Gavin Lyall - Flight From Honour

Now they could hear the hum of a powerful motor moving at a decorous speed. “Even with two guns, it’ll be trouble enough taking these fellers dead, never mind alive. Which d’ye want most, Captain: the women safe or taking prisoners?”

There was a pause. Then Ranklin nodded. “All right. We forget about prisoners.” They stepped out and waved their hands.

The car was the high Pullman-bodied one with tasselled curtains that had brought O’Gilroy from the station, and Matteo was driving it. He drew up gently, recognising O’Gilroy – and then a rear door opened and Dagner stepped out.

Ranklin was astounded. And so must Dagner have been, only he had recognised them in the car’s headlights and had time to choose his expression and voice. He was brisk: “Captain – I thought you’d still be in Trieste. And O’Gilroy. Does this mean a problem?”

Ranklin, still dazed, just managed to be polite. “Major . . . What on earth are you doing here?”

“Travelling as the Senator’s personal physician.” Behind him, Ranklin could see the bulky shape of Falcone sitting very upright on the back seat. Matteo took the opportunity to get in and fuss, re-arranging the rug and making soothing comments. Dagner lowered his voice. “And taking an excuse to get out into the field again, making sure this operation goes ahead smoothly. What do you have to report?”

Ranklin had quite a choice, including the question of the Bureau being left leaderless eight hundred miles away, but restrained himself to: “There’s a fair selection, but most immediately, a couple of assassins are waiting for the Senator at his villa, with his wife and Mrs Finn as hostages. Have you got a gun with you?”

Dagner paused. Then: “No. No, I’m afraid . . . I gather it’s unlawful in Italy.”

But Falcone had been overhearing. “Signora Falcone, is she safe?”

“I wouldn’t say safe, but I think she’s unharmed. Have you got-?”

“Yes, yes, it is in my luggage. But you must be very careful . . .”

It was the Browning Ranklin had seen before, just like O’Gilroy’s, and he instinctively passed it to him. Falcone added: “There are many guns in the villa, but . . .”

Ranklin could guess at a whole cabinet of shotguns and hunting rifles, but in a downstairs room they couldn’t reach. “Well, it’s a start. Back to plan A.”

“What’s that?” Dagner asked.

“We think we can get hold of another pistol and do a bit of outflanking if O’Gilroy can get up to a bedroom window.”

“Sounds rather complicated.” He was taking charge now. “We ought to think this out-”

“Major, we’ve been thinking it out, and reconnoitring the house, for half an hour. We must get somebody inside before we do anything else, or the women . . .” He shrugged. “The ground-floor rooms all open onto the hall, that means O’Gilroy getting in through the bedroom floor, so he may as well look for a second gun while he’s at it. Or just call the Carabinieri and let them handle it all.”

He risked nothing by suggesting that; he knew Falcone wouldn’t want it, or the explanations it would lead to.

And turn it down he did, but added: “But you must be sure you save Signora Falcone.”

Ranklin didn’t answer him. “Then we’d better get going while it’s still dark enough.”

“Fine,” Dagner said. “I’d like to see how you two work. If you can fit me into your plan, fine. If not, I’ll keep out of your way.”

Ranklin made a face he was glad Dagner couldn’t see. He knew senior officers who promised to do just what they were told. Then he started rethinking.

Despite his height, once they were inside the gates Dagner showed all his Khyber cunning, moving like the shadow of a snake through the tangled garden and up onto the back terrace. Artillery training didn’t involve creepy-crawling and Ranklin felt distinctly bovine, lumbering behind him.

Then, with the eastern sky definitely turning grey, they watched O’Gilroy, barefoot and coatless, clamber up the drainpipe. He climbed without haste or scrabbling, sometimes walking his feet up the walls on either side, sometimes using joints on the pipe. A few flakes of white paint fluttered down.

“Has he done this before?” Dagner whispered.

“Shouldn’t wonder.”

O’Gilroy vanished over the portico roof, and there was a slight creak as a shutter was eased back. A minute or so later, a faint glimmer showed behind the shutters of the next room along, Corinna’s, and Ranklin could visualise what O’Gilroy was facing: without a maid, Corinna’s bedroom would look like an anarchist outrage in a dress shop.

That was indeed how it struck O’Gilroy. He tried one handbag – too light – another that was empty, then started shuffling under heaps of clothing, some of which embarrassed him and some he just didn’t understand. And then, in plain sight on a chest of drawers, he saw a third bag. It felt heavy enough, but he still had to sift its contents before coming up with a Colt Navy-calibre pocket pistol. He thumbed it to half-cock, spun the cylinder, and saw all five were loaded.

This might, he thought, be going to work.

He packed the gun back into the bag, well wrapped in clothing, then opened a window and shutter – they all seemed to creak – and dropped it into Ranklin’s arms, then saw him and Dagner move back around the corner.

In no hurry now, he waited, looking at the greying sky, at the steely glint on the river. It would, he thought wistfully, have been a fine day for a flight to Trieste, and he might never get to handle an aeroplane like the Oriole again. He took a breath of morning air, checked the Browning and moved towards the light switch and the door. This, after all, was the work he knew best.

The gallery itself was dark, but light seeped up from the below. O’Gilroy crawled to the balustrade and peeked cautiously through. Corinna, sprawled but tense, was on a chaise-longue, and when he moved a little further along, he could see Signora Falcone in an armchair next to her. Grouped together, easy to watch. He saw one man immediately, wearing a black suit and pacing slowly, puffing on a cigarette. A pistol dangled from his other hand. But that was all.

O’Gilroy tried to estimate the distance. The gallery itself was a good twenty-five feet high, and the slant made that a range of up to forty feet. Long for a pistol, and the light from table and standing lamps was very blotchy, but he could use the balustrade as a rest when the time came.

Then the man stopped pacing and spoke to someone out of sight beneath that side of the gallery. O’Gilroy waited, then moved round a corner of the gallery to his right, almost in line with the front door and bringing the second man into sight. He was sitting in a hard-backed chair with a shotgun across his knees. If that thing went off . . . But O’Gilroy couldn’t choose his target; he was to cope with whoever didn’t go to the front door.

It was silly how your mouth got dry, waiting for action. Every time.

As at the back, the front of the villa was a terrace under the high portico reached by flights of steps at either end. Only these were well lit from electric lamps on the house walls. Staying against the wall, Ranklin sidled along and stationed himself to the right of the tall double front doors, still against the wall. Dagner came up from the opposite end. They waited.

Ranklin tried to concentrate on what was about to happen yet have no preconception about what the enemy might do. It was best to think of them that way, as the anonymous ‘enemy’ of his soldiering days, just targets without feelings or loved ones. And they might want Falcone to get inside the house, or rush out to kill him before he could escape. Or – most likely of all – do something Ranklin hadn’t thought of.