Pay book. A soldier’s identification. That’s what she needed.

The trucks pulled away from the camp and rumbled onto the road. The morphine the nurse had given her, together with her concussion, made her light-headed. But after about an hour, the pain returned and she felt the need to talk. “How are you doing, my friend?” she asked Marina, who lay next to her.

“Not so good. They’re going to amputate my legs in Novgorod.”

“No, they won’t,” Mia lied. “They can fix you up. It’s a big hospital with good doctors.” She had no idea what she was talking about.

Marina’s sigh was half sob. “I wish everyone would stop lying to me. If I even live, I’ll be a cripple in a bed, and I have no one to take care of me.”

Mia groped to the side until she felt Marina’s hand. “Please, don’t give up hope. Not until a real doctor sees you. I’ll ask to have a bed next to yours, and we can keep each other company.”

It seemed such a flimsy comfort, but Marina seemed to respond.

“Yes, talk to me. Tell me about yourself. I don’t even know your name.”

“I didn’t tell you because I’m running away from someone. I don’t want anyone to know my name, or I’ll be in trouble.”

Marina gave a small, faint grunt, though if it had been stronger, it would have been a chuckle. “Do you think you’ll be in any more trouble than you are now?”

“Well, you have a point. I never thought—”

The sound of careening dive-bombers sent terror through her. “Stukas!” one of the wounded men screamed.

The ambulance careened to the side and stopped suddenly as two shells tore through the forward part of the vehicle, killing the driver and the wounded who lay close to the front.

The few who could walk leapt from the ambulances and stumbled into the ditches. The rear door hung open, and Mia was about to also lurch through it when she glanced back at Marina lying helpless on her stretcher, her eyes wide with terror.

Mia swung back and curled up on the floor in the smallest ball she could manage, with one hand reaching up to Marina. “I won’t leave you.”

The planes strafed back and forth, sending down a carpet of fire raking across all three ambulances and on the wounded lying in the ditches. One of the ambulances blew up. Another curtain of shells cut like a blade through the roof of the ambulance, kicking up tiny spurts of blood as they sliced through the remaining wounded and Marina’s pelvis. Already paralyzed, Marina made no sound of pain. Instead, she gripped Mia’s hand and pushed it away.

“No. Run for it. You still have a chance,” she choked.

Mia rose up on her knees and touched Marina’s face. “I promised not to leave you. They might not come back a third time.”

“I’m done for,” Marina said between breaths. “Don’t want to live… as a cripple. I have no one. Only you. Take my pay book.” She laid her hand over the top of her tunic. “If you can’t be yourself, then… be me.” She took a difficult breath. “A kind of… resurrection.”

Mia bent over the mortally wounded Marina and slid the pay book out of the pocket. “Yes, it is. I’ll try to live up to your name.” She kissed the dying woman gently on the forehead, then turned away and dropped from the rear of the ambulance.

Her head spinning from the exertion, she threw herself into the ditch and lay, face pressed into the dirt, when the Stukas swept by a third time and sent down another trail of projectiles. The remaining ambulances blew up with a deafening sound.

Thinking only of survival, Mia staggered away aimlessly, perpendicular to the road and out of sight of the Stukas. Finally she dropped to the ground to catch her breath.

Where were they anyhow? She calculated the ambulance had traveled about an hour, but over the pitted roads, they’d moved slowly. Following the road back to Medved, she supposed she could cover the same distance in two hours, perhaps less, if her strength held up. She had plenty of daylight.

The headache still plagued her, though more weakly, and her field of vision still had a blank spot on one side. The slacks and coat she’d been wearing since the day of her arrest were soiled and torn but kept her warm enough. She could make it.

As she struggled through the underbrush that grew alongside the road, she considered her alternatives. The destruction of all three ambulances, once the news got back to Moscow—and it would, eventually—would suggest to Molotov that she was dead. That could take days, a week. Assuming Soviet troops rescued her, what then?

Another trip to another hospital? She had to avoid contact with Major Bershansky and, with others, never use her real identity. No. She had no alternative but to be Marina Zhurova’s reincarnation.

And in that case, she needed to know who she was.

She still clutched the crumpled pay book in her right hand. Crouching by the side of the road, she tried to read it. She had to hold it close and slightly to the side to get a partial image, and she could focus on the print only by squinting hard.

“All right, then,” she said out loud, and read the first page. “Marina Mikhailovna Zhurova, staff sergeant in the 184th Battalion. Personnel number 6290586.”

She studied the grimy photo next to the signature. It bore a faint resemblance to her, at least in hair color and head shape, but after a few months at war, even Marina no longer looked like her own photo, so it seemed unlikely anyone would notice the difference.

The second page listed her specialty, sniper, of course, and more interestingly, her education. She’d completed three years at Moscow State University studying literature, plus a number of practical courses in the paramilitary training schools.

The next page gave a Moscow home address, but parents, listed with their full names, were deceased. Facing that was a list of her military campaigns—at Moscow and later Kharkov—with dates and awards. She’d received medals, but obviously they were lost or they’d burned up with her. Mia felt a new wave of sadness at the thought. Brief glory and a terrible death.

The remaining pages simply listed the clothing and equipment she’d been issued, together with, of all things, a column for their date of return. She snorted. Marina had nothing to return at all, and neither did her incarnation. In fact, she’d have to find an infantry uniform. A rifle might be good, too. But God help her if she had to shoot it. And all that without coming to the attention of Major Bershansky.

She tucked the tiny gray booklet into her shirt pocket, and already she felt the spirit of the dead woman settling into her. “How do you like your new body, Marina?” she said into the air. “I promise to make you proud.”

The sound of a vehicle approaching caused her to throw herself into the ditch beside the road. Too late. She’d been seen. But the order of “Show yourself, or we’ll shoot” was in Russian, so she clambered out with her hands raised.

Two men were in a battered troop carrier, and one held his rifle pointed at her.

“I’m Marina Zhurova,” she called out, hoping the pay book would convince them in spite of her being out of uniform. She had only the most flimsy explanation for that.

She handed him the book, and he glanced only at the first page. “Were you in the ambulances?” he asked. “They sent us out after the attack, but we found them burning and everyone dead.”

“Yes. I think I’m the only one who got out. The others who jumped out were all strafed.”

He returned the precious booklet but squinted with suspicion. “Why aren’t you in uniform?”

“I… uh… was on fire, so I tore everything off. These clothes were in a pack that flew out from the explosion.” Would he fall for it? It was pretty far-fetched.

“All right. Get in. We’ll take you back to what’s left of the camp. It was probably the same attack that got you. They wiped out headquarters and killed Major Bershansky. Captain Goretsky is in charge now.”

Goretsky, she thought. She’d never heard of him. And if he’d never heard of her, she had a chance.

They followed the road back to the camp, which was in ruins. The house that had been headquarters was blasted, and so were the medical station and the quartermaster’s truck.

“You should report in to Captain Goretsky. He’s over there in that tent,” the sergeant said.

“Thanks. I’ll do that right now,” she said as she jumped from the carrier. It pulled away and she stood, uncertain how to proceed. She needed to find Alexia, if she was still alive.

Someone called her from behind. Was she recognized? Alarmed, she spun around.

“Sasha. Thank God! It’s me, the one you pulled from the plane. Please tell me Alexia is still alive.”

“I’m pretty sure she is. Right before the air attack, she and Kalya were sent out on a mission. Lucky for them. The Germans made a massive counterattack with artillery and fighter planes. Caught us completely off guard. Headquarters would have Major Bershansky shot for letting it happen, except the Germans beat them to it.”

“Yes, I heard. It looks like the attack wiped out most of the camp.”

“It did. The whole 109th is decimated. A few dozen of us are just regrouping and waiting for orders. I’m glad to see you’re on your feet again. Ironic, eh?”

“Listen, I’m stuck here the same as you. And I’m in no hurry to go back to Moscow, hospital or otherwise. I have a new identification, and I’ll stay and fight alongside you, but I need a gun and a uniform.”

“New identification? What’s wrong with being yourself?”

“It’s a long story, and I would endanger you if I told you. Surely you can’t object if I want to fight beside you as a soldier.”