When the column began to move again, they turned left down a narrow road that followed the shore. Another left and a right led them through the center of a small village and back through La Corvée. The column lumbered toward the only bridge that could get them across the river.
Charlotte touched Barbara’s arm, and pointed to the moving column on the display. Barbara nodded and relayed information to Teams Charlie and Delta, Deborah, Hiram and Simone, and Captain Trembley and the partisans.
When Barbara completed her transmission to Trembley, she adjusted her position. She lay down beside Charlotte and aligned her body to form a straight line from her right foot to the muzzle of the M22.
“Targeting the shorter man up top,” Barbara said. “Try to keep an eye on his buddy.” Barbara spoke of the two guards standing atop the railyard control tower.
“Roger,” Charlotte said. The firefight across the river continued to draw the guards’ attention and they neglected their watch. She doubted they would notice Captain Trembley and the French partisans moving toward the railyard perimeter, but she kept an eye on the second man anyway, switching between the view on the screen and the tower in front of them.
The weapons fire across the river slackened as the combat robots ran low on ammo. The guards atop the tower kept their eyes on the mayhem.
“A few more minutes,” Charlotte said. On her display, the enemy vehicles crossed over the Moselle one by one.
“Merde.”
“What’s wrong,” Barbara asked, not taking her eye off the target in her scope.
“Three Panzers at the end of the column changed direction again,” Charlotte said. “They’re headed south. I bet the bridge isn’t rated for the weight of the tanks.”
“Falcon will be waiting for them,” Barbara said, “with Monsieur Donath’s men and a few anti-tank rocket launchers.”
“We should let them know," Charlotte said.
“You’re right.” Barbara laid the rifle aside and grabbed the HF radio handset. “Falcon, this is Echo, over,” she called in French.
“Echo, this is Falcon, over,” Trembley replied.
On the display, the Panzers ignored the right angles of the roads as they rolled back through the village, pushing smaller vehicles out of their way.
“Falcon, three Big Boys heading south on the west side of the river. ETA twenty minutes at present speed, over.”
Charlotte understood most of what Barbara said, though she struggled with Hiram’s military terminology. Barbara, on the other hand, rattled off Hiram’s slang with ease.
“Roger Echo. No infantry support, over?” Trembley said.
“Negative Falcon. The Big Boys split off from the infantry before they crossed the river, over.”
“Roger Echo. We’ll be sure to make them feel welcome. Falcon out.”
Barbara put down the headset and took up the M22 again. By Charlotte’s calculations, the tower was only about four-hundred-and-fifty meters out, an easy shot for Barbara.
“Ready when you are,” Barbara said.
The last halftrack crossed the bridge. Charlotte tapped two icons on her C2ID2. To the North, a bright light flashed. Six seconds later, the faint boom announced the explosion. The ten kilo charges would rupture the two pilings, which would put more pressure on the adjacent pilings. The fast-flowing river would do the rest of the work. The roadway above would collapse as its supports washed away in the torrent.
Charlotte tapped another icon on her C2ID2. “The jammer is on.”
Beside her, Barbara pulled the trigger. Charlotte watched as the shorter guard’s body tipped toward the center of the control tower and collapsed. Barbara re-sighted her weapon on her next target. The second guard took a shot square in his back. He took two awkward steps forward and tumbled over the railing.
Barbara laid down the rifle and picked up the HF radio handset. “Falcon, this is Echo. Execute. Out.” Hiram had changed the plan when the mechanized infantry column appeared. The Partisans, assisted by Team Charlie would execute their attack on the railyard as soon as the German column was trapped on the other side of the river.
Charlotte toggled her view in the C2ID2 to the drone over the railyard. Heat signatures from Donath’s men emerged from the woods headed toward the guards patrolling the western perimeter of the railyard. Within minutes, all six guards were down. Not one of them managed to raise an alarm. Donath’s partisans, followed by Team Charlie, flowed into the railyard.
Hiram appeared on the other side of Barbara, quiet despite his awkward gait. He settled in beside her, an M22 and his well-worn sniper rifle ready to get to work. Simone crawled up on Charlotte’s other side a minute later.
“Is everything on schedule?” Hiram said, voice low, his Babel Fish translating at the same volume.
“Three Panzers headed toward Falcon’s team,” Barbara said. “He’s expecting them.”
Hiram nodded, took out a high-powered night vision spotting scope, and surveyed the scene below them.
Charlotte ran through the scenario for Simone. Simone took out her C2ID2 display unit and called up the view of the Panzers on her screen.
“I’ll watch the Big Boys. You keep an eye on the railyard. You’re much better at flying the drones than I am.”
Charlotte smiled at the compliment and nodded. She switched the display back to the video feed from the overhead drone. Teams Charlie and Delta moved into position to assist with the transfer of prisoners from the cattle cars to the trucks.
“Sorry boys, can’t have you falling into enemy hands,” Hiram said. He tapped an icon on his C2ID2. A second later Charlotte heard four quick booms in succession and assumed Hiram had sacrificed the combat robots.
Hiram tapped Barbara on the shoulder and said something in English about the radio. They got up, Hiram signaling Charlotte and Simone to watch the events playing out below.
“You are our eyes,” Barbara said as she put an arm around Hiram. The two hobbled away into the darkness.
On the display, Donath’s men eliminated the remaining guard force one by one, with almost mechanical precision. She admired their efficiency.
A sudden ray of light exploded from an open door in the control tower. The silhouette of a man stepped onto the platform surrounding the tower. He looked at the dead guard and surveyed the landscape around the railyard. Then, he turned and scampered back the way he’d come.
Here we go.
A siren wailed, projected from the speakers mounted above the control tower.
A bright white light pierced the darkness once again. Three bright beams bounced across the landscape from the targeting searchlights on the Panzers charging through Pont Saint Vincent.
49
0520 hours, Monday, August 17, 1942, Pont-Saint-Vincent, Meurthe-et-Moselle Department, Vichy France
Hiram waited in silence atop a boxcar in the railyard watching the approaching tanks. A few feet beneath him, Irene tried to convince a group of men, women, and children to board the trucks that would take them to safety, a task complicated by the unaccompanied children who spoke only Spanish or Portuguese. Teams Charlie and Delta worked through the cattle cars down the line, cutting the thick wire that secured the bolts meant to keep the sliding doors in place.
Hiram pointed the barrel of his sniper rifle toward the chest of the silhouetted man protruding from the lead tank’s turret. A targeting searchlight mounted on the tank’s hull screwed with Hiram’s night scope. Hiram shot out the light, then focused on the tank’s commander again. The man wore a German uniform and rode atop a German tank. But the patch on his right arm◦– three vertical stripes of blue, white and red from left to right◦– and twin lightning bolts on his collar said he wasn’t German. LVF? His father had told him about the Légion des Volontaires Français Contre le Bolchévisme, or the Legion of French Volunteers against Bolshevism, a unit of French Fascists fighting alongside the Nazis.