Killing Ground

Chapter Eighteen

They had shaken him.

He had been far away. He had been with his grandfather. He had been with his grandfather to pick cherries, and there was the warmth of summer on him, and he had taken the cherries to his grandmother. He had sat on the broad, scrubbed kitchen table, and his grandmother had put the cherries, two fistfuls for each, into a row of big bottles, with a half-cup of sugar that he measured out for each, and a fifth of vodka for each.

The Norse people of the Door Peninsula called it Cherry Bounce, and when Christmas came he would be allowed a small drink. They had shaken him to wake him. He was a child, he would be allowed only enough of the brew to cover the bottom of the glass. In the kitchen, on the range, was the 'boil'. The smell of the 'boil' was in his nose. The 'boil' was white fish with potatoes, with carrots and onions, sometimes with cabbage.

He woke, but his eyes stayed closed, and there was the murmur of the voices around him, and it was ' Vanni's voice that led.

'To understand his commitment you have to know what drives him. He doesn't drink, God help him, so it wasn't alcohol talk, what he told me once… He was dumped as a kid, when his mother died, when her parents found him impossible and his father was travelling for work. He was dumped on his father's parents. It would have been a trauma, and they had to become the rock that he could hang to, they were God and they were safety to him. They took him to Sicily when he was seventeen years old. They brought him here. His grandfather had been in the Allied Military Government. His grandfather had gone home in 1945 and brought a Sicilian peasant girl with him for his new wife. I use a word that's often spoken in Sicily, isolato. His step-grandmother was isolated in that close little Norwegian community. It would have been a fiercely lonely childhood. They came back here to see relations, to see his grandfather's office, where he'd been a paramount king round the Corleone and Prizzi area. He told me, they were at the airport, they were getting the flight out, his grandfather made the confession. He was a teenager, he wasn't a priest in the box, he was a kid. The confession was corruption. His grandfather had been bought, he was paid for petrol coupons, for food coupons, for lorry permits. What was at home, back in Wisconsin, the farm, the land, the home, the orchards, was from corrupt money. All that he believed in, clung to, was corrupt. He went looking for another rock. The new rock was DEA, but it could have been FBI or Secret Service or Customs. He went looking for a rock that he wouldn't be washed off. For most men, for me, it is a rotten job and a fun job. I work the hours and I drink and I screw. For him it is a rock. If he were to lose that rock, to slip from it, then I do not think he could survive. He told me, and I understood the obsession. I understand more. When he was told to quit, walk out on his agent in place, abandon his agent, you'd have thought he would kick and that he would fight. He did not, he accepted the verdict of the rock. There is nothing else in his world. You say there is a posting to Lagos waiting for him – a seriously awful place – but you will hear no complaint from him, he will go, that is the way he stays with the rock. Everything I know of him, it is very sad.'

'More like it's obscene,' Dwight Smythe said.

'You don't mind me saying so, but obsessionalists, crusaders, they're juveniles, they don't have a place any more,' Harry Compton said.

'If that's what you want to believe…'

His shoulder was shaken. Axel Moen opened his eyes. The lying bastards, Dwight Smythe and Harry Compton were all warmth and concern. Yes, he'd slept well. He thought that the warmth and the concern were shit.

He went to the basin and sluiced cold water on his face and on his hands and his arms.

He thought 'Vanni Crespo tried to be gentle and sincere. 'Vanni told him that, while he had slept, the magistrate had been killed. A bomb had killed him. The magistrate with whom he had not shared Codename Helen was dead. He took a cup of water and swilled it in his mouth and spat it out. He looked around him a last time, his eyes soaked in the bare room, and he knew that he would never see his friend's room again.

Time to quit.

They went down the corridor and out of the living quarters of the barracks.

They stopped at the communications room, waited in the corridor. He saw 'Vanni Crespo lean over the technician, and smack his hand with emphasis on the work table, and in front of the technician was the second of the CSS 900 two-channel receivers.

He thought of her. He thought of his love for her. The Englishman carried his own receiver, and he would have no love for her.

They went out into the falling sunshine of the late afternoon to the cars.

She broke the rule. The rule had been set by Axel Moen. Axel Moen had quit.

'Angela, why-?'

'Why what?'

'Why did you make an issue-?'

'An issue of what?'

'Angela, why did you insist-?'

The rule set by Axel Moen was that she should never question, never pester, never persist. They stood beside the washing-line and Charley held the washed clothes that would hang on the line overnight, and the pegs, and passed them to Angela.

'Insist on what?'

'Angela, why did you demand that I come with you tonight?'

'I have small children.' 'Yes/

'I have a nanny/

'Yes.'

'I have a family occasion to attend, and my husband would like our children to be with us. If the children are with us, then so, too, should be their nanny.'

'Yes.'

The strain was off the face of Angela Ruggerio. Her smile was sweetness. To Charley, there was a strength in the face of Angela Ruggerio. But the smile of sweetness was not open. The smile was enigmatic, the smile was a fraud.

'You confuse me, Charley.'

'I'm sorry, I don't mean to.'

'In pain, Charley, in depression, I asked Peppino to bring you back to me. Everything that I ask for is given me by Peppino. But you have no life here, you have no happiness, you are a servant. But you do not complain. That is my confusion.'

'It was just an opportunity, you know, the right chance at the right time.'

'I took a telephone call for you. The caller said he was the chaplain of the Anglican church. You were later coming back than I thought. And you had to take the bus into Palermo, and then you would have had a long walk to the cathedral. I was worried, Charley, that you would be late for the start of the tour/

'No, no, I was there in time/

'Because we offer you so little, I thought it was good for you to have friends. In the book I found the telephone number of the Anglican church. I wanted to be certain they would wait for you. I spoke to the chaplain, to tell him that you were coming, that they should wait for you. I am glad, Charley, that you were not late for the tour.'

She had broken the rule. She had pushed, pestered, persisted. With the broken rule came the broken cover. She passed the last of the shirts from the basket and the pegs to hang it from. She could not read the face of Angela Ruggerio. They walked back to the kitchen.

The army colonel said that a new brigade of troops would be in Palermo within forty-eight hours, probably a paratroop unit.

'To do what? To direct the traffic?' It would be the Chief Prosecutor's last post before retirement. He had cracked a mould with his appointment. Before he had taken the post it had been given, for many years, to an outsider. It had been his great pride, that he, a Palermitan, had won the appointment.

The squadra mobile colonel said that four new teams of trained surveillance officers would be transferred from the mainland within the week.

'Excellent. Then we will know which dogs foul which pavements.' He felt a great weariness, an engulfing impatience, and a dripping flow of shame. He had shown no love for Rocco Tardelli and less support. He had laughed behind his hand at the man, and sneered at the man.

The deputy mayor said that the Minister of Justice would come himself to the funeral, and had telephoned his instructions that all resources should be diverted to this investigation.

'More resources. What generosity. We may have more flowers and a bigger choir in the cathedral.' The Chief Prosecutor threw down his pen at the papers in front of him.

'And we have to do something. It is required of us that we do something.'

The deputy mayor said that, in an hour, he would make a televised statement, a strong denunciation.

'Which will have a quite extraordinary impact upon the Men of Honour. Perhaps they will fart when they see you.'

The colonel of the squadra mobile said that every possible associate of Mario Ruggerio would, that night, be watched.

'But we don't know who are his associates. If we had known, he would have been incarcerated this year, last year, ten years ago.'

The army colonel said that each soldier under his command in Palermo was out now on patrol in every quarter of the city.

'Your soldiers are ignorant and untrained conscripts, and we cannot even tell them what is the appearance of Mario Ruggerio. Probably they would stop the cars and help him across the street.'

'I think you take a very negative attitude,' the deputy mayor said.

He had come to this meeting, down the great corridor on the third floor of the Palazzo di Giustizia, the place they called the Palace of Poisons. He had passed the office of Rocco Tardelli. He had recognized the guard. The guard was dust-covered and his face was blood-smeared. He thought the guard had the look of a woman who will not leave the mortuary where a still-born baby lies. From behind the door was the sound of the violation of the office of Rocco Tardelli. He had come to the meeting and he had heard the gestures that would be made.

'Do you know what happens at this moment? Do you know the reality of what happens? In the apartment of my dead colleague, and in the office of my dead colleague, there are now artisans working with oxyacetyline cutters so that the personal safes at his home, at his workplace, may be opened. For each safe he kept only one set of keys, and the keys were on his person and his person is bits. We have not found his keys in the Via della Croci. He had only one set of keys because he did not trust those with whom he worked. He employed no secretary, no aide, no staff. He did not trust us.

That is the kernel of my problem, that a brave man could not trust his colleagues.

Maybe in one of his safes will be his description of an avenue of enquiry that he did not share because he had no trust. And Mario Ruggerio will laugh at our gestures and celebrate and walk in freedom. Yes, my attitude is negative.'

From a distance, the tail watched the house and the closed street and the parked cars and the carabineri with their guns and flak vests and balaclava masks. The arrival at the house was reported.

'How long have we got?' Harry Compton fidgeted his fingers.

'Enough time/ the Italian said.

In London, of course, there were police undercover men and women. They'd be undercover in Vice or Organized Crime or with Drugs Squad. Harry Compton didn't know any of them. They'd have the full back-up. They'd have a chief superintendent wetting his smalls for them each night. They'd have support. He stood in the apartment.

The man seemed to have no interest in the packing of his few effects. The bag was packed by the Italian and the Afro-American. The man, Axel Moen, had let them in, like he didn't care that they trampled through his life, and he'd gone to the table against the wall on the far side of the room from the window. The light came badly from the small ceiling bulb, and he sat in shadow and wrote. Harry Compton stood by the door beside the big policeman who wore the anorak of the carabineri, who held the machine-gun. He watched, he was an intruder present at the end of a dream, and he was responsible for the waking.

The Italian collected the books on archaeology, Roman and Greek and Carthaginian antiquities, and the Afro-American took the clothes from the wardrobe and the chest and folded them and laid them with precision in the bag, and the man sat in shadow and wrote busily on a big notepad.

The man hadn't spoken as they had driven from the barracks to the narrow street.

They'd brought three cars, and they'd blocked off the street ahead of the house and before it. Harry Compton, stretching his mind, could not imagine what it would be like to live undercover, without back-up. The bag was packed, was zipped shut. The room was stripped of the presence of Axel Moen. The Afro-American was about to speak, probably he'd something asinine on his tongue about planes not waiting, but the Italian had touched his arm. Axel Moen, sitting in the shadow of the room, wrote his letter, and the Italian guarded his last rites as a vixen would have protected a cub.

They'd get him out, Harry Compton thought, get him on the flight, get shot of the responsibility for him, and then he would make his pitch for the girl. There was fierce argument in the street below. There was a hammering cacophony of horns because the street was blocked by three cars and by armed men. Harry Compton's pitch about the girl would be that they should drive from the airport to the villa, wherever it was, and lift the girl out. If she wanted to go screaming, then she could go that way, if she wanted to go kicking, then she could kick, if she needed to be handcuffed, if she needed a strait-jacket, then he would oblige, if she argued, the way he felt, he'd tape her mouth.

He could recognize the symptoms of fear. He was so bloody aggressive. They should get the man on the flight, they should get the girl out of the villa, they should close down on the place and turn their backs to it, fuck the hell out of it and go. The aggression came from the fear. The fear came from the growing dusk falling on the street, the guns that guarded them. And the man kept on with his writing, like there wasn't a hurry, like the flight would wait… She'd kill him, Fliss would, if he came back without a present for her, and she wouldn't understand, and he wouldn't tell her why he hadn't gone shopping, why he hadn't even bought anything for Miss Frobisher, wouldn't tell her of his fear…

The notepaper, three sheets, was folded. There was shouting on the stairs, a woman's voice, shrill. The man, Axel Moen, in his own time, took an envelope from the drawer of the table, and put the sheets of notepaper into the envelope. He slipped his hand into the breast pocket of his shirt and lifted out a small gold wrist-watch, a woman's watch, and placed it in the envelope with the sheets of notepaper. He licked the flap of the envelope and fastened it down. He wrote a name on the envelope, and there wasn't the light for Harry Compton to read the name, and he gave the envelope to Dwight Smythe.

They went out through the door. They had stripped the room and taken the identity from it. The dream was gone. Harry Compton had killed the dream… The woman was at the bottom of the stairs and she shouted her abuse at the policeman who barred her, at them as they came down. He caught the drift. She screamed at them in a patois of English and Italian. She had taken a spy into her house. What would happen to her?

They had endangered her. The whole street knew a spy had lived in her house. Who would protect her? She was not answered. She spat in the face of Axel Moen.

The car doors slammed. They pulled away into the dusk. The dream was dead.

From a distance, the tail watched as the men came out of the house. A description was given of the long-haired American. It was reported that he carried a travel bag.

Charley asked, 'What should I wear?'

Peppino lounged on the big chair in the living room. His papers were around him. He looked up and at the first moment there was annoyance at the distraction, and then the slow grin came to his face.

'Whatever makes you feel good.'

She was in control. She felt no fear. The darkness gathered outside the living-room windows and she saw the shadow shape of the gardener pass.

'I'd want to wear the right thing – wouldn't want to get it wrong.'

'If you would like it, I will come and help you choose what you should wear.'

'Good.'

She had the power over him. He stood. He glanced furtively towards the kitchen.

Angela was in the kitchen with the children and their colouring books and their crayons. She had the power over them all. The power flushed in her… Axel Moen would have sworn at her, and warned her

… The power was a narcotic in her. She led him into her room. He followed. He waited at the door. She drew the curtains of the window and then she crouched down at her chest of drawers and took out the blouse that he had paid for, and the drawer was left open and he would be able to see her neatly folded underwear… She did not care that Angela knew the lie, and she did not care that Axel Moen would have sworn and warned… She faced him, and she held the blouse of royal blue across her chest so that he could see the line of it and the cut of it, and swivelled with it and then tossed it on the bed. She sought control. She went to the wardrobe, and he drifted towards her. She heard the brush of his feet, coming closer to her. She took the skirt of bottle-green from the clip hanger in the wardrobe and she held it across her hips and stomach and thighs. She felt the warmth of his breath on the skin at her shoulders and she knew the scent of him. His fingers touched her and groped under her arms and towards her breasts. She demanded control. She lifted him, she collapsed him.

'Sorry, Peppino, it's "curse" time – bad luck.'

The tail was a motorcycle and a car. The motorcycle was ahead and the car followed.

The pillion passenger on the motorcycle used a mobile phone to report that the convoy had taken the route to the Punta Raisi Airport.

They took the ring road west of the city. At the junction with the autostrada, the convoy was flagged down for a road block. They had to slow for the driver of the lead car to wave his I/D at the soldiers and to point back to the two following cars. They slowed enough for Axel to see the illuminated turning to Mondello. He was sandwiched between 'Vanni Crespo and the Englishman, and the Englishman had the plastic bag between his feet. Dwight Smythe was in front, beside the driver. There was no talk in the car, so they heard each transmission on the radio between the driver of the lead car and their driver and the driver of the chase car. They accelerated through the road block, away from the sign to Mondello and into the long tunnel. Axel wondered where she was, what she did… He thought of her on the cliffs at her home, and he thought of her pushing the pram towards the Saracen tower, and he thought of her mocking him in the cathedral when the bright lights from the high windows had coned on her head…

They'd said they were going to get her once he was on the flight, and 'Vanni hadn't bothered to argue it. They were going to get her and they were going to ship out with her, and 'Vanni had let it ride. He'd be in his own bed, in Rome, that night and it would be behind him, just as La Paz was behind him. Shit…

The car rocked and swerved. The convoy cut inside a dawdling vehicle. Axel knew why the van went slowly at that place, over the viaduct of the autostrada. People went slowly over there because it was Capaci, and it was where the bomb had taken Falcone's life, went cautiously as if to remember and to stare. Axel saw, a flash moment, a weathered and disintegrating wreath on the guard rail of the viaduct. In a year's time there would be a wreath, rain-swept and sun-baked, in the Via delle Croci, and people would go past it slowly, and nothing would have fucking changed. As soon as they had moved him on, because the plan was killed, they were going to lift her out, and nothing would have fucking changed. There was the evening, there was still the evening before they went for her, and the old disciplines caught Axel Moen. He reached up into his ear, he prised into his ear with his finger nail. He took out the inductor earpiece. He wiped it on his handkerchief. He passed it to the Englishman. He couldn't remember the Englishman's name, and he had learned enough to know that the Englishman had killed his plan, had come snouting and interfering into his plan.

'What do I do with that?'

'You put it in your head, and you listen. If you don't want to put it in your head, then you shouldn't have come. It's owed her.'

He reached down, into the dark space between the Englishman's feet, and he felt with his fingers. He knew it well enough to find the switch from touch. He saw the glow of the light. The guy, reluctant, put it in his ear, and grimaced.

"Vanni'll tell you the codes.'

The Englishman bridled. 'I thought it was finished…'

'When the lady stops singing, when you have her on board, then it's finished.'

He wriggled in his seat, and then he was thrown against the Englishman, and the convoy careered past a slow-going lorry. He could see the guide lights of the airport runway over the driver's shoulder. He contorted himself and he slipped the harness of the holster from his chest, he didn't make a comment, he gave the holster with the Beretta 9mm pistol to 'Vanni. 'Vanni checked it and aimed it down between his shoes and cleared the bullet out of the breach, and he gave 'Vanni the spare magazine. The cars went fast into the airport.

It was not the way of La Cosa Nostra to make a killing without the most thorough and careful preparation, but Carmine did not have the opportunity for thorough and careful preparation.

In the hierarchy of La Cosa Nostra, where the confidences were exchanged, it was boasted that a mafioso under the control of Mario Ruggerio had never been arrested at a killing ground, but Carmine acted on the direct instruction of the capo di tutti capi and must improvise.

He wore his best suit, from Paris, because he was invited that evening to a celebration of the family. Beside the door to Departures he met with the tail. Through the glass doors he saw them. They were at the check-in desk. Through the glass he saw the back of the target's head, the long hair caught tight with an elastic band, and he saw the men with him, and the guns.

He squirmed. He did not know how it was possible to obey the instruction given him by Mario Ruggerio.

She had towelled the children from their bath, now Charley dressed them.

Angela had chosen the clothes they should wear, then gone to her bedroom.

A floral dress for Francesca, and a long brushing of her jetcoloured hair, and a ribbon to go in her hair. A white shirt and a silk child's tie for small Mario and black trousers that Charley had ironed, and a comb run through his slicked hair, and lace-up shoes that Charley had polished. She played firm with the children, so that they laughed, and she won them over as she could, no snivelling and no sulking, and she told them how angry she would be, breathing fire, real fire, if they dirtied their clothes before they left the villa. She bathed the baby, tickled the baby in the bath so that it gurgled happiness, and she dried the baby, and powdered its body, and buttoned on the nappy, and dressed the baby in a romper suit of burgundy-red.

Charley showered.

When she came out of the shower she took her towel and she dried the watch on her wrist, over which the water had cascaded.

She went back down the corridor to her room and she wore only her dressing-gown.

She passed Peppino and she dropped her eyes, and she thought she saw the bulge of him, and she had believed she had control of him. She sprayed herself with lotion. She dressed. The blouse of royal-blue and the short skirt of bottle-green. She stroked the brush on her hair.

She went into the kitchen.

Angela was beautiful. Angela wore a hugging dress of turquoise and the jewellery flashed at her throat. Angela was packing a shopping bag with spare nappies for the baby and a filled bottle… She remembered the old people who had come to dinner, Peppino's parents, peasants. Charley thought that Angela made herself beautiful so that she stood apart from those people, the peasants, so that she was separated from the brother… And there were books for Francesca and small Mario in the shopping bag.

Angela looked up, saw her. 'You are lovely.'

'Thank you.'

'Very young, very explosive, very vital.'

'If you say so.'

'But, you spoil it…'

'I do? How?'

'You wear that watch. You are so feminine, so gamine, but the watch is for a workman or a diver under the sea or a soldier.'

'It's the only one I've got,' Charley said.

'You want a watch? I have four watches, four of Peppino's presents. I will find you-'

'Doesn't matter, but thank you.'

'It is so vulgar, you have to have another watch.'

Charley blurted, 'It was a gift, from someone I admired. I do not want to wear another watch.'

She felt the weight of the watch on her wrist, clumsy and awkward, dulled steel on her skin. Angela's eyes danced brightly in front of her, but her face was a mask.

'I only try to be helpful, Charley. You wear what you want to wear.'

'I need to get some lipstick on. Excuse me.'

She was going to the door of the kitchen.

Angela said, conversational, 'It is a very bad day for all of us, Charley. It is the day when a good man was murdered. He would have made a mistake. Of course, I do not know what was his mistake. Maybe he made the mistake of trying to work alone.

Maybe he made the mistake of trying to swim against the currents in the sea. Maybe he made the mistake of trying to push too hard… With your complexion, Charley, I think a pink, quite soft, would be nice, for your mouth… It is most dangerous, as the poor man found, to make mistakes here.'

She said that she had a pink lipstick, crushed pink, quite soft. She made a play at smiling. She felt the sinking dead weight in her stomach. She went back into her bedroom. She sat on the bed and she scratched in her mind for the code call, sat so still until she was certain of it. Her finger was on the button of the watch on her wrist. She wondered who would listen if Axel had quit. She wondered how quickly he would come, come running as Axel had come. She'd find him, one day, afterwards, she'd find him and he would give her back her own watch, the gold watch that was her father's present to her, but she would never wear that watch. She would find Axel Moen, somewhere, and he could give her back the gold watch. She would not wear it. She would wear, until the day she died, God help her, the watch of vulgar dulled steel that was cold on her wrist.

She pressed the button. She made the signal.

His legs jerked up.

It was as if a shock charged through his body. The shock was the bleeping pattern of the tone call in Harry Compton's ear. Because the inductor was deep in his ear the pattern of the call seemed to ring in every recess of his skull.

He gulped. He was struggling for concentration. There was a call, simultaneous, for the last passengers for the flight to Milan. The sounds merged… They were through into Departures. They'd gone through the passport check. 'Vanni Crespo's I/D had taken them all through, and the balaclava brigade behind them. The shops and the bar were on the wrong side of the door, and they were scattered on benches. There were two empty seats between Harry Compton and Axel Moen, who sat close to the Italian, and Dwight Smythe was away from them and by the glass floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto the apron.

'The call – the call went/ he stammered.

The Italian jackknifed off the bench and came to him.

'What was the call?'

He was supposed to be a trained operative. He reckoned himself among the best and among the brightest of the young intake into S06. He reckoned himself shit-hot on close-up surveillance and the art of gutting a balance sheet. He squeezed his eyes shut and he tried to find the concentration. He could have said when the flight would leave for Milan, what gate it would board through, and the time it would arrive at Milan…

'I'm trying-'

'What was the signal?'

The Italian was close to him, spurting garlic breath and whisky breath and cigarette breath at him. Harry Compton jabbered, 'I'm sorry, I didn't get the pattern, there was so much other…'

Dwight Smythe had sidled close and stood awkward, like he didn't know how he should intervene, what he should say. Axel Moen was blank-faced, staring at the ceiling. The Italian had his hands locked onto Harry Compton's head and his fingernail was digging into Harry Compton's ear. The Italian, with his nail, was gouging the damn thing from the ear. It came again. Harry Compton flung his head back and he pushed the Italian away, and he had the palm of his hand over his ear, and his head sank down between his knees. He heard the second transmission of the signal. He described the rhythm, gave the pattern of the tone call, the pauses, the short blasts and the long blasts that cried inside his skull. The Italian crouched beside him.

'It's Stand-by alert. Holy Mother, she sends the Stand-by alert,' 'Vanni Crespo murmured.

Another bleeping between them, and 'Vanni was scrabbling in his pocket.

Axel Moen said, total calmness, 'Today he has killed the man who investigated him.

He has eliminated a threat to him. Perhaps it is the time of the crowning, the anointing with goddam oil. Perhaps it is the time he gathers his court, his goddam family…'

'Vanni Crespo had the mobile phone out of his pocket, killed the bleep, pressed it at his ear, listened.

'… If she is going away from the villa, if she is going outside the radius of transmission pick-up, if she doesn't know where she is being taken, then she is instructed to send a Stand-by alert. She is instructed to give us time to get there, to Mondello, because to tail her we have to track her.'

'Vanni cut his call. 'It's from the villa – communications says it's from the villa. We may have very little time.'

'I'm with you,' Dwight Smythe said. 'She is my responsibility.'

'Fuck you,' Harry Compton hissed. 'My orders are to bring her home. If her neck's on the bloody line, I'm there.'

'If she calls, I answer. I get to ride with you.' Deliberately, Axel Moen pushed up from his seat.

Dwight Smythe snapped, 'No way.'

Harry Compton snarled, 'You're off the pulse, friend.'

'It's mine. She doesn't know your fucking names. She calls for me.'

'We don't have time,' 'Vanni Crespo pleaded. 'You argue, you goddam women, you screw her up.'

'You don't exist to her, nothing to her.'

Harry Compton stood full square in front of Axel Moen. It was the moment he wondered if he would be hit, kicked. 'You go nowhere, we don't need you.'

Dwight Smythe found courage, jabbed at Axel Moen's chest so that he pitched back into his seat. 'Your rock is DEA, you obey orders, otherwise you get washed off the rock.'

'I'm obligated, I owe her.'

'Vanni Crespo said, soft, 'It is only the Stand-by. I promise, if it is Immediate, then I'll be there, I'll care for her like she's mine. Trust me.'

Axel Moen sat quite still. He was composed, and he locked his fingers and flexed them.

Dwight Smythe hissed, 'You're identified, you've no place with this now.'

Harry Compton whipped, 'You're just a liability to her, and always have been since you first walked in on her.'

Axel Moen dropped his head. The fire was doused.

'Vanni Crespo said, fast, 'I need the guys, I can't leave the guys with you. I'm trying to think on my fucking feet. I pulled rank to get the guys. If I leave them, then I have to call up, I have to explain, I have to start telling some bastard about an operation…

"Who authorized it? Who do you report to? Wait out, I have to check…" I don't have the time.'

'It's a public place,' Axel Moen said. 'I'm comfortable. I sit here, I wait, I get on the plane. So get the hell out.'

'Vanni Crespo held Axel's face in his hands. He kissed both his cheeks. Harry Compton nodded at him – he'd understand orders. Dwight Smythe shrugged – he'd appreciate responsibilities.

They were gone. It was eighty-five seconds from the first call. It was sixty-one seconds from the second call. They went out of Departures. Harry Compton looked back once, through the glass, at the back of the head of the man, at the pony-tail of his hair. He thought the man belonged to yesterday, and he hurried to catch the Italian.

Out in the night darkness they ran towards the cars.

Peppino had the engine started and Angela was beside him and smoothing her dress straight so that she would not crease it. Charley was fastening the seat-belts for the children. The gardener, at the bottom of the drive, was scraping open the gates.

She did not know who would be there, whether they would be there. And she did not know if anyone listened…

'I'm sorry, I've forgotten something.'

No play at hiding his irritation, Peppino snapped, 'Please, Charley, already we are late.'

'I won't be a second. Can I have the keys, please?'

Angela said, 'I am sure it is something important – yes, Charley – or you would not ask.'

She was given the keys. She ran back onto the patio and she unlocked the front door.

She was out of their sight. She could do it there… Christ, but she had to bring something back to the car… She scurried for her room. She pulled open a drawer. On the top of the clothes in the drawer was a small handkerchief. She snatched it up. She stood, and she breathed hard.

She remembered. Not Immediate Alert, and not Stand Down. She remembered the code. She did not know where they listened, or if anyone listened. Her finger wavered again on the button. She pressed hard, drove the back of the watch down on her wrist so that it hurt her. She made the pattern of the code for Stand-by.

She breathed again, deep, to swallow the trembling in her arms. She switched off the light and she locked the patio door behind her, and she went to the car. She was barely into the car when Peppino drove away. She sagged down into the seat and manoeuvred the carrycot onto her lap. They drove out through the opened gates. She did not try to look out of the back window to see if they were followed, if anyone had listened. She reached forward and passed the keys of the villa to Peppino. They came out of the narrow street that led to the piazza and swung onto the road that ran along the beach.

They passed the Saracen tower…

'Well, Charley,' Peppino asked, cutting, 'what had you forgotten?'

She said, felt the feebleness of it, 'I'd forgotten my handkerchief.'

There was the tinkle of Angela's laughter. 'You see, I was right. I said that it would be something important.' 'Herb? It's Bill Hammond

… Yes, I'm in the office, I'm in Rome.

Herb, would you go to secure… You OK now?… The Codename Helen thing, they've just gone to Stand-by… Yes, it's a hell of a scene down there today. He was a good guy, Tardelli, he was the best guy. They don't deserve people like that down there.

They hung him out to dry – but that's history… We got the Stand-by, that's the one below Immediate. I thought you'd want to know

… What? Come again?… Yes, the procedure's in place. If they get the fat cat, then I send the wings down from Naples, I throw my weight on the extradition business, we go fast-track – that's if… Yes, yes, Axel Moen is obeying the order you issued. He's at the airport, Palermo, waiting on his flight… No, no, didn't seem sore, sounded fine. Dwight and some English jerk with a crowd of Italians are out on the hunt… I'm kind of excited, Herb, and I wanted to share it… Yes, of course, I'll stay in touch. What you got, meetings all afternoon? You Washington people, Herb, you don't strain yourselves – that's meant as a joke… You'll hear the moment after I hear, but right now it sounds good. Herb, when I call next I may not be on secure. I'm going out to the airport to meet Axel off his flight

…'