Nina held her breath as the cars circled the perimeter of the piazza, passed by the carabinieri station, and drew to a halt a bare meter from the edge of the gathered crowd. The door of the Mercedes opened and Zwerger, flanked by his soldiers, marched toward the church. The crowd parted, as it might for a plague of scorpions, and he ascended to the top of the church steps.

But Father Bernardi was there already, still in his vestments, and was holding up his hands in protest. “What is this? You cannot use my church as your pulpit.”

“How do you plan to stop me?”

Zwerger gestured at one of his soldiers, an odd sort of whisking motion with his hand, and the man leaped forward, took hold of Father Bernardi by the back of his robes, and dragged him down the steps.

“Stay,” Zwerger ordered, and the assembled congregation gasped at the shock of their own priest being treated like a dog.

Nina was trapped in the middle of the crowd, at least five meters away from the steps, with Aldo to her right and Matteo to her left. She couldn’t see the children anywhere, nor Rosa. Surely they knew to keep their distance from Zwerger and the soldiers. Surely they would hide within the crowd.

Zwerger stood at the center of the steps, the church’s open doors yawning wide behind him. He waited until the crowd had fallen silent, or something close to it, before he spoke again.

“Can any of you guess why I am here today? No? In that case I shall enlighten you. I am here because I have learned that you, the people of Mezzo Ciel, are harboring a criminal.” He paused, waited again, and then raised one hand. In it he now held his pistol. “That criminal is the bandit Niccolò Gerardi.”

Nina’s knees buckled, but Aldo caught her just in time. “Our Nico is far from here,” he assured her. “That swine is posturing. No more.”

“For years,” Zwerger continued, “the bandit Gerardi has helped fugitive criminals to cross the border into Switzerland, every one of them an enemy of your republic and my Reich. Escaped prisoners of war. Communist agitators. Enemy aliens. Jews. And he did so in collusion with the same lawless brigands who continue to terrorize this region. That is why—”

Rosa burst from the crowd and ran up the steps. “My brother is innocent! Everyone here knows it—including you!” Emboldened by her fury, oblivious to the danger she faced, she spat in Zwerger’s face.

He didn’t react at first. Simply let the spittle run down his cheek. Calmly took out a folded handkerchief from a pocket in his uniform tunic, wiped his face, and tucked it away.