Lanyon pulled Patricia back into an alcove between the door and the stack of TV sets. He slipped his.45 automatic out of its holster, eased up the safety catch.
"Wait here, Pat," he whispered. "Try not to move. Someone came in after us through the grain store. I'll see if I can get behind him." He felt her hand hold his tightly, her face tense. He dived through the doorway and crouched down behind one of the pillars, just as the doors on the far side of the storeroom swung back and torches flared across the piles of merchandise.
Lanyon began to edge forward to a central pillar that fanned out in the middle of the chamber. Ahead of him he could hear someone moving along the stonework.
He was halfway across when lights flooded on in the storeroom behind him, a string of bulbs around the walls filling the chamber with hard white light. Voices shouted out again, feet hammered across the stone floor.
Spinning around, he ran back to the storeroom, reached the door just as Patricia, hiding in the alcove a few feet from him, screamed.
Dazzled for a moment by the light, Lanyon's eyes raced around the room. He caught a fleeting glimpse of two swarthy-faced men in black trousers and windbreakers swarming between the crates, then saw a third moving nimbly halfway down the aisle, a heavy Mauser in one hand, the long barrel pointed at Patricia.
The shot roared out into the confined air, slamming against the tiers of metal cabinets, the flame flashing off the TV screens. One next to Patricia shattered in a burst of glass. The man with the Mauser stopped, feet placed wide apart, then raised the gun again.
Dropping to one knee, Lanyon straightened his arm, steadied his elbow with his left hand, then fired quickly. The power of the.45 stunned the air for a moment, and the two men on the far side of the room ducked down. The gunman with the Mauser had been kicked back onto the floor by the heavy bullet passing through his chest, and lay inertly on his face, blood leaking slowly across the cobbles.
Lanyon knelt down to see if Patricia was all right, but out of the side of his eye was aware of someone bending over him. He managed to duck just as the blow caught his ear, rode onto thefloor with it. As he started to get up the man kicked him viciously in the chest and Lanyon staggered back, ribs tearing with pain, trying to level his automatic.
Then the other two men were on him, wrestling him down onto the floor again, their fists slamming at his face. A heavy boot stamped onto his hand, knocking the gun away, and then he was pulled back on his feet and propped up against one of the packing cases. He had a confused image of Patricia down on her knees; then a big man with a red vicious face clubbed him savagely across the forehead with the barrel of the.45. Lanyon sagged over and smashed on the floor. The big man snapped the gun butt into his hand and leveled it at Lanyon, his eyes narrowing like an insane pig's.
The two other men stood waiting expectantly, one of them with his knee in the small of Patricia's back, holding her down on the floor. Lanyon rolled wearily against the case, trying to clear his eyes of the blood running from the wound across his temple, barely aware of the gun barrel a few inches from his head.
Suddenly the big man paused, lowered the gun, then stepped forward and ripped open Lanyon's windbreaker, grabbing the lapels of his drill jacket, fingering the gold USN tabs. He stuffed the automatic into his belt and cuffed Lanyon's head back, running his strong thick fingers over Lanyon's bruised cheeks.
He tapped Lanyon's face softly, and a grim smile broke across his huge features. He took Lanyon by the shoulders, shook him twice in his strong arms.
"Eh, Capitano!" he called out. "You O.K., boy?"
When Lanyon steadied himself and looked at him, he stepped back and gestured to his men to help Patricia to her feet. Then he grinned at Lanyon, pulled one of the men over to him by the shoulder, and spoke to him rapidly in Italian, jerking his thumb at Lanyon.
The man nodded, then spoke to Lanyon.
"You help Luigi at Viamillia," he told Lanyon matter-of-factly. "He ask how you feeling?"
Lanyon looked across at Luigi, massaging his painful neck with one hand. Dimly he remembered the huge distraught Italian in the damaged church, hurling the debris off the pews like a maddened bull.
Patricia stumbled across to him and he put his arm around her, pressed her head into his shoulder.
"Steve, are you all right?" she gasped. "Who are they? What are they going to do with us?"
Lanyon pulled himself together, managed to smile back at Luigi. He spoke to the interpreter, a small thin-faced man with a striped shirt.
"Sure, I remember him. Tell him I'm just about in one piece, but I could use some water." While the thin-faced man interpreted, Lanyon patted Patricia's shoulder. "We ran into him in a small town on the way out of Genoa. His family were trapped in a church. We helped get them out."
Luigi nodded to the interpreter, gestured them all across the storeroom to the door. Slowly they made their way out, avoiding the body of the gunman lying on the floor in a widening pool of blood. Luigi picked up the Mauser, rammed it into his belt next to Lanyon's.45. They entered the corridor, then turned off through a small doorway into a narrow low-ceilinged room where a single light burned low over a bare wooden table. Inset into the Walls were four bunks, the bedding rumpled and filthy.
One of the men snapped off the corridor lights and closed the door behind them, but Lanyon noticed a small printing press on the trolley outside.
Luigi pulled up a chair by the table and Lanyon lowered himself siowiy into it, Patricia sitting down on the edge of the bed behind him. Luigi barked at the two men; one slipped outside and returned a moment later with a jug full of water, and the little interpreter rooted along the shelf over the fireplace and produced a grimy glass. Luigi took it, pulled the cork out of a bottle of chianti, poured some into the glass and passed it across to Patricia, then pushed the bottle over to Lanyon.
Lanyon swabbed down his face and neck, then tore one pocket off his shirt and pasted it over the wound on his forehead. Slightly refreshed, he sat back and put his hand reassuringly on Patricia's knee, squeezed her thigh.
First tipping the neck of the bottle toward Luigi, he filled his mouth with the harsh bitter wine, then passed it back across the table.
Luigi pulled up a chair and sat down. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Ship? You?" He spoke to the interpreter, who was clearing the jug of water.
"Luigi asks if you go back for your ship?"
Lanyon nodded. "Trying to. How can we get there-the submarine base? You know any covered roads?"
The interpreter translated this for Luigi, and the two men looked at each other silently for a moment. Then Luigi frowned and muttered something.
"Very strong wind," the interpreter explained. "Can't move on the streets now. Big hotels, houses-" he snapped his fingers "-all going bang!
Lanyon glanced at his watch. It was 2:35. Soon it would be dark; movement would be impossible until the next morning.
"What about everything in the storeroom?" he asked curtly. "How did you get it up here? You were carrying something big in just now."
There was a lengthy consultation, during which the interpreter shrugged repeatedly and Luigi appeared to be trying to make up his mind.
Lanyon spoke to Patricia over his shoulder. "They must be looting the warehouses and stores around here. Presumably looting is now punishable by death. I suppose he's afraid we'll report him to the military governor."
The other man, older, with a dry wizened face and a cropped skull, joined in the conversation, throwing sharp reminders across the table at Luigi, who was fingering his gun belt uneasily. Finally he appeared to come to a decision. He rapped something out and they all fell silent.