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Geer turns and looks blank. “Anyone know that?”

Cat yells, “We don’t know, except he’s the luckiest man on earth.”

Evidently that answer is close enough, earning a short bark of laughter. “Come on,” the second voice says.

Rio signals weapons down and they advance, ducking beneath the up-tilted nose of the plane. Rio passes beneath then takes a step back to look up. As with most planes, the pilot has named his craft and painted a logo on the side.

The word Rio is in swirling red letters that ride just above the image of a pretty girl in a bathing suit holding an M1.

She freezes, staring up at it. The girl is dark haired, long legged, and rather more shapely than Rio herself, but all in all it’s flattering. Flattering and . . . and terrifying.

“Strand?” she cries. “Strand?”

She pushes past Geer and Cat and stumbles into the little encampment the aviators have made—a tiny, well-banked campfire now out, two padded pilot’s chairs propped against the lowered front landing gear, and an array of items salvaged from the wreck.

Two men are standing, one holding a pistol. One man lies on a blanket with a flyer’s jacket thrown over him. But his face is visible in the moonlight.

Strand Braxton.

19

RIO RICHLIN—CATANIA, SICILY

Rio drops her rifle and rushes to Strand. “My God, my God, are you hurt?”

“Rio?” He seems strange and unfocused. But he smiles at her and touches her face as if reassuring himself that she’s real.

“You know Fish?” one of the flyers asks.

“My girl,” Strand says dreamily, smiling in that fuzzy way.

“He’s got a broken ankle and a bad gash on his other leg. We gave him some morphine. Probably has some ribs broke too.”

Rio takes a long look at Strand. How odd that she feels she can study him more closely now than before. There is something so unguarded about him now. He’s vulnerable, Rio realizes, and there is a rush of sympathy, but along with the sympathy comes a less creditable emotion.

He looks weak.

Rio stands up. Everyone, the two other flyers and her own squad, even Geer, are looking at her. No . . . looking to her. She’s in charge, even with Strand here, even with his crew, both of whom are senior NCOs.

The moment is heady and disturbing. It’s exciting, thrilling even, and yet drops a ton of weight on her shoulders. She almost feels her boots sinking deeper into the dirt.

“We’re here to get you out. Is Strand’s—Fish’s—ankle splinted?”

“Pablo Guttierez,” one of the crewmen says. He’s older, maybe thirty, wearing his flight suit and a bent, sweat-stained straw cowboy hat that looks as if he’s worn it punching cattle. “We figure he’s good to move. But . . .” He glances at the plane. “We had ten men. The waist gunners jumped even though we were too low. The belly man . . . I don’t think we can get him out. But we have four . . . four bodies . . . that ain’t been buried.”

The four lie in a row. The belly gunner, who would have been in the bubble-topped ball turret beneath the fuselage, cannot be seen. That turret would have clipped treetops all the way down and then smashed like a dropped egg on hitting the ground.

Rio shakes her head. “We didn’t bring entrenching tools. Make sure they’ve got their dog tags, and we’ll leave them for graves registration.”

Guttierez looks defiant, though the other fellow, Joe, seems ready to move out.

“Graves registration isn’t going near them, miss. We never delivered our payload. You understand? We’ve got four tons’ worth of five-hundred-pound bombs still in the bomb bay.”

Rio, Geer, Jack, Cat, and Petersen all take a quick step back, as if an extra three feet of distance is all it would take to escape a blast. It produces a comic effect.

“And you figure with four tons of HE we want to stay around digging graves?” Geer demands. “You’re fugging crazy.” He shoots a look at Rio as if expecting her to argue.

“We need to make a stretcher for Strand,” Rio says. “Then we need to get the hell out of here.”