The colonel unfolded a map on his table that held a rough outline of the city and tapped the relevant part. “The citadel where they have their own marksmen posted has six towers, and I’m assigning a sniper team under each one, to knock them out. Mazarova, you’re on the big tower and Zhurova will be your spotter. Petrova and Yefremovna are on tower two.” He continued down the list of assignments.

It took Mia a moment to realize she’d been paired with Alexia, while Kalya, for reasons known only to the colonel, was working—with a new rifle—with Klavdia.

The colonel’s voice drew her back. “It’s important for all of you to take up position before daylight, so you should start out now.”

“Understood, Comrade Colonel.” All of the snipers saluted and made an about-face.

As they marched from the headquarters, they passed Commissar Semenova. She eyed them, as if to make sure they understood their duty. Mia stared back at her with puzzlement. Semenova had never acknowledged being saved from suffocation and harped obsessively on the “not one step back” policy. Perhaps because it was in the rear of the charge that she had been buried alive.

The snipers lined up first at the quartermaster’s, who issued them rag capes. Drawing them over their heads, they looked like marching mounds of detritus.

Separating from the other teams, Mia and Alexia made their way to the designated spot below the first tower. The moonless sky concealed them but also made it necessary for them to grope their way along the ground.

The towers themselves loomed up, black against the pale, predawn sky, remainders of an age when only a handful of precision archers, the medieval version of snipers, could repel ground forces by shooting through a single long slit high on the wall.

Alexia and Mia crawled to a spot some two hundred meters from the tower, which afforded a good shooting angle.

Under one of the clusters of low bushes below the tower, they dug a T-shaped trench and covered it with brush. Alexia took position along the mid-line of the T, while Mia leaned against the ridge at the rear of the trench.

By the time they finished, the sky was peach-colored and stained at the horizon by reds and oranges. The first bird sounded, and some small dark thing zipped past them on the wing. Mia smiled. Stupid bird doesn’t know there’s a war on.

Confident of their invisibility, she leaned her head back and savored the quiet June morning. As the sun rose, it illuminated the top of the tower, changing its black to a warm earth tone.

In the increasing light, they both studied the archer’s slot. Alexia drew back one side of the hood of her camouflage cape. “He’s well-protected,” she observed in a low voice. “But he has very little range unless he stands at the center of the opening, and then we can get him.”

“Theoretically yes, the distance is manageable. But we’ll have only a split second to hit him, and he knows it.”

They settled in, trying to rest and stay alert at the same time. The damp earth was cold but would warm under the June sun. Mia peered up at the sniper’s slot through her binoculars, Alexia through her rifle scope, and though they both focused elsewhere, Mia sensed the intimacy of their first time alone together. “I love the quiet, don’t you?” she murmured, keeping her eyes fixed on the tower.

Alexia remained immobile, her eye two centimeters from her scope. “I do, too. No gunfire yet. A perfect spring morning. A shame we can’t all have a picnic. We could invite our friend up there.”

“Except he’s under the same orders we are.” Mia let a minute pass in silence. Then, “Do you sometimes resent having to choose the lesser of two evils and follow someone you don’t respect? I don’t mean the colonel. I mean the top leaders.”

“It’s treason to talk that way, you know.” More silence. “But, yes. I thought I knew what to respect. All the things a priest once taught me. But now I don’t anymore. I sometimes don’t care about anyone. What about you?”

“I care about you.”

Alexia did not respond, and Mia realized she’d taken a step too far. “Look. I’ve been meaning to tell you. That time in Moscow, when you helped me back to the embassy and I grabbed you. I’m sorry I forced myself on you. It was pretty crude, and I’m embarrassed by it now. It was the alcohol.”

Alexia glanced sideways. “Don’t apologize. It gave me a lot to think about.”

“Really? You weren’t shocked?”

“Of course I was shocked. I always wondered how it would have been if I wasn’t surprised.”

Mia stifled a snicker. The solution was obvious. She took a breath and ignored her pounding heart. “I can kiss you again like that, and then you’ll know.”

A faint sound of steel on stone interrupted their banter, and Alexia instantly set her eye against her scope. “Our mark. He’s up there.”

Mia peered through her binoculars up at the archer’s vent. All she could see was the tip of a rifle, pointed downward and moving slowly from side to side, scanning the land.

“He’s looking for us, but the vent is too narrow for him to get a real sweep unless he leans right up against it.” Mia kept her voice low, though it was nearly impossible for them to be heard high in the tower.

“Frustrating,” Alexia muttered against her rifle stock. “I keep catching glimpses of his hand, but that’s all. If he would only lean forward a bit, just for a second.”

Mia still sat against the rear of the pit, knees supporting her forearms that held the binoculars. She was more exposed and depended completely on her camouflage. If he spotted her, he’d have a clear shot to her chest.

“Damn. He’s pulled back,” Alexia grumbled. “He can’t be leaving his position.”

“No, look. There’s his hand again. He’s holding a mirror to the side of the vent so he can get a good look without exposing himself. Very clever.”

“You’re right. When he turns it a certain way, I can see his reflection.”

Peering through her binoculars until he turned the mirror to just the right angle, Mia studied his face. He was a beauty. “He’s clean shaven,” she said quietly. “And young. His skin must be soft. And look at those lips,” she murmured, resuming the game. “He must kiss beautifully.”

“Not as good as you,” Alexia said without moving her head. The remark hung deliciously in the air.

“So, you did like my kiss, in spite of the surprise.” Mia kept her eye glued to the target. Under the magnification, it almost seemed the German marksman could look back at her and hear her talking.

“Yes,” Alexia murmured. “Quite a lot.”

Mia let another moment pass, examining the implications. “I have better kisses than that.” Up in the tower window, the German marksman licked his lips, as if he’d heard the remark, then lifted his cap to wipe his forehead with his cuff. “Look at him. He’s blond, too, like you. A real Übermensch.”

“I see him.” Alexia’s voice was muffled by the stock of her own rifle pressed close to her cheek. “Are there better and worse kisses?”

The German kept repositioning himself, and Mia had to keep bringing him into focus again. It was making her eyes water. “Of course. Sweet or passionate, rough or tender. But you know that, surely.”

“I do. I just want to hear you say it. Looking at our handsome major up there, I’d say he likes the rough ones.”

“You don’t?”

“No, not usually.” Alexia drew back from the scope and wiped the tearing from her eyes. “Not at the beginning.”

“Good point.” Mia rotated her shoulders to keep from stiffening. “Besides, on certain places one would want to be tender. Look. He’s put down the mirror. All I see now is the rifle barrel and occasionally a sliver of yellow just above it. But he keeps moving, never leaves enough time to get a shot off. Damn. This could go on for hours.”

“We’ll just wait until he gets careless. Tell me more about your kisses. Have you kissed many women? In those tender places?”

The German’s rifle nozzle made another sweep, this time lower. Impossible that he could detect them, but he seemed to be aiming at them. Mia kept her binoculars focused on him, waiting.

“A few.” Mia thought of Grushenka and the several women before her. “But none of them was important. Kissing you was important, and it should have been tender.”

The German sniper disappeared again and reappeared, and his rifle nozzle repeated its sweep. Alexia shifted slightly, flexing her fingers. “Yes. I’d have liked that better.”

Mia’s face warmed at the turn the conversation was taking, but she didn’t dare set down the binoculars. Up in the tower window, the German rifle suddenly pointed downward, as if he’d heard the last remark. “Has he spotted us?” Mia whispered.

“No. He’s just trying to draw fire, to watch for a flash.” Alexia’s voice was muffled by the stock of her own rifle pressed close to her cheek.”

“Would you? The next kiss will be tender, I promise.”

“You plan on another one?”

“Fervently. Oh yes. I want so much to get to know you that way. To explore you.”

The sun was higher now and shone directly on the tower so that the tiny, constantly moving fleck of blond hair seemed larger and brighter.

Alexia saw it, too. “It’s like he knows we’re here and he’s teasing us, isn’t it?” She sniffed. “Explore me. With kisses? How would you do that?”

“I’d search all over you with my lips, if you let me. Would you? Look, the rifle stock is visible now. He’s leaning farther out.”

“No. He moved back again. We waited too long.”

Squinting through the field glasses, Mia felt her pulse pound. Blood rushed down her arms to her hands, and the magnified image she held in her sight twitched slightly with each heartbeat. “I’ve waited too long, too. I want to be with you, intimately. I could lose you at any moment in this war and want to know you and give you pleasure before that happens.”