“Do you intend to leave the police out of this altogether?” he asked, as they thundered away.
“I am the police,” Ponti said. “But I do not know which others I can trust. If I tried to work through them there would be delays, confusions, and slow mobilization. By the time we got to this castello it would be empty. I knew this before I ever came to Sicily, and arrangements were made in Rome to have these soldiers prepared for an ’emergency maneuver’ whenever I might need them.”
“And you know that they are reliable?”
“Completely. Only their commander knows their mission here, but his men are absolutely loyal to him and would follow him into hell on skis if he ordered it. As far as we can tell they have not been penetrated by the Mafia, so they should look forward to the fun of roughing up these canaglie. Now tell me everything you have been doing.”
4
Ponti himself was no slow-poke at the wheel, it turned out, and he spurred the giant Bugatti along at a gait which would have had many passengers straining on imaginary brakes and muttering silent prayers; but the Saint was fatalistic or iron-nerved enough to tell his story without faltering or losing the thread of it. The only things that he left out were certain personal details which he did not think should concern Ponti or affect his official actions.
“So,” he concluded, “they should still think they have me cordoned in at Cefalù, and even when they hear from Lily they should believe I’m making for Catania. Anyhow they ought not to have felt that they have to vacate their headquarters in a hurry. They think I’m on the run and busy trying to save my own skin. And Al would never expect me to be talking to you like this.”
“I have tried not to allow that impression,” Ponti said, “by putting out an order that I want you for personal questioning about a political conspiracy. I did that partly to try to find some trace of you, of course, and to make sure that if you were picked up you would not be beaten up by some stupid cop who would take you for a common criminal. I have found that when any political implications are mentioned, the police are inclined to proceed with caution.”
“When I think of some of my celebrated rude remarks about policemen,” said the Saint, “your thoughtfulness brings a lump to my throat. And no one would dream you had an ulterior motive.”
“I have only one motive — to show these fannulloni that they are not bigger than the law. And here we have the means to do it.”
The treacherous mountain road over which they had last been bouncing ended at a gap in a wire fence guarded by a sentry with rifle and bayonet. As he barred the way, a young officer appeared out of the darkness and saluted when Ponti gave his name.
“Il maggiore L’aspetta,” he said. “Leave your car over here.”
There was no illumination other than the lamp over the gate and their own headlights, and when the latter were switched off they stumbled through rutted dirt until a vague hut shape loomed up before them. A door opened and a white wedge of light poured out; then they were inside the bare wooden building.
“Ponti,” said an older officer in an unbuttoned field tunic, grasping the detective’s hand, “it is good to know we shall have some action. Everything is ready. When shall we move?”
“At once. This is Signor Templar, who knows the location of our objective. Major Olivetti.”
The commandant turned to Simon and acknowledged the introduction with a crunching grip. The top of his bald head hardly came to the Saint’s chin; but there was nothing small about him. He had a chest like a barrel and arms like tree-trunks. The right side of his face was a webwork of scars that stood out clearly on his swarthy skin, and a black patch covered that eye, which would have given him a highly sinister appearance but for the merry twinkle in the other.
“Piacere! I have heard of you, Signor Templar, and I am glad to have you on our side. Over here I have maps of all Sicily, on the largest scale. Can you show me on them where we have to go?”
“I think so,” said the Saint, and bent over the table.
The lieutenant who had brought them from the gate, together with another lieutenant and a sergeant who were already in the hut, joined Olivetti and Ponti around the map and watched intently while Simon traced his way over the contours from the junction on the coast where he had caught the bus to Cefalù, back up the dry river bed to the village and up over the mountain ridge to the other valley and the combination of remembered landmarks which enabled him to pinpoint the site of the eyrie from which he had escaped.
“This road is unpaved,” he said, running a fingernail along the route down from the house. “I haven’t been on this upper stretch, but their car came down it at speed with no trouble. I don’t know anything about this other road marked along the top of the cliff.”
Olivetti studied the terrain with professional minuteness.
“On either road, there is a risk that they may have outposts who would give warning of the approach of a force like ours. You mentioned descending this cliff in the dark. Could we send men up that way?”
“Even Alpine troops, I think, would need to use pitons, and the hammering would make too much noise. I came down that way because I had to, and some of it was just dropping and sliding and hoping for the best.”
“I could deploy my men from these points and let them make it on foot, but then I could not guarantee they would be ready to close in before dawn.”
“I know there is no logical reason why this convocation should panic and pack up in the middle of the night,” Ponti said, “but I must admit that each hour that we leave the trap open will make me more afraid of finding it empty when we close it.”
“May I make a suggestion?” asked the Saint.
“Of course. You are the only one of us who has already seen this area in daylight.”
“And I think it would be a commando’s nightmare. On the other hand, if you got there and found that the birds had flown, I should feel sillier than anyone. So I think we should try for speed rather than stealth. Of course, I would try to cut all the telephone lines in the area — and apologize to the telephone company afterwards, otherwise some Mafia sympathizer among the operators would certainly send out a warning. But after that, I would move in as fast as possible, and hang the uproar. I take it your company is mechanized, maggiore?”
“Si. That is, we have no tanks, but we have trucks and troop carriers.”
Simon pointed to the two roads to the Mafia hideout.
“Then if you split them into two units, and send one up by this road and one by this, timed to meet at the top — once they start, they themselves will be blocking the only roads that the mobsters could escape by, if they still are up there. However, if they find themselves cornered like that, the jokers might decide to fight rather than surrender. Are you prepared to go as far as a shooting war?”
“I should welcome it!” Olivetti bellowed, and struck the flimsy trestle table a great blow with his fist that threatened the support of its legs. “If Ponti has the authority—”
“That is quite a point,” Simon admitted, turning to the detective. “Can you justify launching an offensive like this?”
Ponti showed his teeth in a vulpine grin.
“I can if you are not deceiving me, and unless you let me down. In which case I would do worse to you than I promised Niccolo. But on your testimony I have plenty to charge them with — assault, kidnaping, attempted murder. Then there is a very legalistic charge involving criminal intentions, which an assembly of persons of bad repute can be assumed to be plotting, in certain circumstances. But best of all would be if one of them does fire a shot at us — then we need no more excuses.”