On a high cliff above Montelepre, Turi Guiliano observed the robbing of the payroll through his binoculars. By turning ninety degrees he could also see the battle in the streets of the town, the direct attack on the Bellampo Barracks and the engagement of carabinieri patrols on the coastal roads. All his chiefs were functioning perfectly. Passatempo and his men had the money from the payroll, Pisciotta had the rear of the carabinieri column immobilized, Terranova and his band, supplemented by new recruits, had attacked the Bellampo Barracks and engaged their patrols. The men directly under Guiliano commanded the bases of the mountain. And Stefano Andolini, truly a Fra Diavalo, was preparing a surprise.
At his headquarters in Palermo, Colonel Luca received the news of his lost payroll with what seemed to his subordinates an unusual calm. But inwardly he could only seethe at Guiliano's cleverness and wonder where and how he acquired his information on the disposition of the carabinieri troops. Four carabinieri had been killed in the robbery and another ten killed in the pitched battle with the other Guiliano forces.
Colonel Luca was still on the phone receiving casualty reports when Captain Perenze burst through the door, his heavy jowls quivering with excitement. He had just received the report that some bandits had been wounded and that one had been killed and left on the field of battle. The dead bandit had been identified by documents on his body and personal identification by two citizens of Montelepre. The dead body was none other than Turi Guiliano.
Against all caution, against all intelligence. Colonel Luca felt a surge of triumph in his breast. Military history was full of great victories, brilliant tactical maneuvers, which were negated by small personal accidents. A mindless bullet directed by fate had magically sought out and found the elusive ghost of the great bandit. But then caution returned. The fortune was too good; it might be a trap. But if it was, then he would walk into it and trap the trapper.
Colonel Luca made his preparations, and a flying column was readied that would be invincible to any attack. Armored cars went ahead, followed by the bulletproof car that carried Colonel Luca and Inspector Federico Velardi, who had insisted on going to help identify the body but really to make sure the body did not carry the Testament. Behind Luca's car were troop carriers with men at the alert, weapons ready to fire. Scout jeeps to the number of twenty, filled with armed paratroopers, preceded the column. The garrison at Montelepre was ordered to guard the immediate roads to the town and establish spotting posts in the nearby mountains. Foot patrols heavy in strength, massively armed, controlled the sides of the entire length of the road.
It took Colonel Luca and his flying column less than an hour to reach Montelepre. There were no attacks; the show of strength had been too much for the bandits. But a disappointment awaited the Colonel.
Inspector Velardi said the corpse, now resting in an ambulance at the Bellampo Barracks, could not possibly be Guiliano. The bullet from which the man had died disfigured him but not enough for the Inspector to be mistaken. Other citizens were forced to view the body, and they too said it was not Guiliano. It had been a trap after all, Guiliano must have hoped that the Colonel would rush to the scene with a small escort and lay himself open to ambush. Colonel Luca ordered all precautions to be taken, but he was in a hurry to start on the road back to Palermo and get to his headquarters; he wanted to report personally to Rome what had happened that day and also make sure no one had released the false report of Guiliano's death. Checking first to make sure all his troop elements were in place so the road back would not be ambushed, he commandeered one of the swift scout jeeps at the head of the column. Inspector Velardi rode with him.
The Colonel's hastiness saved both their lives. As the flying column neared Palermo, with Luca's command car in the middle, there was a tremendous explosion. The command car flew up over ten feet in the air and came down in flaming pieces that scattered over the slopes of the mountain. The troop carrier following closely behind had eight men killed and fifteen wounded out of a total of thirty. The two officers in Luca's car were blown to bits.
When Colonel Luca called Minister Trezza with the bad news, he also asked that his three thousand extra men waiting on the mainland be shipped immediately to Sicily.
Don Croce knew that these raids would continue as long as Guiliano's parents were held prisoner, and so he arranged for their release.
But he could not prevent the incursion of new forces, and two thousand soldiers now occupied the town of Montelepre and the surrounding area. Another three thousand were searching the mountains. Seven hundred citizens of Montelepre and in the province of Palermo had been thrown into jail for questioning by Colonel Luca, using the special powers delegated to him by the Christian Democratic government in Rome. There was a curfew that began at dusk and ended with dawn, citizens were immobilized in their homes and travelers without special passes were thrown into prison. The whole province was under an official reign of terror.
Don Croce watched with some trepidation as the tide turned against Guiliano.
CHAPTER 24
Before the coming of Luca's army, when Guiliano could enter Montelepre as he pleased, he had often seen Justina Ferra. Sometimes she had come to the Guiliano house on an errand or to receive the money Guiliano gave to her parents. Guiliano had never really noticed her growing into a beautiful young woman until one day he had seen her on the streets of Palermo with her parents. They had gone into the city to buy finery for the Festa not available in the small town of Montelepre. Guiliano and members of his band had gone to Palermo to buy supplies.
Guiliano had not seen her for perhaps six months, and she had grown taller and slimmer in that time. She was tall for a Sicilian woman, with long legs that tottered on newly bought high-heeled shoes. She was only sixteen years of age, but her face and form had flowered in the subtropical earth of Sicily and she was a mature woman physically. Her hair was pulled into a jet black crown studded with three gemlike combs, exposing a neck as long and golden as that of an Egyptian woman on a vase. Her eyes were enormous, questioning; her mouth sensuous, yet the only part of her face that betrayed her extreme youth. She wore a white dress with a slash of red ribbon running across the front.
She was such a picture of loveliness that Guiliano stared at her for a long time. He was sitting in an open cafe, his men scattered at the tables around him, when she walked by accompanied by her mother and father. They saw him. Justina's father kept his face stony and made no sign of recognition. The mother glanced quickly away. Only Justina stared at him as she went by. She was Sicilian enough not to greet him, but she stared directly into his eyes and he could see her mouth quivering to restrain a smile. In the sun-drenched street she was a pool of shimmering light, of the sensual Sicilian beauty that blooms at an early age. Since becoming an outlaw Guiliano had always distrusted love. To him it was an act of submission and held the seed for a fatal treachery, but in that moment he felt what he had never felt before – a suffusion in his body to kneel before another human being and willingly swear himself into an alien slavery. He did not identify this as love.
A month later, Guiliano found that his mind was obsessed with the memory of Justina Ferra standing in that pool of golden sunlight on the street in Palermo. He assumed it was merely sexual appetite, that he missed his passionate nights with La Venera. Then in his reveries he found himself not only dreaming of making love to Justina, but of spending time with her roaming around the mountains, showing her his caves, the narrow valleys filled with flowers, cooking meals for her over the open campfires. He still had his guitar in his mother's house and dreamed of playing for her. He would show her the poems he had written over the years, some of which had been published in the Sicilian newspapers. He even thought of sneaking into Montelepre and visiting her in her home, despite the two thousand soldiers of Colonel Luca's Special Force. At this time he came to his senses and knew something dangerous was going on inside him.