Silver Stars (Front Lines #2)(24)

Napolitano? As in Naples? That’s mainland Italy, not Sicily. Rainy nods, blank, giving nothing away.

“So my boy, Cisco, Francisco, but hey, he’s born American, right, so Cisco. Anyway, Cisco has a little problem with some people up in Harlem. They want an eye for an eye, but we ain’t giving ’em Cisco, so that could be war—our own kinda war—and that’s bad for everyone. So it would be convenient if Cisco could spend some time in the Old Country, with my uncle. My uncle is a very wise man; he’ll get Cisco straightened out.”

“You want the army to get your son to Italy?”

“You’re very quick, you know that?”

“The army would want something in exchange.”

Don Vito made a comical face that translated meant, Of course they do. How could they not?

“I’ll need to talk to my superiors. I don’t have a list of their requests.”

He waves that off. “I know what they want. There’s a city called Salerno in Italy. It’s at the north end of a beautiful long beach, beautiful, you should see it. Just the kind of beach an army might want to land on.”

Rainy freezes and is too slow to stop the reaction from showing. Don Vito grins like a barracuda.

“I hear things,” he says. “Sicily first. Then Salerno. You want to know the dates?”

“No,” she says quickly. “The less I know, the less I can reveal.” She feels safest speaking stiffly, formally.

Vito the Sack nods with sincere approval. Of course he would favor closed mouths. “Here’s the deal. I’ll give you chapter and verse on Fascist and Kraut positions around Salerno. My family runs most of Salerno, not all, but enough that nothing moves there we don’t know about.”

“I don’t have the power to make a commitment,” Rainy says.

“Fair enough. You go talk to your colonel or captain or whatever. You know where I am. Just one thing: you.” He points a thick finger at her. From Rainy’s angle it seems to come at her from just beneath dark and dangerous eyes. “You come back. Just you. And you personally, and your father, will guarantee my boy’s safety until he gets to my uncle’s house.”

“I’ll do my—”

“Uh-uh!” He interrupts sharply, wagging a finger for emphasis. “I don’t care about your best. Simple yes or no: is my boy with my uncle, that’s it. You got that? You get him there. Clear?”

“Signore Camporeale,” Rainy says, pronouncing his full name in a very credible Italian accent, “I follow orders. If my orders say to get your son to Italy, then I will get your son to Italy. But I don’t work for you, I work for the army.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, sir, it is. And your son will not be getting into my pants, not in twenty-four hours or twenty-four days or twenty-four years.”

It takes a few beats before Don Vito realizes what’s happened.

“Lei parla Italiano?”

“Si, Don Vito, un poco.”

“You deceived me.”

“I gained an advantage.”

“And now you give up that advantage?”

Rainy shakes her head. “No, Don Vito, because now you’re going to have me checked out, and you’ll soon find out that I’m often used as a translator.”

“I’ve always said Hebes were the smartest race . . . next to partenopeos. That’s people from Naples, see.”

Rainy stands up and discovers that her knees have gone a bit wobbly and her breathing is ragged. Yes, there is something about these people that is similar to what she’d felt coming from the SS colonel. It was like trying to hold a calm discussion with a hungry tiger.

Don Vito stands and comes around the desk. He takes Rainy’s hand in two of his and holds hers firmly but not harshly.

“You’ll do this?”

“If my commanding officer orders me to, yes.”

Rainy disentangles herself and leaves, by way of the pool hall. There’s a new song playing, the bleary, slow-tempo tune with lyrics sung over a mellow sax.

What’s the use of getting sober



When you’re gonna get drunk again?



Rainy is trembling as she reaches fresh air, and the stress catches up with her. Down the street she finds an all-hours diner with a pay phone in one corner. She fumbles in her purse for a nickel and makes a call to Colonel Corelli.

Ten minutes later an unmarked army staff car picks her up a block away.





8

RAINY SCHULTERMAN—LAGUARDIA FIELD, NEW YORK, USA

Amateur.

That’s what Bayswater said of Corelli and his organization. Amateur. He’s going to get you killed. And it eats at Rainy. From her first days in the army she’s been taught that her first duty is to obey orders. She has latched onto that thought, relied on it, let it shape her thinking about the army and her job in that army.

It is comforting to be able to shift responsibility, to be able to shrug and say, I’m following orders. But what if the person giving the orders doesn’t know what he’s doing?

Rainy saw the colonel again, was congratulated, thoroughly debriefed, and sent home for two days. Then she was summoned to see Corelli a third time and given a sealed packet of orders along with instructions not to open it until she is airborne out of New York. She pats it through her overcoat as her car and its driver come to a halt on the bleak tarmac.