is this different?'
'The Mafia's continued existence is pretty well established by its continuing activities.'
'Yes, that is true, but even though people in the Old Country knew there was such a thing and that the Black Hand had moved with the immigrants to America, the police here never knew about La Cosa Nostra until they found somebody, by accident, who would break the code of muerto. Silence or death.'
'You are saying that an organization might go on operating in secret for centuries?'
Donatelli spread his hands. 'The Mafia had murders, extortion, robbery. Yet the FBI director, Hoover, swore there was no such thing as La Cosa Nostra.'
As he pondered Donatelli's words, thinking he had a good point, Austin surveyed the room.
'You've come a long way since your waiter days,' he said, taking in the luxurious wood paneling and brass fittings.
'I had help. After the wreck I decided I never wanted to set foot on a boat again.' He chuckled. 'There is nothing like the unholy terror of being caught in the hold of a sinking ship to take the romance out of the sea. The woman I tried to help unfortunately died of her injuries. When I went to the funeral her husband thanked me again and said he wanted to do something in return. I said it was my dream to have a small restaurant. He gave me some money for a place in New York on the condition that I take business and English courses which he would also pay for. I named the restaurant Myra, after Mr. Carey's wife. I have opened six more restaurants in large cities across the country. They've made me a millionaire and allowed me to live like this. I married a wonderful woman. She gave me four sons and a daughter, all in the business, and many, marry grandchildren.' He sipped the last of his grappa and put the glass down on a table. 'I built this paradise here for my family, but also I think because it is near to where the ship went down. On foggy nights like this it brings back memories. You see, Mr. Austin, the accident was bad for many people, like Mr. Carry. But it changed my life for the better:'
'Why are you telling me this now? You could have just sent me on my way.'
'My wife died last year.' After I survived the Andrea Doria I thought I would live forever: I saw in her death a reminder that I am mortal like all men. I am not a religious man, but I began to think more about making things right. Those men who were killed in the ship's hold. Maybe the others you told me of, They need somebody to speak for them.' His jaw hardened. 'I will be the spokesman for the dead.' Donatelli looked at the wall clock. 'It is getting late, Mr. Austin. Do you have a place to stay?'
'I thought I'd get a room at a bed-and-breakfast.'
'Not necessary. You will have your bed here tonight as my guest, and breakfast tomorrow. For dinner I will prepare a special pasta. Tomatoes and zucchini fresh from the garden.'
An invitation like that would be impossible to refuse.'
'Good.' He poured them more grappa and hoisted his glass high. 'Then when we have eaten and drunk our wine, we will find a way to show these people what it means to mess with a Sicilian.'
San Antonio, Texas
32 AS A MEXICAN AMERICAN, ZAVALA had mixed feelings about Texas's holiest shrine. He admired the courage of the Alamo's defenders, men like Buck Travis, Jim Bowie, and Davy Crockett, whose names were listed on the cenotaph on Alamo Plaza. At the same time he felt sorry for the 1,550 Mexican troops who died in the siege under the inept command of Santa Anna. The Texans lost 183 men. The Mexicans lost Texas.
He wandered around the chapel that was all that was left of the once-sprawling fort, checked out the museum, and used up the nest of the afternoon watching people at a coffee bar. By six-thirty he was parking his rented car in the garage below the Time-Quest building. He located the parking area marked off for Halcon Industries. Nothing was reserved for the CEO. Zavala's guess was that everybody in the company was well aware the space was forbidden territory and Halcon didn't want to advertise himself.
Zavala parked as near to the Halcon spaces as he could, then walked past two elevators, the public one and another door marked Private, and took up a post nearby in the shadows behind a thick concrete pillar. At five past seven Melody exited the main elevator and walked to her car. Zavala again felt a twinge of regret at not being able to go on a date with the lovely woman, but he had to put those thoughts aside. He wanted a clear head for his first meeting with Senor Halcon.
Zavala's vigil in the underground garage was about to pay off. Shortly after Melody left, a black Lincoln limousine quietly pulled up in front of the elevator door marked Private. Almost on cue the elevator door opened and a man stepped out.
Zavala brought his Nikon to his eye and focused on the tall dark man who exited the elevator and walked with an easy grace to the waiting vehicle. Halcon. He snapped off several shots before Halcon got into the limo, then focused on the driver who was holding the door open for him. The man was wearing a dark suit, and, his white hair was cut military short. He was tall and broad-shouldered, his physique muscularly athletic even though he could have been in his sixties at least. Zavala got off a single shot before the white-haired man swept the garage with his eyes as if he had heard the quiet whirr of the motor drive. Zavala melted into the shadows and didn't dare breathe until the car door slammed and the limo moved off.
In the fleeting second he had framed the white-haired man in the viewfinder Zavala had frozen his likeness on his retinas. He leaned against the cold concrete, still not believing the evidence of his eyes. He had just seen the same' man in Arizona. He was sure of it, despite the clean.shaven face and the tailored suit. Only then the man with Halcon was wearing work clothes and had long hair and a thick white beard. He had a wife, since deceased. And he went by the name of George Wingate.
Quickly regaining his composure, Zavala dashed for his rental car. He followed the limo onto the street, keeping one or two cars between him and his objective. They headed out of the city on the expressway in a northwest direction. In time the suburbs and shopping malls thinned out. The flat terrain gave way to rolling hills and more forested areas.
Zavala pushed the rental car just to stay in sight of the limo, which flew along well above the speed limit once they were beyond the more heavily congested neighborhoods. They traveled for about an hour, leaving the main highway around dusk to follow a sparsely populated two-lane road. Zavala stayed far back. Before long he saw the flash of brake lights, and the limo disappeared. Zavala slowed until his headlights caught a small plastic reflector nailed to a tree, marking an unpaved road. He kept going to create the illusion he was bound elsewhere, then after a few hundred yards he did a quick U-turn and came back to the reflector.
He switched the car's headlights off as a test and found that he was able to follow the dirt road as long as he kept speed down to a fast walk. He wondered what a big shot like Halcon was doing in the sticks. Maybe he had a hunting lodge. The thick woods quickly enveloped him. Where the trees opened up he could see low craggy hills on either side. He saw no lights ahead, but this didn't surprise him because the road twisted and turned. Not wanting to run into an unpleasant surprise, Zavala stopped every few minutes, got out of the car, and walked ahead, like the point on an infantry patrol; to watch and listen.
On one stop he saw a light ahead. Cautiously he walked toward the glow until he could see that it was a lone spotlight on the gate of a high wiremesh fence. He pulled the car off the road and made his way toward the fence under the cover of the woods, stopping at the edge of a swath cleared from the perimeter. The fence was about twice the height of a man and topped by coils of razor wire. A white sign with black lettering was attached to the gate warning trespassers to Keep Out. Guard Dogs Trained to Attack. His instincts had served him, well. Above the sign was a small box which could serve no other purpose than as a security camera.
The fence was too high to climb, and he had no protection against the wire, or the dogs, but his guess was that the barricade was attached to an alarm. Remembering a low hill a short distance back, he returned to his car and headed away from the fence in reverse so the backup lights wouldn't be seen, then pulled off the road into the bushes. He made his way toward the hill then up its side, no easy task because he had nothing to light his way. He tripped and had to back out of briars a few times but made it to the copse at the hilltop without mishap. He selected a clean-!imbed tree and climbed to the highest branch that would support his weight.
The elevation gave him a view over the top of the fence. Except for the lone floodlight on the gate, the area was not illuminated. His eyes had become used to the darkness, and soon several shapes began to materialize. He realized he was looking at a vast complex of buildings, some rectangular, others cylindrical, all dominated by a massive pyramid with a flat top. The structures were built of a whitish stone and seemed to glow in the faint light of the moon.
Some hunting lodge, he muttered. This was crazy! An ancient city in the wilds of the Texas countryside. He tried to call Austin but his cell phone failed to pick up a signal. After several minutes during which he squinted into
