A lot of things were going through my head as I squatted on the floor in line as the Cessna lifted smoothly into the air. The die was cast now, we were on our way – no turning back and I still wasn’t certain about anything, except that everyone in sight seemed to be lying to me, including Rosa.

For some unaccountable reason that one hurt and when I analysed my feelings, I realised with a shock that I had liked her. Really liked her. She had guts and her own special brand of integrity and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that her final appearance in my room had been completely personal. She had come to say goodbye because she wanted to and not because Hoffer or anyone else had pressured her.

We were flying at eight thousand feet now and the view was certainly spectacular. Chains of mountains, peaks and ridges, white in the moonlight, the valleys between dark with shadow.

The journey passed completely without incident and was so short that it was something of a shock when the red light Verda had rigged blinked rapidly several times. When I looked out of the window I could see the jagged peak of Monte Cammarata, the western slope, and then, as we slanted down, the dark, saucer-shaped plateau which was the dropping zone, the waterfall next to it bright in the moonlight, a clear marker.

Verda swung into the wind and turned, coming in so close to the rocky precipice that lifted to the summit about the plateau that the heart moved inside me. We got a brief idea of what it was going to be like and then he swung the Cessna into the void.

As he turned to come in again, Burke, who was the lead man, stood up and slipped on to the static line. Piet followed suit, then Legrande and I brought up the rear. My stomach was hollow, mouth dry and I shuffled forward with the others, caught in a nightmare of suspense.

The red light blinked once, then twice, the Cessna rocked in some kind of turbulence and Burke went out through the door. Piet must have been right on top of him, Legrande hard on his heels.

And then it was my turn. The wind howled past the gaping doorway. Only a madman could venture out there, I told myself, and fell headfirst, somersaulting.

I released the supply bag I had been clutching tightly in my arms and it fell to swing twenty feet below on the end of a line clipped to my waist. And I was swinging, too, beneath the dark khaki umbrella, the most beautiful sight in the world at that moment.

When you jump at eight hundred feet, it takes exactly thirty seconds to hit the deck which doesn’t give you long to sort yourself out. That close to the rock face there were down-draughts and I started to oscillate. As usual, once you were out in the open, the light didn’t seem anything like as good. I caught a brief glimpse of one chute then another like dark thistle-down, drifting into the shadows beside the waterfall and then I was moving in fast myself.

The trouble with a night-drop is that usually you can’t see the ground which accounts for the high proportion of broken limbs on that type of operation, people being caught by surprise and landing too stiffly.

That was one thing I liked about the supply bag dangling down there at the end of a twenty foot line. Unless you are oscillating alarmingly, the bag hits the deck first with a solid thump, warning you to get ready.

I just made it in time. The supply bag thudded into the ground and I followed a split second later, rolling into a patch of surprisingly springy turf. I rolled again and came to rest, a shoulder of rock nudging me in the ribs.

I lay there, winded, and someone came close and leaned over me. There was the gleam of steel and I got my hand up just in time, the Smith and Wesson ready.

“I was only going to cut your line,” Piet Jaeger said.

“Are you sure it wasn’t my throat you were aiming for?”

“Another time,” he said. “When you aren’t so useful. When we don’t need you any more.”

He sounded as if he meant it and sliced through my belt line and pulled my supply bag clear. I struggled out of my harness and got rid of the chute. Now that I was down, the light seemed much better and I could see Burke and Legrande approaching carrying their chutes and supply bags. The Frenchman was limping, but it turned out to be nothing serious. In his case, his oscillation had been so great that he had hit the ground before his supply bag when unprepared. He’d obviously had a bad shaking, but he made light of it as we unpacked.

The supply bags held the commando rucksacks containing food and water, our weapons and extra ammunition, and when they were empty, went into a convenient crevasse together with the parachutes.

We squatted in the shelter of the rocks and Burke passed round a flask of brandy. I took a long pull and found myself smiling, grateful to be alive, two feet on solid earth again as the warmth spread through me.

“There’s no point in hanging about,” he said. “Straight up to the top from here. We’ve got to get over and into those trees while it’s still dark.”

Which didn’t give us long because dawn was officially at ten past four and we moved out at once in single file. I took the lead because, in theory at least, I knew more about the terrain than anyone else and followed a route which took us straight up the side of the waterfall.

It was a marvellous night, the moon almost full, a tracer or two of cloud aroused, stars glittering everywhere. The mountains marched into the distance, ridge after ridge of them, and far to the east moonlight glittered on Etna’s snowy peak.

The valleys were dark, but four thousand feet below and a couple of miles to the right in the general direction of Bellona, a single light gleamed. I wondered if it could be Cerda sitting up and wondering how we were making out, for nothing was more certain than that my grandfather would have kept him fully informed.

A good actor, Cerda, one had to admit that. Even the gun behind his back had all been part of the show. He had behaved in a way it was reasonable to suppose I would expect him to – very clever. His one flaw had been his apparent ignorance of the presence of Joanna Truscott in the mountains. Hardly likely in a man who knew everything else there was to know about Serafino.

Still, an excellent performance with Marco keeping out of the way in the back room. You really couldn’t trust anyone in this affair, or so it seemed to me then.

It was just after three when we made the summit and I dropped into a hollow between rocks and waited for the others. I was tired and I suppose the truth was that I wasn’t really fit enough for this kind of game yet. On the other hand, the others didn’t look too good either, Legrande particularly, and Burke seemed to be having difficulty with his breathing.

He passed the brandy round again, probably as an excuse to have one himself. “So far so good. We’ve got just under an hour to get down a thousand feet or so. If we can do that I think we’ll have it made.”

He nodded to me. “All right, Stacey.”

So I was still leading the way. I stood up and moved out, more conscious than ever that he was at the back of me.

It wasn’t easy going at all. The ground was rough and treacherous and with the moon almost down, the light on that side of the mountain was very bad indeed. In places there were great aprons of shale that were as treacherous underfoot as ice, sliding like water at the slightest movement.

I paused after half an hour on a small plateau and waited for them. In the east, there was already a perceptible lightening of the sky on the rim of the world and I knew we were not going to make it unless the going changed completely.

Piet arrived first, seemingly in excellent shape and then Legrande who slumped to the ground and looked pretty tired to me. Burke brought up the rear and I noticed again that his breathing wasn’t good.