“You are an Indian,” the man said.
“Algonquin.”
“Call me Mr. Foch,” the man said.
“John Red Cloud.”
Foch did not hold out his hand. Since this was his land, John followed the man’s example and did not hold out his either.
“Why did you come here, John Red Cloud? Why did you pester my agent’s mother?”
John glanced at the three Serbians.
“They understand nothing of what we say,” Foch told him. “But if I snap my fingers, they will kill you without hesitation. Perhaps I should tell you, I am inclined toward snapping my fingers. Everything I know about you so far smells of desperation and stupidity. I like dealing with neither.”
“I am on a quest,” John said. “I have come to Europe to kill Chancellor Kleist.”
Foch laughed softly. “That is ridiculous.”
“It is the truth. I am on a quest.”
While shaking his head, Foch asked, “Why would you come to a French secret service agent’s house then? It does not make sense.”
“The French hate the Germans, is that not so?” John asked.
“Ridiculous,” Foch said. He stood up, beginning to button his coat with one hand.
John stood too.
The three Serbians also stood, and they readied their weapons.
Once more, Foch studied Red Cloud. “I am to believe you truly killed the Basque for his ID?”
“The German Dominion offered my people their freedom,” John said. “Because of that, I helped the GD sway the Quebecers.”
“Sway how?” Foch asked.
“By killing rebel Quebecers who wished for Chinese aid,” John said.
“Ah. I see. This is more ridiculous by the moment. Go on.”
“When the time came for the Dominion to grant us our freedom,” John said, “the GD ambassador told me to go away. He insulted us and reneged on his promises.”
“Hmm, I recall something about our ambassador dying several months ago in Quebec.”
“I killed him,” John said. “That was my declaration of war against the GD.”
“That part makes sense at least. The ambassador was the Dominion representative. He insulted you—your people—and you killed him, insulting the GD. Still, I fail to see why you would come to us. We are part of the Dominion.”
“Do you want Kleist to succeed in his endeavors, cementing German dominance over Europe, over the world?”
Foch stared at Red Cloud until he said, “The Expeditionary Force is winning. If Kleist dies, nothing changes. Another like him will rise up.”
“You do not know that.”
“But I do,” Foch said. “No. We cannot help you. Neither can we let you go.”
Red Cloud grew tense, and there was a tightness under his heart, a sudden prick of pain. Perhaps it would be better to attack now and end the waiting.
Foch might have seen him tense, or seen something about Red Cloud to trouble him. “However…” the Frenchman said.
Red Cloud let his shoulder ease, and the pain under his heart receded.
“If something dramatic should happen to change the North American situation…” Foch said. “I will have to ponder your information. It is very odd, very strange.”
Red Cloud couldn’t think of anything wise or even pithy to say. He sat down. Once more, it was time to wait. He was willing to die, but he wanted to make his death worth something.
The small Frenchman nodded to the three Serbians and headed for the door. He exited the safe house and turned the key, locking it again.
The Serbians glanced at John.
He lay down on the sofa, closed his eyes and practiced patience one slow breath at a time.
Jake crawled through the bomb-blasted, moonlike terrain. Behind him were coils of concertina wire and the deep trench system of the first American line of defense. Far above, a crow circled lazily. To his left, Charlie crawled through muddy ground, passing straight through a puddle. The veteran ground-pounder must figure it was safer to crawl through the muck then to go around. The longer one moved through no-man’s land the worse it was.
There were patches of dying, brown grass and long weeds here, but that was about it as far as vegetation went. Otherwise, there were shell holes, bloated, dead bodies, rusting drones and APCs and hordes of flies and mosquitoes. The annoying bugs made it a nightmare crawl.
Like the others, Jake wore camouflage fatigues and helmet, and plenty of mosquito-repellant. He clutched an RPG, and he kept his M16 with him. He slunk across the ground very slowly. This had to be about the stupidest, most harebrained scheme of all. It was murder. Once he found his spot, he was going to turn his weapon on Franks and kill the bastard before he died. Crawling out into no-man’s land was too much, and it had Jake seething with righteous indignation.
He wore face paint and he scanned the enemy trench system in the distance. The GD pricks had little black sticks in the ground: cameras or sensors of some kind.
At times, Jake watched the GD outposts so hard that it felt as if his eyes would bug out. The enemy system was different from the American trenches. For one thing, the Germans didn’t have any people in their first trench line. Automated systems watched, and they were highly effective.
A shot rang out, a militiaman shouted in pain, and one less newbie existed in the lieutenant’s penal platoon.
Out of the corner of his eye to the left, Jake noticed as the man slumped as if the air had just hissed out of him. The dead newbie had to be eighty yards away. At least the platoon was spread out. Still, wouldn’t the enemy have a computer system that realized a whole bunch of fools was crawling around out here?
“This is murder,” Charlie whispered.
“Don’t talk,” Jake whispered. “And for Pete’s sake, don’t move right now. Stay still. Give it time to rest.” He meant give the enemy system time to dull down. From observation, they knew that once the GD system fired a weapons system, it was much more likely to do it again really soon.
As if on cue, another shot rang out. This time, the targeted militiaman didn’t shout or yell. The bullet punctured his helmet and spilled his brains like jelly. He just stopped, end of reality that fast: snap, snap.
The enemy trench system was higher up than they were. It gave the GD yet another advantage. Hadn’t the Germans had that advantage in WWI, in the trench systems in France? His dad would have known the answer. Jake remembered something about the Germans being able to look down into the Allied trenches, at least most of the time.
For now, Jake remained motionless and it set his mind to whirling, thinking. He couldn’t believe he had survived this cockamamie penal screw-job for as long as he had. Franks had a death wish going for him, and higher command used the penal units for the dirtiest tasks.
As he lay still, Jake used to his eyes to scan the situation. Nearby, Charlie waited like a mannequin. One thing the penal screw-job had done was turn Charlie into a decent soldier. In this outfit, either you got good fast or you died. It had been that way in Russia during WWII against the Germans, at least in the early years of 1941 and ‘42. Corporal Lee had already been good at this. Jake’s two new best friends were survivors, and they’d become canny in many different ways.
“Can we move now?” Charlie whispered.
“Give it a full twenty minutes,” Jake whispered, “and don’t get antsy.”
A couple of minutes later, a fly buzzed near, and of course it landed on Jake’s cheek. He didn’t twitch a muscle and for sure he didn’t move up his hand to brush the fly away. He endured, and told himself he liked the feeling of the fly’s legs crawling over his skin. The thing crawled onto his eyelid. He wanted to roar curses and brush the fly away. He’d be dead if he did that, so Jake merely flicked his eyelid, and the creature buzzed away, to return soon and start the process all over again.