Hiram and Deborah climbed out of the car and joined Petain. The others on the bikes dismounted and congregated behind the police captain.
Petain returned a casual salute and said a few words. He made a familiar motion with his hands as if to invite the men to come in closer.
Standing beside him, Deborah repeated Petain’s words in a whisper. “He says there are only five guards on duty. Petain is relieving the men.”
Officer Reynard called out again to the men. In minutes, all five of Petain’s men stood before him in a line armed with bolt action rifles and pistols. Petain addressed his team, his tone casual.
“He says to prepare for inspection,” Deborah said. “Now put your hands up.”
The guards looked back and forth at one another and back at Petain.
Reynard said, “Capitaine?”
Petain held his hands up the way he intended his men to comply. One by one, the men became aware of their captain’s betrayal and their hands headed skyward.
0445 hours, Monday, August 17, 1942, North Bank of the Moselle River, Moron, Meurthe-et-Moselle Department, Vichy France
Hiram and Simone touched down in a cornfield one kilometer north of where the river and canal split near Maron. The precision of their landing did not spare his injured ankle. He bit down hard trying not to scream from the pain, catching the side of his tongue. The taste of blood filled his mouth. Hiram leaned on his good leg and took a few deep breaths while Simone fought to gather up the parachute snagged on the tough corn stalks. She had taken a chance jumping through the twin portals, even though he had promised safe passage. They had both made it safely to the ground.
Simone helped Hiram down to the river bank, occasionally bumping helmets on the way down. He opened his pack on the gravel shore, activated the portal inside, and hopped down the ladder into the pod, careful to keep his weight on his good leg. He dragged a quick deploy motorized RHIB and a few drift mines over to the base of the ladder. The small black explosive devices, designed for underwater attacks, contained ten kilos of explosives. He passed the boat up through the portal to Simone, then began the painful climb up the ladder with the mines cradled in his arm. Several agonizing minutes later, they boarded the RHIB and motored out into the Moselle. Hiram scanned the shore with his NVGs.
“Hawk, this is Echo.” Charlotte’s voice came through his helmet. The Babel Fish translating a few seconds behind. “Reference point Papa Tango, over.”
Charlotte had taken over tracking the mechanized infantry company via drone while Nora was busy with Petain’s men. Reference point Papa Tango sat at the outer edge of Pierre-la-Treiche, a village six kilometers north of Maron. Under blackout conditions, Hiram expected the column to travel about ten kilometers an hour.
The RHIB approached the bridge. Hiram and Simone maneuvered the small vessel into position adjacent to one of the concrete piles near the center of the span. Hiram picked up a floating mine, powered on the device, and set it into the water. It slipped below the surface, a spaghetti-thin aerial the only visible indicator of its position above the murky water. He secured the explosive to the pile. They maneuvered the RHIB next to another pile, where he repeated the process.
With the mines placed, Hiram activated his C2ID2.
“Echo, this is Hawk, over.”
“Hawk, this is Echo, over.” Charlotte wore a helmet similar to his. In tandem with the C2ID2’s tactical mode, they communicated via the wireless earpieces and microphones built into the helmets.
“Echo, Phase One complete, moving to Phase Two, over.”
“Roger, Hawk. Target is midway to reference point Sierra Foxtrot. Hurry, over.” The column would make one final turn through the village of Sexey-aux-Forges before reaching the bridge across the Maron. He was running out of time.
“Wilco. Hawk out.” They passed under a bridge, the flow of water more disagreeable around the footings. A set of dim lights passed overhead.
Deborah spoke in his ear. “Hawk, this is Alpha, over.”
“Alpha, this is Hawk, over.”
“Hawk, the convoy arrived. We’ve captured the drivers. No casualties. We’re transferring the prisoners from the train to the trucks as fast as we can. The drivers are cooperating, but it’s a slow process, over.”
“Roger, Alpha. How much more time do you need, over?”
“Another hour, Hawk. Over.”
“Roger, Alpha. Hawk, out.”
The railway bridge came into view in their night vision goggles and they headed for the shore.
Gravel crunched underneath the RHIB’s bow as it grounded on the eastern shore of the island, one hundred meters north of the northernmost gun emplacement. Simone dragged the boat to shore, while Hiram erected the small tent to mask the glow from the portal. He laid out his pack on the floor of the tent, opened it, and activated the portal inside.
Hiram climbed in and retrieved the parts for four combat robots. Simone pulled the parts out of his hands as he passed them up. He grabbed two more drift mines and headed up the ladder.
By the time Hiram emerged, Simone had assembled the first of the robots. Simone’s familiarity with the design and operation of the devices made her the ideal partner on this endeavor. Ten minutes later, the remaining combat robots stood beside the first. Armed with electro-magnetic grenade launchers loaded with a mix of 40mm high explosive and incendiary munitions, Simone sent the mechanical monsters down the riverbank toward the locks.
Hiram tied off the two new drift mines to the boat’s main spar. Simone helped him into the RHIB, then pushed him back into the water before returning to her robot controls.
He repeated the process of attaching the floating bombs to the lock gates and motored back to shore. He programmed them to go off in six minutes. If the situation changed, he could detonate by remote control.
“Hawk, this is Echo, over.” Charlotte’s voice carried more urgency than her last communication.
“Echo, this is Hawk, over.”
“Hawk, the enemy column is passing reference point Sierra Foxtrot, over.”
“Echo, is Falcon in place, over?”
“Roger, Hawk. Falcon reports all elements are in place. Charlie and Delta are awaiting the signal, over.”
“Echo, five minutes to detonation. Hawk, out.”
48
0510 hours, Monday, August 17, 1942, Pont Saint Vincent, Meurthe-et-Moselle Department, Vichy France
Charlotte grew more anxious as the enemy column moved closer to the railyard. The line of vehicles snaked down the road past Sexey-aux-Forges. A bright spot blossomed on her screen alongside the canal locks. In front of her, the night sky lit up for a few seconds. The familiar boom followed. A few seconds later, another bomb detonated closer to the shore. Neither bomb inflicted any real damage to the locks. But no one could deny an attack was underway. Water and debris continued to rain down from the twin explosions as the four combat robots opened fire on the lock’s control booths, powerhouse, and administration building from positions along the canal’s western shore farther downstream. The position of the robots presented the illusion that a more sizable force had dug in along the canal.
The combat robots unloaded high-visibility incendiary grenades and loud explosive grenades. Bright, thundering explosions drove the frightened guards and workers to abandon the locks. A few of the men running from the powerhouse disappeared into the patches of trees that lined the road.
The enemy column slowed to a stop. The assault on the powerhouse continued, although the combat robots slowed their rate of fire.