The Double Agents (Men at War 6)

Fuller looked at Canidy.

“Those men who were hung,” Fuller said.

Canidy raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah?” he said.

“What do you think they were trying to get? I mean, the people who hung them.”

“Me,” Canidy said.

“You?”

Canidy nodded.

“If they had hung them just to kill them,” Canidy explained, “then that’s what they would have done. They’d have strung them up, then disposed of th

em, probably just thrown their bodies to the sharks.” He paused. “Hell, not even that. They’d have just made them get on their knees at the end of a pier and put a bullet in the head. Then fed them to the hammer-heads and makos, kicking them into the sea if they hadn’t fallen in when shot. They’re evil and lazy.”

“They,” Fuller said. “You keep saying they.”

“The SS,” Nola offered. “Or the OVRA, the Italian secret police.”

“It’s the SS,” Canidy said. “No question.”

“Why are they after you?” Fuller said.

“They’re looking for whoever blew up the cargo ship.”

“You,” Fuller said.

Canidy shrugged.

“Yeah. That’s what those SS sons of bitches do. That’s how they smoke out anyone who’s in or supports the Resistance. They’ll literally crucify a whole village—slaughter men, women, children—to make them examples of what will happen to anyone else who works against the Nazis. Sometimes, it’s not even for the message. Sometimes, it’s just pure, unadulterated evil, often in the name of revenge.”

Fuller tried to comprehend that. It was clear he had other questions.

And then, after a moment, he asked, “What happened to their eyes?”

“What do you mean?” Canidy said.

“The eyes of the men who were hung,” Fuller said. “They were missing, nothing but bloody sockets.”

“Birds, probably the seagulls, got them.”

Fuller nodded. That he understood. He’d seen seagulls tearing into fish on the beach. They had, at once, disgusted and impressed him by how they got inside the fish—pecking in with their beak through the soft parts of the eyes and the anus.

“Very likely,” Canidy added, “that happened after the SS gouged the eyes with a bayonet.”

Fuller looked like he might be sick again.

“You going to be all right?” Canidy said.

Fuller nodded meekly.

Canidy went on: “It sends a message, too. ‘You don’t tell us what you see, what you know, then we will take your ability to see.’ Same thing with the mouth.”

Fuller narrowed his eyes. Then he shook his head to show that he didn’t understand.