Free Ratlines by Stuart Neville Page B

somehow the accent didn’t fit.
    “ Guten Abend ,” Skorzeny said. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
    The man smiled, confessed in accented Spanish that his German was poor. Skorzeny switched tongues, he had always been talented in this regard, and repeated his greeting in Spanish.
    “We met once, briefly, almost twenty years ago.” The man extended his hand, his slender fingers cool in Skorzeny’s grasp. “My name is Luca Impelliteri. When we met, I was a sergeant in the carabinieri .”
    Skorzeny released his hand. “You’re Italian? I would have taken you for German.”
    “My parents were from Genoa.”
    “Ah. Northern Italians are of better blood than many of that country. The Sicilians, I believe, are the lowest. Am I correct?”
    Impelliteri gave a hard smile. “I judge a man’s worth by his actions, not by his birth.”
    “How noble,” Skorzeny said. “And how do you come to be in Spain?”
    “I am adviser to the head of the Generalissimo’s personal security team. Tonight, the Generalissimo has graciously allowed me to join his guests for a drink.”
    “He must be impressed with you,” Skorzeny said, allowing the slightest note of condescension to enter his voice.
    The Italian nodded in a gesture of humility that Skorzeny knew to be as insincere as his own compliment. He regarded the faintness of the lines around Impelliteri’s eyes, at the corners of his mouth.
    “You must have been a rather young officer when we met.”
    “Twenty one,” Impelliteri said. “That was in September, 1943.”
    Skorzeny took another look at the face, searched his memory. “Oh?”
    “To be precise, the twelfth of September.”
    Skorzeny lifted his glass from the ledge, took a sip of wine spritzer, waited.
    “On Gran Sasso,” the Italian said. “At Hotel Campo Imperatore.”
    “You were one of Mussolini’s guards?”
    “In truth, I had never set eyes on Il Duce until you brought him out from the hotel, cowering in that ridiculous coat and hat he wore.”
    “Did you surrender along with your fellow carabinieri ?”
    “Of course.” Impelliteri smiled. “Why would I lay down my life to keep a man like Mussolini from the Germans? You were welcome to him.”
    Skorzeny returned the smile, raised his glass. “A wise choice for a young man. I would have crushed any resistance.”
    Impelliteri’s smile broadened. “Would you? From where I stood, the only thing in danger of being crushed was the poor officer whose back you stood on to climb that wall.”
    Skorzeny felt the smile freeze on his lips.
    “But you did very well out of it all, didn’t you?” Impelliteri continued. “They turned you into a hero, the propaganda men. What did they call you? Yes, that’s it: Commando Extraordinaire, the daring SS officer who almost single-handedly saved their ally Mussolini from his own traitorous people before they could hand him over to the Americans. It was quite a story they made out of the rescue. I saw that little film they made about it. It did make me laugh.”
    Skorzeny returned his glass to the ledge. “There was no story, only historical record. Do you call me a liar?”
    “A liar?” Impelliteri shook his head. “No. Self-aggrandising, yes. An opportunist, yes. A fraud?”
    He left the final question hanging in the warm Spanish air for a moment.
    “You know, the Generalissimo, he holds you in the highest regard. He believes every word of your mythology. That’s why he welcomes you to his kingdom. It would be a shame if he ever found out the truth of it all.”
    Impotent anger churned in Skorzeny’s belly. Had there not been a suite full of Franco’s guests just feet away, he would have grabbed the Italian by his throat and thrown him over the balcony ledge onto the rocks below. Instead, he held his silence as Impelliteri bade him goodnight and rejoined the party.
    In a matter of days, Skorzeny wished he had felt no such reservations and killed the Italian then and there.
    Now, he was marooned in