At the end of the first week, Rogan was about to move on to Budapest when he received a surprise caller at his hotel. It was Arthur Bailey, the Berlin-based American Intelligence agent.
Bailey held out a protesting hand, a friendly smile on his face. “I’m here to help,” he said. “I found out you’ve got too much drag in Washington to be pushed around, so I might as well. Of course I have my selfish motive, too. I want to keep you from accidentally ruining a lot of our groundwork in setting up information systems in Europe.”
Rogan looked at him thoughtfully for a long moment. It was impossible to doubt the man’s sincerity and warm friendliness. “Fine,” he said at last. “You can start off helping me by telling me where to find Genco Bari.” He offered the lean American a drink.
Bailey sat down, relaxed, and sipped his Scotch. “Sure, I can tell you that,” he said. “But first you have to promise that you’ll let me help you all the way. After Genco Bari you’ll go after Pajerski in Budapest and then von Osteen in Munich, or vice versa. I want you to promise to follow my advice. I don’t want you caught. If you are, you’ll wreck Intelligence contacts it’s taken the United States years and millions of dollars to set up.”
Rogan didn’t smile or act particularly friendly. “OK. Just tell me where Bari is-and make sure I get a visa for Budapest.”
Bailey sipped his drink. “Genco Bari is living in his walled estate just outside the village of Villalba in central Sicily. The necessary Hungarian visas will be waiting for you in Rome whenever you’re ready. And in Budapest I want you to contact the Hungarian interpreter at the United States consulate. His name is Rakol. He’ll give you all the help you need and arrange your exit from the country. Fair enough?”
“Sure,” Rogan said. “And when I get back to Munich do I contact you, or will you contact me?”
“I’ll contact you,” Bailey said. “Don’t worry. I’ll be able to find you.”
Bailey finished his drink. Rogan saw him to the elevator and Bailey said casually, “After you killed those first four guys, that gave us enough of a lead to break your Munich Palace of Justice case wide open. That’s how I know about Bari, Pajerski, and von Osteen.”
Rogan smiled politely. “That’s what I figured,” he said. “But since I found them by myself, it doesn’t matter what you found out. Right?”
Bailey gave him an odd look, shook hands, and just before getting into the elevator said, “Good luck.”
As Bailey knew the whereabouts of Genco Bari, Rogan realized that everyone else must have known too-the police chief, the private detectives, probably even the hotel manager. Genco Bari was one of the big Mafia leaders of Sicily; his name was no doubt known throughout the country.
He rented a car to drive the fifty-odd miles to Villalba. It struck him that he would quite possibly never leave this island alive, and that the last criminals would remain unpunished. But that didn’t seem to matter so much now. As it did not matter that he had made up his mind not to see Rosalie again. He had arranged for her to receive money from his estate once she had been in touch with the office. She would forget about him and make a new life. Nothing mattered at the moment except killing Genco Bari. And Rogan thought about that man in the Italian uniform. The only man of the seven in the high-domed room in the Munich Palace of Justice who had treated him with any genuine warmth. And yet he, too, had taken part in the final betrayal.
On that final terrible morning in the Munich Palace of Justice, Klaus von Osteen had smiled in the shadows behind his great desk, as Hans and Eric Freisling had urged Rogan to change into his “freedom clothes.” Genco Bari had said nothing; he’d merely looked at him with gentle pitying eyes. Finally he had crossed the room and stood in front of Rogan. He had helped Rogan knot his tie, had patted it securely inside Rogan’s jacket. He had distracted Rogan so that Rogan had never seen Eric Freisling slip behind him with the gun. Bari, too, had taken a hand in the final humiliating cruelty of the execution. And it was because of Bari’s humanity that Rogan could not forgive him. Moltke had been a selfish, self-serving man; Karl Pfann, a brutal animal. The Freisling brothers were evil incarnate. What they had done could be expected, springing as it did out of their very natures. But Genco Bari had exuded a human warmth, and his taking part in torture and execution was a deliberate, malignant degeneracy; unforgivable.
Now driving through the starry Sicilian night, Rogan thought of all the years he had dreamed of his revenge. How it had been the one thing that had kept him from dying. And when they had thrown him on the pile of corpses stacked outside the Munich Palace of Justice, even then when his shattered brain oozed blood and flickered with only a tiny spark, how that tiny spark had been kept alive by the energy of sheer hatred.
And now that he was no longer with Rosalie, now that he planned not to see her again, his memories of his dead wife seemed to flood back into his being. He thought, Christine, Christine, you would have loved this starry night, the balmy air of Sicily. You always trusted and liked everyone. You never understood the work I was doing, not really. You never understood what would happen to all of us if we were captured. When I heard your screams in the Munich Palace of Justice, it was the surprise in your screams that made them so terrifying. You could not believe that human beings did such terrible things to their fellow human beings.
She had been beautifuclass="underline" long legs for a French girl, with rounded thighs; a slim waist and small shy breasts that grew bold beneath his hand; lovely soft brown hair like overflowing silk; and charmingly serious eyes. Her lips, full and sensual, had had the same character and honesty as he’d seen in her eyes.
What had they done to her before she died? Bari, Pfann, Moltke, the Freislings, Pajerski, and von Osteen? How had they made her scream so; how had they killed her? He had never asked any of the others because they would have lied to him. Pfann and Moltke would have made it seem less terrible; the Freisling brothers would have invented gory details to make him suffer even now. Only Genco Bari would tell him the truth. For some reason Rogan was sure of this. He would finally learn how his pregnant wife had died. He would learn what had caused those terrible screams, the screams that the torturers had recorded and preserved so carefully.
CHAPTER 12
He reached the town of Villalba at 11:30 p.m. and was surprised to find it brilliantly lighted, hundreds of colored lanterns strung in arches over every street. From gaily decorated wooden booths lining the cobblestone pavements, villagers offered hot sausages for sale, and wine, and thick Sicilian pizza squares with oily anchovies buried in a rich bed of tomato sauce. The smell filled the night air and made Rogan ravenous. He stopped the car and devoured a sandwich of sausage until his mouth felt on fire from the hot spicy meat. Then he moved to the next booth to buy a glass of tart red wine.
He had come to Villalba on the birthday of the town’s patron saint, Saint Cecilia. As was the custom, the people of the town were celebrating the birthday of their saint with a great fiesta that would last three days. Rogan had arrived on the evening of the fiesta’s second day. By this time everybody, including some of the small children, was drunk on the new, tart Sicilian wine. They greeted Rogan with open arms. And when they heard him speak his almost perfect Italian the wine merchant, a huge fat man with big mustaches who said his name was Tullio, embraced Rogan.
They drank together. Tullio wouldn’t let him go, refused to take money for the wine. Other men gathered around. Some brought long loaves of bread stuffed with sweet fried peppers; others gnawed on smoked eels. Children danced in the streets. Then down the main avenue came three elaborately dressed girls, shining black hair piled high, strolling arm in arm and giving the men provocative looks. These were the fiesta putains, the festival whores, specially picked and imported to pluck the virginity of all the young men who had come of age this year, and thus protect the honor of the local girls.