"Chuy."

"You and Chuy-you are involved in this and you don't work for your government?"

Now it was Rucker's turn to look a little confused. He goosed up the engines and the plane raced down the airstrip, dipping momentarily in the thinner air when it cleared the tarmac and then resuming its course for the capital city of the Freehold, located deep in the heart of Texas.

"Us? Work for Austin? Doc, don't be all rude."

An hour later Somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico Deitel was once again in the copilot's chair and having difficulty engaging in a conversation with Rucker.

"We are told there is much poverty in the Texas Freehold," he said.

Rucker shrugged.

"Yeah. I mean, I guess. There might be. I don't know that anyone keeps track of that," he said. "Not polite to go nosin' around in other people's business."

Deitel was an educated man-the finest Prussian primaries and university, medical schooling at the prestigious Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, and plenty of travel through Europe and the African colonies. He considered himself well-educated. But nothing he'd read or heard about the Texas Freehold or the Propriedad de Brazil held exactly true. Not for the two countries and especially not for the people.

Well, almost nothing.

Deitel had arrived in Brazil expecting to find impoverishment and decadence. True, there was decadence-he'd arrived just in time for Carnival, which offended him on more levels than he could count. But Rio was as modern and prosperous a city as any in the growing Reich; its universities advanced, and its medical technologies rivaled-okay, in some ways were better than-most anything he'd seen in Europe.

And despite what he'd been told, Brazil seemed no more different than any other modern country-plenty of rich and poor and middle cla.s.s. He was beginning to expect the same would hold true for the Texas Freehold, despite what he'd been told and despite Rucker telling him very little.

Another point along those lines-what he'd expected by way of treatment from someone who'd fought as a mercenary, versus the reality of how Rucker was treating him. Even if it was from a remove, Rucker was treating him without any malice.

Rucker was the first Texan that Deitel had ever met, and, yes, there was the cowboy hat he'd first seen him in. But Deitel had expected little more than an oversized crop duster for a charter plane. The Raposa was exceptionally modern.

To learn that Rucker was part of the militia force that so quickly brought an end to the Great War-it was a bit much.

At twenty-three, Deitel was too young to remember a lot of the war. It started when he was just nine and ended before he turned sixteen. But he'd studied the subject extensively. The conflict began in 1913 in Europe, three years before the Freehold got involved at all.

The worldwide conflagration started small enough. Everyone agreed on that point. Binding treaties and interventionist strategies had turned a minor regional conflict into a world war.

At first it was a European war. Then it grew into a war that quickly burned across Africa and threatened to consume Asia and South America in conflagrations between European colonies there. The northern Union States under President Wilson joined the war on the side of Imperial Germany in 1915. The Union States still held a grudge against England and France for their recognition of the Confederate States in 1863 and their recognition of the Texas Republic in 1835.

Meanwhile, the Confederate States sided with the British Empire and France, of course, for the same reason. The Great War never touched the North American continent, but only because the Union States and CSA both honored the terms of the Foggy Bottom Treaty of 1864, which established a demilitarized zone between the American powers. One war on their home soil was quite enough for northerners and southerners, despite their long-simmering hatred.

The Texas Freehold-one of the nine Anglo nations of North and Central America-remained neutral.

That changed in 1916. Sort of.

That year, a desperate France pleaded to Austin for help. As in 1861, during the War for Southern Independence, private citizens from across the Freehold banded together to form the Texas Volunteer Group, an entirely private militia. When the French called, Texans always obliged. Mercenaries, they were called by Imperial forces of the U.S., Germany, and Russia.

Within a few months of the call for help, tens of thousands of Freeholders were fighting in the trenches and in the skies of Europe alongside the French.

The Freehold itself, politically and formally as a nation, still remained officially neutral, since it was only their citizens under the banner of a private militia fighting in the war.

This unconventional state of affairs caused no end of uproar among both enemies and allies alike. For some reason most Freeholders couldn't fathom, it was considered n.o.ble and proper to fight a war with involuntary conscripts but improper for volunteers to fight under a private banner. Freeholders asked what kind of man would make someone pay for or fight a war he didn't want.

"You really have no qualms about dealing with Germans?" Deitel finally asked.

"Should I? War's long done, Dr. Deitel. We made war on the German military, not on German people."

"Given how your people conducted war, we a.s.sumed you all hated Germans," Deitel said.

Rucker c.o.c.ked his head and an eyebrow.

"How do you mean, Doctor?"

"Your people were a terror. My nation fought the French and Englanders to a standstill. It was b.l.o.o.d.y and ugly, but the war was stable. Then you came. According to the histories I have read, you did not fight as we knew. You simply went around the trenches and fortifications. You attacked us from every side but the front. Your horse troops cut off entire regiments. Your rangers crawled into trenches at night and scalped our machine gun crews. They organized and trained French villagers behind our lines to conduct war, arming the old, women, and even children. You appeared from nowhere and faded back into the dark and the wilds. It was the stuff of nightmares."

There was a long silence.

"It wasn't personal," Rucker finally said with a shrug. "We just wanted to get it done with."

Deitel couldn't have looked more confused and insulted if Rucker had stood and relieved himself in Deitel's coat pocket.

"Look, you bring us to a fight," Rucker said, "don't expect us to come with our dancin' shoes."

"Germany didn't bring you," Deitel said. "You came at the request of the French."

"Mais oui," Rucker said.

"I never understood the nature of the Freehold's 'special relationship' with France," Deitel said.

Rucker shrugged.

"They had our backs in the first revolution in 1776. Convinced Jefferson and the Founders to get rid of slavery. They were the first to recognize Texas in 1835. h.e.l.l, they gave us the Statue of Liberty. You seen the picture postcards-that lady standing on the sh.o.r.e off New Orleans. The French been with us in good times and bad," Rucker said.

"Many say that your people conducted themselves like war criminals."

"Do you want off the plane? I can arrange that," Rucker said.

"Oh come now," Deitel said.

"I've got the captain hat right here."

Deitel gave a nervous laugh.

"I wasn't joking," Rucker said. "We have parachutes and everything."

Deitel opened and closed his mouth silently, then chose his words carefully.

"I don't mean to offend you personally, Herr Kapitan. It's just that, from what I've been taught, your people were like the savage Indians in the western American nations. And therefore I am shocked you'd allow one of my people here."

"Strange definition of savage. We didn't make war on civilians and sh.e.l.l cities. Merde. We didn't bomb towns or use gas and dragon belchers. Besides, Far Ranger's company motto is 'Anything, Anytime, Anywhere.' That includes Huns, I reckon."

Deitel sniffed. There was more than a language separating the two.

"You're saying you have no ill will toward Germans now?"

"I haven't thrown you off the plane. War's done, like I said. Fair to say I'm not too keen on what's been happening since that coup by the Austrian corporal in 1922. But I don't concern myself with politics. If there's politics, it ain't my business. And I'm not offended. I just don't like being reminded about that time in my life."

Deitel looked quizzically at the Mighty Fireflies patch.

"Them that I flew with is the one good thing to come out of that sorry mess," Rucker said. "Also, your check didn't bounce."

The smirk on Rucker's face was a poor disguise, Deitel thought.

Deitel considered silently: the English still called the various North American nations-the Union States, the Confederate States, the Texas Freehold, the Pacific Commonwealth, the Northwest Alliance, and so on-the "colonies." He could see why. These people held an almost charmingly colonial view of modern geopolitics and the state. Isolationist. As if turning one's back on the world made it go away.

Then again, it didn't take all his medical training for Deitel to know that Rucker had scars-the kind that showed and the kind that didn't.

Two hours later Austin Texas Freehold Deitel was growing a little tired of the surprises. The flight itself from Airstrip One was uneventful. Rucker barely spoke; he really didn't like getting involved in anything political, but this was Chuy's call. The company needed the premium being paid to get Deitel to Austin with the utmost discretion.

The flight took the Raposa across the Gulf to the port town of Galveston, and then the churning refineries and the lights of the sprawling city of Lamar, one of the centers of the booming Texas oil business. As they descended on Austin, Deitel was wide-eyed as a tourist at the number of pa.s.senger rail lines, high-speed roadways, and the stately but swift airships. He expected wagons and horses.

Downtown Austin boasted a forest of skysc.r.a.pers, the largest and most beautiful being the eight-hundred-foot Maxwell Motor Building, easily the crown jewel of Art Deco architecture.

In the taxi on the way to their rendezvous, Deitel just didn't know what to make of what he saw on the streets. Or the streets themselves, so landscaped with greenery that thoroughfares seemed like parks. There was no rhyme or reason to the dress or the colors or the cla.s.ses he saw intermingling on busy sidewalks and sidewalk cafes, shops, and businesses.

And yes, there were horses.

Of the races, of course, Europeans const.i.tuted the majority, but he saw all manner of folk and they moved among one another freely. And, he noted, most wore some sort of pistol holster, no matter how formal or ordinary or colorful their dress, and no matter if they were men or women.

Natural. Probably to deal with the wild Indian tribes, Deitel thought. He wondered why there weren't more cacti.

Through the taxi's windows drifted a cacophony of musical styles and the exotic smells of dozens of exotic cuisines. At stoplights he listened to people speaking their tw.a.n.gy southwestern English, which included a melange of Portuguese, Spanish, and French.

He saw hobos and b.u.ms, as they were called here, but not as many as the state-run newspapers in the Reich said there were. No more than he'd see on the streets of Munich. He saw more Help Wanted signs in shop windows than he saw beggars.

It was chaotic and confusing and overwhelming and, somehow, intriguing.

There were garish advertis.e.m.e.nts and glittering neon signs everywhere, but not a single propaganda poster. Street performers and vendors sold everything from fruits and tobacco to items that ran to a more lascivious and adult nature.

It was scandalous, and ugly. No place for children.

Unsafe, Deitel thought. Decadent. Undisciplined and frightening. Cra.s.s and shallow. Commercialized.

The doctor wasn't surprised to see they were heading toward the large Capitol building, with its famous oak dome and pink granite. But the taxi drove right past the government building, turning onto Sixth Street and finally stopping in front of the Driskill Hotel.

Presently, the confused doctor found himself in a small reading room off the hotel lobby. It was a room like an English gentlemen's club, appointed with plush leather chairs, oak shelves, and the smell of cherry pipe tobacco. He'd been startled by the preserved, stuffed remains of a horribly discomforting creature displayed in a gla.s.s case in one corner. It was like a goblin from a kinder fable, or a malformed chimpanzee with huge batlike eyes, leathery ears, bat wings, and large fangs.

"It's a chupacabra," Rucker said, seeing his curiosity. "The Chihuahua Outback is lousy with 'em."

"This is like your famous 'jackelope' joke for tourists?"

There was no smile. Rucker's right hand brushed the pistol strapped at his side, while the left rea.s.suringly stroked the big Bowie knife on the opposite hip.

"There's nothing funny about chupacabras. They're serious as taxes and twice as dangerous."

The smile or wink Deitel was expecting never came. Deitel knew that many of the creatures from his kinder tales were based in fact, but this creature was more fantastic than even the dwarf flying dragons of Madagascar.

Deitel turned to find their host, who had appeared from nowhere. Standing before the doctor and the pilot was the strangest little man the doctor had ever seen. He wore a slightly frayed purple jacket and a fanciful dress shirt with an overly long scarf. He had little pieces of paper marked with unreadable scribbles sticking out of his pockets, and pencils behind each ear. He had curly salt and pepper hair and spoke as though his thoughts were far ahead of his words.

Rucker leaned against the door, the picture of indifference. Deitel sat, like any German, at attention.

"Captain Rucker, thank you, er, for bringing our guest," the odd man said. Turning to the doctor, he said, as he wrote something down on a sc.r.a.p of paper, "I, sir, am Lysander Benjamin."

Deitel clicked his heels and nodded.

"Don't do that," Rucker muttered.

"I, of course, know who you are, Dr. von Deitel, and who you represent. I have nothing but the highest professional respect for Commodore Canaris. But-no offense-exactly why are you, er, that is, here? Why have you interrupted your studies in Rio? Why is that old man Canaris bothering you?"

Deitel stood and turned away, as if he could not face Benjamin when he spoke his next words. His shoulders slumped, but then he turned and faced the two men with all he could muster.

"Herr Benjamin, I bring a plea from Commodore Canaris. You may think you know of the evil being perpetrated within the Fatherland by the New Order," Deitel said. "It is far worse than you imagine."

Neither of the other two men spoke.

"We-the people I represent-believe the madmen who rule the Reich are about to unleash an abomination on the world. It's a madman's nightmare. It could be the end of all life as we know it, and the dawn of h.e.l.l on earth."

CHAPTER THREE.

Wewelsburg Castle Westphalia Region Greater German Reich The stone of the Renaissance castle in the northeast of Westphalia was perpetually as cold and damp as a corpse. The spring flowers and edelweiss, harbingers of the life season and the pride of the Alme Valley villagers, no longer grew near the keep. The once lively countryside lived in a perpetual winter, some said a perpetual nightmare. It was as if, villagers whispered, a darkness of the soul had fallen on the land. At night they locked their doors as strange animal cries and haunting moans drifted across the forests. Sometimes small animals and children would disappear with little trace. Occasionally a farmer would make the morbid discovery of a b.l.o.o.d.y child's dress. Some farmers spoke of night creatures like the trolls of old or the wyverns that had not been seen for a hundred years. But none spoke loudly. They knew from folk wisdom that speaking of dark magicks would only draw the attention of both conjurer and conjured.

A decade and a half ago this had been an idyllic world of mountains, rivers, and ancient forests giving life to a thriving, forward-thinking, modern western culture.

That time was gone. It died in 1913, when the call to arms went out: "Now the sword must decide. In the midst of peace we have been attacked. Our homeland, united, has never been conquered. We will advance with G.o.d on our side as he was with our forefathers."

These very words or words like them were spoken in English, German, Russian, Spanish, French-wherever old men wanted to call young men to the butcher's block.

The Great War, as it was called with no sense of irony or shame, had claimed millions of lives in butchery unprecedented over the span of five years. The mold for a new type of war was cast in Western Europe, with industrialized states locked in deadly conflict.

On the Imperial side, Germany, the Union States, the Ottomans, Russia, Austro-Hungary, and the Persians. On the Allied side, France, Great Britain, the Confederate States, Italy, and finally the Propriedad de Brazil and the Texas Freehold.

Caught in the middle were millions of ordinary people who had no interest in killing or being killed.

The Great War gave the world industrial scale killing and modern, scientific horrors-machine guns, death gases, motorized beasts and mechanized crawlers, clockwork killers, airship bombers, steam rockets, and above all the abominable concept of "total warfare."

The suicidal charges across No Man's Land had cursed the very soil of Europe with blood. The war turned much of the western German countryside into a vision not seen outside Dante's darkest musings. Much of Russia became a literal Dead Zone, depopulated of humans and now a barren wasteland where it was said monsters of old were coming again through a h.e.l.l-mouth.