Operator 5 #40 The Suicide Battalion by Curtis Steele

Author:Curtis Steele
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

A CROWD had already gathered on the sidewalks across the way from the cathedral when Jimmy and Insley hurried toward the wide doorway. Heads were craning upward, eyes turned toward the towers curiously, as the noon hour drew perilously close. Husbanding his breath as best he could, Jimmy raced up flight after flight of the steep, winding stairs, panted his way to the door of the tower room — and was almost flung back headlong when Bub Ellis sprang from concealment and lashed out at him with a gun barrel. “Operator 5!” he gasped amazed recognition just in time. Then Jimmy was past him, striding into the little cell-like room where Marshal Vittorio Rinaldi sat, bound hand and foot, before the open window through which he was to be hoisted. A long rope was knotted in a loop around the doomed man’s neck, its other end secured to a heavy table in the cubicle. Over him stood Sam Baxter, watch in hand, counting the minutes before Rinaldi would be hurled out over the ledge to his death. Grim-faced and tight-lipped, the soldier sat staring out over the farstretching panorama of house-tops — and then came his unexpected reprieve. “All right, Sam.” Operator 5 held up his hand, as his men turned astonished eyes toward the doorway. “Let me have a few words with the marshal before you proceed.” Obediently, Sam Baxter dropped the rope and stepped back, while Jimmy strode over to Rinaldi and cut the thongs from his wrists and ankles. “You are in the hands of the American Intelligence, Marshal,” he addressed the wide-eyed officer in his native Italian. The old warrior bowed courteously. “In the hands of Operator 5 — the man who caused Emperor Rudolph so much trouble,” he corrected. “I heard — from the doorway.” “We do not want to hang you, unless you force us to do it,” Jimmy assured him earnestly. “It will be much more satisfactory if you will listen to reason. I understand that you have completed your plans for the conquest of America and have agreed on how our territory is to be divided with your allies. Now I want you to give up those plans, for the sake of your country as well as mine.” Jimmy frowned. “You think it is America that Franz Schnabel plans to conquer — but his eyes are really on your own Italy. Don’t you realize that there is not enough room in Europe for two empires such as Schnabel and Bruno Caesar are building? Don’t you realize that one or the other will have to dominate — will have to gain undisputed mastery of the continent?” He let that sink in. “This invasion of America — the brunt of it will be borne by Italian troops, will it not?” Jimmy hazarded, gambling on the fact that Rinaldi was to be the supreme commander — and in the momentary flicker of the marshal’s eyes he saw that he had guessed right. “Italian troops which will be drawn far away from Europe,” he pressed.

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