Invasion: New York

-6- Lake Ontario

“Watch him,” Paul whispered. “I’m thinking we need to get this Kraut back to HQ alive.”

First Sergeant Kavanagh had been gauging Hans Kruger. The drone operator had collected gear and data with an obviously careful eye. The thin German had acted scared, he might even have whizzed himself during the firefight. Yet that didn’t instantly disqualify the enemy soldier in Paul’s eyes. Many men voided themselves in combat.

The human body was a funny thing. In the heat and squalor of combat, events seldom resolved themselves as they did in the movies. Men smelling worse than a urinal could perform acts of bravery. A mousey guy might end up doing the strangest and bravest things. A big lug of a man sometimes folded under pressure and broke down weeping.

Hans Kruger was a survivor. That was clear to Paul. If it took cowardice, this Kruger would play the coward. Yet if it called for a moment of great courage—and that was the only way to get out alive—then Paul suspected this GD mouse might become a momentary lion.

One should never figure he fully understood a fellow human being. Unlike leopards, people could change their spots, especially when it became a matter of life and death.

“Watch him do what?” Romo asked.

Paul adjusted his web belt. His blood brother couldn’t take the Kraut seriously, not after the man’s sniveling. That could be a mistake. You never knew out here.

“Keep an eye on him,” Paul said. “We don’t want to lose this guy because he gets away or because he does something half-brave and we’re forced to kill him.”

“Watch him,” Romo said, with a shake of his head. He shoved their captive just under his neck, propelling the German out of the slaughterhouse.

Paul followed warily. He’d noticed the Kraut listening to their words. That’s why he’d said what he just had. This Hun seemed to know his stuff, his remote-controlling gear, anyway. Paul bet someone back home would want to pick this Kraut’s brain. General Zelazny had believed so.

Darkness still held over Toronto. The big artillery pieces had stopped firing. Dawn—Paul checked his watch—was only forty-five minutes away. Combat was a funny beast. Time moved strangely during it, both slower and faster. Go figure. Still, forty-five minutes of darkness left. That wasn’t much time to get away and hide.

Paul stared at Lake Ontario. Where could they hide? The rear areas would soon be crawling with the enemy. He needed to get Hans Kruger back to American lines. The soldier had data, and he carried special equipment.

“We have to use the one-time pad,” Paul said.

Romo and the Kraut turned toward him.

“That’s the only way back home that I can see,” Paul said, pointing at the lake.

“You’re crazy, my friend,” Romo said. “The Germans have hovercraft and planes. We’ll never row across in time before they spot us.”

“You see the lake,” Paul said. “You see how big it is and that the far coast is ours?”

“Si,” Romo said.

“I’m guessing we have assets in it or on it,” Paul said. “Assets that can help us.”

Romo squinted. “No! I don’t want anything to do with submarines. I’ve seen K19 and other old war movies. Submarines are deathtraps. If we try to hide in one, the Germans will find and sink us. I know it.”

“We’re sure not going to hoof it home through these city streets,” Paul said.

“Amigo, have you been watching this time around? The Germans can figure out everything fancy. They have us beaten that way. We had to go back to straight infantry fighting to win this round. You stick to what works, si? Submarines—” Romo shuddered.

Paul knelt as he slipped off his rucksack. “We have to get him back right away. We may be the only ones who captured a drone operator.”

“Maybe—” Hans said in his slow English.

“Shut up!” Romo said, shoving the German’s head. “No one is asking you anything.”

The tall German hunched his shoulders, falling silent.

As he pulled out the one-time pad, Paul said, “Better handcuff him just in case.”

Romo pulled out plastic ties and bound the German’s wrists behind his back. He did it hard, so the plastic dug into the flesh.

Paul readied the one-time pad, put earphones over his head and readied the microphone. Then he gave a short-burst transmission, both to burn through any enemy jamming and to make it harder for the GD signals people to pinpoint them.

He waited for HQ to think about his question. Crickets chirped now that the artillery had fallen silent. The second ticked by. Paul knew their covering darkness would lift far too soon.

After several minutes, he received a return message. After ingesting what they’d said, he nodded to himself. Romo wasn’t going to like this. Paul didn’t know if he liked it himself. Time was running out for them, and once the sun rose—

He stowed the one-time pad back into the rucksack, shrugged the pack on and stood. “Are you ready?” he asked Romo.

“What’s the plan?” his blood brother asked.

“What I thought it would be,” Paul said.

Romo scowled. “Are you talking about water and subs?”

“Yeah,” Paul said. The last time he’d entered a sub had been off the waters of Hawaii. The Chinese had chased his team off the beach and nearly sunk the escape dinghy. Those had been ocean waters, much deeper he was sure than Lake Ontario. What kind of submarine could America have in the lake anyway? As far as he knew, the Great Lakes had been demilitarized…maybe until the GD invasion.

Guess we’ll find out what kind of sub.

Paul motioned at the lakeshore. Romo shoved a handcuffed Hans Kruger in that direction. Then the three of them set out for the lapping waves.

“I just thought of something,” Romo said.

“Yeah?”

“What do we use for a boat?”

“You’re not going to believe it,” Paul said.

“It’s that bad?”

“No,” Paul said. “But it means we’re going to be working hard for the next hour.”

Romo glanced at him. “Paddling? We’re going to paddle our way into the middle of the lake to die?”

“Yes and no.”

Romo raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Yes, we’re going to paddle for the middle of the lake,” Paul said. “No, I hope we’re not heading for our deaths.”

Before Romo could reply, the two LRSU men looked up. A noise in the distance, in the dark sky…helos, enemy gunships were coming.

“Put on your night vision goggles,” Paul said. They both put on their pairs. “You ready?”

For an answer, Romo slung his assault rifle over a shoulder.

Paul did the same with his rifle. Then each man grabbed one of Kruger’s arms, and they hustled their captive toward the shoreline.

In one particular, Captain Darius Green was unfit for the cramped command of the carbon fiber submersible. He was huge, a solid two-sixty in weight and six-nine in height. How anyone had ever seen fit to commission him here boggled the thoughts of anyone who gave it even a moment’s consideration.

The truth was that no man or woman had made such a decision. Navy protocol and computer errors had seen to it. Darius Green was a competent naval officer, but he had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’d been to submarine school—that had been another computer error. His size simply made his appointment to the submersible a poor choice. Despite that, he’d worked hard to figure out the limits of his strange vessel.

Darius Green was a black man who had been born into the concrete, bankrupt jungle of Detroit. His father had run with the drug gangs, his grandfathers on both sides had been gangbangers. One died early in a turf war. The other died in prison. Darius Green had never met either of his grandfathers. He’d also never met his father, as the man had disappeared one night, presumed dead. His mother would have raised Darius if she’d been given the chance, but his uncle hadn’t let her. His dad’s brother had joined the Black Muslims of the Mustafa School. The man had known far too much about the ghettoes of Detroit.

So one day—Darius could still remember it—Cyrus Green had put Darius on his shoulder and marched outside to a waiting motorcycle. Darius had held onto his uncle’s back the entire trip to Chicago. The gangs had been just as bad there, but Uncle Cyrus had moved into a Black Muslim compound. He’d been a foot soldier in the Mustafa School movement. From Darius’s youth on, Uncle Cyrus had made sure he had discipline.

Darius practiced karate, reading the Koran and math. Uncle Cyrus had liberally used a leather belt on him and he’d beaten the lying and slothfulness out of Darius. Uncle Cyrus had died several years later, never getting to see Darius graduate from the compound’s high school.

His uncle’s death and the graduation had been many years ago. At this point in the war, Darius Green was thirty-two years old, a giant of a man with fierce convictions. He believed in the Mustafa School, Black Muslim movement, and he believed in the betterment of the black man by relying on his own hard work. He also knew that invaders came to steal his country, and he could work with the American white man to defend their united home. It hadn’t always been easy for Darius Green, but he’d taken his uncle’s dream and had made it his own.

Captain Green knew the USS Kiowa wasn’t much of a fighting submersible. It had four upgraded Javelin missiles on a single outer mount: the mount was in the place of where an old naval gun would have been on a WWII-era submarine. Kiowa lacked torpedoes of any kind. It wasn’t that kind of submersible, and frankly, it wasn’t big enough to carry internal torpedoes.

The truth was that only a few submarines had ever cruised in the Great Lakes. Most of those had patrolled the waters during WWII, the vessels built in port cities along the lakeshores. To go from the ocean to the Great Lakes took a long and torturous route. A submarine or a regular ship, for that matter, would first have to travel up the Saint Lawrence River. Then, like a salmon leaping its way upstream, a ship or sub would enter locks, traveling higher each time until finally it would be high enough to slip into Lake Ontario.

The difficulty meant that the GD hovercraft ruled the lake. The few exceptions were some converted US speedboats.

The USS Kiowa was a unique craft. It had begun its existence as a drug smuggling submersible. Several years before the war, US Customs had spotted the craft and swooped down with helicopters. Usually, the drug cartel members sank such a submersible. It only took a minute or two to scuttle the thing. The cargo went to the bottom, and as there was no evidence, there would be no conviction of drug smuggling. But this time, US Customs had caught the tiny three-man crew, and had captured the submersible. The machine had sat in dry dock for several years, used as a training aid. With the commencement last year of war, the Navy had commissioned the vessel, renaming it and outfitting it with military equipment.

Captain Green had one crew member and the situation aboard ship was cramped. He was too big to sit down properly in the head, having to lift his knees up in a disgraceful manner. The sub seldom stayed out for more than one night.

As the captain stood at his place before the radio, carefully hunched over so he didn’t bump his head, he blinked in astonishment at the message. The brass hats wanted him to surface during daylight and pick up a rubber dinghy full of fugitives. In his knowledgeable opinion, they were ordering him far too close to the GD-held shore during daylight.

“They’re killing us,” the first mate said, a short man by the name of Sulu Khan. “I don’t know why they think it’s wise, but they’re killing us.”

The last man aboard USS Kiowa was a wounded SEAL with a bloody bandage over his left eye. He lay propped out of the way. He was the only survivor from last night’s mission.

That’s what Captain Green did, run secret ops against the enemy. So far, he had successfully landed five teams against the Expeditionary Force. He did not take any undue risks, as operating in Lake Ontario against the high-tech Germans was hazardous enough.

“What are you thinking, Captain?” Sulu Khan asked. “Are we going to follow such madness to the letter?”

Captain Green’s nostrils flared. Surfacing during daylight to pick up rowing fugitives—by the sound of it, the GD hunted these three.

“They’re killing us,” Sulu repeated. He was a talkative fellow. “They’re killing us by this.”

It wasn’t duty to Uncle Sam that caused Captain Green to turn to the helm. He had discipline. The laws of the Prophet had taught him to lay down his life for his people if the need ever arose. Well, if the US fell to the GD, it was only a matter of time before the invaders reached Chicago. If how the enemy acted in North Africa toward Muslims were any gauge, the invading Europeans would destroy the Mustafa School in Chicago. According to High Command, the people in the dinghy carried vital information for the successful prosecution of the war.

Captain Green turned his hard-muscled bulk toward the helm. He had a large face with large features. His total largeness made the submersible seem even smaller than it was.

“If anyone does any killing today,” he said, “it is going to be me.” Darius Green spoke in an ultra-deep voice than seemed to rumble through a man’s body.

“Our Javelins against GD hovers…?” Sulu asked. “Begging your pardon, Captain—”

“That’s it. I’ve already decided.”

The short first mate stared at his captain.

Green became thoughtful. His were not just any Javelin missiles, but highly modified ones. Darius knew how GD officers thought. They were arrogant. He’d especially heard about the hover pilots. They were even more arrogant than the usual run of GD personnel. He did not believe the Germans would expect a submersible out here in Lake Ontario. Even better, they would not expect one with teeth, not the kind of teeth he possessed. If they tried to interfere with him, he would pray to Allah, aim the Javelins and send the hovers to the Hell they so richly deserved. In truth, he was more than a little tired of simply sneaking soldiers onto the enemy-held shore. He wanted to hurt the enemy himself.

“We have work to do,” Captain Green said. “So let’s start doing it.”

Sulu Khan studied his captain. “Aye, aye, sir,” the short man finally said. “It will be as you say.”

General Mansfeld wanted to pace in front of the battle screen. He understood it now: the reason for the seemingly senseless American frontal assault. He’d trapped powerful American formations in Greater Toronto, digesting them piece by piece. The remainder should have hunkered down, trying to survive for as long as possible.

It had been that way at Stalingrad during WWII. Field Marshal Paulus had tied down large Soviet formations by keeping the German Sixth Army defending for as long as they had. During that time, the entire German Southern Front had desperately sought to plug the rupture caused by Soviet Operation Uranus. What few people realized was that Stalin had attempted to net the entire German Southern Front that winter. The sacrifice of Sixth Army at Stalingrad had helped save the others—at least for another year.

That’s what the Americans in Toronto should have logically attempted. At least, that had been his—Mansfeld’s—belief until a few minutes ago. The American commander in Toronto had been cleverer than he realized. Who would have thought such a thing? Of all Americans, US Marines had a reputation of thinking the most with their balls and the least with their brains, including their generals. It was the nature of the beast. Marines were assault troops. Such combatants needed courage and ferocity above all else.

Yet… Mansfeld tapped the computer console. The Americans had staved off last winter’s defeat through cunning as much as through their fighting abilities. He should have remembered that.

The Marine general had gambled. The man must have initiated the full assault in order to slip elite US soldiers behind GD lines. General Mansfeld shook his head. One could hardly even call that a gamble. Gambles had a greater chance of success. This had been more like the last gasp of a dying man. Yet as galling as it was to admit, the gamble had been the correct thing to do.

A captain marched up and saluted him. The man stank of stale sweat, having been up for twenty-four hours already.

Mansfeld stared at the officer, finally giving him the barest of nods.

“General,” the captain said, “I beg to report that there is no one left alive in the 10th PGB controlling station.”

“Continue,” Mansfeld said.

“It appears that a squad of American commandos surprised them, sir. The lieutenant in charge of the investigation reports missing equipment.”

Mansfeld pressed his lips together. What would he do if he were the American commandos? Hmm, of course: they would do the obvious. “Did the commandos head for the water?”

The captain appeared surprised. “Yes, sir, that is correct. How did you know, sir?”

“You have ordered jets and hovercraft to sweep the lake?”

The captain bobbed his head, coughing discreetly. “Begging your pardon, sir, but you have given strict orders about how our hovers are supposed to and not supposed to use the lake.”

Mansfeld had indeed given such instructions. He didn’t want to give away the second invasion route too soon. If the Americans realized the extent of the GD amphibious capabilities…they might harden the Lake Ontario New York shoreline defenses. Hmm… The captain had a point. This officer thought things through.

“Use five Galahads,” Mansfeld said, “and three UAVs. That should be sufficient.”

“How far into Lake Ontario do you want to them to search, sir?”

“Either they kill the commandos—all of them,” Mansfeld said. “Or I give the Americans leave to kill them.”

“Sir?” the captain asked.

“This is a priority mission, Captain. They are not to try, but to do. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” the captain said.

“Make sure you put a good hovercraft team on this. I want to see the bodies, the commandos. And I want to see what sort of information they were able to find.”

“Yes, sir,” the captain said.

“You will keep me informed.”

The captain saluted and hurried away.

Mansfeld put his hands behind his back and peered at the battle screen. His forces pounded the shrinking Toronto Pocket. It should be a matter of days now. The trapped Americans had expended themselves last night. Once he dug them out of there, the drive to Detroit would commence in full fury.

Paul paddled a small rubber dinghy over choppy water. Romo knelt beside him so their left and right thighs touched and his friend likewise paddled. The two LRSU men sweated in the brisk air. Behind them on the horizon, Toronto was a disappearing smudge.

Because of searching enemy helos earlier, they had gotten a late start. Finally, the helos had either touched down or swept along the shorelines in either direction. Paul and Romo had launched the dinghy then and paddled as swiftly as they could.

The captive lay on his belly, with his hands tied behind his back. He lay there wide-eyed, listening to everything that went on around him. They’d bagged the equipment in plastic, wrapping each piece and taping them tightly. Included among their booty were two GD one-man portable antiair missiles. Each launch tube and missile weighed fifty pounds, adding another hundred to the small craft.

Paul’s shoulders ached and the air burned down his throat. Every once in a while he flung his head to the side in order to toss sweat outward instead of letting it trickle into his eyes.

“Take five,” a winded Kavanagh said.

Both men set down their paddles, and the dinghy bobbed in the water.

The five Great Lakes combined to make the largest fresh body of water in the world. Together, they contained twenty-one percent of the world’s surface fresh water. The total surface area was 94,250 square miles, and it made up 10,500 miles of shoreline. That was roughly half of the Earth’s equator. Many Americans referred to the Great Lakes shoreline as the North Coast or as the Third Coast.

Although he just wanted to sit and recoup, Paul dug into his kit and chewed on another two aspirins. He needed these more often these days for too many aches and pains. He thought of aspirin as lubricants for his joints. They helped him keep going and they helped him push injured muscles. He grimaced to himself. He had two pieces of advice to anyone who wanted to be a LRSU man or who wanted to join Marine Recon. Those two pieces were 1) don’t ever get injured and 2) don’t get old. If a person followed just those two rules, he should do well in the service.

Romo glanced nervously over the side of the dinghy and into the green water. He shuddered and quickly looked away. “Drop me from the sky,” he muttered, “no problem. Send me through minefields or behind enemy lines, who cares? But ask me to float above miles of water… My friend, this is a terrible thing we’re doing.”

“It isn’t miles,” Paul said.

“It is enough to drown in.”

“Yeah,” Paul said. “I guess it is that.”

Romo let go of his paddle, put the palms of his hands on his thighs and looked up into the brightening sky. The sun had been climbing now for fifteen minutes. If felt as if the world woke up from yet another long night.

“We will die out here,” the Free Mexico assassin said.

“It’s possible,” Paul admitted.

Romo glanced at him. “It’s not comfort hearing that.”

“It’s possible you could die out here,” Paul said. “But me on the other hand, I have an oath to keep and therefore I’m off limits.”

“An oath to your wife?” Romo asked.

“Si,” Paul said, and he let a grin slide onto his face. He wished Romo would relax. The man’s nervousness was making him edgy. The slap of waves against the dinghy reminded him of better times. The sound of water dripping off his oars relaxed him.

The assassin went back to staring at the sky. He features became leaden, almost blank. Paul wondered what was wrong now. Then Romo began to speak in a low, flat voice:

“I had a woman once.”

Paul had been about ready to say that their rest time was over; time to paddle again. But there was something in his blood brother’s voice that stopped him.

“My woman was beautiful,” Romo said. Almost unconsciously, it seemed, the Mexican Apache lifted his hands and made wavy curves in the air to show a woman’s contours. “I loved her. I went to see her every weekend, at least. That was before I joined Colonel Valdez. We would go to the city and party, dancing, laughing and seeing the shows. There were casinos…” Romo turned to Paul. “She had luck in her breath. I know you’ll laugh at that, but it was true. Whenever she blew on the dice, I won. Later…” Romo stared out over the lake.

“What happened?” Paul asked.

“What always happens?”

“You marry the woman and live happily ever after.”

“I’m not Paul Kavanagh,” Romo said. “I was just a stupid Army soldier in love with the wrong kind of woman. She loved money, and although I took bribes and skimmed from my colonel, I did not have enough to satisfy her. No, my friend, she found a cartel gunman who gave her jewelry, furs and fancy meals. She cheated behind my back. I must have known, but I didn’t want to know. Do you know what I mean?”

“Sure,” Paul said.

Romo sighed. “I loved her like you couldn’t believe. I slipped away sometimes and risked going AWOL. But I had money like I said. I knew whom to bribe in order to sell armored cars, machine guns—you name it. One night, I was going to surprise her. I drove two hundred miles to the city and went to her favorite bar. There, as I waited in the shadows, I saw her on the arms of the cartel gunman. They laughed, and he would take her chin just so, turn her head and kiss her on the lips. I watched, and I became enraged with jealousy. Instead of marching to her and confronting them, I waited. Something changed in me that night. Something shriveled in my heart and began…I don’t know.”

“What happened?” Paul asked.

“I followed them through the city. It was easy. First, I went to my car and took my gun. I waited until they went to a hotel room and I crept under a window outside their room. How stupid is that? I heard them, of course. What had I been expecting? The two made love. You have no idea how much I loved her, how much I waited each day, longing to touch her silky skin.”

Romo shook his head. “I went crazy. How do you say it? I lost my mind. In the end, I pulled out my gun, kicked in the door and shot the cartel man in the chest. She screamed, and I aimed my gun at her. I don’t know. I didn’t really plan it. I wanted to scare her so badly, and I was yelling. The next thing I knew I heard a boom. It was the loudest sound of my life. I had shot her in the throat. It was an accident. I hadn’t meant to. But, but, I think the crazy side of me had wanted to teach her a lesson she would never forget. It was I who never forgot.”

As the lake’s waves bobbed the dinghy, Romo glanced at Paul.

Kavanagh had half-expected tears in his friend’s eyes. Instead, the assassin’s eyes were bone dry, although there was a far-off look to them.

“I quit the Army,” Romo said. “How could I go back? I had killed the woman I loved. It stained me. It changed me. In the years to come, I became a contract killer. Then the civil war grew hot and the Chinese filled up Mexico. I know one thing, my friend. I have one trade, one single ability over any other. I can kill because I have a black heart. Sometimes I think about it, but I can never go back to being the man I was and to being a man who can love again.”

Paul had no idea what to say, so he remained silent.

“You have a rare gift in your wife and son,” Romo said quietly.

Paul nodded. He agreed with that. He’d fought for them and struggled hard, and he would die for them if he had to.

“Now out here on the lake I wonder if my sins have finally caught up with me,” Romo said. “I am floating above miles of seawater and—”

Paul turned because he heard a noise. Likely, Romo heard it too, because the assassin fell silent. The sound was unmistakable: the heavy fans of distant GD hovercraft.

“There,” Romo said, pointing back toward the smudge of Toronto. “They’ve found us. I was right. My sins have finally caught up with me. I am sorry you had to be here when it happened.”

Paul ground his teeth together, and he picked up his oar. “Start paddling.”

“Why?” Romo asked, almost in a listless voice. “We have no chance.”

“Because we don’t know if they’ve spotted us or not yet, you idiot,” Paul said. “We don’t have any electronic signatures for them to home in on. They just have their eyes and we’re extremely low on the water. Now start paddling.”

“I understand your words,” Romo said. “But where are we paddling to? I don’t see any submarine coming to our rescue.”

Paul glanced at his open compass. “We’re paddling for a rendezvous point. If we quit now, it’s a certainly that we’ll never reach it. But if we do paddle, there is always a chance we’ll make it.”

Romo sighed, and almost as an afterthought, he picked up his paddle. “I killed my woman, and through it I made a bargain with the Devil. He lets me be as I bring him more sacrifices. You, my friend, cherish your life because you have your woman and your son, and it gives your heart such fierce strength that the Devil doesn’t yet have the power to destroy you. Which of us made the better bargain?” Romo shrugged. “Yes, let us row and see if we can cheat the hangman one more time.”

“Good idea,” Paul said.

The two LRSU men dug their paddles into the choppy water, and once more, the dinghy surged toward the New York shore. The race was on, and the hovercraft had all the advantages.

Lieutenant Teddy Smith out of London piloted the Galahad 3C1 hover. The five machines of C Troop had spread out in a fan formation. Their number one machine—his—was on the farthest left of the formation.

The Galahad hovers were unique to the German Dominion military. They were fast, two-man craft, used as gadflies on any level terrain: plains, sea or ice. The commander piloted the craft, and most in the GD referred to him as a hover jockey. The other crew member was the gunner.

Sergeant Holloway had left his station and opened the outer hatch. His torso stuck out as he used high-powered binoculars to search for a boat full of enemy commandos.

Giant fans supplied the Galahad with lifting power. The machine boasted an armored skirt, an autoloading 76mm cannon firing rocket-assisted shells. It also had a 12.7mm machine gun for anti-infantry use. That made it similar to the Chinese hovers. The difference was in the smaller size, the advanced electronic gear and high-speed computers assisting in maneuver and mobile firing. The Galahads boasted greater speed than similar Chinese models, but much less armor.

Speed was the Galahad’s virtue, and aggressive tactics performed by bold young men.

Lieutenant Smith had the famous English courage. It had once allowed the tiny country to rule an inordinate amount of the world just a little over a century and a half ago. Smith knew that Holloway had eyes like a seagull hunting for scraps. If the Americans were near, the sergeant would spot them.

At that moment, a ping alerted Smith, a new sound for him. The noise came from just under the screen. Their craft had a new addition: sonar. Like old American destroyers, they had a towed array to put the sonar far away from the noisy fans. Its main purpose was in locating mines, torpedoes and other underwater devices. They had been practicing over the water much more lately.

“Hello,” Smith said. He studied the sonar. He wasn’t seeing a metal object. Lieutenant Smith snapped his fingers. He’d read a GDN report three weeks ago. The Americans used carbon fiber submersibles. Could the Americans have stationed such a submersible in Lake Ontario? By the sonar-pings he was picking up, the answer must be yes.

“Think you can hide from a Jack Tar, do you? I’m thinking not.” Smith leaned toward the hatch and the pair of legs standing in plain sight.

“Sergeant!” he shouted.

Holloway ducked down. The man’s brown hair was blown back on his head.

“See that?” Smith asked, pointing at the sonar screen.

Holloway’s gaze took in the images, and he nodded.

Smith gave him the object’s coordinates. “Search in that direction and I’ll think you’ll find a small boat nearby.”

“Do you actually think we can take out a submarine?” Holloway asked.

Smith shook his head. “We won’t have to.” He picked up a microphone. “Our sauerkraut commander gave us air cover, remember? I’ll let the planes destroy the submarine while I call Johnny to bring in the rest of the troop.”

“Good thinking, Lieutenant.”

“Find those commandos,” Smith said. “We don’t want to lose them.” He chuckled dryly. “Now that we know where this sneaky bastard of a submersible is hiding, we’ll play the game to our tune.”

“Roger that,” Holloway said, giving a salute in the tight confines of the hover compartment before poking his torso back outside.

“General,” a captain said.

Walther Mansfeld sat outside on a fourth-story veranda, with his legs crossed as he smoked a cigarette. It was pretty out here in his immediate vicinity, with red, yellow and purple tulips. A cool breeze blew over devastated Ottawa, the captured capital of Canada. The tallest buildings were shells now, many with only one side. The Canadians had fought stubbornly here a few weeks ago, but had finally run out of ammunition and food. Those soldiers now languished in a prisoner of war camp in Newfoundland.

Several other officers sat at glass tables, with uniformed young women acting as waitresses. The soft murmuring from the tables continued even as the captain waited before his commanding general.

Mansfeld drew a deep breath of cigarette smoke into his lungs. Normally, he didn’t indulge. It was a vulgar habit and the nicotine overstimulated his mind. The commando attack behind the lines in Toronto troubled him. Right now he had a decisive edge over the Americans, but if they ever learned to jam enough drones well enough—he needed to begin reconfiguring the operational strategy, given better American electronic warfare. He had a feeling the Americans would win this little commando game this round. The optimum reconfiguration would include even greater speed of attack. The longer the campaign lasted, the more likely became the possibility of the Americans gleaning the information or components they needed to begin serious drone jamming.

The captain cleared his throat, and he moved nervously up and down on his feet.

First mashing out the half-smoked cigarette, Mansfeld looked up and said, “Yes?”

“The hover troop has spotted a submersible, General,” the captain said.

“Interesting,” Mansfeld said. He hadn’t expected that.

“We have three UAVs on task,” the captain said.

“Call in fighter-bombers,” Mansfeld said. “Destroy the submersible and capture the commandos. I want to discover what they know.”

The captain saluted and hurried back to the operations center.

Mansfeld glanced at the crushed cigarette, with smoke curling from the mashed end. He must nip this in the bud, and Army Group A must leap forward and capture Detroit, sealing the Southern Ontario Peninsula from the Americans. Then he would unleash the real attack and catch the enemy with their trousers around their ankles.

“Do you think they know we’re down here?” asked the first mate, Sulu Khan.

Captain Darius Green rested his big hands on either side of the screen. It showed ships in fuzzy red or blue shapes that pulsated as they moved. Deep scowl lines showed on his forehead. Two hovers waited out there, a little outside the range of his modified Javelins. If he surfaced, the hovers could swoop in fast.

“If they know we’re here,” Sulu said, “there might be more of them on their way. We have four missiles and that’s it, Captain.”

“They don’t know we’re down here,” Darius said. A hover wasn’t a destroyer or even an advanced patrol boat. Would a GD hover have underwater detection gear? It seemed unlikely.

Darius noticed Sulu glancing at him. Sweat beaded the small man’s forehead.

“How do you know they don’t know, sir?”

Darius grinned tightly. “What’s our boat made of?” he asked.

“Uh, carbon fiber, sir,” Sulu said.

“They can’t see carbon fiber on sonar or radar.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Our side couldn’t see us,” Darius said.

Sulu laughed weakly. “Hello, Captain. Where have you been the last few weeks? These Germans—”

Darius slapped one of his big hands against the console. “Keep a civil tongue in your head, mister, or I’ll make you wish that you had.”

Sulu gulped nervously before bobbing his head. “Yes Captain.”

“They don’t know we’re here,” Darius told him. “They must see the dinghy.”

“Uh… can I ask a question?”

Darius glanced at the little man.

“If the German can see the dinghy, why aren’t they swooping in to capture them?”

Darius rubbed his chin. He could reach the commandos in minutes. He hadn’t done so yet because those two hovers troubled him. Were the hovers waiting for backup?

“We don’t have a choice,” Darius finally said. “We’re surfacing and picking up the cargo.”

Sulu glanced at him sidelong, hesitating before saying: “I hope you know what you’re doing, Captain.”

“If you have any doubts, pray to Allah,” Darius said.

“Is that Navy regulations, sir?”

Darius sneered at Sulu. He was in the white man’s Navy, and he listened to most of the orders given him. But no man or woman could order or enforce the order for him to stop praying to Allah. There were some things outside the bounds of political entities or military law. They could task his body, but not his soul, never his soul.

“They’re making their play,” Smith said, as he watched the sonar.

Holloway sat in his gunner’s chair to the right, behind and above Smith. The gunner controlled both the 76mm cannon and the heavy machine gun.

Smith glanced back at his sergeant, grinning. “We have them.”

Holloway nodded tightly.

Smith faced forward again. The sergeant was good with his weapons, but the man was wound too tightly for comfort’s sake. It was as if they played rugby for his sister’s virginity. Holloway never smiled during action and said even less.

Smith picked up the microphone and alerted the operators controlling the UAVs. One patrolled almost overhead. The second sped here and the third was minutes away. There were fighter-bombers coming, too, but Smith doubted they would need the bigger planes. After switching off the UAV channel, he called his mates. The rest of the troop—the other three hovers—raced across the waves to join the two of them stationed here.

First wiping the palms of his hands across his trousers, Smith re-gripped the controls. The Galahads used speed, as they had little armor and no beehive flechettes to knock down incoming missiles or shells like the tanks did or the overrated Kaisers. The hovers could spew anti-radar packets and had a nifty jammer, but mainly they had the world’s best jockeys and the nimblest craft in any military.

“There’s a good fellow,” Smith said under his breath. “Get ready for the show.”

Paul lay flat in the bobbing dinghy, with his binoculars trained on the nearest hovercraft.

“They’re still out there,” Paul said.

“I see the bird,” Romo said.

Paul glanced at him. The assassin lay on his back, with his binoculars aimed at the sky.

“L-look,” Hans stuttered in English.

Paul and Romo glanced at their captive and then stared where he looked. Water stirred at the spot.

Romo cursed in Spanish.

Paul’s eyes widened. A blue-green submersible pushed out of the water, surfacing fifty feet away from them.

“I hope it’s ours,” Romo said.

“It is,” Paul said. “See the little flag over there?” An American flag had been painted on the craft.

“You have good eyesight for an old man,” Romo said.

A hatch opened on the submersible, and a man with a bloody bandage popped up. He waved at them, and shouted across the water.

Before answering, Paul resumed his former position and trained the binoculars on the hovers. They still haven’t moved. Could it be the hovers didn’t see them? No. He doubted that. The GD invaders played their own game.

“It’s coming,” Romo said.

Paul craned his neck, staring up into the sky. He looked in the general direction where Romo trained the binoculars. He saw it at the same instant he heard the distant whine. With his own binoculars, Paul looked up. A knot tightened in his gut. The UAV carried bombs or torpedoes.

Dropping the binoculars, pitching them a little too hard, Paul heard them plop. Damnit, he’d thrown them overboard. The binoculars sank out of view. He’d never get those pair back. Paul lunged and grabbed a GD portable antiair missile. While on his belly, he flipped open the control panel.

“It’s diving at us,” Romo said, with his binoculars still trained on it.

Paul twisted around and surged up to his knees. The rubber dinghy was an unstable platform and wobbled. Paul fought for balance and his fingers loosened their grip. If the missile went overboard like his binoculars…they’d never get out of his this one alive.

Their captive made gobbling noises.

The German understood their danger. Paul didn’t have time to shrug or worry. His fought for his balance, almost let go of the trigger, but brought the wobbling dinghy under enough control to stabilize himself. He settled the portable tube onto his right shoulder. The GD version was a lot like the latest Blowdart. First glancing back, Paul shifted his position a little. He had to make sure the back-blast didn’t destroy the rubber boat or flame one of them.

Clicking the controls, turning it on, Paul aimed upward and heard the beep. The thing was fast. It already had radar lock-on. “You little bastard,” Paul said under his breath. He eased his index finger against the trigger. This one resisted until suddenly it moved. The launcher shuddered and the missile popped out. A second later, the solid fuel rocket engaged, and orange fire flamed out the back. The missile climbed fast, heading up into the sky.

Not waiting to see what happened, Paul lurched to the second launcher. He began readying it, but raised his torso and the launcher slowly in order to keep his balance throughout the procedure.

An explosion sounded from the sky.

“Hit!” Romo shouted. “You destroyed it.”

Paul grinned savagely.

Romo dropped the binoculars and picked up an oar. He began paddling, working them closer to the waiting submersible and the SEAL shouting at them.

Paul aimed the last GD Blowdart. He searched until he had a beep. Then he waited.

“Fire,” Romo said, breathing hard as he paddled. “Fire the thing.”

Then Paul saw the second UAV. He nodded to himself, checked where the back-blast would go and shifted his position. He heard another radar lock-on beep and pulled the trigger. The rocket climbed.

Paul saw metallic flutters up there, a second’s flash in the sunlight. The UAV must have launched an anti-radar packet. He couldn’t do anything about that. Either the missile had good tech or—

Paul pitched aside the empty tube. He heard it plop into the water. Then he grabbed a paddle and dug the blade into the lake. The two LRSU men forced the dinghy closer to the waiting submersible.

“Do you think—” Romo shouted.

Before his blood brother could finish the thought, Paul heard an explosion in the sky.

Romo laughed, and he grinned at Paul. “We’re going to make it. We outfoxed them one more time.”

“Here’s hoping,” Paul said, and he dug the blade into the water with everything he was worth.

“It’s our game now,” Lieutenant Smith from London said. He’d just witnessed the destruction of two UAVs. “It’s up to us to finish it.”

“They’re cagey bastards,” Holloway said grimly.

“Neptune’s beard,” Smith said into the microphone, “a two-prong approach.”

“Roger,” Smith heard in his headphones. The lieutenant of the GDN Galahad 3/C/2 roared into battle with him.

“Ready the cannon,” Smith told Holloway.

“You can bet I have a present for them, sir.”

“I doubt they were expecting us,” Smith said. “Now we’re going to show them who has the rights to this batch of water. Rule Britannia,” he added.

Holloway didn’t answer as he squinted at his control screen.

“They had planes waiting,” Sulu shouted in the cramped compartment. “Now the hovers are going to get us.”

“Our guests have teeth,” Captain Green said. “I’ve told you before that Allah watches his own. Those were my prayers being answered.”

“Yes, sir,” Sulu said.

Captain Green laughed in a low-throated manner that had chilled pedestrians in Chicago before. “Let’s show the invaders that we are from the windy city and exactly what that means.”

“I’m not from Chicago,” Sulu said. “I’m from Springfield.”

Darius Green wasn’t listening. His eyes were on the control screen. He’d been waiting for something like this. The invaders had come a long ways to get to Lake Ontario. The Navy had given him a flimsy sub and an escort job. Allah hadn’t raised him to chauffer warriors to battle. He was a warrior. This was hardly his first battle, either, but he’d never fought with modern weapons before. In Chicago, he’d fought with fist, club and blade. Now he battled with missiles and wits.

“Look!” Sulu shouted. “There are more hovers on their way here.”

Darius’s eyes narrowed. He saw the blips. He had a decision to make and he needed to make it now. How many missiles did he use on each hover? Ideally, he should use one missile for each machine. But the GD vehicles, the GD military, had better tech, particularly electronics than America possessed.

Sighing heavily, Darius Green made his decision. He would have to trust to Allah to see him through. One thing he knew: he wanted to kill the enemy, not just wound them. That helped him make the decision.

“I’m ready,” Captain Green said. “Are you?”

Paul Kavanagh could have reached out and banged the submersible with his oar when the first modified Javelin launched.

“Jump!” the man with the bloody bandage shouted from the sub’s hatch. “We have to get out of here.”

“Just a little closer,” Paul told Romo. “None of this matters if we don’t get our prisoner and his equipment into the boat.”

“Jump!” the man shouted. “Jump! We have to leave.”

Together, Paul and Romo paddled, shoving the dinghy against the submersible’s side. Paul dropped his oar into the water, grabbed a rope and tossed it at the waiting sailor. The man grabbed and might have caught the rope. But at that moment, a second Javelin launched from the mount. The Navy man flinched at the hissing noise and the rope dropped out of his reach.

Romo paddled, and that twisted the dinghy, shoving it against the submersible and then pushing them away.

Paul coiled the rope madly.

With his hands behind his back, Hans Kruger twisted around to watch the hovers. He swore in German, and he seemed to be weighing odds. Maybe he was thinking about jumping overboard.

Paul threw the rope again. He expected another Javelin to launch. It did with a hiss. This time, the one-eyed man caught the rope and pulled the dinghy tight against the sub.

An explosion in the distance made Paul turn. A hovercraft burned. Another hiss told him of the fourth launch.

Romo pulled out a wicked-looking blade, with serrated edges, teeth like a saw. He grabbed one of the prisoner’s forearms. The man sobbed in German, shaking his head, pleading. With a short chop, Romo deftly sliced the prisoner’s plastic ties.

“Jump,” Romo told him. “Climb aboard the sub.”

Hans Kruger blinked at the distant hovers.

Paul saw something in the prisoner’s eyes. With the flat of his hand, he knocked the man against the back of his head. “Jump!” he said, in an ugly voice. “Or I’ll kill you right here and leave them your carcass.”

Fear washed over the prisoner’s face. He must have believed Kavanagh. Hans Kruger leaped for all he was worth and scrambled onto the slippery desk. The one-eyed man climbed out of the hatch and made way. Hans hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then he slid into the hole and disappeared into the submersible.

Another Javelin hit another enemy hover.

Paul didn’t have time to watch. Romo leaped and made it, and Paul began pitching him equipment.

“There are more hovers out there!” the sailor shouted at him.

“Yeah,” Paul said. “I figured as much. Now shut up so I can concentrate.”

Paul pitched the last few pieces of equipment. Romo dropped each one down the open hatch. Finally, Paul jumped and made it onto the slippery sub. It was a mere foot above the water. Once, a wave slapped up high enough to spill water into the hatch. Was this thing big enough to hold all three of them?

The sailor disappeared into the hatch.

Paul looked back. Two hovers burned on the waters. A third machine roared toward them, skimming across the waves. Its cannon belched flame. For a second, Paul could only watch. The projectile screamed near as Paul crouched on the submersible. His guts tightened. Then the shell fell fifteen feet short of him. A waterspout shot up and droplets struck him in the face.

The distant hover’s cannon belched flame once more.

Paul might have stayed to watch, but the sub lurched and began to sink. Lake water sloshed against Paul’s boots. That tore him free of his momentary paralysis. Thrusting his legs through the nearby hatch, Paul climbed down a short ladder.

“Close it!” a man shouted in an impossibly deep voice. “Close the hatch. We’re diving.”

Paul reached up and banged the hatch shut. He turned the valve until it clicked. Then he slid down the rest of the way.

A small corridor led to an incredibly cramped main compartment. Paul spied a massive black man in a Navy uniform. The man’s size was a shock.

“Are you the captain?” Paul asked.

The man nodded a large head. He concentrated on his screen and worked controls. A much smaller man worked other controls. Romo, the prisoner and the bloody-faced sailor crouched out of the way. The submersible aimed downward, and they headed underwater.

“Are you going to be okay with all of us in here?” Romo asked.

“If you shut up I might be,” the captain said. “There are more of them out there and I’m all out of missiles. We’re going to have to sneak away—if Allah will allow us.”

With a scowl, Romo glanced at Paul.

Paul shrugged, moving beside Romo and whispering, “Why don’t you see to the prisoner. I’ll start sorting out the equipment.”

Hans Kruger shrank back from Romo, but he didn’t offer any resistance.

Paul grabbed the first plastic-wrapped piece of stolen equipment. As he did, he heard gurgling water outside the craft and the hiss of the submersible diving. He didn’t like this one bit. Could they get away? This didn’t sound like a regular submarine. The diving was more immediate, and it felt as if the water would burst through any second and down them like rats.

Paul glanced back, staring at the huge captain. He sure hadn’t expected this. And what had the man said? “If Allah will grant them mercy.” Where had they gotten a Navy captain like him?

In an orange life preserver, Lieutenant Teddy Smith floated in Lake Ontario, with Sergeant Holloway nearby. Thirty feet away, their Galahad hover slid underwater.

They’d fooled the first Javelin missile. It had darted past and exploded harmless in the lake. They hadn’t fooled the second one coming on the first’s heel. The second missile had been enough to sink them. He might not have made it out of the compartment, but Holloway had shouted and dragged him through the emergency hatch.

“Bad luck,” Smith said.

Holloway wouldn’t look at him. The sergeant was furious. One could see it on his face. He kept looking into the distance, searching, but neither of them saw a submarine.

The other hovers neared their position.

Sighing, Smith took out a flare pistol and aimed it at the sky. He fired, and the cartridge popped into the air before bursting red.

Two of the hovers swished past at high speed, moving as furiously as wasps. The last one slowed, and Smith began to wave his arms. He would have told Holloway to wave his, too, but the sergeant was simply in too black a mood to have complied.

It looked as if the enemy had beaten them. Much worse, though, he’d had a hover shot out from under him. That was terribly bad luck. Would he get another machine? Or was his days as a hover jockey over?

“They’ll give us another, Sergeant,” Smith said, talking as much for his own benefit as for Holloway’s. “Captain Johnny will do right by us. You can be sure of him.”

Holloway never even acknowledged the words. That was poor sportsmanship. The man was from Scotland, though. It showed in times like this. Scots never did understand good sportsmanship.

I’ll get another hover. This was bad luck, is all. I’ll make it up, and then no one will ever shoot another hover out from under me again.

General Mansfeld heard the news an hour later in the main situational room. Orderlies and officers worked quietly around him. One man whispered into another officer’s ear. The listener faced him, straightened his tie and told him.

Mansfeld took the information in silence. Finally, he nodded, and he walked away to his study. The Americans had gained a coup. He felt it in his bones, and he’d known a day like this might come. In a campaign of this magnitude, it was inevitable. Now for the big question. Would the Americans know what to do with their coup?

It’s a matter of speed. Can I complete the campaign before they learn how to deal with our drones? That has always been the question.

He would win the campaign. Of that, he had no doubt. It was simply a matter of whether he would do so decisively or with just an operational level victory.

General Mansfeld’s eyes gleamed coldly. One thing he would make sure of. One way or another, this Len Zelazny would not live to see the outcome of his ploy.