Bloody Passage - Jack Higgins [48]
Langley sat in the corner looking sullen. I had another whiskey and waited. The doctor came quite quickly, a small balding man in a neat brown gabardine suit. He gave Angelo an injection, diagnosed two broken ribs and strapped them up. There was nothing he could do about the nose. That needed an expert surgeon. He departed after obtaining his fee in cash from Zingari, leaving a bottle of painkilling tablets.
I could have shot Langley out of hand, but that would hardly have improved the situation. Zingari was beside himself with anxiety. "But what will we do, signor? Everything is ready." And then, as a sudden wild hope struck him, "Maybe you won't be able to go through with it now? Yes, that's it. We'll have to abandon the whole crazy scheme."
"We'll return to Gela," I said. "We'll decide what to do then. Now give me a hand."
He did as he was told with obvious reluctance, helping me take Angelo out to the truck. Langley, for once, was silent, stunned I think, by the enormity of what had happened. We put Angelo up in the cab, I sat beside him and Langley rode in the rear on his own.
Angelo did very well considering, although it was obvious that the painkilling injection had helped considerably. "Don't worry about me," he said. "It's nothing. I'm going to be fine."
I don't know who he was trying to kid the most. Himself or me, but by the time we reached Gela and pulled up at the pier, it had become obvious that he wasn't being particularly successful in either direction.
I left him in his bunk in the forward cabin with Simone seeing to him and went into the saloon. Barzini sat at the head of the table, the whiskey bottle in one hand, a glass in the other, looking like thunder.
"Now what happens?" he demanded.
I shrugged. "I don't know. He says he'll be able to get by if he swallows enough pain-killers beforehand, but I don't think it's likely. And then there's his face. It's bad enough now. By this evening it'll be so swollen he'll be unrecognizable."
Barzini turned on Langley who sat on one of the bench seats looking defiant. "You bastard, are you satisfied now you've ruined everything? What do we do? Without someone on the inside to pull up that climbing rope we've had it."
"Then you really don't have any choice, do you?" Simone said from the cabin door. "You'll have to send me."
I said, "Don't be a bloody fool!" more as a reflex action than anything else.
It was noticeable that Barzini made no comment. He sat looking at her gravely and beyond him Langley was frowning.
"Let's get it straight," Barzini said. "You'd have to go in with the other girls, handle whoever grabs you on the way in, drop him as soon as you can and make your way up to the north wall."
"Where she'll have to dispose of two sentries," I said. "Be your age, Aldo, the whole thing is crazy. She wouldn't stand a chance."
"Who knows?" he said. "With a gun in the hand all things are possible, and I'll have to go in with you now, of course. You're going to need another man."
"It's worth a try, isn't it, Oliver?" she said. "I mean, we can't just turn back after having come all this way."
I took her by the shoulders, "It's just not on. God knows what could happen to you on the way in, and then the two sentries." I shook my head. "It's impossible."
And yet I think I knew inside me that I was talking for the sake of talking. As she'd said herself, she was our only chance. There was no one else.
She said quietly, "What are you speaking with, Oliver, your head or your heart?"
To which there could really be only one reply, so I turned to Zingari. "All right, everything goes according to the original plan except you take her instead of Carter."
He looked completely crushed, mainly at finding the whole thing was still on, I suppose. "All right, signor, if you insist. The girls will be delivered in two trucks at nine o'clock. I'll be driving the second one myself. I'll stop here outside the store at eight-thirty to pick her up."
Simone said, "I'll be ready."
Zingari shook his head. "Crazy. The whole stinking world is getting