Chapter 28: Ten Paces From the Glass

Adriano's POV

At ten minutes to nine I was standing in the stable cellar with eight of my men and a lantern turned down to a thread.

The wall in front of us was old brick, black with coal dust.

Ettore's captains had taken the hedge, the roof and the north gate.

I had asked for the tunnel because nobody else had wanted it.

"Boss," said the young soldier who had held the lieutenant's wound shut. "How sure are you?"

"Sure enough that you're the one holding the lantern."

He nearly smiled.

I took out the radio and spoke into it.

"Orchard."

"Orchard's clear," said a Santoro voice. "She's at the door."

I didn't need to be told.

I could picture the orchard door, a low wooden thing under an apple tree, and a girl in a torn coat walking toward it across the wet grass.

Livia had been in the greenhouse since seven. She had laid out the stretchers herself.

The last thing she'd said to me was, "Don't go through any stairs."

I had kissed her. I had not promised.

At nine, the radio gave a single click.

"She's unlatching it," the voice said. Then, much lower: "She's looking at the house. She's looking right at us."

"Let her."

There was a long pause on the line.

Then I heard Bianca Ardenti shout a single word across the dark orchard, in a voice that cracked with effort.

"Now!"

The hedge opened up.

Forty long guns fired together, from the dark, into a gap in the east wall where a cluster of men had just come running.

Nobody in the stable cellar moved.

Through the floor above us, the noise went on and on.

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