Read Online The Gemini Contenders by Robert Ludlum - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert Ludlum
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to the west road?”
“Yes.”
“It’s more than a mile.”
“Perhaps. You’re large, but not so heavy.” Barzini stood up.
“You saved my life.” Vittorio pressed his hands on the coarse blanket and raised himself to a sitting position, his back against the wall.
“Revenge is not found in one’s own death.”
“I understand.”
“We must both travel. You out of Italy, me to Campo di Fiori.”
“You’re going back?”
“It’s where I can do the most good. The most damage.”
Fontini-Cristi stared for a moment at Barzini. How quickly the unimaginable became the practical reality. How rapidly did men react savagely to the savage; and how necessary was that reaction. But there was no time. Barzini was right; the thinking would come later.
“Is there a way for me to get out of the country? You said all of northern Italy was sealed off.”
“All the usual routes. It is a manhunt mounted by Rome, directed by the Germans. There are other ways. The British will help, I am told.”
“The British?”
“That is the word. They have been on
partigiano
radios all through the night.”
“The British? I don’t understand.”
The vehicle was an old farm truck with poor brakes and a sliding clutch, but it was strudy enough for the badly paved back roads. It was no match for motorcycles or official automobiles, but excellent for traveling from one point to another in the farm country—one more truck carrying a few livestock that lurched unsteadily in the open, slatted van.
Vittorio was dressed, as was his driver, in the filthy, dung-encrusted, sweat-stained clothes of a farm laborer. He was provided with a dirty, mutilated identification card that gave his name as Aldo Ravena, former
soldato semplice
in the Italian army. It could be assumed his schooling was minimal; any conversation he might have with the police would be simple, blunt, and perhaps a touch hostile.
They had been driving since dawn, southwest into Torino, where they swung southeast toward Alba. With no serious interruptions they would reach Alba by nightfall.
At an
espresso
bar in Alba’s main piazza, San Giorno, they would make contact with the British; two operatives sent in by MI6. It would be their job to get Fontini-Cristi down to the coast and through the patrols that guarded every mile of waterfront from Genoa to San Remo. Italian personnel, German efficiency, Vittorio was told.
This area of the coast in the Gulf of Genoa was considered the most conducive to infiltration. For years it had been a primary source route for Corsican smugglers. Indeed the
Unio Corso
claimed the beaches and rocky ocean cliffs as their own. They called this coast the soft belly of Europe; they knew every inch.
Which was fine as far as the British were concerned. They employed the Corsicans, whose services went to the highest bidders. The
Unio Corso
would aid London in getting Fontini-Cristi through the patrols and out on the water where, in a prearranged rendezvous north of Roglianoon the Corsican coast, a submarine from the Royal Navy would surface and pick him up.
This was the information Vittorio was given—by the ragtail lunatics he had scorned as children playing primitive games. The unkempt, wild-eyed fools who had formed an untenable alliance with such men as his father had saved his life.
Were
saving his life. Skinny peasant thugs who had direct communication with the far-off British … far off and not so distant. No farther than Alba.
How? Why?
What in the name of God were the English doing? Why were they doing it? What were men he had barely acknowledged, hardly spoken to in his life before—except to order and ignore—what were
they
doing. And
why?
He was no friend; no enemy, perhaps, but certainly no friend.
These were the questions that frightened Vittorio Fontini-Cristi. A nightmare had exploded in white light and death, and he was not capable of fathoming—even wanting—his own survival.
They were eight miles from Alba on a
“Yes.”
“It’s more than a mile.”
“Perhaps. You’re large, but not so heavy.” Barzini stood up.
“You saved my life.” Vittorio pressed his hands on the coarse blanket and raised himself to a sitting position, his back against the wall.
“Revenge is not found in one’s own death.”
“I understand.”
“We must both travel. You out of Italy, me to Campo di Fiori.”
“You’re going back?”
“It’s where I can do the most good. The most damage.”
Fontini-Cristi stared for a moment at Barzini. How quickly the unimaginable became the practical reality. How rapidly did men react savagely to the savage; and how necessary was that reaction. But there was no time. Barzini was right; the thinking would come later.
“Is there a way for me to get out of the country? You said all of northern Italy was sealed off.”
“All the usual routes. It is a manhunt mounted by Rome, directed by the Germans. There are other ways. The British will help, I am told.”
“The British?”
“That is the word. They have been on
partigiano
radios all through the night.”
“The British? I don’t understand.”
The vehicle was an old farm truck with poor brakes and a sliding clutch, but it was strudy enough for the badly paved back roads. It was no match for motorcycles or official automobiles, but excellent for traveling from one point to another in the farm country—one more truck carrying a few livestock that lurched unsteadily in the open, slatted van.
Vittorio was dressed, as was his driver, in the filthy, dung-encrusted, sweat-stained clothes of a farm laborer. He was provided with a dirty, mutilated identification card that gave his name as Aldo Ravena, former
soldato semplice
in the Italian army. It could be assumed his schooling was minimal; any conversation he might have with the police would be simple, blunt, and perhaps a touch hostile.
They had been driving since dawn, southwest into Torino, where they swung southeast toward Alba. With no serious interruptions they would reach Alba by nightfall.
At an
espresso
bar in Alba’s main piazza, San Giorno, they would make contact with the British; two operatives sent in by MI6. It would be their job to get Fontini-Cristi down to the coast and through the patrols that guarded every mile of waterfront from Genoa to San Remo. Italian personnel, German efficiency, Vittorio was told.
This area of the coast in the Gulf of Genoa was considered the most conducive to infiltration. For years it had been a primary source route for Corsican smugglers. Indeed the
Unio Corso
claimed the beaches and rocky ocean cliffs as their own. They called this coast the soft belly of Europe; they knew every inch.
Which was fine as far as the British were concerned. They employed the Corsicans, whose services went to the highest bidders. The
Unio Corso
would aid London in getting Fontini-Cristi through the patrols and out on the water where, in a prearranged rendezvous north of Roglianoon the Corsican coast, a submarine from the Royal Navy would surface and pick him up.
This was the information Vittorio was given—by the ragtail lunatics he had scorned as children playing primitive games. The unkempt, wild-eyed fools who had formed an untenable alliance with such men as his father had saved his life.
Were
saving his life. Skinny peasant thugs who had direct communication with the far-off British … far off and not so distant. No farther than Alba.
How? Why?
What in the name of God were the English doing? Why were they doing it? What were men he had barely acknowledged, hardly spoken to in his life before—except to order and ignore—what were
they
doing. And
why?
He was no friend; no enemy, perhaps, but certainly no friend.
These were the questions that frightened Vittorio Fontini-Cristi. A nightmare had exploded in white light and death, and he was not capable of fathoming—even wanting—his own survival.
They were eight miles from Alba on a
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