Silver Stars (Front Lines 2)

aming, head tossing from side to side, which gives his screams a rhythm, softer, louder, like a French ambulance siren.

One of the torpedo men snaps, “Gag ’im, miss, gag ’im. We’ll be rigging for silent running soon!”

Rainy has no gag and her wits are scrambled. She grabs at the blanket peeking from the stowed hammock. But of course she can’t tear it, the wool is too tough.

The word comes down, mouth to mouth, in loud stage whispers, “Rig for silent running!”

Cisco screams, incoherent gibberish sounds, lunatic sounds.

Rainy is wearing her borrowed Royal Navy peacoat. She shoves her right arm into Cisco’s open mouth. He bites down hard, and she feels it, but right now the pain in her arm is the least of her problems. The second salvo of depth charges is sinking toward them even as the Topaz tilts precipitously downward. She can barely keep to her feet against the slope and leans into Cisco, arm still gagging him and . . .

Click-BOOM!

Click-BOOM!

The twin explosions hit harder, much harder. The torpedo being hauled forward is knocked from its cradle and smashes onto the deck. Twenty-one feet long, 3,452 pounds: it lands like a dropped bank safe.

For a terrifying moment Rainy freezes, expecting it to explode, but of course it has not yet been fused. The torpedo rolls slowly, inexorably left with men leaping over it to avoid being crushed. Then it rolls to the right, so Rainy has to grab the pipe Cisco is tied to and haul herself up and out of the way. The torpedo slams against that same pipe, and the whole thing pulls free and . . .

Click-BOOM!

Click-BOOM!

Steam everywhere, it scalds the back of Rainy’s hand, she cries out, lands atop the torpedo with Cisco’s weight atop her and Cisco screaming madly in her ear, thrashing and . . .

Click-BOOM!

Click-BOOM!

A different voice screams, a crewman, his hand crushed beneath the torpedo. Men race with rope and straps, leaping almost comically to avoid being crushed. An officer tears in yelling but in a ridiculous whisper, “What the hell?” which does nothing to help. Then, to Rainy, “Get that damned fool out of here and shut him up!”

Cisco is larger than Rainy, though not a large man. He has torn free of the broken pipe, bellowing all the while, rope hanging about him in loops. Rainy throws her arms around him, but he has the strength of panic, and it’s like trying to tackle a charging rhinoceros. In this case, the rhinoceros is at least charging in the right direction.

Rainy uses Cisco’s own momentum to bring him down. Just before the wardroom, still clinging to his neck, she times it carefully and twists with sudden violence so Cisco’s momentum slams him headfirst into the heavy steel frame of a hatch.

He falls, not quite unconscious, but stunned, too stunned to resist as she guides him into the alcove of the petty officers’ mess. He is beneath the table. Rainy is on the bench. He starts to thrash again, and Rainy lifts her weight up on one leg, aims with the other foot, and kicks the side of his head with all the force she can muster.

At last, Cisco is silent.

And now it no longer matters because the destroyer is moving off, either convinced that it has killed Topaz, or convinced that Topaz is safely away.

They run beneath the surface. The mood is relieved but apprehensive. Crewmen laugh nervously and seem to be glancing over their shoulders, often at Rainy.

Her burned hand hurts terribly, and she can actually see the blisters swelling, thin flesh filling with liquid. Her nose is unfortunately no longer numb, but painful. A look in the back of a shiny spoon confirms what her fingers tell her: that she now has a broken nose to match her big brother Aryeh’s. She touches it and is punished with a jolt of pain that takes her breath away.

There is some damage to the Topaz, and it is some time before Lieutenant Commander Alger comes to stand at the mess room opening to say, “You look somewhat the worse for wear.”

Rainy doesn’t have anything brave to say. She nods silently and presses gauze to her nose. The medic has given her a greasy cream to spread over her burned hand, but it does nothing for the pain.

“I wonder if, considering your condition, not to mention your panicky friend’s condition, you would prefer to report yourself unfit to continue . . .”

Rainy shakes her head, but not without some inner turmoil. This is not how she meant to arrive in Italy. The whole mission is mad, she sees that now. Mad to send her with Cisco into enemy territory. Mad to risk exposing Allied interest in the area around Salerno. Mad to have no plan for what she is to do after she accomplishes her mission. Colonel Corelli is a fool. Agent Bayswater said so, Lieutenant Commander Alger certainly implies as much, and her own printed orders reveal his lack of planning.

It’s a suicide mission.

My God, it really is a suicide mission!

Lieutenant Commander Alger is patient, but Rainy’s silence has stretched on for quite a while. “You need to decide.”