The Gemini Contenders: A Novel

  “I cannot help you,” said Barzini, sitting up, the anxiety in his questioning eyes and in the awkward rubbing together of his large hands. “There’s not a great deal of time to dwell on it, or to think. Not now.”

  Vittorio looked up at the huge, embarrassed farmhand sitting on the side of the primitive bed. They were in a room built of heavy wood. There was a door, only partially open, ten or fifteen feet away, on his left, but no windows. There were several other beds; he could not tell how many. It was a barracks for laborers.

  “Where are we?”

  “Across the Maggiore, south of Baveno. On a goat farm.”

  “How did we get here?”

  “A wild trip. The men at the riverfront drove us out They met us with a fast car on the road west of Campo di Fiori. The partigiano from Rome knows the drugs; he gave you a hypodermic needle.”

  “You carried me from the embankment to the west road?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s more than a mile.”

  “Perhaps. You’re large, but not so heavy.” Barzini stood up.

  “You saved my life.” Vittorio pressed his hands on the coarse blanket and raised himself to a sitting position, his back against the wall.

  “Revenge is not found in one’s own death.”

  “I understand.”

  “We must both travel. You out of Italy, me to Campo di Fiori.”

  “You’re going back?”

  “It’s where I can do the most good. The most damage.”

  Fontini-Cristi stared for a moment at Barzini. How quickly the unimaginable became the practical reality. How rapidly did men react savagely to the savage; and how necessary was that reaction. But there was no time. Barzini was right; the thinking would come later.

  “Is there a way for me to get out of the country? You said all of northern Italy was sealed off.”

  “All the usual routes. It is a manhunt mounted by Rome, directed by the Germans. There are other ways. The British will help, I am told.”

  “The British?”

  “That is the word. They have been on partigiano radios all through the night.”

  “The British? I don’t understand.”

  The vehicle was an old farm truck with poor brakes and a sliding clutch, but it was strudy enough for the badly paved back roads. It was no match for motorcycles or official automobiles, but excellent for traveling from one point to another in the farm country—one more truck carrying a few livestock that lurched unsteadily in the open, slatted van.

  Vittorio was dressed, as was his driver, in the filthy, dung-encrusted, sweat-stained clothes of a farm laborer. He was provided with a dirty, mutilated identification card that gave his name as Aldo Ravena, former soldato semplice in the Italian army. It could be assumed his schooling was minimal; any conversation he might have with the police would be simple, blunt, and perhaps a touch hostile.

  They had been driving since dawn, southwest into Torino, where they swung southeast toward Alba. With no serious interruptions they would reach Alba by nightfall.

  At an espresso bar in Alba’s main piazza, San Giorno, they would make contact with the British; two operatives sent in by MI6. It would be their job to get Fontini-Cristi down to the coast and through the patrols that guarded every mile of waterfront from Genoa to San Remo. Italian personnel, German efficiency, Vittorio was told.

  This area of the coast in the Gulf of Genoa was considered the most conducive to infiltration. For years it had been a primary source route for Corsican smugglers. Indeed the Unio Corso claimed the beaches and rocky ocean cliffs as their own. They called this coast the soft belly of Europe; they knew every inch.

  Which was fine as far as the British were concerned. They employed the Corsicans, whose services went to the highest bidders. The Unio Corso would aid London in getting Fontini-Cristi through the patrols and out on the water where, in a prearranged rendezvous north of Rogliano on the Corsican coast, a submarine from the Royal Navy would surface and pick him up.

  This was the information Vittorio was given—by the ragtail lunatics he had scorned as children playing primitive games. The unkempt, wild-eyed fools who had formed an untenable alliance with such men as his father had saved his life. Were saving his life. Skinny peasant thugs who had direct communication with the far-off British … far off and not so distant. No farther than Alba.

  How? Why? What in the name of God were the English doing? Why were they doing it? What were men he had barely acknowledged, hardly spoken to in his life before—except to order and ignore—what were they doing. And why? He was no friend; no enemy, perhaps, but certainly no friend.

  These were the questions that frightened Vittorio Fontini-Cristi. A nightmare had exploded in white light and death, and he was not capable of fathoming—even wanting—his own survival.

  They were eight miles from Alba on a curving dirt road that paralleled the main highway from Torino. The partigiano driver was weary, his eyes bloodshot from the long day of bright sunlight. The shadows of early evening were now playing tricks on his eyes; his back obviously ached from the constant strain. Except for infrequent fuel stops he had not left his seat. Time was vital.

  “Let me drive for a while.”

  “We’re nearly there, signore. You don’t know this road; I do. We’ll enter Alba from the east, on the Canelli highway. There may be soldiers at the municipal limits. Remember what you’re to say.”

  “As little as possible, I think.”

  The truck entered the light traffic on the Via Canelli and maintained a steady speed with the other vehicles. As the driver had predicted, there were two soldiers at the municipal line.

  For any of a dozen reasons, the truck was signaled to stop. They pulled off the road onto the shoulder of sand and waited. A sergeant approached the driver’s window, a private stood laconically outside Fontini-Cristi’s.

  “Where are are you from?” asked the sergeant.

  “A farm south of Baveno,” the partigiano said.

  “You’ve come a long way for such a small delivery. I count five goats.”

  “Breeding stock. They’re better animals than they look. Ten thousand lire for the males; eight for the females.”

  The sergeant raised his eyebrows. He did not smile as he spoke. “You don’t look like you’re worth that, paisan. Your identification.”

  The partisan reached into his rear pocket and pulled out a worn billfold. He withdrew the state card and handed it to the soldier.

  “This says you’re from Varallo.”

  “I come from Varallo. I work in Baveno.”

  “South of Baveno,” corrected the soldier coldly. “You,” said the sergeant, addressing Vittorio. “Your identification.”

  Fontini-Cristi put his hand into his jacket, bypassing the handle of his pistol, and removed the card. He handed it to the driver, who gave it to the soldier.

  “You were in Africa?”

  “Yes, sergeant,” replied Vittorio bluntly.

  “What corps?”

  Fontini-Cristi was silent. He had no answer. His mind raced, trying to recall from the news a number, or a name. “The Seventh,” he said.

  “I see.” The sergeant returned the card; Vittorio exhaled. But the relief was short-lived. The soldier reached for the handle of the door, yanked it downward and pulled the door open swiftly. “Get out! Both of you!”

  “What? Why?” objected the partisan in a loud whine. “We have to make our delivery by nightfall! There’s barely time!”

  “Get out.” The sergeant had removed his army revolver from the black leather holster and was pointing it at both men. He barked his orders across the hood to the private. “Pull him out! Cover him!”

  Vittorio looked at the driver. The partisan’s eyes told him to do as he was told. But to stay alert, be ready to move; the man’s eyes told him that also.

  Out of the truck on the shoulder of sand, the sergeant commanded both men to walk toward the guardhouse that stood next to a telephone pole. A telephon
e wire sagged down from a junction box and was attached to the roof of the small enclosure; the door was narrow, and open.

  On the Via Canelli the twilight traffic was heavier now; or it seemed heavier to Fontini-Cristi. There were mostly cars, with a scattering of trucks, not unlike the farm trucks they were driving. A number of drivers slowed perceptibly at the sight of the two soldiers, their weapons drawn, marching the two civilians to the guardhouse. Then the drivers speeded up, anxious to be away.

  “You have no right to stop us!” cried the partisan. “We’ve done nothing illegal. It’s no crime to earn a living!”

  “It’s a crime to give false information, paisan.”

  “We gave no false information! We are workers from Baveno, and, by the Mother of God, that’s the truth!”

  “Be careful,” said the soldier sarcastically. “We’ll add sacrilege to the charges. Get inside!”

  The roadside guardhouse seemed even smaller than it appeared from the Via Canelli. The depth was no more than five feet, the length perhaps six. There was barely enough room for the four of them. And the look in the partisan’s eyes told Vittorio that the close quarters was an advantage.

  “Search them,” ordered the sergeant.

  The private placed his rifle on the floor, barrel up. The partisan driver then did a strange thing. He pulled his arms across his chest, protectively over his coat, as though it were a conscious act of defiance. Yet the man was not armed; he had made that clear to Fontini-Cristi.

  “You’ll steal!” he said, louder than was necessary, his words vibrating in the wooden shack. “Soldiers steal!”

  “We’re not concerned with your lire, paisan. There are more impressive vehicles on the highway. Take your hands from your coat.”

  “Even in Rome reasons are given! Il Duce, himself, says the workers are not to be treated so! I march with the fascist guards; my rider served in Africa!”

  What was the man doing? thought Vittorio. Why was he behaving so? It would only anger the soldiers. “You try my patience, pig! We look for a man from Maggiore. Every road post looks for this man. You were stopped because the license on your truck is from the Maggiore district … Hold out your arms!”

  “Baveno! Not Maggiore! We are from Baveno! Where are the lies?”

  The sergeant looked at Vittorio. “No soldier in Africa says he was with the Seventh Corps. It was disgraced.”

  The army guard had barely finished when the partisan screamed his command.

  “Now, signore! Take the other!” The driver’s hand swept down, lashing at the revolver in the sergeant’s grip, only inches from his stomach. The suddenness of the action and the shattering roar of the partisan’s voice in the small enclosure had the effect of an unexpected collision. Vittorio had no time to watch; he could only hope his companion knew what he was doing. The private had lurched for his rifle, his left hand on the barrel, his right surging down to the stock. Fontini-Cristi threw his weight against the man, slamming him into the wall, both hands on the side of the soldier’s head, crashing the head into the hard, wooden surface. The private’s barracks cap fell off; blood matted instantly throughout the hairline and streaked down over the man’s head. He slumped to the floor.

  Vittorio turned. The sergeant was wedged into the corner of the tiny guardhouse, the partisan over him, pistol-whipping him with his own weapon. The soldier’s face was a mass of torn flesh, the blood and ripped skin sickening.

  “Quickly!” cried the partisan as the sergeant fell. “Bring the truck to the front! Directly to the front; squeeze it between the road and the guardhouse. Keep the motor running.”

  “Very well,” said Fontini-Cristi, confused by the brutality as well as the swift decisiveness of the last thirty seconds.

  “And, signore!” shouted the partisan, as Vittorio had one foot out the door.

  “Yes?”

  “Your gun, please. Let me use it. These army issues are like thunder.”

  Fontini-Cristi hesitated, then withdrew the weapon and handed it to the man. The partisan reached over to the crank-telephone on the wall and ripped it out.

  Vittorio steered the truck to the front of the guardhouse, the left wheels by necessity on the hard surface of the highway; there was not sufficient room on the shoulder to pull completely off the road. He hoped the rear lights were sufficiently bright for the onrushing traffic—far heavier now—to see the obstruction and skirt it.

  The partisan came out of the guardhouse and spoke through the window. “Race the motor, signore. As loud and as fast as you can.”

  Fontini-Cristi did so. The partisan ran back to the guard house. Gripped in his right hand was Vittorio’s pistol.

  The two shots were deep and sharp; muffled combustions that were sudden, terrible outbursts within the sounds of the rushing traffic and racing motor. Vittorio stared, his emotions a mixture of awe and fear and, inexplicably, sorrow. He had entered a world of violence he did not understand.

  The partisan emerged from the guardhouse, pulling the narrow door shut behind him. He jumped into the truck, slammed the door panel, and nodded to Vittorio. Fontini-Cristi waited several moments for a break in the traffic, then let out the clutch. The old truck lurched forward.

  “There is a garage on the Via Monte that will hide the truck, paint it, and alter the license plates. It’s less than a mile from the Piazza San Giorno. We’ll walk there from the garage. I’ll tell you where to turn.”

  The partisan held out the pistol for Vittorio. “Thank you,” said Fontini-Cristi awkwardly, as he shoved the weapon into his jacket pocket. “You killed them?”

  “Of course,” was the simple reply.

  “I suppose you had to.”

  “Naturally. You’ll be in England, signore. I, in Italy. I could be identified.”

  “I see,” answered Vittorio, the hesitancy in his voice.

  “I don’t mean disrespect, Signor Fontini-Cristi, but I don’t think you do see. You people at Campo di Fiori, it’s all new to you. It’s not new to us. We’ve been at war for twenty years; I, myself, for ten.”

  “War?”

  “Yes. Who do you think trains your partigiani?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I am a Communist, signore. The powerful, capitalist Fontini-Cristis are shown how to fight by Communists.”

  The truck was rushing forward; Vittorio held the wheel firmly, astonished but strangely unmoved by his companion’s words.

  “I didn’t know that,” he replied.

  “It’s peculiar, isn’t it?” said the partisan. “No one ever asked.”

  4

  DECEMBER 30, 1939

  ALBA, ITALY

  The espresso bar was crowded, the tables full, the voices loud. Vittorio followed the partisan through the mass of gesturing hands and reluctantly parted bodies to the counter; they ordered coffee with Strega.

  “Over there,” said the partisan, indicating a table in the corner with three laborers seated around it, their soiled clothes and stubbled faces testifying to their status. There was one empty chair.

  “How do you know? I thought we were to meet two men, not three. And British. Besides, there’s not enough room; there’s only one chair.”

  “Look at the heavyset man on the right. The identification is on the shoes. There are splotches of orange paint, not much but visible. He’s the Corsican. The other two are English. Go over and say ‘Our trip was uneventful’; that’s all. The man with the shoes will get up; take his seat.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll join you in a minute. I must talk with the Corso.”

  Vittorio did as he was told. The heavyset man with the drippings of paint on his shoes got up, heaving a sigh of discomfort; Fontini-Cristi sat down. The British across from him spoke. His Italian was grammatically proper but hesitant; he had learned the language but not the idiom.

  “Our sincerest regrets. Absolutely dreadful. We’ll get you out.”

  “Thank you. Would you prefer speaking English
? I’m fluent.”

  “Good,” said the second man. “We weren’t sure. We’ve had precious little time to read up on you. We were flown out of Lakenheath this morning. The Corsos picked us up in Pietra Ligure.”

  “Everything’s happened so fast,” said Vittorio. “The shock hasn’t worn off.”

  “Don’t see how it could,” said the first man. “But we’re not clear yet You’ll have to keep your wits about you. Our orders are to make bloody sure we get you to London: not to come back without you, and that’s a fact.”

  Vittorio looked alternately at both men. “May I ask you why? Please understand, I’m grateful, but your concern seems to me extraordinary. I’m not humble, but neither am I a fool. Why am I so important to the British?”

  “Damned if we know,” replied the second agent. “But I can tell you, all hell broke loose last night. All night. We spent from midnight till four in the morning at the Air Ministry. All the radio dials in every operations room were beaming like mad. We’re working with the Corsicans, you know.”

  “Yes, I was told.”

  The partisan walked through the crowds to the table. He pulled out the empty chair and sat down, a glass of Strega in his hand. The conversation was continued in Italian.

  “We had trouble on the Canelli road. A checkpoint. Two guards had to be taken out.”

  “What’s the A-span?” asked the agent on Fontini-Cristi’s right. He was a slender man, somewhat more intense than his partner. He saw the puzzled expression on Vittorio’s face and clarified. “How long does he think we have before the alarm goes out?”

  “Midnight. When the twelve o’clock shift arrives. No one bothers with unanswered telephones. The equipment breaks down all the time.”

  “Well done,” said the agent across the table. He was rounder in the face than his fellow Englishman; he spoke more slowly, as if constantly choosing his words. “You’re a Bolshevik, I imagine.”

  “I am,” replied the partisan, his hostility near the surface.

  “No, no, please,” added the agent. “I like working with you chaps. You’re very thorough.”