At the entryway, next to the boxes of clean bandages and tins of disinfectant, Nina was pouring water from a pitcher into a mess cup.

“Can you tell me where the American woman is?” Alexia asked. “They brought her in yesterday from the crash just north of here.”

“She’s over there in the corner.” Nina pointed with her chin and carried her water in the opposite direction.

Alexia stepped carefully around the wounded lying on bundles of straw. A couple of them, the less seriously injured, said hello, obviously just wanting someone to talk to, and she glanced down, smiling. But she continued on, drawn toward the form on the floor in the corner.

Finally she stood over the woman. The swollen face was half covered by a makeshift bandage. Visible beneath the blanket that covered most of her was the winter coat of a civilian, but not the one she remembered. Even her hair—disheveled, bloodstained, of uncertain color in the dark—didn’t help.

Alexia knelt down next to her.

“Mia?” she said softly.

The woman turned toward the sound. “Who’s that? Are you the medic? Can you give me some water, please? I’m so thirsty.”

Alexia almost toppled back. It was Mia’s voice. Weak and trembling, but unmistakable. She stood up, joyful, confused, with a thousand questions. Without speaking, she returned to the front of the station and poured water from the nurse’s pitcher into one of the cups. Wending her way back, she knelt down, lifted Mia’s head, and tipped the cup carefully into her mouth.

Mia allowed herself several long swallows, then turned her head slightly, signaling “enough.” “Thank you, whoever you are.”

“You can’t see anything at all?” Alexia asked.

“Your voice,” Mia said weakly. “You sound just like someone I know.”

“Mia, it’s me, Alexia. Remember me? From Moscow? The church at Christmas?”

Mia groped to the side until she felt her hand. “Of course I remember you. I’ve thought about you for months. I can’t believe it’s you.” She chuckled weakly. “So you made it to the infantry after all.”

“Yes. I’m a sniper, in fact. But what are you doing here? What brought you back to Russia?”

Mia grasped Alexia’s hand in both her own. “A mission for the White House. To investigate missing shipments.”

“But how did you end up in an airplane over Belarus?”

“It’s a long story. I’d rather tell you in a more private place.”

“All right, tell me later.” Alexia’s grasp tightened on her hand. “But you know a German fighter shot you down. It’s a miracle you weren’t killed in the crash.”

Mia chuckled softly. “I’m sure I was saved by a bale of rubber boots. I held on to it like it was my mother. One other man survived, and the Germans pulled us both out. They shot him, though, because he wouldn’t talk. And then your people rescued me.”

“Unbelievable. Are you in much pain?”

“Just my head. I’m sure I have a concussion, and I can’t see much. What I see has holes in it, empty spots, mostly on one side. But that’s from my good eye. The other one is covered by a bandage.”

Alexia stroked the exposed cheek with the back of her fingers. “Still, those are lucky wounds. You can walk, and the hospital in Novgorod will take care of your eye.”

“I don’t want to go to Novgorod.”

“I don’t understand. Why—?”

“Senior Corporal Mazarova.” A soldier stood in the doorway of the barn and called out to her. “You are ordered to report to headquarters. Immediately.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll come back as soon as I can, dear Mia,” Alexia said breathlessly and kissed her quickly on the cheek before hurrying after the messenger.

Mia lay dazed on her straw. The joy at her reunion with her Grushenka guard was overwhelmed by the knowledge of being hunted and, worse, the sense of being physically helpless.

The sudden noise and activity around her told her more wounded were coming in. She sat up, tried to make sense of the fragmented images in her good eye, but could discern only two blurry figures carrying a stretcher and laying another wounded soldier next to her. The patient was apparently unconscious.

Moments later, Major Bershansky reappeared. “I’ve just sent a report to STAVKA of your presence here, so my superiors, and eventually yours, will know you’re alive. Once you’re in Moscow, you can contact your embassy. In the meantime, rest, and let the nurses take care of you until the ambulances arrive in the morning.” With that, he disappeared again, and she was left alone with her thoughts.

She lay for a long while, struggling to analyze her predicament. Just how trapped was she? She felt along both her arms and shoulders and realized she had complete use of them. She could bend her knees, was sure she could even walk with a little help. She simply had a crashing headache and couldn’t see clearly.

The soldier who had just been placed next to her was regaining consciousness and now moaned weakly. “Water,” the soldier gasped. “Please, water.” It was a woman’s voice.

Mia remembered her own frantic thirst and reached across to touch the woman’s shoulder. “I’ll try to get you some, but be patient. I can’t see.”

“Please,” the wounded woman gasped. “Take my mess tin, in my pack.”

Mia groped for the pack, rummaged inside for the tin, and found it. “So far, so good,” she muttered in English, then struggled to her feet. She peered with her one unfocused eye toward the only spot of light, the daylight at the entrance. She took a single step, then bumped a shoulder against a post. A jolt of pain shot through her already throbbing head. Shit. It was intolerable not to be able to see.

Angrily, she began unwrapping the bandage that was loosely wound around her head. The gauze stuck where the blood had dried on it over her eyebrow, but she pulled it away carefully. Finally it was off and the bloody eye was exposed. Unfortunately, it was glued shut with more blood that had oozed down from her wound.

She tottered for a moment, furious at herself and at everything that blocked her. Then, cursing, she continued forward, creeping inch by inch, groping at the air in front of her.

When she reached the entrance, it was unattended. The nurses, she assumed, were tending other wounded. “Shit,” she muttered again and fumbled around the table till she touched a metal pitcher with a hinged top. It was cool, and when she dipped a finger in, she confirmed it was water. Oh, thank God.

She splashed some on her blood-caked eye until it ran down her face into her collar. The sensation of cool water reaching her eyeball was pleasant, though the eyelid was still glued shut. She cupped her hand full of water and simply held it against her eye.

Little by little, the blood liquefied to a goo, and the hole between her eyelids enlarged until finally it opened completely. She still only perceived fragments interspersed with emptiness, but now the field was much wider. It was an improvement.

Hoping she hadn’t contaminated the drinking water with bloody hands, she filled the mess tin from the pitcher largely by touch. Now came the real task, of finding her way back.

Again she hobbled, encountering arms and legs, and she shuffled around them, holding a hand out in front of her. Finally she reached her corner. She knelt and lifted the woman’s head and held the tin to her lips as Alexia had done for her a few hours earlier.

The woman drank greedily and sighed. “Thank you, whoever you are.”

“I’m… a visitor.” She set the mess tin to the side, within reach of the woman.

“I’m Marina Zhurova, a sniper. They just promoted me to staff sergeant and now this. I think my legs are damaged really bad, but I can’t feel anything.”

“The major said the ambulances are coming in the morning to take us all to the hospital in Novgorod, so I’m sure they’ll take care of you there.” They were the same words the others had said to her, and Mia heard now how empty they sounded. “And then you’ll be able to go home to your family. Where are you from?” Surely the magic word “family” would be a comfort.

“I’m from Moscow but don’t have family anymore. They’re all gone. It’s just me now.”

Mia didn’t know what to say. For all the loneliness she sometimes felt, at least she had Van.

“Try to rest now,” Mia said. Another one of the empty phrases that people said to the wounded. Then she herself lay back and waited for Alexia to return.

* * *

To her sorrow and confusion, Alexia didn’t return, and so, the next morning, no one prevented the stretcher bearers from carrying her out with twenty-six others and setting her on a rack in one of the three ambulances.

The headache had subsided and her vision was improved, though that was both a comfort and a sort of cruelty. She looked longingly for Alexia, her chest heavy with the sense of abandonment.

Marina was alert, and at least they would be transported in the same ambulance, so they could talk. With clearer vision, Mia now could make out the horror of Marina’s legs, strangely misshapen and bandaged from hip to foot. No amount of morphine could have blocked the pain of so much damage if a severed spine didn’t already do so. Marina must have guessed that herself.

The nurses folded their medical records, such as they were, with name, description of injury, and treatment administered, and slid them under their tunics. Mia could feel the folded paper brushing against her chest.

“Is my pay book still in my pocket?” Marina asked weakly. “If I don’t make it, I want them to at least know who I am.”

“Yes, it’s there,” the nurse reassured her. “Don’t worry. They’ll take good care of you, and you’ll make it for sure.”