Silver Stars (Front Lines 2)

Noise! Boots on cobblestones, a patrol?

She ducks inside and closes the door behind her, stands there and listens as the boots—two men, she guesses—pass by. Now she looks around. It’s an entryway, an old black bike leaning against the wall, a narrow stairway leading up. Step by creaking step, she climbs, her silenced .22 in her hand and leveled.

At the top landing there are two rooms, one is a parlor practically stuffed with books, the other is a bedroom. Both doors are open, and there’s a small candle burning in a glass lantern in the parlor. She takes the lantern in one hand, her gun clamped under her chin, opens the bedroom door. Breathing. A snort and a mumbled snatch of indecipherable sleep-talk. A man asleep, a mop of iron gray hair on a small decorative pillow. A bottle of grappa beside the bed. A small glass.

She creeps up to the bed, points her gun at the man’s head, and says, “Father Patrizio?”

The breathing stops, a different snort, a sudden upward lurch that smacks his forehead against the silencer and a cry of surprise and pain.

She lets him focus, collect his wits, and push his hair aside before repeating, in Italian, “Father Patrizio?”

“Yes, yes, what is it . . .” He stops, staring at the gun.

“Please don’t cry out. I’ll put the gun away if you promise not to cry out.”

He nods. She shoves the heavy, long thing back into her bag.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“I’ve been sent here to kill you.”

It’s an unusual introduction, but after some more confusion, they move to his parlor and he pours them each a small glass of some sweet wine. Rainy, with her usual efficiency, fills him in on the details.

“I don’t really understand your religion, but if a good Catholic can’t kill a priest, then surely sending someone else to do it is the same thing morally.”

“I doubt you wish to discuss theology, signorina. Or my parishioners’ sometimes strange notions of it.”

He’s old, maybe in his fifties, with an old, faded scar down one side of his face, deep-set eyes beneath a cliff of forehead. He’s tall for an Italian, maybe six feet. He’s wearing a white nightgown and should look ridiculous but does not.

“No,” Rainy agrees. “What I want to do is get to Rome without having to assassinate anyone.”

“It’s five hours by automobile. Depending of course on how many roadblocks the Fascists have up.”

“I don’t seem to have a car. Just a gun,” Rainy says.

“I . . . that is to say, the parish, owns a small truck. I use it to visit outlying parishioners. The sun will be up in . . .” He checks a wall clock. “Three hours. Confession starts an hour later.”

“If they don’t see me by eight, they’ll check my room.”

“That may be enough. I’ll miss confession, but I’ll leave a note that I was called away to see a sick parishioner.”

“Just like that you’re going to help me? And believe me?”

The old priest laughs for the first time, a booming sound quickly stifled. “Young lady, I’m a priest, I have been lied to more times and by more people than I could possibly count. I know, um . . . there’s an American word . . . something to do with bulls.”

“Bullshit?” she says in English. “Um, sorry, I shouldn’t—”

“Exactly! I know bullshit when I hear it. If your story is this bullshit, then it is very good bullshit. And I don’t like to comment on a woman’s appearance, but you seem to be somewhat the worse for wear.”

Twenty minutes later they are in a minuscule vehicle that might be called a truck, but which manages to be even smaller than Tomaso’s truck. Thirty-five minutes later they are waved through their first roadblock by a sleepy guard who nods at Father Patrizio’s collar, crosses himself, and accepts a quick blessing. A second roadblock is tougher. But a third, just as they enter Rome, is not even manned. The guards can be seen drinking coffee in the cold, acid light of a bar.

“I leave you here,” Father Patrizio says as he pulls over on a side street. “Just ahead is Saint Peter’s. If you have the opportunity, you should see it.” Seeing her arch look, he laughs and adds, “Even Jews are allowed inside. I promise the floor will not open and plunge you into hell. And it is really quite spectacular.”

She shakes his hand. “Thanks for the ride, Father.”

“Thank you for not killing me,” he says. “I will pray for you.”

For some reason that starts the tears filling her eyes as she tumbles out onto the morning streets of Rome.