David K. E. Bruce then drained his coffee, slammed his china mug on his wooden desk, and said, icily sarcastic, "Did I mention Dulles's fait accompli?"

[TWO].

Palermo, Sicily 2050 30 May 1943 John Craig van der Ploeg, his mind foggy, felt weightless as he floated freely through a warm darkness that was absolutely peaceful.

He turned his head to the left and had the sensation of something tickling his right ear. He turned his head the other way, and then something tickled his left ear. He turned back to the left, felt the tickle again, then right, then shook his head-and found himself suddenly awake.

And dazed.

And completely confused.

Gone was the peaceful, warm darkness. Now it was just damn dark. His whole body ached. His ears rang. And his right foot felt as if he had put it in a searing fire.

The slightest movement caused his whole body to sway.

So I'm floating?

Where am I?

He looked around and slowly began to get his bearings. There were limbs surrounding him, poking and scratching. He could smell the leaves.

Is that what was tickling my ears?

There was intense pressure-a squeezing sensation-at his upper thighs and buttocks, and it took him a moment to realize that it was being caused by the webbing of his parachute harness.

He looked up and saw his collapsed parachute, its lines all fouled in the limbs.

I landed in a tree?

Damn I hurt . . .

He looked down and around and still could see nothing in the darkness but more limbs and leaves.

Did I break my foot?

And why can't I move?

How long have I been here?

And then he panicked.

I'll never get found up here!

"Help!" he called out in Italian. "Up here! Someone! Help me!"

There then came a bright light in his eyes, and he immediately stopped.

The beam of light moved down to his torso, and he felt a hand yanking at his harness, then heard the metallic rattling of the harness release.

The next sensation that John Craig van der Ploeg felt was that of falling forward-and then down.

More limbs slapped at him as he fell.

"Ugh!" he grunted as he hit the ground, landing faster than he'd expected.

Then he heard a familiar voice.

"Knock off the yelling!" Dick Canidy said with more than a little disgust. "You were only five feet off the ground, for christsake."

John Craig caught his breath, then said, "What happened?"

"What the hell do you think happened? You landed in a tree! A huge chestnut. The damn thing must be sixty feet tall." He grunted. "You sure like hitting huge fucking targets."

John Craig moaned, then reached for his right boot.

"You okay?" Canidy said, shining the beam back to his face.

He saw John Craig wince.

"My foot. It feels like it's on fire."

The flashlight beam moved to the booted foot-on the way illuminating some dried vomitus on John Craig's black coveralls-and Canidy knelt to get a better look, grateful the foul odor was mostly gone.

He carefully grasped the boot and slowly moved the toe of it up and down.

"That hurt?"

"A little. Some burning."

"I don't think it's broken. You'd have a helluva lot more pain if it were."

Canidy then started to slowly roll his foot side to side.

"Stop! That burns like hell!"

"Let's see if you can put any weight on it," Canidy said, then stood and offered his hand.

John Craig hopped up on his left leg, then tried to take a step. He screamed in pain as his ankle gave way and his right leg collapsed beneath him.

Once again on the ground, he crab-crawled over to the thick trunk and leaned against it.

Canidy looked at him.

"Well, shit! This certainly changes things. . . ."

He looked up, and then around them.

"Stay put," Canidy said. "I need to pull together our gear and get rid of the parachutes so no one sees them." He looked up again. "Especially yours, which is going to be a bitch getting out of there."

John Craig, his head spinning, watched Canidy start to climb the huge chestnut tree. Then he closed his eyes.

John Craig heard fast footfalls approaching and opened his eyes wide. He had no idea how long he'd been out. He started to move-and instantly felt the burning sensation in his right foot.

He reached for his .45 and began to raise it in the direction of the sound.

Then he heard the footsteps stop.

Then Canidy's voice: "Put that damn thing down before you cause us even more trouble."

John Craig let out a sigh as he lowered his weapon.

"Feeling any better?" Canidy said, catching his breath.

"Not really."

"Shit."

"Where's the gear?" John Craig said.

"Stashed with the parachutes in two places. Took me twenty minutes, but I found some nice rock outcrops up the hill to put it in."

"Why?"

"So if one stash is found-which is unlikely, but you never know-they will think they hit the jackpot. And we will have a backup hidden."

"No, why stashed?"

"Because I sure as hell cannot carry the gear and you."

"Oh yeah. Sorry."

"Right now our Plan B options are less than lousy. One is for you to sit tight while I go find a motorcycle, a car-something that can haul your ass into town. But if someone saw us jump, and you stayed here, then you'd literally be a sitting duck when they came. So the other option is for you and me to have a three-legged race to town, and once we get you comfortable there, I'll come back and grab the gear."

"Three-legged race?"

"You hold on to me and we walk together."

Canidy started peeling off his black coveralls. Underneath he wore more of Wentworth Danfield Dutton's tailor-made clothing.

John Craig, under his coveralls, had on brown pants and vest and a tan collarless shirt bought from a Sicilian who had been smuggled to Algiers aboard one of Frank Nola's fishing boats.

"Get out of your coveralls," Canidy said, "and I'll stash them with mine."

I wonder if the vomit soaked through, he thought.

Make that I'll stash it near mine. . . .

John Craig struggled to stand.

He said, "We're on the outskirts of Palermo, right?"

At OSS Algiers, Canidy had mapped out the route they would take from the Landing Zone to the port, complete with landmarks.

"Yeah," he said, "the LZ's a little more than a mile west of the port. I saw the road as we landed. It's not far."

"Oh yeah," John Craig remembered. "So did I."

"Hurry up. We need to get moving. We've already been in one place way too damn long."

John Craig van der Ploeg had his right hand on Dick Canidy's left shoulder. Canidy had his left hand on John Craig's right shoulder.

"Inside foot first . . . and go!" Canidy said, and stepped forward with his left.

John Craig, putting weight on Canidy's shoulder, swung out his right boot. As he eased pressure onto the hurt foot, he grunted with pain.

"Good?" Canidy said.

"Just keep going."

They took another step. John Craig immediately fell forward.

Canidy tried to catch them before they both went down. He failed.

They were lying on the ground when Canidy heard John Craig moan-and then chuckle.

"That hurt," John Craig said, then chuckled again. "But that was pretty damn ridiculous."

Canidy couldn't help himself. He chuckled, too.