Luciano's Luck (26 page)

He stood up, wholly Sicilian now and whispered the ancient formula. ‘In this way may I drink the blood of the one who killed you.’

Men had appeared in the square, old and young, armed with everything from shotguns to automatic weapons and Brandt and the remaining paratroopers moved in on each other, faces grim, ready for anything.

A teenage boy came running across the square and stopped before Barbera. ‘They've taken the north road.’

‘Then that means the monastery. It leads nowhere else.’

Two old women knelt beside Maria to straighten her limbs and one of them took off her shawl to cover the pale face. Luciano was filled with a sense of total despair.

He turned. ‘Let's go and get him.’ He nodded to the troop carrier. ‘Can anyone drive this thing?’

‘I can,’ Rudi Brandt said.

There was a moment's silence. Luciano said, ‘I thought we were supposed to be at war?’

‘This is personal.’

Luciano looked at Barbera, who nodded. ‘I'll get my truck.’

‘Fine.’ Luciano turned to Brandt. ‘I'll go with you boys. Now let's get moving.’

They braked to a halt just before the crest of the hill below the main gate. Barbera, who was carrying more than twenty armed men in his old truck, got out and hurried to the troop carrier.

‘How are we going to handle it?’

‘The troop carrier goes first,’ Luciano told him. The only way we'll get through those gates. If it works, you come straight in after us and remember Padre Giovanni and the Franciscans are on our side.’

‘Okay.’ Barbera grinned. ‘Do I wish you luck?’

‘When did I ever need it?’ Luciano slapped Brandt on the shoulder and they drove away.

When Meyer got out of his fieldcar in the courtyard at Crown of Thorns, there was no one in sight, the whole place unnaturally quiet in the heavy rain. The only visible signs of the action which had taken place were the parachutes draped untidily on the walls or in the courtyard, lifting uneasily in the slight breeze.

At that moment in the catacombs below, Father Giovanni was supervising the departures of the last of the Franciscans into the tunnel, taking with them the young paratrooper with the broken leg. He gave one glance around, then followed them in. The wooden throne swung back into its place with its macabre burden.

Meyer was unable to think clearly. It had all happened so quickly, the rage in him something that could not be denied. Now he was faced with the appalling consequences.

A sergeant came out of the entrance, ran down the steps and hurried towards him. ‘Not a soul in the place. Quiet as the grave, Major.’

‘Impossible,’ Meyer said.

One of the men on the gate called out, ‘Someone's coming, Major.’

Meyer ran out and paused on the bridge over the ditch. From that vantage point the approach road could be seen in its entirety. The half-track troop carrier was coming up fast followed by an old truck. Way behind, a considerable crowd of people were following on foot.

The Ukrainians crowded around him and one of them held a pair of fieldglasses to his eyes. He lowered them and turned to Meyer, bewildered.

‘I don't understand. Koenig's paratroopers in the troop carrier and the truck's crammed full of peasants.’

Meyer took the glasses from him and raised them and the troop carrier jumped into focus. Brandt, who he recognized instantly, the rest of his men and Luciano. Barbera was at the wheel of the truck behind and the men with him were armed.

‘They've joined forces,’ Meyer said. ‘They're coming up together. Inside quickly and get the gates closed.’ He turned and ran for the courtyard.

Meyer was no soldier, never had been, and the Ukrainians ignored him now. Someone closed the gates and slid the retaining bar through its sockets and the rest of them took the two heavy machine guns from the
kubelwagen
and carried them up to the battlements above the gate.

They were all up there now and Meyer stood in the centre of the courtyard amongst the billowing parachutes quite alone. There was a Schmeisser in one of the
kubelwagens.
He picked it up, turned, walked away from the gate and mounted the stone steps to the east rampart.

Brandt, peering out through the open visor of the troop carrier, said to Luciano, ‘Get down here. This could be a hot one.’

Luciano did as he was told. Above them, two of the paratroopers crouched over the heavy machine gun, hanging on as Brandt increased speed, turning into the last stretch, the halftracks kicking up mud and filth from the road.

The machine guns above the gate started to fire when they had still a hundred yards to go. The armoured plating of the troop carrier took most of the brunt and their own machine gun was returning the fire now, raking the battlements above the gate.

One of the Ukrainians was hit and came over the parapet, dragging a machine gun with him, falling on to the bridge as Brandt roared on, bouncing over the body, the machine gun hitting the gates at close to sixty miles an hour, tearing them from their hinges.

The troop carrier kept on going, smashing into one of the
kubelwagens,
drifting broadside past another. One of the paratroopers tossed a stick grenade, there was a tremendous explosion as the
kubelwagen's
petrol tank exploded.

The Ukrainians up on the wall were firing down into the yard, working their Schmeissers furiously and two of them tried to turn the heavy machine gun round. Rudi Brandt ran forward, hurling another stick grenade. It curled lazily through the air exploding above the gate. Two of the Ukrainians fell into the yard and the machine gun followed them.

The second
kubelwagen
exploded, showering burning fuel over a wide area. A dense pall of black smoke drifted across the courtyard.

Luciano, crouched at the side of the troop carrier, snatched up a Schmeisser from a fallen paratrooper. Bullets bounced from the armour plating and he turned and fired instinctively at the battlements on the other side of the courtyard, at the figure crouched up there beside the wall.

Meyer.
He emptied the Schmeisser in another long burst, pulled out his Smith and Wesson and ran for the steps leading to the east rampart. He paused at the bottom, peering up through the smoke, fired three times very fast at what might have been a shadow and went up the steps on the run.

Below in the courtyard, Barbera and his friends had arrived in strength and there was a confused mêlée of hand to hand fighting in the smoke and rain.

Up there on the ramparts, it was quiet. Smoke drifted eerily and the noise of the battle in the courtyard seemed far away, as if it were happening in another time, another place.

Luciano removed his shoes and went forward cautiously on silent feet, the Smith and Wesson ready. He was at the highest point in the monastery, he knew that, smoke billowing around him. He was aware of the pigeons in their loft, fluttering in alarm, and paused. Then, quite suddenly, a gust of wind lifted across the battlements, dissolving the pall of smoke.

Meyer was standing only a few feet away, covering him with the Schmeisser. ‘Drop it!’ he said. ‘Now!’

‘Whatever you say.’ Luciano put the Smith and Wesson down carefully on the battlements.

Meyer was surprisingly calm. ‘Who are you?’

‘Salvatore Lucania but most people call me Luciano.’

Meyer was shocked, it showed in his eyes and his finger slackened on the trigger. The ivory Madonna was ready in Luciano's left hand. As he swung, the blade jumped, catching Meyer under the chin, shearing through the roof of the mouth into the brain.

It took all Luciano's strength to pull the knife free. Meyer staggered back, still alive, a look of astonishment on his face, then fell backwards over the low parapet.

The pigeons in the loft threshed around in panic. Luciano lifted the latch and opened the screen door and they flocked out, launching into space, climbing above the smoke into the clear rain.

He watched them go, then realized that he was still holding the ivory Madonna. For a moment, he was tempted to throw it out into space, but that would not have been Salvatore Lucania's way, nor Lucky Luciano's.

He kissed the blade, still wet with Meyer's blood, the ritual completion of the oath he had taken in the square, then wiped it dean, closed it and slipped the Madonna into his pocket.

Life for life, blood for blood and no satisfaction in it at all, but then Maria could have told him that, and he turned and went down the steps to the courtyard.

Maria Vaughan lay in a coffin before the altar of the little church at Bellona, her features relaxed and at peace in death, her wounds covered by a shroud.

Candles flared around her, placed there by the villagers, but now, the place was empty, except for Katerina sitting in the front pew and Don Antonio Luca beside the coffin.

Luciano and Mario Sciara standing in the shadows at the back of the church watched as Luca leaned down to kiss the pale face. Katerina stood up and put an arm around him. They started up the aisle. Sciara opened the door and he and Luciano waited. When he readied them, Luca paused.

‘You know what to do, Mario,’ he said to Sciara.

‘Yes, Capo.’

‘Good.’

He turned and looked at Luciano, eyes dark.

Luciano waited, but there was, after all, nothing to say. Katerina tightened her arm around him and they went out and Sciara followed them.

It was very quiet in the church and his footsteps echoed between the walls as Luciano walked down the aisle to the coffin. He stood there looking down at her, suddenly tired. He touched her hand gently. It was cold, hard, no life there at all.

Maybe people come to God when the Devil has no further use for them.

His words to her echoed in his mind and her reply:
No, Mr Luciano. I could never accept that. Never.

He turned and walked away quickly.

Harry Carter lay in Vito Barbera's bed at the mortuary, propped up against pillows, still very weak as he sipped the brandy Barbera held for him.

‘So, in the end, we got exactly what we wanted.’

Luciano, standing at the window looking down into the square, nodded. ‘All over the Cammarata, in every village, every town in Western Sicily, all the way to Palermo, the word is already passing. That Don Antonio Luca is for the Americans.’

‘Because a German killed his granddaughter?’

‘Exactly,’ Luciano said. ‘Blood for blood, an old Sicilian custom. I'd have thought you'd have realized that by now.’

Carter nodded. ‘And the paratroopers?’

‘We let them clear off in the troop carrier, what's left of them, to take their chances. They took Koenig with them.’

Carter frowned, ‘I don't understand.’

‘It turned out he was still alive. Badly wounded, but in there with a chance if they can get him to a decent surgeon in time. I should imagine that sergeant major of his will ride over the Devil himself to get him to Palermo.’

Barbera said to Carter, ‘You need to eat now. I'll get you some soup.’

He went out. There was a small silence. Carter said to Luciano, ‘You could take to the mountains. We could say you were killed in the fighting.’

Luciano grinned. ‘Heh, don't tell me I've succeeded in corrupting you completely?’ He shook his head. ‘No, I'll go back.’

‘Why, because the President said that was the way it had to be? He made no promises, remember. You could be back inside for years.’

‘Well, you take a chance every day of your life.’

Luciano walked to the window, opened it and leaned out into the rain, breathing in its freshness.

Across the valley from Crown of Thorns high up on its crag, the bells started to peal.

19

And so, the Mafia card was played and played to the full. In a single night, two-thirds of the Italian soldiers defending the vital positions overlooking the main road through the Cammarata to Palermo, deserted. Even their commander was detained by Mafia trickery and handed over to Allied forces.

German units in the area, left in a hopelessly vulnerable position, had no other choice but to pull out. American forces raced north, reached Palermo in only seven days from the initial landing in what General George Patton was to describe as the fastest
blitzkreig
in history.

Mussolini was toppled from power by a warweary nation on July 24, and in spite of spirited resistance by German forces, the whole of Sicily was in Allied hands by August 17.

Charles Lucky Luciano returned to Great Meadow Penitentiary and appeared before a State Parole Board in 1946. The circumstances of the proceedings are still shrouded in controversy, but in February of that year, Governor Dewey commuted his sentence and Luciano was sent to Ellis Island and deported.

Nearly sixteen years later, on January 25, 1962, he died of a heart attack at Capodichino airport near Naples. The body was held at the chapel of the English Cemetery until arrangements could be made to have it transported to America.

For a while, there was considerable interest and many visitors. By the third day it had slackened off a little and the young reporter and photographer from Associated Press were beginning to think about packing it in when a small tour bus appeared. Fourteen or fifteen people got out, and went to the entrance of the chapel, mainly American women chattering amongst themselves.

‘More tourists,’ the young reporter said sourly. ‘Five hundred lira a time to gaze at a corpse. I reckon that's about it. Put your gear in the car and let's get out of here.’

He went to the porch where the door stood open and looked inside. The women were gathered at the rail peering over at the coffin and the reporter noticed a grey-haired man in his sixties wearing a black overcoat, standing at the back of them.

They turned and came down the aisle. The grey-haired man paused, raising his collar against the cold, suddenly breaking into a paroxysm of coughing.

‘Are you all right?’ the reporter asked, concerned.

‘Smoker's cough, that's all. Been trying to stop for years.’

‘You didn't know him?’

‘Who, Luciano?’ Professor Harry Carter smiled. ‘Did anybody?’ and he turned and went down the path to where the rest of the tourists were boarding the coach.