"All right, let's get back to Major Harding," Kaz said. He gave a hand signal to the tanker sergeant and pointed down the road.
"Are you in command here?" I asked.
"Yes, Billy, I am," Kaz said, raising his singed eyebrow. "It is quite exciting."
A few months ago, Kaz had been translating documents at a desk in London. The quiet Polish academic with a bad heart was the last guy you would expect to see leading an armored combat patrol in the hills of Sicily. But here he was, ordering Sherman tanks around and rescuing me from the flames. It just showed that you never knew who was going to step up and put himself in harm's way for you, and who was going to turn and run.
Harry handed me a canteen, and I washed the soot out of my mouth, spitting onto the dusty road. Harry and I piled into the jeep with Kaz and his driver, while Sciafani and Nick climbed aboard the half-track. The vehicles roared to life, the tracks grinding up the roadside as they reversed and turned. The little Fiat burned away, the ferocity of the fire fading as the flames consumed the gasoline. Kaz had not been able to save Daphne from another burning car not too long ago. I was glad for his sake, as well as my own, that he had been able to pull me out, and did not have to witness another awful immolation.
Kaz had given no indication that he was thinking about the past, and perhaps the time had come when he could experience something like this without his first thought being of her death. Right now he seemed to be focused on the mission. Memory is such a strange thing. I had spent the past few days struggling to remember, glad of every little recollection and image that popped into my mind. Kaz probably prayed every night to forget most of the things he remembered.
"It's good to see you, Kaz," I said, speaking loudly over the sound of the jeep racing down the road. I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
"You are remembering?" he asked me, looking over his shoulder. His voice was low, with a slight quaver to it. Then I knew I'd been wrong. He was in control, but he hadn't forgotten a thing. His eyes were moist, maybe from the dust, maybe from the pain of recollection. That charred frame of the little Riley Imp was burned into his brain, never to be forgotten. He needed to know that I remembered it all too.
"Yes, Kaz. I remember everything," I said. As I did, I thought of my father leaning close to me to say something important, his words a whisper brushing against my cheek. The dust got in my eyes too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
"Lieutenant Andrews is dead," Major Harding said, starting off my day with bad news.
"Throat slit?" I asked, not surprised that another sap involved in this mess had stopped breathing.
"Hard to tell," Harding said. "He got caught in the open by a couple of Messerschmitts. Truck he was in exploded."
"Was he alone?"
"No. We found him in the back of the truck. Two GIs in the cab, also dead."
Harding's answers were crisp, like his uniform. Even in the field, his brown wool shirt looked as if it had been ironed. Actually, Harding looked as if he had been starched and ironed at birth, like the uniform stood to attention when he put it on. He sat straight, his torso at a perfect angle, his boots polished, the few gray hairs at his temples evenly distributed, though there might have been more of those gray hairs than when I'd first met him in England a year ago.
"Who killed them?" I asked.
"Probably someone named Fritz or Hans. I do not think the Germans are in on this conspiracy," Kaz said. Everyone's a comedian.
"Did anyone see the attack?" I asked.
"No," Harding answered in that patient tone reserved for explaining the obvious to thick-headed lieutenants. "The bullet-ridden burning truck was a clue, though."
Another dead body in another flaming wreck. I saw Kaz's eyes flicker to the floor and close for a second. Then he was back. He had only been half kidding about the Germans.
I leaned back in my chair and looked out over the Valley of the Temples. Rows of olive trees curved over the hills around us, silvery leaves bright in the morning light. The view would have been pretty if it hadn't been for the 20mm antiaircraft gun set up several yards in front of us and the fuel cans shaded by camouflage netting strung from the farmhouse. The night before, Kaz had taken us to Harding's headquarters outside of Agrigento, a small farmhouse between the city and the ancient ruins. I'd reported to Harding, telling him everything from waking up in the field hospital to all the things I'd gradually remembered. When I told him about Don Calo and the deserted defenses in the mountain towns, he pointed to a map showing the advance of Patton's infantry and armor into the interior of the western portion of the island.
"You saved lives with this one, Boyle," he'd said. He'd patted me on the back and ordered me to get some sleep, which was his version of awarding me the Silver Star. That was six hours ago, and now I was trying to get enough coffee in me to stay awake and talk through our next priority-finding Legs and Vito before they could heist millions in occupation lire.
Harry, Kaz, and I sat outside with Harding, all of us on rough wooden straight-back chairs, arranged in a semicircle to take advantage of the view. It felt strange to be back here, my memory returned and the journey to Don Calo over, looking out at the Temple of Concordia where things had first gone so wrong. I was glad to see Harding and have him in charge of what happened to me. I sipped the hot coffee, ready for him to decide what our next move was, tired of days of making decisions on my own.
"OK, Boyle, if you're satisfied with the circumstances of Lieutenant Andrews's death, what's our next move?" Harding said, as if he'd read my thoughts. So much for the subordinate relaxing.
"First thing is to track down where the payroll is. I assume they've brought it up from the bottom of the bay by now. We head to where it is, then watch for our Mafia pals."
"Makes sense," Harding said. "First, we secure the payroll. Then find out who Charlotte is. I understand that we need to let Genovese walk, but that doesn't mean we can't squeeze some information out of him first."
"What will happen to Nick?" Harry asked.
Nick was being held in a locked storeroom in an outbuilding behind the farmhouse. It wasn't the stockade, but he wasn't sipping coffee in the sun with us either.
"I'm not sure," said Harding. "He endangered the mission, even if I understand why he did it."
"He did deliver our request for cooperation to Don Calo," Harry said. "But without that yellow handkerchief, the old man wouldn't listen to him no matter what he said."
"He could have shot me at the temple and taken it," I said. Would that argument help or hurt Nick?
"I have to think about it," Harding said. "He could be court-martialed or simply sent back to the States. We can't trust him with anything vital if he can be so easily manipulated."
Back to the States. For screwing up. Maybe that would make Nick happy or maybe he wanted a chance to prove himself. Me, I had to stay here since I had done such a great job. Indispensable me.
Indispensable. That made me think about Andrews again. Hutton and Andrews had both been in the Signals Company. The two of them must have been the communications link between Charlotte and the other conspirators. But how had they worked their part of the scheme?
"Where was Andrews when the truck was hit? Where was he headed?" I looked to Kaz and Harding. They had no answers.
"I have a report in the office," Harding said. "Is it important?"
"I have no idea," I said. "But it might indicate what they were up to. Was his outfit moving out? Were they under orders? Or was he on a joyride?"
Harding got the report and I read it.
"Says here they took a truck from the motor pool and were headed to Vittoria. No mention of orders. I know his Signals Company is still in its original location. All our phone wires are strung to their position at Gela."