Mac wingate 4, p.18
Mac Wingate 4, page 18
“Upstairs,” she replied.
“Then get going. I’ll see you tonight.”
The two stared at each other, neither moving. Wingate had the overwhelming desire to take her back in his arms. It would be a terrific note to go out on. It would be something to remember when looking down a barrel of a Schmeisser. But before he could make any move, Corte spun around and stalked through an opening in the rear wall. Wingate heard her light footsteps on a stairwell in back. She was one incredible woman, Wingate reminded himself, but one whose world was about to fall apart for the second time. The family of children she had made in the mountains to replace the family killed by the Wernzellis was about to be scattered by the reality of war. No matter what happened with the ammunition, Corsica was due for some hard times ahead.
It was a matter of pride. The island had little military value, but if the Nazis could leave a shell behind for the Allies—much in the same way the Ovras had left corpses behind for the maquisards—it would give the butchers great satisfaction. Wingate stopped thinking about tomorrow. His today was tough enough. He had to spend the next few hours in the shadows of those butchers, trying to stay clear of their sharp, ready knives.
To keep himself on guard, he thought about Rinucchi. His original opinion was that the kid was a self-important little slime. He should have trusted his initial instincts. When the boy started mouthing about fear and cowardice, Wingate had let it get in the way of his judgment. Maybe it was because he was tired. Maybe it was because he was angry. Whatever the reason, his acceptance of Rinucchi’s cowardly character had cost blood. Abu’s blood. Wingate remembered the scene perfectly.
All the other men were dead in pools of their own blood. There was no blood on Abu’s chair, there was no blood on the moonlit floor. If the Goum had had his throat cut with the others, there should have been pints all over the place. There also should have been guards all over the place. Wingate had killed two Ovras and escaped, for God’s sake! The evening attack shouldn’t have been so easy. It was easy because someone wanted it to be easy. But why?
Why did Abu have to be killed, Wingate wondered, as he slid out the bakery’s side door. He looked up to see if he could spot Corte along the rooftops. She was better than that. The mountain woman was nowhere to be seen. The American then walked casually out into the main street, returning to his thoughts. The Goum could have been murdered because the American was stupid enough to get himself caught in an Ovra dragnet. Rinucchi could have realized the truth when he saw Wingate’s Italian disguise at the maquisard camp that evening, but it was too late to report back to the enemy. That would necessitate the slime killing Abu himself to prevent the North African from communicating what he had learned.
Whatever the reason, Wingate was sure Rinucchi was the killer. He had to be, for one reason and one reason only.
Time and again, the boy had told Wingate that he had never killed. But at the train site, Wingate saw him pull out his machete and hack at a corpse. Wingate had seen him pull out his brown-tinged machete. The brown tinge of dried blood. The Wernzelli boy must have had only a few seconds to murder Abu or else he would have thought enough to wipe the Goum’s blood from his blade.
The American moved slowly through the empty Bastian streets, his boots leaving hardly a mark to show where he had been. But he felt the eyes again. There they were, boring into the back of his head. They were the eyes of the Ovras, the eyes of the Germans, the eyes of the Wernzellis. All were in league together, consciously and unconsciously, to wipe out Granite. The thing that had convinced him Barbara was the key was misleading. He couldn’t see Rinucchi arranging an ambush where he, himself, would get killed. But who said he was killed? Poppa Wernzelli? How the hell did the old man know? Did he see the boy’s corpse?
Wingate doubted it. The old man was so wrapped up in his own importance he probably couldn’t see the truth even if it came up and bit him on the leg. He had spent the greater portion of the war preparing for Rinucchi to step into his shoes, so when the boy didn’t emerge from the Panzer ambush, he had no choice but take out his impotent rage on the mountain streghi—the only enemy he could still try and kill. Wouldn’t the old man be surprised when Rinucchi showed up without a scratch?
Wingate could just picture the scene. Rinucchi, arms opened wide, finding his Poppa. The old man couldn’t have gotten far into the mountains with his wounded maquisards. It was probably childishly simple for Rinucchi to find him. Then, Poppa, being the swell guy he is, tells him of Wingate’s miraculous escape from the Mark IIIs. Finally, Rinucchi puts the word out that the American is still alive and looking for ammunition. The Nazis must have loved that. They were probably laughing over Wingate’s chances while killing Poppa Wernzelli. There was no reason for them to keep the patriot alive any longer. With the old coot out of the way, the only thing for them to worry about would be the American.
For that reason alone, Wingate had to keep them away from Thomas and the Free French. As far as he knew, the Nazis would have assumed Thomas was one of the many maquisard corpses at the headquarters. Without Rinucchi on the scene to make an identification, it would be a natural assumption. And since Poppa Wernzelli also assumed Thomas was dead, there was no reason for Rinucchi to be any the wiser. Thomas may have been wounded; but if anything happened to Wingate, he was Granite’s last chance.
The thing to do, of course, was for Wingate to stay away from the Free French rendezvous until sunset, when he could return to the bakery for a little Nazi pumping. All he had to do was find an open church or cellar not filled with sullen, smoking Corsican peasants. It would not be easy. Since almost no one was outside, it stood to reason they were all crammed inside. And wherever there were people, there would probably be intent Wernzelli-related eyes.
Wingate tried to find the broken-down church he had stumbled upon before. Unfortunately every street looked the same and it took all of Wingate’s innate sense of direction to remember the way he had come. It would be more than a pity if he couldn’t find his way back to the shop after nightfall. For the want of a map, all Italy might be lost to the Allies. To help, Wingate memorized the streetlamps. No two were alike, what with chipped paint, bends, and bullet holes, so Wingate fixed them in his memory like stars in a constellation.
He took a left at one with a jagged tear near its base, and a right at one bent over to the left at a thirty degree angle, but everywhere he turned he was faced with the same thing. Shuttered windows and locked doors. Wingate considered trying to pick one of the locks and hanging out in a hallway until night, but he doubted that would work. If any residents discovered him outside their room, he doubted they would invite him in for tea. More likely they would send him out on the point of a saber.
He hung another left at a streetlamp with only one glass pane broken. In front of him was a godsend. It was a huge, rambling structure, completely different from the tall, rectangular buildings around it. It was shaped like a roofed-in stadium, only not as large. It rose about two and a half stories off the ground, being wider than it was high, and sloped up to a domelike ceiling. And, in the middle of the wall section Wingate was staring at, was an open door.
Wingate kept close to the street edge as he moved across the distance that separated him from the entrance. In order to get inside, he’d have to cross a narrow roadway that connected to the street he was on like the crown of a “T.” For those few seconds he would be exposed to eyes along the entire length of the street. Wingate didn’t even worry about risking it. If all the other streets he had been on were empty, there was no reason why this new one shouldn’t be too. The only thing he was concerned about was who might be inside. Hopefully the place was big enough for Wingate to sneak into a corner somewhere without being seen.
He stopped at the end of the street. He poked his head around the corner. It was as he suspected; no window open, no human moving. All he had to do was cross the street and slip inside the door. Hardly had he finished thinking about it than he was moving. The open door rocked slightly in the wind. Wingate reached it, placed his hand around the latch, hopped inside the building, and pulled the door closed after him.
He found himself facing a canvas wall. Long, thin pieces of light brown wood held the beige canvas upright, spreading for many feet in every direction. Wingate could see some kind of luminescence coming through the thin fabric, which was vibrating from the wind Wingate had caused by swiftly shutting the door. To his right he saw more canvas wall. To his left he saw drapes of black fabric swirling across the wooden frame. He moved in that direction.
Sure enough the canvas wall ended there. Beyond it was a cement-enclosed area, occasionally interrupted by more long, hanging drapes. It looked very familiar to the American soldier. As he moved forward he suddenly remembered he had seen something like this backstage at the New York Roxy Theater. He had reason to visit it once for the company of a chorus girl he had met. He recalled that these black curtains covered the sides of the stage, blocking the audience’s view of the actors’ entrances. But what was a theater doing in the middle of Bastia?
Wingate couldn’t understand it, even as he pushed one scrim curtain out of the way and stepped out onto a magnificent stage. Even though the floorboards were littered with debris and most of the audience’s seats were missing, it was still an impressive hall. Three layers of tiered boxes lined each wall, the partitions painted red while the molding was colored gold. In the back, the walls were bright white plaster, extensively decked out with ornate designs. The ceiling was impressively dotted with chandeliers.
The theater was wildly incongruous with what Wingate knew about the Corsican temperament. He just couldn’t see the sheepherders and farmers he had met quietly sitting for some sort of entertainment. What he did see, however, was a man with a goat framed in a doorway on the back wall. Wingate watched the man in silence, wondering whether there was anyone back there with him. He decided not to check, trying to look like he belonged on the stage. If the man with the goat didn’t bother him, he wouldn’t bother the man with the goat. As soon as he thought that, the native moved out of sight, pulling at the rope leash of the reluctant animal. The goat gave Wingate a bleat, then followed.
The American scanned the rest of the area quickly. He could see no one else amid the seats, offstage, or in the balcony. But rather than take a chance remaining in such an open space, he walked back the way he had come. Checking the corners of the cement-enclosed area, he discovered the remnants of lavish theatrical costumes, including a Norse helmet. It was a dead giveaway. Wingate had wandered into the Bastia Opera House, home of Italian culture. Thomas had mentioned it in passing. It was built late in the nineteenth century by the local bourgeoisie, in the hopes of upgrading the hill people. Not surprisingly, it didn’t work, but the Italian businessmen had a good time whenever touring companies showed up.
Wingate hoped he could spend his time there, away from the Citadelle and the Nazi strongholds near the airport. Finding a spot near the cement-surrounded corner, he pulled a pile of black curtains over and sat down. It was dark, cool, and comfortable. Although he didn’t feel tired, he figured he might be able to catch forty winks. The evening’s work was bound to take a lot out of him, no matter what. Even if he only had to escape with Thomas, the jaunt over to the Desert des Agriates was a good fifteen miles over the mountains.
Curling up into a ball, Wingate settled among the soft folds of the curtains. He checked the Browning, the grenade, the detonator, his extra black tape and primacord, as well as his cutters, then fell into a restless sleep. He dreamed of dancing dead men. He saw the maquisards, arms clasped, moving around an open grave. Out of it rose Rinucchi, holding a Schmeisser submachine gun. When he pulled the trigger, the figures around the grave turned out to be Corte’s children. They were mown down with great, crimson swashes. His viewpoint moved back to see that the grave was stuck in the middle of the Opera House stage; in the audience, the Ovras and the Nazis were applauding. Wingate woke up to the sounds of their hands clapping.
At first he thought he was still dreaming. But the noise coming from the audience was real. It wasn’t applause, but sounds that meant that more than one person was on the other side of the black scrims. He tore at his waistband to get the automatic. It wasn’t there. He then reached for the grenade in his pocket. The pocket was empty. Just as he pulled himself up to claw at his knife in its leg-scabbard, two shapes fell at him from either side.
Wingate was caught in the worst possible defensive position. His eyes were still blurred from sleep, his brain was groggy, and his hands were somewhere near his ankles. When the other fists came, they smacked into his unprotected face. His head snapped back, his nose feeling as if it had spread across both cheeks. He opened his mouth to shout, but another fist flattened his lips against his teeth. The flesh mashed, then broke open. Wingate felt blood streaming down his chin as strong hands locked onto his arms and hauled him up.
He was pulled out of the backstage darkness and onto the light-filled stage. As soon as his eyesight cleared, he saw the man with the goat. The animal bleated, seemingly in sympathy, while the man lovingly fingered a Browning automatic. Wingate’s eyesight shifted, then focused again directly in front of him. There stood Poppa Wernzelli, playing with his commando knife.
The old Corsican stopped tossing it in the air, catching it butt-first, and reached out to grab a handful of Wingate’s straight, black hair. Twisting the strands with sinewy strength, Poppa leaned in to breath in Wingate’s face.
“You thought you could trick me, eh?” he growled, smiling. “You thought you could take my family from me, eh?” He let go of Wingate’s hair only to slam him in the cheek with the back of his gnarled fist. Wingate felt a tooth loosen, its warm blood dripping into his mouth. Then the hand was back in his hair again and the knife point was at his chin. “But I am too smart for you,” Poppa laughed, a slight hint of hysteria in his tone. “I know everything!” He pricked the bottom of Wingate’s jaw with the blade. More blood.
“Let him go!” Poppa shouted, loosening his own grip and moving back. Wingate felt the arms holding him up disappear. Through the painful purple haze in his head he demanded his own legs to stiffen. They slowly responded, allowing the American to keep his feet. He lowered his head to clear his mind. As his senses tightened up he saw three separate trails of blood collecting on the wooden floor. It wasn’t a pleasant sight, so Wingate raised his head to look at Poppa again.
The old man had drifted across the stage and was standing in a crouched position, waving the knife slowly back and forth. Out of his mouth came harsh, foreign words, delivered in a recognizable rhythm. Poppa Wernzelli was giving him the Corsican “rimbeccu,” the taunt to kill. Wingate glanced to his left. The other Corsicans were making themselves at home in the theater seats. To them, this was entertainment.
Wingate didn’t have his gun or his knife, and it would have been useless to throw his cutters or primacord at the old man, so he used the only long-range weapon left him—his voice.
“Poppa,” he called, “I don’t understand. What has Granite done to you? You were chasing the streghi of the mountains. Why fight me?”
The old man’s singsong tones only grew in volume. But during his revenge song, Wingate saw his smile widening the same way it had when they first met. Obviously, Poppa thought he knew something Wingate didn’t and was extremely happy about that fact. Only this time Wingate knew what the old man’s joy was all about. He also knew why Rinucchi had kept his father alive. He could do his son one last favor: kill Wingate.
“Your son returned to you, didn’t he?” Wingate demanded. “He found you in the mountains, then told you to find me.”
The old man just kept on singing and weaving about the stage, drawing closer to Wingate all the while. Wingate kept moving back, taking a moment to spit out some blood and mucus which had collected in his mouth.
“Rinucchi knew it would be easier for you to find me,” the American continued, motioning at the Corsican audience, “because of all your friends. But ask yourself this, Poppa. How did he escape from the tanks? The Nazis wouldn’t take prisoners. How did he escape and no one else?”
Wernzelli cursed louder and charged at Wingate, the knife thrust forward. The American ducked, pivoted, then threw his weight to the left. Poppa sped by, tripping over Wingate’s outstretched right leg. Wingate pushed himself up and around fast enough to see Poppa roll onto his shoulder, somersault, twist in the air, and land on his feet. He had to hand it to the old man. This was going to be no easy fight.
When Poppa was again facing Wingate with the knife, he was smiling. He paused and spoke in English. “You try to trick me again, eh? You try to say my son is a traitor. But I am too smart for you. I know who the traitor is. You forget, Rinucchi is my son, Rinucchi is a Wernzelli. If Poppa can escape from the tanks, Rinucchi can escape from the tanks.” The old man then started to stalk Wingate across the stage again.
“Who did he say the traitor was?” Wingate asked desperately. “Me? Why would I sabotage my own mission?”
Poppa Wernzelli laughed. “You are just like all the rest,” he scoffed. “You see a pretty face and you will do anything. You are a pig. You deserve to die.”
It all became painfully clear to Wingate. The resurrected Rinucchi had told his father Wingate had been messing with Barbara. It would have been enough to blind the old man to any kind of truth. To him, Wingate was another soldier-boy whose only purpose was to despoil his daughter. Wingate had to stop talking and start thinking about how to escape. Without his weapons and with the Opera House crawling with Corsicans, things looked bleak. They looked bleaker when Wingate noticed the group of peasants congregating at both sides of the stage. He was totally blocked off. He had no choice but to fight Poppa Wernzelli, even in his groggy, beaten state.
