As the front door closed, Foch sat in the comfort chair by letting himself drop and banging back against the cushions. Was there something wrong with his knees or his back? The other two flanked him, watching John.
Foch took out a small flat tin, opened it and extracted a cigarette. He put it between his lips, took out a book of matches, lit one, staring at the flame, and inhaled as he lit the cigarette. Foch shook the match and tossed it onto the coffee table. He blew smoke at John, inhaled again and blew more smoke. At last, he positioned the cigarette on the edge of the coffee table.
“I do not like mysteries,” Foch told him.
Red Cloud did not speak. Four bullets were in the chambers. He had two chances of six of leaving the safe house alive. The two killers flanking Foch would not hesitate to shoot him.
“You have told me you are an Algonquin,” Foch said. “I was not aware your people had a spy service.”
Still, Red Cloud said nothing. The moment wasn’t yet ripe.
“I am inclined toward two possibilities,” Foch said. “One, you are a Quebec agent, send here for help against the Germans. Two, you are an agent provocateur from the Germans, trying to trap me and the French agency.”
“I speak the truth,” Red Cloud said.
“Tell me the truth. Convince me you are who you say you are.”
John considered that, and he decided upon the truth. “I have stepped onto the death path in order to trade my life for Chancellor’s Kleist’s life. I have become a hormagaunt.”
“This is Indian mumbo-jumbo?” Foch asked.
“It is the way of the Algonquin warrior.”
Foch glanced at his smoldering cigarette. He shook his head once. “No, I do not accept that. That would mean through luck you unerringly picked one of the key officers in our revolt. Yes, some of us realize that France has agreed to lie down for the Germans and spread her legs for the Teutonic rapist. Needless to say, I abhor that. Now you appear and want our aid. No. I do not believe in coincidences. You must be a German probe, seeking to uncover us.”
“The truth is the truth,” John said, without inflection. “I am on the death path. There is power for the one walking down to the Underworld, but the power only lasts for a short time. You must help me now or it will be too late for either of us.”
Foch picked up the cigarette without putting it in his mouth. “You expect me to believe that you’re willing to die if only you can kill Kleist?”
“Yes.”
Foch laughed softly. He put the cigarette between his lips, inhaling. “No, no, life isn’t so simple. Nor do you look or act like a suicide bomber.”
“Sometimes life is that simple,” Red Cloud said. “Sometimes there is nothing left but death and honor. I will kill for the honor of my people. We are few and you are many. I seek freedom, but I cannot have it in this world. Therefore, I will take honor by killing my oppressors. I have thought deeply upon this, and I decided to take the strongest of you down to death with me—Kleist.”
“We are not Germans,” Foch said.
“You are white like them, and you are in league with them, sending soldiers to oppress my people.”
The two killers flanking the chair glanced at Foch. One of them nodded.
Foch leaned back, with his eyes narrowed.
“Long ago, Samuel de Champlain came to my people,” Red Cloud said. “We were much greater and more populous then.”
“You speak of colonial history,” Foch said.
“Champlain helped us then by shooting an enemy chieftain with a flintlock pistol. None of our peoples had seen such a thing before. Champlain defeated a great host by killing the Iroquois champion. Now, I will help you by killing the German champion.”
“And thereby help yourself, too,” Foch said.
“Yes, just as Samuel de Champlain helped himself long ago by gaining Algonquian aid.”
Foch plucked the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it across the room. It hit a wall, spilling red embers and ashes.
“I must be mad,” Foch said. “But I believe you. You have the crazy ring of truth in your voice. Get your belongings. You’re leaving with me.”
“Where am I going?” Red Cloud asked.
“To a Berlin safe house,” Foch said, “as we prepare for our opportunity.”
BUFFALO, NEW YORK
Jake Higgins glanced at Charlie. They were dirt-encrusted with hollow eye-sockets and staring orbs. Their uniforms were in tatters and their boots nearly useless.
The two penal militiamen had been through harrowing days to get here from St. Catharines. Like cunning rats, they had moved through war-torn, burning, smoking Buffalo. GD soldiers and machines were everywhere. With infinite patience and some luck, they had made it near a GD attack position readying to hit American defenses, or what was left of those defenses. If they could reach their side, the two of them had a real chance of escaping the cauldron of destruction.
“No way,” Charlie whispered, staring at the street. “Look at that.” The scrawny potato-grower pointed at two HKs rumbling toward them.
Jake wanted to weep with frustration. He was exhausted. Neither had eaten anything for days. They couldn’t go to the left because a company of Sigrids murdered Americans there. They couldn’t go right because GD infantrymen assembled to storm an American-held building. This middle route had been the plan. Like meat-eating dinosaurs, the HKs headed straight for them.
“What are we going to do?” Charlie whispered.
They had a few bullets left for their M16s, but that was it. They did not have grenades, flares, anything else but some knives.
“Lie still,” Jake said. “Don’t move.”
He knew about the precision of Kaiser sensors. The AI tanks could spot things no human eye could see or human ear hear. The HKs were the great monster of the campaign, the unbeatable ogres.
The two Kaisers squealed as their treads rolled over rubble, crushing various pieces. The machines were beat-up monsters, and they just keep coming closer, closer—
“Bye, Jake,” Charlie whispered. “It’s been good knowing you.”
Jake’s mouth was dry. After all this, all the heartache and BS—he would have liked to say goodbye to his dad. Would America win after he died, or was his country fated to lose?
The tanks neared their depression. This was torture waiting for death like this. Jake’s stomach hurt and he could feel the ground shake underneath him. The HKs came up even with them, and he waited to hear a machine gun mount swivel. It never did. The tanks kept clanking, going past them. If he didn’t know better, it seemed to Jake as if the two HKs were retreating out of the battle zone. Was that weird or what? He wanted to bray with relief.
Soon, the sound of the treads changed tenor as the tanks turned a corner. Then the sounds dwindled as other combat noises grew in volume.
“They left,” Charlie said in bewilderment. “They went away.”
Jake just lay on the ground, blinking in disbelief.
“Are they playing a game with us?” Charlie asked. “Did the tanks see us and report our position to someone else?”
Jake stared at his friend, but he was already thinking of something else. Had backstabbing Dan Franks made it out of Buffalo? Thinking about that brought Jake back to reality.
“Come on,” he said, getting up, with bits of gravel digging against the palm of his left hand. “Let’s hurry while we have the chance.”
Charlie stood, looking over his shoulder in the direction the HKs had gone. “Why did they do that?”
“I have no idea,” Jake said. “Maybe they were running out of ammo or fuel. I just know I’m going to exploit the chance while we have it.” He grabbed Charlie’s arm. “Let’s get the heck out of here.”
The two penal militiamen ran in a bent-over crouch, trying to escape the city before the Germans closed it forever.
SYRACUSE, NEW YORK
Two days after his speech to the colonels and generals of Twelfth Army, General Mansfeld knew deep bitterness.
He paced back and forth in the office of a university gym where he had put his temporary headquarters. It had been such a near-run thing, the battle of Syracuse. Three times his force had almost broken through the last defense. Yes, the battle continued, but he had failed to achieve the breakthrough. The Canadians had begun to arrive in numbers. It was clear the enemy had taken a risk to bring those reinforcements here. The Canadians had left western Ontario and Manitoba for all practical purposes unguarded.
How large a hovercraft army would he need to sweep through Ontario into Manitoba? Might that be a profitable excursion?
He needed to think of something to offset this setback.
He slammed his right fist into his left palm. He had come so close to victory. If Kaltenbrunner could have landed in New Jersey, everything would have been different. That had been the decisive moment of the campaign. Everything he had planned up to that moment had worked in accordance with his foresight. It was that single piece he had not foreseen—a secret American space weapon.
Now the grand plan was crumbling around him. Yes, Holk had broken through to Buffalo, and he’d trapped half or more of US Fifth Army. Already, AI Kaisers headed along Interstate 90 for Syracuse. III Armored Corps joined them. He would receive substantial reinforcements throughout the next few days. Yet the Americans received more reinforcements, too, and that allowed them to stiffen their defenses.
Mansfeld shook his head. From the evidence at hand, he didn’t see himself breaking through the Syracuse defenses any time soon. If he could have had III Armored Corps two days ago, yes, then he would have succeeded. Despite the devastating setback of Kaltenbrunner’s destruction, Mansfeld still could have won a fantastic campaign victory if…if…if…
He continued pacing, and he struck his palm again. He couldn’t lose. Walther Mansfeld was the greatest general in the world. This was intolerable. He had foreseen everything but the space weapon. How had that escaped the eye of the GD secret service? He hadn’t failed; the Chancellor’s spies had failed the German Dominion. They had failed
him
. Unfortunately, Kleist ruled the Dominion. Kleist owned the police, the secret service and the propaganda arms of the government. If only he could tell the world the truth.
Mansfeld ground his teeth together. He had never expected to be in such a position as this. It reminded him of Charles the XII’s most momentous battle. The Swedish king has fought the Great Northern War against King Augustus of Saxony, who had also been the king of Poland. Peter the Great of Russia had been Augustus’s most powerful ally. For years, Charles fought his Polish campaigns, defeating Augustus at every turn. Finally, Charles decided to conquer Russia and crush Peter for good. Although Charles had far fewer soldiers than Napoleon or Hitler, he had a greater likelihood of victory.
During his reign, Peter had forced a medieval Russia into the modern world. Peter the Great’s reforms would have failed if Charles captured Moscow. Charles could have dictated the peace from Moscow and utterly changed the course of history. If he had won the Great Northern War, Charles would have confirmed a Baltic Swedish empire for centuries to come.
In January of 1708, Charles crossed the frozen Vistula River with an army of 45,000 soldiers, the greatest army he had ever commanded. He outmaneuvered Peter’s armies time and again, advancing toward distant Moscow. Through July to October of that year, Peter practiced a scorched Earth policy, retreating from the advancing army and leaving a wasteland before Charles’s force. Instead of turning his tired soldiers around and heading back to Swedish territory, Charles plunged south into the Ukraine to join a Cossack rebel. Nothing worked right after that. Peter got to the rebel first, destroying the Cossack force. The next winter was among the coldest in Europe, where sparrows froze in flight, dropping to the ground. By now, Charles’ force desperately needed supplies. One of his generals named Lewenhaupt had set out from Swedish territory with a huge supply and artillery train. If Charles could receive those supplies, everything would be different. But Peter’s generals intercepted Lewenhaupt and utterly defeated him.
In the same way that Lewenhaupt failed Charles, the GD fleet failed me. With those supplies and cannons, Charles would have won. With the GD amphibious landing, I would have easily won
.
In the battle of Poltava on June 28, 1709, Charles’ smaller army failed to defeat the greater Russian host gathered before him. Instead, the Russians smashed Charles and threw him back in bitter defeat. The invasion of Russia had failed.
Was Syracuse his Poltava? Charles had attempted to thrust his smaller host through the Russians as they had done at Narva. In 1709, Charles failed because the previous day he had been shot in the foot. Carried in a litter during the battle, Charles had been unable to lead while a-horse with his customary zeal. Some military theorists suggested that might have been the critical difference. When Charles led his men from the front, they achieved heroic results.
I needed the Kaisers two days ago. Maybe I should have risked them across Lake Ontario. I needed III Armored Corps two days ago. Maybe Zeller shouldn’t have sent two corps to the west but only one
.
“Might have been, might have been,” Mansfeld muttered. None of that mattered now. He had to deal with reality, not with dreams. Dreams didn’t win empires, only cold hard ruthlessness did. He must be ruthless with himself and see the truth for what it was.