Which they clearly were.
That morning, Palma left the hotel alone and strolled without apparent direction or hurry around the curve of the inner harbour, towards the main thoroughfare of the city. At the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele he took two espressos at the pavement table of a cafe before disappearing inside to use the wall-mounted telephone: the surveillance squad were certain of two separate calls, but there might have been a third. The man took another coffee further along the Corso, after which he set off towards the centre of the town before turning on to narrower streets. At the via Candelai he went into a restaurant to which the three Russians had already been followed, by an independent team of watchers: both teams were at once replaced. Two men from the second group went inside to eat and arrived in time to witness Palma shake hands with Zimin and all four men touch glasses in what was clearly another celebration toast. They managed three more obvious toasts working their way through three bottles of Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi: the pedestrian-minded Amasov ate veal again, but the others divided between lamb and liver.
They separated after lunch. Zimin and Zavorin practically retraced the route of the American that morning, lingering on the waterfront and appearing to read the harbour notices.
Amasov went with Palma to a car-hire facility off the via Roma, where they rented the largest Fiat model available. Palma put down an American Express card for security but paid in advance for four days’ hire in cash. Five of the undercover police cars brought in on the overnight ferry had matching engine capacity, but all were supercharged.
That night the four ate at a seafood restaurant on the harbour edge. Amasov left most of his fish stew.
At the conference to review the day’s developments, Cowley pointed out the duration of the car hire supported his time-frame suggestion. Patton added the fact that they had hired a car at all meant they intended travelling out of town, and guessed Amasov to be the intended driver. There was general agreement the meandering walks around the city were more to kill time than evade any possible surveillance, although Palma’s call from a public, untraceable telephone was an obvious precaution.
‘Force of habit more than suspicion,’ judged Patton. ‘These guys think they’re as free as the wind.’
The number of the hire car was circulated to all motorised units in the special squad, but withheld from general distribution to island forces.
‘We know who they are: what they look like,’ declared Melega. ‘They’re trapped: there’s no way they can possibly escape.’
That night Cowley drank more than he had for a long time, although he still did not get badly drunk. At an early stage he said to Danilov: ‘Nervous?’
‘Yes.’
‘Melega’s right. We’ve got them.’
‘Not yet.’
‘It’s been good, working with you again.’
Danilov, who had not drunk as much, was curious at the maudlin tone. ‘It’s a long way from being over yet.’
‘But then it will be,’ said Cowley, even more enigmatically. He was still drinking, with the willing Patton, when Danilov went to bed.
They were later to decide the following day’s surveillance – and with it the whole operation – might well have been wrecked but for the helicopters. It began smoothly enough. The Mafia group left the President Hotel just before ten and set off eastwards along the coast road, with Amasov at the wheel of the Fiat. Within fifteen minutes of their departure, there were four cars alternating the pursuit, with Melega, Danilov and the three Americans staying well behind and out of sight in the fifth, one of the vehicles brought over from the mainland specifically to act as the command car through its complete range of radio and telephone equipment. From it Melega ordered six more cars on to the road, but with instructions to remain behind them until summoned to replace the closer police vehicles before they became suspiciously noticeable. Just outside Termini one of the immediate surveillance cars radioed back that the group had stopped for coffee. Melega immediately halted their vehicle and made his first change, switching one of the rear cars with one in front.
‘Sightseeing?’ queried Smith.
‘These guys don’t waste time on scenery and ancient monuments,’ said Patton.
The cavalcade resumed after thirty minutes, continuing eastwards. At once Melega began a rapid conversation in Italian, swivelling and then ducking in his front seat to make it easier to look upwards. Within minutes, without explanation, he pointed and said: ‘There!’
The helicopter was painted an orange yellow. The side doors were open and it was flying so low, parallel to the coastline, they could clearly see the crew. Patton and Smith looked, horrified, at one another: Patton shrugged, to Cowley. Melega saw the gesture and smiled, unoffended. There was a babble of incoming Italian on the radio, then abruptly a more blurred reception overlaid with the engine noise of the helicopter. The machine was briefly lost from sight, far ahead, and then soared into view again, climbing high before banking out to sea and completing its turn westwards to go back towards Palermo.
‘Wasn’t that…?’ began Cowley dubiously, but Melega raised his hand, stopping the American to listen to another incoming report.
The Italian gave a satisfied head movement. Turning to the rear, he said: ‘They’ve gone off the coastal highway, inland. The mountain road is good, but we couldn’t sustain a pursuit all the way across to Catania without being picked up. And certainly not if they went off the main road, to any of the villages.’
‘So how we going to do it?’ demanded Patton.
‘Call off all the vehicles, until we might need them,’ said Melega simply. ‘The new pursuit car radioed the number of the Fiat to the helicopter they were meant to see: it’s an air-sea rescue machine, by the way. The colour was essential for the real observer machine, as a marker. The climb you saw was directly level with the Fiat, identifying it for the helicopter you can’t see – and which is flying overhead too high for them to see or hear, either.’ He gave another satisfied smile. ‘Not far in from the coast there’s a little town called Sciara. The restaurant is very good there.’
They did not go there in the antennae-festooned command car, transferring instead at Imerese into two ordinary-looking vehicles to arrive separately at Sciara, where they attempted to eat, but with little appetite, eel and mullet and grouper: no-one drank anything but mineral water. Patton’s hand kept straying beneath the concealment of the table to the Smith and Wesson on his hip: the man had manoeuvred the seating with his back to a wall, which Danilov thought ridiculous. None of them – apart from Melega – relaxed, each feeling cut off and inadequate without access to the radio telephone and their constant monitor. Melega promised there were other helicopters to airlift them as well as carabinieri anywhere in the mountains a meeting with the Sicilian Mafia might be seen from existing, spy-in-the-sky surveillance, but no-one was reassured. Patton’s stomach began to echo, audibly: he apologised for an ulcerous condition.
Melega had a disjointed conversation on a handset driving back towards the coast, but did not get a full account until he talked from the command car. ‘Villalba,’ he announced. ‘It’s about seventy kilometres inland: maybe a little more.’ He looked up from a map. ‘We risked one car: a policeman and policewoman, supposedly lost tourists needing re-direction. Palma and the Russians drank in the only bar but didn’t eat. They didn’t meet anyone, while my two were in the bar. The helicopter saw Palma and the Russians walk to a farmhouse on the outskirts of the village. From the condition of the ground and the outhouses, it looks deserted. The four of them walked around but didn’t go inside. They’re on their way back this way.’
‘A reconnaissance,’ Smith decided.
‘Which it always had to be,’ said Melega.
‘A small village?’ prompted Cowley, anticipating the problem from his earlier posting in Rome.