That’s what you get for being “Mr. Nice Guy,” Mac thought. If he had shot the kid point-blank, he wouldn’t have been wounded. The only good thing about the cut was that it sent adrenaline rushing through the American’s veins, giving him a sudden boost. He ignored the cut, praying it wasn’t too deep, and lunged toward the alley mouth.

  As he came on, the German soldiers brought their rifles up, seeing the knife protruding out of their friend’s back. Their first two shots sounded like one to Mac, and he could feel both bullets plowing into the dead Nazi Wingate was holding before him. Then he hurled the corpse toward the German on his left. The dead man slammed into his comrade, the knife being pushed deeper into his body as the second man’s rifle was knocked aside.

  Mac swung his gun arm, knocking the third man’s rifle aside himself. Almost at the same moment he lashed out with his foot. With all the power of his leg behind it, Mac kicked the third German rifleman in the stomach. As the Nazi doubled over, Wingate kept moving. He jumped while taking a step, his kicking foot landing on the bent German’s back. Then he dove up, throwing himself at the boarded window.

  His peripheral vision caught a glimpse of the rest of the kids pouring into the alley, now that their quarry had stopped shooting. But then his concentration was centered on the window as he soared up at it over the choking Nazi soldier. Wingate was completely in the air for a few moments, then his torso collided with the window’s boards. There was the awful moment when it seemed as if the obstruction would not give, but then the welcome sound of cracking wood filled his brain.

  The alley disappeared from sight as he broke through the nailed partition and dropped heavily onto a rotting floor. The entire room seemed to give as he landed heavily on his side. Even as the dust was rising like a cloud around him, Wingate was scrambling forward, trying to crawl and get up at the same time. He rose just as the new kid at the head of the throng tried to follow his example by using the kicked Nazi as a vaulting point.

  He hopped onto the doubled-over man and leaped, catching Wingate’s open hands right in the chest. It was like being catapulted into a battering ram. The boy’s chest cavity was almost cracked by Mac’s rock-hard push, his arms locking in a straight line as solidly as two steel beams. The boy fell back onto a sea of his friends, taking four down with him to the ground.

  Although Mac only glanced outside for a second longer, it was enough time for him to see that the Sicilian children were taking their rage out on the soldiers. The alley had turned into a small-scale slaughterhouse, as each boy tried to get his knife into the three Germans. Their small, thin bodies boiled around the Nazis, steel glinting in the afternoon sun.

  That was enough for Wingate. He charged away from the open window, wanting to get plenty of distance between him and the boy brigade.

  He raced across the room and wrenched open the door, finding a hallway and a stairwell. Afraid the kids or some other Nazis might try to ambush him on the street, Mac ran up the stairs, climbing until he found a trapdoor that led onto the roof. From there, Mac galloped to the edge of the building and leaped. He soared over ten feet through the air to land on the roof of the next building.

  Having landed, he let his knees bend and his body roll. He somersaulted forward and kept trotting, only stopping at the second building’s edge. From that vantage point, he looked over the area, making sure no one had sighted him. Seeing no one in the alley below, but not wanting to check the street just yet, Mac hunkered down to collect his jumbled thoughts. In the distance he heard the anguished yell of a Nazi speaking his last under a Sicilian knife.

  Wingate couldn’t understand what had gotten into him in the first place. Even if he had caught up to the boy assassin before the killer in the creaking shoes, how would he have interrogated him? He hadn’t even known the meaning of the few things that were said in the alley maze.

  Still, he knew that something had driven him on. He had felt it vitally important to catch up to the kid to try to find out anything he could. And, despite the trouble he found, he had also discovered several very important things. First, there were a lot of young people in San Marcolo, and they were extremely antisocial. Second, there were some German soldiers loose in the town and they weren’t much friendlier than the kids.

  Neither of these discoveries did much to solve the problem of blowing the Adrano guns. All they did was supply him with further evidence that all was not as it seemed in the quiet, sleepy little town. That it was not an oasis of peace away from the fighting as it had initially appeared. On first glance, it had seemed as if the war machine had already rolled over the village. Now it was beginning to look as if all roads led to San Marcolo.

  Wingate didn’t want to think about it anymore. The sounds of the alley slaughter had diminished enough for Mac to assume that the kids had finished their carving and were back on the bloodhound trail. It also occurred to him that things wouldn’t be all rosy with the Nazis when they discovered three of their men carved like Sunday dinners. He pulled himself back onto his feet and found himself staring at more knife-wielding kids.

  At least half a dozen were coming fast across the roof of the building behind him. And as he watched, the trapdoor of the roof he was on started to open.

  They must have sent kids out onto the roofs as soon as he got in that window, Wingate realized. They must have guessed he’d try to go across those rather than take his chances on the street.

  The American ran over and jumped atop the opening trapdoor. He heard a satisfying crash beneath, probably signifying that whoever was coming up was now firmly down. Spreading his feet, Wingate shot through the trapdoor top twice with his Browning, trying to make sure that whoever was down stayed that way. Then he immediately raced for the lip of the building, jumped onto the edge and propelled himself forward once again.

  The distance between the two neighboring buildings was wider this time. Not having the luxury of time, Wingate had little choice but to gauge his leap while running and in midair. As it was, he stretched his body to the limit, but was still unable to get his feet all the way across. His chest hit first, his arms out in front of him, his fingers clawing for a hold.

  He found one just as his legs smashed against the building wall. He came to a full stop, hanging half-off the square structure. The kids took immediate advantage of his situation by running to the edge of the building behind him, and—unable to make the long leap themselves—started throwing their blades at his hanging figure.

  The first few missed by several feet, and while Mac had no intention of letting them get the range by experimentation, he saw that the trapdoor on this building was slowly opening too. Unable to climb and defend himself at the same time, he had to hang nearly motionless a bit longer while letting go with one hand to retrieve a gun.

  The trapdoor opened just enough for Wingate to see a young head. Without remorse, he shot directly at that visage. Thankfully for his conscience, his position threw off his usually impeccable aim and the bullet shattered on the edge of the door. But there was enough wood and metal splinters to dot the kid’s face. The boy dropped, howling, the cracked door slamming shut.

  At that moment, one boy was able to gauge the distance to Mac. Thankfully he didn’t have the strength to send his blade into the man’s body as well. Wingate felt the knife hit his jacket, almost cut through the cloth and then fall away. Although he was thankful for the young man’s weakness, he knew that it wouldn’t be long before someone with good aim and strength would peg him.

  That thought supplied him the strength to pull himself up and onto his feet, the gun still in his hand. It was the .45, he discovered, another reason his aim may have been inaccurate. He was used to the Browning, instead. Eliminating the comparison from his brain, Wingate ran across this roof to the sound of the children’s jeers and calls.

  He could imagine what they were saying, as he ran in the warm air and under the clear afternoon sky. Not only were they taunting and insulting him, they must be telling others on the street his location. Again, he heard the words the first boy had used on his killer, “Infame” and “Curri quantu vuoi cacca t’aspiettu.”

  Ignoring it as much as he could, Mac raced across this roof as well, taking the leap to the next building in stride. He was rapidly running out of leaping room. San Marcolo, after all, was a small town. There were just so many roofs he could jump onto. Deciding to take another risk to save his skin, Wingate stopped in the center of this roof to pull open its trapdoor. Seeing nothing below but a landing attached to a rectangular stairway, he dropped down.

  He landed eight feet below the door. Hearing light, pounding footsteps coming up the stairs and not wanting to kill any Italians, he decided to try something outlandish. Pulling out a grenade and a roll of tape from his jacket’s inside pockets, Mac wrapped a sticky strand around the explosive’s spoon to make sure it didn’t get loose even if the pin was pulled. Then he placed himself at the head of the stairs.

  As the Sicilian kids rounded the second-to-last flight, they saw Wingate standing at the top, a grenade in one hand. They froze, watching in wide-eyed horror as he pulled the pin out and dropped the bomb on the stairs. It started rolling down the steps at them. They ran, yelling in terror. Mac charged right after them, scooping up the essentially harmless grenade and kicking open the doors to the rooms as he went by.

  The third room had what he was looking for. Across its length, on its opposite wall, was a window. Across the alley from it was another window, its pane open. Wingate could see curtains inside the opposite room waving in the breeze. Looking back just long enough to see that the kids weren’t returning to investigate the lack of a “boom,” Mac ran across the room, opened the window, then ran back to the door and ran forward again.

  This time, he dove forward when he reached the window, erupting from it like a human cannonball, traversing the thin, back alleyway and diving through the window opposite.

  He landed right on top of a naked Nazi.

  Six

  Several things went through Wingate’s mind and none of them had anything to do with visions of sugarplums. He had erupted into the fairly large room through the window, which was perpendicular to the bed, so Mac landed on the structure sideways across both occupants. While he noticed both the man and the woman occupied with other things than sleeping, he noticed the Nazi sergeant’s uniform on the chair near the door with more clarity.

  So unless the Germans were training women sergeants for Sicilian service, Mac figured he had a lot more to fear from the man than the woman. His reaction was surprisingly fast given the eccentricity of his entrance. The two people in bed also reacted quickly, but they were trying to get over their surprise, not fighting for their lives.

  Wingate bounced up from the thick mattress, his hand pulling at his own pant leg, reaching for his knife. As he was in midair, he also twisted his body so that he was almost parallel to the lying man. The man withdrew from the woman and sat up, his mouth opening in surprise. Wingate pressed the side of his hand deep into the man’s mouth as he landed across his body. He pushed with the same hand, sending the man back down as he brought up his knife with his other hand.

  He slid the blade under the man’s sternum and into his heart as he pressed down with his entire body. The Nazi’s shout died in a long exhalation and then a distant death rattle beneath Wingate’s fingers. His eyes rolled back into their sockets and he relaxed.

  Mac looked to his left. Directly in front of his nose was another face. A strong, circular, female face with deep brown eyes, lustrous dark hair, round, high cheekbones and rich lips. It was the face of a young, beautiful woman.

  “Sprechen sie deutsch?” she asked.

  Wingate wasn’t sure what was more surprising. A boy who pulled a Beretta, a German appearing in an alley mouth or a beautiful German-speaking woman in bed next to a murdered man. He was soon to discover that she knew a few other languages as well.

  “Ja,” he said, but there was no time to say anything more. At that moment they both heard hasty footsteps outside the room. Wingate looked at the woman closely, the bedsheet held up to her neck, wondering whether he’d have to kill her too.

  But when the boy pushed open the door of the room seconds later, he saw the woman was alive and well. Very well, in fact, as she raised and lowered herself atop another naked figure on the bed. She had hoped the sight of her completely naked would send the boy packing, but he only reddened and looked away, keeping the door open.

  He said a few things to her in Sicilian and she said a few things back in the same language. The boy continued to press, causing the woman to motion angrily at the Nazi uniform on the chair, all while not missing a rhythmic beat of her sexual play. The uniform seemed to satisfy the boy, but he didn’t leave until he asked one more question. She answered it in a flushed hurry, gasping as if she were nearing orgasm. Mac couldn’t be sure whether her answer or her manner finally drove the curious kid away.

  But finally the door closed and Mac crawled out from beneath the bed. As he rose, he saw the woman wiping her blood-covered hands on the sheet she had been pressing against the corpse’s mortal wound. It had kept the crimson liquid from giving the game away.

  “Ach,” she said, seemingly unaware and unconcerned that she was totally naked in front of a stranger who had killed her bed partner. “Wrap this one up in the sheet and get him under the bed, would you? I’ll have him cleaned out after you leave.”

  Seeing the logic of her request and little alternative, Wingate did as she asked, unable to keep his eyes off her as she stepped gingerly off the bed. She was abundantly woman, her body as rich as her face and skin. She was olive-colored with large, strong breasts, wide, solid hips and well-packed legs. Her hair was tied around her head, but wisps had escaped during her lovemaking.

  As Mac wrapped the dead body, she undid the coarse coiffure, letting her thick strands fall to her shoulders. She had hints of hair on her upper lip and under her arms, but it was a minor deterrent to the manes around her face and between her legs. She would look far more natural out in the wild than between four plain walls and on one sagging bed.

  The only obstruction to Mac’s wrapping of the dead body was its still prominent member stuck up like a flagpole. He imagined that once this woman got them started, it was hard to relax. “Don’t worry,” she told him in German, seeing his situation. “It will soon come down. They all do.”

  Wingate looked at her before picking the body off the bed by its wrappings and laying it on the floor. As he was pushing it beneath the mattress, she asked in accented English, “You got a cigarette, Joe?”

  Wingate stopped momentarily, then completed the hiding chore. Straightening, he turned to face her. She was leaning against a dark-colored bureau against the far wall, her bare beauty stretched before him.

  “No,” he answered, also in English.

  She shrugged philosophically, then opened a top drawer. “That’s all right,” she said, pulling out a cigarette. “I don’t like to deplete my own stock unless I have to. Got a match?”

  Mac lifted his hands helplessly.

  “Well, you’re not much good for anything, are you?” she said lightly, rummaging in the same drawer.

  “Some things,” Wingate promised. “You, on the other hand, seem to be good for everything.”

  “Why, thank you, sir,” she replied casually.

  “What did you tell that boy, anyway?”

  The woman nonchalantly lit her cigarette, inhaled and blew out a white cloud. “What you might expect. He asked if I had seen an American soldier. I said no. He asked if I was sure. I answered, what do you think? He said, are you sure that isn’t him there? I pointed at the chair and said, does that look like an American uniform? He said, if that isn’t the American, why doesn’t he turn his head this way? I said, because he’s in the throes of passion, that’s why. He can’t see, he can’t talk, and if he doesn’t come in a second, both of us will kill you. Then he left.” She took another drag and let loose another cloud.

  Mac remained quiet for a second, then leaned against the bedpost. “You don’t get much respect around here, do you?”

  She glared at him through the cigarette smoke. “What do you expect from the town whore?” she asked plainly. “Do you think one of those cowled sheep who pass for women in this village would do what I did for you? Do you think anyone but a whore would have sex with a dead body?”

  Wingate admitted to himself that he still hadn’t gotten over that. He had seen many things in the war, but not much even came close to that. “Not even most whores,” he said. “I don’t think it would be something I’d do for fun.”

  “I enjoyed it,” the woman said with defiance, walking across the room, her body parts swaying with casual freedom. “It was exciting.”

  Mac couldn’t think of a way to answer that until she sat on the bed. “I wouldn’t make a habit of it,” he suggested. “It cuts down on the return trade.”

  The woman lowered herself slowly back to rest across the mattress on her elbows. “There’s no return trade with this crowd,” she said. “I get my pleasures when I can.” She sniffed and looked away—through the open window Wingate had entered. “See if there is any money in the uniform.”

  The American did as he was told, figuring the woman could be either a great source of help or one of woe. She seemed to be just angry or unbalanced enough to make trouble for him even after she rescued him.

  He found a thin stack of bills, which he brought over and dropped next to her on the bed. “That’s all, eh?” she said, professionally rifling through the money with one hand. “Well, better than nothing, I suppose. Go put it in the drawer, would you?”

  Wingate found the space in question filled with lire, deutsche marks and dollars. “You get them where you can, all right,” he concurred.

 

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