Read Chapter 7: The Phantom Army

Claire had been inside the château for forty minutes. Jack counted every one of them against the cracked face of his father's watch, the luminous hands crawling through the gray afternoon light like they were wading through mud. Beside him, Henri crouched in the treeline at the edge of the estate, his shotgun resting across his knees, eyes fixed on the iron gates that had swallowed Claire whole.

"She should have signaled by now," Jack muttered.

Henri didn't look at him. "She knows what she's doing. Claire has walked into worse places than this and walked out again."

"Has she walked into a château full of Gestapo before?"

That got Henri's attention. The old hunter turned, his weathered face tightening. "She survived the roundups in Paris. She watched them take her sister and did not scream. Whatever is inside those walls, she is prepared for it."

Jack wanted to argue, but he had learned enough about Claire in the past hours to know Henri wasn't exaggerating. The woman had run guns for the Resistance for two years, had hidden downed airmen in her cellar, had buried her own husband after the Germans shot him in the village square. She didn't flinch. And yet, as the minutes crawled past, Jack couldn't shake the feeling that they were making a mistake letting her go in alone.

The gates opened.

Jack's hand went to the pistol tucked into his waistband. A German staff car rolled out, its engine a low growl, and behind it, walking with her hands clasped in front of her, came Claire. She was unharmed—no visible bruises, no blood—but her face was a careful mask, the kind of neutrality that Jack recognized from every soldier who had ever lied to an officer.

The car passed her, heading down the drive toward the village. Claire waited until it was out of sight before she crossed the yard and disappeared into the treeline where Jack and Henri waited.

"Well?" Henri said.

Claire's jaw tightened. "The Baron is not what he seems. And Émile is worse off than we thought."

Jack felt his stomach drop. "They're torturing him?"

"No. They're using him as bait." Claire pulled a crumpled cigarette from her coat pocket, lit it with shaking hands. "The Baron told me the Gestapo have been waiting for the Resistance to attempt a rescue. They know Émile is Henri's brother. They know someone will come for him. And when they do, they'll have the entire courtyard full of soldiers waiting."

Henri's face went pale beneath his tan. "He's alive?"

"For now. But that's not the worst of it." Claire drew deep on the cigarette, exhaled a plume of smoke into the damp air. "There's a message going around the village. They're preparing the bridge at Mézières for demolition. The engineers arrived yesterday with crates of explosives. The Baron says they plan to blow it when the invasion comes."

Jack's blood ran cold. "Mézières. That's the main crossing."

"You know it?" Henri asked.

"My objective." Jack's mind raced. The old mill crossing was a fallback, a possible route for infantry, but Mézières was the artery. If the Germans destroyed it, the entire Allied advance would be channeled through a handful of smaller crossings, bottlenecking the divisions pushing inland from the beaches. It would cost thousands of lives and days of momentum. "I need to see that bridge. I need to know what we're dealing with."

Henri nodded slowly. "We're not far. A mile east of the village, there's a farm on a ridge that overlooks the valley. The farmer is an old hunting companion of mine. He'll let us use his barn."

"And if the Germans are watching the approaches?"

Henri's eyes narrowed. "Then we'll have to be cleverer than they are. We go now, before nightfall. The patrols are heavier closer to the coast, but they're still scattered this far inland. We move through the trees, stay off the roads."

Jack checked his watch again. The hours were bleeding away. Somewhere beyond the horizon, the invasion fleet was pressing toward the coast, and every detour he took brought him further from his unit and closer to failure. But he couldn't outrun the new objective. The bridge at Mézières was no longer just a crossing. It was a target.

"Let's move," he said.

They struck out through the forest, Claire leading them along a game trail that wound between ancient oaks. The ground was soft underfoot, muffling their footsteps, and the canopy above filtered the fading light into a green gloom. Jack kept his eyes moving, scanning for movement, for the tell-tale silhouette of a German helmet, for anything that didn't belong in this quiet stretch of Norman woodland.

They had traveled perhaps half a mile when Henri froze.

Jack followed his gaze. Through the trees, a hundred yards ahead, a German patrol was crossing the trail. Four soldiers, led by a Feldgendarmerie officer with the silver gorget of the military police at his throat. They were spread wide, rifles at the ready, eyes scanning the treeline.

Jack's hand moved to his pistol, but Henri grabbed his wrist.

"No," Henri breathed. "We don't fight. Not here. Too many rounds will bring the whole battalion down on us."

"We can't go back. Claire said the farmhouse area is being swept."

Henri's jaw worked. "Then we walk through them."

"Through four armed Germans?"

"Not through. Past." Henri released Jack's wrist and stepped forward, out of the cover of the trees.

Jack cursed under his breath and followed, forcing his hands to hang loose at his sides. Claire fell in behind them, her face a calm mask.

The German officer saw them first. His hand went to his holster, and the soldiers behind him raised their rifles.

"Halt!" the officer barked. "Who goes there?"

Jack raised his hands, stepping forward with the slight swagger he had seen in French farmers, the casual deference of a man who had nothing to hide. He knew the story Claire had given him: a mute farmhand, a cousin from the south, a man who had lost his papers in the bombing. He opened his mouth, and the words came out in passable French.

"Please, sir. We're just farmers. Heading to the village."

The officer's eyes narrowed. He was young, barely out of his twenties, with a scar on his cheek that pulled his mouth into a permanent sneer. "Farmers? At this hour? The curfew is in effect."

"We were checking our livestock. The bombing has frightened them. They keep breaking through the fences."

The officer stepped closer, studying Jack's face. Jack kept his expression neutral, his shoulders slumped, his hands visible. The pistol was tucked into the small of his back beneath Claire's borrowed coat, a lump he prayed the German wouldn't notice.

"You are not from here," the officer said. "Your accent. You're from the north."

"Paris, sir. I came south to work for my uncle after the bombing."

The officer's eyes flicked to Henri, then to Claire. He seemed uncertain, but not convinced. Jack's heart hammered against his ribs. One wrong word, one nervous twitch, and the four rifles would cut them down.

And then Jack had an idea.

He lowered his hands slowly, reaching into his coat. The soldiers tensed, fingers tightening on triggers. Jack pulled out a crumpled pack of Gauloises, shook one loose, and offered it to the officer with a smile.

"Please, sir. A smoke? I have information that might interest you."

The officer stared at the cigarette for a long moment, then took it. Jack lit it for him with a match, letting his hands shake just enough to telegraph fear.

"What information?" the officer asked, taking a drag.

Jack leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I was in Caen three days ago. I saw something. Trucks, sir. Hundreds of trucks, all heading north, hidden under canvas. And tanks—I heard them more than I saw them. The whole road shook for an hour."

The officer's eyes widened slightly. "Tanks? Where?"

"Near the coast, sir. They were moving toward the beaches, but not in any formation I've ever seen. They were spread out, like they were trying to hide their numbers. But there were too many. Far too many."

Jack let the story hang in the air. He had heard the whispers from his own intelligence officers, the carefully spread rumors of a phantom army gathering in the east, a force designed to draw German divisions away from the real landing zones. He didn't know if the rumor had reached this far inland, but the flicker of doubt in the officer's eyes told him it had.

"An entire division," Jack said, feeding the lie. "With armor. They said it in the village—the Americans are coming with everything they have. The real invasion will come at Calais."

The officer's cigarette trembled between his fingers. He exchanged a glance with one of his soldiers, a quick, tense look that spoke of uncertainty and fear. Finally, he dropped the cigarette and ground it out with his boot.

"You should return to your farm," he said, his voice clipped. "The curfew is strict. If you are caught again, we will not be so lenient."

"Of course, sir. Thank you."

Jack nodded, gesturing for Henri and Claire to follow. They walked past the patrol, keeping their pace measured, their backs straight. Jack could feel the German's eyes on him the whole way, boring into his spine, waiting for him to break and run.

He didn't.

The moment they were out of sight, Henri grabbed Jack's arm. "What the hell was that? You just told them we're harboring invasion intelligence. If they check the village—"

"They'll be too busy checking their own lines," Jack said. "That rumor will spread faster than fire through dry grass. Every officer in the region will be second-guessing their positions, pulling troops east to guard against an invasion that doesn't exist. It buys us time."

Claire shook her head, a grim smile on her lips. "You're either very clever or very stupid, Sergeant."

"Right now, I'm not sure there's much difference." Jack looked toward the ridge line, where the farmhouse Henry was leading them toward sat silhouetted against the graying sky. "Let's see that bridge."