The Nazis were as good as their word. They shouldered arms, rattled down the hill slopes, spraying black rock before them, and took up positions to the left and right of Garrett's team. Then they marched, arrayed about the Americans, seeming to engage in a lazy hike, no prisoners to watch, no enemies to glare at. But only seemingly.

The skull-headed colonel walked beside Garrett, the dog between them. He walked with his hands clasped behind his back, his gait casual, as if birds sang and grass scented the air beneath a blue, cloudless sky.

There seemed to be a joke that only he got.

"Ve have been expecting you for quite some time," he said. "Oh, not you in particular, of course not. But ve have expected someone from your Weld ever since ze spider incursion in...

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