In the Hour Before Midnight by Jack Higgins Page B

there.” I buttoned my jacket. “It’s time I was going. A long day tomorrow.”
    â€œYou are going to the Cammarata?”
    I nodded. “With Burke. Just for a drive. Tourists having a look round. I want to see the lie of the land. I thought we’d try Bellona.”
    â€œThe man who owns the wineshop is the mayor. His name is Cerda—Danielo Cerda.” He took his blue silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and held it out. “Show him this and tell him you are from me. He will help you in any way he can. He is one of my people.”
    I folded the handkerchief and put it in my pocket. “I thought Serafino didn’t like Mafia?”
    â€œHe doesn’t,” he said tranquilly, reached for myhand and pulled himself up. “Now we shall join the others. I must talk with this Colonel Burke of yours. He interests me.”
    Â 
    Burke and Marco were sitting together in the salon, an exquisite room which my grandfather had kept to the original Moorish design. The floor was of black and white ceramic tiles and the ceiling was blue, vivid against stark white walls. Beyond a wonderful carved screen, another relic of Saracen days, was the terrace and the gardens.
    I could hear water gurgling in the old conduits, splashing from the numerous fountains. In other days it had been said that whoever held the meagre water supplies of the island held Sicily and Mafia had done just that.
    They were talking behind me and I heard Burke say in his terrible Italian, “You must be very proud of your garden, Signor Barbaccia.”
    â€œThe best in Sicily,” my grandfather told him. “Come, I will show you.”
    Marco stayed to finish his drink and I followed them out on to the terrace. The sky was clear again, each star a jewel and the lush, semi-tropical vegetation pressed in on the house.
    I could smell the orange grove although I couldn’t see it, the almond trees. Palms swayedgently in the slight breeze, their branches dark feathers against the stars. And everywhere the gurgle of water. My grandfather pointed out the papyrus by the pool, another Arab innovation, and suggested a short walk before we left.
    He moved towards the steps leading down to the garden. Burke paused to light a cigarette and then everything happened at once.
    Some instinct, product perhaps of the years of hard living, sent a wave of coldness through me and I froze, ready to jump like some jungle animal sensing an unseen presence.
    Below the steps five yards on the other side of the gravel path, the leaves trembled and a gun barrel poked through. My grandfather was already on his way down. I sent him sprawling with a stiff left arm, drew and fired three times. A machine pistol jumped into the air, there was a kind of choking cough and a man fell out of the bushes and rolled on to his back.
    I dropped to one knee beside my grandfather. “Are you all right?”
    â€œThere will be another,” he said calmly.
    â€œHear that, Sean?” I called.
    â€œI’ll cover you,” came the reply in a voice like ice-water. “Roust him out.”
    Marco came through the French windows in ahurry, the Walther in his hand and a shotgun blasted from the bushes over to my right, too far away to do any damage. You have to be close with those things. Marco dropped from view and I took a running jump into the greenery.
    I landed badly, rolled over twice and came up about six feet away from number two. He was clutching a sawn-off shotgun in both hands, the lupara , traditional weapon used in a Mafia ritual killing.
    I took one hell of a chance, simply because it seemed like a good idea to keep him in one piece to talk, and fired as I came up, catching him in the left arm. He screamed and dropped the lupara . Not that it did much good. As he straightened and backed away, Burke shot him between the eyes from the terrace.
    He looked about seventeen, a boy trying to make a name for himself, to gain