“I get it,” said a pensive Montalbano.
“You get what?” asked Mimì.
“These four landings have been set up as decoys. Seccagrande and Capobianco are to the west of the Vigàta-Spigonella area, and Manfia and Fela are to the east. The sea off Vigàta-Spigonella is therefore momentarily without surveillance, the coast too. Any fishing-boat aware of this momentary corridor could easily land on one of our beaches without anyone noticing.”
“So?”
“So, my dear Mimì, that means Zarzis is going to go pick up his merchandise out on the water, with the dinghy. I don’t remember if I mentioned that there’s a two-way radio inside the villa. With that, they can stay in continuous contact and meet at a fixed spot. Did your lieutenant—”
“She’s not mine.”
“Did she tell you what time they were expecting these boats to reach land?”
“Around midnight.”
“That means you and the rest of the team should be ready at Spigonella by ten at the latest. Here’s what we’ll do. There are two signal lights on the rocks at the entrance to the little harbor. These will come on right before the dinghy goes out, and will be turned on again when it returns. I think these lights, and the moving barrier, are operated by a third man, the guardian of the villa. You’re going to have to go easy at first—that is, you can’t neutralize the guardian until after, I repeat, after he’s turned on the beacons for the dinghy’s reentry. Then you’ll have very little time. Once Zarzis and his helper are back in the house, you’ll take them by surprise. But be carefuclass="underline" they’ll have children with them, and they’re capable of anything. Now coordinate your actions between yourselves. I’m going out. Good luck, and may you bear only sons.”
“Where are you going?” asked Augello.
“I’m going back home for a minute, then I’ll head out to Spigonella. But let me repeat: you’ll be working on your own, and so will I.”
He left the room. Passing Catarella, he asked:
“Cat, could you find out if Torretta has some wire cutters and a pair of thigh-high rubber boots?”
He did. Wire cutters and boots.
At home he put on a black turtleneck sweater, a pair of black corduroy pants, which he tucked into the boots, and a wool cap, also black, replete with pompom, which he put on his head. All he needed was a bent pipe in his mouth, and he would be a perfect replica of the generic sea dog one often sees in third-rate American movies. He went to the mirror to have a look at himself. All he could do was laugh.
“Avast, old salt!”
He got to the white-and-red house in Spigonella by ten, but instead of turning onto the road to the bungalow, he took the one he’d taken the first time with Fazio. For the final stretch, he turned the headlights off. The sky was overcast, and it was so dark he couldn’t see a blasted thing more than a step away. He got out of the car and looked around. To the right, a hundred or more yards away, the villa’s dark mass. Of his men, no sign at all. Nothing. Either they hadn’t arrived yet, or if they had, they’d blended in perfectly. Wire cutter in hand and pistol in his pocket, he walked along the edge of the cliff until he could make out the start of the staircase he’d spotted the first time he was there. It wasn’t as hard going down as the other staircase, either because this one was less steep, or because he felt reassured to know that his men were nearby.
Halfway down the steps, he heard a motor rumbling. He realized at once that it was the dinghy, about to head out to sea. The sound was amplified by the silence and the grotto, which acted as an echo chamber. He froze. The water in front of the little harbor suddenly turned red. From where he stood, Montalbano didn’t actually see the signal light come on, since it was blocked by the tall rock in front of it. But that red reflection couldn’t mean anything else. He distinctly saw the dinghy’s silhouette pass through the reflection, though he couldn’t tell how many people were on board. Then the red glow vanished and the sound of the motor faded, turning into a flylike buzz that went on a long time before it disappeared. Everything was exactly as he’d imagined it. Resuming his descent, he had to refrain from singing at the top of his lungs. So far, he’d made all the right moves.
His satisfaction, however, did not last long. Walking on the dry sand in those high boots immediately proved arduous. Ten more steps, in fact, would have broken his back; on the other hand, moving closer to the water’s edge, where the sand was wet and more compacted, would have been too dangerous, taking him too far out in the open. He sat down on the ground and tried to remove the first boot. It slid a little down his thigh, then stubbornly refused to budge past his knee. He stood up and tried again from an upright position. Worse yet. He started sweating and cursing. He finally wedged a heel between two rocks protruding from the wall and managed to free himself. He resumed walking, barefoot, holding the wire cutter in one hand and the enormous boots in the other. In the dark he failed to see a clump of weeds full of thorns and stepped right on top of it. At least a hundred thorns plunged gleefully into the sole of his foot. He felt discouraged. He had to face the facts: these kinds of operations were no longer for him. When he got to the edge of the moat, he sat down on the ground and put the boots back on, breaking into a cold sweat from the pain caused by the friction of the rubber against all the thorns.
Lowering himself gently into the moat, he was pleased to find that he’d guessed right: the water came up to mid-thigh, barely half an inch below the top of the boots. Before him now stood the first of the midget monoliths that formed the little harbor, rising almost directly out of the rock face. Sticking the wire cutter in his belt, he groped the rock’s surface and found two protrusions to grab onto. He hoisted himself up with the strength of his arms. The rubber soles of the boots facilitated the climb with their traction. He slipped only once, managing to hang on with a single hand. Scaling the rock like a crab, he reached the wire fence, grabbed the wire cutter and, starting on the lower right, cut the first wire. A crisp, metallic crack rang out in the silence like a pistol shot, or so it seemed to him, at least. He held utterly still, not daring to move even a finger. But nothing happened. Nobody shouted, no one came running. Then, crack after crack—pausing cautiously between cracks—after half an hour he had managed to sever all the wires that were welded to the iron pole, which in turn was cemented into the rock face. He left only the top two wires uncut—one on the right, the other on the left—keeping the screen suspended and making it look like it was still intact. He would cut them in due time. For now, he had to get out of there. He left the wire cutter under the screen and, clinging to the upper part of the rock with both hands, he extended his body, searching for a foothold with his feet. Thinking he’d found one, he wedged the toes of his boots in the opening and let go. It was a mistake. The opening was not very deep and could not bear his weight. He slid down the rock, trying to halt the slide by using his fingers as claws. He felt like Sylvester the cat in one of his finest moments. He skinned his hands and plunged straight into the moat. But why didn’t Aristotle’s, er, Archimedes’ principle kick in? This principle said that a body immersed in liquid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of liquid displaced. Wasn’t that it? Whereas he had in no way been buoyed up. The only thing buoyed up was the water that came flying up over his head and fell back down on him, drenching his sweater and cheerfully flowing down between his cojones and into his boots. On top of this, his fall had sounded exactly like a beaching whale to him. He pricked his ears. Again, nothing. No voices, no sounds. Since the sea was a little rough, perhaps the watchman had thought it was merely a bigger wave splashing against the rocks. He climbed up out of the moat and lay down on the sand.