Silver Stars (Front Lines 2)

Don Pietro (as translated by Tomaso) says, “You have delivered my brother’s son. We have now given you the information you sought in return. Our transaction is complete.”

“Yes, sir,” Rainy says. “But I still have to get the information to my superiors. I have to get to Rome.”

“We have made no bargain that includes aiding you. No bargain that includes sheltering you. Francisco”—he glances at his nephew with obvious distaste—“I am certain has also made no such promise. As I said, our business is satisfactorily concluded.”

Panic gnaws at the edge of Rainy’s mind. This is Italy, enemy territory, a country overrun by various Fascist police forces and intelligence people, not to mention the German Gestapo. She has a little money and a pistol, and other than that, nothing but her orders—orders that direct her to contact a certain person at the neutral Swedish Embassy in Rome, or, failing that, to find some other way of passing her information along.

I’m not the hero of this story, I’m the fool.

“Don Pietro,” Rainy says in Italian now, hoping her use of his tongue will make him more favorably disposed to her. “It was no easy thing getting Cisco here to where he is safe with you. I had hoped—”

“Hope is for fools,” Don Pietro says with a very slight wave of his hand.

“Is honor also for fools?” she demands, her heart in her throat. It’s a challenge to Don Pietro, a challenge to a man who can snap his fingers and end her life.

But Don Pietro doesn’t blink. “Honor requires keeping to the deals we make. This I have done.”

She sees that he is ready to move on to a different topic. If that happens, she’s very likely done for. He won’t risk letting her fall into the hands of carabinieri or the Gestapo, she realizes in a moment of startling clarity: that could end up making trouble for him. So he’ll have her killed. Maybe not right away, maybe not until he can pin it on someone else, but she will be killed—of that there is no doubt.

For a moment she is paralyzed by this realization. She is bargaining for her life, not just her mission. While she’s frantically searching for something to say, Tomaso steps in.

“Perhaps there is some other service she could perform.”

Her first reaction is gratitude. But then, despite the fear growing inside her, she realizes this is planned. Don Pietro has made clear her likely fate: death; and Tomaso now offers a way out.

“What other service?” she asks, dreading the reply.

“The don grows tired,” Tomaso says, though Don Pietro has shown no evidence of weariness, merely boredom. “Let’s discuss this between ourselves.”

They make their polite good-byes to the evil old man and pass by a glaring Cisco. They walk down worn stone steps into a pleasant, walled garden. There is a hedge of well-tended roses and a fig tree whose fruit is just a week or two from ripeness. There isn’t much to see in the garden, but there is a stone bench in the shade, and it is there that Tomaso explains.

“You are not Catholic, I take it,” Tomaso says.

“No. I’m Jewish.”

“Then you would have no particular objection to dealing with a difficult priest.”

“You want me to talk to a priest?”

“No,” Tomaso says, smiling at the thought. “We want you to eliminate him.”

Rainy stares at him, dumbfounded. She has expected any number of possibilities, largely having to do with sexual services. And now, absurdly, she is almost abashed to find that this plays no part in the don’s considerations, or apparently in Tomaso’s.

“I’m not an assassin.”

Tomaso shrugs. “No, but Francisco is. He very much wants you gone and silenced forever.”

“He’s claustrophobic.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know that word.”

“Cisco has a deep-seated terror of confined spaces. He panics. I mean, really panics. Raving, screaming, pants wetting.” She owes Cisco nothing and getting the information out there alters his motivation.

“And you arrived by submarine.” Tomaso smiles privately and nods. “Yes, he’d want you dead for having witnessed that. And by telling me you think you’ll eliminate his need to eliminate you. Clever, but not very clever. Cisco is not a great believer in reason.”

“No,” she admits. “But I’m still not a killer.”

“Not yet,” Tomaso says, and pats her knee. “It’s something that’s only really difficult the first time. It becomes easier. And this priest really is a very bad fellow, he’s getting his flock up in arms against certain businesses we wish to extend into his village.”