THE MOMENT she first glimpsed the island of Sicily, Kay Corleone gasped.

Michael looked up from the book he was reading- Peyton Place, which Kay had bought after her mother, Deanna Dunn, and several women from the Las Vegas Junior League had all recommended it, though she’d finished it hours ago and thought it was lousy. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Kay said. “My God. You never told me how beautiful it is.”

He set the book down and leaned across Kay, toward the window. “It is beautiful.”

A ridge of snowcapped mountains ringed the walled city of Palermo, visible from the air as a bounty of spires and carved stone and scrolled balconies. It was February, but the Mediterranean was impossibly blue and crested with the gold of the sun, the smoothness of the surface of the water marred only by what seemed the tiniest of vibration, like that of a glass of wine atop a softly playing radio. The runway was on a spit of land northwest of the city. Among the countless things Michael had said to dissuade Kay from coming here on their vacation was that, statistically, this was one of the most dangerous airports in the world. Most of the time, he himself flew into Rome and took a train and ferry here. As the plane banked low, over the water, so close to a small gray fishing boat she could see the men’s unshaven faces, Kay-who’d been to Europe before, but always by sea-was thrilled she’d insisted they fly all the way here.

Only when the plane’s shadow appeared on the boulders of the coastline did a hot pang of panic shoot through her-my babies!-but a pang was all it was. Seconds later, they touched down, a little harder than a person might like but an essentially uneventful landing.

“After all these years,” Kay marveled, “here I am in Sicily for the first time.”

“Birthplace of Venus,” Michael said, rubbing her thigh. “Goddess of love.”

For Kay’s whole adult life, she’d been hearing about all the things that were and weren’t Sicilian, all the things she could never understand because she wasn’t Sicilian. Michael had been here numerous times on business and had even, for three years, lived here. The least he could do was show her the place: a week’s worth of sightseeing and a second week holed up in a romantic resort carved into a mountainside near Taormina. He owed her that much. At least that much.

As the plane taxied toward the terminal, Kay noticed a precisely parked row of tiny Italian cars in the grass infield. Beside the cars, thirty or so people, many with bread or flowers tucked under their arms, stood behind a waist-high rope, smiling and waving at the arriving plane. In front of the rope were four uniformed carabinieri, two with gleaming silver swords on their shoulders, two with their swords sheathed and machine guns held across their chests.

“People you know?” Kay said.

She’d been joking, but Michael nodded. “Friends,” he said. “Friends of friends, really. There’s supposed to be a surprise party at a restaurant on the beach at Mondello.”

She gave him a look.

“I know,” he said.

“I thought we had an understanding.”

“We do. I’m not the one surprising you. No more surprises from me, that’s the deal. As far as the portion of the world I don’t control, you’re going to have to take it up with God.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Was he making a crack about her becoming Catholic?

“Nothing,” he said. “Look, I wasn’t sure it was going to happen. I let you know about it as soon as I saw that it was. It would have been just as much a surprise if the surprise party I told you about ended up not happening, right?”

She shook her head and patted his knee. He did need a vacation. Her, too. She put her hand on his thigh. “We can’t even check into the hotel and take a shower first?”

“If that’s what you really want,” he said, which was a way he had of saying no. “Try to look surprised, at any rate. For their benefit.”

When the plane stopped, the carabinieri without machine guns sheathed their swords, too, and hurried across the tarmac. A stewardess told the passengers to keep their seats.

“What’s going on?” Kay whispered.

“No idea.” Michael swiveled his head, almost imperceptibly but enough to make eye contact with Al Neri, two rows behind them. That Michael had agreed to go on this vacation with only one bodyguard (albeit his best and most trusted one) seemed to be a clear sign that things had gotten better. And, true to Michael’s word, they’d been on airplanes or in airports for almost two whole days, and it really had been as if Neri weren’t there.

The hatch opened. The steps came down. The head stewardess and the carabinieri had a conversation that, though she’d like to think she understood Italian, Kay couldn’t quite make out.

The stewardess turned and faced the passengers. “May I have your attention?” she said in perfect English. “Would Mr. and Mrs. Michael Corleone please identify yourselves?”

She had less of an accent than most of Michael’s employees. She’d even Americanized the pronunciation of Corleone.

Neri stood and walked toward the front of the plane. The stewardess asked if he was Mr. Corleone, and Neri didn’t say anything.

Only after he passed Michael and Kay did Michael raise his hand. Kay followed suit.

Kay kept her lips still. “Surprise,” she muttered.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Michael said. “Just logistics.”

Neri started speaking with the stewardess in Italian-something about protection and about how Michael Corleone was an important man in America and something about rudeness and hospitality, all in hushed enough voices that Kay still couldn’t figure out what was going on. Then Neri turned toward Michael and Kay and made a patting gesture-there, there. Michael nodded. The stewardess asked that Mr. and Mrs. Corleone remain seated until the other passengers disembarked. Neri took an empty seat toward the front of the plane and stayed there.

“What’s going on?” Kay whispered.

“It’s going to be fine,” Michael said.

“That wasn’t what I asked you.”

When everyone else had left the plane, the two carabinieri came on board. Neri intercepted them. They had a quick whispered conversation, then proceeded down the aisle and stood next to Michael and Kay.

In Italian, Michael welcomed them. One of the men seemed to know him. Michael gestured for them to have a seat. They remained standing. They explained that reliable sources had indicated that the welcoming party in Mondello was not certainly but quite possibly a trap, that it would be inadvisable for him and his wife to set foot on Sicilian soil at this time.

“ ‘Reliable sources’?” Michael repeated, in Italian.

The men’s faces were implacable. “Yes,” the one who seemed to know him said in English.

Michael glanced at Neri, who mouthed the word Chicago . What could he possibly have meant by that? Maybe he’d mouthed something else, someone’s name.

Michael got up and nodded toward the front of the plane. The carabinieri followed him, and they resumed their discussion there, in whispers, out of her earshot. Kay didn’t know whether to be terrified or furious. Outside, the waving people milled around, gesturing toward the airplane in various demonstrative ways. Several got into their cars and drove away. Kay pulled down her window shade. Finally, Michael clapped the two carabinieri on their backs. “Bene,” he said, no longer whispering. “A che ora è il prossimo volo per Roma?”

The carabinieri who’d seemed to know him beamed. “We are pleasurable to report,” said one, again in English, “that you are upon it.” And with that, the men left.

Not only were Michael and Kay and Neri already on the next flight to Rome, it turned out to be a private flight, too. The stewardesses claimed it had been supposed to happen anyway, though they struggled to explain why.