Luciano's Luck by Jack Higgins Page A

nothing as simple as being away from the convent on her own. That happened every day of her life because of her hospital work. This was different. Now she was once again responsible for herself in a way that she had not been since her entry into the Order. She had not only pledged herself to God, but to a community and a way of life which had sustained her totally during that dark night of the soul she had gone through for so long. Now, she was responsible once again for her own destiny.
    As thunder rumbled again, she glanced towards the sky and turned to move towards the house. Luciano came into the walled garden through the arched entrance carrying a spare trenchcoat.
    ‘Now you see why they baptized me Salvatore,’ he said cheerfully.
    ‘Thank you, Mr Luciano.’
    ‘Carter wants us in the library in twenty minutes, just to tie up all the loose ends. The rest of the team has turned up. A Captain Savage and a Sergeant Detweiler.’
    ‘We'd better get moving then.’
    ‘No hurry.’ He lit a cigarette and carried on in Sicilian. ‘Poor Maria, I worry you, don't I? Disturb the calm order of your life. The serpent in Eden.’
    ‘Is that how you see yourself? As some romantic outsider?’
    As they went out through the arch the rain increased in force and he pulled her under the pergola to avoid the worst of it.
    ‘And you?’ he said. ‘How do you see me? No, don't answer that.’ He put a finger to his lips. ‘Because whatever you think I am, that's what I'm not.’
    ‘True for all of us.’
    ‘Tell me something,’ he asked her. ‘The religious thing. How did that happen?’
    ‘Oh, when I first reached London I had very little money. I worked in a shop for a while and then I became ill very ill. For a while, I was in a charity ward in a hospital where some of the nurses were Sisters of Pity.’
    ‘So you decided that was for you? A blinding flash, God sending someone down off the mountain to tell you or what?’
    She remembered so clearly that final day during Special Mass on her knees, asking Mother Superior for permission to make her perpetual profession in the Society of the Little Sisters of Pity, resolving to undertake a life of perfect chastity, obedience, poverty and service. It still made her uneasy to discuss it and yet it could not be avoided.
    ‘No, I think it's obvious enough now why I joined the Order. I sought refuge. I should add that I found God, Mr Luciano, but only in His own good time.’
    ‘And Carter turns up like something out of a bad movie, saying I've to come to take you away from all that.’
    ‘I suppose you're right,’ she smiled.
    ‘With the Devil trailing behind?’
    ‘Is that supposed to be you? If so, where are the horns?’
    ‘Oh, I don't know. We all end up the same way,’ he said, suddenly sombre. ‘The one absolute certainty, Death.’ He took her arm before she could reply. ‘Come on, let's get out of here.’
    Carter was waiting in the library with Savage and Detweiler when they went in. ‘Ah, there you are,’ he said and started to make the introductions. ‘Sister Maria Vaughan, Captain Savage.’
    She put up a hand. ‘Plain Maria will be better in the circumstances.’
    She took Savage's hand briefly and sat down, pulling off her turban as she did so, revealing dark hair cropped very closely to her skull, giving her a boyish look.
    ‘Christ Almighty!’ Detweiler said in a whisper.
    Carter said, ‘Mr Luciano, you've already met.’
    Savage nodded, Detweiler glared, and Luciano, indifferent to both of them, lounged in the window seat.
    Carter said, ‘May I make one thing clear? I've been concerned with this kind of intelligence operation for some time now and as far as most of them go, the truth is that, succeed or fail, it isn't gong to make a scrap of difference to the war as a whole.’
    Savage frowned, as he was bound to do at a suggestion which so put down his own war career. ‘Don't you think that's going a little far, Colonel?’
    ‘No I don't, but