Boots all around him, and at the front of the truck bed scuffed shoes and even bare feet—other conscripted unfortunates.
He couldn’t look up, but what was in his range of vision deflated his spirit and took the fight out of him.
A stream of guttural syllables followed him onto the truck bed. One of the two burly thugs telling the other troopers he was probably armed.
His thought was borne out when hands reached out for his arms on both sides and dug his fist out of his pocket as the gun muzzle threatened to burrow straight through his skull and into his brain. Rivulets of blood seeped down his forehead and into his eyes as he felt the gunmetal scraping his cranium like a crowbar. His fist was forcibly removed from his pocket, the fabric tearing loudly, and the lead weight was pried from his fingers with inexorable strength.
My Maria! My son!
Beyond the pain in his head, the only thought he had was of his family and the fact that he would never see them again.
Now pressure on the back of his head was crushing his face into the rough wood of the truck bed, his nose beginning to crumple as other hands roughly patted him down with obscene efficiency. The feeling was as if those hands were not touching his body but someone else’s. He wondered if his nose would break before the pressure was relieved. His breathing constricted, he suddenly began to cough and gasp, and blood leaked down his throat and he choked.
He was choking to death right there, on the truck bed.
The other thing that escaped Giovanni happened then.
Giovanni, who was now struggling to breathe through squashed nostrils and swallow blood before it could choke him, couldn’t possibly be aware of it. His skull screamed where the gun prodded him still, and his face crushed into the wood was excruciating. And his teeth, his teeth were now grinding into the inside of his lips, which split like ripe grapes and began to leak blood over his chin.
The other thing was the moment dusk became evening.
And almost exactly the next moment, the Allied bombers came.
The air-raid sirens started up all around them, though Giovanni really couldn’t hear them through the pain.
Grinding up to a screaming wail, the nearest sirens signaled the arrival of the first wave of the night’s bombers. Not every night, not yet, but often enough to keep the Germans—and the innocent populace—guessing, the Allied bombing campaign cranked up when the lights went out. Tonight the raid was slightly too early, with a tendril of daylight left scattered across the darkening sky, but there it was, the bomber squadron was committed. The rumble of airplane engines slowly crawled over the land, and in seconds the crump-crump-crump of anti-aircraft fire joined in the cacophony as invisible gunners began to lay down a barrage that would knock a percentage of the Liberators and Fortresses out of the sky before the raid was over.
Waves of American and English long-distance bombers tonight targeted the harbor, the high command, and the factories arrayed in long blocks between them. Typically, the first strings of ordnance fell short and landed in civilian neighborhoods.
Like this one.
Around Giovanni, the results of the early raid were pronounced.
The truck’s driver gunned the motor and squealed away from the cobbled curb.
The thugs who had thrown Giovanni onto the back of the truck were left behind, where they no doubt leaped for the command car in their haste to escape the open street. They were in the crosshairs for a direct hit, or burial under rubble if Allied bombs found a nearby building.
The soldiers who’d been frisking Giovanni and driving the gun muzzle into his cranium were thrown clear to the side as the driver swerved.
Giovanni felt the pressure on his body suddenly recede and took his opportunity, ignoring the pain in his head and face and leaping up to dive off the rear of the truck. The soldier with the submachine gun sought to regain his balance and managed to partially block Giovanni’s access to the open gate.
Behind them, the cobblestones fled past dizzily as the vehicle gained speed. Another few seconds, and Giovanni’s escape attempt would be suicide.
Adding to the confusion, a series of explosions down the street rocked the ground and the truck careened to the right-hand side.
Giovanni’s hands wrapped around the barrel of the German’s submachine gun as if of their own volition, and he snatched it away. Once the gun was in his grasp, he turned it around.
The short burst cut the soldier in half and threw him against his fellows in a heap.
Giovanni made his split-second decision and dove from the rear of the vehicle.
He hit the cobblestones hard, knocking the air from his lungs even as he rolled over and over toward the gutter.
His hands still grasped the gun.
Down the street, a building collapsed immediately after an Allied bomb struck its roof and ripped out its guts when it exploded. The cloud of dust and debris obscured the street and pelted Giovanni’s back as he lay on the cobblestones trying to draw a breath.
Before he could manage to inhale…
A naked arm with a bloody stump crashed to the ground in front of his face and bounced toward him, coming to rest close enough for him to touch it.
Whatever he had eaten that day surged up his throat in a pillar of acid bile, and he coughed up the taste, feeling his throat muscles convulse. Still unable to breathe, he felt like a drowning man. Suppressing the urge to vomit took all his concentration, but he managed to swallow without bringing anything up.
He shook his head to clear it of the cottony fog it had collected in the last few seconds.
He glanced over the obscene debris and saw the careening truck he had leapt from teeter momentarily on two wheels, strike the opposite curb and overturn, spilling its human cargo like sacks of trash.
Maddened by the beating, the explosions, his painful escape, and the bloody evidence of the horror of war, Giovanni struggled to his feet, the submachine gun still in his hands.
Three soldiers spilled from the truck also stood, and one pointed at him, his mouth open in a sort of guttural scream, calling attention to Giovanni’s accidental escape as if it were a personal affront.
His hands were bruised, his arms ached. But his right index finger tightened on the trigger as if he’d lost muscular control, and the twitch caused the Schmeisser MP-40 to stutter in his grip. The breech ejected a stream of hot brass casings as the gun spoke in its own guttural dialect.
The soldiers flopped and twitched as the 9mm slugs tore through them in ragged, bloody lines. The muzzle went silent when the magazine was empty, the bolt stuck in the open position.
Giovanni’s hands opened after and the smoking gun dropped to the bricks.
He stared at the carnage he had wrought.
Maria!
God, what have I done?
Soldiers were crawling from the truck’s sideways cab, and one was reaching for a sidearm. Yet another emerged from the covered rear, struggling to bring a Mauser rifle to bear.
Giovanni closed his eyes.
Addio, Maria. Good-bye, Franco.
He awaited the feel of the slugs tearing out his chest.
Instead, gunfire erupted all around him.
The Germans danced like out of control marionettes, clouds of blood and bone around their bodies, then fell twitching to the gore-slickened road. Masked gunmen sprinted from the cover of dark doorways and narrow lanes, ran to the wounded or dead Germans and shot them repeatedly in the head with pistols. Several with Breda submachine guns motioned other civilian men from the rear of the truck, one of whom had been wounded in the gunfire and had to be carried. When the gunmen had made sure all German soldiers were dead, they stripped the bodies of weapons and ammunition.
A gangly young man in a rakish beret walked up to Giovanni, who stood still stunned by what he had done, grasped his hand and pumped it enthusiastically.
“Grazie, signore. Lei e’ un eroe!”
You are a hero!
“No!” Giovanni spit at him, breaking into a wracking c
ough as the dust swirled around them. “No,” he repeated softly in disgust.
“Si, certamente.” The young man was clearly in command of the rag-tag group of gunmen. He wore a tweed coat crossed by bandoliers shotgun shells, and in his hands he held a fine Beretta hunting shotgun. He had a German Luger pistol holstered on his hip. He smiled broadly under a thin moustache. “I am Corrado Garzanti, field commander of the local brigade.”
“Partigiani?” Partisans?
“Of course.” He gestured at his men, who were finished stripping the dead soldiers and were now standing watch, their guns turned outward in case of attack. “We were about to ambush the collection patrol when you took matters into your own hands, eh? Very nicely done.”
“How? How did you know? To be here, right now?”
Corrado waved the question away. “We have sources. People who listen and report. We expected them. We did not expect you, however.”
Giovanni’s head spun a little and he stumbled sideways, almost losing his footing. Ragged bursts of gunfire and screams came from farther down the street, and he whirled, apprehensive.
“It’s just my men taking care of the command car. Those dirty German bastards are never going home.”
Corrado reached out and steadied Giovanni before he could collapse.
“I think you had better come with us. It won’t be safe here very soon. We survived the bombing, but the bastards will be out looking for revenge. Damned bad idea to be out on the street then.” He waved at one of his men. “Dario, come here. I want you to escort our hero home to pack.”
“No, no, it’s not necessary.”
“Oh, it is. If they find you, they will hang you from a lamppost with metal wire. It’s what they’re doing these days. Pack a small bag and come with us. We have a safe haven. It’s not a palace, but it’s a good home. And they don’t know where it is.”
“No, you don’t understand, I have a wife and a child. I have a family! I can’t go away with you. What happens to them?” Giovanni swayed and the partisan leader steadied him again.
“Clearly, you cannot just go home. Va bene, we take you home and you take your family with you. We have enough space. Most of us have lost our families, but there are a few.”
Giovanni began to argue again. His head throbbed and his body ached in a million places. He wondered if his nose was broken. He felt blood still welling up on his broken lips and dribbling down his chin. He took a breath and felt his bruised ribs poking his lungs…
And the air raid siren ground to life again, its insistent wail gathering strength as the rumbling of invisible aircraft reached them.
“Arrivano ancora! Second wave!” Corrado shouted. His men knew what to do. And Corrado’s fist jabbed out and caught Giovanni’s jaw, snapping his head back and dropping him like a broken doll.
“You and you,” he pointed at the strapping Dario and another man. “Take him between you. He’s coming to the sanctuary. He has no choice now.”
Giovanni moaned as the hands grabbed him.
Maria.
He lost the light at the same moment as the first string of bombs stitched their way toward the harbor, taking down a block of tenements and shops in a cluster of explosions, jetting gas fires, and a spreading cloud of dust and debris.
Giovanni welcomed the darkness as relief from the nightmare his life had become.
Franco
The ragged howling sent chills down his back, and when he glanced at his friend, he saw that Pietro was spooked too. Their eyes locked. The fear was obvious in their open pupils.
They’d been brought up on scary stories featuring wolves—what child wasn’t?—but now, upon hearing the sound of pursuit, a strange pursuit completely different from that of the armed sentries, the fear seemed to reach down into the deepest depths of their psyche, strangling any resurgent courage their evasion of the soldiers might have caused.
Suddenly, for a reason he couldn’t understand, Franco’s heart seemed to grow cold.
Wolves.
Had they come down from the hills?
Wild game was easier pickings at higher elevations. The farmers here protected their flocks and henhouses with their loud guns, mostly trying to keep half-starved German soldiers away unless they had goods with which to barter. Franco had seen his grandmother trading with German officers, whose gratitude shone in their eyes, and whose stiff military bows somehow seemed to contradict the rumored atrocities about which one heard whispers. Even at his young age, Franco understood that there were shades of gray between the extremes. Perhaps not all Germans were monsters.
Since the livestock around these parts was so well protected, wolves tended to keep to the darker woods. Occasionally, a single, starving wolf wandered within range, and the hunters formed a party and tracked it down for execution. A starving wolf was always considered a much more dangerous opponent, for it would attack even greater predators—such as humans—in its desperation.
But this was a pack, judging by the numerous howls and yelps. Multiple animals and large, too, by the sound of them.
Coming closer.
Franco snapped out of his fear-induced spell. He reached out and snagged Pietro’s lapels and shook his friend like a doll.
“Listen to me, we have to run!”
“Again?”
“Yes! They’re not far away.”
“Maybe they don’t want us. Everybody knows wolves don’t attack people.”
“I think we’re about to find out for sure if they do.” Franco let go of his friend and stepped back.
Pietro’s eyes were crazy, wide and unfocused. Spittle flew from his slack lips as he muttered words Franco couldn’t understand. His hand whipped out and caught his friend’s cheek in a slap. The smack brought them both around.
Franco was stunned. It was so much like something his father might have done in a fit of anger.
But it had worked.
Pietro’s eyes suddenly shed their watery curtain and focused on his.
“Listen!” he whispered.
They craned their necks, but there was no need. The howling came from three directions, the sound rising in intensity, coming closer. Franco thought he could hear large bodies crashing through the undergrowth, monstrous shapes solidifying in his head. He pictured them hurtling through brambles and bushes, following their prey’s scent.
“We have to go!” he added, and grabbed Pietro’s arm again. “If you don’t follow me, I’m going without you. I mean it!”
He pulled his reluctant friend toward where the thicket began its obstruction again. Beyond it were patches of darkness that united to form a false midnight. A dead oak branch lay across their path, and Franco plucked it off the ground then walked back the way they had come, sweeping leaves and pine needles and twigs this way and that, hoping to ruin both their tracks and their scents. He tossed the branch aside and they hurried into the tunnel-like darkness of the old wood that covered this elevation like a mantle. Higher up, there were pines and firs, but here it was a mix, and thin-trunked white pines stood in crooked lines that wove in and out of the denser deciduous groves planted by the Romans centuries before.
The boys only cared that they were putting distance between themselves and their pursuers, whether they were dogs or wolves.
They were wolves. Franco knew it deep inside, though he tried not to think about it as his feet tripped on roots and saplings, throwing off his balance and slowing his headlong rush. Pietro stumbled along next to him, but they sometimes lost sight of each other in pockets of darkness as they wove between tree trunks like needles through thick cloth.
Behind them the wolves ran.
And howled.
And came closer, eating up the ground.
The boys ran. They ran as they had never run before.
Endgame: Second Day
Chapter Eight
Lupo
Satellite radio had been a revelation.
Lupo skimmed through the more interesting channels to find some t
ruly deep tracks for the ride.
Although he still plugged his iPod or phone into the car’s upgraded system, and even fed in the occasional CD from his extensive collection of progressive and neoprogressive rock music, or occasionally classical or New Age, he had stumbled onto the satellite phenomenon in DiSanto’s new car. Several of the classic rock channels peppered into their playlists bands he had almost never heard on standard radio—the Strawbs, Camel, Procol Harum, Marillion, Dream Theater, Transatlantic, along with the mainstays of prog such as Floyd, Genesis, Yes, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Jethro Tull, Moody Blues, and more.
But today the satellite was killing him. He already felt a deep sadness at the chasm that seemed to be opening between him and Jessie. They’d made love, true, and recaptured some of the magic…but then things had slid back to senseless bickering when he realized she’d go back to the casino no matter how many times she’d agreed not to.
So today every one of his prog-friendly channels stabbed him in the heart with loss. Eric Woolfson’s evocative voice on a Parsons Project song, a Floyd classic heavy on Rick Wright’s keyboards, a Warren Zevon tune, a Ronnie James Dio song—it seemed he could not avoid being reminded of his icons’ mortality. These people had helped him grow up with their music, and now he was watching them die, one by one. It was disconcerting, and he blinked damp eyes rapidly when he climbed from his car. DiSanto wouldn’t understand.
Hell, nobody would.
But loss is tough to face. He should know—he’d faced more than his share. Caused more than his share.
By the time he reached the homicide squad room, he was back to wearing the pissed-off face that usually got him somewhere with timid suspects in the interrogation rooms. It also kept some cops off his back.
He stalked past the mostly empty cubicles and desks lined up in a maze on the bullpen side of the room and right up to the row of offices along the back wall. Griff Killian was just nosing out of his hole, facing the other way, when Lupo got his hands on him and flipped him around and against the wall.
“What the fuck you doin’—” Killian’s New York accent erased any progress he’d made fitting in to the Midwest.
Wolf's Edge (The Nick Lupo Series Book 4) Page 10
