Tom Bontade came down early that morning and asked for the newspaper. He had insisted on maintaining his usual routines, even after the incendiary article in the Sun.
Bontade ate his anise biscotti with his favorite apple jam. He sweetened his cup of milk with honey. He read the news of the day. As fate would have it, just that day there was a strong wind that kept the fireplace from drawing properly. A bit of smoke seeped into the room.
Vella, crouched beside the fireplace, trying to keep the smoke from drifting back, was the first to fall to the floor, foaming at the mouth. Then Peter Alaimo; he too afflicted by pulmonary spasms. He doubled over, gasping in pain, and spat out a strange bluish froth, then lay still.
Bontade was alarmed. He called Aldo Martini. At that instant the phone rang, and in a flash he remembered what had been written in the fabricated article in the Sun: the corpse had been found answering the phone. Terror took hold of each and every cell in his body. He approached the telephone that kept ringing insistently. Then he grabbed the receiver.
“Hello, you bastard. How does it feel to have death breathing over you?” The voice was Prince Licata’s. “There’s someone here who wants to talk to you.”
Bontade’s lungs struggled to take in oxygen. He could barely breathe. The voices came to him confused. His brain was less and less oxygenated, and he had to sit on the floor, his legs no longer supported him.
Now Mastrangelo was on the phone: “You have a few minutes to surrender your soul to the devil. If you tell me where Aurora is, I’ll let you have the antidote to the poison. There’s a doctor outside your gate. If you talk, you can still save your hide. As soon as you tell me where she is, I’ll give him the order to inject the drip. It’s up to you, make up your mind.”
Bontade was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe. His mouth was filled with thick saliva. “She’s right here. Hurry. . . hurry. . . I’m dying.” He struggled to get those few words out.
There was no doctor outside Bontade’s house. The old mafioso collapsed on the floor with the phone still in his hands. He tried desperately to suck in a breath of air. But the inability to breathe was now irreversible. The spasms were horrific as he clung to the still remaining thread of life with every ounce of strength he had.
Mastrangelo cursed himself for having ruled out from the start the possibility that Aurora might be in the most obvious place, Bontade’s “bunker.” He started speeding toward Queens—to hell with the traffic lights. In his heart, he was terrified of getting there too late to save his niece. He didn’t understand how the toxin could have acted so quickly and with such virulence. The chemist they’d recruited had promised it would be diluted enough to cause extreme illness and death only after several hours of exposure.
Mastrangelo arrived at the house. There was no one to stop him. He put on his gas mask and entered from the back. On the hallway floor, he saw Aldo Martini, whose eyes were glassy. He then ran to the living room and saw Bontade, still clutching the phone. The fire was burning and kept giving off poisonous toxins. He raced through every room of the house. Instinctively, he called the girl’s name at the top of his lungs. He didn’t find her in any of the rooms. Bontade couldn’t have been lying when he was at death’s door.
Suddenly he heard a voice: “Here! I’m down here.” He had never heard Aurora speak; it couldn’t be her.
The voice was coming from the basement. The door leading down to the cellar was unlocked. Mastrangelo ran down the steps and, in the center of the room, surrounded by stacks of objects, he saw Aurora.
“Here, over here.”
She was speaking! So she could speak! Mastrangelo bent over her. She was lying on a kind of mattress set on the rough cement floor.
“Aurora, I’m your Uncle Jack—your mother’s brother. Do you understand my words?”
“Yes, Uncle Jack.” The girl was having trouble breathing. Painfully she opened her eyes and raised a hand to stroke her uncle’s cheek.
“If only your mother were here.” Mastrangelo kissed the hand she’d reached out to him. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped away the saliva that flowed abundantly down her chin. He put his mask on her. But Aurora’s breathing was now a rattle.
He mustn’t lose another minute. He took her in his arms, she smiled at him, and then she closed her eyes, overcome by the spasms crushing her chest. Mastrangelo held her tightly and headed for the stairs. For a moment, he staggered and had to pause to catch his breath. Now he too felt intense pain in his chest and struggled to breathe. Summoning all his strength, he took the steps one by one. The door was at the top of the stairs, but it seemed like it was at the end of a tunnel. The dazzling light blinded him. He steadied himself against the wall and went on climbing. Just a little more effort, and he would make it. All of a sudden Aurora’s body went limp in his arms, its weight doubling. He knew the girl was dead, but irrationally pushed away the thought. He mustn’t give up. He’d never in his life been a quitter, and he wasn’t about to start now when he had to save his niece’s life.
At last, he reached the door. Now they had to get out of the house in a hurry. He rushed down the corridor, but his chest heaved, and a fitful cough made him expel a clot of blood that stained the garment of the young woman whose head now dangled lifelessly. Jack Mastrangelo fell to his knees, spent by the effort he’d made thus far. Tenderly, he laid Aurora’s body on the floor. He unbuttoned his shirt and tried to breathe, but the jagged ache in his chest pierced him like a sword. He tried to contain the sharp blade with his hands, but the stabbing pain spread through his body. He fell back. He turned and looked at Aurora. Her mouth seemed to form a smile. He reached out to her, and even that simple act was an effort. He felt like crying or shouting in despair over such a rotten fate, but he couldn’t do either. His hand reached the girl’s hand and he placed it over hers, as if to keep the promise he’d made so long ago to his beloved sister. Then he opened his mouth gasping for one last breath of air, but it was no use.
* * *
The phony news story about Tom Bontade’s death, so minutely described in the Sun, had made the rounds of the city at the time and had led to much teasing by the other bosses, not only in New York but also in Las Vegas and Chicago. The paper had issued an apology, and the reporter had been fired. But when the event reported back then became a real news item, an icy chill descended on all the Mafia families in the various districts. Such a thing had never happened. Everyone knew who was behind it, but they were careful not to let on. Ferdinando Licata had won everyone’s respect—even those who hated him for his rapid rise.
When Roy Boccia, in his basement cell at naval intelligence, found out from one of the guards about what had happened, he was seized by panic. Terror became his daily bread. He finally decided to cooperate with the cops, realizing that as soon as he stuck his nose out of prison, Licata would have him killed.
He asked for a meeting with the district attorney. He wanted to make a confession. When the prosecutor called him in, he said he was ready to testify in court against Saro Ragusa. He admitted that he had seen him assault Vito Pizzuto in a warehouse at the port, chaining him up and torturing him to death.
In exchange for his testimony, however, he demanded that he be given a new identity and passport so he could build a fresh life in another part of the world, far from New York.
Based on the allegations of that eyewitness, public prosecutor William Brey issued an arrest warrant for Saro Ragusa. He was unaware, however, that Saro had meanwhile been enlisted by the OSS—Office of Strategic Services—for Operation Husky.
Chapter 55
In strictest secrecy, Saro Ragusa was picked up one day in midspring by two soldiers in civilian clothes and escorted to a military base near Washington.
There, along with a dozen other young men of Sicilian origin, he was given intensive training in how to use automatic pistols and submachine guns, how to assemble a bomb and recognize detonators and explosive powders, an
d how to use a radio for communications, as well as the basics of karate. Lastly, he made three parachute jumps, one by day and two others at night. The instructors informed the Sicilian-American operatives that they would parachute onto the Sicilian coast under cover of darkness.
The group was part of the Office of Strategic Services, the intelligence services division established during that period by a volcanic Irish attorney in Washington named William “Wild Bill” Donovan.
The OSS was divided into several sections. Secret Intelligence, dedicated to operations in occupied nations; Secret Operations, the liaison for operations to be carried out with resistance forces in countries occupied by the Germans; Morale Operations, the section for psychological warfare; the X-2, devoted to counterintelligence; and Research and Analysis, the investigation unit charged with providing political, social, and economic data about the countries in which they operated.
Within the Secret Intelligence branch, there was a subdivision called the Italian Section, created by a certain Earl Brennan. The key figures were Vincent Scamporino, charged with leading the section, attorney Victor Anfuso, and Max Corvo, barely twenty years old.
The section had been formed to organize a group made up essentially of native Sicilians, who were to initiate the task of infiltration aimed at supporting the upcoming Allied invasion. To obtain information about Italy, the team drew on a pool of six million Italian-Americans. They sought collaborators among Sicilians who had been forced to emigrate not only because the fascists had never cared about their region but also because the regime had treated them as criminals, sending soldiers and carabinieri to oppress the population.
When Prince Licata asked Haffenden about the possibility of recruiting Saro Ragusa for the Italian Section, the leaders were happy to enlist him in the unit.
Max Corvo’s men covertly infiltrated every area of the island, looking for minefields, military facilities, command centers, airstrips, antifascists—in short, any information that might prove useful to the forces that were preparing for the invasion. In particular, they had to convince the Italian soldiers to lay down their arms, since fascism had been defeated, and each man had to think about his own future: one that would be shared not with the Germans but with the Americans and the British.
* * *
Saro, along with a dozen other Sicilians, was dropped into the Corleone area on a moonless night.
It was not the softest of landings. He ended up hitting a stone wall, the kind used to mark the boundaries of a field, and the parachute dragged him over a large prickly pear. The cactus’s sharp spines pierced the rough cloth of his pants, causing him excruciating pain. According to the instructions Saro had been given, first he was to fold up the parachute and hide it under a bush. As he painfully set about recovering the fabric, he was surrounded by two farmers pointing their shotguns at him. They asked him who he was, and Saro replied in dialect that he had come to prepare for the arrival of the Americans. Reassured by those words, the two men helped him pack the parachute back together and then led him to their nearby cabin.
There he could see firsthand the extreme poverty to which his people had been subjected. Malnourished children, undoubtedly with lice and bedbugs feasting on them; women who’d aged before their time; clothes that were coming apart at the seams; homes that could only be called hovels; malaria; and resignation in the men’s eyes, crushed by a government that had left them at the mercy of those in power. But he also observed in them a proud, indomitable dignity and an awareness of their own worth.
The man made the women and children leave and told Saro to lie down on the straw mattress; he would pick out the spines of the prickly pear for him. Saro took off his shirt and pants, and the old man set about his task with infinite patience.
Saro had been dropped into the heart of the island, where US general George Patton would pass with his armored columns. Naturally, he knew nothing about the tactical plans for the invasion. His orders were to contact the Mafia bosses and persuade them to cooperate with the American troops. Saro, however, also had another assignment, given to him by Ferdinando Licata: he was to take advantage of his situation by laying the groundwork for repositioning the bosses at the top levels of the new government, while also appealing to the Sicilian Independence Movement championed by attorney Andrea Finocchiaro-Aprile. Up until the advent of fascism, Aprile had served in three legislatures as deputy from the electoral district of Corleone, considered the headquarters of the Mafia Council.
Finocchiaro-Aprile dreamed of the island’s independence from Italy and was willing to make alliances with anyone in order to realize that goal: first of all, with the party of the big landowners, well represented by Lucio Tasca, who, with the motto “Sicily and Liberty,” saw separatism as the best way to safeguard privileges and fiefdoms. And then with the top Mafia bosses: Calogero Vizzini of Villalba, Giuseppe Genco Russo of Mussomeli, Greco of Croce Verde Giardini, Virgilio Nasi of Trapani, Vincenzo Rimi of Alcamo, and Vanni Sacco of Palermo. All were very much in favor of eliminating the dictatorship, which, besides sending many of them to prison, had taken control of their territory. The Mafia required democracy, not dictatorship, in order to flourish.
* * *
While Saro was busy creating a cover that would allow him to move freely in the area without arousing suspicion, Jano and his men, in their new guise as supporters of the family bosses, turned into saboteurs. Better yet, following the orders of Don Calò, whom Jano now familiarly called zu Calò, they began robbing supplies brought to the artillery redoubts in unescorted trucks.
For Sicilians, life became a living hell. Every day, squadrons of Allied fighter planes took off from Malta to support bombers that came from North Africa to drop their explosives on cities and military positions. The bombs were democratic; they did not discriminate. They shelled the famous Hotel San Domenico in Taormina, where German field marshal Albert Kesselring maintained his headquarters, and razed the town of Palazzolo Acreide, where the Italian army’s Napoli Division was headquartered, almost completely neutralizing the unit. For nine days, the Sicilians lived in terror of the nightly bombings, which nearly always struck areas where there were clusters of troops or military commands.
The Italian Section’s efforts had produced excellent results. Saro in particular had a stroke of luck. After the mission in Corleone, where he was able to obtain a promise of cooperation from the local families, he headed for Gela to await the landing and be reunited with the OSS group.
As a cover, Saro dusted off his old line of work as a barber. He went around from farmhouse to farmhouse offering to cut the farmers’ hair or trim their beards and mustaches in return for some vegetables or a chicken egg.
In the countryside around Gela, he was welcomed by a gabellotto named Giovanni Scirè, who asked Saro to spruce him up. His son would be marrying a local girl in a few days. Scirè was a jovial, ruddy man who apparently hadn’t suffered any hunger pangs as a result of the war, since he and his family seemed well fed and in good health overall. The son had even found time to fall in love.
As he was sharpening his razor on the leather strop, Saro asked him, “Is your son on matrimonial leave?”
“I don’t know. Why are you asking?”
“Just curious. I wondered which battalion he was in. I have relatives scattered throughout most of the island.” He got ready to shave the man’s beard.
“The war is over now. Too bad, because the party’s over for us as well,” the gabellotto said with regret.
“Are you are a supporter of the Duce?” Saro goaded him.
“Are you kidding?” the man said angrily.
“Well then? I don’t get it.”
The man lowered his voice, as if not wanting to be overheard: “The Italian naval command is nearby.”
“Not in Enna?”
“The general staff is in Enna. The naval command is here. Their rations are limited, so they ask us to supply them with all sorts of things, and we make them pay black market pri
ces. They’re used to eating well, those fine gentlemen.” Saro’s antenna immediately went up, but he launched into the kind of populist claims that everyone can always agree on. “While we go hungry.”
“Have you ever seen a grand gentleman who was any different? They’re all alike.” Scirè was sprawled in the chair, hands folded over his belly, eyes half closed, taking pleasure in having his beard shaved.
“Where is the command?” Saro tossed out the question casually.
“In Baron Giovanni Moleti’s villa. There are generals and officials coming and going. By now it’s an open secret. All of Sicily knows the naval command is there.”
“Have you ever been in there?”
For Giovanni Scirè, having come in contact with the gracious world of the upper ranks was a source of great pride. “Of course! I’m the one who brings them their chickens and hens. Inside the rooms, the walls are hung with large maps of Sicily. The tables are covered with piles of papers. There’s also a large safe. I’d never seen one before.”
“Where is the safe?”
“In the central room, where they all are. They put it near the portrait of Baron Giovanni Moleti’s great-grandfather. He was one of Garibaldi’s Mille—the One Thousand—you know,” Scirè told him.
It wasn’t difficult for Saro to locate the villa. It had been constructed in the eighteenth century, with spacious, lushly planted grounds which had not been maintained for some years. The facade was rose colored, and on one side there was a grand terrace overlooking a valley that sloped down toward the sea. To the left of the main building stood a small house, also rosy pink, with a red-tiled roof; in earlier times, it had served as the servants’ quarters, but now it housed troops assigned to guard the naval command. That was all that could be seen from the road. Saro set his mind to opening the safe, but to do that, he would need some friendly help and support from Gela’s Mafia. For several days, he studied the situation, noting that the command’s routine worked somewhat like an office’s: a soldier arrived around eight o’clock in the morning to open the command. Officers and generals got there at ten and departed around seven in the evening, leaving a couple of soldiers to stand guard outside. The Moleti family could then enjoy a little privacy, at least until eight the following morning.
The Prince Page 47
