Michael, Peter Clemenza and Don Domenico had an early supper together. If they were to make the dawn meeting hour, the operation to collect Guiliano would have to start at dusk. They went over the plan again and Domenico approved. He added one detail: Michael was not to be armed. If something went wrong and the carabinieri or Security Police arrested them, no charges could be brought against Michael, and he could leave Sicily no matter what happened.

They had a jug of wine and lemons in the garden and then it was time to go. Don Domenico kissed his brother goodbye. He turned to Michael and gave him a quick embrace. "My best wishes to your father," he said. "I pray for your future, I wish you well. And in the years to come, if you ever have need for my services, send me word."

The three of them walked down to the dock. Michael and Peter Clemenza boarded the motor launch which was already full of armed men. The boat pulled away, Don Domenico waving farewell from the dock. Michael and Peter Clemenza went down into the cabin where Clemenza went to sleep in one of the bunks. He had had a busy day and they would be at sea until nearly dawn the following morning.

They had changed their plans. The plane at Mazzara del Vallo in which they had planned to fly to Africa would be used as a decoy; instead the escape to Africa would be by boat. Clemenza had argued for this, saying that he could control the road and guard the boat with his men, but he could not control the small airfield. There was too much ground area in the approaches and the plane was too fragile; it could become a deathtrap while still on the ground. Speed was not as important as deception, and the sea was easier to hide in than the sky. Also provisions could be made for transferring to another boat; you couldn't change planes.

Clemenza had been busy during the day dispatching some men and cars to an assembly point on the road to Castelvetrano; others to secure the town of Mazzara del Vallo. He had sent them at intervals of an hour; he did not want spies observing the unusual movement of a convoy going through the villa gates. The cars went off in different directions to further confuse any observers. Meanwhile the motor launch was making its way around the southwestern point of Sicily to lie out over the horizon until the dawn started to break, when it would zoom into the port of Mazzara del Vallo. Cars and men would be waiting for them. From there it would not be more than a half-hour drive to Castelvetrano despite the swing they would have to take north to meet the Trapani road that led to where Pisciotta would intercept them.

Fra Diav o lo was sleeping a far deeper sleep.

Michael lay down on one of the bunks. He could hear Clemenza snoring and was filled with amazed admiration that the man could actually sleep at such a time. Michael thought that in twenty-four hours he would be in Tunis and twelve hours after that he would be home with his family. After two years of exile he would have all the options of a free man, no longer on the run from the police, not subject to the rule of his protectors. He could do exactly what he wanted to do. But only if he got through the next thirty-six hours. As he fantasized about what he would do his first days in America, the gentle roll of the boat relaxed him and he fell into a dreamless sleep.

Stefano Andolini, on the morning of the day he was to pick up Professor Hector Adonis in Trapani, drove first to Palermo. He had an appointment with the Chief of the Sicilian Security Police, Inspector Velardi, one of their frequent meetings in which the Inspector briefed Andolini on Colonel Luca's operational plans for the day. Andolini would then transmit this information to Pisciotta who would carry it to Guiliano.

Inspector Federico Velardi, head of the Security Police of Sicily, felt the virtuous triumph of a man who has waited patiently, believing always in a God who would finally bring order into his universe, and finally received his reward. For nearly a year, under the direct and secret orders of Minister Trezza, he had helped Guiliano escape the carabinieri and his own flying squads. He had met with the murderous Stefano Andolini, Fra Diav o lo. For that year Inspector Velardi had, in effect, been a subordinate of Don Croce Malo.

It was a beautiful morning; the fields alongside the road were carpeted with flowers. He was early for his appointment so he stopped by one of the roadside shrines for a cigarette and then knelt in front of the padlocked box that held the statue of Saint Rosalia. His prayer was simple and practical, a plea to the Saint to protect him from his enemies. On the coming Sunday he would confess his sins to Father Beniamino and take Communion. Now the radiant sun warmed his bare head; the flower-perfumed air was so heavy it washed his nostrils and palate clean of nicotine and he was enormously hungry. He promised himself a good breakfast in Palermo's finest restaurant after his meeting with Inspector Velardi.

Velardi was from the north of Italy, where people made something of themselves through education, a respect for the social contract, a belief in law and government. Velardi's service years in Sicily had instilled in him contempt and deep hatred for the Sicilian people, high and low. The rich had no social conscience and kept down the poor by their criminal conspiracy with the Mafia. The Mafia, which pretended to protect the poor, hired themselves out to the rich to keep down those poor. The peasants were too proud, had such egos that they gloried in murder though they might spend the rest of their lives in prison.

To Velardi's astonishment Minister Trezza himself had given the order that all those people who had been given the red-bordered passes signed by the Minister, those all-powerful passes that enabled the users to pass through roadblocks, to carry arms, to be immune to routine arrests, were to be detained in solitary confinement. Those passes had to be gathered up. Especially those issued to Aspanu Pisciotta and Stefano Andolini.

But now things would be different. Inspector Velardi's hands had finally been untied and his flying squads could be unleashed. And people would see again the difference between his own Security Police and the clownish carabinieri.

Stefano Andolini's red hair was neatly combed. He wore a black pin-striped suit, white shirt and dark tie. After all, a visit to the Chief of the Security Police was a formal occasion in which to show respect. He was not armed. He knew from experience that everyone was always searched when they entered the headquarters. He stood in front of Velardi's desk waiting for the usual permission to sit down. It was not given, so he remained standing and the first warning signal went off in his head.

"Let me see your special pass," Inspector Velardi said to him.

Andolini did not move. He was trying to fathom this strange request. On principle he lied. "I don't have it with me," he said. "After all I was visiting a Friend." He put a special emphasis on the word "Friend."

Velardi prepared to go to work. Andolini was waiting in his anteroom for his briefing. He would get a surprise today. Velardi picked up the phone and summoned a captain and four police sergeants. He told them to be prepared for trouble. He himself was wearing a pistol in a belt holster, something he usually did not do in his office. Then he had Stefano Andolini brought in from the anteroom.

The night's solitude in his cell, thinking about his strange arrest, had convinced Andolini he was in mortal danger. When he entered, Velardi was striding up and down the room, his blue eyes flashing, obviously in a temper. Stefano Andolini was cold as ice. He observed everything -- the Captain and four police sergeants at the alert, the pistol at Velardi's hip. He knew that the Inspector had always hated him, and he hated the Inspector no less. If he could talk Velardi into getting rid of the guards, he might at least kill him before he was killed himself. So he said, "I'll talk, but not with these other sbirri here." Sbirri was the vulgar and insulting idiom for the Security Police.

The next morning Velardi received another phone call from Minister Trezza and a more explicit one from Don Croce. A few moments later Andolini was escorted from his cell to Velardi's office.

This enraged Velardi. He moved around the desk and stood face to face with Andolini. "You were never a friend of mine. I obeyed orders when breaking bread with a swine like you. Now listen to me carefully. You are under arrest. You will be confined in my cells until further notice, and I must tell you that I have a cassetta down in the dungeons. But we'll have a quiet little talk here in my office tomorrow morning and spare you some pain, if you're clever."

Velardi ordered the four policemen out of the room but gave the officer a signal to stay. He also gave him a signal to be ready to draw his gun. Then he turned his full attention to Stefano Andolini.

No wonder they called him Fra Diav o lo, Velardi thought. He was truly a dangerous man. He must have no inkling of what was coming.

"I want any information on how I can put my hands on Guiliano," he said. "The last time you met with him and Pisciotta."

Stefano Andolini laughed, his murderous face twisted in a malevolent grimace. The skin grained with red beard seemed to blaze with violence.

Velardi said to him calmly, "Answer my question or I'll have you stretched out on the cassetta."

Andolini said with contempt, "You traitorous bastard, I'm under the protection of Minister Trezza and Don Croce. When they have me released, I'll cut your sbirri heart out."

Velardi reached over and slapped Andolini's face twice, once with his palm and then backhand. He saw the blood well up on Andolini's mouth and the rage in his eyes. He deliberately turned his back to sit at his desk.

At that moment, anger blinding his instinct for survival, Stefano Andolini grabbed the pistol out of the Inspector's belt holster and tried to fire. In that same instant the police officer drew his own gun and fired four shots into Andolini's body. Andolini was hurled against the far wall and then lay on the floor. The white shirt was stained completely red and, Velardi thought, it matched his hair quite nicely. He reached down and took the pistol from Andolini's hand as other policemen rushed into the room. He complimented the Captain on his alertness, and then in full view of the officer he loaded his pistol with the bullets he had emptied out of it before the meeting. He did not want his Captain to get delusions of grandeur, that he had actually saved the life of a careless head of the Security Police.

Then he ordered his men to search the dead body. As he suspected the red-bordered security pass was in the sheaf of identification papers every Sicilian was required to carry. Velardi took the pass and put in into his safe. He would hand it over to Minister Trezza personally, and, with luck he would have Pisciotta's pass to go along with it.

Clemenza was walking around the deck, giving orders to the armed men and the pilot. Michael studied the blue lights which seemed to be running toward him. The boat was picking up speed, and it was as if that churning of the water swept away the darkness of the night. A chink of dawn opened in the sky, and Michael could see the dock and beaches of Mazzara del Vallo; the colored umbrellas of cafe tables were a dusky rose beyond them.

The launch was slowly heading in to land, motor quiet, and they could see the lights on the dock, faint blue pinpoints.

When they docked there were three cars and six men waiting. Clemenza led Michael to the lead vehicle, an open and ancient touring car which held only a driver. Clemenza got into the front seat and Michael got into the back. Clemenza said to Michael, "If we get stopped by a carabinieri patrol, you duck down to the floor. We can't fool around here on the road, we just gotta blow them away and make our run."

On deck one of the men brought Michael and Clemenza small cups of hot espresso which they drank leaning against the rail.

The three wide-bodied touring cars were moving in the pale, early sunlight through a countryside almost unchanged since the birth of Christ. Ancient aqueducts and pipes spouted water over the fields. It was already warm and humid, and the air was filled with the smell of flowers beginning to rot in the heat of the Sicilian summer. They were passing through the Selinunte, the ruins of the ancient Greek city, and Michael could see from time to time the crumbling columns of marble temples scattered over Western Sicily by the Greek colonists more than two thousand years ago. These columns loomed eerily in the yellow light, their fragments of roof dripping blackly like rain against the blue sky. The rich black earth foamed up against walls of granite cliffs. There was not a house, not an animal, not a man to be seen. It was a landscape created by the slash of a giant sword.

Then they swung north to hit the Trapani-Castelvetrano road. And now Michael and Clemenza were more alert; it was along this road that Pisciotta would intercept them and bring them to Guiliano. Michael felt an intense excitement. The three touring cars went more slowly now. Clemenza had a machine pistol lying on the seat on his left side so he could bring it up quickly over the car door. His hands were positioned on it. The sun had climbed into its rightful dominance, and its rays were a hot gold. The cars kept slowly on; they were almost upon the town of Castelvetrano.

Michael felt a queasiness at the pit of his stomach. He said to Clemenza, "How many men do you have waiting for us in town?"

The driver cursed and stepped on the brake as he pulled the car to the side of the road. He turned to Clemenza and said, "Do you want me to go on?"

Clemenza ordered the driver to go even more slowly. He and Michael watched for any sign of Pisciotta. They were now on the outskirts of Castelvetrano, ascending a hilly road, and stopping so that they could look down the main street of the town lying below them. From their high vantage point Michael could see the road from Palermo clogged with vehicles -- military vehicles; the streets were swarming with carabinieri in their black uniforms with white piping. There was the wail of many sirens that did not seem to scatter the crowds of people in the main street. Overhead two small planes were circling.

"Not enough," Clemenza said sourly. His face had an almost frightened look. "Mike, we have to get out of here. We have to get back to the boat."

"Wait," Michael said, now seeing the cart and donkey toiling slowly up the hill toward them. The driver was an old man with a straw hat pulled down tight around his head. The cart was painted with legends on the wheels, the shafts, and the sides. It halted alongside of them. The driver's face was wrinkled and showed no expression, and his arms, incongruously muscled, were bare to his shoulders, for he wore only a black vest over his wide canvas trousers. He came abreast of their car and said, "Don Clemenza, is that you?"

There was relief in Clemenza's voice. "Zu Peppino, what the hell is going on there? Why didn't my men come out and warn me?"

Zu Peppino's stony wrinkled face did not change expression. "You can go back to America," he said. "They have massacred Turi Guiliano."

Michael found himself strangely dizzy. Suddenly at that moment the light seemed to fall out of the sky. He thought of the old mother and father, of Justina waiting in America, of Aspanu Pisciotta and Stefano Andolini. Of Hector Adonis. For Turi Guiliano had been the starlight of their lives, and it was not possible his light no longer existed.

"Are you sure it's him?" Clemenza asked harshly.

Michael was feeling ill but he managed to say, "We'll have to go in and look. I have to make sure."

The old man shrugged. "It was one of Guiliano's old tricks, to leave a corpse or dummy to entice the carabinieri so that he could kill them. But it's been two hours now and nothing has happened. The body is still lying in the courtyard where they killed him. There are already newspapermen from Palermo here with their cameras taking pictures of everybody, even my donkey. So believe what you like."

Clemenza said roughly, "Alive or dead, we can't help him anymore. I'm taking you home, Mike."

"No," Michael said softly. "We have to go in. Maybe Pisciotta is waiting for us. Or Stefano Andolini. To tell us what to do. Maybe it's not him, I can't believe it's him. He couldn't die, not when he was this close to getting away. Not when his Testament is safe in America."

Clemenza sighed. He saw the look of suffering on Michael's face. Perhaps it wasn't Guiliano; perhaps Pisciotta was waiting to make a rendezvous. Perhaps even this was part of the plot to distract attention from his escape if the authorities were close on his heels.

Clemenza took Michael by the arm and led him out of the crowd.

Now the sun had fully risen. Clemenza ordered his men to park their cars and to follow him. Then he and Michael walked down the rest of the street which was crowded with people. They were gathered around the entrance to a side street that was filled with army cars and blocked by a cordon of carabinieri. On this side street was a row of separate houses split apart by courtyards. Clemenza and Michael stood at the rear of the crowd watching with the others. The carabinieri officer was admitting journalists and officials past the cordon of guards after examining their credentials. Michael said to Clemenza, "Can you get us past that officer?"

In an hour they were in one of the small houses on a side street. This house too had a small courtyard and was only about twenty houses from where the crowd had gathered. Clemenza left Michael there with four men, and then he and two others went back into the town. They were gone for an hour and when Clemenza came back he was obviously badly shaken.

"Not yet," Clemenza said.

"It looks bad, Mike," he said. "They're bringing Guiliano's mother from Montelepre to identify the body. Colonel Luca is here, the Commander of the Special Force. And newspapermen from all over the world are flying in, even from the States. This town is going to be a madhouse. We gotta get outta here."

Against Clemenza's protest, they went out into the street. The whole town seemed to be covered with carabinieri. There must be at least a thousand of them, Michael thought. And there were literally hundreds of photographers. The street was clogged with vans and automobiles and there was no way of getting near the courtyard. They saw a group of high-ranking officers going into a restaurant, and the whisper went around that this was Colonel Luca and his staff having a celebration lunch. Michael caught a glimpse of the Colonel. He was a small wiry man with a sad face, and because of the heat he had taken off his braided cap and was wiping his partially bald head with a white handkerchief. A crowd of photographers was taking his picture and a mob of journalists was asking him questions. He waved them aside without answering and disappeared into the restaurant.

"Well let's go out and see what we can do," Michael said.

"Tomorrow," Michael said. "We'll run tomorrow. Now let's see if we can get past those guards. Did you do anything about that?"

They ate dinner in an open-air cafe. It had a blaring radio giving news reports of Guiliano's death. The story was that the police had surrounded a house in which they believed Guiliano to be hiding. When he came out he was ordered to surrender. He had immediately opened fire. Captain Perenze, Colonel Luca's chief of staff, was giving interviews on the radio to a panel of journalists. He told how Guiliano had started to run and he, Captain Perenze, had followed him and cornered him in the courtyard. Guiliano had turned like a lion at bay, Captain Perenze said, and he, Perenze, had returned his fire and killed him. Everybody in the restaurant was listening to the radio. Nobody was eating. The waiters made no pretense of serving; they also listened. Clemenza turned to Michael and said, "The whole thing is fishy. We leave tonight."

The town streets were so dense with people that Michael and Clemenza could hardly move. Clemenza decided they should go back to the house and wait for information. Late that afternoon word was brought by one of his men that Maria Lombardo had identified the body as that of her son.

A police van had pulled up to the curb. Michael and Clemenza were swarmed over by Security Police, searched and then pushed roughly into the van. Some newspaper photographers eating in the cafe had jumped up with their cameras and were immediately clubbed back by the Security Police. Inspector Velardi watched all this with a grim satisfied smile.

But at that moment the street around the cafe filled with Security Police. An official car pulled up to the curb and out of it stepped Inspector Velardi. He came up to their table and placed his hand on Michael's shoulder. "You are under arrest," he said. He fastened his icy blue eyes on Clemenza. "And for good luck we'll take you with him. A word of advice. I have a hundred men around this cafe. Don't make a fuss or you'll join Guiliano in hell."

The next day the father of Turi Guiliano spoke from the balcony of his home in Montelepre to the people in the street below. In the old tradition of Sicily, he declared a vendetta against the betrayers of his son. Specifically he declared a vendetta against the man who had killed his son. That man, he said, was not Captain Perenze, not a carabiniere. The man he named was Aspanu Pisciotta.