It took Dick Canidy a good twenty minutes to find the rat's nest of wires that was the main fuse box and then determine that the glass fuses-most of them anyway-were not blown or otherwise broken. Then he spent another ten minutes going methodically through both floors, flicking switches on and off, until he finally found a light that came on.

It was on the first floor, in what had been a living room at the opposite end of the apartment from the kitchen. It was a lone bulb in an overhead fixture that somehow had survived the almost total destruction of everything in the apartment.

It's disturbing how-what? furious? psychopathic?-they had to be to destroy this place, Canidy thought as he unscrewed the bulb and the room went dark. I'm surprised they didn't firebomb it for good measure.

He then carefully cradled the bulb, flicked on his flashlight, and went back upstairs. This time, John Craig followed, pulling himself up the stairs using the handrail.

John Craig was just reaching the top step when Canidy got the bulb installed. It lit the area fairly well, and John Craig now could see that the whole upper floor had been a bedroom.

Then he gasped.

In the middle of the room, with wrists and ankles tied by fabric to a wooden armchair that lay on its side, was the bloated corpse of a naked dark-haired man.

"That's the bad news I mentioned," Canidy said matter-of-factly.

"That's not Tubes!"

"No, of course not. But I'm not sure who the hell it is."

John Craig looked around, saw the bathroom door, and shuffled as fast as he could through it. The tiny room reverberated with his loud retching.

Not so much throwing up as it is dry heaves, Canidy thought.

There can't be anything left in his stomach after all he threw up in the airplane.

Canidy turned and got a better look at the dead man. He looked like he could be maybe thirty. He had a large nose and a black mustache. His thick black curly hair was matted with caked blood from the single bullet hole in the center of his forehead.

He's the spitting image of Frank Nola, just not as tall.

Has to be his cousin Whatshisname . . . Mariano.

I wonder if he was working with Frank? Or with the mob? Or is there really a difference?

Almost every inch of the dead man's olive skin was deeply bruised.

He got the shit beat out of him.

They must have started at his feet and worked their way to his face.

Canidy then saw the man's fingers.

Correction.

They started with pulling his fingernails, then probably went to his feet.

Jesus did they work him over!

Canidy saw that John Craig was standing in the door to the pisser, bracing himself on the doorframe as he stared at the body.

"What is this place?" John Craig said.

"It's supposed to belong to Frank Nola's cousin. I'm guessing that that's who this guy is. They look alike, present condition notwithstanding." He paused, then added, "Then again, maybe we will find Frank looking like this. . . ."

"Jesus!"

"Yeah, it's one thing to read about this shit," Canidy said, "but not so nice up close and personal, is it?"

"You warned me," John Craig said quietly. "You said it at the table with Captain Fine."

Canidy ignored his use of military rank.

"Don't try to understand it," he said. "I sure as hell can't."

John Craig nodded meekly.

"Is this what happens because of that Hitler order?" he said. "The one ordering the killing of 'enemies on commando missions'?"

"'In or out of uniform, with or without weapons,'" Canidy recited. "'Slaughtered to the last man.' The operative word being slaughtered."

He looked down at the dead man and added, "And this is a clear example of what Hitler meant when he said 'should it be found necessary to spare one for interrogation,' they're to be shot immediately afterward."

John Craig, bent at the waist, made a sound that suggested he might have to throw up again. He somehow held it back.

"What mission was he on?" he then said.

"I don't know. None. At least that's my bet. But he could have been working for Frank and/or in the Mafia. Bottom line is that the SS believed him to be, and that was that. I don't think it's any coincidence that's why he's tied up with that. To make a point to whoever found him."

John Craig looked at the ivory-colored fabric knotted at the wrists and ankles.

"I don't understand," he said. "What's the significance?"

Canidy reached down and picked up from the floor a length of the fabric. He tossed it to John Craig.

He saw that it was about four feet long and a foot wide, with a couple inches of its edges stylishly frayed. He gently rubbed it between his fingertips. It was soft, and felt vaguely familiar.

"So it's a scarf," John Craig said. "Probably a woman's?"

"It's a silk scarf. There's more in the closet."

John Craig looked, and saw a very familiar pile of ivory-colored silk.

"A parachute! We air-dropped the money and everything that was asked for in the messages. So, the scarf is cut from it. . . ."

"Right," Canidy said.

He thought, What did Nola say his cousin's wife's name was?

Doesn't matter . . . though "Idiot" comes to mind.

"I'm guessing that this guy's wife found the parachute and made herself that scarf from it. Then she paraded around Palermo with it, and some SS shithead saw it-or someone else saw it and snitched to the SS. So the SS made a little courtesy visit."

"And then they did this . . ." John Craig said, looking at the dead man.

He stared at the dead man's hands.

"His fingernails . . ."

"Pretty bad, huh?"

". . . They tore them out?"

"No. They pulled them out. Slowly. It's torture. Then, judging from the shape of the bruises, they beat the shit out of him with a cosh."

In addition to daggers and garrotes, John Craig's training at OSS Dellys had had him practicing close-combat using a cosh. The limber paddle made of leather had a heavy lead ball sewn in its head. One smack alone caused deep pain; multiple hits, particularly to the temples, led to death.

"Why?" John Craig said, his face looking ill. "Because he didn't tell them what they wanted to know?"

"That is possible, even probable, considering his bruises. But I'm thinking it's because he couldn't."

John Craig raised his eyebrows.

"And that," Canidy added, "is what might be the bad news that could be good news-good news for us."

Canidy walked over to the overturned and broken bed frames. They were against the far wall, which had a window. The mattresses had been shredded. It took him a minute to clear a large area of the wooden floor there, pushing the torn sheets and mattress pieces to either side of the room.

"Keep your fingers crossed," Canidy said.

John Craig shuffled over to get a better view in the light of the lone bulb.

Canidy shined his flashlight up and down the floorboards, pushed at a couple places with his fingers, then found what he was looking for and started to pull up a thin board. When that was out of the way, he tugged on a wider one until it started to come up.

John Craig now saw that it was the edge of a larger piece that had been cut in the floor.

A hidden door!

As the large section of flooring came up, John Craig saw Canidy nod.

He looked up at John Craig and said, "My son, let this be a lesson to you. To paraphrase Matthew, 'Live a life as pure and righteous as mine, and blessed be your luck all your days.' Or maybe it was Mark or Luke who said that."

"What did you find?" John Craig said.

He looked around the makeshift door. He saw that there were dead spaces between the long joists that supported the floor of the second level and the ceiling of the first floor.

And then he saw that there was a suitcase in one dead space.

Canidy said, "If my clean living is any indication, this is the backup W/T that Tubes and I brought."

Canidy looked at John Craig and could tell that he mentally was putting the pieces together.

"So," John Craig then said, "this guy's wife wears a silk scarf. That brings the SS here, where they find the parachute and maybe the money and whatever else we air-dropped before Mercury Station was compromised. And a parachute for a supply drop means that there had to be a radio to arrange for the airdrop."

Canidy exhaled audibly, then nodded.

"That's my guess. It fits. And because this poor bastard Mariano had no idea where the radio was, it got him killed." He paused, then added, "Not that the SS bastards weren't going to kill him if he knew and told anyway."

"And then they trashed this place."

"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.