Kappler shook his head.

"It is not here. Yet. There was some scheduled to arrive in the next few weeks. It is my understanding that it has to be manufactured, then it will be shipped."

Canidy locked eyes with him a long moment.

"Your understanding? Or is that exactly the situation?"

"Both."

He could be lying. But why?

He wants the hell out of here, and knows that I am his conduit to safety.

Canidy nodded.

"Okay, Item Two," he then said, looking slowly between Beck and Kappler. "One of my wireless radios is under enemy control."

Canidy thought that he saw Kappler react to that information.

"I don't give a rat's ass about the radio," he said, looking at Kappler. "I am looking for my man who was its operator. Him and Frank Nola." He glanced at Palasota, who nodded, then looked back at Kappler. "Nola had been running an underground cell, and now he's missing."

"I think I've seen your radio," Kappler said. "And I may be able to locate your operator."

"Just tell me who has the goddamn radio," Canidy said evenly, "and I can handle it from there."

"Muller," Kappler said.

"Muller!" Palasota repeated, his tone one of obvious surprise. He looked at Canidy. "Dick, I had no idea about this. I've been trying to find Francisco, too, you know."

Canidy nodded.

"You're sure it's Muller?" Beck then said.

Kappler nodded. "He showed me a wireless that has its labels written in English. It's in a locked room on the top floor of the SS field office. Muller's scharfuhrer was working it."

Absolutely no surprise there.

John Craig has been convinced from the start that the station was compromised.

"Did Muller say what he did with the operator?" Canidy said. "That sonofabitch has a nasty habit of summarily shooting people point-blank."

"He said he had him quote locked up as insurance unquote. He did not tell me where. And he did not mention the other man."

Then Tubes is alive!

And if he is, maybe Nola, too.

"Can't you order Muller to turn him over to you, his superior?" Canidy said.

Kappler shook his head.

"If I did, he would ignore me, or kill your man, or possibly both."

"Then I go see Muller," Canidy said.

"If you do, then Muller will shoot him point-blank before you get past the front door."

Ernst Beck held up his hand, palm out.

"I think that we can get Muller to bring him to us."

"Well, then, what the hell are you waiting for?" Canidy gestured impatiently with his hand. "Tell us how."

Beck raised his eyebrows in question as he looked at Palasota.

Jimmy Skinny clearly nodded his agreement.

"Muller can be coerced," Beck said.

"I don't understand," Kappler said. "You mentioned that earlier."

Beck studied him a moment, then said, "Jimmy and I found Muller's Achilles' heel. Ol' Hans doesn't like the girls he beats up."

Kappler grunted.

"That is obvious. He's a mean drunk. That I have seen too many times."

"Oskar, he does not like girls. Period."

"He's a poofter?" Kappler blurted.

Beck nodded. "He tries to have sex with the girls here, but it rarely happens. He gets frustrated and drunk, then humiliates them . . . and worse. It's all a beard, because he lives in fear of having to wear a rosa winkel in a konzentrationslager."

That, Canidy thought, explains why Palasota was so quick to say no when I said why not just whack the bastard now.

He's had Muller terrified of being discovered and sent to a death camp with a pink triangle sewn to his chest.

"Wonder if that would come as any surprise to Gunther?"

Beck grunted. "Who do you think we caught Hans with?"

Palasota, his face furious, picked up the telephone and dialed a short number from memory.

After a moment, he controlled his tone as he said into the phone, "Hans, something has come up. Are you busy? No? Good. See you in a moment."

Palasota stood, and everyone else got up at once.

"We cannot all go," Jimmy Skinny said. "It will spook him. Give me and Oskar twenty, thirty minutes with him, and then you can follow."

"I don't like it," Canidy said.

"You don't have to, Dick. But it is what has to happen."

Ten minutes later, Dick Canidy and Ernst Beck entered the ornate metal doors of the SS Field Office building. Oskar Kappler was coming out of a room to the right, wiping at his uniform sleeve with a hand towel.

There's blood splatter on his neck, Canidy thought. And his clothes.

Kappler saw Canidy's expression.

"Your man is alive. Hans told me where to find Nola-his body."

Shit, Canidy thought. Farewell, Frank. We have the watch.

Kappler nodded to a stairwell in the corner of the room.

"Follow me."

A flight down, Kappler led them through a heavy wooden door, then past one made of iron bars, to a space that clearly had been set up as a torture room. There were medieval racks. Rusty chains hung from bolts on the wall.

They turned a corner and Canidy then saw Muller lying on the stained coarse stone floor. A pool of blood drained from a hole in the back of his head.

Canidy then saw Tubes strapped to a rough-hewn wooden table. It looked vaguely familiar, and he remembered the tables Muller had used in the villa for the germ warfare experiment.

Tubes looked gaunt. His once thick blond hair was thin, dirty, matted. There were bruises visible up and down his body, but they did not look fresh. Canidy looked at Tubes's hands and feet and saw only crusted scabs.

Sonofabitch!

Palasota was undoing the leather straps at Tubes's feet. Tubes turned his head, tried to focus, then managed to form something resembling a smile when he saw Canidy.

"Fins!" he grunted weakly.

"Yeah, Tubes," Canidy said, his voice cracking. "Fins. But not anymore."

Palasota looked up. "Fins?"

Canidy cleared his throat, then said, "It was our O.K. Corral code word for 'everything's about to go to shit so start shooting every bastard you can.' Got said a little too late, it would appear . . ."

"God help him," Ernst Beck said softly.

"You're going to be okay, Jim," Canidy said. "You're going home."

Kappler then saw Canidy look at Muller on the stone floor.

"The sonofabitch did the same to Mariano," Canidy said. "And probably to Frank. Who shot him?"

"It was a lovers' quarrel," Palasota automatically said, clearly fabricating the story on the spot. "Poor young Gunther lost his head. Tragic."

"Sorry," Kappler then said, looking somewhat guilty. "I now realize you probably were hoping to have that honor."

"No."

"No?"

"Actually, I was looking forward to seeing the miserable sonofabitch suffer a very slow and painful death. . . ."

[THREE].

Room 802 Hotel Michelangelo Palermo, Sicily 1645 1 June 1943 Dick Canidy watched as Andrea Buda came out of the bathroom carrying another bowl of warm water to the bed where Jim "Tubes" Fuller was resting.

Tubes remained very weak but now, after Andrea had worked with two girls for almost an hour solid, he was clean and his wounds dressed.

The first glass of water that Andrea had given him he had immediately thrown up. But now he was able to keep down a very diluted mixture of sugar and water.

He's sleeping the sleep of the dead.

Or the damn near dead.

She's doing the best she can-the best she knows-but this ain't exactly the Mayo Clinic.

I want him back to the best treatment possible, and that's Algiers, then London when he's ready.

John Craig van der Ploeg, on crutches, entered the room and hobbled over to Canidy.

"Here's the sub's coordinates. Neptune is under way and standing by."

Three hours earlier, when they had first brought Tubes to the room, Canidy had then stood with Ernst Beck, Oskar Kappler, and Jimmy Palasota at the window. They all looked down at the port, the four men passing a single pair of binoculars between them.

Canidy had another flashback to General Burford at Gettysburg.

"We have the high ground," he said, "but no plan of attack."

"We just can't sit here waiting for the sub to show up, right?" Kappler said.

Canidy glanced at Tubes. "Right. Not good enough . . . fast enough."

"I have an idea," Beck said, pointing out at the harbor.