Front Lines (Front Lines 1)

“Can’t your parents . . .” Rio senses the misstep before the words are all the way out of her mouth.

“Afraid not,” he says, pushing past a wobble in his voice and a small, involuntary tightening of his jaw. “German bomb took them.”

“Well, we’ll go kill us some Germans together, right? Get some payback.” Tilo Suarez grins at Rio and says, “Tilo Suarez. But you can call me handsome.”

“But then you’d have to be handsome,” Rio says, deadpan. “Otherwise it would be like I was mocking you.”

There’s a sharp laugh from Stafford and a stiffening from Tilo. Dain Sticklin suppresses a grin.

“Quick,” Jack says, consoling Tilo by patting him on the back. “The woman is quick.”

“Women in the army. It’s a mistake,” Tilo says with a sneer, but he glances warily in the direction Sergeant Mackie has taken.

“And yet, here they are,” Jack says. “As are we all.”

“If I could find a girl to take my place, I’d sure go for it,” another young man says. He’s a strong-looking boy with reddish hair, a round face, and an easygoing manner. “Kerwin Cassel, from Teays, West Virginia,” he says, and there follows still more hand-shaking.

“Well, new chums and teammates and all of that,” Jack says. “Shall we go in to dinner?”

Tilo Suarez is not happy to be lumped in as a chum or a teammate, but in the end he can’t think of a way to decline. And Kerwin Cassel seems genuinely pleased to have found anyone to talk to. Sticklin starts to move away.

Jack calls to him, saying, “Come on then, old boy, you and I are doomed to be mates, right? Jack and Stick? Or Stick and Jack, if you prefer.”

A slow smile spreads over Sticklin’s serious face. “I was trying to leave that nickname behind me, but I guess there’s no avoiding it.”

“Is this the popular kids, or the social outcasts?” The question comes from another woman soldier. She’s as tall as Rio, but broader, with a solidity of form that suggests that like Rio she’s carried heavy objects at some point in her life. The sturdy shape is belied a bit by a strange, down-turned smile that shows only her upper teeth. She has strawberry hair and dark eyes that shine with humor and skepticism.

Jenou says, “Any gang I’m in is the cool kids. Who are you?”

“Cat Preeling.”

“What’s Cat short for?” Tilo asks. She makes him nervous, most likely because she looks at him the way a scientist looks at germs under a microscope.

“It’s short for Cat, slick.”

Rio lags a little behind as the seven of them blunder their way to the chow hall—it’s hidden behind the quartermaster’s building. Rio, Jenou, Cat, Stick, Jack, Tilo, and Kerwin. Rio thinks, Only one normal name among them, and he’s an Englishman.

She wonders idly who Jenou will target. Stick is not her type, too serious. Tilo is the obvious choice—he’s the sort who will dance and drink and flirt—but maybe that makes him too obvious? Plus he’s just about an inch shorter than Jenou, and she’s never liked short boys. Kerwin? No, the hillbilly accent will put Jenou off.

No, Rio suspects that Jenou will go for the charming redheaded foreigner with the charm.

Anyway, that’s who Rio would go for.

10

RAINY SCHULTERMAN—MILITARY INTELLIGENCE SCHOOL, CAMP RITCHIE, PENNSYLVANIA, USA

Rainy stands before Colonel Derry in his office. She is at attention. He leaves her at attention while he makes a show of looking over her file.

Rainy has a pretty good idea what he’s seeing there: of the forty student soldiers in Rainy’s class, she is first in German fluency, second in her command of Italian and French, fifth in the math skills that are particularly useful in deciphering coded messages, consistently scores well in her comprehension of the handbooks and lessons, and reads a map reasonably well. She seems to have an intuitive grasp of aerial photography.

On the downside—or what Colonel Derry will no doubt see as the upside—the report from basic training indicates that she can’t shoot worth a damn, can barely raise the heavy M-1 to aim, and is of no use whatsoever in hand-to-hand combat.

Rainy’s instructors—even the “sensible” older hands who, like Colonel Derry, believe that women have no business even being here—give her high marks for leadership. And neither the censors nor her fellow soldiers nor her NCOs nor her officers have ever gotten an indiscreet word out of her

.

She can, in short, keep a secret, a fact she’s inordinately proud of.