Bloody Passage - Jack Higgins [76]
"So what are you getting at?"
"It's simple. Instead of Langley, he gets you. You tell him Langley was killed during the prison break."
"I see," I said. "He'll have to go through the whole charade as he originally spelled it out."
"That's right. You'll have to have Wyatt on deck as we go in and Stavrou will have Hannah waiting up on the high terrace. You'll go up to the villa, make the exchange."
Barzini shook his head and slammed a hand against the table. "But it isn't meant to be that way. He never intended it to be that way. He wants Wyatt, but he needs him dead. That means he's got to shut our mouths too and money ain't enough, not to a guy like him."
I said to Simone, "What did you think would happen? Originally, I mean?"
"He had to play rough to get you," she said. "I accepted that, but as for the rest," she shrugged. "He sold me the same bill of goods he sold you. Getting Stephen Wyatt out of Ras Kanai was a sacred duty in loving memory of his wife."
"The bastard," Nino said.
"There is one thing in our favor," I said. "The fact that Stavrou doesn't realize how much we know."
"Just a minute," Simone said. "Wouldn't it occur to him that Wyatt would have said rather a lot?"
"That's easy," I shrugged. "I tell him on the radio that Wyatt's badly wounded from the prison break, delirious. No reason he shouldn't accept that."
"So he'll expect you to take Wyatt up to the villa and hand him over in exchange for Hannah and your money."
"Exactly."
"And you'll be ready for anything he tries?"
"Crazy." Barzini slammed his fist against the table. "It doesn't even begin to face the real problem, which is the girl. What happens to her? She's up on the high terrace, right? With that old cow of a woman breathing down her neck. We take Wyatt up there for a confrontation then start a shooting war." He shook his head. "The girl is the first to go."
He was right of course. There was no way round that--no way at all--and then Nino said almost casually, "What we need is someone on the inside."
Simone said, "But that isn't possible. There's no other way up to the villa from the beach except the road."
"Sure there is," Nino said. "There's the cliff."
There was a kind of stunned silence and we all stared at him. "You think you could climb that cliff?" I said incredulously.
"Nothing to it. A goat could get up there. You give me a decent gun, I'll climb up to the high terrace and shoot that old bitch before she has time to lay a glove on your sister."
Barzini clapped an arm about his shoulders and hugged him. "As a Barzini I'm proud of you. When we get back to Palermo I'll buy off the Mafia. This I swear even if you have to marry that damn girl. I don't care what it costs."
It was Simone who put a damper on things. "All very well," she said. "But what about Wyatt? Is he capable of going through with all that? Will he want to?"
The cabin door creaked and we turned to find Stephen Wyatt on his feet, leaning in the doorway. He smiled crookedly. "Don't worry about him, Miss Delmas. He wouldn't miss it for anything on top of this earth."
It was still raining as we moved in toward the great cliffs below the villa at Capo Passero. Simone was below with Wyatt, Barzini and I were in the wheel-house, and Nino crouched on the floor out of sight. He wore a wetsuit and aqualung and had a canvas waterproof bag attached to his waist containing climbing boots and a pistol. He had a pair of binoculars out and was busy examining the cliff through a hole Barzini had kicked through a panel for him.
"Like I said, nothing to it," he said. "There's a cleft running all the way up on this side of the point just by the entrance to that bay. I'll go up that way and work my way round to the terrace."
"How long will it take you?"
He had another look through the binoculars. "No more than half an hour. Mind you, I'd better get started, just in case."
"Okay, good luck," I said.
"Go with God," Barzini whispered.
We were perhaps fifty or sixty yards