could be carried.

The brandy had gone to my head, and for the moment the pain in my shoulder seemed to have receded a little. I dragged one of the saddles out and managed to heave it on to the donkey's back at the third attempt. God knows what would have happened if the animal had had a temper or turned awkward at all, but it stood there placidly nibbling at the ground as I tightened the girth.