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And the wireless is gone! What the hell?

He looked under the hidden door in the floor and found only empty space between the joists.

Damn it!

Canidy then pounded down the stairs and checked the rest of the house.

As he went to the living room at the back of the first floor, he realized something had changed.

Fucking Mariano is gone!

How did that happen?

I could barely move him. No way that John Craig or Andrea could have.

* * *

Canidy covered the five blocks back to the casa that Andrea had announced was hers. He knocked at the door, and when there was no answer, jimmied the lock, searched the house—but found absolutely no trace that they had been there.

* * *

When Canidy reached the single-story brick building that was Frank Nola’s import-export office, the metal hasp on the wooden door was not only closed but had a heavy dull brass padlock securing it.

What the hell?

Tweedle Dee said he was coming back here.

Canidy looked around, then exhaled audibly.

I need to get my bearings and think this whole damn thing through.

And fast. I’m supposed to be—somehow—on my way to Messina. . . .

He reached in his pocket and pulled out the note and key from Jimmy Skinny.

Palasota had written: Sorry. Best I can do right now. Get cleaned up, rested. Check back. –J

[THREE]

Office of Chief Executive

Headquarters, Kappler Industrie GmbH

Berlin, Germany

1015 1 June 1943

“I have just come from the Reich Chancellery,” Wernher von Braun announced in a tone that was anything but pleasant as he came through the massive double oak doors held open by Wolfgang Kappler’s executive assistant. Inge Gelb was an unassuming, slender blond forty-year-old.

Kappler, seated at his desk, slid shut the top drawer that contained his Luger 9mm pistol, and stood. He noted that von Braun, in his SS uniform, had dispensed with greeting him with a stiff arm and a hearty “Heil Hitler.”

“And it’s nice to see you again, too, Wernher,” Wolfgang Kappler said, purposefully sarcastic as he gestured for the assistant to close the door and told her, “Inge, absolutely no interruptions, unless it is Herr Krupp calling.”

Kappler noticed that von Braun seemed unbothered by the mention of Krupp and the possibility of Krupp’s call interrupting their meeting.

“Jawohl, Herr Kappler,” she said, almost bowing as she backed out and pulled the two doors shut.

Kappler’s wife had been responsible for the design of his luxurious office. There was a rich mix of dark-stained hardwood paneling and thick burgundy woolen carpeting, as well as grand oil paintings showing four generations of Kapplers. The furnishings were in the baroque style of Louis XIV, the ornately carved pieces projecting, she’d said, the majestic power that reflected that of the chief executive industrialist himself.