Port of Palermo
Palermo, Sicily
1805 25 March 1943
The Stefania, her diesel engine idling, was moored next to the huge cargo ship when Dick Canidy helped Professor Arturo Rossi aboard.
Rossi, carrying a suitcase packed with his papers from his office at the university, tried to move too quickly and nearly fell into the dark water.
Canidy took the suitcase and Rossi awkwardly rushed again to get aboard.
He made it, and Canidy then handed the suitcase over and hopped aboard with his duffel.
As he helped the professor into the cabin, Canidy thought, He’s been in high gear since the very second he understood that I could get him the hell out of here.
Keeping him under wraps the last few days has been tough.
And no wonder.
He loses two dear colleagues—one to a heinous disease, the other shot in front of him by that Müller from the SS—then is tapped to take their place in that hellhole of a villa.
It was the same as a death sentence.
Canidy helped Rossi get comfortable on a bunk down below.
At least the villa is history…or will be in two hours, when Nola’s men fire the fuses to the C-2 I set for them.
Canidy looked out the porthole at the harbor.
But I still don’t know what the hell Donovan meant about something bigger.
Maybe it was the viruses…
“Thank you,” Rossi said.
“You’re welcome, Professor.”
Rossi looked at him oddly.
“Something bothering you, Professor?”
He shook his head.
“Just what are you going to do about the Tabun?” Rossi said.
Tabun? Canidy thought.
He said, “Tabun, as in gas?”
“Yes. That’s also why you’re here, no?
”
Canidy did not answer.
“Why Tabun?” he said.
“You’ve seen how few Germans there are here,” the professor explained.