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Next to none.
“Yeah.”
“Well, in anticipation of an Allied landing on an island it can barely hold because they’re stretched so thin, the Germans have very quietly brought in their first shipment of the nerve agent.”
Jesus! That stuff is worse than yellow fever. It targetsorgans, and it makes muscles twitch till the victim collapses from exhaustion—and dies.
“Where is it?”
Rossi pointed out the porthole, to the darkened cargo ship moored nearby.
Canidy dug into his duffel and came out with the last two pounds of Composition C-2, then went topside.
Nola stood at the helm.
“You ready?” Nola said.
“You have any men on the dock?” Canidy replied.
Nola shook his head.
“They are all aboard. There’s no one out there.”
“Give me ten minutes,” Canidy said, and reached to set his watch.
Nola touched his watch to adjust it.
Canidy said, “Mark.”
Canidy then went out of the cabin, jumped on the pier, and ran toward the cargo ship.
Nola looked at his watch. Nine minutes had passed since Canidy left.
He stuck his head out the door of the cabin.
“Cast off the lines,” he called to his men.
The men untied the bow and stern lines from the cleats on the pier, then leaped back aboard, coiling the lines as they went.
Nola checked his watch.
The second hand swept the face.
Ten minutes.
He looked back to the pier, saw no one, and frowned.
His right hand reached up and bumped forward the lever that controlled the transmission.
As the Stefania slowly moved ahead, Nola turned the wooden spoke wheel to port and her bow began to angle out toward the open sea.
Just as the transom cleared the end of the pier, Nola heard a heavy thump, thump aft of him.
He did not turn around to look.
It was the unmistakable sound of feet hitting the deck.
The Stefania was dead in the water—her engine off and all lights out—just north of Mondello, which was just below the Villa del Archimedes at Partanna.
