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“Just shut up and cover me. Mama will make the bad men go away.”

  Dore yanked an extra MG42 out of the dirt and wiped the blood off the buttstock with his pants as she crept past.

  “Here you go. Isn’t this your favorite?”

  Kat popped her ponytail over the ledge. She licked her lips and focused on a sleek Sturmvogel, bulging with autocannons and bombs, poking out of a bomb shelter less than a hundred meters ahead. “Oh, you know me. Always chasing the latest fashion. Be a dear and hold my purse.”

  Shedding her rifle and ammo belt at his feet, she waited until the nearest stream of machine-gun tracers swayed farther down the trench before stepping into Dore’s interlocked hands.

  “Give me a boost, will yahhhh!” Dore flicked her a solid two meters into the killing field, splashing her face-first into the dirt. But also well clear of the searchlight on the barrack’s roof sweeping the trench line.

  Armed with nothing but a blade and a smile, Kat flitted from one dead body to the next in the sea of tracers. With the defenders focused on rallying at the barracks and hammering back at the trapped attackers’ muzzle flashes, no one paid attention to the ghost stalking across no man’s land.

  A hundred meters deeper into the base, the jet engine whining ramped up to an ear-splitting roar as she clambered over the side of the first sand-filled revetment. So loud that the rifleman crouched down and firing around the open corner never heard the delicate footfalls behind him. He sure noticed the soft hand cupping his head back and burying something cold and razor-sharp in his larynx though.

  The ground crew chief must have caught something, since he popped his head out of the Messerschmitt’s cockpit and twisted around on the top of the ladder.

  The pilot inside slammed the armored canopy shut as the mechanic disappeared, a few of his teeth clattering against the glass with each bounce off a ladder rung on the way down. With one fist wrapped around the throttle and the other on the stick, the Luftwaffe man gaped over his air mask as the canopy snagged on five delicate fingers, centimeters shy of locking in place.

  “Don’t go. The fun’s just getting started!”

  His response was muffled by the blade impaling his oxygen mask to the roof of his mouth. Someone shouted over all the jet roars from the next revetment over.

  “Katelyn?”

  Kat faltered and tucked a few loose hair strands over her ear. She blushed and blew the dashing young pilot a kiss while unstrapping the gurgling man under her.

  “You promised you’d call, Hansy. But that’s all right. I’m a patient girl.”

  Hans-Joachim Marseille dropped into his seat and lit off out of the shelter. He jerked his jet over the chalk blocks under the wheels and shot across the scrub-covered field, rather than the paved runway. His tail fins sparked as the wheels lifted, a whole rudder shearing off as he clipped the perimeter fence and raced to the west.

  “What is it with you guys and commitment?” Kat heaved the gasping man up and pouted in his pale face. “Well, his loss, right? He’ll never find a sweeter gal than me.”

  She pried the hilt out of his jaw and heaved the flyboy from the cockpit. The second his foot slipped off the brake pedal though, the jet rocketed down the tarmac. Kat landed sideways in the seat as the pilot flopped over the side, his face melting in the jet exhaust that torched his upper torso.

  “Gawd!!!” Kat gasped, spitting in the face of gravity while twisting the out of control rocket off-center from the runway. She snapped the four-point harness tight around her chest, which kept her in the seat even if her cheek smeared the glass. Half a dozen warning lights blazed across the sprawling control panel. Kat ignored the strange gauges and spinning dials, focusing instead on four switches.

  “Come on. There’s got to be at least a flare gun aboard…” She held down every black button on the joystick between her knees, causing the warbird to rattle like it was coming apart.

  As well as turn the second ME-262 to touch off from the runway into a million smaller aircraft. Another jet rocketed off through the shrapnel cloud… only to cartwheel into an anti-aircraft gun on the far end of the runway as something hard sucked into its left engine and blew the wing apart. The rest of the planes scrambling down the runway aborted, spinning wildly off the airstrip and dovetailing into the sand to stay clear of the fireworks.

  “That’ll work.”

  She shoved the handle too hard to the right and then overcompensated too much to the left, eventually lining up on the fortified barracks. The whole time her Sturmvogel continued burping out a steady stream of 30mm High Explosive rounds from the quad guns inside the wings. The inch wide, shrapnel-packed slugs swept the AAA gun stations, and tarmacs clean better than Satan’s broom.

  Not that Kat had time to appreciate the view. She only discovered the lever to cut the engine after she bounced through the red mist from a squad of disintegrating Germans running from their blazing AAA gun.

  The flames outside the cockpit gave way to an enormous shadow. As the canopy filled with all three stories of the looming barracks, Kat yanked at a yellow strap between her thighs labeled “emergency release” in German. Instead of popping the harness off though, the canopy shot forward.

  Then something exploded under her seat.

  “Oh, shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii…”

  Kat blasted into space, tumbling head over butt. During one of the swings, she caught sight of the jet lifting a few feet off the ground… then plowing into the second floor of the barrack fortress.

  “Oops.”

  Both 250kg bombs under the Sturmvogel’s wings erupted deep in the structure, as the ejection seat’s parachute deployed at 9-g’s. She was still laughing as she blacked out, her body pendulum-swinging up and over the chute while the blast wave kicked her even higher up.

  “Good God… she’s alive!”

  Kat blinked around the popped blood vessels in her eyes at Trufflefoot’s well shaven and smirking face. She tried to stand. An American medic dropped a roll of gauze he was wrapping around her laughed. He stabbed her thigh with a morphine injector and jumped back as she stabbed him with her demon eyes.

  “I told you. Pay up.” The medic moaned slipped a ten-spot into Atkins's hand.

  The Corporal shoved the cash in his pocket and offered Kat a canteen with a wink. “Ten to one odds, and about 50 of the surviving Yanks dumb enough to bet against you… I’ve got a great way to capitalize on your remaining lives if you ever want to go into business for yourself.”

  Kat’s mouth hung open while she tried to focus her crossed eyes.

  “Get back. You damn ghoul! Textbook case of going into shock! Got to get the blood flowing.” Capson propped a helmet under her legs and a rucksack under her noggin. He unsnapped her belt and reached for her bra. Kat slapped his hand back with a grunt.

  “I’m just peachy. How are you still… you know, mobile?”

  Capson frowned as she turned his hands over, squinting at his intact fingernails. “You guys look fine. Is it my imagination, or did Atkins even put on weight? What type of sick torture did Pernass put you through?”

  Trufflefoot squatted next to the girl and threw an arm over her swelling shoulder. He jerked a thumb at Atkins and snickered. “Except for those of us happy to sleep 18 hours a day and wolf down five meals, the boredom was the worst torture.”

  “I don’t… just what type of mind game is the Oberführer playing?”

  “The game is simple.” Trufflefoot dropped his brow on his knee. “I tried to talk. Figured I could buy some time by leading him on a wild goose chase. Pernass wasn’t interested in information. Too busy with something else in Morocco.”

  Kat wagged her head. “Makes no sense. He’s a ruthlessly fo
cused type of man, and we just took away his most powerful weapon. Not like him to drop the ball.”

  Trufflefoot ground his jaws together at the wrecked jet fighters scattered about the field. “We have to get back to Casablanca tonight.”

  “Boss, the balloon goes up at dawn. There’s just no time. You’ve missed so much. On the plus side, we’ve been working with a huge guerilla force up in Algiers. They have a large team over in Oran, so let’s link up with…”

  The Colonel straightened up and offered Kat a hand. “We’ve all missed so much.” He whistled at Dore and tilted a bushy gray eyebrow towards a few unarmed courier aircraft at the far end of the tarmac. “Those planes don’t have too many bullet holes. Sergeant, see if you can… persuade one of those Hun pilots to give us a ride back to Morocco.”

  Dore bowed his head and circled the herd of terrified German prisoners.

  “Kat, there’s no time. We have to use our assets now, before we lose them. Can you find me a civilian telephone or at least a telegraph? Time to put all our chips on the table.” Trufflefoot wagged his head as Kat stomped her foot and squeezed her hips. “Trust me. Whatever the SS has up their sleeve, this sure wasn’t it.”

  Kat tossed her hands up at the surviving German prisoners stacking the dead in an endless row beside the runway. “Then what in God’s name would you call all this?”

  He sighed and patted her red curls.

  “One hell of a diversion.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Casablanca showdown

  D-Day- 4 hours

  Headlights lanced out of the blacked-out airfield, bathing the little six-seat plane in blinding white light the second their engine cut off. Kat clutched a grenade in each fist while squinting out the window.

  “That was fast. Looks like we’re surrounded.”

  Trufflefoot unsnapped his seatbelt and stretched. “By local police or soldiers?”

  “By twenty armed men! Does it matter what uniform they’re sporting?” Dore kicked open the side door and hugged his machine pistol tight. Trufflefoot clapped his back and gave him a gentle nudge out of the way.

  “Indeed it does. French troops greeting us means my proposal was accepted. Or at least the local Command staff deigned to grant us an audience. Constables mean the SS got to them first.”

  Trufflefoot lunged past Dore and marched to the closest lights. A lone Officer in a khaki uniform stepped forward and blocked the lights. He fiddled with his pistol belt for a second, before snapping off a salute and tilting his Kepi cap at the car. Trufflefoot flashed a thumbs-up at the plane. He kept grinning as everyone filed out, and the French troops collected their weapons.

  “It’s all right — routine security. For once, things are going our way. Who’s hungry? Anyone up for a late dinner?”

  The Vichy Officer turned up his nose. “Only you. That was the deal.”

  Kat kept her hands up and batted her most charming smile. “What about his translator? The old man’s French is terrible.”

  “Fine. Better than negotiating in English, like a damn barbarian. We’ll need to stop somewhere and let you wash up. Or maybe you need a hospital?” He pried his eyes off the dirty, bleeding girl in tattered Khaki dungarees.

  “But the rest of your people will wait in the cars outside, under heavy guard.”

  “Hostages?” Trufflefoot stopped with his outstretched hand on the sedan’s backdoor. “Haven’t we proven you can trust us?”

  “As the Germans say, trust is good. Control is better.” The Frenchman snapped the door open for him. “After you, sir.”

  “I thought I was dealing with civilized gentlemen. Guardians of the Third Republic and all that crap.” Trufflefoot straightened his spine and glared up at the snarling Vichy man.

  “What you’re dealing with is high treason. Doesn’t sit well with the army. You might have found some allies on the staff, but just as many Officers fear your countrymen as much as the Germans. Just ask the survivors of the Mers-el-Kébir airstrike, the value of an Englishman’s word. 1,300 dead at the hands of our supposed ally…”

  A baleful air raid siren wailed throughout the field, drowning him out. The first shell from the high-altitude bombers cracked open over their heads before anyone could move a muscle.

  Trufflefoot caught one of a million paper leaflets raining down and snorted. One side was printed in Arabic and the other in French. Both featured a smiling Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He folded the flyer and tapped inside the Vichy man’s breast pocket.

  “One thing you can trust is that these cowboys don’t care about your insecurities. They’re coming, whether you open the door or they have to kick it in. Four hours. The clock’s ticking.” Trufflefoot ducked inside the backseat and tapped an invisible wristwatch.

  “You told us four weeks!” The Frenchman tore off his cap and wiped the sweat from his brow.

  “C’est la vie.” Kat hopped in the leather seat beside Trufflefoot, then leaned over the rest and hit the horn.

  The Vichy Officer grumbled as he slid in after Trufflefoot. “Her accent is atrocious. I don’t know what you do for the Colonel here, but don’t think I’ll hesitate to blow your brains out of that pretty little head if you even look at any of the Generals the wrong way.”

  Kat glided forward and flicked the Officer’s cap off. He caught her gaze in the rearview mirror, freezing as her jade eyes war-danced in the moonlight. He could only gulp as she traced a lazy finger around his scalp.

  “My, you have such soft curls. I’d kill for hair like that…”

  “Is this how you treat all your dinner guests?”

  Kat bared her teeth at the Vichy soldier, patting her down far too thoroughly. His sub-machine gun toting partner stepped behind the hostess stand, not even blinking until Trufflefoot was cleared as well. He finally tilted his head towards a cluster of French Officers laughing at a round table in the middle of the restaurant. His weapon still tracing Kat’s back as she sashayed off.

  All five Frenchman rose, giving Kat some deep bows as she stomped up and ripped her chair out from the table. Trufflefoot forced a grin as she wolfed down an entire baguette herself and washed it down with a deep swallow straight from an open bottle of red wine.

  “I just wanted to thank you gentlemen for meeting us on such short notice. With your help, we could have lunch here tomorrow without needing all these… preparations.”

  Trufflefoot waved his hand around the vacant restaurant. Except for the dim lights over their table and the bar, the whole place was a forest of empty shadows. The headlights from the line of French Command cars holding the rest of the team outside switched off, cutting out all ambient light.

  “You gonna finish that?” Kat jabbed her fork at a half-full pan of quiche in front of a Vichy Air Force General next to her. He squirmed, politely keeping his gaze off her dusty, blood-splattered khakis.

  “Enjoy, Mademoiselle.” He slid the plate over while refolding a linen napkin in his lap. A General with a bit more shiny brass on his shoulder than the others didn’t even try to hide his sneer.

  “I see you’ve already begun combat operations. We had a deal, Colonel. You were going to keep us in the loop every step of the way. How am I supposed to stay neutral if I don’t know what’s going on?”

  Trufflefoot waved off the waiter leaning over his shoulder, trying to top off his glass. As soon as the man scurried away, Trufflefoot slapped both his hands on the table. All the Flag Officers curled up their eyebrows at the rare steel in the professor’s voice.

  “With all due respect, General Darlain, it’s time for you fucking cowards to get off your asses. We need more than just neutrality. We want your active cooperation.”


  The four-star General tapped a wad of tobacco down his pipe and spoke. “Watch your tongue, sir. You need us more than we need you. If you pull off a successful landing, then we’ll stand down and refuse to take sides. Once De Gaulle has landed, we can negotiate further involvement in other…”

  Kat cut him off while threading a steak knife from her thumb to pinky. “This is not a request. You will take sides. You’re not going to tell your men to put down their weapons. You’re going to turn them on the Krauts. Starting right now.”

  “Or what?” The General fired up his pipe and coughed on his laugh. “You’re going to tell Eisenhower to consider all French forces hostile? Enough with the childish threats. This is beneath an Englishman’s, or supposed Lady’s, dignity. You need our help to make this second front a reality, just as much as we need yours to throw off the German jackboots.”

  Trufflefoot reached out and patted Kat’s wrist as she coiled up. “Correct as always, sir. Except this is no threat — quite the opposite. We’ll make sure everyone in the High Command appreciates the risk you’re taking by betraying the Third Reich and ordering all SS agents in the country executed. We’ll sing your praises all over the radio net.”

  Every Officer recoiled at the same time. The Head General bit into his pipe until it cracked. “So you want the Gestapo to do your dirty work? Well, if you insist on being so confrontational, then let me have a turn. I can have two full infantry divisions dug in on the beaches here by nightfall. If we stack enough American and British bodies on the beach, I’m sure the Germans will be quite forgiving.”

  After a good ten seconds of silence, Trufflefoot simply chuckled. “Jolly good. Perhaps you’re right. Apparently, I overestimated my bargaining power.” Trufflefoot rose and gave Darlain a little bow.

  “My apologies. With the renowned bravery of the French Army at your disposal, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble crushing the Americans. No matter how many tanks and bombers they have. The first wave hits in less than four hours, so we won’t have to wait long for your glorious victory. If we’re done here, have a good night, gentlemen.”