The Age Of Doubt

On paper, everything looked as if it should work out to perfection.

But with each minute that passed and brought him closer to the start of things, Montalbano felt a great sense of agitation growing inside him. And, without knowing why, he fidgeted and fretted inside the car, huffing as if he couldn’t breathe.

There were four of them: Gallo beside him, and in back, Galluzzo and Martorana, an alert young officer. The inspector had his pistol in his pocket, while the other three were armed with machine guns. Gallo kept the engine idling, ready to break into a Formula One dash.

Montalbano opened the car door.

“What, you want to get out?” a flummoxed Gallo asked him.

“No. I just want to smoke a cigarette.”

“Then it’d be better if you shut the door and opened the window. If I have to suddenly take off…”

“Okay, okay,” the inspector said, forgoing the cigarette.

At that moment his cell phone rang.

“Lieutenant Belladonna has just now gone aboard the Ace of Hearts,” Roberta Rollo told him.

Laura! Matre santa, it had never occurred to him they would stick her in the middle of this!

Why her, of all people?

“What did she say?” Gallo asked.

And what if those thugs reacted violently? What if they hurt her? What if-

“What did she say?” Gallo persisted.

“She said… La… La… she said Lalala… has boarded. What the fuck! What a stupid fucking idea!”

The inspector seemed so enraged that Gallo decided to let it drop, not daring to ask any more questions.

How on earth could they send a girl like Laura to carry out so dangerous an assignment? Were they crazy?

The cell phone rang again.

“There are five on board, two at the engines, and three on deck, but the lieutenant-”

Montalbano didn’t wait to hear any more.

“Go!” he shouted.

He yelled it so loudly that his voice made his own ears ring along with those of the other three in the car. As Gallo shot off like a rocket, he looked in the mirror: Fazio’s car was right behind, practically stuck to his bumper.

Inspector Rollo had calculated that they would need less than four minutes to get from the north entrance to the Ace of Hearts, but Gallo had laughed at this, saying he could get there in less than half the time. But Rollo had also decided that, to avoid arousing suspicion, the normal traffic in the port should be allowed to continue.

As a result, no sooner did Montalbano’s car fly out from the alleyway in which it was hidden and come to the north entrance, than it found its path blocked by a tractor-trailer.

The driver was out of the cab, showing his card to the Customs guard.

Montalbano was blind with terror and rage.

In the twinkling of an eye, and cursing all the while, he opened the car door, jumped out, and, taking the pedestrian crossing, started running towards the Ace of Hearts.

And at once he saw, in the distance, something he wished he hadn’t seen.

One of the cruiser’s sailors had just lifted the mooring cable from the bollard and was climbing back on board. And was the dull, incessant thumping he heard his own blood or was it the rumble of the Ace of Hearts’ powerful engines?

He sped up as much as he could, feeling a sharp pain in his side.

Without knowing how he got there, he found himself at the top of the gangway that had been left attached to the wharf, with the deck of the cruiser at the same level as him but already a good two feet away. They were escaping.

He closed his eyes and jumped.

He realized he had his gun in his hand, though he couldn’t remember when he had taken it out of his pocket. He was acting purely on instinct.

He landed on the aft deck, entirely out in the open. The first shot they fired from the cabin whizzed by his head. He reacted by firing two shots blindly, come what may, in the general direction of the wheelhouse, as he ran and hid behind a large spool of cable that was pretty useless as a shield.

Then he realized he was very close to the hatch leading below decks.

He had to get there. They were still firing at him from the cabin, but as the cruiser rapidly gained speed, it danced about on the water, making it hard for them to take aim.

Then, after firing three rapid shots in a row, the inspector took another great leap and ended up rolling down the steps of the little staircase leading below.

As he picked himself up, he froze.

There before him, back against a wall, was Laura, staring at him in silence, eyes popping in terror.

What was she doing still on board?

For a moment he drowned in the blue of her eyes.

That brief moment sufficed to allow the man behind him to stick the barrel of a revolver into the middle of his back.

“Make a move and I’ll kill you,” said a voice with a slight French accent.

It must be Petit, Zigami’s secretary. Who was not, however, aware of just how much desperate courage Laura’s eyes had inspired in Montalbano.

Without his body showing the slightest sign of turning, the inspector’s left foot rose as if by its own will with animal speed and forcefully, ferociously struck the Frenchman square in the balls, making him double over, groaning and dropping his weapon. Just to be sure, Montalbano dealt him another swift kick square in the face. Petit collapsed.

Then in a single bound Montalbano was beside Laura and pushed her by the shoulders as far as the little staircase. He bent down and grabbed the Frenchman’s pistol. Now he could fire away without needing to save any shots.

“I’m going to go up to the top of the stairs and start firing at the wheelhouse. When you hear the first shot, run across the deck and jump into the water. But from the side of the boat, to avoid the propellors. Got that?”

She nodded yes. Then, making a great effort to speak, she asked:

“What about you?”

“I’ll jump in after you. Here I go.”

But then she laid her hand on his arm. And Montalbano understood. He leaned forward and kissed her, ever so lightly, on the lips.

He crawled up the six stairs and started firing. Laura streaked by him and disappeared. But they were returning his fire from the cabin and there wasn’t a second to lose.

He stood up and, jumping like a kangaroo across the deck, reached the ship’s side, stepped over it, and plunged into the water.

At once he realized that Laura was nowhere in sight. At the high speed the cruiser had reached, the few seconds between one jump and the next had sufficed to put a great distance between the two of them.

On top of everything else, night had fallen. Taking his bearings, however, from the lights he could see in the distance, he realized he was right in the middle of the harbor.

Letting go of the pistols, which he no longer needed, he took off his jacket and shoes and started swimming against the foaming wake the cruiser had left behind.

He called out loudly:

“Laura! Laura!”

Silence. Why didn’t she answer? Maybe her violent landing in the water had temporarily deafened her?

He was about to call out to her again when all at once, at the mouth of the harbor, there was a tremendous burst of automatic weapons fire. It sounded like a veritable naval battle. Apparently the cruiser was trying to force its way through the Coast Guard’s blockade and reach the open sea.