1954 - Mission to Venice (13 page)

“What’s their idea, boss?”

“They’ve either been tipped off by the police or they’re Natzka’s men,” Don said. “If we can get them away from the others, we can tackle them easily enough.”

Once again they looked back, then stopped short.

The three peasants had disappeared.

“Ah-uh,” Don said. “Looks like they’ve gone to collect their pals. Feel like a little run, Harry?”

They broke into an easy, steady trot; a trot that they both knew they could keep up for some time, and that took them over the ground at a pretty fair pace.

“We’ve got to get to the hills before the police get here,” Don said, breathing evenly.

He increased his pace, and together they ran down the sloping grassland to the distant hills.

They were both panting slightly as they climbed the stonewall at the bottom of the grassland, trotted across the rough road and climbed yet another stone wall. They paused to look back.

Spread out on the skyline were six men; three of them by their hats were peasants; the other three were bareheaded and too far away for Don to see who they could be.

“Here they come,” he said “Come on; let’s show them how to run!”

They set off at a fast pace. The going now was slightly uphill and it was a strain to keep up the pace, but they stuck to it, and it wasn’t until they had breast
ed the slope that they again
looked back. The six men had broken formation. Some of them were still lumbering down the hill. Two had reached the stonewall and were clambering over it. Another was just beginning a staggering run up the slope, and even as they watched, he came to a halt while he struggled to get back his breath.

“Doesn’t look as if they’re in training, does it?” Harry grinned as Don swung around and began to run down the slope. They kept in step until they reached yet another stonewall; then Don came to an abrupt halt.

“The railway! I’d forgotten that.”

They looked down into the steep cutting at the single line track.

“Our luck!” Harry said, cocking his head on one side.

“There’s a train coming now.”

“Down we go,” Don said, and together they scrambled down the steep bank on to the line. There was a clump of shrubs not far down the line, and they ran, panting, towards it. They had barely reached it, and got behind it when the train came chugging along the track. It was a long, heavily-laden goods train, and not moving more than fifteen miles an hour.

“It’s a piece of cake,” Harry said. “Soon as the engine’s passed us, we step out and get aboard.”

At this moment the engine passed them. They could see the driver and the fireman in the cab. Then Harry caught hold of Don’s arm and shoved him out from behind the shrub. They waited on the track for the first wagons to pass, then when they spotted a low, open truck on which a brightly painted farm tractor was tied, they dashed forward, ran alongside for a couple of breathless seconds, then swung on board.

“Under cover,” Don gasped, and rolled under the tractor.

Harry followed him, and they kept flat while the train, slowly picking up speed, went rumbling and rattling through the cutting.

“They’ll have guessed we’re on board,” Don said, after he was satisfied that they were out of sight of their pursuers.

“They’ll get to a telephone and warn the station ahead of us.”

“They’ve got to reach a telephone first.”

“Not if those guys were police. They’ll have a car with a transmitter on board.” Don took out his map, studied it and put it back into his rucksack. “The next station up the line is Castelfranco. There’s another railway line that crosses it at that station and goes to Vincenza. If we can pick up a train on that line without being seen we’ll be doing well.”

“Have we far to go on this lot?”

“About ten miles. It’s better than walking.” Don produced a packet of sandwiches Cherry had provided. “We’d better eat while we can.”

“Blimey! I could work my way through an oxtail!” Harry said, sighing. He began to munch a sandwich. “What’ll we do when we get to Vincenza?”

“We’ll keep clear of the centre of the town. We want more food, and we must find out if we can pick up a night bus to Verona. If things look sticky, we’ll have to make for the hills again.”

“Anything you say,” Harry said, finishing his sandwich. “If we’re going to restock our larder, how about another sandwich now?”

* * *

The big cream and blue C.I.T. bus pulled up under the single dim light above the bus stop. Two peasants in their Sunday best, a tired, shabby-looking commercial traveller with two heavy suitcases and a woman with a bundle done up in a gaudy shawl left the bus shelter and moved over to the bus. There were only two passengers already in the bus, and both of them were women.

Don touched Harry’s arm and nodded. They walked briskly from behind the bus shelter and got on board. Don bought tickets for Verona. Then they se
ttled down two seats behind the
driver. The bus moved off, and Don and Harry exchanged relieved glances.

They had reached the outskirts of Vincenza soon after midday, and, having bought a small stock of food, they had spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in a small moviehouse.

No one had taken any notice of them, and when Don decided it must be dark enough to go out on the streets, they had checked the bus timetable and had found a bus was due to leave for Verona at nine-thirty.

“So far so good,” Don muttered to Harry. “When we get to Verona we might see if we can steal a car. I don’t think we have a hope of hiring one. If we can reach Brescia before daylight we really are making progress.”

“You wouldn’t take the car into Milan?” Harry asked.

Don shook his head.

“Before we get to Milan we have the autostrada to negotiate and that’s worrying me. We could avoid it, but it would mean going a long way out of our way.”

“What’s an autostrada, boss?”

“This particular one is the Milan-Brescia motor road with checkpoints at either end. You have to buy a ticket to use the road, and there are always police guards.”

“Best tiring would be to jump a lorry, and hole up as we did last time.”

“They’ll be on the lookout for us. They may even be searching lorries.”

“Maybe we’d better plan to take the longer way round.”

“When we’ve got the car we can decide that.”

It was a little after ten minutes past ten when the bus slowed down and pulled up outside the bus stop at Tavernelle. Although both Don and Harry were alert for trouble, it came so quickly they were both momentarily caught on the wrong foot. There was no light outside the bus stop, and looking through the window of the bus they could
only see their own reflections
from the light inside the bus. The bus door jerked open and a crash helmeted motorcycle cop blocked the doorway. He was a little man, his goggles up on his crash helmet, a carbine across the back of his shoulders, his right hand on the butt of an automatic in a holster at his waist.

His quick eyes swept over the passengers in the bus, then they concentrated on Don and Harry.

“That’s torn it,” Harry said out of the corner of his mouth without moving his lips.

The cop beckoned to them.

“Please step outside,” he said curtly.

Don looked at him blankly.

“Speaking to me?” he said in English.

“Outside, signore,” the cop said also in English.

“What’s the idea?”

The other passengers in the bus were staring. The driver had swung around and was looking uneasily at the cop.

“I wish to see your papers,” the cop went on to Don.

Don shrugged, got up, pulled his rucksack from the luggage rack and stepped into the gangway.

“Is this going to take long?” the bus driver asked. “I’m behind schedule now.”

“Do not wait for these two. You can go on,” the cop said.

The driver shrugged his shoulders and turned his back on the cop who stepped down from the bus and waited in the road.

“We may have to take this guy,” Don murmured as he pretended to help Harry down with his rucksack. “Watch his gun hand.”

They climbed down into the road and were a little startled to find two other motorcycle cops, one of them with his carbine in his hand, waiting.

The bus driver slammed the door of the bus after them, engaged gear and drove away.

The first cop snapped on the headlights of his motorcycle, lighting up the road.

“Your papers, please, signore,” he said to Don.

As Don reached inside his windbreaker, he saw the second cop raise his carbine and point it at him. Don produced his passport and handed it to the cop. The cop glanced at it, nodded and held out his hand for Harry’s passport.

“Let him have it,” Don said.

Harry handed the passport over.

“You are both under arrest,” the cop said. “You will come with us.”

“What’s the charge?” Don asked mildly and he lifted his hat to scratch his head. It was a signal he had used before to warn Harry to be ready to start something. Harry reacted immediately. He was holding his heavy rucksack over his shoulder. He gave a sudden heave, and, using the rucksack like a sling, he flung it into the face of the cop with the gun. At the bottom of the rucksack was a pair of nail studded boots, and in spite of the leather and canvas covering of the rucksack the boots made a formidable weapon. The ironbound heels caught the cop on the bridge of his nose, stunning him. He dropped the carbine and fell forward on hands and knees.

The other two cops went for their automatics, but stopped short as Don showed them the gun that had jumped into his hand.

“Don’t move!” he rapped out.

Harry grabbed up the carbine and covered the fallen cop who was shaking his head and cursing.

“Turn around you two!” Don snapped.

The two cops turned round, and Don took away their automatics. He then unarmed the third cop who by now had got unsteadily to his feet. Working swiftly, Harry removed a sparking plug from one of the motorcycles, and pocketing it, he started up the other two cycles.

“Ready when you are, boss,” he said.

Don unloaded the three automatics and threw the clips away, then he dropped the automatics in the road. He went up to the first cop and dug him in the ribs with his gun.

“The passports!” he said.

Without turning round, the cop handed the passports to Don.

“Don’t think you can get far,” the cop said.

“At least we can try,” Don said and grinned. “Walk down the road - the three of you. March!”

The three cops went away into the darkness.

Harry was already sitting astride one of the motorcycles.

“Let’s show these Eye-ties what speed really means,” he said.

Don swung his leg over the other machine and he settled himself in the saddle.

“Let’s go.”

With the throttles wide open, they roared out of Tavernelle and along the main road to Verona.

A
fter twenty minutes of fast riding during which time they had overtaken the C.I.T. bus and had long left it behind, Don signalled to Harry to reduce speed. He pulled in close to him, resting his hand on his shoulder so they could ride almost knee to knee.

“We’ll have to get off the road soon. They’ll be after us like a swarm of hornets now, and you can bet they’ve alerted all the mobile police in the district.”

Harry pulled a face.

“I was enjoying this, boss. This bike can move.”

“There’s a road ahead on the right we’ll take. It leads into the hills and it’s a dead end. From there we’ll have to walk again,” Don said. “With any luck they’ll think we’ve gone on to Verona.”

“Okay,” Harry said. “I’ll be sorry to get off this bike; it’s a beaut.”

They again increased speed and before long, Don pointed ahead.

“There’s the road; coming up now,” he shouted. They both cut down speed, swung round to their right and found themselves on a narrow, twisting road that climbed steeply.

Don went on ahead. They kept up a fifty mile an hour pace until the going got so rough and steep they had to cut down to a crawl.

It was a magnificent night with a high, full moon to light up the hills, and they turned off their headlamps as they could see clearly enough where they were going.

At the top of the hill, Don slowed and stopped. He sat astride the motorcycle while he looked down the steep hill at the small village away in the distance.

“We’re not all that far from the Swiss frontier from here, Harry. I think we might have a shot at getting into Switzerland rather than try for a plane in Milan. The Swiss police won’t worry us, and we shouldn’t have any trouble getting a plane from Zurich. As far as I can judge from the map, it’ll take us about four days’ hard walking to get to Tirano, the frontier town. From there we can get a car.”

“Okay,” Harry said. “How do we go?”

“Time to ditch these bikes. We can’t ride past that village. They’ll hear our engines and might report us. Let’s get the bikes off the road and hidden.”

It took them some minutes to find a thicket large enough in which to hide the motorcycles. They laid them down, covered them with scrub until Don was satisfied they wouldn’t be easily found.

“Okay; let’s go,” he said, and started off down the road.

They walked steadily for four hours; scarcely exchanging a word, keeping up the same swinging pace, climbing hills, scrambling down rocky inclines, by-passing sleeping villages, until suddenly Don called a halt.

“We can’t be far from the main Trento road now,” he said. “Should be over the next lot of hills unless I’ve made an error somewhere. Anyway, let’s eat, have a drink and a smoke. We’re doing fine.”

They sat down on the hilltop and ate a hasty meal.

“Is that a lake over there, boss?” Harry asked, his mouth full.

“That’s Lake Garda. We come out at the top end of it, then we have a long hike across the hills that are really small mountains. There are very few roads; mostly cart tracks. It’ll be a rough trip, Harry.”

Harry stretched his sturdy legs and grinned.

“I’m enjoying every bit of it up to now,” he said. “At least, I’m seeing the country.”

Don laughed.

“Am I glad I sent for you! This could be a pain in the neck alone.” He got to his feet. “Well, come on; let’s enjoy some more of it.”

Sunlight was edging the distant mountain caps with a red rim as they reached and crossed the main Verona-Trento road, a few miles above the village of Ala. They once more began to climb, and by the time they reached the top of the first range of hills, the sun had swung up behind the mountains and the chill morning air began to warm up.

“I guess we’ll bed down and have a sleep,” Don said, flopping on the damp grass. “How’s this for a view?”

From where they were they had a clear view of Lake Garda as it lay asleep in the sunlight. Around the lake were the mountains; between the hill they were on and the lake were meadows, farmhouses and trees laid out like a child’s toy on a drawing room carpet.

“Terrific!” Harry exclaimed. He took a long pull from a bottle of Chianti they had bought, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand with a contented sigh and unrolled two ground sheets he had taken from his rucksack. “Let’s hit the hay.”

They settled down, and after a while, they fell asleep. They slept for a couple of hours, and it might have been longer had not Don been woken by what sounded to him like the drone of a big bumble bee. He frowned, opened his eyes, blinked up the dark blue sky. He listened lazily, then stiffening, he reached out and shook Harry’s arm.

“Don’t move!” he cautioned. “Listen!”

“Sounds like an aircraft. . .”

“It’s a hover plane. Look, there it is . . .”

Harry looked in the direction Don indicated.

Against the sunlight, scarcely visible, he could just make out the hover plane, looking like a giant dragonfly several miles to their right.

“Can’t be the police, boss?” Harry said.

Don shook his head.

“Might be Natzka’s lot. Get under the ground sheet. We won’t take any chances. If it comes this way, just stay still. He can’t spot us if we don’t move.”

The hover plane flew on, passing them by several miles, then it turned back and flew in the opposite direction, this time a mile or so closer.

“I bet it’s Natzka,” Don said. “He’s searching systematically. Two more journeys like that and he’ll be right over us.”

“Not much we can do, boss.”

“No. He’ll have a job to spot us. When he’s on the most distant leg, crawl over to those shrubs. I’ll go for those over there.”

They waited until the hover plane was once more only a distant speck, then moving quickly, they parted, and each lay out under the shrubs where they felt sure they couldn’t be seen.

Ten minutes later the hover plane returned. The sound of its engine was loud, and peering through the shrubs, Don could see how low it was now flying, skirting the tops of the hills with only twenty feet or so to spare. He suddenly wondered if they were all that safe, but it was too late to move now. The hover plane came on, flattening the rough grass with its slipstream: a whirring, buzzing menace. It passed their hiding place by a bare two hundred yards and flew on towards the lake.

“That was too close,” Don said without moving from his hiding place. “If he turns and comes back, he’ll pass right over us.”

“I’ve got something for him if he spots us,” Harry called, and he waved his automatic. “At that range, he’s going to get a surprise.”

“Don’t show yourself or shoot at him unless he starts something first,” Don warned. “This may be nothing to do with Natzka.” “Okay,” Harry said, “but I bet it is.”

“We must wait, Harry. . .”

“I can’t see what he can do, anyway.”

“He can bring the others on to us by radio.”

“They’ve got a long way to come if he does.”

“Watch out! Here he comes!”

The hover plane had turned around was heading back towards them. The machine had slowed and was scarcely moving. As it came towards the hilltop, it dipped a little coming down once more to twenty feet.

Don felt naked and exposed. Could the pilot see him? He was obviously concentrating on this hill now. Looking up, Don saw the cabin door was open. He could see a man leaning out: a man with a dark, lean face - it was Curizo! Don had scarcely time to register this fact when the hover plane reached the exact spot where Harry and he were crouching.

The shrubs that concealed them swayed and parted under the impact of the slipstream. He had one brief glimpse of Curizo’s face lighting up with a snarling smile; then something that looked like a cricket ball dropped from Curizo’s hand and came hurtling down towards him.

“Look out!” he shouted. “It’s a grenade!”

He heard the crack of Harry’s automatic, then the grenade landed between the two shrubs in which he and Harry were hiding.

There was a flash and a bang. Don felt the earth heave a little, then something struck him on the side of his head, and the blue sky suddenly turned black.

“Boss! Boss! Are you all right?”

Harry, white-faced and anxious, was bending over him.

Don grunted, raised his hand to his aching head and opened his eyes.

For a moment Don couldn’t remember what had happened, then he half sat up, grimacing, feeling blood running down his face.

“A stone must have caught me,” he muttered.

“Don’t move yet, boss.”

“I’m all right.”

“Let me fix that cut. It’ll stop bleeding in a moment.”

Don relaxed back while Harry found the first-aid pack from the rucksack and attended to the cut on his forehead.

“What happened?”

“The rat threw down the grenade, but I hit him in the arm,” Harry said. “That put him out of action, and the kite steered off. It’s down in the valley. You can see it from here. They’ll be coming up on foot in a little while.”

Don made an effort, sat up and then got unsteadily to his feet.

“That was close, Harry. We were lucky it was no worse.”

“I thought you had had it. It gave me a nasty turn,” Harry said, turned and pointed. “Look, there it is, by that farmhouse.”

Don looked down the hill. Some ten miles away he could make out a small isolated farm house standing in lush greenfields; near the farmhouse stood the hover plane.

Harry was staring through a pair of powerful field glasses.

“They’re getting Curizo out. There are five men and there’s a girl. . .”

“Let’s look, Harry.”

Don took the glasses. The hover plane suddenly jumped into his vision as if it were only a hundred yards or so from him as he looked through the eyepieces of the glasses. He recognized Brun, Busso and Hans who were standing by the hover plane. In the doorway of the farmhouse was Maria Natzka. She was wearing a white silk shirt and black slacks, and from her expression, she seemed amused by the excitement that was going on around the hover plane. He could see Carl Natzka talking to a short, thin man who was holding a flying helmet and who Don guessed was the pilot.

Curizo was lying on the grass, and no one seemed to be paying him any attention. The pilot turned and pointed directly at the hilltop where Don was standing. Natzka appeared to shout, for the three men grouped around the hover plane turned and went to him. He pointed to the hilltop. There was a moment’s talk, then they ran over to a big outbuilding. The double doors were opened and a car drove out, followed by another car. Four more men appeared and got into the first car. Busso, Hans and Brun got into the second car. The two cars drove down the cart track on to the road, and then, with increasing speed, they drove rapidly towards Don’s hilltop.

“Here they come,” he said, slipping the glasses into the leather case. “It’ll take them the best part of two hours to get here, Harry. Our move is to get off this hill and get around the back of it. If we could get to that hover plane, I could handle it.”

Harry’s face brightened.

“That’s an idea, boss. But do you feel like a dash down there?”

“I’ll have to feel like it. It’s our best bet.”

For all that, Don still felt dazed and unsteady, and he was glad to have Harry’s help as they went down the hill. It took them a long ten minutes to get off the hill. Then began the cautious move around the hill into the rocky, shrub-covered ground that lay between them and the distant farmhouse. Don had calculated it was a good seven miles to the farmhouse from where they were, and with a badly aching head and legs that felt weak and unsteady, he realized it was going to be a tough journey.

The rising road hid them from the distant road, and they slogged on for the next hour, plodding over the rough ground, alert and tense. They had covered about four miles when the ground suddenly began to slope, and at the ridge of the hill, they paused, went down on hands and knees and looked below. They could see the two cars now parted by the roadside.

Busso had been left to guard the cars while the other men were moving towards the hill.

Don studied the terrain.

“Not much cover down there, Harry,” he said. “We’ll have to put those two cars out of action before we can make for the farmhouse, and we’ll have to take care of the guard.”

Harry watched the seven men as they climbed slowly towards them. He judged where they would reach the ridge and decided they would be about fifty yards or so from where Don and he lay hidden in the scrub.

“We’ll have to let them get to the foot of the hill before we can tackle fatso down there,” he muttered in Don’s ear. “They won’t be able to see him from there.”

Don nodded and crouched lower as Brun pulled himself over the ridge.

“I don’t see why we should all climb that hill,” Brun grumbled as another tall, heavily-built man joined him on the ridge. His voice came clearly to Don and Harry. “Curizo said they were both dead. He dropped the grenade right on top of them. Why can’t the others go up and we stay here?”

“Busso said they might not be dead. Come on; and shut up!” the other man growled, and panting heavily, he continued his slow climb towards the hill.