Purple Hearts (Front Lines 3)

In brief the rule is: Take what you want, leave the civilians alone. Unless there is the slightest resistance, in which case: shoot the Hitler-loving bastards.

But lately the villages and towns the Americans reach have been looted by retreating Wehrmacht and especially SS. They pass a civilian, face black with blood, hanging from a lamppost. A sign around his neck says Verräter. Traitor. It is not Rio’s first lynched German: the pathological murderers of the Sicherheitsdienst and the Gestapo, both now in flight toward the Alps, are punishing Germans for any sign of disloyalty, even as they flee in hopes of saving their own lives.

A second civilian lies swinging gently against the second story of a four-story building. The placement of the rope indicates that she was pushed out of an upper-story window and had her neck snapped before her feet could reach the ground. She has no sign.

“Geer, hold up!” Rio calls out and trots ahead to join him. “Where the hell is the burgomaster?”

A burgomaster is a mayor, and the usual routine had been for a nervous, fidgety old man with a sash of office or some such thing to come forward behind a white flag to greet the occupiers.

Geer nods. “Yeah. Quiet. Not the good kind of quiet.”

Rio nods at the town hall, a rococo structure of white plaster and green-painted cornices. “There. The church. And . . .” She looks around.

“That hotel over there,” Geer says. “Anyway, that’s where I’d put snipers. We can call up a tank and blow the shit out of ’em, see who comes running out.”

Rio sighs. “Captain was very clear: minimal necessary damage. I’ll get Mangan’s squad to check the church, and Big Pete can do the town hall. You check out the hotel.”

“Yep. Stafford! Castain! Beebee! See if you can get around the back of the hotel.”

The three set off at a loping run, down a back alley they hope will get them there.

Geer exhales. “For what it’s worth,” the newly minted sergeant says, “the army can take its stripes and stick ’em where the sun don’t—”

Bam!

A single, small explosion.

“Cover!” Rio yells, and everyone finds a doorway, a shattered storefront, or a tight alleyway to hide in. The new kids cower nervously behind cover. The veterans light cigarettes or take the opportunity for a pee.

“Come on, Geer,” Rio says. The two of them check their weapons automatically and by mutual consent take the street just to the right of the one Jack and Jenou had taken. They run crouching, boots on cobbles, breathing hard.

Crack!

A single rifle shot and the wall next to Geer emits a puff of dust where the bullet whizzed by.

“See him?”

“No,” Rio admits. “But we’ll have defilade if we go through this house.” She kicks the wooden door, which is sturdy and locked. “Open or you get a grenade!”

Maybe the occupants speak English, or maybe they merely understood the tone, but the door opens and Rio and Geer burst through.

“Raus! Everybody raus!” Rio finds the back wall of the house and guesses it shares a wall with the house behind. She fires a quick warning burst into the wall, enough hopefully to convince any civilians on the other side to run. They blow the wall with a rifle grenade and push through a dust cloud and debris into a bedroom.

Rio eases the window shade up, unhinges and pushes out the shutter. The view opens onto a street, and, to the right, a widening space, not quite a square, but a wedge of space between two streets.

And lying in the street, faceup, is Jack Stafford.

“Jack!” Rio cries.

“No!” Jack yells. “Stay back!”

He is on his back, clutching his stomach. The side of his uniform is red.

Rio bolts for the door, but Geer tackles her and swings her back out of sight.

“What the fug are you doing, Richlin? You know he’s bait!”

But Rio is not rational, not even thinking, just feeling her heart tearing in two. She struggles but Geer is stronger, and he keeps his arms wrapped around her. She reaches her koummya and draws it, the blade suddenly at Geer’s throat.