Jack Higgins - Luciano’s Luck

Carter pulled forward a chair. ‘Thank you, sir.’ He hesitated. ‘Is the Sicilian invasion on, General?’

Eisenhower looked up and said calmly, ‘During the next few weeks the British under General Montgomery will invade at the Eastern end of the island, while General Patton and the Seventh Army will land in the South and strike for Palermo. Are you surprised?’

‘Not really, sir, although there’s been a strong opinion in Sicily for months now, which I might say the Germans seem to hold also, that Sardinia would be the target.’

‘Which is exactly what we want them to think. But let’s get back to the original question I put to you when you were last here. According to your report, you seem certain that Washington is hoping for too much with the Mafia connection.’

‘I’m afraid so, General.’

There was a brief silence, while Eisenhower stared down at the file. ‘All right, what’s your solution?’

‘Well, there is a man, General, named Luca. Don Antonio Luca. He’s what’s known in Sicily as Capo di Tutti Capi. Boss of all the bosses. The fascists imprisoned him in 1940. Sent him to prison on the mainland – Naples. He escaped later that year and returned to Sicily where he’s been in hiding ever since. He’s the one man they’ll all listen to. I don’t wish to blaspheme, but in Sicily he could pull a larger audience than the Pope.’

‘Then find him,’ Eisenhower said.

‘He doesn’t want to be found, sir.’

‘Could you find him?’

‘I’ve tried. Total silence so far. I’ve got a better chance than most people, though. He doesn’t care for Americans. It seems he had a young brother called Cesare, who was a rum-runner on the Great Lakes during Prohibition. One night in 1929 Cesare was ambushed by a rival gang outside Chicago and personally shot three men dead. He died himself in the electric chair the following year.’

Eisenhower stood up. He paced up and down a couple of times, then turned to the map and stood looking up at it ‘Still, one thing’s (or sure. If George Patton and his boys have to fight their way through those mountains to Palermo, they’ll die by the thousands.’

He repeated the phrase in a whisper as if to himself. Carter knew that in his mind’s eye, Eisenhower was seeing again the American dead on the battlefield of Kasserine, that terrible débâcle in which untried boys had found themselves faced with the cream of the Afrika Corps.

Carter cleared his throat. ‘With respect, General, I do have a suggestion.’

Eisenhower turned, suddenly alert. ‘And what might that be?’

‘After all is said and done, Luciano still seems to me the key figure in the whole affair. His influence with the Sicilian Mafia is unquestioned. He might provide the right link with Luca. Enough to make Luca come out of hiding and declare himself for us. If he does that, General, then we have Mafia on our side one hundred and ten percent.’

Eisenhower stood there for a long moment, staring at him, then nodded slowly. ‘Damn me, Major, but I have a sneaking suspicion you might be right.’

‘Then you’ll put Intelligence in Washington on to it right away, sir?’ Carter said. ‘They could approach Luciano again during the next couple of days.’

‘I’ll think about it.’ Eisenhower glanced at his watch. ‘And now you must excuse me. This is the time of day when the telephone lines start hotting up to Washington. I talk to the President most days. He likes to be kept informed.’

‘I’ll go then, sir.’

Carter got up, put on his cap and saluted. Eisenhower acknowledged the salute perfunctorily, already busy with papers again, and Carter walked to the door.

As he got it open, Eisenhower called, ‘I’d like you back here at eleven.’

Carter turned in surprise. ‘You mean eleven tonight, General?’

‘That’s it, Major,’ Eisenhower replied without looking up.

Carter closed the door, paused, then crossed the hall to the entrance and went down the steps to his jeep. He climbed in beside the driver and glanced at his watch. It was just after six. Almost five hours to kill.

‘Where to now, sir?’ asked the driver, a private first class who looked at most sixteen year of age.

‘Do you know the RAF base at Maison Blanche?’

‘Sure do, Major. About an hour and a half from here.’

‘Fine,’ Carter said. ‘Take me there.’

The Douglas DC3, the famous Dakota, was probably the most successful general transport plane ever built, but the one which Wing Commander Harvey Grant was bringing back from Malta to his base at Maison Blanche just before dark had definitely seen better days.

Not that it was in any sense his regular plane. The old Dakota did a milk run to Malta and back three times a week with medical supplies. The duty pilot had been taken ill that morning, and as there was no replacement readily available, Grant had seized the opportunity to vacate the Squadron Commander’s desk and do the flight himself. Which was very much contrary to regulations, for Grant had been forbidden any further operational flying by the Air Officer Commanding Middle East Theatre himself only six weeks previously.

He sat at the controls now, alone and happy, whistling tunelessly between his teeth, the two supply sergeants forming his crew asleep in the rear.

Harvey Grant was twenty-six, a small man whose dark eyes seemed perpetually full of life. Son of a wheat farmer in Parker, Iowa, the greatest influence on his life had been his father’s younger brother, Templeton Grant, who had flown with the Royal Flying Corps in France.

At an early age, Grant learnt that you always watched the sun and never crossed the line alone under 10,000 feet. He soloed at sixteen, thanks to his uncle’s tuition, then moved on to Harvard to study law, more to please his father than anything eke. He was at the Sorbonne in Paris when war broke out, and promptly joined the RAF.

He was shot down twice piloting Hurricanes and had eleven German fighters to his credit before the Battle of Britain was over. He’d then transferred to Bomber Command, completing a tour in Wellingtons, a second in Lancasters, by which time he was a Squadron Leader with a DSO and two DFC’s to his name.

After that had come his posting to 138 (Special Duties) Squadron at Tempsford, the famous Moon Squadron that specialized in dropping agents into ocupied Europe or picking them up again, as the occasion required.

Grant had flown over thirty such missions from Tempsford before being promoted and posted to Maison Blanche to handle the same kind of work, flying black-painted Halifaxes from the Algerian mainland to Sardinia, Sicily and Italy.

But all that was behind him. Now he was officially grounded. Too valuable to risk losing, that’s what the AOC had said, although in Grant’s opinion, it was simply another manoeuvre on the part of the American Army Air Corps to force him to transfer, a fate he was determined to avoid.

He was south-west of Pantellaria just before dusk, a quarter-moon touching the clouds with a pale luminosity, when a roaring filled the night. The Dakota bucked wildly so that it took everything Grant had to hold her as a dark shadow banked away to port.

He recognized it at once, a Junkers 88, one of those apparently clumsy, black, twin-engined planes festooned with strange radar aerials that had proved so devastating in their attacks on RAF bombers engaged on night raids over Europe. And he didn’t have a thing to fight with except skill, for the Dakota carried no kind of armament.

The cabin door swung open behind him and the two supply sergeants peered in.

‘Hang on!’ Grant said. ‘I’m going to see if I can make him do something stupid.’

He went down fast and was aware of the Junkers, turning and coming in fast, firing his cannon too soon, his speed so excessive that he had to bank to port to avoid collision.