Georgi, Greenwalt, Jim Peters, Buck Taylor, Mike Post, and Paul Harrison would be out in the French countryside, after the dregs of Duffy’s army of punks. They would start north and south of Paris and work east, toward Ben’s position, working in a wedge-shaped march, with the point aimed at Geneva.

  “Therm,” Ben added, “Emil will stay with you. I don’t want to have to put up with him on this op.”

  “Thank you so very much, Ben.”

  “You’re welcome. Let’s get this circus moving.”

  The steel wall of secrecy came down with a bang. The press knew something was up, they just didn’t know what. And those in the know weren’t talking.

  Ben had long held the opinion that no military campaign could be completely successful as long as the press was in any way involved. His philosophy was to win the war first and then invite the press to visit. Ben was of the opinion that for years the majority of America’s press had hated the military and would stop at nothing to criticize, belittle, and nitpick anything the military did. And so far the majority of the press had done nothing to lessen that opinion.

  The head of meteorology had some good news. “The way it looks now, we feel you’re going to have about three days of excellent weather, General. The next two days will show a gradual deterioration, then snow.”

  Ben told the batt coms who were jumping in with him, “One day to take the airport, two days to gather the air-dropped supplies, two days to get the runways in shape.” He smiled at Thermopolis. “Would you like to jump in with us, Therm?”

  “No, I most certainly would not!” Therm said quickly. “But thank you so very much for the invitation.”

  Therm beat it out of the ready room and back to his own operations building. Throwing his body out of a perfectly good airplane held absolutely no appeal for Thermopolis.

  “We don’t have enough planes to drop five full battalions in at once,” Ben was told. “Not with supply drops as well. We can drop two battalions in with supplies, then two more that afternoon, then two more the next day. Sorry, General.”

  Ben had already figured that out. There was nothing he could do about it. “My I Batt and Dan’s 3 Batt will go in first, followed that afternoon by Buddy’s special ops group and West’s 4 Batt. At dawn the next morning, Danjou’s 7 Batt and Jackie’s 12 Batt will come in. The pathfinders are in place. They HALOed in. (High Altitude, Low Opening.) They’ll smoke the DZ. We go in tomorrow morning. That’s it.”

  What press remained had gathered at both Orly and Charles de Gaulle airports. Ben and his people loaded up without a word and took off. At Ben’s instruction, the pilots headed due north and then cut toward Geneva. Helicopters were originally planned to be used to land troops, but much to the surprise of the weather prognosticators, the weather turned so bad the choppers were all but useless.

  “So much for modern science,” Jersey muttered, sitting next to Ben in the plane.

  “The weather around Geneva is good,” Ben told her. “Cold, but ideal for jumping.”

  “Wonderful,” Jersey replied with a total lack of enthusiasm. Jersey had never developed Ben’s love of jumping.

  Ben laughed at her and stood up, walking—waddling, with all the equipment he was carrying—to the rear door. It was not a long flight, and he was going to act as jumpmaster. He would be the last one out of the big transport.

  Ben sat down and waited for the crew chiefs signal.

  Duffy Williams sat and stared at the message just handed him. Ben Raines and about six or seven battalions were in the process of leaving the Paris area by transport plane. The spy had said the Rebels walked funny; looked like they were loaded down with so much gear they were bowlegged. Duffy, an ex-paratrooper, knew exactly what that meant. Airborne troops had to carry so much gear they appeared to be bowlegged under all the weight. That’s where the term straightleg came from. Any nonjumper was sometimes sarcastically referred to by paratroopers as a straightleg, or leg.

  So the Eagle himself was leading an airborne drop, Duffy mused. But where? The spy said all the planes headed north. North? Were the Rebels going to drop into Belgium? That had to be it. Couldn’t mean anything else. Good. His plan was working.

  The Judge in Geneva looked at the message just handed him by a runner from communications. Rebel paratroopers leaving Paris and heading north. North? That had to mean the Rebels had chosen to invade Brussels. Good. That could only mean the Rebels were not going to attack Switzerland until spring. That gave his people several more months to prepare for the invasion.

  The Judge looked over at the screaming, half-maddened child he’d been brought for lunch. A nice fat child. He smiled and reached for his knife.

  Ben received the signal from the crew chief. One minute to red light. “Stand up!” he shouted.

  The Rebels laboriously rose to their boots.

  “Check equipment!”

  Equipment checked. The rear gate lowered and a blast of frigid air swirled around the jumpers.

  “Hook up!” Ben shouted.

  The sticks on either side of the plane hooked their static lines to the wire.

  “Hey, boss!” Jersey shouted. “I forgot how to yodel. Do I get to stay in the plane?”

  Ben grinned at her, his eyes on the lights, waiting for the green. “Keep your feet together when you hit!” Ben shouted. “I don’t want any cracked spines.” It was an unnecessary command from an old paratrooper, for the chutes they were using allowed the jumpers to land easily, unlike the old models that left raspberries on the shoulders and sometimes promised a very hard landing.

  The green light popped on.

  “Go! Go! Go!” Ben shouted, and the lines shuffled forward toward the gaping rear of the plane.

  Static lines stretched tight and the chutes popped, the grunting of the jumpers at the opening shock lost in the cold air and the roaring of engines. Ben jumped into nothing, legs together, knees slightly bent, arms folded.

  The few creepies in the city of Geneva who were at street level could but stand and stare in disbelief at the hundreds of chutes that floated down to the ground—Rebels and equipment. By the time they recovered from their shock, several hundred Rebels were running through the snow toward the airport runways and terminal buildings.

  Jersey spilled too much air and landed wrong, the chute collapsing all over her. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” she hollered, her voice muffled under all the panels. “I hate jumpin’ out of airplanes.”

  Beth ran over to her and slashed at the lines with a jump knife, freeing the diminutive bodyguard. “Get me outta here, goddamnit!” Jersey shouted.

  Ben landed with a grunt just a few yards away from the cussing, hollering, kicking, and flailing Jersey . . . and laughing Beth. He grabbed up his equipment bag, uncorked his .223 CAR—he had opted for the lighter weapon because of its ease of handling—and ran over to Beth and Jersey just as Jersey was struggling to her boots.

  “Let’s go, short-stuff!” Ben shouted, and took off for the airport, his team right behind him.

  Dan and his people had landed south of the city, the River Rhone between Ben and his group.

  The first Rebels had jumped in with only light machine guns, a few mortars, and three days of rations. The heavier .50’s and other gear would be coming in about fifteen minutes behind them. Teams of Rebels would be jumping in just seconds behind the equipment, to unpack and set up. It was a dangerous drop, and Ben knew it, but it had to be done.

  The airport was three miles from the city. It was going to be dicey. Very dicey.

  “They’re down!” The word was shouted to Ike. “Looks like everyone made it in okay.”

  “It was a complete surprise.” Another shout brought a smile to Ike’s lips.

  But the smile quickly faded. “Estimates say there are probably eight to ten thousand creeps in and around that city,” he said to no one in particular. “It’s goin’ be chancy as hell until Buddy and West get on the ground.”

  “I hope this doesn’t turn out to be one town too far,” Tina said, a grim expression on her beautiful face, after looking at a map and silently counting the miles between Paris and Geneva.

  “Yeah,” was all Ike said in reply.

  Cooper was carrying a SAW (squad automatic weapon). A 5.56-mm machine gun with an effective range of about 1200 meters. The SAW utilized a 200-round magazine, and Cooper was carrying two more of those. Corrie was carrying another mag for the SAW, and Jersey and Ben each carried a full mag for the weapon. The Rebels were literally staggering under the weight of weapons and ammo.

  Cooper bi-podded the SAW and fell down in the snow as a line of creeps ran toward them. The line crumpled and went down under the hail of 5.56 lead, and the snow turned technicolor. Cooper was on his feet and running before the death kicks stopped.

  Bloop tubes fitted under the barrels of M-16’s blooped out their 40-mm grenades, and more lines of creepies went down as the Rebels clawed their way toward the tarmac. The Rebels ran through the bloody snow.

  Across the river Dan and his 3 Batt were on the edge of town and setting up a holding position. The transport planes were hammering their way back to Paris, where Buddy and West and their batts were impatiently waiting on the tarmac.

  By now the press knew a big op was in progress, but they could not get a word out of anybody. They finally decided it had to be Brussels and reported it. Then they saw the transports returning from the east and started cussing. Suddenly P-51E’s screamed overhead, traveling at more than 500 mph, heading east, carrying a tremendous payload.

  “What the hell is going on?” Paul Carson yelled.

  Kathy Bonham shrugged her shoulders. “Typical Ben Raines,” she said.

  The newly built and highly modified Mustangs began taking out the bridges that crossed the Rhone River. They took out every bridge except the double span that connected Place Bel-Air with Quai des Bergues. Then a squadron banked and came in low over the airport, the .50-caliber guns yammering and making a big bloody mess of the creepies trying to cross the runways to stop Ben’s 1 Batt. The pilots did not use their cannon for fear of further damaging the runaways. As it stood now, it was going to be a massive undertaking for the thin ranks of Rebels to clear away all the debris now littering the runways . . . in the time Ben had alloted for them to work.

  These were the traditional Night People, hooded and robed, and the pilots had no difficulty in telling the good guys from the bad guys. And as Ben quickly found out, they shared one other thing with their brothers and sisters in cannibalism: They stank like buzzard puke.

  Ben ran into a building on the outer edge of the airport, his team right behind him, and came face to face with several creepies. He lifted his CAR and pulled the trigger back and held it, letting the .223 slugs howl and spit. Jersey stepped up and added her M-16, as did Beth with her CAR. The creepies flopped on the dirty floor and died.

  “Phew!” Beth said, wrinkling her nose. “Some things never change, do they?”

  Cooper came panting up with his SAW, and Ben pointed to a shattered window. “Set up there, Coop, and keep a good eye out. We’ll toss these bodies outside.” That done, Ben turned to Corrie. “Bump Dan and get a situation report.”

  After a few moments, she said, “Great. No one hurt and advancing on schedule. We took them by surprise on both ends of town.”

  “But the element of surprise is gone now,” Jersey said. “Now it comes down to holding what we have.”

  “And here they come!” Cooper yelled.

  Four

  None of the Rebels had ever been able to ascertain why the Night People were so infatuated with airports. But they seemed drawn to them like steel shavings to a magnet. And this airport was no different. The creeps poured out of buildings, met the Rebels, and died in the snow and on the tarmac.

  The fight for the airport was savage but relatively brief, for the other creeps in the city thought they were being attacked on all sides by thousands of troops—another of Ben’s ideas. When the jumpers had left the planes, the pilots did a slow circle of the outer edges of the city with crew members tossing out canisters of smoke and napalm that exploded upon contact with the ground, sending the creepies in the city into a wild panic, running in all directions instead of beefing up the two points that were being attacked.

  By nine o’clock in the morning the airport was in firm Rebel hands. Snipers armed with .50-caliber rifles were on the high ground and on rooftops, patrols were out against infiltration, and Ben was positioning his 1 Batt for an attack that never came.

  Dan had dug his 3 Batt in tight just inside the city proper and was bracing for a counterattack . . . that never came in full force that morning.

  “I wonder why the flesh-eating savages are waiting?” Dan radioed Ben. In the distance the sounds of delayed-action bombs boomed. About half of the bombs dropped after the jump were set to go off all during the morning, further confusing the creeps.

  “I don’t know,” Ben replied. “I’m just glad they are.” He checked his watch. Three hours max until Buddy and West dropped in.

  And there was no guarantee that Duffy would take the false bait and not try an end around.

  “Approximately four hundred kilometers from Paris to Geneva,” Beth said. “Figuring ground time to load, the planes just might be back here way ahead of planned schedule.”

  Ben nodded his head. “We can always hope.”

  The pilots poured it on, and the second drop was ninety minutes ahead of schedule. Much to the delight of the worried Rebels north and south of the city, and much to the chagrin of the creeps in the city, just before noon the skies around the city were filled with blossoming chutes.

  Buddy and his 8 Batt linked up with his father, and West and his 4 Batt beefed up Dan’s troops on the other side of the river.

  “Just as soon as Jackie and Danjou are on the ground tomorrow,” Ben said to Corrie, “bump Ike and have him release the news to the press.” He chuckled. “Then we’ll see what Duffy does next.”

  The creeps tried several night attacks against the Rebels, but the commanders had anticipated that and threw them back with superior firepower and ruthless fighting ability.

  Just after dawn, when the creepies in the city saw two more full battalions of Rebels fill the faintly blue skies, they knew it was all over for them. The Night People had never successfully met the Rebels . . . anywhere in the world.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” a reporter said, after reading the press release from Ike. “Eight full battalions of Rebels have linked up with resistance fighters from Germany, Switzerland, and Italy and thrown up a north/south line. They’ve got Duffy and his people in a box.”

  “We’re fucked!” Duffy said, after reading the communiqué from his communications people. “That bastard Ben Raines saw through it and beat us to the punch.”

  “Now what happens?” another reporter asked.

  “Damn good question,” Ben responded to Jersey’s inquiry. “If Duffy figures out this is all one big bluff, we could be in very real trouble.”

  “Would you believe this town was first settled by people twenty-five hundred years before Christ?” Beth said, reading from an old tourist pamphlet.

  “The Celts settled here about 100 B.C.,” Ben replied. “Various tribes and countries have been fighting over this area for several thousand years.”

  “And here we are,” Cooper said. “Stone axes and bows and arrows have been replaced by automatic weapons and airplanes.”

  “That’s good, Coop,” Jersey said. “Very good. You do have a brain after all. I’ve been wondering about that for years.”

  “Let’s get this town cleaned out,” Ben said, putting an end to it.

  The runways were ready to receive planes: Huge transports began landing, disgorging Hummers, APCs, tanks, and all the other supplies needed to wage war. Reporters tried to hitch rides on the planes, to no avail. At Ben’s orders, this new front was off-limits to the press.

  Street by street the Rebels began taking Geneva from the Night People.

  But to the east of Ben, there was trouble waiting that he knew nothing about—yet.

  “Bruno Bottger,” Mike Richards said, taking a seat in Ben’s temporary CP.

  “Who?” Ben looked up.

  “Self-styled Nazi and head of the new Reich. Bruno Bottger. He and his followers have just overthrown the new government of Germany, and they are the powers to be reckoned with. Bruno is a former skinhead and commander of an army thought to be from 75,000 to 125,000 strong. Well armed, disciplined, and ready to fight for their beliefs.”

  Ben tossed his pencil to the desk and stared at Mike for a moment. “You have any more surprises for me, Mike?”

  “I’m just getting started. I told you Bruno Bottger was a former skinhead. When he was twenty, he gave it all up and renounced the movement. Then he went to college, got his degree, and enlisted in the army. He was quickly chosen for the German equivalent of our OCS. Made top grades all the way through, and promotions came quickly for him. He was a captain when the balloon went up.”

  Ben felt a sick feeling start growing in the pit of his stomach. “Those German troops who came over to help us against Hoffman?”4

  “We don’t know. We think they’re dead, Ben. All of them that Bruno could round up.”

  Ben rubbed his face with his big, hard hands. He felt suddenly depressed. He thought of those brave men of the GSG-9 who had traveled so far to aid the Rebels. Colonel Lenz, Major Streicher, Major Dietl, and all the others.

  “Bruno killed them, or had them killed?”

  “We think so. We think he’d taken them prisoner when he made his bid to seize power, and when he learned the Rebels had been named the World Stabilization Force, he had them all shot.”

  “I feel like puking.”

  “Yeah. I do know the feeling.”

  “Lenz and some of the others were going to stay with me and join up. They talked about it; they really wanted to stay and fight with us. But love of country pulled them back to Germany. They all talked with me at length. And to a man they were afraid something like this was going to happen.” Ben shook his head and looked down at a map for a moment, then lifted his eyes to Mike. “I probably know the answer, but I have to ask: The Jews in Germany?”