[center][h3]Simona Ricci[/h3][/center]

Simona had long since come to the conclusion that her mysterious contact was not to be found among her present company. If he was, then he was one hell of an actor. She'd arrived hours ago on the arm of an SS officer, plucked from the military hospital where she'd gotten herself surreptitiously posted. He had been undiscerning enough to ignore the heavy limp that she walked with, and now he was just as undiscerning with the amount of alcohol that he was drinking. He only seemed to be conscious at this point whenever the scary, bald Oberführer whose birthday it was offered another toast or roared at him to drink. 

Simona was more or less fine. She'd always been pretty good at holding her drink, but she was starting to feel like she was in a bit over her head, like maybe she'd missed something. That message she'd been slipped had probably been meant for someone within the Princess' network, but likely not for her. [i]Delusions of grandeur, Simona. Always with the delusions.[/i] 

Then the 'Italian' burst in - a great big horse of a man loaded down with a large backpack. A dozen or so Nazi eyes turned to meet him, and Simona followed their lead. 

"Oh cazzo, ecco il sigillo..." the man muttered.

[i]Che cazzo?![/i] Immediately, Simona stifled her expression by stuffing her face into a beer stein. [i]Wrong kind of 'seal', buddy. What[/i] you're [i]looking for is 'Foca'.[/i] She forced herself to take another sip, even as the tension in the room mounted. The Germans, even poor, hapless Friedrich, seemed to recover some of their menacing quality almost instantly. [i]God, please don't make me have to use this gun yet.[/i] But then the newcomer produced a bottle of wine from his gigantic bag and everyone relaxed. [i]Booze makes everything better.[/i] He looked like one of those hairy Sicilians, but his Italian was even worse than theirs. [i]Probably an American who picked it up from his parents or grandparents.[/i] After taking a swig of the wine, the scary Oberführer thrust it into her hands. "You!" he barked, "You're Italian! What do you think of it?" With a charming smile and a bit of a blush, Simona accepted and took a suitably girly little sip. "Molto bene! Questo e un ottimo vino!" She tried to keep her words simple, but the effort was probably wasted. Truth be told, it tasted like piss, but the officer was only looking for affirmation, so she'd play the role assigned to her.

A bunch of boys with a new diversion, the Germans quickly began passing the bottle around, and Simona removed herself from the small gathering. Nobody would begrudge her following her countryman to the smaller room upstairs. Friedrich made a halfhearted play at grabbing her by the dress, and it almost caused her to lose her balance - [i]Okay, maybe I had more than I thought[/i] - but she planted a small kiss on his forehead and hobbled away and up the stairs - slowly up the stairs - painfully slowly, trying not to fall flat on her face. In the room above were four men, including the ersatz Italian. Simona reached the top, looked at them, and took a deep breath. "Buonasera, cono Simona...uh, Parli tedesco?" [i]Or Italian[/i] she thinks wryly.