The Gemini Contenders: A Novel Read online

  “M.I.-Sei is polite.”

  “By the way,” said the Britisher on Vittorio’s right, “I’m Apple; he’s Pear.”

  “We know who you are,” said Pear to Fontini-Cristi.

  “And my name’s not important,” said the partisan with a slight laugh. “I’ll not be going with you.”

  “Let’s run through that, shall we?” Apple was anxious, but controlled to the point of being reserved. “The going. Also, London wants to set up firmer communications.”

  “We knew London would.”

  The three men fell into a professional conversation that Vittorio found extraordinary. They spoke of routes and codes and radio frequencies as though they were discussing prices on the stock exchange. They touched on the necessity of taking-out, eliminating various people in specific positions—not men, not human beings, but factors that had to be killed.

  What kind of men were these three? “Apple,” “Pear,” a Bolshevik with no name, only a false identification card. Men who killed without anger, without remorse.

  He thought of Campo di Fiori. Of blinding white flood-lights, and gunfire and death. He could kill now. Viciously, savagely—but he could not speak of death as these men spoke of it.

  “… get us to a trawler known to the coastal patrols. Do you understand?” Apple was speaking to him, but he had not been listening.

  “I’m sorry,” said Vittorio. “My mind was elsewhere.”

  “We’ve a long way to go,” said Pear. “Over fifty miles to the coast, then a minimum of three hours on the water. A lot can happen.”

  “I’ll try to be more attentive.”

  “Do better than try,” replied Apple, his tone one of controlled irritation. “I don’t know what you’ve done to the Foreign Office, but you happen to be a high-priority subject. It’s our asses if we don’t bring you out. So listen! The Corsicans will take us to the coast. There will be four changes of vehicles—”

  “Wait!” The partisan reached over the table and gripped Apple’s arm. “The man who was seated with you, the paint-spattered shoes. Where did you pick him up? Quickly.”

  “Here in Alba. About twenty minutes ago.”

  “Who made contact first?”

  Both Englishmen looked at each other. Briefly, with instant concern. “He did,” said Apple.

  “Get out of here! Now! Use the kitchen!”

  “What?” Pear was looking over at the espresso counter. “He’s leaving,” said the partisan. “He was to wait for me.”

  The heavyset man was making his way through the crowds toward the door. He was doing so as unobtrusively as possible; a drinker going to the men’s room, perhaps.

  “What do you think?” asked Apple.

  “I think that there are a great many men throughout Alba with paint on their shoes. They wait for strangers whose eyes stray to the floor.” The Communist rose from the table. “The contact code was broken. It happens. The Corsicans will have to change it. Now, go!”

  The two Englishmen got out of their chairs, but not with any overt sense of urgency. Vittorio took his cue and stood up. He reached out and touched the partisan’s sleeve. The Communist was startled; his eyes were on the heavyset man; he was about to plunge into the crowds.

  “I want to thank you.”

  The partisan stared for an instant. “You’re wasting time,” he said.

  The two Britishers knew exactly where the kitchen was, and therefore the exit from that kitchen. The alley outside was filthy; garbage cans were lined against the dirty stucco walls, refuse overflowing. The alley was a link between the Piazza San Giorno and the street behind, but so dimly lit and strewn with trash it was not a popular shortcut.

  “This way,” said Apple, turning left, away from the piazza. “Quickly now.”

  The three men ran out of the alley. The street was sufficiently filled with pedestrians and shopkeepers to provide them with cover. Apple and Pear fell into a casual walk; Vittorio followed suit. He realized that the two agents had maneuvered him between them.

  “I’m not sure the Bolshie was right,” said Pear. “Our Corso might simply have spotted a friend. He was damned convincing.”

  “The Corsicans have their own language,” interjected Vittorio, excusing himself as he nearly collided with an oncoming stroller.

  “Couldn’t he tell by talking to him?”

  “Don’t do that,” said Apple incisively.

  “What?”

  “Don’t be so damned polite. It hardly goes with the clothes. To answer your question, the Corsicans employ regional contacts everywhere. We all do. They’re minor level, just messengers.”

  “I see.” Fontini-Cristi looked at the man who called himself Apple. He was walking casually, but his eyes kept shifting about in the night-cloaked street. Vittorio turned his head and looked at Pear. He was doing precisely what his countryman was doing: observing the faces in the crowds, the vehicles, the recesses in the buildings on both sides of the street.

  “Where are we going?” asked Fontini-Cristi.

  “To within a block of where our Corsican told us to be,” replied Apple.

  “But I thought you suspected him.”

  Pear spoke. “They won’t see us because they don’t know what to look for. The Bolshevik will catch the Corso in the piazza. If everything’s on the up-and-up, they’ll arrive together. If not, and if your friend is competent, he’ll be the only one.”

  The shopping area curved to the left, into the south entrance of the Piazza San Giorno. The entrance was marked by a fountain, the circular pool at its base littered with discarded papers and bottles. Men and women sat on the ledge dipping their hands in the dirty water; children shouted and ran on the cobblestones under their parents’ watchful eyes.

  “The road beyond,” said Apple, lighting a cigarette, gesturing toward the wide pavement seen through the spray of the fountain, “is the Via Ligata. It leads to the coastal highway. Two hundred yards down is a side street where the Corso said a taxi would be waiting.”

  “Would the side street, by any chance, be a dead end?” Pear asked the question with a degree of disdain. He did not really expect an answer.

  “Isn’t that a coincidence? I was wondering the same thing. Do let’s find out. You,” said Apple to Vittorio, “stay with my partner and do exactly as he says.” The agent threw the match to the ground, inhaled deeply on his cigarette, and walked rapidly over the cobblestones toward the fountain. When he was within several feet of the pool, he slowed down, and then, to Vittorio’s astonishment, he disappeared, lost entirely in the crowds.

  “He does that rather in top form, doesn’t he?” said Pear.

  “I can’t make him out. I don’t see him.”

  “Not supposed to. A good race-and-melt, done in the proper light, can be very effective.” He shrugged. “Come along. Keep abreast and chatter a bit. And gesture. You people wave your hands like mad.”

  Vittorio smiled at the Englishman’s bromide. But as they walked into the crowds, he was conscious of moving hands and flailing arms and sudden exclamations. The Britisher knew his Italians. He kept pace with the agent, fascinated by the man’s decisiveness. Suddenly, Pear grabbed Vittorio’s sleeve and yanked him to the left, propelling them both toward a newly vacated space on the fountain’s ledge. Fontini-Cristi was startled; he thought their objective was to reach the Via Ligata as rapidly and as unobtrusively as possible.

  Then he understood. The Britisher’s experienced, professional eyes had seen what the amateur’s had not seen: the signal.

  Vittorio sat on the agent’s right, his head down. The first objects that came into focus were a pair of worn shoes with the splotches of orange paint on the scuffed leather. A single pair of immobile shoes in the moving shadows of moving bodies. Then Vittorio raised his head and froze. The partisan driver was cradling the heavyset body of the Corsican contact, as though succoring a friend who had drunk too much. But the contact was not drunk. His head was slumped, his eyes open, staring downward into t
he moving darkness. He was dead.

  Vittorio leaned back on the ledge, mesmerized by the sight below. A steady, narrow stream of blood was soaking the back of the Corsican’s shirt, rolling down the stone of the fountain’s inner wall, mingling with the filthy water, forming circles and swirling half circles in the intermittent light of the piazza’s street lamps.

  The partisan’s hand gripped the cloth, bunching the shirt around the blood-soaked area, knuckles and wrist drenched. And in his grip was the handle of a knife.

  Fontini-Cristi tried to control his shock.

  “I was hoping you’d stop,” said the Communist to the Englishman.

  “Nearly didn’t,” replied Pear in his overly grammatical Italian. “Until I noticed the couple leap up here.” The agent indicated the ledge on which he and Vittorio sat. “They’re yours, I presume.”

  “No. When you were closest, I told them my friend was about to vomit. It’s a trap, of course. Fishnet variety; they don’t know what they’ll catch. They broke the code—last night. There are a dozen or so provocatori in the area, flushing out what targets they can. A roundup.”

  “We’ll tell the Corsicans.”

  “It won’t do much good. The code changes tomorrow.”

  “The taxi’s the snare, then?”

  “No. The second bait. They’re not taking chances. The taxi drives the targets into the net. Only the driver knows where; he’s upper level.”

  “There must be others nearby.” Pear brought his hand to his mouth; it was a gesture of thought.

  “Certainly.”

  “But which ones?”

  ’There’s a way to find out. Where’s Apple?”

  “In the Via Ligata by now. We wanted to separate in case you had trouble.”

  “Join him; the trouble wasn’t mine.”

  “Yes. I can see that—”

  “Mother of God!” exclaimed Vittorio under his breath, incapable of silence. “You’re holding a dead man in the middle of the piazza and you chatter like women!”

  “We have things to say, signore. Be quiet and listen.” The partisan returned his eyes to the Englishman, who had barely taken notice of Fontini-Cristi’s outburst. “I’ll give you two minutes to reach Apple. Then I’ll let our Corso friend here slide into the pool, back up, knife visible. There’ll be chaos. I’ll start the shouting myself. It will carry. It’ll be enough.”

  “And we keep our eyes on the taxi,” interrupted Pear.

  “Yes. As the shouting grows, see who speaks together. See who leaves to investigate.”

  “Then take the bloody taxi and be off,” added the agent with finality. “Good show! I look forward to working with you again.” The Britisher rose; Vittorio did the same, feeling Pear’s hand on his arm.

  “You,” said the partisan, looking up at Vittorio while cradling the limp, heavyset body in the noisy, jostling, shadow-filled darkness. “Something to remember. A conversation in the midst of many people is often the safest. And a blade in a crowd is the hardest to trace. Remember these things.”

  Vittorio looked down at the man, not sure whether the Communist meant his words to be insulting or not.

  “I’ll remember,” said Vittorio.

  They walked swiftly into the Via Ligata. Apple was on the other side, slowly making his way toward the side street where the Corsican contact said the taxi would be waiting. The street lamps were dimmer than in the piazza.

  “Hurry, now. There he is,” said Pear in English. “Take longer steps, but don’t run.”

  “Shouldn’t we go over and meet him?” asked Vittorio.

  “No. One person crossing the street is less obvious than two.… All right. Stop now.”

  Pear removed a box of matches from his pocket; he struck one. The instant it flared, he waved it out, throwing it to the pavement—as if the flame had seared his finger—and immediately struck a second, holding it to the cigarette he had placed in his lips.

  Less than a minute passed before Apple joined them by the wall of a building. Pear told him the partisan’s strategy. The three walked in silence, between the strollers, down the pavement to the end of the block opposite the side street. Across, in the dim white wash of the streetlights, was the taxi, thirty feet from the corner.

  “Isn’t that a coincidence,” said Apple, lifting his foot to a low ledge on the building, pulling up his sock. “It’s a dead end.”

  “The troops can’t be far away. Is your pillow attached? Mine isn’t.”

  “Yes. Fix yours.”

  Pear turned into the building and removed an automatic form inside his jacket. With his other hand he reached into his pocket and withdrew a cylinder about four inches long, with perforations on the iron surface, and twisted it into the barrel of his weapon. He replaced the gun inside his jacket just as the cries from the piazza began.

  There were only a few at first, almost indistinguishable. And then a crescendo of sound erupted.

  “Polizia!” “A quale punto polizia!” “Assassinio!” “Omicidio!” Women and children ran out of the square; men followed, shouting orders and information at no one and everyone. Among the screams came the words: “Uomo con arancia scarpe,” a man with orange shoes. The partisan had done his job well.

  And then the partisan himself was among the crowds running down the pavement. He stopped ten feet from Fontini-Cristi and the two Englishmen and roared in a loud voice to any who would listen.

  “I saw him! I saw them! I was right next to him! This man—his shoes were painted—they put a knife into his back!”

  From the dark recess of a building a figure came dashing across the street, heading for the partisan. “You! Come here!”

  “What?”

  “I’m with the police. What did you see?”

  “The police. Thank God! Come with me! There were two men! In sweaters—”

  Before the official could adjust, the partisan started to race back toward the entrance of the piazza through the crowds. The policeman hesitated, then looked across the dimly lit street. Three men were talking together several yards in front of the taxi. The policeman gestured; two of the men broke away and started after the officer, who was now racing toward San Giorno and the disappearing partisan.

  “The man left at the car. He’s the driver,” said Apple. “Here we go.”

  The next moments were a blur. Vittorio followed the two agents across the Via Ligata into the side street. The man at the taxi had climbed into the driver’s seat. Apple approached the car, opened the door, and without saying a word raised his gun. A muted explosion burst from the mouth of his revolver. The man slumped forward; Apple rolled him over the seat toward the opposite door. Pear spoke to Fontini-Cristi.

  “Into the back. Quickly, now!”

  Apple turned the ignition; the taxi was old, the engine new and powerful. The automobile’s make was the usual Fiat, Vittorio thought, but the motor was a Lamborgini.

  The car lurched forward, turned right at the corner and gathered speed on the Via Ligata. Apple spoke over his shoulder, addressing Pear. “Check the glove compartment, will you? This bloody wreck belongs to some very important people. I daresay it would do well at Le Mans.”

  Pear lunged from the seat in the speeding car, over the felt back, and across the corpse of the Italian. He pulled open the glove compartment panel, grabbed the papers, bunching them together in his hand. As he pushed himself off the dashboard, the car swerved; Apple had swung the wheel to pass two automobiles. The body of the dead Italian fell across Pear’s arm. He gripped the lifeless neck and threw the corpse violently back into the corner.

  Vittorio stared at the scene, sick and uncomprehending. Behind them a heavyset man floated in death in a piazza fountain, the handle of a knife protruding from his blood-soaked shirt. Here, in an unmarked, speeding police car disguised as a taxi, a man slumped in the front seat, a bullet in his lifeless body. Miles away in a small guardhouse on the Via Canelli, two other men lay dead, killed by the Communist who had saved his life. The c
ontinuing nightmare was destroying his mind. He held his breath, desperately trying to find an instant of sanity.

  “Here we are!” shouted Pear, holding up a rectangular sheet of heavy paper he had been studying in the inadequate light. “By God, it’s a clean wicket!”

  “An inland passport, I expect,” said Apple, slowing down for a curve in the road.

  “Indeed it is! The bloody veicolo is assigned to the ufficiale segreto! That bunch has access to Mussolini himself.”

  “It had to be something like that,” agreed Apple, nodding his head. “The motor in this tacky box is a bloody marvel.”

  “It is a Lamborgini,” said Vittorio quietly.

  “What?” Apple raised his voice to be heard over the roar of the engine on the now straightaway road. They were approaching the outskirts of Alba.

  “I said it’s a Lamborgini.”

  “Yes,” replied Apple, obviously unfamiliar with the engine. “Well, you keep coming up with things like that. Things Italian, that is. We’re going to need your words before we reach the coast.”

  Pear turned to Fontini-Cristi. The Englishman’s pleasant face was barely discernible in the darkness. He spoke gently, but there was no mistaking the quiet urgency in his voice.

  “I’m sure this is all very strange to you, and damned uncomfortable, I should think. But that Bolshevik had a point. Remember what you can. The most difficult part of this work isn’t the doing; it’s getting used to the doing, if you see what I mean. Just accepting the fact that it’s real, that’s the leg up a fellow needs. We’ve all been through it, go through it constantly, as a matter of fact It’s all so bloody outrageous, in a way. But someone’s got to do it; that’s what they tell us. And I’ll say this: You’re getting some very practical on-the-job training. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yes,” said Vittorio softly, turning front, his eyes mesmerized by the onrushing road outlined by the beams of the headlights, and his mind frozen by the sudden question he could not avoid.

  Training for what?

  5

  DECEMBER 31, 1939