“They don’t need to be right here,” Tony said. “They might be in other towns, several miles away. They can pick up stations from a long distance. We cannot move about with our station. We cannot use it from the hills, for then the Germans would find our hiding place. Is there no place in the town itself where we can hide it? We need to use it only for a few minutes once or twice each day. But the hiding place must be absolutely safe—something the Germans just cannot locate.”
The old man was thinking hard. He had offered to help. He could not fail to help in the very first thing they asked, no matter how difficult a task it was. But the town of Maletta—it had been gone over with a fine-tooth comb by the Germans many times. After each sabotage job, they went through every house, into wine cellars, into attics. After the Gestapo officer was killed they even tapped walls looking for hidden rooms.
He looked over the town as Dick and Tony waited for him to speak. The old man knew this town in which he had lived all his life, knew it as no one else did. There below him was the sprawling villa. Over to the right the railroad station. The three great church steeples loomed against the night sky just like the old bell tower over the villa.
Suddenly he gasped, and slapped his knee. Then he leaned back and laughed, almost soundlessly, but still with great good feeling. Dick and Tony looked at him in amazement. Dick wondered if something had cracked in the old man who had gone through so much. Maybe he was not completely dependable.
“Uncle Tomaso!” Tony was saying urgently. “What is it? What is it you’re laughing about?”
“I’m laughing at what a good joke we shall play on the Germans!” the old man laughed. “I know where you can set up your radio!”
CHAPTER TEN
THE OLD BELL TOWER
“Right under our noses all this time,” Tony’s uncle said. “That’s where we’ll put your radio sending station, Tony my boy. And it will be right under—or rather, over—the Germans’ noses, too!”
“Where?” the word came from both Tony and Dick at the same time.