What torrent? What river? His eyes widened as he took in the scene. Scores of soldiers were standing by the edge of the river. “Sir, it’s just like someone turned off a faucet.”
Indeed, it was. Marshall’s mind raced. The river was placid and calm and the depth was dropping rapidly. What the hell had Hoover done? Had he actually found a faucet? But the strange man had said to get ready. So Marshall’s men were ready.
“Barges and bridges,” Marshall yelled. “I want barges in the water and I want them stuffed with everything we’ve got. And get those pontoons across now!”
Everything had been loaded and waiting for several days. Preassembled pontoons were run out and connected, followed by planking for men and vehicles. The river did not complain. It continued to drop and was now only a few feet deep and moving very slowly. Barges pushed out like a Biblical horde, delivering men and supplies to the other side and then returning for more.
In only a few hours, the first bridge was finished, and then the second. A third and fourth would follow shortly. One bridge was for vehicles, and trucks began to move carefully across the bobbing structures. Infantry started their trek across the second bridge.
Hoover materialized beside Marshall. His face was grim, but there was a satisfied glint in his eyes. “What the devil did you do, Mr. Hoover?”
“Blew up a couple of mountains and choked the gorges. That created rough dams.”
“How long will they last?”
Hoover shrugged. “No idea. I would hurry, however. We are trying to ease pressure on the dams by allowing some water to run through, but the dams can’t last long.”
Marshall saw infantry moving slowly. “Double time, damn it,” he yelled.
“No!” Hoover said softly. “Vibrations will damage the bridges. Have them walk normally.”
Damn it, Marshall thought. I knew that. He was too anxious to get men across. Still, they could and did hurry with no gaps between the men.
Marshall had a horrible thought. He visualized a tidal wave rushing downstream when the dams gave up the ghost. “How much warning will we have and will the water rise quickly or gradually?”
“I have no idea. I do have men ready to signal if the dams collapse. Just keep your people moving.”
A truck stalled on the vehicle bridge and some men started to work on it. “Push it in the river,” Marshall yelled. “Nothing delays the crossing.” Men heaved and the truck fell off the shaking pontoons and into the river.
“I wonder if this is like Moses crossing the Red Sea,” Marshall said. “The Bible said the sea parted but never said the land was perfectly dry. Was it was something like this, with everybody running like the devil to get across in time?” He laughed harshly. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve an army to get across and it still might not get to San Francisco in time.”
Hoover didn’t reply. His mind was already someplace else.
The joint Army-Navy headquarters complex at the Presidio was a madhouse of activity as armed soldiers and sailors either took up stationary positions or patrolled the extensive grounds. The command and communications system had broken down and there was fear that the headquarters was in grave danger.
Civilian employees like Elise were either shuffled out of the compound or denied entry. Inside, Luke Martel strapped on a .45 automatic and wondered just what the hell had gone wrong.
General Nolan stormed into the conference room and took charge as more senior officers deferred to him. “Gentlemen, let’s review. At approximately three this morning, a boat containing eight men was spotted by one of our shore patrols as it was attempting to come ashore. The patrol and the people in the boat exchanged fire. Two of our men were killed and a couple more wounded. The occupants of the boat jumped out and ran inland. They were the survivors of the fight. We found four dead bodies and they were all German Navy Marines.”
Nolan took a sip of water and continued. “Several things bother the hell out of me; first, the fact that it then took several hours for us to be notified that as many as four armed Germans were now loose in San Francisco. The fact that the officer leading the shore patrol was killed is an obvious mitigating factor, but someone dropped the ball. It took far too long for us to be informed.”
There were nods all around. The timing issue was inexcusable.
“More important,” Nolan went on, “is the question of why they landed in the first place. Even if they all had made it, eight Germans aren’t going to cause that much harm to the war effort. They could blow up some ammunition, but we don’t have a central depot. Start fires? I just don’t think so. Therefore, we have come to the only remaining conclusion, and that is that the German’s target is us.”
“Makes sense,” Liggett murmured.
Luke looked around and sucked in his breath. In the room were Liggett and Sims, Nolan, and the Army’s two corps commanders, Fox Connor and James Harbord. If successful, an assassination attempt could decapitate the U.S. Army in California.
“How could they know we were all here?” a grim-faced Harbord asked.
“That’s something else to be investigated,” Nolan said. “Maybe they just hoped to get either Liggett or Sims, or both, and the rest would be a bonus.”
“I don’t wish to think of myself as anybody’s bonus,” Connor said to wry chuckles.
Nolan continued. “The problem is we don’t have a clue as to their whereabouts. We called an alert less than an hour ago and they could be anywhere, and that includes on this base. So far, nobody’s seen or heard anything unusual.”
“So what do we do?” asked Sims. “We can’t hide. We all have work to do and a war to run. German patrols are only fifty miles from here and we’re going to need all the time we can get.”
Liggett responded for the harassed Nolan. “For the next day or two, or until we find the Krauts, we have no choice but to stay here in this building under heavy guard. There are no more than four of them and if they are going to try something, it almost has to be soon. Every minute they are out there running around increases their chances of discovery.”
There was a clatter down the hallway and they all jumped. They looked sheepishly at each other as they realized it came from pots and pans clanging together.
“Somebody’s bringing us food,” Liggett said drily, “How wonderful.”
Something clicked in Luke’s mind. A mess hall would be fairly easy to take over by only a handful of people. “Anybody check these people out?” he said as he drew his pistol.
“Damn it to hell,” snarled Nolan. He drew his own pistol and ran into the hallway. The deafening roar of automatic weapons fire greeted him. Nolan fell over, nearly cut in half. A man dressed as a cook stood in the doorway. He had what Luke recognized as an MP18 German submachine gun and began shooting, awkwardly spraying the room. Luke dropped to his knees and shot him in the chest. The impact of the .45 bullet sent him flying backwards. Two more Germans appeared and began wildly firing their own automatic weapons. Now everybody in the room and others outside were shooting. The Germans fell and Liggett yelled cease fire. Then there was silence.
There had been four Germans. Luke had killed one and everybody had shot the two in the doorway, while the fourth had been killed in the hallway, apparently by Ike Eisenhower, who’d come running from his own office with a pistol in his hand. Inside the conference room, a distraught Liggett looked over Nolan’s mangled body. General Connor had taken a bullet in the thigh and the wound was bleeding profusely.
Luke looked around. His smoking pistol was still in his hand. Liggett and Sims were unhurt except for some scratches. Harbord was bleeding from a wound in his arm that didn’t appear serious.