The Spymasters (Men at War 7)

Palermo, Sicily

1320 31 May 1943

“No more screams, sí?” Dick Canidy said to Andrea Buda as they stopped before the faded yellow door of the house. He put his index finger to his lips.

“Sí,” she said, nodding. To make it clear, she put her hand over her mouth.

Good. I wish I’d put my hand over your mouth in Palasota’s office, Canidy thought as he pushed open the door and called out, “Apollo!”

* * *

“Andrea, calm down!” Jimmy Palasota had yelled in Sicilian over her screaming. “It’s all right!”

It had taken some time to get her quiet enough so that Canidy could release her wrists and she would talk instead of scream. And then she had rattled off something in Sicilian as she waved her hands wildly.

“Jesus, Jimmy,” Canidy said when she stopped and stood there catching her breath. “What did she say? All I recognized in that tirade was Frank and Tubes’s names.”

She glared at Canidy as Palasota translated.

“That she doesn’t know where they are,” Jimmy Skinny said. “And something about every time she sees you, someone in her family winds up missing.”

“What the hell does that mean? I haven’t done a thing to her family.”

“Well, she made the point that Francisco is missing—”

“And so is Tubes!” Canidy interrupted. “They were working together, for christsake.”

“—And, she said, they were with you shortly before you disappeared and then they did.”

“If anyone is to be suspect here, it’s her. She was with them—certainly with Tubes—long after I left here.”

The last time that Canidy had seen Andrea Buda was when Frank Nola had brought her to Mariano’s house, where Tubes Fuller had first set up MERCURY STATION. Nola had found her blocks away in Professor Arturo Rossi’s home—disguised in Rossi’s clothes—hiding from the SS, and convinced her she’d be better off at Mariano’s. They learned that the SS was hunting her father, Luigi, because his fishing boat had left port the night that Canidy had blown up the cargo ship thought to hold the nerve gas. Shortly thereafter, with Rossi being smuggled to safety in Algiers, Müller had ordered two random fishermen tortured for the sabotage, and their bodies hung in the port by the burned pier.

Andrea’s father and her twin brothers had avoided Müller’s wrath—for the time being.

Palasota then said: “She also mentioned something about you letting the Germans machine-gun one of Francisco’s crews.”

Canidy’s eyes darted between Jimmy Skinny and Andrea.

What the hell?

I knew Nola would repeat that story—but I didn’t think that I’d turn out to be the bad guy in it.

“That is pure bullshit!” Canidy blurted. “What happened was we were under way, coming here, when we happened across an S-boat stopping one of Nola’s fishing boats. The goddamn Krauts had the crew already lined up when we first saw them, and in almost the next moment they mowed down the crew. There was not one damn thing we could do but save ourselves.” He turned to look at Andrea. “Frank saw that and knew that we later did sink an S-boat, maybe the same one.”

Canidy looked back at Palasota. “Tell her that.”

He did, and then Andrea studied Canidy for a long time.

Palasota then added something, ending it with, “Capiche?”

She then looked between Palasota and Canidy, and nodded.

“What did you just say, Jimmy?”

“What Francisco told me about you risking your life for our family and country. That you’re doing it right now.”

Canidy nodded.