The Gemini Contenders: A Novel Read online

  “I am sorry,” he said simply. “There’s been enough killing.”

  “You’re a damn fool,” replied Apple.

  “Hurry,” said the Corsican leader. “I want to get started. The water’s rough beyond the rocks. And you people are crazy!”

  They walked out to the end of the long pier, one by one jumping over the gunwale onto the deck of the huge trawler. Two Corsicans remained on the dock by the pilings; they unwound the thick greasy ropes while the gruff captain started the engines.

  It happened without warning.

  A fusillade of gunfire from the walkway. Then the blinding shaft of a searchlight shot out of the darkness, accompanied by the shouts of soldiers at the base of the pier. The voice of the corporal could be heard.

  “Out there! At the end of the dock! The fishing trawler! Send out the alarms!”

  One of the Corsicans was hit; he plunged to the ground, at the last second freeing the rope from the piling.

  “The light! Shoot out the light!” screamed the Corsican from the open wheelhouse, revving the engines, heading for open water.

  Apple and Pear unscrewed their silencers for greater accuracy. Apple was the first to raise himself over the protection of the gunwale; he squeezed his trigger repeatedly, steadying his hand on the wooden rail. In the distance the searchlight exploded. Simultaneously, fragments of wood burst around Apple; the agent reeled back, screaming in pain.

  His hand was shattered.

  But the Corsican had steered the fast-moving trawler out into the protective darkness of the sea. They were free of Celle Ligure.

  “Our price goes up, English!” shouted the man at the wheel. “You whoreson bastards! You’ll pay for this craziness!” He looked at Fontini-Cristi crouched beneath the starboard gunwale. Their eyes met; the Corsican spat furiously.

  Apple sat back sweating against a pile of ropes. In the night light reflecting the ocean’s spray, Vittorio saw that the Englishman was staring at the bloody mass of flesh that was his hand, holding it by the wrist.

  Fontini-Cristi got up and crossed to the agent, tearing off part of his shirt as he did so. “Let me wrap that for you. Stop the bleeding—”

  Apple jerked his head up and spoke in quiet anger. “Stay the hell away from me. Your goddamned principles cost too much.”

  The seas were heavy, the winds strong, the rolls violent and abrupt. They had plowed through the drenching waves of the open water for thirty-eight minutes. Arrangements had been made, the blockade run; the trawler’s engines were now idling.

  Beyond the swells, Vittorio could see a small flashing blue disc: on for a beat, off for a beat. The signal from a submarine. The Corsican on the bow with the lantern began his own signal. He lowered and raised the lamp, using the gunwale as a shutter, imitating the timing of the blue disc half a mile away over the waters.

  “Can’t you radio him?” Pear shouted his question.

  “Frequencies are monitored,” replied the Corsican. “The patrol boats would circle in; we can’t bribe them all.”

  The two vessels began their cautious pavane over the rough seas, the trawler making most of the moves until the huge undersea marauder was directly off the starboard rail. Fontini-Cristi was hypnotized by its size and black majesty.

  The two ships drifted within fifty feet of each other, the submarine considerably higher on the mountainous waves. Four men could be seen on the deck; they were hanging on to a metal railing, the two in the center trying to manipulate some kind of machine.

  A heavy rope shot through the air and crashed against the midships of the trawler. Two Corsicans leaped at it, holding on desperately, as if the line had a hostile will of its own. They lashed the rope to an iron winch in the center of the deck and signaled the men on the submarine.

  The action was repeated. But the second rope was not the only item that had been shot from the submarine. There was a canvas pouch with metal rings on the edges, and from one of these rings was a thick coil of wire that extended back to the crew on the sub’s deck.

  The Corsicans ripped open the canvas pack and pulled out a shoulder harness. Fontini-Cristi recognized it immediately; it was a rig used to cross crevasses in the mountains.

  Pear, bracing himself as he lurched forward on the rolling deck, approached Vittorio.

  “It’s a bit skin-crawling, but it’s safe!” he yelled.

  Vittorio shouted back “Send your man Apple first. His hand should be looked after.”

  “You’re the priority. And frankly, if the damn thing doesn’t hold, I’d rather we find out with you!”

  Fontini-Cristi sat on the iron bunk inside the small metal room and drank from the thick china mug of coffee. He pulled the Royal Navy blanket around his shoulders, feeling the wet clothes beneath. The discomfort did not bother him; he was grateful to be alone.

  The door of the small metal room opened. It was Pear. He carried an armful of clothing which he dropped on the bunk.

  “Here’s a dry change for you. It wouldn’t do for you to croak off with pneumonia now. That’d be a clanker in the balls, wouldn’t it?”

  “Thank you,” said Vittorio, getting up. “How’s your friend?”

  “The ship’s doctor is afraid he’ll lose the use of his hand. The doctor hasn’t told him, but he knows.”

  “I’m sorry. I was naïve.”

  “Yes,” agreed the Britisher simply. “You were naïve.” He left leaving the door open.

  From the narrow metal corridors outside the tiny metal room, there was a sudden eruption of noise. Men raced by the door, all running in the same direction, fore or aft, Fontini-Cristi could not tell. Over the ship’s intercom a piercing, deafening whistle shrieked without letup; metal doors slammed, the shouting increased.

  Vittorio lunged at the open door; his breathing stopped. The panic of helplessness under the sea gripped him.

  He collided with a British sailor. But the sailor’s face was not contorted in panic. Or fear. Or anything but carefree laughter.

  “Happy New Year, mate!” cried the sailor. “Midnight, chum! We’re in 1940. A bloody new decade!”

  The sailor raced on to the next hatchway, which he opened with a crash. Beyond, Fontini-Cristi could see the mess quarters. Men were gathered around holding out mugs into which two officers were pouring whiskey. The shouts merged into laughter. “Auld Lang Syne” began to fill the metal chambers.

  The new decade.

  The old one had ended in death. Death everywhere, most horribly in the blinding white light of Campo di Fiori. Father, mother, brothers, sisters … the children. Gone. Gone in a minute of shattering violence that was burned into his mind. A memory he would live with for the rest of his life.

  Why? Why? Nothing made sense!

  And then he remembered. Savarone had said he had gone to Zürich. But he had not gone to Zürich; he had gone somewhere else.

  In that somewhere else lay the answer. But what?

  Vittorio walked into the small metal room of the submarine and sat down on the iron ridge of the bed.

  The new decade had begun.

  PART

  TWO

  6

  JANUARY 2, 1940

  LONDON, ENGLAND

  Sandbags.

  London was a city of sandbags. Everywhere. In doorways, windows, storefronts; piled in mounds on street corners. The sandbag was the symbol. Across the Channel, Adolf Hitler vowed the destruction of all England; quietly the English believed his threat, and quietly, firmly, they steeled themselves in anticipation.

  Vittorio had reached the Lakenheath military airfield late on the previous night, the first day of the new decade. He had been taken off an unmarked plane flown out of Majorca and whisked into operations, the purpose of which was to confirm his identity for the Naval Ministry. And now that he was safely in the country, the voices suddenly became calm and solicitous: Would he care to rest up after his grueling journey? Perhaps the Savoy? It was understood that the Fontini-Cristis stayed at the Savoy when in Lon
don. Would a conference tomorrow afternoon at fourteen hundred hours be convenient? At the Admiralty, Intelligence Sector Five. Alien operations.

  Of course. For God’s sake, yes! Why have you English done what you’ve done? I must know, but I will be silent until you tell me.

  The Savoy desk provided him with toilet articles and nightclothes, including a Savoy robe. He had drawn a very hot bath in the enormous hotel tub and immersed himself for such a length of time the skin on his fingertips wrinkled. He then proceeded to drink too many glasses of brandy and fell into bed.

  He had left a wake-up call for ten but, of course, it was unnecessary. He was fully alert by eight thirty; showered and shaved by nine. He ordered an English breakfast from the floor steward and while waiting, telephoned Norcross, Limited, on Savile Row. He needed clothes immediately. He could not walk around London in a borrowed raincoat, a sweater, and the ill-fitting trousers provided by an agent named Pear on a submarine in the Mediterranean.

  As he hung up the phone, it struck Vittorio that he had no money other than ten pounds courtesy of Lakenheath dispersals. He assumed his credit was good; he would have funds transferred from Switzerland. He had not had time to concentrate on the logistics of living; he had been too preoccupied with staying alive.

  It occurred to Fontini-Cristi that he had many things to do. And if only to control the terrible memory—the infinite pain—of Campo di Fiori, he had to keep active. Force his mind to concentrate first on the simple things, everyday things. For when the great things came into focus he could go mad pondering them.

  Please, dear God, the little things! Spare me the time to find my sanity.

  He saw her first across the Savoy lobby while waiting for the day manager to arrange for immediate monies. She was sitting in an armchair, reading the Times, dressed in the stern uniform of a branch of the women’s service, what branch he had no idea. Beneath the officer’s visor cap her dark brunette hair fell in waves to her shoulders, outlining her face. It was a face he had seen before; it was a face one remembered. But it was a younger version of that face that stuck in his mind. The woman was, perhaps, in her middle thirties; the face he recalled had been no more than twenty-two or twenty-three. The cheekbones were high, the nose more Celtic than English—sharp, slightly upturned, and delicate above the full lips. He could not see the eyes clearly, but he knew what they looked like: a very intense blue, as blue as he had ever seen a woman’s eyes.

  That’s what he remembered. Angry blue eyes staring up at him. Angry and filled with disdain. He had not encountered that reaction often in his life; it had irritated him.

  Why did he remember? When was it?

  “Signor Fontini-Cristi.” The Savoy manager walked briskly out of the cashier’s arch, an envelope in his hand. “As you requested, a thousand pounds.”

  Vittorio took the envelope and shoved it in the raincoat pocket. “Thank you.”

  “We’ve arranged for your limousine, sir. It should be here shortly. If you’d care to return to your suite, we’ll ring you the moment it arrives.”

  “I’ll wait here. If you can put up with these clothes, I can.”

  “Please, signore. It is always a great pleasure to welcome a member of the Fontini-Cristis. Will your father be joining you this trip? We trust he’s well.”

  England marched to the sudden drums of war and the Savoy inquired about families.

  “He’ll not be joining me.” Vittorio saw no point in further explanations. The news had not reached England, or if it had, the war dispatches made it insignificant. “By the way, do you know that lady over there? The one seated. In the uniform.”

  The manager unobtrusively glanced across the sparsely crowded lobby. “Yes, sir. She’s Mrs. Spane. I should say was Mrs. Spane; they’re divorced. I believe she’s remarried now. Mr. Spane is. We don’t see her often.”

  “Spane?”

  “Yes, sir. I see she’s with Air Defense. They’re a no-nonsense group, they are.”

  “Thank you,” said Vittorio, dismissing the manager courteously. “I shall wait for my car.”

  “Yes, of course. If there’s anything we can do to make your stay more pleasant, don’t hesitate to call upon us.”

  The manager nodded and walked away. Fontini-Cristi looked again at the woman. She glanced at her watch, and then returned to her reading.

  He remembered the name Spane because of its spelling, and because of the spelling, he remembered the man. It had been eleven, no, twelve years ago; he had accompanied Savarone to London to observe his father in negotiations with British Haviland—the observation a part of his training. Spane had been introduced to him one night at Les Ambassadeurs, a youngish man two or three years older than he was. He found the Englishman mildly amusing but basically tiring. Spane was a Mayfair product quite content to enjoy the fruits of ancestral labors without contributing much of anything himself, other than his expertise at the races. His father had disapproved of Spane and said as much to his eldest son, which, quite naturally, goaded the son into a brief acquaintanceship.

  But it had been brief, and Vittorio suddenly remembered why. That it had not first come to mind was merely further proof that he had blocked her existence from much of his memory: not the woman across the lobby, but his wife.

  His wife had come to England with them twelve years ago, the padrone feeling that her presence would have a restraining influence on a headstrong, wandering son. But Savarone did not know his daughter-in-law that well; he did later, but not at the time. The heady atmosphere of Mayfair at the height of the season was a tonic to her.

  His wife was attracted to Spane; one or the other seduced one or the other. He had not paid much attention; he had been occupied himself.

  And somewhere along the way there’d been a disagreeable confrontation. Recriminations had been hurled, and the angry blue eyes had stared up at him.

  Vittorio walked across the lobby toward the armchair. The Spane woman glanced up as he approached. There was a moment of hesitancy in her eyes, as if she were unsure. And then she was sure and there was no hesitance at all; the disdain he recalled so vividly replaced the hesitation. Their eyes locked for a second—no more—and she returned to the newspaper.

  “Mrs. Spane?”

  She looked up. “The name is Holcroft.”

  “We’ve met.”

  “We have. It’s Fontini—” She paused.

  “Fontini-Cristi. Vittorio Fontini-Cristi.”

  “Yes. A long time ago. You’ll forgive me, but I’ve a full day. I’m waiting for someone and I shan’t have the chance to get through the paper again.” She went back to her reading.

  Vittorio smiled. “You dismiss me efficiently.”

  “I find it quite easy to do so,” she replied without looking at him.

  “Mrs. Holcroft, it was a long time ago. The English poet says that nothing so becomes change as the years.”

  “The English poet also maintains that leopards do not change their spots. I’m really quite occupied. Good day.”

  Vittorio started to nod his departure when he saw that her hands trembled ever so slightly. Mrs. Holcroft was somewhat less confident than her demeanor implied. He was not sure why he stayed; it was a time to be alone. The terrible memories of white light and death burned; he did not care to share them. On the other hand, he wanted to talk. To someone. About anything.

  “Is an apology offered for childish behavior twelve years ago a decade too late?”

  The lieutenant glanced up. “How is your wife?”

  “She died in an automobile crash ten years ago.”

  The look in her eyes was steady; the hostility lessened. She blinked in discomfort, mildly embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”

  “It is my place to apologize. Twelve years ago you were seeking an explanation. Or comfort. And I had neither to give.”

  The woman allowed herself the trace of a smile. Her blue eyes had an element—if only an element—of warmth in them. “You were a very arrogant young man. And I’
m afraid I had very little grace under pressure. I came to have more, of course.”

  “You were better than the games we played. I should have understood.”

  “That’s a very disarming thing to say.… And I think we’ve said enough about the subject.”

  “Will you and your husband have dinner with me tonight, Mrs. Holcroft?” He heard the words he had spoken, not sure he had said them. It was the impulse of the moment.

  She stared at him briefly before answering. “You mean that, don’t you?”

  “Certainly. I left Italy in somewhat of a rush, courtesy of your government, as these clothes are the courtesy of your countrymen. I haven’t been to London in several years. I have very few acquaintances here.”

  “Now that’s a provocative thing to say.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “That you left Italy in a rush and you’re wearing someone else’s clothes. It raises questions.”

  Vittorio hesitated, then spoke quietly. “I would appreciate your having the understanding I lacked ten years ago. I would prefer those questions not be raised. But I’d like to have dinner with you. And your husband, of course.”

  She held his gaze, looking up at him curiously. Her lips curved into a gentle smile; she had made her decision. “My husband’s name was Spane. Holcroft’s my own. Jane Holcroft. And I’ll have dinner with you.”

  The Savoy doorman interrupted. “Signor Fontini-Cristi, your car has arrived, sir.”

  “Thank you,” he replied, his eyes on Jane Holcroft. “I’ll be right there.”

  “Yes, sir.” The doorman nodded and walked away.

  “May I pick you up this evening? Or send my car for you?”

  “Petrol’s getting scarce. I’ll meet you here. Eight o’clock?”

  “Eight o’clock. Arrivederci.”

  “Until then.”

  He walked down the long corridor at the Admiralty, escorted by a Commander Neyland who had met him at the entrance desk. Neyland was middle-aged, properly military, and quite impressed with himself. Or perhaps he was not at all impressed with Italians. In spite of Vittorio’s fluency in English, Neyland insisted on using the simplest terms, and raising his voice as though addressing a retarded child. Fontini-Cristi was convinced that Neyland had not listened to his replies; a man did not hear of pursuit, death, and escape, and respond with such banalities as “You don’t say.” … “Odd, isn’t it?” … “The Genoa gulf can be choppy in December, can’t it?”