“What’s the meaning of this?” I tried to shout but my voice was not very loud. They had me at the side of the road now.
“Shoot him if he resists,” an officer said. “Take him over back.”
“Who are you?”
“You’ll find out.”
“Who are you?”
“Battle police,” another officer said.
“Why don’t you ask me to step over instead of having one of these airplanes grab me?”
They did not answer. They did not have to answer. They were battle police.
“Take him back there with the others,” the first officer said. “You see. He speaks Italian with an accent.”
“So do you, you ⸻,” I said.
“Take him back with the others,” the first officer said. They took me down behind the line of officers below the road toward a group of people in