Silver Stars (Front Lines #2)(75)

“No,” Rainy agrees. “What I want to do is get to Rome without having to assassinate anyone.”

“It’s five hours by automobile. Depending of course on how many roadblocks the Fascists have up.”

“I don’t seem to have a car. Just a gun,” Rainy says.

“I . . . that is to say, the parish, owns a small truck. I use it to visit outlying parishioners. The sun will be up in . . .” He checks a wall clock. “Three hours. Confession starts an hour later.”

“If they don’t see me by eight, they’ll check my room.”

“That may be enough. I’ll miss confession, but I’ll leave a note that I was called away to see a sick parishioner.”

“Just like that you’re going to help me? And believe me?”

The old priest laughs for the first time, a booming sound quickly stifled. “Young lady, I’m a priest, I have been lied to more times and by more people than I could possibly count. I know, um . . . there’s an American word . . . something to do with bulls.”

“Bullshit?” she says in English. “Um, sorry, I shouldn’t—”

“Exactly! I know bullshit when I hear it. If your story is this bullshit, then it is very good bullshit. And I don’t like to comment on a woman’s appearance, but you seem to be somewhat the worse for wear.”

Twenty minutes later they are in a minuscule vehicle that might be called a truck, but which manages to be even smaller than Tomaso’s truck. Thirty-five minutes later they are waved through their first roadblock by a sleepy guard who nods at Father Patrizio’s collar, crosses himself, and accepts a quick blessing. A second roadblock is tougher. But a third, just as they enter Rome, is not even manned. The guards can be seen drinking coffee in the cold, acid light of a bar.

“I leave you here,” Father Patrizio says as he pulls over on a side street. “Just ahead is Saint Peter’s. If you have the opportunity, you should see it.” Seeing her arch look, he laughs and adds, “Even Jews are allowed inside. I promise the floor will not open and plunge you into hell. And it is really quite spectacular.”

She shakes his hand. “Thanks for the ride, Father.”

“Thank you for not killing me,” he says. “I will pray for you.”

For some reason that starts the tears filling her eyes as she tumbles out onto the morning streets of Rome.

Rome! One of the three great Axis capitals. The second heart of darkness in Europe. She has a map, a tourist map, but Roman streets bear only a vague relationship to maps, and it takes her until 11:30 before she reaches the Swedish Embassy and gives the guard there the name of the man she is to meet.

The Salerno artillery emplacements are in her pocket. She has only to hand the paper over and then . . .

And then?

And then, she has no idea.





24

FRANGIE MARR—SICILY AND PORTSMOUTH, UK

Am I hurt?

She sees through one eye, but as if through a sheer lace curtain, everything fuzzy, details all blurred.

She can hear, but only the low tones, the vibrations of loud voices, the deepest notes of explosions.

Sky overhead. Blue.

Shapes moving around her. Green.

Pain comes from everywhere at once; it has no specific location, it’s everywhere and everything.

Am I dying?

She knows she’s moving but realizes she’s not the one doing the moving. She’s being carried. She’s on a stretcher, a stretcher that crushes her between two rifles.

She raises her head to try and see what has happened but her head won’t move and the very thought of trying it again is exhausting. Everything is exhausting.

Lord, don’t let me . . .

She feels pressure on her eye, her one working eye, her left. The pressure is firm but restrained. Something wet. Something that stings.

She pries open that left eye and sees the face of the nurse, Lieutenant Tremayne. Tremayne is cleaning the blood from her eye.

Tremayne’s gaze meets hers. Tremayne is saying something, and Frangie can hear it if she strains her attention, tries to focus, watches her lips move . . . move . . .

Sleep.

Awake again.

Sleep.

Awake and now she sees Dr. Frame.

“Listen, Marr, I’ve eased off the morphine so I can explain things to you. The pain will come back, so try and understand me.” He’s speaking patiently, slowly, like to a child. “You took a grenade. Friendly fire, from the look of the shrapnel. Someone must have dropped it. You have a compound fracture of the right femur. That’s what will cause the most pain. You also have a perforated lung, perforated right kidney, burst right eardrum, contused right eye, and you can only count to nine on your fingers—you lost a ring finger, but on the right hand, so you can still wear a wedding ring someday.”

Frangie says, “Mmm?”

“You will probably live, Marr, and if you live you may be all right.”

“She’ll be fine,” Tremayne murmurs, not approving of the doctor’s bluntness.

“She’s a medic, she deserves to understand,” Dr. Frame says. “You’re being evacuated either back to North Africa or to England.”

“Mmm. Eh?”

And suddenly, as if waking from a dream to find your body has been set afire, Frangie feels a wave of pain—a sickening, mind-spinning wave of pain—and she knows it’s only the beginning.