The Spymasters (Men at War 7)

“Let’s say they completed the job with a crazed enthusiasm. The place wasn’t exactly a model home the first time I came here.”

Canidy reached down inside the floor. When he pulled out the suitcase, he saw what had been put beneath it.

“Ah, I was hoping to see this again.”

“What?”

Canidy pulled out a Sten 9mm submachine gun and slid it across the floor in John Craig’s direction.

“That one’s yours.”

He reached back in and pulled out another machine gun, this one with a longer barrel. It looked substantially better built than the stamped-metal Sten.

“My Johnny gun,” he announced. “Officially a Johnson Model 1941 Light Machine Gun. This has real meaning to me.”

“Why? And what’s it doing in there?”

“It’s what I used to blow up the villa where they had the yellow fever experiment. I got it from a guinea mobster. When I left here to get on the sub, I gave it to Tubes. Figured he’d need it more than I did.”

“You got it from the Mafia?”

“You haven’t heard that story? When I met Frank Nola in New York City? That’s how the hell you and I ultimately wound up right here, right now.”

John Craig shook his head.

Canidy looked at the suitcase.

“First things first,” Canidy said, and pointed at the window. “That is where Tubes first set up our W/T, running the antenna out there. Time for you to earn your keep and remind me why the hell I brought you in the first place. Starting with trying to make contact with Tubes and Algiers. You ready?”

John Craig shrugged.

“I’ll give it my best. I think as long as it doesn’t involve my damn foot, I should be fine.”

“Okay, then I’ll try to cobble together some kind of table for you to work at.”

John Craig looked askance at the dead man.

Canidy caught that, and added, “Right. And do something with him. . . .”

VII

[ONE]

Hotel Michelangelo

Palermo, Sicily

1915 30 May 1943

SS-Obersturmbannführer Oskar Kappler watched a rugged-looking man of maybe forty approaching the cocktail table where he and SS-Sturmbannführer Hans Müller sat with the two hookers. The man was about five-nine and muscular, with a warm face, a somewhat pronounced nose, and a full head of brown hair. He was casually but nicely dressed, and Kappler noted that he did not walk as much as he sauntered.

The man stopped before the table.

“Giovano said you asked for me, Hans,” he announced in passable German as he met Kappler’s eyes and nodded once.

Müller put his arm around Kappler and said, “So I did. I wanted you to meet a very important person, Obersturmbannführer Oskar Kappler, who I told you was coming.”

The man offered his hand, and in German said, “Jimmy Palasota. It is a genuine honor to have you here.”