Front Lines (Front Lines #1)(25)

Well, after which no one knew for sure. Everyone says America is ready, finally, to go up against the Germans. Marines are already fighting the Japanese, but despite the special rage and hatred people felt for the Japanese, Rainy knows the Germans are the greater danger.

Aryeh can kill Japanese; Rainy wants to kill Nazis. They are the great enemies of humanity; they are the cancer on civilization. The German armed forces—the Wehrmacht—has already destroyed vast armies, conquered millions of square miles. They have deliberately starved hundreds of thousands at Leningrad. The German air force—the Luftwaffe—has slaughtered tens of thousands of civilians in Poland and in England. The German navy and its vicious submarine wolf packs have littered the ocean floor with ships and the bones of sailors.

It is the Germans, the Nazis, who have enslaved millions of French, Dutch, Poles, Czechs, Danes, Belgians, Ukrainians, and others.

It is the Nazis who force Jewish children into camps in Poland and Russia.

Why hasn’t Cousin Esther written? Why has no one gotten a letter from any Jew in Nazi-occupied territory?

Rainy does not expect to fire a weapon in anything but training, but intelligence work can be as deadly to her foe, and the Nazis are her foe, her personal foe. She will remember—she has ordered herself to remember—that each day she performs her duties well will contribute to destroying that enemy.

And saving the world.

That thought coaxes a small smile from her. All by yourself, Rainy? She mocks herself. Will you destroy Hitler and his empire of hate?

“If I get the chance,” she whispers.

Finally she hears her train being called, snatches up her bag, and pushes her way through the crowd. It’s a long train behind two huffing black engines leaking clouds of steam, and it takes her a while to find her assigned compartment. She’s the second to get there, behind a civilian woman with a vast handbag stuffed with salamis and wilting flowers.

“Ma’am,” Rainy says respectfully, and takes a window seat. The woman glares at her and pulls her bag closer, as if fearing Rainy will take something.

Three young male soldiers pile in—the compartment can hold eight if no one breathes too deeply. They’re either drunk very early or drunk very late, depending on whether they’ve gone to bed.

“Hey, it’s a girl!” one of them says, and flops fragrantly beside her. They’re all privates; no insignia of rank yet adorns their uniforms.

“You sure that’s a girl? Don’t look like no girl. Looks like a . . .” And there his verbal abilities fail him, and he trains unfocused eyes on Rainy before slumping back, unconscious.

A conductor is pushing his way down the jammed and noisy corridor, leading a male officer. He reaches the door to the compartment, holds it open, accepts a tip, and, as he closes the compartment door, slides down the roll-up blind.

Rainy watches the officer, a first lieutenant. The lieutenant watches her right back, takes in the three drunks and the civilian woman, and sits opposite Rainy.

The two more-conscious soldiers immediately attempt to straighten themselves up, adjusting caps and in one case making a valiant but doomed attempt to align buttons with their proper holes.

It is unusual, to say the least, to have an officer sitting here in the cheap seats. Maybe the train is overloaded. But no, this officer was guided here.

“Lieutenant,” Rainy says, and nods. Protocol does not call for saluting in this situation.

The lieutenant makes a show of reading the name tag on her uniform. “Schulterman, is it?”

“PFC Rainy Schulterman, sir,” Rainy acknowledges.

He smiles. It’s not a leer, nor is it a friendly smile. It’s a practiced smile. He’s carrying only a briefcase, no duffel. His boots are shined; his uniform is crisp. He’s perhaps twenty-five, with watery-blue eyes behind glasses, blond hair, scrubbed pink skin, thin lips and shoulders. He’s a crease-checker, one of those men who reach compulsively to pinch the crease in his trousers, making sure it stays straight, that it stands tall above the thigh before being flattened by the pressure of the kneecap.

“Where you headed, PFC?”

“South, sir.”

“Just south?” Again, the practiced smile. “That covers a lot of ground.”

“Yes, sir.”

He considers this, and the train jerks as the big steel wheels engage. The platform and its waving, weeping population slide away, made to look like a dreamscape by the wreaths of steam.

“Girl like you, I guess you’re headed to Fort Ritchie, right?” He waits a beat for an answer and gets nothing. “It’s all right, Private, we’re on the same side.” He laughs confidentially. “I swear I won’t tell a soul.” He makes the sign of the cross over his heart.

“Is that where you’re heading, Lieutenant?”

He pretends not to hear.

The passed-out drunk is sliding as the train moves, feet beneath the seat, knees extending, back slipping; he’ll be on the floor as soon as they hit a turn.

The officer pulls a pack of cigarettes from his chest pocket. He taps one halfway out and offers it to Rainy.

“No thank you, sir.”

“Don’t smoke?”

“It seems a bit . . . close . . . in here,” Rainy ventures.

“Do you mind if I . . .” He holds a cigarette hovering near his lips.