where he discovered Carter and Savage on the firing line. Detweiler was helping the armourer, an Ordnance Corps sergeant-major named Smith, to load. Luciano stood watching, Carter took careful aim with both hands and squeezed one off, chipping the right arm of one of the replicas of a charging German at the other end. 98 'Very good, sir,' Savage told him. 'Not if you consider that I was aiming for the heart,' Carter said. He fired another five rounds and hit the target twice more, once in the neck and again in the arm. 'Oh, well, I never was much good with handguns.' 'It's a knack, sir, like anything else,' Savage said cheerfully and fired, like Carter, double-handed, but much more rapidly, hitting the general area of the chest in a solid group. Detweiler said, 'I don't recall anyone being much better at it than you, Captain.' Carter turned to Luciano, 'What about you?" Luciano hefted one of the Brownings in his hand and shook his head. 'The trouble with automatics is they can jam.' He turned to the armourer. 'What else you got?' 'Webley .38, sir?' Smith suggested. 'Too clumsy.' 'The only other revolver I have here at the moment is a Smith and Wesson .32 with a three-inch barrel.' Luciano tried it in his right hand, then the left. 'That's more like it. You got a silencer for this?' 'Sure - over here.' Smith got one from the cupboard and screwed it into place. As he handed the weapon to Luciano, Detweiler said, 'A popgun. You'd need to get damn close to do any good with that. But then, that's your style, isn't it?' Luciano turned and fired twice very fast, right arm extended, both rounds hitting the heart. There was a respectful silence. Savage said, 'I'd say the second round was rather superfluous, Mr Luciano.' 'I like to cover my bets,' Luciano told him, 'And a wounded man can always shoot back.' Savage said to Detweiler, 'I think we could do with a couple of fresh targets down there.' As Detweiler obediently moved down the range, 99 Luciano laid down the Smith and Wesson, following normal safety precautions. Detweiler replaced two of the targets and turned. Luciano called, 'Heh, Detweiler! Like you said, I always do my best work in close.' He picked up the Smith and Wesson, fired twice without apparently taking aim, and shot out the eyes of the target next to Detweiler. Detweiler cried out in alarm and ducked and Luciano started to laugh, was still laughing as he walked out. 'They say he's killed at least twenty men personally,' Carter observed. 'Well, all I can say, Colonel, is that I'm damn glad he's on my side,' Savage told him. Maria awakened early on the following morning from a deep sleep. Pale sunshine filtered in through, the curtains. She lay there for a few moments, remembering that this was the last day. Tonight, she would be on a plane for Algeria, set on a course from which there would be no turning back. It was not that she was afraid. It was simply that nothing fitted. It was as if this was all a dream. A few days before, her world had consisted of the convent and hospital, a daily round that filled her time and life, work for the mind and for the body. Nothing that ever needed to be questioned. But now? She got up and stood beside the bed for a moment. She had slept in the nude, something she had not done for years, always wearing the nun's linen shift of modesty. 'A crack in the fabric already, Maria,' she said softly, and pulled on a towelling robe. Her room was on the ground floor and she opened the French window, looked out into the garden and moved on to the terrace. It was incredibly beautiful in the early morning sun, the trees touched with a kind of nimbus, the rooks cawing lazily to each other. And yet she felt detached, not part of any of this at all, not really aware. It was as if she was looking at things under water in slow motion. She went down the steps without thinking about it, bare-footed in the damp grass. Luciano had also awakened early. He was sitting at the window of his bedroom in
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