FIFTEEN

Thenight sky was clear to the horizon and alive with stars and in the light of the half moon the countryside below was perfectly visible. They were flying at two thousand feet along a deep valley, mountains rising on either side, and when Dillon looked out of one of the windows he could see the white line of a road winding along the valley bottom.

It was all very quick. Gagini climbed to two and a half thousand to negotiate a kind of hump at the end of the valley and beyond was a great sloping plateau and he started down.

Five minutes later he leveled off at eight hundred, turned and called over his shoulder, "Drop the Airstair door. It's any minute now and I don't want to have to go round again, it could alert them. Go when I tell you, and good luck, my friend."

Dillon moved back to the door, awkwardly because of the parachute. He rotated the handle, the door fell out into space, the steps unfolded. There was a roar of air and he held onto the fuselage buffeted by the wind and looked down, and way over on his left was the farmhouse looking just like the photo.

"Now!" Gagini cried.

Dillon took two steps down holding the handrail and then allowed himself to fall, headfirst, turning over once in the plane's slipstream, pulling the ring of the rip cord at the same moment. He looked up, saw the plane climbing steeply over on his left, the noise of the engine already fading.

In the dining room of the farmhouse they had just finished the first course of the dinner and Marco, acting as butler again, was clearing them away when they heard the plane.

"What in the hell is that?" Morgan demanded and he got up and moved out on the terrace, Marco behind him.

The noise of the plane was fading over to the right. Asta came out at that moment. "Are you worried about something?"

"The plane. It seemed so low that for a wild moment I thought it might intend to land."

"Dillon?" She shook her head. "Even he wouldn't be crazy enough to try that."

"No, of course not." He smiled and they went back inside. "Just a passing plane," he said to Luca and he turned to the Brigadier and shrugged. "No cavalry riding to the rescue this time."

"What a pity," Ferguson said.

"Yes, isn't it? We'll continue with the meal, shall we? I'll be back in a moment." He nodded to Marco and went out into the hall with him.

"What is it?" Marco demanded.

"I don't know. That plane made no attempt to land, but it was certainly low when it made its pass."

"Someone sniffing out the lay of the land perhaps," Marco suggested.

"Exactly, then if someone was approaching by road, they could let them know how the situation looked by radio."

Marco shook his head. "No one could get within twenty miles of here by road without us being informed, believe me."

"Yes, perhaps I'm being overcautious, but who have we got?"

"There's the caretaker, Guido. I put him on the gate, and the two shepherds, the Tognolis, Franco and Vito. They've both killed for the Society, they're good men."

"Get them out in the garden and you see to things. I just want to be sure." He laughed and put a hand on Marco's shoulder. "It's my Sicilian half talking."

He returned to the dining room and Marco went to the kitchen where he found Rosa, the caretaker's wife, busy at the stove and the Tognoli brothers seated at one end of the table eating stew.

"You can finish that later," he said. "Right now you get out into the garden just in case. Signore Morgan was unhappy about the plane that passed over."

"At your orders," Franco Togloni said, wiping his mouth with the back of a hand, and he unslung, from the back of his chair, his Lupara, the sawed-off shotgun that was the traditional weapon of the Mafia since time immemorial. "Come on," he told his brother. "We've got work to do," and they went out.

Marco picked up a glass of red wine that stood on the table. "You'll have to serve the food yourself, Rosa," he said, emptied the glass at a single swallow, then took a Beretta from his shoulder holster and checked it as he went out.

The silence was extraordinary. Dillon felt no particular exhilaration. It was a strange black-and-white world in the moonlight, rather like one of those dreams in which you dreamed you were flying and time seemed to stand still, and then suddenly the ground was rushing up at him and he hit with a thump and rolled over in long meadow grass.

He lay there for a moment to get his breath, then punched the quick release clip and stepped out of the parachute harness. The farmhouse was two hundred yards to the left beyond an olive grove on a slight rise. He started to run quite fast until he reached the grove, got down in the shelter of trees on the other side and found himself approximately seventy-five yards from the crumbling white wall of the farmhouse.

He focused the night glasses on the gate which stood open and saw Guido the caretaker at the gate straight away in cloth cap and shooting jacket, a shotgun over his shoulder, and yet he wasn't the problem. What was, was the large, old-fashioned bell hanging above the gate, rope dangling. One pull on that and the whole place would be roused.

There was a break on the ground to his right, a gully stretching toward the wall perhaps two feet deep. He crawled along it cautiously and finally reached the wall. The grass was long and overgrown at that point and he unslung the silenced Celeste machine pistol and moved cautiously along the wall, keeping to the grass, but it petered out when he was still twenty yards away.

Guido was smoking a cigarette, his back to Dillon, looking up at the stars, and Dillon stood up and moved quickly, out in the open now. When he was ten yards away, Guido turned, saw him at once, his mouth opening in dismay. He reached up for the bellrope and Dillon fired a short burst that lifted him off his feet, killing him instantly.

It was amazing how little noise the Celeste had made, but there was no time to lose. Dillon dragged Guido's body into the shelter of the wall and dashed through the gate. He immediately left the drive and moved into the shelter of the lush, overgrown semitropical garden. Here too the grass badly needed cutting. He moved cautiously through it between the olive trees toward the house. Quite suddenly, it started to rain, one of those sudden showers common to the region at that time of year and he crouched there, aware of the terrace, the open windows, and the sound of voices.

Marco, on his way down the drive, cursed as the rain started to fall, pulled up his collar, and continued to the gate. It was apparent at once that Guido wasn't there. Marco pulled out his Beretta, moved outside, and saw the body lying at the foot of the wall. He reached for the rope, rang the bell furiously for a few moments, then ran inside the gate.

"Someone's here," he called. "Watch yourselves," then he moved into the bushes, crouching. • • • In the dining room there was immediate upheaval. "What's happening?" Luca demanded.

"The alarm bell," Morgan said. "Something's up."

"Well, now, who would have thought it?" Ferguson said.

"You shut your mouth." Morgan went to a bureau, opened a drawer to reveal several handguns. He selected a Browning and handed Asta a Walther. "Just in case," he said and at that moment a shotgun blasted outside.

It was Vito Togloni who, panicking, made the mistake of calling to his brother, "Franco, where are you? What's happening?"

Dillon fired a long burst in the direction of the voice. Vito gave a strangled cry and pitched out of the bushes on his face.

Dillon crouched in the rain, waiting, and after a while heard a rustle in the bushes and Franco's voice low, "Hey, Vito, I'm here."

A second later, he moved out of the bushes and paused under an olive tree. Dillon didn't hesitate, driving him back against the tree with another burst from the Celeste. Franco fell, discharging his shotgun, and lay very still. Dillon moved forward, looking down at him, and behind there was the click of a hammer going back.