Free Luciano's Luck by Jack Higgins Page A

Maria faced each other across the desk.
    ‘So there you are,’ Carter said. ‘It's really very simple. All it requires is a yes or a no. Mr Orsini and I…’
    ‘The subterfuge is not necessary, Colonel,’ she said calmly. ‘I am familiar with Mr Luciano. He is a part of a past which I no longer wish to acknowledge. Which no longer forms a part of my life.’
    ‘Can you cut off a leg, an arm and be the same person?’ Luciano asked in Sicilian.
    She answered in the same language. ‘Good husbandry, Mr Luciano, to lop off the rotten branch to save the tree.’
    Carter said patiently, ‘Sister, to save thousands of lives it's necessary to persuade your grandfather to come over to our side publicly. You could just be the one to do it.’
    ‘You're wasting your time, Colonel. I have had no dealings with my grandfather for years. This entire affair is preposterous and nothing to do with me. And now you must excuse me. I have work to do.’
    She brushed past Luciano and went out. Garter picked up the telephone and gave the long distance operator the number of SOE's headquarters in Baker Street in London
    Luciano said, ‘So, what happens now?’
    ‘She'll go,’ Carter assured him.
    ‘How can you be so sure?’
    ‘Oh, the thought of all those dead men should do it. She's a good woman, after all. Can't you tell?’
    The phone rang and he picked it up. ‘Give me Control Two. Carter here. The code word is Scorpion.’
    He reached for a cigarette and Luciano lit it for him as a voice echoed faintly in Carter's ear.
    He said, ‘Hello, Jack, Harry here. Yes, all systems go. This is what I'm going to need. A safe house for a few days near Manchester. Is Bransby Abbey still on the list?’
    Luciano said, ‘Heh, wait a minute.’
    Carter ignored him. ‘Two heavies as part of the back-up team. Good Italian essential plus all the usual skills, but I must have them within forty-eight hours. And signals to 138 Squadron at Maison Blanche and our friends in Bellona to make ready for a drop seven to ten days from now.’
    He listened for a while then smiled. ‘No, no problem.’
    He replaced the receiver. Luciano said, ‘Like I said; no emotion. Everything click, click, click. Only you're wrong about one thing, Professor.’
    ‘Tell me,’ Harry Carter said.
    ‘If Maria goes, it won't be because of the thought of all those lives she might save.’
    ‘So what's your theory?’
    ‘Simple. She's so eaten up with guilt that it's impossible for her to say no.’
    Sister Angela's one vice was cigarettes. Maria knew where they were kept. Behind the flour bin in the kitchen pantry. She lit one with trembling fingers and stood there in the dark, smoking furiously, like a defiant child.
    The Sicilian half came to the surface rather easily on occasion, something to be fought against but not now. The sight of Luciano's face, the old sardonic smile, had opened wounds and things walked out of dark corners to confront her again.
    She could smell the burning, see again the blood on her mother's face as she crawled towards her. And afterwards, the pain. The long weeks in hospital, the skin grafts for the burns and her grandfather, sitting there day by day beside the bed, in spite of the fact that she would not speak to him.
    The hate in her, the rage, was so strong now that, in a kind of panic, she dropped the cigarette in the sink, turned on the tap and bathed her face with cold water.
    After a while, she felt better. The past was over and done with. She had buried her dead and that included her grandfather. Sicily and all that it stood for was a matter of total indifference to her now. She had her work, her daily routine, the hospital. There was no place for anything else. Luciano and Carter would have to understand that. She smoothed her robe, took a deep breath and went out.
    The Refuge in what had been the old stables at the back of the convent wasn't much of a place, but the stone walls had been neatly whitewashed, there was a coke fire