Street Boys (20 page)

The oil tanker split and rose halfway out of the water, thick plumes of bright orange flames lighting the harbor clear through to the islands that dotted the shoreline. The round mushroom cloud that rose from the center of the tanker bellowed high into the nighttime sky, casting its glow along the main drag of Lungomare. The explosion sent the tanks alongside the ship hurtling down empty streets, bouncing along the cobblestones like a child’s toys.

Vincenzo picked up the statue of San Gennaro and brought it to his lips, giving the patron saint a soft kiss. He stood and raised his arms and then turned to Connors, smiling broadly. “I told you,” Vincenzo shouted. “I told you the bomb would work!”

“What the hell took so long?” Connors asked, returning the boy’s gleeful smile.

“The watch was set on Naples time,” a still sleepy Maldini said. “It went off when it felt like it.”

They stood on the edge of the hill, staring down at the destruction they had leveled against the Nazi invaders. Around the city the tanks were now still and silent, the attention of Nazi commanders and soldiers riveted on the flaming lights of the port. But from the tunnels, sewers and empty gardens that dotted the Neapolitan landscape, the sound of happy children echoed along the empty streets.

“We will have our victory,” Vincenzo said, looking down with bright eyes at the port he had helped destroy.

THE SECOND DAY

13

THE ROYAL PALACE

Von Klaus stared out an open window, gazing down at the empty streets toward the port where the tanker still smoldered and burned. Behind him Kunnalt paced the marble floor, hands at his back, head bowed. “Do we have enough fuel to do what must be done and still make it to Rome?” Von Klaus asked without moving.

“Only if we reduce the number of tanks we send into the city,” Kunnalt said.

Von Klaus turned away from the window and stared at the officer. “We must complete our mission,” he said. “These homes, these churches. They must be destroyed.”

“There is a way, sir,” Kunnalt said. “It will allow us to do that and still conserve our fuel.”

Von Klaus stepped away from the window and walked over toward the map stretched out across the polished oak dining table. “Show me,” he ordered.

Kunnalt hovered over the map and repositioned three of the stick figures. “They live and hide in the sewers, most of them in the central part of the city,” he said. “This allows them to move from street to street undetected. If we strip them of that, we strip them of their only advantage.”

“And how would you do that?” Von Klaus asked, his eyes firmly on the map.

“We need to firebomb the sewers and tunnels,” Kunnalt said in matter-of-fact tones. “Burn the city from below instead of from above. That’s where they are hiding and that’s where they’ll die.”

Von Klaus looked away from the map and stared at Kunnalt for several seconds. He then lowered his head and walked back to the window. “These children are as much an enemy to us as any we’ve faced, sir,” Kunnalt said. “They must be dealt with.”

“In all our years together, Kunnalt, we’ve yet to have a tainted victory,” Von Klaus said, gazing once again at the ruined tanker. “Let’s not make this our first.”

14

SAN PAOLO MAGGIORE

It was just before dawn, the streets a mixture of dark smoke and light mist. Connors, a machine gun hanging over his right shoulder, walked past downed buildings and smoldering homes, assessing the damage one day’s fighting had wrought and anticipating the severity of the Nazi response. Nunzia walked beside him, arms at her sides, her pace relaxed. He looked over at her, the black hair dangling across the front of her face, her eyes bright and alert, her body shapely and athletic, and wondered if he would ever again be so close to someone as beautiful.

She stopped in front of an ornate double flight of steps leading to a two-tier church with large stone columns. She gripped a stone railing and stared across the divide at a statue of a saint, his arms open, head tilted toward the sky.

“It does makes you wonder,” Connors said. “All these bombs falling and tanks blasting away. Most of the buildings fall in a heap. But these churches take the hit, catch a couple of dents here and there, but still stand.”

“This was our church,” Nunzia said, gazing up at the chiseled entryway. “Where my family came to hear mass. And where I came to pray when I needed an extra favor from Mama or Papa.”

“It pay off?” Connors asked.

“Only with Papa,” Nunzia said. “He was the softer of the two. It took a lot more than a prayer to make Mama do something she didn’t want to do.”

“It was just the opposite with me,” Connors said. “My mom was like butter in the sun. A smile and a hug and she’d pretty much give you anything. It would take a lot more than that to make my dad budge.”

“In Naples, the men talk loud enough to be heard,” Nunzia said with a shrug. “But it is the women who make the rules.”

Connors stepped closer to Nunzia. “That would be all right by me,” he said.

Nunzia looked up into his handsome face, her eyes searching beyond the shell of the hardened soldier, looking for the small-town boy many miles from home who missed the warmth of a family as much as she did. She rested a hand on his cheek and he held it there, his fingers rubbing against the tops of hers. He lowered his head, she raised hers and they kissed, the sun behind them rising over the smoldering city. They held the kiss, letting silence and passion rule the moment, drowning the visions of battles and of friends and family members long since gone. For those sweet brief seconds, they were alone and far removed from any war.

“What happens to you after this?” she asked, still only inches from his face. “Do you get to go home?”

Connors shook his head. “Not for a while,” he said.

“Do you have a
fidanzata
that waits?” she asked.

Connors smiled. “That mean a girlfriend?” he asked. “If it does, the answer’s no.”

“It will happen,” she said.

“Why are you so sure of that?” he asked.

“You’re a good man,” Nunzia said with a warm smile. “It’s always easy for a good man to find someone to love.”

The rush of machine-gun bullets ended their moment of peace.

The bullets pinged against the thick stone wall just beneath the landing where Connors and Nunzia stood. They both tumbled to a higher step, Connors sheltering Nunzia’s body with the back of his as he whirled his machine gun from behind his shoulder and into his hands. “Shots are coming from that corner on the left,” he said, peering beyond the stairs. “Too soon to make out how many there are.”

Nunzia pulled a gun from behind her waistband and cocked it. “Their shots will warn the others,” she said. “We need to get them off the streets.”

Connors looked up at the curved stone stairwell that led to the church entrance. “You run as fast and as low as you can into that church,” he told her. “I’ll give you more than enough cover. Just keep moving.” He reached for her hand and held it tight. “No matter what, Nunzia. Just keep moving.”

“You better do the same,” she said to him.

Connors looked over the break in the landing and spotted the end of a machine-gun barrel poised against the side of a wall across from the church. He braced his gun against his arm and turned to Nunzia. “I’ll meet you by the altar,” he said.

Nunzia ran up the dozen steps, her body crouched down low, gun in hand. Connors was right behind her, firing into the walls of the building across the way. The return fire was heavy, leaving little doubt that there was more than one soldier aiming down at them. They reached the top of the landing, ten feet of open space between them and the front door. Connors stood behind a thick marble column, Nunzia on the ground next to him. He jammed in a fresh ammo clip and pulled a grenade from the back of his belt. “How many can you see?” she asked, wiping soot from her eyes and peering inside the empty church.

“There’s at least two,” Connors said. “Probably not more than three. It’s hard to clip any of them from here. They’re just shooting blind, hoping to hit one of us with a stray. I’ll have a clearer line on them once we’re in the church.”

“Let me have the grenade,” Nunzia said. “I won’t be able to throw it as far, but you can give better cover to me than I can to you.”

Connors handed her the grenade and then crouched down, resting the barrel of his gun against the ancient stone of the column. “I’m going to step out into the open,” Connors said. “Give them a target to shoot at. When I do, you pull the pin, count to three and let it go.”

“This now makes two things I’ve never done before this morning,” Nunzia said, gazing up at Connors and moving to her knees, the fingers of her left hand curled gently around the grenade pin in her right.

“What was the first?” Connors asked, stepping away from the column and looking down at her.

“I had never kissed a man,” she said, looking back for a brief second and giving him a warm smile. She then pulled the pin, held the grenade and tossed it toward the row of buildings on the corner. Connors jumped from the shadow of the column and ripped a series of bullets against the hidden Nazis, clipping off shards of stone and sending pockets of dust into the air.

The grenade blast shattered storefront glass and sent cobblestones sprawling toward the sky, a thick white puff of smoke hiding the Nazis in its midst. Connors and Nunzia turned and ran for the cover of the darkened church, bullets hitting the cement and walls around them. They stepped inside, holding hands and moving as one down the center aisle, the sounds of their rushed footsteps echoing off the walls of a building that was first erected in the eighth century.

They dove behind the main altar, checking the ammo supply in their weapons and resting their backs against the thick marble for support. Three German soldiers riddled the front entryway with bullets as they ran into the church, the heavy pounding of their footsteps coming at them from separate directions. Connors peered around the edges of the altar, through the smoke and haze, the shadows from the lit candles tipping him to the enemy position. The Germans, hiding behind wooden chairs and marble columns, fired heavy barrages up into the altar, their bullets zinging off ancient stone and statues, dust and debris raining down on Connors and Nunzia. “There a back way out?” he asked, covering her as best he could.

“To the right,” she said. “There’s a flight of stairs next to the confessional. It leads to an alley.”

Connors checked the distance from the altar to the steps and then looked out at the Nazis. One was on his far left, crouched down behind a statue of the Blessed Mother. The second was flat down on his stomach, his gun poised between two hard-back chairs. The third was closest to the confessional and was the one he most needed to take out. “We’re going to make a run at those stairs,” Connors said to Nunzia. “I’ll lead. You follow. And if I go down, don’t stop running.”

“I won’t leave you here,” she said.

“Don’t think of it that way,” Connors said, shoving an extra ammo clip into his jacket pocket. “You get out, you can get help and bail me out of this jam.”

Nunzia clicked the hammer on her gun and held it across her waist. “No,” she said. “I won’t do it.”

“Nunzia, there isn’t any time to argue,” Connors said, his low voice filled with frustration.

“Then don’t waste any,” she said, staring into his face.

Connors and Nunzia leaped down from the altar and ran for the confessional and the stairs thirty feet away, bullets coming at them from three sides. Connors paused at the base of the steps and sprayed his fire in three directions, the empty church now reduced to nothing more than a fire zone. Nunzia slipped to her knees and fired two shots down the center aisle, wounding the soldier hidden behind the chairs. Connors emptied his clip at the soldier to his far left, three of the bullets finding their mark, catching him in the chest and neck. He reached down, grabbed Nunzia up with his right hand and they continued their run toward the dark safety of the stairwell. “Don’t stop and don’t look back,” he shouted. “I’ll be right behind you.”

They reached the top of the stairs, Nunzia two steps down. Connors turned, fresh clip in his machine gun, and fired toward the third Nazi coming at them from the right aisle. He looked to make sure Nunzia was well on her way, peering into the darkness, hearing nothing but the clapping of shoes against stone steps. Connors turned back toward the church, one leg on the top step, and caught the full force of a German soldier landing on top of him, hitting with a thud against his chest, a six-inch knife held tight in his right hand. Connors and the Nazi fell backwards down the long flight of steps, their bodies bouncing off the hard surface, the German frantically trying to lift his knife and plunge it into Connors. The machine gun slipped from the American’s grip, falling into the dark well below.

The Nazi, his right arm raised, the knife hovering just above Connors, gazed down at the American soldier, both of them washed in sweat. Connors held the Nazi’s elbow, his head hanging down off one of the steps, the weight of the German pressed against his chest. The Nazi broke Connors’s hold and plunged the knife deep into his shoulder, the blade ripping through his uniform, digging into skin and muscle. Connors let out a loud and painful grunt that echoed down the empty staircase, his angry eyes glaring up at the smiling Nazi above him, young and eager to finish off his enemy. He could feel the warm flow of blood coming out of the wound, the strength seeping out of his system, his sweat turning cold.

The bullet came up from out of the darkness and landed in the center of the Nazi’s forehead.

His body shook slightly, fingers now loose around the hard end of the knife, and a thin line of blood flowed down the center of his face. His head tilted off to the left and fell forward, landing on top of Connors with a soft moan, the top of his pith helmet jammed under the American’s chin. His back arched up at an angle as he coughed out his last breath.

Connors reared and tossed the German off his chest and watched the body slide down the steps next to him. He glanced at the wound, the knife still embedded in his shoulder, blood flowing down the front of his jacket and onto his pants. He looked above him and saw Nunzia’s face smiling down at him, smoking gun still in her hand. “Why do I waste time giving you orders?” he asked, relieved to see her there.

“You always forget,” Nunzia said. “I’m a Neapolitan. We never listen to anybody.”