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“What do they have you doing?” Rio asks.

“I work in intelligence,” Rainy says.

“Office work? Headquarters work?” Jenou asks. “That’s what I wanted. A desk, a telephone I could answer in a kind of sexy, breathy voice, hot showers, and hotter young officers.”

Rio sees Rainy’s nascent laugh before it comes and says, “No, she’s entirely serious.”

“I am,” Jenou confirms. “I did not volunteer for the infantry.”

“No one volunteers for the infantry,” Tilo says. “Except Stick. Stick, you always wanted this, right?”

“Maybe not exactly this,” Stick says gloomily. “I was thinking we’d be going forward, not backward.”

“It caught everyone by surprise,” Rainy says. “The attack, I mean. Besides, you’re no longer retreating, you’re counterattacking.”

“Counterattacking when everyone else is retr

eating sounds just a bit loony,” Jack says.

The day is running out, and soon they’ll be marching in darkness. The officers are anxious to reach the pass before night falls, so the jeep accelerates just a little, pushing the pace. They’re climbing up a long slope now and the grumbling has turned specific: when are they going to get a break? When are they going to get a chance to eat? Even walking off to one side to take a bathroom break is impossible because at this pace they won’t catch up without running and no one wants to run.

The sergeant from headquarters—now, in fact, nicknamed Headquarters—is having a particularly rough time of it because she’s not in the shape the infantry men and women are.

“Where are you from?” Rainy asks.

Rio makes a gesture indicating herself and Jenou. “We’re from a little town in Northern California that you’ve never heard of.”

“Have you seen a lot of action?”

Rio shrugs. “Well, we took on a couple of tanks. I guess you can see how well that turned out.”

“It’s not just your outfit,” Rainy says. “The whole front is collapsing. FUBAR.”

It dawns on those within hearing that they have here that rarest of creatures: someone who actually has some notion of the big picture. Rio, Jenou, Tilo, and Jack move closer.

“Tell us,” Tilo says.

Rio says, “See, we don’t exactly know why we’re here or what’s going on.”

“No, I guess you wouldn’t,” Rainy says with just a trace of condescension. “What’s happening is that the Germans did what they were not supposed to do. They were supposed to realize that with the American army in front of them and the British army behind them, they were surrounded and cut off, and would be best off just surrendering. Instead, they attacked.”

“Yeah, we noticed that much,” Tilo says.

“If we don’t stop them, they could push us all the way out of Tunisia, all the way back to Oran, or even clear out of North Africa, though that’s unlikely. We have the edge in numbers and supply. Their big weakness is fuel for those tanks,” Rainy goes on. “They’re desperate. This fuel column is absolutely vital to them. They lose that fuel, this part of their thrust will peter out.”

“Why us?” Jenou asks.

“You were in the right place.”

“Wrong place, more like it,” Tilo says.

Far up ahead the jeep has reached the pass.

It blows up.

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RIO RICHLIN—TUNISIAN DESERT, NORTH AFRICA