Savarone walked past his son’s secretary into his son’s office and across the heavily carpeted floor to the window overlooking the vast factory complex that was the Fontini-Cristi Industries. His son, of course, was nowhere to be seen. His son, his eldest son, was rarely in his office; he was rarely in Milan, for that matter. The first son, the heir-apparent to all of Fontini-Cristi, was incorrigible. And arrogant, and far too concerned with his own creature comforts.
Vittorio was also brilliant. A far more brilliant man than the father who had trained him. And that fact only served to further infuriate Savarone; a man possessing such gifts had greater responsibilities than other men. He did not settle for the daily accomplishments that came naturally. He did not carouse and whore and gamble at roulette and baccarat. Or waste sleepless nights with the naked children of the Mediterranean. Neither did he turn his back on the events that were crippling his country, veering it into chaos.
Savarone heard a slight cough behind him and turned. Vittorio’s secretary had come into the office.
“I’ve left word for your son at the Borsa Valori. I believe he was to see his broker this afternoon.”
“You may believe it, but I doubt you’ll find it on his calendar.” Savarone saw the girl flush. “I apologize. You’re not accountable for my son. Although you’ve probably done so, I suggest you try whatever private numbers he’s given you. This is a familiar office to me. I’ll wait.” He removed his overcoat of light camel’s hair and his hat, a Tyrolean of green felt. He threw them on the armchair at the side of the desk.
“Yes, sir.” The girl left quickly, closing the door behind her.
It was a familiar office, thought Fontini-Cristi, although it had been necessary to call it to the girl’s attention. Until two years ago, it had been his. Very little remained of his presence, now; only the dark wood paneling. All the furniture had been changed. Vittorio had accepted the four walls. Nothing else.
Savarone sat in the large swivel chair behind the desk. He did not like such chairs; he was too old to let his body be suddenly turned and sprung back by unseen springs and hidden ball bearings. He reached into his pocket and took out the telegram that had brought him to Milan from Campo di Fiori, the telegram from Rome that said the Fontini-Cristis were marked.
But marked for what? By whom? On whose orders?
Questions that could not be asked on the telephone, for the telephone was an instrument of the state. The state. Always the state. Seen and unseen. Observing, following, listening, prying. No telephone could be used and no answer given by the informer in Rome who employed the simple codes.
We have received no reply from Milan, therefore we take the liberty of wiring you personally. Five shipments of aircraft piston hammers defective. Rome insists on immediate replacement. Repeat: immediate. Please confirm by telephone before the end of the day.
The number “five” referred to the Fontini-Cristis, because there were five men in the family—a father and four sons. Anything to do with the word “hammer” meant sudden, extreme danger. The repetition of the word “immediate” was self-explanatory: not a moment could be lost, confirmation of receipt was to be made by telephone to Rome within minutes of the telegram’s arrival in Milan. Other men would then be contacted, strategies analyzed, plans made. It was too late now.
The wire had been sent to Savarone that afternoon. Vittorio must have received his cable by eleven. And yet his son had neither replied to Rome nor alerted him in Campo di Fiori. The end of the day was at hand. Too late.
It was unforgivable. Men daily risked their lives and the lives of their families in the fight against Mussolini.
It had not always been so, thought Savarone, as he stared at the office door, hoping that any second the secretary would reappear with news of Vittorio’s whereabouts. It had all been very different once. In the beginning, the Fontini-Cristis had endorsed Il Duce. The weak, indecisive Emmanuel was letting Italy die. Benito Mussolini had offered an alternative; he had come himself to Campo di Fiori to meet with the patriarch of the Fontini-Cristis, seeking alliance—as Machiavelli once so sought the backing of the princes—and he had been alive, and committed, and filled with promise for all Italy.
That was sixteen years ago; since that time Mussolini had fed upon his own rhetoric. He had robbed the nation of its right to think, the people of their freedom to choose; he had deceived the aristocrats—used them and denied their common objectives. He had plunged the country into an utterly useless African war. All for the personal glory of this Caesar Maximus. He had plundered the soul of Italy, and Savarone had vowed to stop him. Fontini-Cristi had gathered the northern “princes” together, and quietly the revolt was taking place.
Mussolini could not risk an open break with the Fontini-Cristis. Unless the charge of treason could be sustained with such clarity that even the family’s most avid supporters would have to conclude they had been—if nothing else—stupid. Italy was gearing for its own entry into the German war. Mussolini had to be careful. That war was not popular, the Germans less so.
Campo di Fiori had become the meeting place of the disaffected. The sprawling acres of lawns and forests and hills and streams were suited to the clandestine nature of the conferences which generally took place at night. But not always; there were other gatherings that required the daylight hours, where younger men were trained by other experienced younger men in the arts of a new, strange warfare. The knife, the rope, the chain, and the hook. They had even coined a name for themselves: partigiani.
The partisans. A name that was spreading from nation to nation.
These were the games of Italy, thought Savarone. “The games of Italy” was what his son called them, a term used in derision by an arrogant, self-centered aristocratico who took seriously only his own pleasures.… No, that was not entirely true. Vittorio also took seriously the running of Fontini-Cristi, as long as pressures of the marketplace conformed to his own schedules. And he made them conform. He used his financial power ruthlessly, his expertise—the expertise he had learned at his father’s side—arrogantly.
The telephone rang; Savarone was tempted to pick it up, but he did not. It was his son’s office, his son’s telephone. Instead, he got out of the terrible chair and walked across the room to the door. He opened it. The secretary was repeating a name.
“… Signore Tesca?”
Savarone interrupted harshly. “Is that Alfredo Tesca?”
The girl nodded.
“Tell him to stay on the telephone. I’ll speak with him.”
Savarone walked rapidly back to his son’s desk and the telephone. Alfredo Tesca was a foreman in one of the factories; he was also a partigiano.
“Fontini-Cristi,” Savarone said.
“Padrone? I’m glad it’s you. This line is clear; we check it every day.”
“Nothing changes. It only accelerates.”
“Yes, padrone. There’s an emergency. A man has flown up from Rome. He must meet with a member of your family.”
“Where?”
“The Olona house.”
“When?”
“As soon as possible.”
Savarone looked at the overcoat and the green felt hat he had thrown over the chair. “Tesca? Do you remember two years ago? The meeting at the apartment on the Duomo?”
“Yes, padrone. It will be six o’clock soon. I’ll be waiting for you.”
Fontini-Cristi hung up the telephone and reached for his overcoat and his hat. He put them on and checked his watch. It was five forty-five; he had to wait a few minutes. The walk across the concrete lot to the factory was short. He had to time it so that he entered the building at the height of the crowds; when the day shift was leaving and the night shift came to work.
His son had taken full advantage of Il Duce’s war machine. The Fontini-Cristi Industries operated around the clock. When the father had reproached the son, the son had replied, “We don’t make munitions. We’re not geared for that. The conversion would be too expensive. We make only profits, father.”
His son. The most capable of them all had a hollowness in him.
Savarone’s eyes fell on the photograph in the silver frame on Vittorio’s desk. Its very existence was a cruel, self-inflicted joke. The face in the picture was that of a young woman, pretty in the accepted sense, with the pert, set features of a spoiled child growing into spoiled maturity. She had been Vittorio’s wife. Ten years ago.
It had not been a good marriage. It had been more an industrial alliance between two immensely wealthy families. And the bride brought little to the union; she was a pouting, self-indulgent woman whose outlook was guided by possessions.
She died in an automobile crash in Monte Carlo, early in the morning after the casinos had closed. Vittorio never talked about that early morning; he had not been with his wife. Another had.
His son had spent four years in turbulent discomfort with a wife he could not stand, and yet the photograph was on his desk. Ten years later. Savarone once asked him why.
“Being a widower lends a certain respectability to my life-style.”
It was seven minutes to six. Time to begin. Savarone walked out of his son’s office and spoke to the secretary. “Please call downstairs and have my car brought around to the west gate. Tell my chauffeur I have a meeting at the Duomo.”
“Yes, sir.… Do you wish to leave a number where your son can reach you?”
“Campo di Fiori. But by the time he calls, I’ll no doubt be asleep.”
Savarone took the private elevator to the ground floor and went out the executive entrance onto the concrete. Thirty yards away his chauffeur was walking toward the limousine with the crest of Fontini-Cristi on the door panels. The two men exchanged looks. The chauffeur nodded slightly; he knew what to do. He was a partigiano.
Savarone crossed the yard, aware that people were watching him. That was good; that was the way it had been two years ago when Il Duce’s secret police were tracking his every move, trying to unearth the whereabouts of an antifascist cell. The factory whistles blew; the day shift was released and within minutes the yard and the corridors would be crowded. The incoming workers—due at their stations at six fifteen—were flooding through the west gate.
He climbed the steps to the employees’ entrance and entered the crowded, noisy corridor, removing his coat and hat in the confusion. Tesca stood by the wall, halfway toward the doors that led to the workers’ lockers. He was tall and slender, very much like Savarone, and he took Savarone’s coat and hat and helped Fontini-Cristi into his own worn, three-quarter-length raincoat with a newspaper in the pocket. Then he handed Savarone a large cloth visor cap. The exchange was completed without words in the jostling crowds. Tesca accepted Savarone’s assistance in putting on the camel’s hair coat; the employer saw that the employee had taken the trouble—as he had done two years ago—to change into pressed trousers, shined shoes, and a white whirt and tie.
The partigiano entered the flow of human traffic to the exit doors. Savarone followed ten yards behind, then stood immobile on the crowded platform outside the constantly opening doors, pretending to read the newspaper.
He saw what he wanted to see. The camel’s hair coat and the green Tyrolean hat stood out among the worn leather jackets and frayed workers’ clothing. Two men beyond the throngs signaled each other and began the chase, making their way through the crowd as best they could in an effort to catch up. Savarone squeezed himself into the stream of workers and arrived at the gate in time to see the door of the Fontini-Cristi limousine close and the huge automobile roll into the traffic of the Via di Sempione. The two pursuers were at the curb; a gray Fiat pulled up and they climbed in.
The Fiat took up the chase. Savarone turned north and walked swiftly to the corner bus stop.
The house on the riverfront was a relic that once, perhaps a decade ago, had been painted white. From the outside it looked dilapidated, but inside the rooms were small, neat, and organized; they were places of work, an antifascist headquarters.
Savarone entered the room with the windows overlooking the murky waters of the Olona River, made black by the darkness of night. Three men rose from straight-backed chairs around a table and greeted him with feeling and respect. Two were known to him; the third, he presumed, was from Rome.
“The hammer code was sent this morning,” said Savarone. “What does it mean?”
“You received the wire?” asked the man from Rome incredulously. “All telegrams to Fontini-Cristi in Milan were intercepted. It’s why I’m here. All communications to your factories were stopped.”
“I received mine at Campo di Fiori. Through the telegraph office in Varese, I imagine, not Milan.” Savarone felt a minor relief in knowing his son had not disobeyed. “Have you the information?”
“Not all, padrone,” replied the man. “But enough to know it’s extremely serious. And imminent. The military is suddenly very concerned with the northern movement. The generals want it crippled; they intend to see your family exposed.”
“As what?”
“As enemies of the new Italy.”
“On what grounds?”
“For holding meetings of a treasonable nature at Campo di Fiori. Spreading antistate lies; of attempting to undermine Rome’s objectives and corrupt the industrial arm of the country.”
“Words.”
“Nevertheless, an example is to be made. They demand it, they say.”
“Nonsense. Rome wouldn’t dare move against us on such tenuous grounds.”
“That is the problem, signore,” said the man hesitantly. “It’s not Rome. It’s Berlin.”
“What?”
“The Germans are everywhere, giving orders to everyone. The word is that Berlin wants the Fontini-Cristis stripped of influence.”
“They look to the future, don’t they,” stated one of the other two men, an older partigiano who had walked to the window.
“How do they propose to accomplish this?” asked Savarone.
“By smashing a meeting at Campo di Fiori. Forcing those there to bear witness to the treasons of the Fontini-Cristis. That would be less difficult than you think, I believe.”
“Agreed. It’s the reason we’ve been careful.… When will this happen? Do you have any idea?”
“I left Rome at noon. I can only assume the code word ‘hammer’ was used correctly.”
“There’s a meeting tonight.”
“Then ‘hammer’ was called for. Cancel it, padrone. Obviously, word got out.”
“I’ll need your help. I’ll give you names … our telephones are unsafe.” Fontini-Cristi began writing in a notebook on the table with a pencil supplied by the third partigiano.
“When’s the meeting scheduled?”
“Ten thirty. There’s enough time,” replied Savarone.
“I hope so. Berlin is thorough.”
Fontini-Cristi stopped writing and looked over at the man. “That’s a strange thing to say. The Germans may bark orders in the Campidoglio; they’re not in Milan.”
The three partisans exchanged glances. Savarone knew there was further news he had not received. The man from Rome finally spoke.
“As I said, our information is not complete. But we know certain things. The degree of Berlin’s interest, for example. The German high command wants Italy to openly declare itself. Mussolini wavers; for many reasons, not the least of which is the opposition of such powerful men as yourself—” The man stopped; he was unsure. Not, apparently, of his information, but how to say it.
“What are you driving at?”
“They say that Berlin’s interest in the Fontini-Cristis is Gestapo inspired. It’s the Nazis who demand the example; who intend to crush Mussolini’s opposition.”
“I gathered that. So?”
“They have little confidence in Rome, none in the provinces. The raiding party will be led by Germans.”
“A German raiding party out of Milan?”
The man nodded.
Savarone put down the pencil and stared at the man from Rome. But his thoughts were not on the man; they were on a Greek freight from Salonika he had met high in the mountains of Champoluc. On the cargo that train carried. A vault from the Patriarchate of Constantine, now buried in the frozen earth of the upper regions.
It seemed incredible, but the incredible was commonplace in these times of madness. Had Berlin found out about the train from Salonika? Did the Germans know about the vault? Mother of Christ, it had to be kept from them! And all—all—like them!
“You’re sure of your information?”
“We are.”
Rome could be managed, thought Savarone. Italy needed the Fontini-Cristi Industries. But if the German intrusion was linked to the vault from Constantine, Berlin would not consider Rome’s needs in the slightest. The possession of the vault was everything.
And, therefore, the protection of it essential beyond all life. Above all things its secret could not fall into the wrong hands. Not now. Perhaps not ever, but certainly not now.
The key was Vittorio. It was always Vittorio, the most capable of them all. For whatever else he was, Vittorio was a Fontini-Cristi. He would honor the family’s commitment; he was a match for Berlin. The time had come to tell him about the train from Salonika. Detail the family’s arrangements with the monastic Order of Xenope. The timing was right, the strategy complete.
A date marked in stone, etched for a millennium, was only a hint, a clue in case of a sudden failing of the heart, death from abrupt natural or unnatural causes. It was not enough.
Vittorio had to be told, charged with a responsibility beyond anything in his imagination. The documents from Constantine made everything else pale into insignificance.
Savarone looked up at the three men. “The meeting will be canceled tonight. The raiding party will find only a large family gathering. A holiday dinner party. All my children and their children. However, for it to be complete, my oldest son must be at Campo di Fiori. I’ve tried calling him all afternoon. Now you must find him. Use your telephones. Call everyone in Milan if you have to, but find him! If it gets late, tell him to use the stable road. It wouldn’t do for him to enter with the raiding party.”