It was a long chance, but it looked as if they might get away with it. The trucks trundled stolidly along on the right-hand side of the trail, while the Mafia car tore up on their left, its wheels within inches of the unfenced verge. The scout car swung out of line behind it and raced in pursuit, the occupants of both cars exchanging shots, though neither seemed to be having any effect.
The end came with shocking suddenness as one of the truck drivers farther up the column became aware of what was occurring. He must have seen the flash of gunfire or heard the shots above the grinding of engines, and reacted with commendable intelligence and initiative. As the Alfa-Romeo came up to pass his truck, he edged out of line and narrowed the space between the flank of his vehicle and the edge of nothingness. The Mafia driver, crowded by the scout car immediately behind him, held down blaringly on his klaxon and made a frantic bid to squeeze through. The truck remorselessly held its course and hogged a little more. Finally the sides of the two vehicles touched, with much the same effect as a ping-pong ball grazing a locomotive. The Alfa-Romeo was simply flipped sideways off the road, and was gone. There was a delayed crash and a flash of fire from the ravine below, but the convoy had rolled on well beyond that point before the final reverberations could rumble up to its level.
This was the only crisis that disturbed the purely figurative smoothness of the trip. Within minutes the road levelled out, and brake-lights glowed as the column ground to a halt. Major Olivetti’s car roared back down the line and stopped beside Simon.
“The engineers are there, and report all the wires cut as ordered,” he said. “We’re ready to go in. According to the map, the house is only about a kilometer ahead. The scouts will go first and I will follow, and it would be best if you kept close to me. I must have positive identification of the house before there is any shooting.”
He was away again before the Saint could do more than half-salute in answer. Simon gunned the Bugatti after the Fiat scout car and followed it down the road, until a motorcyclist waved them to a stop. They pulled off into an open orchard, and with instinctive prospicience Simon backed his car into a position from which it would be free to take off again in any direction. After this they continued on foot through the orchard, until the trees thinned out to disclose a house looming ahead across a clearing, blacked out and silent.
“Is that the place?” Major Olivetti asked.
“It could be,” Simon answered. “I can’t be absolutely certain, because I never saw it from this side. It looks something like the right shape. Does the location fit the description I gave you, on the edge of a cliff?”
“Perfectly. And the scouts report no other house near here that fits it. You can see the beginning of the road there that leads down to the village, gravel surfaced as you described it. Another column is down there, blocking any escape that way. We can go into action as soon as you are absolutely certain that this is the right place.”
“Are all your men in position?”
“On all sides. The mortars should be down and sighted by now, the machine guns set up as well.”
“Shall I go and ring their front door bell?” Simon asked, straightening up and taking a few steps into the moonlit clearing.
“Don’t be a fool — get down! They can see you from the house!”
“That is precisely the idea,” Simon said. “The people inside must have heard your trucks, and if they have guilty consciences they should now be keeping a rather jittery lookout.”
He stood gazing intently at the building for several seconds, and then stepped back with exaggerated furtiveness behind a thick-trunked tree.
He had gauged the impression he would give, and its timing, with impudent accuracy. There was a rattle of gunfire from the house, and a covey of bullets passed near, some of them thunking into the tree.
“That seems to settle it,” Simon remarked coolly. “And now that they’ve started the shooting, you have all the justification you need for shooting back.”
With or without the reassurance of such legalistic argument, some of the deployed soldiers were already returning the fire. The house promptly sparkled with more flashes as its occupants accepted the challenge. Bullets whipped leaves from the trees and keened away in plaintive ricochets. Someone turned a spotlight on the building, and before it was shot out they could see that most of the heavy shutters on the windows were open for an inch or two to provide gun slits, and most of them seemed to be in use.
“Very nice,” Olivetti said, crouching beside Simon and Ponti, “You ask me to help you make a raid on some criminals, but you did not tell me we should be fighting a minor battle.”
“Mi despiace, Commandante,” Ponti said. “I did not plan it this way.”
“You are sorry? This is the best thing that could have happened! In the summer no skiing, and all they do is chase girls and drink. We shall sweat some of the wine out of them tonight! All I want to know is in what condition you want those men inside the house. If it is dead, it will be easy. Only there will be a certain amount of mortar fire necessary, and before entering rooms we would roll in a grenade or two. That way, there may be very few prisoners.”
“There are some that I want alive,” Ponti said. “The leaders only. The rest, your soldiers can practise their training upon, and save the courts much useless expense. But I want the men at the top, to identify them and bring them to a public trial which will focus the attention of the whole country. If they are only killed here they will become martyrs: the lesser leaders will take over, and the whole organization will soon be flourishing again.”
Simon thought of reminding them that Gina Destamio might also be in the house, for all he knew. But if she were, the mafiosi themselves would protect her as much as they could, if only until they could use her as a hostage. And as a mere possibility it was too speculative to justify holding up the assault.
“That is more difficult, but we can try,” Olivetti was saying. “I will blow open the front door and the ground floor windows, and we will rush them from three directions. We shall have some casualties, but—”
Suddenly headlights blazed on the far side of the house, and a car roared around the driveway and careened into the road. It was closely followed by another. Both were large sedans and apparently well manned, for their windows blazed with a crackle of small arms.
“Aim for the drivers!” bellowed the Major, in a voice that could be heard easily above the rising crescendo of gunfire. “Then we can take the others alive!”
The leading car drove straight at the front of the army truck which had been strategically parked across the road, without slackening speed, smashed into it, and burst into flame. Frantic men tumbled out and stumbled away from the flickering light. The second car braked violently, but not enough to lose all momentum as it crashed into the rear of the first. It then became clear that the whole sequence was deliberate: the first impact had slewed the truck around enough to leave a car’s width between its bumper and the bordering stone wall, and the second car was now ramming the burning wreck of its companion through the gap.
Soldiers were running in from all sides now, firing as they came. It seemed impossible that the second car could still move: two of its tires were flat, and gasoline was pouring from its tank. Yet its rear wheels spun and gripped and it managed somehow to plough on, pushing the first car through with a horrible groaning and clanking of metal and making an open path for itself.
“Give me that!” roared the Major, and snatched an automatic rifle from a trooper.